Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Mods => Topic started by: Morrokain on December 30, 2017, 05:52:31 PM

Title: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on December 30, 2017, 05:52:31 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/38QREkn.png)


Download Beta (https://www.nexusmods.com/starsector/mods/61/)

Mirror Download (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZDjUG4CE3q2sv-KV3s6rq6BdOiejxbzG/view?usp=sharing)

Warning: This is a Beta and is not guaranteed to be bug free. Please report any encountered bugs on this thread. Thanks and have fun!

The experimental version is under "Optional Files" on the Nexus Mods site. It is not included in the mirror but will be placed there assuming I merge the changes into the current release. Thanks for playing!

Known Beta Issues
- Descriptions are either missing or inaccurate.

Important Please Read:   Archean Order is a TOTAL CONVERSION and this means that it changes/overrides a lot of core files. This makes adding additional mods have a few limitations that could otherwise cause crashes or unintended behavior. See compatibility details.*

If Archean Order is on the mod list and you are using other mods and encounter what looks like a bug, please do not post on any thread other than this one for bug/behavior reports. Even if the source seems to clearly be another mod in the stack trace/log, the TC nature could be causing something unintended and you should not bother the mod author until I can verify I am not causing it. Thanks for reading this and have fun!

*Compatibility details for adding additional mods: Faction mods are technically compatible and won't crash in the majority of cases, however, they are not balanced around Archean Order's combat balance because they are balanced around the standard Starsector combat balance. Including mod factions might cause weird things to happen or imbalance Nex campaigns so results and experiences may vary. Any mods that change skills will likely not work though a workaround is available and you can ask on the forum thread or through PM and I will help you with it. Feature mods and utility mods are generally ok and will not break the TC's combat balance though they may change campaign experiences.

-----See Instructions Below-----

Directions to Enable Nexerelin (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0) and Other Non-Utility Mods:
Spoiler
1) Go to mod_info.json located directly within the the first level of the mod directory and open it.

2) Change the value 
Code
 "totalConversion":"true"
to: 
Code
 "totalConversion":"false",

3) You can now enable the other mods when running the game.
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Feature mods that *shouldn't* break the TC balance.
Nexerelin (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0)
Starship Legends (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0)
Combat Chatter (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0)
Unknown Skies (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0)
Ruthless Sector (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0)
Second Wave Options (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0)
Grand Sector (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0)
Commissioned Crews (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0)
Common Radar (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0)
Fuel Siphoning (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0)
Supply Forging (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503)
Sundiving (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0)
SpeedUp (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0) (Warning: Increasing combat speed above 2X reduces projectile accuracy to a large degree and will break things. See SpeedUp's main page for details.)
Updated Rotary Weapons (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0)
Automatic Orders (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0)
Hyperdrive (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0)
Player Station Construction (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0)
Boggled's Terraforming Mod (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17060.0)
Skilled Up (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14293.0)
Better Colonies (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103)

Troubleshooting
Spoiler

1) If you are experiencing errors with markets without NPCs and major shortages/lack of supply and demand, see this thread for a solution (at the bottom of the first page). Please also get back to me with the relevant details asked for so that I can report it- in order to help reduce the number of instances of this error in the next Starsector update.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17278.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17278.0)

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Older versions
Spoiler

Version 1.2.1d (.8 version of Starsector)
Spoiler
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fxshjnouhm9tsh2/AADhMo7IXC35buRZUhYLgYEYa?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fxshjnouhm9tsh2/AADhMo7IXC35buRZUhYLgYEYa?dl=0)
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Download and Installation Instructions for New Players
Spoiler
   -   Upon downloading the mod by clicking the link above, unzip it and click through the folders until viewing a single folder above all the data. (So the file path would read "Archean Order TC v0.8.1a/data" etc)

   -   Next, drag the folders to the "Mods" directory. It should be located under something like: "C Drive/Program Files/Fractal Softworks/Starsector/Mods" See the image in the spoiler below for an example of what the final installation directory should look like.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/5VooGoA.png) - (https://i.imgur.com/AuLqLYM.png)
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   -   Run the game. When the first screen appears, at the very bottom click "Mods" and a list of installed mods should appear. As long as you followed the above steps, you should see "Archean Order". For reference see the photos below in the spoiler.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/uxuX49v.png) - (https://i.imgur.com/KiZuOSl.png)
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   -   As displayed in the image above, other mods you may have installed will also show up here (utility mods may still be selected).

   -   Remember, "Archean Order" is a TOTAL CONVERSION -- See the warning under Enabling Nexerelin above for mod merging information before disabling the TC behavior.

   -   Checkbox "Archean Order" and click "Save".

   -   Click "Play Starsector" and enjoy the Archean Order mod!
[close]


Mod Features
     -     More Dialogue Options for Fleet Encounters
            - >   Request commodities and war funds from anyone you meet.
            - >   Negotiate cease-fires with hostile captains or bribe your way out of combat situations.
            - >   Demand commodities or payment from fleets using your strength and influence.
            - >   Get tactical advice from your officers, who will have an opinion of you that will effect their dialogue and performance. **In Development**
            - >   Negotiate with allies to reinforce your position or attack enemy factions' fleets and installations. **In Development**
            - >   Use marines to protect your commodities and prevent boarding attacks on your vessels. **In Development**

     -     4 New Factions
            - >   New thematic factions with distinctive ships, weapons, culture, backstory and tactics.
            - >   Over 15 additional markets including 2 new systems of various factions added to the Core Worlds campaign map.
            - >   New and existing factions will react differently to your dialogue choices based on their motives, personality and other factors.
            - >   New factions have their own music, portraits, tech and skins.
            - >   Explore the sector to learn more and find your play style.
            - >   A customized tutorial that introduces new mechanics, ships and factions. **In Development**
            - >   A story introducing a few of the new and existing factions' characters. **In Development**

     -     New Combat Mechanics and Tactics
            - >   Over Over 50 types of fighters.
            - >   Fighters are smaller, faster, more numerous, and can deal extra damage to ships' weapons and engines.
            - >   Over 130 weapons.
            - >   Smaller weapons, more weapons per ship- designed to mimic a cinematic combat experience inspired from multiple movies and games.
            - >   New ships spread across all hull classes and factions.
            - >   650+ variants.
            - >   New paintjobs for existing ships - sometimes dramatically changing features and load-out options.

     -     New Starting Options and Role-Playing Scenarios
            - >   More starting ship choices and options based around play-styles.
            - >   Start as a pirate, with a reputation throughout the sector and a small raider wolfpack.
            - >   Start as a mercenary, with a powerful financial backer and a small elite strike force.
            - >   Custom tutorial options for each start, teaching new techniques and skills to succeed in that role. **In Development**

     -     An Emphasis on Story-Telling and Immersion
            - >   Rich background for all new factions- who will treat you differently based on their culture, your reputation, and your choices.
            - >   Thematic music, portraits, logos, descriptions, ships and weaponry for each new faction.
            - >   Faction colonies have custom descriptions that give insight into their history and culture.
            - >   New and existing factions are recognizable at a glance - unique faction weapons and custom appearances with stat modifiers give identity to their fleets.
            - >   Engage in small-talk to learn valuable secrets and improve your reputation with others, even your officers. **In Development**
            - >   Exploration, and investigation of hidden secrets leading to powerful allies, lost technology, or even shaping the politics of the sector's major factions. **In Development**
            - >   Bioware-inspired notoriety system. Strike fear into those who've heard of your deeds or be known as the sector's best hope for survival. **In Development**

Tactics Manual
Download (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bv62qal4iogdc1i/AAD3gjTIE0zEvconuOQeBOqia?dl=0)

   -    I created this tactics manual to give players a reference point for the multiple changes to the combat layer present in the mod. It should not be required to play, most of the game's descriptions will give an accurate sense of things, but it exists regardless! The tutorial will also explain a lot of things, but until I can get the bugs out of the story encounters there it is disabled.

   -   As a side note, the role playing starts will eventually require the tutorial to be played first, but I will disable that requirement until it is up and running.


Screenshots and Gifs

   -   These should provide a decent showcase of some of the mod's features, but can contain some light spoilers, so viewer discretion is advised.


New Dialogue Options
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/kbbKmRw.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/qz9mQUG.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/EkMga5y.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Au31c8l.png)
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Combat
Spoiler

Gifs
(https://i.imgur.com/2q9UdAQ.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/FCZUj3D.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/jliDecM.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/ORuoS3f.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/51YHsNW.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/rxxFAdZ.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/jGkhAhv.gif)

Screenshots

(https://i.imgur.com/tgCskwb.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KqughXC.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/rOwifo0.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/eBOv1mD.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/TeEyUNq.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/n4fyTss.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/BEyA5um.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/ryMTa5i.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/vJeBPrn.png)
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Factions
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/fhjOSiq.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/lS2xN8A.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/OwTbg7z.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/WfHL6sd.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/mvx0AJe.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Oy7ChhX.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/qFMQ5g3.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/r66ljgv.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/MqAXN0r.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/lKSiKMX.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/CYjUCPu.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/7vHlJ6J.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/BUK0wxt.png)
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Ships
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/hAAvREl.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/TSlT1qz.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/jVH8kWI.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/RhnsFlt.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/bcs63m4.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/6KvHAja.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/n0RdgBy.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Vo3WLLv.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/2idF8f4.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/HrVWmzz.png)
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Weapons
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/borOwSV.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/d68Spua.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/rwUK0B3.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Jyk7mAV.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/TaIiEuv.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/WiX5zlt.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/PtPlFrv.png)
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Performance and System Requirements

   -    More combat calculations and just the extra content/scripts in the mod will inevitably impact performance.

   -    The most noticeable performance difference from unodded Starsector is a longer loading time at start, especially the first time you load the mod.

   -    I've tried to optimize where I can but there is a lot of content. I wanted the dialogue features to be immersive, and that requires a lot of scenarios and dialogue to get it to feel right.

   -    It's hard to measure- I can tell you my test PC has these specs and performs fairly well.

              OS:                     -     Windows 10 Home(64x)
              PROCESSOR:        -     3.40GHz Intel i5
              RAM:                   -     8G
              VIDEO:                -     NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB



   -    Please feel free to chime in with what kind of performance you are experiencing, alongside your specs.

   -    I know it is definitely playable on older PC's and laptops from tests, but if I need to make adjustments I can try a few things.





Credits and Thanks


            - Alex
                   - Starsector's creator and my inspiration in game design. For the countless questions and coding help over several years and the emphasis you put towards supporting the modding community, taking player suggestions seriously, and just being a general all around nice guy, a serious heart-felt thank you!

            - xenoargh
                   - Creator of EZFaction and a very active and vocal member of the modding community, thank you for your input, creative suggestions, and all the questions you've answered!

            - LazyWizard, Trylobot, kazi, TJJ, Deathfly, Dark.Revenant, Tartiflette
                   - Probably the majority of the mods that currently exist use your tools and tutorials. A big thanks for your support of the community!
                                                                                   
            - Art and Sound Assets
                   - Though the ship edits, logos, title screen and weapons were done personally, factions of this mod would not be possible without the hard work, inspiration and generous free-use permissions granted by the artists who are responsible for the portraits and music.

            - ***Special Note*** As promised under applicable licenses, I will both credit and link to the websites of those artists! Thank you! I have also taken some of these assets from free art/sound websites that do not always specifically credit the author. I have worked hard to verify these sources- however, if for whatever reason you are the owner of an asset used in this mod and either you have not been credited or I do not have your permission to use said asset, please contact me and either I will ensure you are credited or I will remove the asset from the mod. I completely understand the desire for work to have the appropriate credit and I'm not here to profit or steal anyone's stuff. I am just trying to make a fun and unique mod experience the current game doesn't offer!  :D

               **Dev Note** I am not responsible for the content on the linked websites. They may contain mature material that I have no control over. Discretion is advised where necessary.

            - Illustrations
                   Andreas Rocha - http://www.andreasrocha.com/ (http://www.andreasrocha.com/)

            - Portraits
                   SineAlas - https://sinealas.deviantart.com/ (https://sinealas.deviantart.com/)
                   virink.com - https://www.pinterest.com/source/virink.com/ (https://www.pinterest.com/source/virink.com/)
                   Degenerate Portrait Pack - http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12493.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12493.0)
                   Thank you to the following portrait pack content creators:
                        - Rusty-Head: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16734.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16734.0)
                        - atreg: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13716.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13716.0)
                        - albarra: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16998.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16998.0)
                        - Interestio: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17066.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17066.0)


            - Music
                   Adrian von Ziegler (purchased with receipt available)- https://adrianvonziegler.bandcamp.com/ (https://adrianvonziegler.bandcamp.com/)
                   PurplePlanet - http://www.purple-planet.com/ (http://www.purple-planet.com/)
                   Ross Budgen (SoundCloud) - https://soundcloud.com/rossbugden/epic-and-dramatic-trailer-music-olympus-copyright-and-royalty-free (https://soundcloud.com/rossbugden/epic-and-dramatic-trailer-music-olympus-copyright-and-royalty-free)

            - Modding Community
                - To all the forum members who have given their advice, opinions, critiques and ideas - whether you even know it or not - you have been a big influence in shaping this mod to what it is now and inspiring me to continue working to bring this project to fruition. To say I stand on the shoulders of giants doesn't even do it justice. Again, a big thank you everyone!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Morrokain on December 30, 2017, 05:52:40 PM
**Changelog**

This section will be reserved to document any existing updates as I find and squash bugs and continue to enhance the player experience with more dialogue, role playing options and features.

Next Patch Changes: Rough ETA: N/A for now.
Spoiler

N/A for now.

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Current Patch Changes: Update 1.3.5
Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 - Overall Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.
    - Reworked mod economy to be more even in market share and resource spread between factions (in general) while hopefully still nurturing trade opportunities for the player through the simulation environment.
   -NEX Changes
      - Adjusted vanilla factions' starting relationships, diplomacy chance, and max relationships for all new factions.
      - Adjusted some extremes within new factions' starting relations and diplomacy chances. (Trying to stick to lore intentions here, but still learning Nex to a large degree. A first pass.)
      - Added base raiding behavior and increased invasion power of Adamantine Consortium. (should have no allies and needs this to remain a threat to the player/sector is the idea, but feedback welcome)
                - Removed pirate behavior features for Nex with Adamantine Consortium and reduced colonization chance overall. (Still happens occasionally)

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added remote Luddic Church colony with refining, heavy industry and an additional military base with a large hazard rating.
    - Added two additional Sci-Corps colonies to better separate out industries and resources.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Yama and reduced the station at Nachiketa to an Orbital Station (down from a Battlestation).
    - Added Fuel Production and High Command to Gilead (based in the star fortress instead of the surface from a lore perspective)
    - Added Orbital Works to Tartesseus (again not on the surface- see above).
    - Increased size of Traveler's Triumph Station to 5 and added Heavy Industry.
    - Upgraded Traveler's Triumph Station to a Battlestation (up from an Orbital Station).
    - Removed Orbital Station from Salamanca to allow more raiding opportunities there.
    - Changed Kazeron's Military Base to a High Command.
    - Added a standard independent orbital station to Derinkuyu Mining Station to add to its defenses.
    - Removed patrol hq from Yesod and Ilm.
    - Changed ground defenses to heavy batteries on Yesod. Reduced heavy batteries to ground defenses on Mazalot.

 --- Fleet Composition Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced number of dedicated carriers in Hegemony fleets. (partly for vanilla lore adherence and also to create more faction variety in battle tactics between factions)

-----

Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Reduced sustained DPS of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Revamped ballistic weapon FX under these principles:
   - Yellow-Orange-Red color indication of assault-heavy assault-strike weaponry.
   - Bullet size now scales by tier to facilitate an intuitive learning of combat threats to armor and better teach a player when to raise shields.
 - Doubled cooldown of Phase Teleporter.
 - Added weapon slots and increased OP (if necessary) to most civillian ships to help prevent them from being overly vulnerable against fighters and missiles during retreat battles.
 - Added additional weapon slots and increased OP of some pirate and luddic conversion vessels (they are too weak).
 - Added a rear-facing small weapon to the Valkyrie and Valkyrie MkII to help give minor protection to its engines against interdiction-class missiles and upgraded the Valkyrie's central missile weapon size to medium to better combat fighters.
 - Added a built-in beam range increase to the Onslaught XIV hull to support it's built in foward weapons. (The AI uses them as a cost effective alternative more often now - even when equipping Devastators)
 - Added 3 additional small weapons (rear-facing) to Buffalo MkII and reworked variants for better synergy in attack builds.
 - Reduced per shot damage of Excaliber Cannon and Apocalypse Cannon line of weapons. Increased recharge/fire rate for those as well.
 - Made some ballistic weapons Energy damage instead of High Explosive damage.
 - Increased Revenant, Paragon and Megalith armor, max flux, and deployment cost.
 - Increased Megalith, and Revenant flux dissipation.
 - Slightly increased Megalith's base speed, removed all carrier limitations and benefits hullmods and replaced the built-in Accelerated Shields with a larger built-in increase to shield speed)
 - Increased armor and hullpoints for:
    - Pirate Atlas and Prometheus conversions
 - Rebalanced high tier vessel deployment costs. (FP cost slightly adjusted in a couple cases but mostly the same from before)
 - Increased speed of missile projectiles from bombers.
 - Increased attack range for missile projectile bombers.
 - Reduced hitpoints of missile projectiles changed above.
 - Reduced speed of phase orbs from Phantom bombers. Reduced their hit points. Doubled their turn rate.
 - Increased flight time of Hivemind orbs.
 - Combat Capacitors now allows the 0-flux speed boost up until 90% flux while active.
 - Buffed bomber defense across the board. Most heavy strike bombers release their payloads from further away.
 - Increased bomber damage.
 - Increased Claw bomber weapon armor penetration and reduced burst duration for more salvo accuracy.
 - Terminator Drones and Goliath Heavy Gunships will no longer target missiles or strike craft with their weapons and will instead focus upon their intended ship targets.
 - Obliterator and Heavy Obliterator no longer target fighters. (AI won't put them on autofire either)
 - Reduced damage and flux cost but increased recharge time for Gatling Laser and Heavy Gatling Laser.
 - Increased Artillery Blaster range by 200.
 - Increased flux cost of Guillotine Cannon to better match the Heavy Fissure Cannon.
 - Reduced flux cost of Avalanche Cannon.
 - Reduced damage and flux cost per strike and reduced cooldown of the Tachyon Lance.
 - Removed built-in Safety Overrides on Atlas MkII. Increased OP. Added a new MIRV variant to pirate fleets.
 - Slightly increased Sabot missile line flight speed and hitpoints.
 - Reduced flux cost of Icer Gun and Iridium Cannon. Added flux per salvo info to Icer Gun.
 - Increased Odyssey max flux and dissipation.
 - Removed Apogee from being considered a combat carrier to the AI. It should act more aggressively with it's primary weapons now.
 - Increased burst damage/dps but reduced range for the Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance.
 - Increased flux per burst/second for the Graviton Lance.
 - Increased hitpoints of the Atropos line of torpedoes.
 - Greatly increased burst damage of Terminator Beam and reduced it's flux cost. Dps remains roughly the same. Considering increasing its ordinance cost.
 - Mining Blaster no longer generates flux (not sure what I was thinking there this weapon was terrible compared to other energy weapons)
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Updated Salvage Rig and Ox sprites and hullmods. (That slipped through the cracks apparently between my update from .8 and .9)
 - Fixed another rare yet likely possible occurance of the Hegemony Legion not being found while starting a new campaign and causing a crash. (I never encountered a crash, but I caught an outlier in the faction file that used the old id)
 - Fixed the cost of a couple buffalo variants.
 - Fixed some of the buffalo variants' weapon mounts. (they were supposed to be ballistic)
 - Corrected tech name and font color of the XIV Battlegroup vessels.
 - Added tech type to drones.
 - Removed Light Ion Cannon as a base blueprint in favor of it as a Sci-Corps weapon.
 - Removed duplicate industries and diplomacy traits for vanilla factions when running the TC with Nex.
 - Doubled turn rate of Hivemind Orb and Phase Orb to help prevent timeout from maneuverable targets which may cause friendly fire.
 - Decreased flux dissipation of Harbinger and Harbinger (Ad).
 - Increased armor, hull and deployment cost of Harbinger (Ad).
 - Increased price of Harbinger and greatly increased price of Harbinger (Ad).
 - Increased Hammerhead, Falcon, Eagle, Conquest and Executor max flux, armor, and dissipation.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Reduced sound of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Reduced bullet size of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Removed override behavior of the mod on fighter wings, ships, ship systems, and weapons.
 - Reworked the pirate falcon sprite.
 - Removed all non-essential sprites from the graphics folder. (May improve load performance as lots of duplicates from vanilla were kept there as a refence when spriting)
 - Cleaned up a few more descriptions and encounter flavor dialogue. (I try to do this as often as I can but I always find more typos and awkard wording. I'll keep trying to clean this up as I go and as I notice things)
 - Updated descriptions based upon market changes in the campaign.
 - Fixed minor graphical discepancy with the Astral.
 - Increased Terminator Beam fx width.
-----
[close]

Prior Patch Changes:
Spoiler

Update v1.3.4d 11/09/2019

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Now Nex compatible!
    - Megalith spawns slightly more often in Archean Order fleets.
    - Added 375 new portraits spread among all factions including some of the Archean Order-specific factions.

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Can request faction-specific portraits for player owned-fleets for more faction flavor customization once you have a commission with them.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed some dialogue text not respecting new lines.
 - Add tech types to stations.
 - Corrected weapon blueprints for changes in theme for Adamantine Consortium and Sci Corps from last update.
 - Fixed issues with Eldrus still not being effectively plugged into the sector economy. (Including Nex starts with Core Worlds enabled)
 - Added High Command to the new factions' capitals replacing Military Bases.
 - Fixed potential crash on new game start relating to a possible nullpointer in the start-up scripts.
 - Corrected Wolf variants for the Eldrus Guard script to use Archean Order variants.
 - Added Nex config for new factions' spawn points and capitals.
 - Corrected faction markets to not use duplicate industries (as in an upgrade and a downgrade of the same industry) to prevent possible future conflicts.
 - Fixed minor typo with Trader Guilds' stations on the industry panel.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Game loads slightly faster.
-----

-----
[close]

 Update v1.3.4a 10/31/2019

Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Advanced and rarer vessels are less accessible as a whole in markets, and should no longer be salvageable through post-battle recovery (Enemy-wise) though you can still find them as derelicts from warzones for now (changing that later).
    - Starting options contain less starting vessels than before with the exception of harder starts such as Pirate or Adamantine Consortium.
    - Increased minimum bounties active at a time.
    - Reduced amount of enemy raider bases active.
    - Increased payouts for bounties.
    - Removed use of autofit in NPC fleets.
    - Added many portraits from various portrait packs for the player and re-added new faction portraits as well (with permission).
    - Removed several portraits from Archean Order factions (most of the anime style ones) to save for future lore.

 --- Faction Changes:
-------------
    - Further increased Luddic Church vessels' effectiveness.
    - Reduced most factions' use of dedicated carrier vessels (Improves large-scale campaign performance.)
    - Hegemony Condor now gains Targeting Feed ship system instead of Burn Drive. (Carrier changes make this necessary.)
    - Luddic Church Condor now gains Reserve Deployment ship system instead of Burn Drive. (Carrier changes make this necessary.)
    - Removed use of Retibution fighters, Thermal Pulsers and Thermal Cannons from Sci-Corps fleets (personal preference. It had too much of a Christmas kind of feel :P )
    - Added many more portraits from various portrait packs to factions (with permission).
    - Restored the CIVILIAN tag to faction freighter conversions so that they won't autodeploy in combat anymore. (Pirates, Adamantine Consortium, Damaged, Trader Guilds)
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Frigates: Added built in hullmod that lets frigates low-flux boost up to 35% max flux and increases damage dealt to fighters by 100% and incoming missiles by 50%.
 - Further increased hitpoints of Atropos torpedoes and Shockwave rockets.
 - Increased flux cost of Punisher Artillery System to be inefficient like other non-missile Fire Support weapons.
 - Slightly reduced hit damage of Devastator Cannon.
 - Reduced hit damage of Antimatter Blaster by 20%. (Was too good for being so flux efficient despite the short range.)
 - Increased flux per shot of Plasma Cannon. Almost inefficient.
 - Increased Peak Performance Time on many rare ships and all phase ships.
 - Increased armor penetration and burst damage of the Claw bomber's light tactical laser.
 - Reduced Heavy Thunderbolt Launcher's damage per second by 33% (Not its strike damage).
 - All dedicated carriers now have a large penalty to their low-flux speed bonus to better prevent kiting. (Carriers now absolutely require escorts to offset their combat range.)
 - Reduced Fighters per wing by a range of 33% - 50% in all cases but the highest tiered fighters.
 - Increased fighter bay amount in dedicated carriers and most combat carriers past the destroyer-sized hull size.
 - Increased supply per deployment gap between hull sizes.
 - Increased supply per deployment gap (slightly) between pure assault-class and fighter-carrying hulls.
 - Increased fighter replacement times substantially.
 - Increased the benefit of the built in carrier hullmod reducing fighter replacement times.
 - Changed Barrage Hammer launcher back to alternating fire behavior. (turns out linked fire makes it weaker to flak rather than stronger overall as I had hoped)
 - Further increased the range threshold of Safety Overrides. (continuing to improve Luddic Path combat strength)
 - Reduced the CR decay per second on dedicated carriers to allow them to more effectively retreat since their speed has been greatly reduced.
 - Greatly reduced total flux per shot of the Guillotine Cannon to make it more efficient considering its other drawbacks.
 - Increased time between bursts of the Heavy Fissure Cannon to make it more in line with typical ballistic strike weapons. Dps remains the same but overall strike potential reduced.
 - Shade (Ad) and Afflictor (Ad) now have Phase Jumper ship systems instead of their original design's ship systems.

--- Faction Hullmod Changes:
-------------
 - Simple Core Systems now increase armor by 100 in addition to its usual effects.
 - Updated Core Systems now increases max flux by 20% in addition to its usual effects, and the shield damage reduction bonus has increased.
 - Luddic Church now has even more increased speed but reduced hull flexibility as far as weapon loadouts (Lower Ordinance Points) and variants have been adjusted accordingly.
    - ^(Similar to Luddic Path- but a less patched-together zealous feel because of the removal of both permanent weapon failures and low PPT associated with Pather hulls.)
    - ^(With these changes, I'm hoping to provide capitalization on strengths and minimalization of weaknesses from an AI standpoint.)
    - ^(To the player, the hulls will seem more balanced as far as player piloting is concerned since previously the hulls mostly provided benefits over drawbacks.)

--- Station Balance Changes:
-------------
 -
--- Ship System Changes:
-------------
 -

--- Ship Changes:
-------------
 - Increased Legion max flux and dissipation.
 - Added an additional Large Ballistic turret slot to Legion.
 - Added additional fighter bays to Legion, Executor, Astral, Megalith, Nightreaver, Epiphany, Odyssey and Pillager hulls.
 - Increased Havok armor.
 - Increased Shrike armor.
 - Aegis now designated a light cruiser. (Better fits its size and power)
 - Added an additional two Large Synergy turrets to the Executor in place of its former side-facing medium Synergy turrets.
 - ^(Adjusted variants accordingly.)
 - Increased Justicar, Revenant and Megalith max flux, and dissipation (reduced their potency a bit too much last update.)
 - Increased Revenant weapon count.
 - Increased Megalith and Revenant fighter bay count and ordinance points (Not as high as before).
 - Re-adjusted cruiser and destroyer speed.
 - Increased Malevolent and Astral max flux.
 - Reduced Malevolent armor and slightly increased Megalth armor.
 - Added additional fighter bay to Eagle to synergize wtih its standard ship system and soften the blow of the number per wing reduction to fighters.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed calculation of Simple Core System's shield damage increase in its description to match its actual effects.
 - Fixed calculation of Updated Core System's shield damage decrease in its description to match its actual effects.
 - Added rarity modifiers to all ship hulls (actually missed the very presence of that column in the ship.csv file, ugh)
 - Corrected Adamantine Consortium faction start to use correct ships instead of the Tri-Tachyon variants.
 - Removed chance for an error to occur during campaign start due to overrides within the settings portion of the mod.
 - Dedicated carriers should now act accordingly among all faction variants and attempt to avoid the front lines and remain behind combat vessels.
 - Hopefully fixed issue with some faction starts causing Galatia to not properly reconnect with the Core World's economy.
 - Jangala is now finally a Hegemony starfortress instead of a Persean League starfortress.
 - Xanathos now actually acts like a black hole instead of a standard star. It is now an extreme hazard.
 - Corrected flux per salvo and other statistics. (They are no longer in the description but actually featured on the tooltip)
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium mistakenly constructing Archean Order stations for raider bases. Now uses Adamantine Consortium stations.
 - Fixed post designations for Archean Order to make more sense from perspective on their ranks (hopefully).
 - Corrected Citizen rank for Adamantine Consortium to something more appropriate for that faction's setting.
 - Added descriptions to ships, weapons, ship systems and fighters that still needed them. (Some are still placeholders for the lore update)
 - Fixed faction starts that sometimes wouldn't assign officers to vessels.
 - Fixed faction starts that sometimes wouldn't assign officers to the player fleet at all.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished Adamantine Consortium stations look to have better lighting at the edges.
 - Polished Condor (Ad) sprite to better match new theme for the Consortium.
 - Updated Antimatter Blaster sprite to match modern Starsector.
 - Increased battle size defaults (can still be lowered) due to better performance.
 - Hopefully increased performance in late campaign during max battles by 25%-40%.
 - Changed engine color of conversions that change tech to match the tech that the hull is being converted to.
 - Reduced fleet strength variance in Random Battle and Random Fleet Battle missions.
 - Changed Retribution sprite to better match a Hegemony-dominated production.
 - Increased the radius of orbit for several Archean Order entities to help prevent their patrols from crossing the event horizon of Xanathos.
 - Added more important details and statistics to most weapon tooltips.
[close]

 Update v1.3.4 10/01/2019

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 --- New Ships:
-------------
    - Justicar-class cruiser (new Archean Order cruiser due to Revenant-class changes)
    - Nightreaver-class light battlecarrier (Adamantine Consortium- cruiser-sized)

 --- New Skins:
-------------
    -

 --- New Fighters:
-------------
    - Hellbeast Attack Drones (Does not drop. Built-in to the Medusa (Ad)-class drone carrier for the Adamantine Consortium).
    - Imp PD Drones (Does not drop. Built-in to the Acolyte (Ad)-class drone carrier for the Adamantine Consortium).

 --- New Weapons:
-------------
    -

--- Overall Design Strategy behind most faction/market changes:
-------------
    - Increase the sense of player progression. Access to higher quality ships and weapons should be more limited.
    - Primary factions' militaries shouldn't dominate by stats/weapons but rather by circumstantial fleet compososition logistics or tactics.
    - ^ That being said- each primary faction has its own flavor, tech options and tactical strategies. (Mostly already in place, just being continually fine-tuned)

 --- Market Changes:
-------------
    - Significantly increased the cost of ships across the board to better match unmodded starsector.
    - Increased cost difference between weapon tiers and increased weapon costs in general.
    - Adamantine Consortium: Friendly market theme now only contains one music track instead of two. They had (imo) conflicting vibes to them and I'm saving the other one for something special lore-wise.
    - Smuggling at Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order markets now has more serious consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Resigning a commission with the Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order now has more severe consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Rescuing an Adamantine Consortium officer or administrator now has a major impact to the player's reputation with the barons.
    - Increased the extra cost multiplier of Hegemony Legion vessels. Reduced their deployment cost substantially. Faction AI buffed by ship system changes better suiting their overall tactics.
    - Standardized cost increase multiplier of Luddic Converted warships. Lower than Hegemony but higher than standard. Reduced their deployment costs in addition to the benefits and drawbacks of the conversion.

 --- Faction Changes: (The idea behind most of these is to increase the sense of player progression.)
-------------
    - Added custom dialogue for commissions for all new factions.
    - Added two extra variants to the Odyssey battlecruiser for the Sci-Corps.
    - Adamantine Consortium has a new look and theme to their vessels and fighters.
    - Added three extra variants to the Revenant battlecruiser for the Archean Order.
    - Changed Tri-Tachyon fleet composition- they should hopefully now contain more destroyers and cruisers instead of merely large numbers of frigates supporting capitals.
    - Added default variants to the Lion's Guard faction from designed variants from .8
    - Removed chance for Acolyte-class frigate to be found in Adamantine Consortium dreadfleets.
    - Increased the presence of Elite Mercenary variants in Trader Guild fleets.
    - Added more variants for the Vigilance, Drover and Hammerhead for Lions Guard, Trader Guilds and Persean League fleets.
    - Adamantine Consortium vessels have a more intimidating and streamlined look.
    - Many of the most advanced and rare vessels are now removed from loot after combat. Especially for the Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order, advanced vessels are now only obtain-able through faction commissions or black market smuggling that has already had an increase in penalty.

 --- Missions (Outside of campaign):
-------------
    - Added a Random Faction Battle Mission that pits the player against a random faction's fleets. Player factions have around a 50% less chance to generate capital ships in their support fleets to increase overall difficulty.

 --- Feature Enhancements/Additions:
-------------

    --- Cease Fire Changes/Additions:
   -------------
     - Doubled the credit cost of the standard bribe.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
--- Overall Design Strategy Behind Weapons Changes:
   1) All Strike weapons are now efficient unless they are hitting less effective defenses in the case of damage specialized ballistic or energy weapons. Energy projectile strike weapons generally cost more flux and are less efficient than specialized hitting correct defenses- but more damaging for higher OP.
    2) Beams are more efficient than projectile energy weapons since they deal soft flux. They tend to have lower dps and higher strike damage than most projectile strike weapons. (Exceptions exist and typically sacrifice range or flux efficiency to achieve higher strike damage)
        3) Beams turning into Fire Support weapons by equipping Advancted Optics become among the longest ranged non-missile weapons, but also become very inefficient to fire.
    4) Almost all non-missile Fire Support weapons, including the Ion Beam, have reduced range, some have reduced flux costs to compensate, but are always inefficient.
    5) Missile Strike weapons range from flux-free to far more efficient than other weapon types, but have lower effective dps either from point defense mitigation or the weapon stats themselves. Unmitigated strike damage remains very high, however. (So essentially opportunity weapons.)
    6) Rockets and torpedoes have a much higher chance to get through point defense than fire support weapons, but have shorter range.
    7) Fire Support missiles are actually typically flux efficient and have much longer range and ease of fire than other types since they can travel through allies, but are easily mitigated by pd. The less efficient the missile, the more likely it should get through pd (Thundebolt, Hurricane, Hunter, etc)

--- Details For Changes:
-------------
 - Increased hitpoints of Shockwave Rockets substantially. Less flux efficient to fire and has less overall dps than Annihilators, but much higher anti-armor capability and longer effective range.
 - Increased hitpoints of Hammer, Atropos and Reaper torpedoes.
 - Reduced flux cost of Annihilator Rockets. Increased hitpoints slightly.
 - Reduced flux cost of Javelin Rockets. Increased hitpoints slightly.
 - Reduced OP cost of Interdiction Drones by 1 OP point, reduced refit time by a few seconds (Made it a more thrifty option than pirate Broadswords which perform the same role but slightly better)
 - Tachyon Lance now fires about 50% faster, but has half the range (2500 from 5000) and costs more flux to fire to make it very inefficient. Damage per second overall has increased but strike damage remains the same. (Was by far the most powerful 32 OP weapon- especially in a player's hands)
 - Razor Tri-Beam damage per second has been increased.
 - Slightly reduced Phase Beam damage per second. Increased flux cost to fire, but only inefficient if modified by Advanced Optics into a fire support weapon.
 - Increased Heavy PD Burst Laser and Paladin PD System's damage.
 - Fury and Hailstorm rockets have less effective range.
 - Beams with advanced optics are now the longest range non-missile weapons (one or two exceptions exist).
 - Increased projectile speed and hit damage of PD Cannon and Scythe Cannon. Reduced Scythe Cannon's flux costs. Reduced PD Cannon's fire rate - Updated description to describe weakness against fast-firing missiles but is better against fighters.
 - Increased durability of ship-based torpedoes substantially. Increased time to reload on those weapons. (More reliable, lower dps)
 - Reduced Atronarch Beam dps slightly and increased its flux cost to fire. Still efficient unless equipping Advanced Optics to increase range.
 - Quadrupled the magazine size and clip regeneration size for the Squall SRM. Hit damage and and emp per hit reduced to compensate. Reload rate remains the same. (Again trying to make it more reliable in a fleet setting.)
 - Terminator Drones have much more durable shields- damage remains the same.

-- Rebalanced most Projectile-based Assault, PD and Strike Energy weapons above small:
     - Obliterator Cannon now deals significantly more damage and fires at regular intervals to better match its heavy assault role. Flux costs adjusted- Hybrid weapon.
     - Heavy Obliterator Cannon now deals more damage per shot. It costs more flux to fire, however is still very efficient compared to strike weapons- Hybrid weapon.
     - Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon have increased damage per shot. Firing rate remains the same. Thermal Cannon now deals slightly more damage per second than Thermal Pulser and has increased strike potential. Both have slightly increased range.
     - Increased Cutlass Laser and Heavy Cutlass Laser damage per shot.
     - Plasma Cannon deals more damage per second, has increased strike damage per salvo, and has longer range. Costs more flux to fire and is one of the more inefficent strike weapons available. Relatively high OP.
     - Antimatter Blaster charges up more quickly and can fire charges more often. More flux to fire, but extra charge regeneration has also increased dps considerably. Lower range but higher damage all around than Plasma Cannon. Higher OP.

-- Rebalanced entire line of Archean Order energy weapons:
     - Reduced Void Driver damage per shot slightly.
     - Increased Phase Cannon hit damage and reduced its range. Dps remains similar or slightly reduced. No flux cost but very high OP.
     - Eclipse Cannon now has less range but increased damage per shot (increased anti-armor effectiveness). Overall dps reduced but still among the most flux efficient Energy Fire Support weapons, though with a very high OP cost.
     - Apocalypse Cannon Ordinance Point cost reduced to 28, range reduced by about half, increased damage per second but reduced armor penetration. Among the most efficient Fire Support weapons, though with lower dps than assault weapons.
     - Heavy Apocalypse Cannon range reduced by about half, significantly increased damage per second but reduced armor penetration. Among the most efficient Fire Support weapons, though with lower dps than assault weapons.

--- Faction Hullmod Changes:
-------------
 - Reduced negative impact of Luddic Conversion hullmod on Luddic Church ships and reduced those ships deployment cost. Now greatly improves handling rather than reducing it but causes more damage to engines. (Luddic Church vessels still needed improvement.)
 - Reduced the penalty of increased deployment cost for Hegemony 14th Legion vessels. Armor now calculates as a percentage increase that varies with hull size instead of a flat increase.
 - Reduced the deployment cost reduction benefit associated with Simple Core Systems hullmod.

--- Station Balance Changes:
-------------
 - Station weapons no longer generate flux on station modules. Dissipation adjusted to compensate for modules that share shields with weapons. (This should buff beams effectiveness vs some stations and helps to better balance station modules all around)
 - Added a few extra high explosive Dual Artillery Cannons to Trader Guilds' stations. (It had an imbalance of anti-shield to anti-armor at optimal defense range.
 - Now that no ships (to my knowledge anyway) have the Targeting Supercomputer hullmod, increased its effectiveness to strengthen stations across the board. (No longer able to outrange them as easily, if at all, depending on the station.)
 - Additional armor and hull and light shield capacity for basic Archean Order station.
 - Additional armor and hull and flux dissipation for Persean League (midline) basic station.
 - Redesign of stations' shield systems. Weapon modules no longer generate flux. Shield adjusted to be weaker with poor dissipation and 0% dissipation when shields are raised. This helps beams be more effective while keeping the defense level the same for other weapons.
 - Removed Flux Shunt on Luddic station variants of low tech. Removed flux capacity bonuses. (Other weapon improvements made these changes no longer necessary)
 - Increased basic hightech station's armor and hull. Increased max flux and dissipation of weapon modules separate from shields.
 - Tri-Tachyon and Archean Order stations will no longer interrupt high damage burst weapons due to flux venting. They will no longer vent flux since shield venting is separate and they have enough flux dissipation that venting is actually harmful in most cases.
 - Replaced Graviton Lances with Heavy Obliterator Cannons on Sci-Coprs stations to give more solid defense rather than pure opportunity based strikes that become volatile to the station's long term durability in some situations.

--- Ship System Changes:
-------------
 - Accelerated Ammo Feeder renamed to Combat Capacitors - now also increases ship speed by 40 and increases acceleration in addition to its usual effects.
 - Plasma Jets regenerates a charge far less often and has an increased cooldown between uses.
 - Active time for Phase Shell Projector has been reduced by almost half.
 - Interdictor Array now has charges.
 - Reduced flux cost of Quantum Disruptor and Entropy Amplifier.
 - Added a cooldown to High Energy Focus. (Still has charges- more so the AI doesn't burn it too fast)

--- Ship Changes:
-------------
 - Megalith-class Dreadnought:
     - 100 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Greatly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - More effective shield resilience.
     - Increased shield radius. (Larger target)
     - Increased crew and fuel requirements.
     - Increased max crew storage.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Revenant-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Redesignated and redesigned as a Light Battlecruiser.
     - All stats reworked.
     - Added built-in Phase Field.
     - Replaced built-in Advanced Targeting Core with Dedicated Targeting Core.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 5 more.
 - Templar-class (Archean) Heavy Destroyer:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Paragon-class Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
 - Onslaught-class (XIV) Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Dedicated Targeting Core with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - Removed core stress hullmod and merged effects with XIV Legion hullmod.
     - Has a much lower deployment cost over the last update (down to ~28 from 34)
 - Acolyte-class Heavy Frigate:
     - 20 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 2000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation by 140.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Neophyte-class Frigate:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 1000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 1 more.
 - Exile-class Light Carrier:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Reduced max speed by 50% (Still faster than the Vigilance-class).
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Increased shield resilience.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Wolf-class (Arc) Frigate:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 3 more.
 - Aurora-class Cruiser:
     - Increased flux dissipation.
     - Increased armor.
     - Slightly more effective shield resilience.
 - Eagle-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Slightly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Dominator-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Increased armor.
 - Pillager-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Malevolent-class Dreadcarrier:
     - Costs 3 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Sprite re-work/polish.
 - Tyrant-class Phase Battleship:
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Reduced armor.
     - Reduced hull.
     - Now costs 30 supplies to deploy
 - Legion-class Battlecarrier:
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Conquest-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 2 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Executor-class Battlecarrier:
     - Costs 4 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Havok-class Heavy Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Heron-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Mora-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 less point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Tempest-class Heavy Frigate:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Shrike-class Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced max speed.
 - Spectre-class Interceptor Drone:
     - Reduced hull and armor.
     - Increased replacement time.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Added Carrier Bays built-in hullmod to Epiphany, Exile, Executor, Drover, Medusa, and Osprey as intended.
 - Corrected Megalith description to better reflect its combat role and power, as well as its lore compared to campaign realism.
 - Fixed and expanded station descrtiptions in the industry layer - to give players a concise tactical reason to choose a station based on playstyle and faction choice.
 - Corrected the names of ranks and posts for administrative staff and ground military for new factions.
 - Corrected outdated reputation relationship descriptions for Adamantine Consortium in the intel window from when the faction started neutral to the player.
 - Fixed situations where a player with their transponder off who was stopped by an Archean Order patrol was attacked even though they had high reputation.
 - Fixed situations where a player with A.I cores would have them confiscated even after complying and turning their transponder on and having high reputation with the Archean Order.
 - Corrected some drones need of crew due to missing values in the spreadsheet instead of 0s.
 - Added Fleet Paragon variant to the Tri-Tachyon Corporation fleets as intended.
 - Removed possible- though highly unlikely- case where the defective Falcon variant was used instead of the Pirate Falcon skin that has a large hardpoint.
 - Corrected crew requirements for Tyrant-class battleship.
 - Changed Iridium Hyperdriver to target fighters when no better targets are available.
 - Fixed issue with Guillotine Cannon firing at fighters too often. (Strike tag was on the wrong weapon)
 - Corrected situations where a player would token bribe the Luddic Path and there would not be a dialogue option to continue.
 - Luddic Path now has custom dialogue for success cases for all bribe types.
 - Removed flux cost of the large-slot Atropos Torpedo launcher.
 - Stations should no longer waste strike weapons on fighters.
 - Station hangars should no longer lose replacement time when fighters are destroyed.
 - Advanced Targeting Core (on the Paragon, Megalith, etc) now increases PD weapons up to the Dedicated Targeting Core's benefit to capital ships. Standard weapon range increase remains the same.
 - Large Atropos launcher no longer costs flux to fire.
 - All station hangars now correctly have chassis storage hullmod to ensure replacement rate does not decrease from fighter losses.
 - Legion class now has the correct weapon types for the Hegemony version.
 - Hopefully corrected issue with "'hegemony_legion' not found" error upon campaign start.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished the Guillotine Cannon recoil sprite to better differentiate it from the Heavy Cutlass Laser.
 - Continued dialogue polish.
 - Reduced Rules.csv inefficiency for the new fleet dialogue features. (Removed some absurdly large score weights, cleaned up RT directory organization, etc).
 - Improved Commodity Request script (more efficient- includes adjustments for all factions for non-upfront bribe calculations).
 - Adjusted all variants utilizing OP adjusted weapons.
 - Slight round of polish on the Punisher Artillery Cannon sprite.
 - Round of polish on the Obliterator Cannon hardpoint sprite.
 - Reduced sound level of Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon and heavily reduced sound of the Fighter variant.
 - Removed use of ASSAULT Fighter AI tag since it has been deprecated. Replaced with BOMBER tag to ensure the same assault behavior.
 - Corrected the descriptions of hullmod changes and made sure to include all effects in the description. (couple outliers there)
 - Round of polish on the Malevolent-class dreadcarrier sprite.
 - All Adamantine Consortium skin files have been separated into individual hulls and their theme now better reflects the faction. (There wasn't difference between the two implementations anyway)
-----
[close]

 Update v1.3.3 7/14/2019
Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    - Prometheus MkII
    - Atlas MkIII

    - New Skins:
       - Luddic Path Eagle
   - Luddic Path Crucible
   - Luddic Church Crucible
   - Luddic Path Rhino
   - Luddic Church Rhino
   - Luddic Church Wolverine
   - Luddic Path Enforcer
   - Luddic Church Enforcer
   - Luddic Path Hammerhead
   - Luddic Church Hammerhead
   - Luddic Path Condor
   - Luddic Path Mora
   - Luddic Church Lancer
   - Pirate Shrike
   - Hegemony Centurion

 -- New Fighters:
    - Banshee-class Interceptor
    - Sentinel-class Heavy Interceptor
    - Goliath-class Heavy Gunship

 -- New Weapons:
    - Shattercell Cannon (Small PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Shattercell Cannon (Medium PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Small Anti-Fighter Rocket Weapon)
    - Heavy Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter rocket weapon)
    - Twin Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Triple Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Rupture Shockwave System (Large Strike Rocket System)
    - Obliterator Cannon (Medium Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Obliterator Cannon (Large Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Burst Pulser (Medium Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Punisher Artillery System (Large Ballistic Fire Support Weapon)
    - Heavy Fissure Cannon (Large Ballistic Strike Weapon)
    - Razor Tri-Beam (Large Energy Assault Weapon)
    - Heavy Autocannon (Medium Ballistic Assault Weapon) - Original Heavy Autocannon renamed.
    - Vulcan PD Cannon (Medium Ballistic PD Weapon)
    - Heavy Vulcan PD System (Large Ballistic PD Weapon)
    - Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon) - Original Mirco Repeater renamed.
    - Dual Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon)
    - Cutlass Laser (Medium Energy PD Weapon)
    - Heavy Cutlass Laser (Large Energy PD Weapon)
    - Proximity Mine Launcher (Large Missile PD Weapon)
    - Trapdoor Mine Launcher (Large Energy PD Weapon)
    - Widow MRM Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)
    - Heavy Widow Launcher (Large Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)
    - Tri-Railgun (Large Kinetic Ballistic Weapon)
    - Iridium Hyperdriver (Large Kinetic Ballistic Weapon)
    - Guillotine Cannon (Large High Explosive Ballistic Weapon)

 -- Market Changes:
    - Bomb Bay is no longer an available weapon in markets. It was mostly useless and was taking up valuable weapon choices when it spawned. (Now bomber only)
    - Removed slight rarity modifier of PD Cannon spawning in markets.
    - Reduced rarity modifier of Burst PD Laser spawning in markets.
    - Now over 130 different weapons- not including built in fighter versions.

 -- Faction Balance Changes:
    - Another round of dialogue polish. (So as I catch things)
    - Replaced Piranha bombers from pirate Enforcer-class destroyers with pirate Mauler heavy interceptors.
    - Adamantine Consortium will no longer deploy many Spectre interceptor drones, and will favor Banshee interceptors instead.
    - Osprey-class Light Carrier no longer autofits. Variants for each factions have been expanded to compensate. (Too many empty fighter bays in campaign fleets)
    - Zero chance for non-standard fighters (faction-equipped variants) to be found in Independent fleets and a very, very low chance in Scavenger fleets.
    - Reduced chance for Exile-class Light Carriers to spawn in Archean Order fleets.
    - Separated out Doom variants between Adamantine Consortium and Tri-Tachyon Corporation. (Tri-Tachyons shouldn't be using phasetech weapons)
    - Changed some factions so that when they pursue the player for smuggling or black market activity that they actively pursue the fleet instead of sometimes merely harrassing.
    - Changed some factions so that under certain varying circumstances when pursuing players for black market activity or contraband high rep will:
        - prevent contraband from being confiscated.
        - cause a negative impact to reputation rather than an outright attack.
    - Numerous new variants for the new skins for Luddic factions have been added to the campaign fleets.
    - Ships supplies per month is much lower, universal among tech tiers and based on hull size. (I felt it was unncessary now with monthly costs per crew filling the same role)
    - Added a huge amount of variants utilizing new weapons and fighter craft for most traditional player enemies.
    - Added new variants utilizing new weapons for major factions such as the Hegemony, Trader Guilds, Luddic Church, Adamantine Consortium and Sci-Corps.
    - Redacted now have more variants, utilize a greater variety of weaponry, and in the earliest cases are far more robust and well-armed than before.
    - Adamantine Consortium now starts hostile to the player in most game starts. They are an evil, merciless faction and should act as such. (Players can still become friendly through tribute - a.k.a bribery)

 -- Blueprint Changes:
    - Pirate Talon is now a pirate blueprint unlock instead of a base blueprint.
    - Luddic and Pirate blueprints are no longer unlocked by tiered tech blueprint sets (lowtech in particular).
    - Bomb bay is no longer a blueprint.
    - Spectre-class interceptor drones are no longer unlocked by the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Added Cobra heavy bomber and Banshee heavy interceptor to the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Apocalypse Cannon is now ultra rare instead of legendary.
    - The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now a legendary bp.
    - Goliath-class Heavy Gunship has been added as a legendary bp.

 -- Feature Enhancements/Additions:

   Cease Fire Enhancements:
     - Adamantine Consortium fleets can be more successfully negotiated with if you hire one of their officers and so know their politics.
          - New description, dialogue and possible results when negotiating Cease Fires for:
      - Archean Order
      - Adamantine Consortium
      - Pirates
       - Luddic Path
     - Bribes
      - Bribe results and descriptions are more faction specific for some factions to shed more light on how effective bribery will be for that faction's commanders.
                - Increased base chance for bribe requests over outright refusals when attempting a bribe-free Cease-Fire.
                - Pirates will have an even greater chance to ask for credits rather than fight when attempting bribe-free Cease-Fires.
      - Pirates will accept bribes and ask for bribes over fighting even when vengeful to the Player's faction.
      - Less lawful factions like the Luddic Path, Adamantine Consortium and Pirates will now give a reputation boost for successful bribes up to a certain reputation level.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Slightly increased deployment cost of Legion, Megalith, Malevolent, Tyrant, Astral, and Paragon.
 - Increased range of Rapier SRMs. (From 900 to 1200)
 - Slightly lowered max charges for Micro Blaster and reduced the amount of charges returned each recharge cycle.
 - Nova Cannon proximity blast radius is doubled, and the fuse range is doubled, but the fuse will now only trigger on missiles.
 - Increased Nova Cannon damage by 20%.
 - Increased Machine Gun damage by 25%.
 - Increased Electron Cannon damage by 33% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Pulse Laser Damage by 50% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Assault Beam damage by ~15%.
 - Increased PD Beam damage by ~40% and increased range to 350, up from 300.
 - Increased Squall SRM hitpoints by 200%, missile speed and turn rate by ~600%, and range by 200. (Was VERY underwhelming for its tier in larger battles)
 - Reduced Atropos Torpedo turn rate by 40%. (I'm hoping this reduces the chances of the AI wasting it against slower fighters like gunships)
 - Changed Ion Cannon and Heavy Ion Cannon to now have regenerating charges, but they also deal more burst damage either through faster firing or damage per shot.
 - Fissure Cannon (formerly Sunder Cannon) has increased range (500 to 600). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Iridium Cannon has increased range. (500 to 700) The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Scythe Cannon has decreased range. (600 to 500)
 - Assault Autocannon has increased range. (600 to 650)
 - Icer Gun has increased range. (600 to 700)
 - Lowered projectile velocity of Phalanx Cannon and Hypervelocity Driver. (They were a little too powerful and hopefully this will balance them out a bit)
 - Increased turn rate of Strike beams to help prevent the A.I from wasting them while maneuvering to evenly distribute armor damage.
 - Apocalypse Cannon is now 30 op (down from 32)
 - The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now an available weapon at 32 op.
 - Increased health of destroyers and frigates by ~15-20%. (Slightly better balances out the strength of cruisers' easy access to fighter bays)
 - Increased damage of Ion Pulser by ~70%.
 - Rebalanced stats and OP cost of medium ballistic line of weapons.
 - Hivemind nanite clusters now go directly for the kill rather than seeking the target's engines.
 - Slightly reduced deployment cost of Aegis cruiser.
 - Increased max flux of Aegis and Eagle cruiser by 1000.
 - Increased turn rate of Flak line of weapons, and increased their rate of fire by ~25%.
 - Removed stealth minefield from midline starfortesses and added it to the hegemony starfortresses instead of the standard mine field.
 - Reduced Trebuchet missile speed slightly to better separate it from the Harpoon in effectiveness.
 - Reduced distance for Sabot missile to enter is second stage to allow point defense more time to take it out, and reduced its hitpoints. It was too reliable before for its tier.
 - Greatly improved Thunderbolt missiles strike potential, and increased the speed of the secondary warhead. This should feel scarier than Harpoons or Sabots now, as intended.
 - General re-work of missile balance with the goal of making high tier missiles more attractive, and increasing the reliability and range of others.
 - All carriers now have a built-in hullmod increasing the replacement rate of all equipped fighter craft by 50%.
 - Large buffs to the Colossus-based Pirate and Luddic Path variants.*
 - Large rework of most of the early Redacted vessels, and many others have many more variants to give more variety to campaign fights early on.
 - Safety Overrides hullmod range reduction threshold increased to 950 from 450. (One of the primary reasons this hullmod and the Luddic Path were suboptimal).
 - Luddic Conversion hullmod now allows for more flux and dissipation for its benefits.
 - General re-work of Large Ballistic weapons now that several more have been added. Most notably, a large buff to the Excalibur Cannon.

 -- Overhauled flux costs of the entire rocket line of weapons:
     - Reduced flux cost of Shockstorm rockets per salvo by 50%, increased max rockets for medium variant, and increased rocket speed and range slightly. (Large buff overall)
     - Increased flux cost of Annihilator rockets (small variant) by 25%, but flux costs for medium variant reduced to match flux per rocket of the small variant.
     - Annihilator rockets (small variant) now gets 4 rockets back on reload (was 2) though reload time per rocket (DPS) remains roughly the same.
     - Reduced flux cost of Javelin rockets by 25%, and reduced their flight speed.
     - Reduced flux cost of Fury Rocket System and Hailstone rockets by 33%.

 -- Overhauled Fighter Combat Layer --    
 -- Not all of the individual changes will be documented. Here are some general points:
     - Now over 60 different fighter wings.
     - All fighters now have limited ammunition which gives them a specific combat time before some kind of rearmament is required.
     - Rearmament design-wise is intended to give ships a window of recovery between strikes and reduce fighter swarming in favor of assault wave behavior.
     - Rearmament stats are unique to each individual fighter weapon, though some general rules apply:
     - Magazines of fighter weapons only last around 5 seconds of active combat time.
          - Non-missile weapons will reload their magazines in a set amount of time, typically 12-20 seconds depending on the the fighter role. (AI can't handle finite ammo)
     - Missile weapons almost always require redocking with the carrier, and often have even more limited ammunition than non-missile fighter weapons.
     - Fighters, gunhsips and interceptors that use finite missiles will usually redock with the carrier immediately, or soon after they have used them all.
     - Mostly removed the use of flares in midtech and low tech fighters, gunships and bombers. Only the highest tiered craft will use them.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to other fighters, making interceptors and anti-fighter roles a serious threat to unescorted bombers and gunships.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to ship hardpoints (weapons and engines), up from 150%.
     - Balance pass on most fighter replacement rates. Some have increased rates, some have decreased rates depending on balance adjustments. As a soft rule, however:
          - Bombers have increased replacement times. (They also tend to have the highest strike impulse)
          - Gunships have been moved to closely match Bombers in their replacement times. (They also tend to have the longest active combat times and largest magazines)
          - Fighters have slightly reduced replacement times. (They have various specialized roles)
          - Interceptors have moderately reduced replacement times. (They are powerful bomber/gunship killers, and important escorts for your own fighter/bomber/gunship strike groups)
     - Removed Fighter Systems hullmod's effect on weapons in favor of fighter-specialized weapons. Fighter weapons are now less effective against ships.
     - Though still present for descriptive flavor, Limited Range Finders hullmod on fighters doesn't actually do anything. Range is handled through fighter weapons.
     - Reduced health and shields of high tech gunships and bombers and some midline and low tech gunships and bombers.
     - Reduced general health of the higher tiered fighters, and any fighters that use shields have much lower flux dissipation to make PD beams more effective against them.
     - Rebalanced OP cost around new fighter craft additions that were added in some of the more recent updates.
     - Reduced OP cost and efficiency of some pirate fighters even further, while balancing other weaker ones to make them useful to the player in some circumstances.
     - Many low tech fighters, bombers, gunships and interceptors now have proper OP costs considering their combat effectiveness.
     - OP to Power ratio when scrolling up and down the "equip fighter wheel" on the refit screen should now make more intuitive sense.
     - All fighter weapons are now added to the codex with a basic description of how fighter weapons differ from standard ship weapons as well as hard weapon stats.
     - Balance pass on fighter crew requirements and costs. General increase in crew required for gunships and bombers, scaling better with size.
     - Balance pass on fighter mass. (Doesn't make too much a difference but documented anyway just in case).
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Corrected issue with Cease Fire requests not working on patrols who are attacking you from smuggling or black market activity.
 - Fixed issue with overspawning faction-specific fighters in Independent and Scavenger fleets.
 - Corrected Pirate Talon bug with base blueprints.
 - Devastator Cannon should now properly hit ships along certain angles of fire that caused the proximity fuse behavior to trigger early.
 - The Nova Cannon should now effectively hit ships at all times, making it more in line with the intended dual assault/pd role.
 - Removed accidental chance for Fighter-class Light Pulse Laser to spawn in campaign markets or loot.
 - Added a description to the Archean Order station's heavy anti-capital weapon in the codex.
 - Hopefully resolved issues with Hailstone Rockets and Fury Rocket System sometimes causing the flameout slingshot behavior on ships.
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium Condor skin to no longer change its medium missile mount to energy.
 - All fighter wing descriptions should have the brief summary portion that describes their role.
 - Fixed merge issue with Helmsmanship skill stacking on top of the original version.
 - Correct equip-screen description of Militarized Subsystems to better reflect what downsides it removes from civilian hulls.
 - Hivemind nanite clusters now effectively hit ships at all angles.
 - Corrected Simple Core System's description.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Due to storage space, versions lower than v1.2.1b are no longer downloadable, though their patch notes will remain documented.
 - Sunder Cannon has been renamed to Fissure Cannon to avoid confusion with the Sunder-class destroyer. XD Must have been in a hurry on that one lol.
 - Round of polish on the Heavy Apocalypse Cannon's sprite.
 - The Heavy Autocannon has been renamed to the Heavy Dual Autocannon.
 - Slight round of polish on the Velocity Cannon sprite.
 - Micro Repeater has been renamed to Micro Blaster because the original name felt better for a PD weapon and this was more of a strike weapon.
 - Guardian PD System has been renamed Paladin PD System to match unmodded Starsector since the weapons share similar roles.

-----
[close]

 Update v1.3.2b 3/04/2019
Spoiler

Content Additions
-------------
 -- New Shipsystem:
    - Phase Shell Projector (Malevolent-class Dreadcarrier).
        - 20 Second activated buff.
        - Reduces damage taken by the carriers fighters by 90% for the duration.

 -- New Strike Craft:
    - Sabertooth Gunship. (Heavy Strike)

 -- New Weapons:
    - Hailstone Rocket Launcher (Small).
    - Fury Rocket System (Large).

 -- Campaign Changes/Additions:
    - Increased base payout for starting fleet bounties (pirates) and the payout per level of higher tiered bounties (deserters).
    - Due to performance improvements in the last official Starsector release, increased default total battlesize to 200, and max total battlesize to 400.
    - Independents and Scavengers are now much less likely to use Luddic Church, Luddic Path, Pirate, or Hegemony fighters, ships and weapons.



Combat Balance/Content Changes
-------------
 - Autofit now has more variants available as goal variants than the last release for many hulls. I think this may help increase variety while still maintaining core combat effectiveness.
 - More variety in strike craft and weapons for the Lions Guard and Trader Guilds.

Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Sci-Corps Stations will now correctly appear in the campaign map.
 - Updated Fire Support missile weapon descriptions to accurately reflect the 50% flux per salvo reduction.

[close]

 Update v1.3.1 2/28/2019
Spoiler

Content Additions

New Ships
  • Malevolent (Capital-class Dreadcarrier)

New Strike Craft
  • Mauler (Heavy Interceptor)
  • Mauler (Pirates)
  • Barbarian (Base Gunship)
  • Warrior (Lowtech Gunship)
  • Talon (Hegemony)
  • Talon (Luddic)
  • Talon (Tri-Tachyon)
  • Talon (Pirates)
  • Vanguard (Hegemony)
  • Vanguard (Luddic)
  • Warthog (Hegemony)
  • Warthog (Luddic)
  • Broadsword (Pirates)
  • Broadsword (Adamantine)

Campaign Changes/Additions
  • New/replaced stations for many major factions strongholds. Now there should be a lot more tactical diversity even among tech tiers.
  • Adamantine Consortium has a capital-class carrier and a unique heavy fighter(skin) added to their fleets.
  • Nightmare-class heavy fighter is now unique to the Archean Order's fleets.
  • Pirates have unique fighter(skins) added to their fleets.
  • Increased Adamantine Consortium aggression, reduced Archean Order and Trader Guilds aggression.
  • If not already present in the last patch, added Adamantine Consortium strongholds to the list of player colony threats.
  • Derelicts have increased in difficulty to match pirates. Pirates have had their fighter numbers considerably weakened.
  • Increased the starting player fleets for any new game start to roughly match early pirate bounties in size.
  • The two changes listed above should make either salvage or bounty hunting a good starting option for any new game.
  • Added most of the new game starts available to the base game from .9 to the Normal Start option list.
  • All new starts now contain a cargo freighter of some kind and a small supply of pd weapons.
  • Pirates now have unique fighter craft. These are considerably weaker than standard fighter craft, but can be deployed more easily.

Station Battles
  • Balanced most factions' station style to match their respective technological access and doctrine.
  • Upgraded the tier of some stations, and added some where none existed. The purpose was better faction balance.
  • Unique station looks and/or loadouts for Hegemony, Pirates, Sci-Corps and Luddic factions

Blueprint System
  • Added Blueprint Packages for Adamantine Consortium, Trader Guilds, Persean League, Sci-Corps and Tri-Tachyon Corporation.
  • Further separation of tech tiers with more base strike craft available at the start.
  • Higher tier versions of some base strike craft bp available as single drops or in the various tech/faction bp packages.
  • Added icons to all blueprint packages.
  • New legendary blueprint packages.


Balance Changes
  • Increased OP cost of Talon to 2 from 0. Its combat effectiveness remains unchanged. Pirate version has 0 OP requirement.
  • Hegemony now has slightly better fighter craft with a tactical focus on anti-ship weaponry. They no longer use bombers very often.
  • Luddic Church and Luddic Path have new fighter craft skins with unique loadouts.
  • Higher tier fighter craft has increased the Luddic factions' military potency by a noticeable degree. Not to the degree of the highest tier military powers, however.
  • Slightly adjusted sprite for Perdition to match its role as a Luddic heavy bomber. Now has two side-turret Machine Guns to support against interceptors.
  • Tri-Tachyon Corporation now has a heavy interceptor to support their advanced interceptor drones.
  • Hercules-class Heavy Gunship has had its primary turreted weapon upgraded to a dual cannon, and has an updated sprite.
  • Hydra-class Gunship has an updated sprite.
  • Added shield modules to the sides of Trader Guilds' battlestations. They were slightly weaker -defensively- than intended.
  • Changed rocket launch behavior. Only a minor adjustment in overall functionality, but a different start-up to full speed. (Reduced launch speed but greatly increased proj acceleration).
  • Marauder, Warthog, and Gauntlet are now base bps.
  • Vanguard is now a low_tech bp (tier 1).
  • Rebalanced Luddic Church Condor variants.
  • Increased Paragon's max flux by 8000, flux dissipation by 300, and armor by 300. It was slightly too weak compared to similar tiered vessels and sometimes couldn't make use of all its weapons when surrounded.
  • Reduced fighter replacement rates across the board. I put an extra special emphasis on drones and interceptors that seemed to spawn continuously, and tended to only slightly increase bomber deployment rates.
  • Increaed PD Beam damage by ~40%-70% accross the board. This won't interfere with missile effectiveness (other than make them better against torps which is their intended purpose).
  • Changed Advanced Optics hullmod to only increase PD beam weapons by 200su (down from 500su) to balance the large damage increase for those weapons.
  • Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Super Computer hullmod by 10%.
  • Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Advanced Targeting Core hullmod by 20%.
  • Reduced the flux cost of all Fire Support Missiles by ~50%.

Bug Fixes
  • Corrected issues with rockets sending flamed-out ships launching away at large speeds.
  • All assault and strike beams now pierce fighters. Fighters now take 60% less damage from beams.
  • Fixed Templar Strike variant's weapon groups.
  • Corrected Hegemony and Adamantine Consortium ship size in fleet doctrine.
  • Forlorn Hope mission's flagship is now the Escort variant of the Paragon instead of the Raider variant.
  • Corrected OP of Condor(A) variants.
  • Fixed bug when hiring faction officers, added text for faction administrators.
  • Fixed bug with procurement missions not able to be turned in.
  • Fixed bug with some bar missions not able to be turned in.
  • Fixed bug where your crew would not leave even if you owed them considerable debt.
  • Corrected issue with Tri-Tachyon blueprint package adding Persean League ships, fighters and weapons.
  • Fixed bug where blueprints of higher tiers were empty of hulls, weapons or wings.
[close]

 Update v1.3.0 1/19/2019
Spoiler

Content Additions

Updated for Starsector 0.9a features

New Ships
  • Shrike
  • Gremlin
  • Guardian
  • Radiant

New Ships
  • Cobra
  • Perdition

Station Battles
  • Stations come in 3 tiers, like the base Starsector original design.
  • All factions now have stations guarding their primary strongholds, with station strength varying depending on the colony's importance.
  • New station types for a couple of the new factions and updated existing faction's stations designed around Archean Order's balance.
  • Increased strength difference between tiers such that upgrades have more impact.
  • Third tier stations can single handedly combat multiple fleet deployment waves.
  • Lowered station deployment cost to allow for more escorting fleet ships.
  • Third tier stations can single handedly combat multiple fleet deployment waves.
  • Station upgrades typically impact at least 3 of 4 general areas. See description text for details. General upgrade areas listed below
  • Long range strike capability.
  • Fighter wing additions/fighter defense capability.
  • Defenses, either stronger existing ones or additional layers of defense.

Blueprint System
  • Complete rework of blueprint spawn rates to balance for Archean Order's tiered weapon balance.
  • Base blueprints are much smaller in number, but blueprint unlocks are more varied and slightly more common in the case of packages.
  • Blueprint packages spawn in three tiers for each tech type with increasing drop rarity as tier strength increases.
  • New ultra rare blueprints and packages give access to the most powerful weapons, hulls and fighters available.
  • Blueprint lines available for most factions, to increase replay-ability and give a bit more randomness to loot.
  • Each blueprint line unlocks multiple sets of blueprints based on the factions preferences similar to tech tiered packages.
  • Blueprint package lines based on factions spawn at varying rates depending on the strength of the blueprints unlocked.

Procgen Autofit System
  • I tried to do my best to playtest enough to treat this on a case by case basis where possible. As it currently stands:
  • Most high tech capitals or higher end variants of cruisers or destroyers relying on large weapons for balance will not autofit.
  • Most vessels below the cruiser level will autofit based on faction weapon doctrine.
  • Hopefully the above changes will provide a stable, balanced experience with factions yet greatly increase overall npc fleet variance.


Balance Changes
  • Merged a few of the new factions' minor colonies with their nearby stations to further improve campaign performance. See below for details.
  • Description text remains to separate the two entities (like Jangala), but their markets are now shared.
  • Merged markets will be displayed without the station in the starmap.
  • Increased Interceptor and Fighter refit time across the board.
  • Built-in drones, such as those found on the Acolyte or Tempest, are now generally replaced less quickly than standard Drone LPCs.
  • Increased hit strength of graviton beam line of weapons by ~25%.
  • Increased defenses of midline capitals substantially to better align their combat capability with other tiered tech counterparts.

Bug Fixes
  • Corrected attack run ranges of a few bombers that led to them not releasing their payloads fast enough when engaging a targeted enemy.
  • Corrected falcon_d skin's weapon changes so that its large weapon is now a medium weapon as intended. A wrong id was causing it to change one of its missile slots.
[close]

 Update v1.2.1d 4/15/2018
Spoiler

Content Additions
  • Two new frigates, the Neophyte and Exile, have been added to the Archean Order fleets in order to better diversify their tactics and ships from the Adamantine Consortium.
  • Added new skins\variants for the Condor-class Light Carrier and Scarab-class Drone Carrier found in Adamantine Consortium dreadlord fleets.

Balance Changes
  • Reduced upcharge, increased recharge of Iridium Cannon. -This will allow Hellcats to combat interceptors a little better. Before they could almost never effectively target them. They are still inaccurate at it, just less so.
  • Replaced one of the Drover-class Light PD Carrier's Hydra Gunship wings with a Hercules Gunship wing to give it a fair amount of assault potential for an insiginifcant loss in overall PD strength.
  • Increased Peak Operating Time of Megalith and Tyrant.
  • All Interceptors/Fighters/Bombers/Gunships of the same tech level will have the same combat range. (Should solve AI issues with carriers and allow for more diverse fighter-type combinations).

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed min crew requirements of Hydra, Renegade, Liberator, Cyclops and Hellcat fighter-craft.
  • Fixed OP of Hegemony, Pirate and Luddic Church Condor skins. Variants adjusted accordingly.
  • Atlas now correctly read as a capital ship, so Converted Hangar hullmod will add 2 fighter bays, as intended.
  • Corrected Askonia Gate orbit to match nearby entities' orbit speed (now they shouldn't collide in the late campaign).
  • Corrected late-game campaign issues with Archean Order and Tri-Tachyon in Hybrasil. Archean Order strongholds are much, much farther away from the system's star. (There should be less hi-tech debris and the markets should hopefully be a little more stable.)
  • Hyperion-class frigate now has Delicate Machinery hullmod built-in.
  • Slight re-work of Wolf (Arc) skin sprite.
[close]

 Update v1.2.1c 4/9/2018
Spoiler
Balance Changes
  • Increased damage of Pulse Laser by 25% (higher hit damage).
  • Reduced recharge rate and burst damage of Burst Siege Beam. Still keeps its Fire Support energy role, but damage should now be more in line with those kinds of weapons.
  • Increased number of charges of Burst PD Laser by 1, increased its recharge rate per charge slightly, and increased its burst damage by ~20%.
  • Increased number of charges of Heavy Burst PD Laser by 1, increased its recharge rate per charge slightly, and increased its burst damage by ~20%.
  • Increased charge regeneration rate of Guardian PD System by 30%.
  • Pulse Beam range reduced to 300.
  • Increased shot damage of Void Driver significantly, but reduced its recharge rate to a similar dps. Should be much more effective, especially against missiles, and more adequately reflect its description.
  • Slightly reduced effective shields of Liberator and Renegade fighters.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed skeleton crew calculation of Converted Hangar hullmod.
  • Corrected sound issues with Ion Torpedo, Micro Repeater, Iridium Cannon and Icer Gun.

[close]

 Update v1.2.1b 4/8/2018
Spoiler
Content Additions
  • Improved Bribery mechanic: Now also allows for bribery upfront- greatly increases the chances of a successful ceasefire negotiation.

          - Can include several increments of bribes(with varying levels of cultural implications per faction) to increases chances of success- the highest bribe almost guarantees success with certain factions.
          - Should the player choose not to bribe upfront and the negotations fail, the player will have a second opportunity to bribe the enemy commander at a higher cost.

  • Improved Cease-Fire mechanic: Now can successfully negotiate a ceasefire with Vengeful rep Pirates (was guaranteed to fail before) and new bribery mechanics allow for more controllable, consistent results for the player, should they really want to avoid a battle.
  • 2 new missions featuring the Hyperion-class Experimental Frigate as a flagship.
  • Added 3 new starting options for new factions- now consolidated with the former two additions under "Advanced Start".
  • Consolidated "Normal Start" options (containing the basic start options and separating the destroyer-sized starts more clearly).
  • New skin and variants for Archean Order's Wolf-class frigate.

Balance Changes
  • Peak Performance mechanic implemented back into all vessels. Timers greatly increased for all but phase ships, and ships with High Maintenance from their experimental nature, such as the Sunder, Hyperion etc.
  • Safety Overrides' Peak Performance reduction now greatly limits prolonged combat performance as a downside to balance out its benefits. OP to install reduced by 33% as a result. This will also make Pathers less annoying to fight in prolonged engagements where the player doesn't happen to have any pursuit or interdiction vessels.
  • Reduced Flux per Salvo of Trebuchet LRM by 33%, missile speed reduced by ~20% (This should make the missile less of an issue when massed and allow it to be more easily added to load-outs. It was also too powerful/useful for its tier and in comparison to the advanced Hunter LRM).
  • Nova Cannon damage increased by 25% to compensate for loss of EMP component. It should now properly take its place as a top tier PD option with a secondary assault role.
  • Added the Refit Time effect of Damaged Flightdeck to Civgrade Hullmod.
  • Op Cost of Operations Center hullmod reduced by 33%.
  • Converted Hangar hullmod now increases the number flight decks on existing carriers by +1/+1/+2 on destroyers/cruisers/capitals in addition to its normal effects. This hullmod can now also be installed on existing carriers.
  • Significant buffs to Hyperion: now has medium universal hardpoints at each wing. Increased cost and supplies to maintain/deploy. Variants adjusted accordinly.
  • Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range significantly.
  • Decreased Tyrant-class Battleship's turn rate by 60%. It was too inaccurate with beams otherwise.
  • Liberator Heavy Fighter has had one of its Icer Guns removed, and Limited Range Finders hullmod is now built-in.
  • Ion Torpedo projectile hitpoints reduced by 40%.
  • Changed starting variant load-out for Medusa.
  • Redistributed success rates for some dialogue features- now that bribery is a more mainsteam feature.
  • Minor tweaks to deployment costs across all ships (couple exceptions of "minor", like Scarab, that were pseudo bugs), Fleet Points in ships and across skins now properly correlates to deployment cost for calculations in some scripts.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed description for civilian Star-Liner to include its built-in, yet poorly operating fighter bay.
  • Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.
  • Updated and corrected Tactics Manual to reflect changes since release. Also greatly expanded the manual, including non-technical documentation of dialogue features and mechanics as well as tips for tactics against certain factions for new players.
  • Fixed bug with Adamantine Consortium Comm-Relay encounter not taking priority over Tribute requests.
  • Added story text to "The Great Restructuring" mission.
  • Corrected a few scripts that had incorrect IDs for the Tri-Tachyon corporation.
  • Bribe calculation in Cease Fire requests now stems from enemy fleet strength, as intended, rather than player fleet strength.
  • Corrected fleet strength calculations in Cease-Fire and Commodity request features. It was too punishing when severely outnumbered (almost never happened).
  • Refactored code of several scripts to run more efficiently and have less redundancy.

[close]

 Update v1.2.1a 2/27/2018
Spoiler
Content Additions
  • New factions now have custom dialogue when you hire their officers.
  • You can now "Rescue" Officers from the Adamantine Consortium if you cannot afford to pay a "hiring" bribe. This will make the barons less than pleased, of course.
  • New variant for the Osprey-class light carrier that features Mining Drones - added to independent and scavenger fleets.

Balance Changes
  • Tempest-class frigate now has a "small" version of the Wasp interceptor wing wing built-in. This wing has 4 max interceptors instead of 6.
  • Acolyte-class heavy frigate now has a "small" version of the Spectre interceptor wing built-in. This wing has 4 max interceptors instead of 6.
  • Removed built-in Talon wing for the Atlas superfreighter. Now has two open flight decks instead of one, but not enough Ordinance to carry much heavy strike craft. Standard variant adjusted.
  • The Mining Drone wing now has a combat assault range similar to other gunships, and Assault AI. Ordinance cost increased to 2 (from 0).
  • Built-in Mining Drone wing on the Venture-class combat freighter has been modified to retain its short range support role, as intended.
  • Redacted heavy fighter primary weapon replaced with something stronger. Was too weak for its number/OP cost.
  • Redacted interceptor has had its secondary weapon removed. Was too strong for its number/OP cost.
  • Fast Missile Racks now is a charge based ship system. Reduced amount of times system can be used, costs less flux per use.
  • Crucible-class destroyer has slightly better dissipation.
  • Condor-class light carrier (destroyer) has its max flux capacity increased by over 50%, with a corresponding increase in dissipation. Shield efficiency reduced by 20%.
  • Changed starting variant for Lasher-class frigate to be more easy to manage flux cost of weapons.

Bug Fixes
  • You can now hire new faction mercenary officers as intended. A bug in Rules.csv prevented the dialogue option to hire them from appearing.
  • Removed override of hullmods.csv file to allow power user opt-in of Autonomous Ships mod. (Must still set totalConversion to "false" in the mod_info.json file)
  • Fighter wings should no longer disappear from inventory after visiting the refit screen if hulls with built-in versions of the same type exist within your fleet.
  • Corrected name error in Mining Drone wing tooltip.
  • Redacted heavy bomber will now correctly use its primary weapon.
  • Reduced volume level for Ion Torpedo, Icer Gun, Iridium Cannon and Micro Repeater by 20-40%, as needed.
  • Corrected tooltip for Concentrated Shields.
  • Weapons now display their required "Flux per Shot/Salvo" information in their description.

[close]

 Update v1.2.1 2/19/2018
Spoiler

Content Additions
  • 6 New Fighter Wings. (4 gunships, 2 fighters, 1 bomber)
  • 1 New Hi-Tech Dedicated Carrier (Heavy Destroyer).

Balance Changes
  • Buffed Lasher's ability to use strike weapons. Base flux and dissipation increased. Shield efficiency lowered.
  • Buffed Lancer's ability to use it's missiles and ship system. Base flux and dissipation increased. Shield efficiency lowered.
  • All ships now have 10%/15%/20% base soft flux dissipation when shields are raised (up from 0%), depending on if the hull is considered lowtech/midline/hitech.
  • Reduced the benefit of Stabilized Shields hullmod by 15% (Now +35%).
  • Balance pass on fighter rarity.
  • Redistributed fighters among factions and variants. Less overall redundancy. Some better variants.
  • Medusa-class destroyer is now a dedicated drone carrier with two full Terminator Drone wings, to both better match its ship system and avoid the awkwardness of part built-in/part open fighter bays.
  • Medusa is no longer classified as a combat carrier to the AI. Max combat speed now in line with other assault destroyers. Terminator Drone's combat speed substantially increased.
  • Medusa is now unique to the Tri-Tachyon corporation and Adamantine Consortium's fleets. No longer found in Sci-Corp's fleets.
  • Medusa(A) skin now changes the ship system to Fortress Shield.
  • Tempest-class frigate is now also found in the Tri-Tachyon Corporation's fleets and markets. No longer unique to Sci-Corps.
  • Medusa(A) skin now changes the ship system to Fortress Shield.
  • Astral-class Super Carrier no longer has built in Terminator Drones. Its 8 fighter bays are now open, though there is no increase in Ordinance Points. Test indicate the slight nerf has little overall effect on combat performance. If anything, it's better due to more concentrated fighter strikes. Variants adjusted accordingly.
  • Tri-Tachyon Corporation and Sci-Corps now have more distinct combat styles and weapons.
  • Tri-Tachyon focuses on phase ships, heavy beam and missile weaponry, as well as drone attacks using fighter swarm superiority. 
  • Sci-Corps uses tactical assault fighter strikes, ion-based support weapons, and heavy torpedo salvos from dedicated combat vessels.
  • Reduced ammo count of Rapier Srms (Fighter version) by 25%. This is intended to slightly reduce the salvo power of the Thunder Bomber on lightly defended targets. It is also a small nerf to the Xyphos gunship.
  • The Aegis-class cruiser has one of its medium ballistic weapons now converted to a hyrbid slot to further diversify medium energy weapon options. Variants adjusted.
  • Increased beam speed of Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance. Considering its short burst duration, range upgrades made the weapon deal less dps at max range than was ideal.
  • Reduced flux to activate Recall Device ship system to 25%. Now has only 3 charges and regeneration.

Bug Fixes
  • Changed Heavy Mortar description to better describe its intended role.
  • At-A-Glance role description added to the Interdictor Drone and Terminator Drone.
  • Fighter-Class Systems hullmod is now present on all fighter wings.
  • Tooltip for Faulty Power Grid D-Mod corrected to display accurate information.
  • Safety Procedures Rank 3 should now reduce the negative effects of Faulty Power Grid, as intended.
  • Fixed a few variants' default weapon groups.
  • (WIP) Another round of refining/polishing some of the dialogue. Removing awkward language and attemtping to improve the conversation experience.
  • All combat vessels, if not all vessels in general, should now have the Stabilized Drive Conduit hullmod built-in.
[close]

 Update v1.2 2/10/2018
Spoiler

Content Additions
  • Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium have new systems near the Core Worlds containing their respective capitals and main strongholds.
  • Many new faction colonies now have custom illustrations and all new colonies have custom descriptions.
  • New Independent and Sci-Corps colonies - Penelopes Star is now a part of the Core Worlds (this should make a couple early game bounties slightly less risky and weapons/ships from those factions more accessible).
  • Made the "Random Battle" Mission have a much wider selection of variants to randomly pull from. -a great way to test out max battles and get a feel of the new combat without investing too heavily into the campaign.
  • 5 New low tier energy strike/fire support weapons.
  • 3 New low tier ballistic strike/fire support weapons.
  • 1 New high tier missile strike weapon.
  • 2 New low tech frigates with medium energy mounts found easily early on.
  • 1 New mid tech destroyer with medium hybrid mounts in Lions Guard and Trader Guilds patrols/markets.
Balance Changes
  • Harpoon MRM and its large variant has more missiles per salvo, and higher regen. To balance this change they deal less damage per shot and have less armor penetration. This small rebalance makes them a lot more reliable to use, and the AI will use them more liberally as well. Two direct hits will still destroy most frigates- if caught unshielded.
  • The Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance are now proper assault weapons, as classified. They will also now autofire and target fighters if no other combat ships are in range. Reduced turn rate, beam speed, and burst mechanics for the weapon and buffed its damage. Persean League was suffering in most fights due to its lackluster performance. It penetrates armor slightly better, but is still poor at it overall.
  • Hegemony XIVth vessels now have an increased deployment cost in association with their armor and ordinance point buffs. This better balances these powerful vessels and slightly nerfs the overwhelming campaign power of the Hegemony (They could beat any faction (except maybe the highest tier ones) too easily in pitched battles before).
  • Adjusted most starting variants to support new weapons and spread them out over multiple factions. They should now be found in most early markets.
  • Added new variants and edited existing ones - the aim of this was to both reduce weapon redundancy and give a platform to acquire the new strike/fire support weapons more easily.
  • The Hound's composite hardpoint is now universal - allows the use of small, low tier energy strike weapons in pirate and independent fleet compositions.
  • The Eagle now has a few small hybrid turrets to better support its intended Jack-Of-All-Trades combat role. Variants adjusted accordingly.
[close]


 Update v1.1a 1/18/2018
Spoiler
Content Additions
  • New hullmod - Priority Beam Defense AI - Makes all PD Burst Beams only target missiles.

Balance Changes
  • The Conquest and Falcon now have Maneuvering Jets as their ship system (was Deploy Reserve Fighters).
  • Deploy Reserve Fighters and Targeting Feed ship systems no longer generate flux on use. Instead, they start with 3 charges, gaining one charge greatly exceeds the system's cooldown.
  • Burst PD Laser and Heavy Burst PD Laser now auto-target fighters and ships as well as missiles. To balance this change, both weapons have had their charge regeneration reduced (burst damage is the same).
  • Guardian PD System now targets fighters and ships as well as missiles. To balance this change, the weapon has been converted to a charge-based weapon (with 8 charges) and reduced burst damage by 20 percent.
  • Increased the accuracy of the Artillery Cannon by ~20 percent.
  • Reduced effectiveness on Flux of built-in faction systems by ~33 percent.

Bug Fixes and Design Improvements
  • Fixed a few variants with errors.
  • Added a few variants with new weapons configurations and rebalanced previous ones using them to operate more effectively, where necessary.
  • Updated tooltips of several weapons (Ie. Mining Laser, Mining Blaster, Guardian PD System) to better describe their function and power.
  • Updated tooltips of fighters to better describe their roles and strengths at a glance.
  • Corrected a few more typos and awkward language in descriptions - mostly campaign related entities.
  • Added regen back in for the Atropos Torpedo(Single). Dagger Bomber now has a custom built-in version without regen.
  • All vessels now gain the "0-Flux Boost" until 5% flux. Changing Tier 3 Helmsmanship to allow up to 35% flux before boost cuts off.
  • Hermes cargo capacity reduced to be more in line with other freighters.
  • Hornet SRM is now renamed to Vespid SRM (id is same for modders).
  • Added new descriptions to some key faction colonies to better improve immersion.
[close]


 Update v1.1 1/10/2018
Spoiler
Content Additions
  • Faction colonies are now seeded directly into the Core Worlds.
  • Faction colonies now have unique descriptions describing their place in the sector and their respective owners' goals and culture.
  • Added ~7-8 small weapons in the "Strike" and "Fire Support" category spread across missile and ballistic weapon types.
  • Starting variants have been adjusted to account for the new weapons.
  • Added new variants or modified existing ones across many factions (especially pirates).

Bug Fixes and Design Improvements
  • Fixed crash on clicking "Show Info" on planets while in the Intel tab.
  • All new factions now generate system bounties, food shortages, survey missions, etc.
  • Added a small composite weapon slot to the Hound All variants have been adjusted to reflect this - deployment cost increased to 2 supplies.
  • Captain personality will now properly reduce or improve the amount of credits requisitioned or demanded from fleets as intended.
  • "Safety Overrides" description will now properly display what it does.
  • Fixed more scenarios where bribery failed to get the enemy to disengage.
  • Updated Bribe description to include information previously obscured to the player when bribing a fleet captain.
  • Changed "Max and Min Battle Slider" settings to more accurately reflect standard Performance Requirements. (100 - 300 with default at 150)
  • Slightly increased Capital Ship deployment costs.
  • Balance pass through ship systems - generally increasing time to regenerate charges substantially.
  • Flares have been reworked to regenerate.
  • Fixed several description typos and outdated references.

Performance Improvements and Misc
  • Improved performance of starting a new game and loading the mod by ~33%.
  • EZFaction and LazyLib utility tools are no longer required to play the mod.
[close]

 Hotfix v1.0a 1/2/2018
Spoiler
  • Fixed bug with Bribes and Cease-Fire negotiations not always causing the enemy fleet to disengage if the faction reputation is hostile towards the player in general.
  • Bribes should also no longer occur concurrently if you provoke the fleet a second time.
  • Roughly halved number of EZFaction procedural faction colonies to improve campaign stability and performance.
[close]
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Morrokain on December 30, 2017, 05:52:49 PM
**Collaboration and Feedback**

Do you have feedback for the mod that is constructively critical but want to remain anonymous? No problem!

Feel free to send me a PM on the forums indicating what you dislike and why - though a couple points:

 - Please try to keep it constructive and polite. ;) It especially helps if you have a proposed solution to your concern or issue.

 - I will consider all comments, but I still hold final say on changes. This is not a guarantee, though I really really do appreciate the feedback!


Collaboration


 - Want to help out with Archean Order or want your faction in the campaign? Send me a PM and we can discuss!

I am especially interested in:

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Morrokain on December 30, 2017, 05:53:44 PM
Happy New Year everyone!  ;)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Arkar1234 on December 30, 2017, 09:09:31 PM
(http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/12/aVOSkIC.gif)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: MajorTheRed on December 30, 2017, 09:26:54 PM
As a geologist, I need to ask "why archean?"  ;D

By the way, this mod has some really nice sprite, really like them. And its seems to have take a lot of work!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: xenoargh on December 30, 2017, 09:28:30 PM
This looks super-cool.  Bravo!  I'll try this out tomorrow :)

A smallish request / suggestion, if I may.
Spoiler
It wouldn't take a huge amount of work to get the ships / weapons converted to use FX mod for performance improvements.  

If fighters tend to be more numerous, we can expect pretty crawling framerates in big fights, especially as the count of fighters goes up.  

At the very least, I'd do Fighter engines and gun flares / explosions; that will save a surprising amount of CPU, I think you'll find, while preserving the Vanilla look of the ship engines and missile trails.

I might just find time to do this initially for you as an optional mini-mod; you'll have to maintain it, though.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: NightKev on December 30, 2017, 10:00:34 PM
You really should set the "total conversion" flag to true on your mod, its entire purpose is for TCs and that's what this is...
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Histidine on December 30, 2017, 10:09:58 PM
You really should set the "total conversion" flag to true on your mod, its entire purpose is for TCs and that's what this is...
Addendum on reasoning: If people want to use other mods with this they should change the TC flag themselves (i.e. poweruser opt-in), until such time as Archean Order is known to be compatible with most/all extant mods.
Otherwise some users will inevitably fail to note the incompatibility issues, break it and won't know who to look to for help.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Morrokain on December 30, 2017, 10:21:28 PM
You really should set the "total conversion" flag to true on your mod, its entire purpose is for TCs and that's what this is...
Addendum on reasoning: If people want to use other mods with this they should change the TC flag themselves (i.e. poweruser opt-in), until such time as Archean Order is known to be compatible with most/all extant mods.
Otherwise some users will inevitably fail to note the incompatibility issues, break it and won't know who to look to for help.

You guys sold me. I had debated that very issue in my head for a while, but its true that anyone who knows enough to try it would also know how to disable to TC flag. Updated- undocumented but its a really small thing.  ;)


This looks super-cool.  Bravo!  I'll try this out tomorrow :)

A smallish request / suggestion, if I may.
Spoiler
It wouldn't take a huge amount of work to get the ships / weapons converted to use FX mod for performance improvements.  

If fighters tend to be more numerous, we can expect pretty crawling framerates in big fights, especially as the count of fighters goes up.  

At the very least, I'd do Fighter engines and gun flares / explosions; that will save a surprising amount of CPU, I think you'll find, while preserving the Vanilla look of the ship engines and missile trails.

I might just find time to do this initially for you as an optional mini-mod; you'll have to maintain it, though.
[close]

Thank you for the praise! I am very much open to your suggestion too! It is actually on a to-do list to investigate, but it was put behind things like getting the tutorial to work. But if it would improve performance as you say, its worth a look in the near future!

As a geologist, I need to ask "why archean?"  ;D

By the way, this mod has some really nice sprite, really like them. And its seems to have take a lot of work!


Thank you!

Also, hey someone asked!  ;D Its a reference to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeus)

Lord Archeus is the leader of the faction. He isn't quite in the game yet, only references. But well, I have a lot of plans and notes you see...

**EDIT** 1/3
Spoiler
(http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/12/aVOSkIC.gif)
[close]

Oh my! Just realized you were not grouped in and properly thanked for your feedback in my first response post! Thought I had! Very sorry about that, especially considering the hilarious gif!   :(
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on December 31, 2017, 09:49:12 AM
"  - >   Smaller weapons, more weapons per ship- designed to mimic a cinematic combat experience inspired by the Star Wars movies."

Me: DOWNLOAD FASTER YOU STUPID POTATO OF A COMPUTER!!!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Thaago on December 31, 2017, 11:55:47 AM
Woooo! I am very excited to try this!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Ahne on December 31, 2017, 01:39:39 PM
Looks very interesting and fresh, will test it in the next year ;)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Morrokain on December 31, 2017, 02:11:41 PM
Woooo! I am very excited to try this!
Looks very interesting and fresh, will test it in the next year ;)
"  - >   Smaller weapons, more weapons per ship- designed to mimic a cinematic combat experience inspired by the Star Wars movies."

Me: DOWNLOAD FASTER YOU STUPID POTATO OF A COMPUTER!!!

 :D

For those with older specs, please let me know if you are having performance issues, and preferably where -  campaign layer or combat - physical memory leaks/thrashing vs FPS drops - etc

I am debating scaling back or how much I can get away with things like:

 - Max battle size

 - Number of active faction bases/colonies using EZFaction

 - How is the first load time? Subsequent loads?

These things will let me get a good idea of the scope of future releases. Especially the viability of some of the fancier features to come.

Happy hunting!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on December 31, 2017, 11:25:26 PM
Wow, great work.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conversion: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat Mod (v1.0)
Post by: Morrokain on January 02, 2018, 12:08:34 AM
Wow, great work.
Thanks! Hope you are enjoying the mod!

Did a little play-testing today and realized the Cease-Fire and Bribery mechanics were not working as intended in certain situations.

Hot-fixed. Also added a small way to track bribes so that fleets shouldn't repeatedly request them if you continue to get yourself into combat scenarios after successfully bribing a fleet to disengage.

**Edit** This will not break saves. Just an update of rules.csv
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 02, 2018, 12:39:27 PM
After starting ~15 new games, I've decided to scale back the workload for EZFaction for the new factions.

The previous colony count per new faction was 6-8 before. This can sometimes create some pretty weird clustering situations and can even cause crashes if too many colonies are put in a system you don't catch it and re-roll the new game.

Eventually I want to custom generate faction colonies myself, but in the meantime I have changed the count to 3-4 per faction (so roughly halved them) and this has noticeably improved campaign performance and the clustering issues are at least greatly reduced if not completely solved.

This will, unfortunately, require new games to be made to see the changes- but shouldn't break existing saves. If you were having the above issues, this should help!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: MesoTroniK on January 02, 2018, 03:28:34 PM
Why not hand place more content, and make the proc gen placement stuff just a small fraction of the overall campaign rig?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 02, 2018, 03:56:20 PM
Why not hand place more content, and make the proc gen placement stuff just a small fraction of the overall campaign rig?

That is indeed the plan!  :) Working on it as soon as the tutorial is done, but just didn't have time so far to hand-implement everything. But from my experience editing the tutorial I can fairly confidently say I have the technical capability to do so and will in the very near future. The only thing I may need to fiddle with is hooking them up to the economy reliably.

The current implementation is a "scale-able" placeholder. It's partly to get a feedback sample from the community on other aspects and begin to make the final design on the number of strongholds per faction.

I also am going to see if interest is there for some collaboration from artists on more custom portraits (especially for the Trader Guilds) and, more importantly, background illustrations instead of the placeholders and story illustrations.

I don't know if I'm there yet with my paint.net capabilities.  ::)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Thaago on January 02, 2018, 04:43:40 PM
Ok! Review from just an hour of playtime (and reading your manual):

I chose the Wolf and Drone Tender start, and immediately bought a Condor-H and a Steady carrier officer (level 3). A rather nice find in the starting Corvus black market. Skills are Combat 1 with Defensive subsytems and Impact Mitigation.

Loadouts:
Spoiler

Drone Tender: Default.

Wolf armed with: Starting set, took off the + burn speed engine mod to add stabilized shields and 2 more caps.

The condor is armed with: A Retribution, a Talon, a mass driver and dual autocannon facing forwards, a salamander and 2 bolas, 1 point defense gun forwards and 2 machine guns backwards. 12 Caps, 5 Vents
[close]


First impressions, in no particular order:

I like the long delay, long range skimmer. Weapon placement on the Wolf is nice, as is the Condor - I really like the more, smaller mounts on ships that I've seen. Missile balance is nice - a lot of HE burst from swarmers, but they rely on the target having PD and shields down or they do nothing. Bola SRM's on the Condor are surprisingly effective! Really a nice little missile, and your balance of refire time vs reload speed is really good.

Piloting the Wolf so far is quite boring. None of the weapons on it take flux except the swarmers and my dissipation quickly takes care of that, so I don't need to dart in and out of combat to vent (no flux management). Its 'combat speed' is only 70, so if I'm not travelling (larger 0 flux bonus) its very sluggish. I just kind of sit near an enemy pointing near them until they die, which takes a while due to higher armor and lower dps. And the guns fire slowly, so there isn't much to look at either :P.  The enemy, just pirates so far, don't have anything that pressures the (7400 with .85 efficiency) shield very well, and with everything doing so little damage/having a long refire timer I can just vent at 700 range or so and take like 5 armor damage if I'm feeling lazy. Or use a skimmer charge and pop away if I'm feeling like not risking it. The Wolf does have the same deployment cost as the Condor, so maybe its just supposed to be a very powerful ship compared to pirates? Whatever the case, there's just nothing for me as a pilot to do while using it.

I did have one good fight where I was very outnumbered and I was trying to take down a kite - it could dodge every shot from the pulse cannons at medium range and was faster than me so I needed to skim on top of it repeatedly without getting fragged by its missiles. That was a good interaction.

The 'shields up reduces passive venting too' hasn't effected me at all yet, will reserve judgement.

The fighters make things more interesting, and I quite like all of the different kinds you've made. I really like how they have defined roles, and I really like how every cruiser has fighter bays, though I haven't been in any combats with cruisers yet. The fighters themselves are moderately effective, though as with everything their overall DPS is low. Certainly the Condor loadout above can smack around pirates with ease. From reading your manual, I think that the fighter update from a few versions ago pre-empted a lot of your fighter changes - speeds and wing sizes seem similar to vanilla. Balance is a bit better than vanilla imo and the few carriers I've tangled with were not overpowered, perhaps because they didn't have good escorts.

Smaller fighter size + low hitpoints works great! PD weapons are good at their roles without being effective in ship to ship combat, while the slow projectile speed of main guns makes them ineffective unless in a great big barrage.

Weapons:
Visuals, descriptions, and relative balance of power seem good from what I've seen so far (and I already said I liked the missiles and fighters). I am skeptical of having entire classes of weapons with 0 flux - but I also understand that that is how you are differentiating 'assault' type weapons from 'fire support' type weapons. Looking at my starting Wolf, I really think the ship would be a flat 50% stronger if I took out the forward PD and replaced it with another pulse cannon - there's no flux usage to balance around. You did say in your manual that specialization is important, so is this just a manifestation of that? Removing the flux management of SS combat contributes to dull frigate combat, but I'll wait to see how big ship play turns out.


Suggestions:
Hard to make because I haven't played much and don't know the larger ships, but... double frigate offense or half their defense? Higher speed? More weapon mounts for frigates in general?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Thaago on January 02, 2018, 05:25:56 PM
Quick bug note: Eisheth II has 0 population listed on the map and on the star info page, but is a pop 5 planet. It also has very very few things for sale.

Setup bug?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 02, 2018, 05:32:34 PM
Spoiler
Ok! Review from just an hour of playtime (and reading your manual):

I chose the Wolf and Drone Tender start, and immediately bought a Condor-H and a Steady carrier officer (level 3). A rather nice find in the starting Corvus black market. Skills are Combat 1 with Defensive subsytems and Impact Mitigation.

Loadouts:
Spoiler

Drone Tender: Default.

Wolf armed with: Starting set, took off the + burn speed engine mod to add stabilized shields and 2 more caps.

The condor is armed with: A Retribution, a Talon, a mass driver and dual autocannon facing forwards, a salamander and 2 bolas, 1 point defense gun forwards and 2 machine guns backwards. 12 Caps, 5 Vents
[close]


First impressions, in no particular order:

I like the long delay, long range skimmer. Weapon placement on the Wolf is nice, as is the Condor - I really like the more, smaller mounts on ships that I've seen. Missile balance is nice - a lot of HE burst from swarmers, but they rely on the target having PD and shields down or they do nothing. Bola SRM's on the Condor are surprisingly effective! Really a nice little missile, and your balance of refire time vs reload speed is really good.

Piloting the Wolf so far is quite boring. None of the weapons on it take flux except the swarmers and my dissipation quickly takes care of that, so I don't need to dart in and out of combat to vent (no flux management). Its 'combat speed' is only 70, so if I'm not travelling (larger 0 flux bonus) its very sluggish. I just kind of sit near an enemy pointing near them until they die, which takes a while due to higher armor and lower dps. And the guns fire slowly, so there isn't much to look at either :P.  The enemy, just pirates so far, don't have anything that pressures the (7400 with .85 efficiency) shield very well, and with everything doing so little damage/having a long refire timer I can just vent at 700 range or so and take like 5 armor damage if I'm feeling lazy. Or use a skimmer charge and pop away if I'm feeling like not risking it. The Wolf does have the same deployment cost as the Condor, so maybe its just supposed to be a very powerful ship compared to pirates? Whatever the case, there's just nothing for me as a pilot to do while using it.

I did have one good fight where I was very outnumbered and I was trying to take down a kite - it could dodge every shot from the pulse cannons at medium range and was faster than me so I needed to skim on top of it repeatedly without getting fragged by its missiles. That was a good interaction.

The 'shields up reduces passive venting too' hasn't effected me at all yet, will reserve judgement.

The fighters make things more interesting, and I quite like all of the different kinds you've made. I really like how they have defined roles, and I really like how every cruiser has fighter bays, though I haven't been in any combats with cruisers yet. The fighters themselves are moderately effective, though as with everything their overall DPS is low. Certainly the Condor loadout above can smack around pirates with ease. From reading your manual, I think that the fighter update from a few versions ago pre-empted a lot of your fighter changes - speeds and wing sizes seem similar to vanilla. Balance is a bit better than vanilla imo and the few carriers I've tangled with were not overpowered, perhaps because they didn't have good escorts.

Smaller fighter size + low hitpoints works great! PD weapons are good at their roles without being effective in ship to ship combat, while the slow projectile speed of main guns makes them ineffective unless in a great big barrage.

Weapons:
Visuals, descriptions, and relative balance of power seem good from what I've seen so far (and I already said I liked the missiles and fighters). I am skeptical of having entire classes of weapons with 0 flux - but I also understand that that is how you are differentiating 'assault' type weapons from 'fire support' type weapons. Looking at my starting Wolf, I really think the ship would be a flat 50% stronger if I took out the forward PD and replaced it with another pulse cannon - there's no flux usage to balance around. You did say in your manual that specialization is important, so is this just a manifestation of that? Removing the flux management of SS combat contributes to dull frigate combat, but I'll wait to see how big ship play turns out.


Suggestions:
Hard to make because I haven't played much and don't know the larger ships, but... double frigate offense or half their defense? Higher speed? More weapon mounts for frigates in general?
[close]

Thank you very much for your feedback and experiences!  :)

I am glad you are liking the general feel of the balance so far and appreciate your feedback on the sluggishness of frigate combat.

- I have to admit, I spent the greatest amount of time on the feel of medium-large scale engagements that tend to at least have destroyers in them, not just frigates. So that may be something I need to keep track of. Let me know if you continue to feel this way after further play-testing and trying on some of the harder, faster opponents!
 
- Speaking of that, if you are looking for a challenge, you may want to consider fighting something other than Pirates or Independents. They are the weakest factions by quite a large margin and more there for the new player than the experienced wolf pilot. (In AI battles, just about any other faction absolutely massacres pirates unless extremely outnumbered!)

- The Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Elite Guild Mercs, and especially Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium will give you a run for your money, I think.  ;)

Keep me posted on the general flux management feel. It was designed to be slightly less about player-ship flux management and more about tactics - which is why I made command points more accessible (I'm pretty sure). I'm hoping this proves to be the case but definitely keep the feedback coming!

Quick bug note: Eisheth II has 0 population listed on the map and on the star info page, but is a pop 5 planet. It also has very very few things for sale.

Setup bug?

Hmm. Care to post a screenshot? Is that an EZFaction colony? It may be a bug with that mod. I don't know any changes I would make that should affect populations yet. I have only hand crafted a single market in Galatia: Eldrus

(And that is more for the tutorial story even though it is currently functional.)

**Edit: Also, if it is an EZFaction colony, where did you get your copy of that mod? My download or Xeno's? It may be that I have an outdated version here, haven't checked for an update in a couple weeks.  :-X
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 02, 2018, 10:18:45 PM
The safety overrides hullmod says it reduces weapon range beyond null units
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 02, 2018, 10:50:12 PM
The safety overrides hullmod says it reduces weapon range beyond null units

Thanks! Looked into it and it looks like it's a tool-tip error.

It hopefully should still reduce the range beyond 450 substantially.

I'll get that fixed before the next release.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 02, 2018, 11:33:16 PM
I've been getting crashes when selecting some systems from the intel screen map.


Pretty sure the code below is the crash log.
Spoiler
28316 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.void.return$new(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.afterSizeFirstChanged(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.sizeChanged(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO0O.set(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.thisnew.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.j.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.O0oO.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if$7.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if.setCurrentTab(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.showCoreUITab(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.A.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.Objectsuper.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.V.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 03, 2018, 01:18:54 AM
I've been getting crashes when selecting some systems from the intel screen map.


Pretty sure the code below is the crash log.
Spoiler
28316 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.void.return$new(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.afterSizeFirstChanged(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.sizeChanged(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO0O.set(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.thisnew.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.j.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.O0oO.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if$7.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if.setCurrentTab(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.showCoreUITab(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.A.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.Objectsuper.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.V.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

Based on: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12504.75 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12504.75)

Trashman was having similar errors on the intel screen when using EZFaction. Should have been fixed in a later release.

Doesn't mean that is for sure what is going on, but to clarify everything and create a control I will try and separate Archean Order from EZFaction in the next ~month or so If I have time.

I'll create faction colonies with custom plugins and that will provide me a better idea if something I've done messed up the proc gen or its the support mod. In the meantime, I apologize for the inconvenience!

Possible solutions:
- to be absolutely sure, I re-downloaded and re-uploaded the most current version of EZFaction in case you got it from my link. Make sure you have the current version. (You will probably have to generate a new game to know for sure :-[ )

- If that still doesn't work, as a workaround I notice it doesn't happen (as often) when using the starmap screen- at least for me. I use that primarily and have only encountered that error a couple times and those were before the fix.

Help that helps!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on January 03, 2018, 11:28:21 AM
Right. I have used Console commands to get ships since I am lazy. I also haven't gotten into any decent fights (though I recommend waiting a little on that. After I post this, I am going back in to get said big fight) that actually push my to do more than "Charge in, Murder" with my Pillager. I will say that a swarm of 5+ squadrons of Talon's is...shockingly effective vs my Pillager's PD. It has half of its small slots filled with MG's, and the other half Point defense (and at one point all point defense...which was slightly less effective). One flak at the back too...And I have found a stupid amount of XIV ships in Hegemony markets. o.o

Last thing I want to say before I start getting into fights: I LOVE THE WEAPON SPAM!!! You have truly shown the Star Wars inspired side of this mod with that! ^^
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 03, 2018, 12:50:15 PM
Right. I have used Console commands to get ships since I am lazy. I also haven't gotten into any decent fights (though I recommend waiting a little on that. After I post this, I am going back in to get said big fight) that actually push my to do more than "Charge in, Murder" with my Pillager. I will say that a swarm of 5+ squadrons of Talon's is...shockingly effective vs my Pillager's PD. It has half of its small slots filled with MG's, and the other half Point defense (and at one point all point defense...which was slightly less effective). One flak at the back too...And I have found a stupid amount of XIV ships in Hegemony markets. o.o

Last thing I want to say before I start getting into fights: I LOVE THE WEAPON SPAM!!! You have truly shown the Star Wars inspired side of this mod with that! ^^

Thank you for your feedback! The Pillager is one of my favorite ships.  ;D

The Point Defense Cannon is slightly better against missiles and bombers, the machine gun is slightly better against faster threats like interceptors. So combining the two actually is the optimal way to go since they play off each others strengths! (Also the machine gun is probably best in class at finishing off "almost kills" from larger per shot weapons that fire slowly- so it is just nice to have a couple regardless.)


I have tried to make all point defense options synergize this way-
 good at least in some scenarios: investing in additional ordinance points to increase effectiveness- but combining different kinds of weapons increases effectiveness more than only focusing on only one type.

As to Talons being good at pure point defense, since you tend to have a lot more interceptors as a whole to potentially work with, you need an interceptor screen from your own fighter bays defending your capitals as well if you are outnumbered. Otherwise enemy fighters will eventually disable your turrets and keep your engines offline. Then you're in real trouble if a strike ship shows up. Well, that's the idea anyway.

What I am very pleased with is how much the AI seems to understand this. I am always so impressed with this game's ability to just roll with things that way. lol

**Edit** Missed your note on XIV ships! Yes the Hegemony has rediscovered the ability to convert these hulls. ;) All Hegemony ships are now either "XIV" which means modeled after that battle-group with relevant stats or reinforced civilian auxiliaries like the Heg Hound and Cerebus. So most vessels found in Hegemony markets have their mark on it. They are also quite expensive compared to their standard counterparts.

Standard hulls are still found in Heg markets, but also predominantly in the black market and independent markets- since to me that's what would make sense from an immersion perspective.

Don't be fooled, however, that doesn't mean you get the best finds with the Hegemony by any means. Other factions' vessels are just as powerful and can come with their own stat modifiers. Mid-tech and Hi-tech vessels tend to not have these, but factions who use those vessels also can have conversions of lower tech ships to entice you. Not to mention their weapons and fighters.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on January 03, 2018, 07:32:11 PM
Right. I have used Console commands to get ships since I am lazy. I also haven't gotten into any decent fights (though I recommend waiting a little on that. After I post this, I am going back in to get said big fight) that actually push my to do more than "Charge in, Murder" with my Pillager. I will say that a swarm of 5+ squadrons of Talon's is...shockingly effective vs my Pillager's PD. It has half of its small slots filled with MG's, and the other half Point defense (and at one point all point defense...which was slightly less effective). One flak at the back too...And I have found a stupid amount of XIV ships in Hegemony markets. o.o

Last thing I want to say before I start getting into fights: I LOVE THE WEAPON SPAM!!! You have truly shown the Star Wars inspired side of this mod with that! ^^

Thank you for your feedback! The Pillager is one of my favorite ships.  ;D

The Point Defense Cannon is slightly better against missiles and bombers, the machine gun is slightly better against faster threats like interceptors. So combining the two actually is the optimal way to go since they play off each others strengths! (Also the machine gun is probably best in class at finishing off "almost kills" from larger per shot weapons that fire slowly- so it is just nice to have a couple regardless.)


I have tried to make all point defense options synergize this way-
 good at least in some scenarios: investing in additional ordinance points to increase effectiveness- but combining different kinds of weapons increases effectiveness more than only focusing on only one type.

As to Talons being good at pure point defense, since you tend to have a lot more interceptors as a whole to potentially work with, you need an interceptor screen from your own fighter bays defending your capitals as well if you are outnumbered. Otherwise enemy fighters will eventually disable your turrets and keep your engines offline. Then you're in real trouble if a strike ship shows up. Well, that's the idea anyway.

What I am very pleased with is how much the AI seems to understand this. I am always so impressed with this game's ability to just roll with things that way. lol

**Edit** Missed your note on XIV ships! Yes the Hegemony has rediscovered the ability to convert these hulls. ;) All Hegemony ships are now either "XIV" which means modeled after that battle-group with relevant stats or reinforced civilian auxiliaries like the Heg Hound and Cerebus. So most vessels found in Hegemony markets have their mark on it. They are also quite expensive compared to their standard counterparts.

Standard hulls are still found in Heg markets, but also predominantly in the black market and independent markets- since to me that's what would make sense from an immersion perspective.

Don't be fooled, however, that doesn't mean you get the best finds with the Hegemony by any means. Other factions' vessels are just as powerful and can come with their own stat modifiers. Mid-tech and Hi-tech vessels tend to not have these, but factions who use those vessels also can have conversions of lower tech ships to entice you. Not to mention their weapons and fighters.
Wait...so Talon span on my 4 falcons and 1 eagle would be useful? (evil thoughts) So the MG's and Talons are no longer useless! BULLET SPAM HERE I COME!!!

Anyway, got a...decent fight. Gonna use the Spoiler thing to make this a smaller reply.
Onslaught
Spoiler
Glad to see the Onslaught can still delete most cruisers...Though I still prefer my TPL's, the Term beams are better for me since I have bad projectile aim. Still need to edit my build, but to do that I need a large kinetic weapon that doesn't have a range of 800 meters. Curse my luck!
Besides that, putting a MG and PD mix into all the small slots, and FLAK in all the medium slots is extremely strong and gives a defense that requires 4 squadrons to last more than 10 seconds against. Who needs a Paragon level shield when you have a stupid amount of armor, a stupid amount of HP, and a stupid amount of guns! I do think I would prefer to have the Burn drive over the AAF however, 90 is okay for speed, but it takes a while to get anywhere. Pretty much have to bring it in first, or not at all.
[close]

PD weapons
Spoiler
I did some testing, and they seem...pretty bloody balanced,
but seem to have a hard time actually hitting targets that are strafing. This may be a Vanilla problem, but thought I'd say it just in case. Either way, glad to see they are pretty much worthless against anything larger than a bomber.
[close]

Missiles
Spoiler
Once again fairly balanced. However, it seems that when they are countered, they are countered hard. It is almost impossible to get even large swarms of harpoons through a even larger swarm of...every fighter that has ever been made? Cut me some slack darn it, they look like tiny bloody dots!
[close]

Fighters
Spoiler
I'm gonna sum this one up easily, and quickly.

(in refit screen)
"I have some pretty good PD across my entire fleet! This should be easy!"
(in battle)
"HOLY F***ING MOTHER OF GOD THAT IS A LOT OF DOT SHAPED FIGHTERS!"
[close]


That's all I will say for now. I need to play more in order to give more feedback, but everything I have faced so far has been very balanced...
Spoiler
I just don't want to have my entire ship lose all of its PD because the enemy wave of fighters decided to do a bloody flyby of my ship with guns blazing!!!
[close]
...At least the mod is darn fun...GIVE ME YOUR DROID CONTROL SHIP/MEGALITH DARN YOU AI!

**Edit**
DHDBUS FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW MANY SHIPS YOU CAN BRING IN!!!...And the number of fighters you can get in a battle.

Number of ships you can bring in
Spoiler
THAT IS A LOT OF POTENTIAL ONSLAUGHTS I COULD SEND INTO BATTLE...DO YOU KNOW HOW OP THAT CAN BE!? And not just the Onslaught,
Cap ships in general.  The Paragon is be far the strongest ship in Vanilla, and my testing showed it carried into here among the Vanilla ships.
I doubt the AI will do Cap Spam, but the player almost certainly will. I recommend keeping the cruisers the same in Deployment Cost, but make the Deployment Cost of the Cap ships more around that of Vanilla...or maybe just double what it is now. That should keep Cap Spam from being AS viable, as the player should face about 4 cruisers per cap ship, with escort. Though that one should be debated a little, as I do go more for effect.
[close]

Fighter Numbers
Spoiler
My computer is an absolute potato and should never be used to play starsector, but the number of fighters the Falcons can put out is ridiculously overpowered when you think about fleet battles. A Hegemony fleet could have maybe 5 cruisers with around 2 bays each,
totalling 10...Combined with Caps, and other carriers. That is around a Vanilla size fleet...The fleets in this mod have the potential to be bigger, and can easily lag out major computers. I suggest not having any bays for Light cruisers, one for Heavy cruisers, and whatever for Cap ships.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 03, 2018, 09:49:29 PM
Spoiler
Wait...so Talon span on my 4 falcons and 1 eagle would be useful? (evil thoughts) So the MG's and Talons are no longer useless! BULLET SPAM HERE I COME!!!

Anyway, got a...decent fight. Gonna use the Spoiler thing to make this a smaller reply.
Onslaught
Spoiler
Glad to see the Onslaught can still delete most cruisers...Though I still prefer my TPL's, the Term beams are better for me since I have bad projectile aim. Still need to edit my build, but to do that I need a large kinetic weapon that doesn't have a range of 800 meters. Curse my luck!
Besides that, putting a MG and PD mix into all the small slots, and FLAK in all the medium slots is extremely strong and gives a defense that requires 4 squadrons to last more than 10 seconds against. Who needs a Paragon level shield when you have a stupid amount of armor, a stupid amount of HP, and a stupid amount of guns! I do think I would prefer to have the Burn drive over the AAF however, 90 is okay for speed, but it takes a while to get anywhere. Pretty much have to bring it in first, or not at all.
[close]

PD weapons
Spoiler
I did some testing, and they seem...pretty bloody balanced,
but seem to have a hard time actually hitting targets that are strafing. This may be a Vanilla problem, but thought I'd say it just in case. Either way, glad to see they are pretty much worthless against anything larger than a bomber.
[close]

Missiles
Spoiler
Once again fairly balanced. However, it seems that when they are countered, they are countered hard. It is almost impossible to get even large swarms of harpoons through a even larger swarm of...every fighter that has ever been made? Cut me some slack darn it, they look like tiny bloody dots!
[close]

Fighters
Spoiler
I'm gonna sum this one up easily, and quickly.

(in refit screen)
"I have some pretty good PD across my entire fleet! This should be easy!"
(in battle)
"HOLY F***ING MOTHER OF GOD THAT IS A LOT OF DOT SHAPED FIGHTERS!"
[close]


That's all I will say for now. I need to play more in order to give more feedback, but everything I have faced so far has been very balanced...
Spoiler
I just don't want to have my entire ship lose all of its PD because the enemy wave of fighters decided to do a bloody flyby of my ship with guns blazing!!!
[close]
...At least the mod is darn fun...GIVE ME YOUR DROID CONTROL SHIP/MEGALITH DARN YOU AI!

**Edit**
DHDBUS FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW MANY SHIPS YOU CAN BRING IN!!!...And the number of fighters you can get in a battle.

Number of ships you can bring in
Spoiler
THAT IS A LOT OF POTENTIAL ONSLAUGHTS I COULD SEND INTO BATTLE...DO YOU KNOW HOW OP THAT CAN BE!? And not just the Onslaught,
Cap ships in general.  The Paragon is be far the strongest ship in Vanilla, and my testing showed it carried into here among the Vanilla ships.
I doubt the AI will do Cap Spam, but the player almost certainly will. I recommend keeping the cruisers the same in Deployment Cost, but make the Deployment Cost of the Cap ships more around that of Vanilla...or maybe just double what it is now. That should keep Cap Spam from being AS viable, as the player should face about 4 cruisers per cap ship, with escort. Though that one should be debated a little, as I do go more for effect.
[close]

Fighter Numbers
Spoiler
My computer is an absolute potato and should never be used to play starsector, but the number of fighters the Falcons can put out is ridiculously overpowered when you think about fleet battles. A Hegemony fleet could have maybe 5 cruisers with around 2 bays each,
totalling 10...Combined with Caps, and other carriers. That is around a Vanilla size fleet...The fleets in this mod have the potential to be bigger, and can easily lag out major computers. I suggest not having any bays for Light cruisers, one for Heavy cruisers, and whatever for Cap ships.
[close]
[close]
I'm glad it feels balanced so far! It was the largest and hardest part of development, along with sprite editing. I pretty much had to re-invent the wheel with load-outs.

**EDIT** As to Harpoons, I'll keep track to see if an increase in hit-points is necessary. It is a finisher weapon for overloaded ships, so ideally it only excels with minimal PD- hence its speed, low maneuverability.

I think I tried to make it more durable and it makes the weapon ridiculously OP due to its speed. A couple hit points can be the difference between it always getting through frigates and destroyer PD... and that makes those ships worthless to large spam of the missile since it hits like a truck.

Advice: try combining it with missiles like the Locust, torpedoes or a couple pd frigates to create some pandemonium first.

Always try and avoid firing into heavy interceptor swarms, however. They actually will suicide into the missile as a last resort to protect their carrier, so even if it get's through the pd sometimes it can be frustratingly denied. Happened to me too many times for it not to be a thing, and the faster ones are shockingly good at it.  :-X

I consider it a necessary evil considering all missiles have infinite ammo.


I also definitely get some of your concerns regarding performance due to fighter spam. I have gone back and forth on how many I want per battle a couple times now, and some tweaking and pruning may be in order here and there. I'll look a little more into it, but to be fair, I AM going for:  ;D ;)

https://youtu.be/xPZigWFyK2o?t=2m3s (https://youtu.be/xPZigWFyK2o?t=2m3s)

https://youtu.be/hlecG3nYaLw?t=32s (https://youtu.be/hlecG3nYaLw?t=32s)


All jokes aside, though, perhaps a little higher deployment cost for capitals and a reduction in battle size? I don't want to go chopping away at fighter bays just yet, because ships actually are balanced around them. For what it costs to deploy a Falcon, two bays isn't all that much when you consider ships like... the Osprey, for example. The pirate version of that is less than a supply to deploy and its pretty much just a flying, broken, sad flight deck.  :P

The reason for the deployment costs being low is actually more to do with economy than wanting a ton of ships per battle. It's super difficult tricky to mess with the price of- say- supplies, so if I want a certain feel to both progression speed as well as the "punishment feeling" of suddenly needing more supplies due to defensive deployments or E-burns, I have to reduce those costs another way.

That was one of the reasons I felt Vanilla really needed a way to requisition aid and resources from NPC fleets. As a newbie I often found myself adrift- or went for a bounty, got  stranded or lost a fight and had to flee, and lost everything. It seemed a little unforgiving for new players, even with the tutorial giving you a foot-hold. That was something I intended to address both with lower deployments costs in general (especially to start) and the fleet dialogue features.

Every time, I thought: "Hey look, there's a Hegemony trade fleet, loaded with supplies... but, I'm a nice guy, loyal and all that... so I can't just take them. Why is not a single soul within this organization that I've been fighting pirates for for cycles now friendly enough to help me out or even just sell me some emergency supplies at a mark-up?"

So, I built a system to do just that. Speaking of which... ok, ok, I'll stoop to fishing: Anyone try that out yet? I know Cease-fire is still a little buggy. It's surprisingly hard to get hostile/vengeful fleets to not want to blast you away.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on January 04, 2018, 08:05:51 AM
Spoiler
Wait...so Talon span on my 4 falcons and 1 eagle would be useful? (evil thoughts) So the MG's and Talons are no longer useless! BULLET SPAM HERE I COME!!!

Anyway, got a...decent fight. Gonna use the Spoiler thing to make this a smaller reply.
Onslaught
Spoiler
Glad to see the Onslaught can still delete most cruisers...Though I still prefer my TPL's, the Term beams are better for me since I have bad projectile aim. Still need to edit my build, but to do that I need a large kinetic weapon that doesn't have a range of 800 meters. Curse my luck!
Besides that, putting a MG and PD mix into all the small slots, and FLAK in all the medium slots is extremely strong and gives a defense that requires 4 squadrons to last more than 10 seconds against. Who needs a Paragon level shield when you have a stupid amount of armor, a stupid amount of HP, and a stupid amount of guns! I do think I would prefer to have the Burn drive over the AAF however, 90 is okay for speed, but it takes a while to get anywhere. Pretty much have to bring it in first, or not at all.
[close]

PD weapons
Spoiler
I did some testing, and they seem...pretty bloody balanced,
but seem to have a hard time actually hitting targets that are strafing. This may be a Vanilla problem, but thought I'd say it just in case. Either way, glad to see they are pretty much worthless against anything larger than a bomber.
[close]

Missiles
Spoiler
Once again fairly balanced. However, it seems that when they are countered, they are countered hard. It is almost impossible to get even large swarms of harpoons through a even larger swarm of...every fighter that has ever been made? Cut me some slack darn it, they look like tiny bloody dots!
[close]

Fighters
Spoiler
I'm gonna sum this one up easily, and quickly.

(in refit screen)
"I have some pretty good PD across my entire fleet! This should be easy!"
(in battle)
"HOLY F***ING MOTHER OF GOD THAT IS A LOT OF DOT SHAPED FIGHTERS!"
[close]


That's all I will say for now. I need to play more in order to give more feedback, but everything I have faced so far has been very balanced...
Spoiler
I just don't want to have my entire ship lose all of its PD because the enemy wave of fighters decided to do a bloody flyby of my ship with guns blazing!!!
[close]
...At least the mod is darn fun...GIVE ME YOUR DROID CONTROL SHIP/MEGALITH DARN YOU AI!

**Edit**
DHDBUS FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW MANY SHIPS YOU CAN BRING IN!!!...And the number of fighters you can get in a battle.

Number of ships you can bring in
Spoiler
THAT IS A LOT OF POTENTIAL ONSLAUGHTS I COULD SEND INTO BATTLE...DO YOU KNOW HOW OP THAT CAN BE!? And not just the Onslaught,
Cap ships in general.  The Paragon is be far the strongest ship in Vanilla, and my testing showed it carried into here among the Vanilla ships.
I doubt the AI will do Cap Spam, but the player almost certainly will. I recommend keeping the cruisers the same in Deployment Cost, but make the Deployment Cost of the Cap ships more around that of Vanilla...or maybe just double what it is now. That should keep Cap Spam from being AS viable, as the player should face about 4 cruisers per cap ship, with escort. Though that one should be debated a little, as I do go more for effect.
[close]

Fighter Numbers
Spoiler
My computer is an absolute potato and should never be used to play starsector, but the number of fighters the Falcons can put out is ridiculously overpowered when you think about fleet battles. A Hegemony fleet could have maybe 5 cruisers with around 2 bays each,
totalling 10...Combined with Caps, and other carriers. That is around a Vanilla size fleet...The fleets in this mod have the potential to be bigger, and can easily lag out major computers. I suggest not having any bays for Light cruisers, one for Heavy cruisers, and whatever for Cap ships.
[close]
[close]
I'm glad it feels balanced so far! It was the largest and hardest part of development, along with sprite editing. I pretty much had to re-invent the wheel with load-outs.

**EDIT** As to Harpoons, I'll keep track to see if an increase in hit-points is necessary. It is a finisher weapon for overloaded ships, so ideally it only excels with minimal PD- hence its speed, low maneuverability.

I think I tried to make it more durable and it makes the weapon ridiculously OP due to its speed. A couple hit points can be the difference between it always getting through frigates and destroyer PD... and that makes those ships worthless to large spam of the missile since it hits like a truck.

Advice: try combining it with missiles like the Locust, torpedoes or a couple pd frigates to create some pandemonium first.

Always try and avoid firing into heavy interceptor swarms, however. They actually will suicide into the missile as a last resort to protect their carrier, so even if it get's through the pd sometimes it can be frustratingly denied. Happened to me too many times for it not to be a thing, and the faster ones are shockingly good at it.  :-X

I consider it a necessary evil considering all missiles have infinite ammo.


I also definitely get some of your concerns regarding performance due to fighter spam. I have gone back and forth on how many I want per battle a couple times now, and some tweaking and pruning may be in order here and there. I'll look a little more into it, but to be fair, I AM going for:  ;D ;)

https://youtu.be/xPZigWFyK2o?t=2m3s (https://youtu.be/xPZigWFyK2o?t=2m3s)

https://youtu.be/hlecG3nYaLw?t=32s (https://youtu.be/hlecG3nYaLw?t=32s)


All jokes aside, though, perhaps a little higher deployment cost for capitals and a reduction in battle size? I don't want to go chopping away at fighter bays just yet, because ships actually are balanced around them. For what it costs to deploy a Falcon, two bays isn't all that much when you consider ships like... the Osprey, for example. The pirate version of that is less than a supply to deploy and its pretty much just a flying, broken, sad flight deck.  :P

The reason for the deployment costs being low is actually more to do with economy than wanting a ton of ships per battle. It's super difficult tricky to mess with the price of- say- supplies, so if I want a certain feel to both progression speed as well as the "punishment feeling" of suddenly needing more supplies due to defensive deployments or E-burns, I have to reduce those costs another way.

That was one of the reasons I felt Vanilla really needed a way to requisition aid and resources from NPC fleets. As a newbie I often found myself adrift- or went for a bounty, got  stranded or lost a fight and had to flee, and lost everything. It seemed a little unforgiving for new players, even with the tutorial giving you a foot-hold. That was something I intended to address both with lower deployments costs in general (especially to start) and the fleet dialogue features.

Every time, I thought: "Hey look, there's a Hegemony trade fleet, loaded with supplies... but, I'm a nice guy, loyal and all that... so I can't just take them. Why is not a single soul within this organization that I've been fighting pirates for for cycles now friendly enough to help me out or even just sell me some emergency supplies at a mark-up?"

So, I built a system to do just that. Speaking of which... ok, ok, I'll stoop to fishing: Anyone try that out yet? I know Cease-fire is still a little buggy. It's surprisingly hard to get hostile/vengeful fleets to not want to blast you away.
I understand not firing into interceptor swarms (Though that explains the suicidal Talons). Problem is, the number of fighters on the field make it hard to see if it is safe to fire or not...That actually bring an idea to mind. Why not make it fire 4 harpoons that individually do less damage, but combined do the same? There is a missile weapon (not sure if Vanilla or not) that fires 4 missiles very quickly, but each one constantly twists and turns to make it more difficult to block/intercept. It does less damage, but I VASTLY prefer it to literally every other missile out there.

Cap ship deployment increase definitely, but a decrease in battle size isn't AS necessary as you can put a hard limit to it in the Game options. I don't normally play long enough to deal with the Economy aspect (Command Console FTW!), but I can see what you mean.

I will immediately test to see if the cease fire thingamajig works for me!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 05, 2018, 10:26:04 AM
Considering Fighters are less Valuable than the ships they are protecting, I can entirely justifying them suiciding.

-----
I've liked the mod so far, however, some issues/comments/suggestions

having trouble telling weapon sizes at a glance. Presumably the icon size scales the same as they do in the refit screen and game screen, but I currently have trouble distinguishing medium from small. I'll get used to it eventually. I also don't recognize half the icons, so yea...

There are only a few small strike weapons. Probably ought to be more. (Found burst lasers early on, quite impressive)
There don't seem to be any small support weapons. I thought the support weapons were the longer ranged, low damage ones. Quite a few, like railgun, were what I expected in this group.
The "Photon Cannon" probably was supposed to be a support weapon, given the tooltip and that it wasn't in vanilla, but costs no flux.

Ammunition limits with regeneration added back in are great. I immediately started using extended magazines again. 24 burst-laser shots are quite nasty. Do most strike weapons use ammo?
Regenerating missiles are also cool. Small clips of 1-3 missiles, holding 1-6 of them is interesting. Given the increase in point defense in general, missiles are a lot more common.

If they don't, ship systems like Flares should also regenerate (and maybe have a cap of 2 instead of 5)

Had fun with a few new weapon types. The shotgun missile is cool, not really sure if it gives anything over alternates.

Zero-flux assault weapons. Interesting approach. However, given that 90% of the weapons I have been able to use seem to be zero-flux, it means that flux is pretty much shield until you have medium weapons, or get lucky and find burst lasers, mortar, etc. Not sure if this is intended. Either way, at least it makes shields stronger in general.

Some frigates, like the hound and wolf seem to have lost their medium weapon slot, which is kind of disappointing. The idea here is to have more, smaller, weapon slots however, so that makes sense. The wolf has more slots in general, and the wolf has those crappy PD drones. Shame that I have trouble finding ships that can carry all the medium weapons around now though, and the lack of support/strike small weapons hurts that.

Found the mining laser. Its medium instead of small now (kinda sensible) and does way more damage. Thought it was a small weapon looking at it (because of the rescale)

Some of the tooltips are wrong as to where they weight their power, I think. Would have to open the game and minimize to get the correct stats, but a doublecheck might be warented.

I'll reread the front page, but I think some of the weapons are too powerful for their assault role.

Assault - Short-Mid range, no flux, low-med damage. (In their face, using all flux for shields)
Support - mid-long range, low flux, low-med damage. (Pressure from a distance, also long-range missiles)
Strike - Short-mid range, mid-high flux, high damage. (Break heavy armor/shielding, requires external power supply from ship)

PD - Short-mid range, no flux, low damage, high accuracy/speed (Deal with missiles/fighters)

As least that was what I got from it when I read it last time.

Shield flux alterations. Not sure I understand it. Do shields not allow dissipating any flux? I didn't observe that. How exactly did the flux stats change to make weapon flux a problem if you have shields up vs vanilla?
I see. Shield upkeep is, for every ship, exactly equal to it's base flux dissipation. So, flux vents provide shield dissipation. If you have none, you can't dissipate at all.
More importantly, Stabilized shields are now significantly more powerful, given they have way more to work with. Interesting.

If you are screwing with weapon range, make sure you check Safety overrides base range. It might need to be adjusted, depending.
-----
Overall, having fun thus far.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 05, 2018, 12:59:05 PM
^ Wanted to quickly get on here and say I've seen these above posts and will respond to them soon- taking in feedback and I have several things in the works to address them, but also balancing work/career priorities!  ;)

More soon! ETA: by the end of the weekend?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 06, 2018, 07:02:04 AM
Guardian PD laser doesn't seem to be willing to fire unless you do it manually, which defeats the purpose. Not sure why.

----

I think the changes to the Flux system were the most interesting out of everything, honestly.
It seriously alters how you run a ship, and build it, for that matter.

In vanilla, while you try and get as many powerful weapons as you can, you also try and keep enough OP left over to get as many vents as you can, such that you, hopefully, have a surplus of dissipation so you can run your shields and fire all weapons.
Capacity helps, but is insignificant compared to dissipation in almost all cases.

Not so here. I actually sometimes go for capacity over vents entirely.

The flux-heavy weapons tend to use a LARGE chunk of flux in a short period of time, and getting capacity lets you unleash a very large attack. This comes at the cost of your shields being weakened. This is normal for starsector, but here, flux is more of a shield meter than a weapons meter.

Flux is far more linked to powerful weapons and shields than vanilla.

Being able to just hold shields up without worrying about it cutting into your normal weapons changes things. On the other hand, the, effectively, massive upkeep for shields forces you to drop them a lot more often. Increased armor stats helps with that as well.

The effect is Exaggerated if you have a flux weapon. Shield goes up, you fire off a powerful attack, your shields will only recover very slowly unless you drop them. In vanilla it can generally recover if you stop firing, or slow down at least. Here, not so much. Forces you to backoff after throwing a powerful blow, moreso than vanilla.
Oh, and run away from the swarm of fighters that jumps on you for daring to attack their charge.

Plus, the distinction between hard and soft flux is significantly reduced.

I would note that some ships have no shields, and since small weapons that use flux are currently very rare, it is quite possible to have a ship that doesn't use flux at all.
I've seen that in other mods, but here it is much more common.

Not really sure how to resolve that part, aside from adding more strike/support weapons, or converting existing ones.

-----

Missiles are a lot more fun, and feel like an active part of the game instead of trump cards. Being able to sustain missile fire, while it not being silly OP is quite fun.
Hunters are very nice support weapons, throwing missiles at massive flux cost. (Got a pair onto a Kite, which it can only just support)
A lot of missiles go for engines, which I suppose makes sense. Even non-EMP missiles.

-----
Magazines.
Strike, missile, support weapons seem to have magazines most of the time. If you have the flux to support them, grabbing the expanded ammo hull mods works great.
Missiles just being part of this category makes them less exotic, and being able to burst-fire followed by reloading changes the flow of combat.

I was surprised to learn that the Tachyon Lance now has a 60 second cooldown. Given it's power, I can't exactly disagree, given what firing 4 of them at an onslaught does (in the forlorn hope mission)

-----
Scaled weapons
I understand how this works better now.
In effect, you reclassified weapons. Small weapons either stayed small and got weaker/smaller, or were reclassified as medium. same as medium to large. And then you added in more extra-small weapons.
Now that I understand that it makes more sense.
-----
Intimidate
Not sure if intended, but trying to intimidate pirates tends to not work sometimes, because your reputation is bad. As in, hated. They refuse to help you. I'm not asking for help. I am threatening to kill them if they don't give up their cargo. A negative reputation should help there.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2018, 01:19:33 PM
Ok, so here's what's currently planned for the next release.  ;D

Next Patch Changes:

Content Additions

Bug Fixes and Design Improvements

Performance Improvements and Misc



The good news: After creating a control and clicking on every planet in the universe sector, I'm about 99% sure have isolated this error:
I've been getting crashes when selecting some systems from the intel screen map.


Pretty sure the code below is the crash log.
Spoiler
28316 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.void.return$new(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.afterSizeFirstChanged(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.sizeChanged(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO0O.set(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.thisnew.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.j.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.O0oO.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if$7.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if.setCurrentTab(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.showCoreUITab(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.A.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.Objectsuper.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.V.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

I have removed the EZFaction utility from being necessary to support the mod. As long as I don't add any markets myself, I don't get any crashes- and I've checked thoroughly. So the data in the mod itself is stable. It is something about adding markets (my educated hunch is adding them to planets in particular) that causes it.

Now for the bad news: I am still getting the crash when I add my own markets, so it's pretty easy to cause.  :P

So, I still need to isolate exactly what's causing it so I can safely avoid it when seeding the Core Worlds.

Putting individual feedback replies in spoilers to keep the post readable:

A Random Jolteon
Spoiler

I understand not firing into interceptor swarms (Though that explains the suicidal Talons). Problem is, the number of fighters on the field make it hard to see if it is safe to fire or not...That actually bring an idea to mind. Why not make it fire 4 harpoons that individually do less damage, but combined do the same? There is a missile weapon (not sure if Vanilla or not) that fires 4 missiles very quickly, but each one constantly twists and turns to make it more difficult to block/intercept. It does less damage, but I VASTLY prefer it to literally every other missile out there.

Cap ship deployment increase definitely, but a decrease in battle size isn't AS necessary as you can put a hard limit to it in the Game options. I don't normally play long enough to deal with the Economy aspect (Command Console FTW!), but I can see what you mean.

I will immediately test to see if the cease fire thingamajig works for me!

Going to increase cap deployment costs slightly, but also reduced max battle size to 300 and put the default on 150. This makes this run much smoother and honestly I'm not sure a PC is out there that would support a 500 battle size with the deployment costs and fighter changes. If I'm wrong, and a battle of that size is actually fun, let me know and I'll at least change the max back. I am lowering it for now to give what I can only assume are realistic expectations for what the mod can actually handle.

On Harpoon, still feeling this out. That is a good suggestion for the PD issue, and it could make the missile slightly more reliable to hit, but it would also severely weaken it's armor penetration. The Harpoon is meant to be the closest thing to a long range torpedo available and that would really hurt that role. So I'm not quite convinced that's a good trade-off yet, but then again some damage is better than no damage... hm idk we'll see I can't decide.  ::) Thanks for the input!
[close]

Ranakastrasz
Spoiler
Spoiler
Considering Fighters are less Valuable than the ships they are protecting, I can entirely justifying them suiciding.

-----
I've liked the mod so far, however, some issues/comments/suggestions

having trouble telling weapon sizes at a glance. Presumably the icon size scales the same as they do in the refit screen and game screen, but I currently have trouble distinguishing medium from small. I'll get used to it eventually. I also don't recognize half the icons, so yea...

There are only a few small strike weapons. Probably ought to be more. (Found burst lasers early on, quite impressive)
There don't seem to be any small support weapons. I thought the support weapons were the longer ranged, low damage ones. Quite a few, like railgun, were what I expected in this group.
The "Photon Cannon" probably was supposed to be a support weapon, given the tooltip and that it wasn't in vanilla, but costs no flux.

Ammunition limits with regeneration added back in are great. I immediately started using extended magazines again. 24 burst-laser shots are quite nasty. Do most strike weapons use ammo?
Regenerating missiles are also cool. Small clips of 1-3 missiles, holding 1-6 of them is interesting. Given the increase in point defense in general, missiles are a lot more common.

If they don't, ship systems like Flares should also regenerate (and maybe have a cap of 2 instead of 5)

Had fun with a few new weapon types. The shotgun missile is cool, not really sure if it gives anything over alternates.

Zero-flux assault weapons. Interesting approach. However, given that 90% of the weapons I have been able to use seem to be zero-flux, it means that flux is pretty much shield until you have medium weapons, or get lucky and find burst lasers, mortar, etc. Not sure if this is intended. Either way, at least it makes shields stronger in general.

Some frigates, like the hound and wolf seem to have lost their medium weapon slot, which is kind of disappointing. The idea here is to have more, smaller, weapon slots however, so that makes sense. The wolf has more slots in general, and the wolf has those crappy PD drones. Shame that I have trouble finding ships that can carry all the medium weapons around now though, and the lack of support/strike small weapons hurts that.

Found the mining laser. Its medium instead of small now (kinda sensible) and does way more damage. Thought it was a small weapon looking at it (because of the rescale)

Some of the tooltips are wrong as to where they weight their power, I think. Would have to open the game and minimize to get the correct stats, but a doublecheck might be warented.

I'll reread the front page, but I think some of the weapons are too powerful for their assault role.

Assault - Short-Mid range, no flux, low-med damage. (In their face, using all flux for shields)
Support - mid-long range, low flux, low-med damage. (Pressure from a distance, also long-range missiles)
Strike - Short-mid range, mid-high flux, high damage. (Break heavy armor/shielding, requires external power supply from ship)

PD - Short-mid range, no flux, low damage, high accuracy/speed (Deal with missiles/fighters)

As least that was what I got from it when I read it last time.

Shield flux alterations. Not sure I understand it. Do shields not allow dissipating any flux? I didn't observe that. How exactly did the flux stats change to make weapon flux a problem if you have shields up vs vanilla?
I see. Shield upkeep is, for every ship, exactly equal to it's base flux dissipation. So, flux vents provide shield dissipation. If you have none, you can't dissipate at all.
More importantly, Stabilized shields are now significantly more powerful, given they have way more to work with. Interesting.

If you are screwing with weapon range, make sure you check Safety overrides base range. It might need to be adjusted, depending.
-----
Overall, having fun thus far.
[close]
Spoiler
Guardian PD laser doesn't seem to be willing to fire unless you do it manually, which defeats the purpose. Not sure why.

----

I think the changes to the Flux system were the most interesting out of everything, honestly.
It seriously alters how you run a ship, and build it, for that matter.

In vanilla, while you try and get as many powerful weapons as you can, you also try and keep enough OP left over to get as many vents as you can, such that you, hopefully, have a surplus of dissipation so you can run your shields and fire all weapons.
Capacity helps, but is insignificant compared to dissipation in almost all cases.

Not so here. I actually sometimes go for capacity over vents entirely.

The flux-heavy weapons tend to use a LARGE chunk of flux in a short period of time, and getting capacity lets you unleash a very large attack. This comes at the cost of your shields being weakened. This is normal for starsector, but here, flux is more of a shield meter than a weapons meter.

Flux is far more linked to powerful weapons and shields than vanilla.

Being able to just hold shields up without worrying about it cutting into your normal weapons changes things. On the other hand, the, effectively, massive upkeep for shields forces you to drop them a lot more often. Increased armor stats helps with that as well.

The effect is Exaggerated if you have a flux weapon. Shield goes up, you fire off a powerful attack, your shields will only recover very slowly unless you drop them. In vanilla it can generally recover if you stop firing, or slow down at least. Here, not so much. Forces you to backoff after throwing a powerful blow, moreso than vanilla.
Oh, and run away from the swarm of fighters that jumps on you for daring to attack their charge.

Plus, the distinction between hard and soft flux is significantly reduced.

I would note that some ships have no shields, and since small weapons that use flux are currently very rare, it is quite possible to have a ship that doesn't use flux at all.
I've seen that in other mods, but here it is much more common.

Not really sure how to resolve that part, aside from adding more strike/support weapons, or converting existing ones.

-----

Missiles are a lot more fun, and feel like an active part of the game instead of trump cards. Being able to sustain missile fire, while it not being silly OP is quite fun.
Hunters are very nice support weapons, throwing missiles at massive flux cost. (Got a pair onto a Kite, which it can only just support)
A lot of missiles go for engines, which I suppose makes sense. Even non-EMP missiles.

-----
Magazines.
Strike, missile, support weapons seem to have magazines most of the time. If you have the flux to support them, grabbing the expanded ammo hull mods works great.
Missiles just being part of this category makes them less exotic, and being able to burst-fire followed by reloading changes the flow of combat.

I was surprised to learn that the Tachyon Lance now has a 60 second cooldown. Given it's power, I can't exactly disagree, given what firing 4 of them at an onslaught does (in the forlorn hope mission)

-----
Scaled weapons
I understand how this works better now.
In effect, you reclassified weapons. Small weapons either stayed small and got weaker/smaller, or were reclassified as medium. same as medium to large. And then you added in more extra-small weapons.
Now that I understand that it makes more sense.
-----
Intimidate
Not sure if intended, but trying to intimidate pirates tends to not work sometimes, because your reputation is bad. As in, hated. They refuse to help you. I'm not asking for help. I am threatening to kill them if they don't give up their cargo. A negative reputation should help there.
[close]

That's a ton of detailed feedback thank you for taking the time to write all of that!

To summarize a response:

- On combat, thank you for your descriptions and I'm really happy the system seems to be working as designed! I was definitely going for a tactical "Charge, strike, retreat, cover retreat, reload, strike again" feel. The strike weapons give emphasis to the "Eliminate" command too. Seeing multiple bomber wings, long range missiles and close-range strikes converge on single target is intended to have a visceral satisfaction attached to it. And with total fighter strength meaning more, the loss of a carrier or support ship providing long range pressure can immediately shift the balance of power during a battle.

- I would say you are absolutely right on the lack of small strike options. I feel that this is made worse by the fact that the one's that do exist are mostly restricted to hi-tech missiles and energy weapons, so especially in the early game where ballistics are more accessible it is a lot more noticeable. I will design and add a few more to help close that gap! Thanks!

- I am planning on adding a new sound effect to the Tachyon Lance to audibly reflect its... capabilities.  ;D

- Guardian PD laser is flagged as "Missile Only" - I think I put a blurb in the description about it, but not sure so sorry if I didn't. It should only fire at missiles. It would be way, way too strong if it targeted fighters and other ships automatically. It has higher DPS than most other weapons, for 0-flux, with pinpoint accuracy that, with hullmods, can be extended to 600-700 range. Now, that being said, if some hot-shot pilot decided to manually override the weapon's targeting protocols and unleash hell on some unsuspecting pirate foolish enough to try and attack their defense-oriented Venture... who am I to judge such an ad-hoc strategy?

- Intimidating factions that are "Vengeful" to you will often, or always, fail depending on the faction. This is intentional, both in an immersion sense (they hate you at this point, so even death isn't enough of a reason for them to willingly aid you in attacking their buddies in the future) and because otherwise you could go around harvesting weaker fleets of hostile factions AND any fleets you have higher rep with.

You would never spend a credit on supplies or fuel in markets that way. You can probably almost do this as it is, eventually, but the system was more meant to be a supplement to market based resupply, with the added risk of lowered reputation or irritating allies if you are too pesky with it- or oftentimes having to pay, with a mark-up for the goods with neutral, cautious, or stingy factions/commanders. Trading rep for supplies/fuel instead of credits, as it were. Demanding those goods, similarly, is for pirate/intimidation-minded players to have a way to better pursue that role- balanced by measured use of it. Don't force compliance too much/often or you will pass the threshold where it will be effective anymore. Or, if you take their goods then keep attacking their fleets anyway, eventually they will no longer be willing to comply.

**EDIT** An issue with this could be that the dialogue describing what is going on in this particular interaction is confusing. It doesn't really adequately tell you why you are being refused. I'll look into that, thanks!

- On:
I think the changes to the Flux system were the most interesting out of everything, honestly.

Aw, really, not evil, tribute-demanding vampire barons?!   ;)

I joke, I basically built this around combat to start. The factions honestly just kind of happened as a natural extension of it once the weapons were in place. The story and lore were last.  

Again thank you for all the feedback!
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[/list]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 07, 2018, 03:19:29 PM
Ah. Vanilla lacks any missile-only weapons, and I kinda assume PD means anti-missile + Anti-fighter.

I think you need to screw with how reputation works for the intimidation to work as such. The whole, Must kill large fleets to get past -60 rep type things, or w.e.
Just killing pirates initially gets you to vengeful. Now, naturally intimidating, taking loot, and THEN killing them too probably ought to have more of a rep cost.


Good to have more strike varients. A large number of weapons with impressive range seem to be assault, while some weapons, like the medium artillery, while technically they have long range, have such crappy accuracy I have to treat them as strike, even vs a capital ship.


Quote
"Aw, really, not evil, tribute-demanding vampire barons?!   Wink"
Uhm, What?
Is that a reference?
Or did I not find that part of the mod yet?

Oh, had some fun with Ordeer. Fighting the [Data Expunged] in a full war given they shared a sector. Some *** captain was offended, and I had to run away since bribing wasn't and option, and intimidation, naturally, failed. And then a [Data Expunged] got in on the action, tearing the chasing fleet apart with 6 tachyon lances, while I did a full retreat. And the entire attacking force died. Did... Not expect that. I guess they REALLY hate each other?

-----
How do I update this mod? I mean, it still says V1.0
Are you actually updating the version number? Cuz it doesn't look like it.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2018, 05:50:05 PM
Ah. Vanilla lacks any missile-only weapons, and I kinda assume PD means anti-missile + Anti-fighter.

I think you need to screw with how reputation works for the intimidation to work as such. The whole, Must kill large fleets to get past -60 rep type things, or w.e.
Just killing pirates initially gets you to vengeful. Now, naturally intimidating, taking loot, and THEN killing them too probably ought to have more of a rep cost.


Good to have more strike varients. A large number of weapons with impressive range seem to be assault, while some weapons, like the medium artillery, while technically they have long range, have such crappy accuracy I have to treat them as strike, even vs a capital ship.


Quote
"Aw, really, not evil, tribute-demanding vampire barons?!   Wink"
Uhm, What?
Is that a reference?
Or did I not find that part of the mod yet?

Oh, had some fun with Ordeer. Fighting the [Data Expunged] in a full war given they shared a sector. Some *** captain was offended, and I had to run away since bribing wasn't and option, and intimidation, naturally, failed. And then a [Data Expunged] got in on the action, tearing the chasing fleet apart with 6 tachyon lances, while I did a full retreat. And the entire attacking force died. Did... Not expect that. I guess they REALLY hate each other?

-----
How do I update this mod? I mean, it still says V1.0
Are you actually updating the version number? Cuz it doesn't look like it.

Thanks for the feedback on intimidation. I'll see about the potential for adding some additional nuance to it, I already have several things along those lines planned. Matter of time and priority though.

Ha yeah if it was who I think it was, negotiating will rarely work and offending them is quite easy.  :P They are one of the "Big Bads" of the factions. It takes you a while to get to them because of that and I'm hoping to keep it that way even when they are in the Core Words:

**Is an actual Spoiler**
Spoiler
Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium (Vampire Barons) will have their own systems on the frontier that have their strongholds. These will be very challenging systems for their enemies and will be part of the endgame challenge more than likely.
[close]

On the version and Update, it  isn't live yet. Sorry :(

There will be a download link and update to the main post when that happens. This was a preview to show a response on feedback.

Short version. - I need to seed the Core Worlds first. I'm not sure exactly how long everything will take, but I will keep everyone posted on progress. I'm hoping within a few days, but it depends on how easy this bug is to really nail down.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morbo513 on January 08, 2018, 02:14:57 AM
I've been playing SS with this on for the past couple days, I gotta say I really like it. I love how you changed up the weapon mounts and sizes, it makes each ship feel a bit more versatile. I especially like how different variants of each ship (Eg Wolf - Standard, Pirate and XIV) have different characteristics, and that D-hull Wolves have a degraded phase jumper. Speaking of the Wolf, the phase jump feels a lot less overpowered now, it won't necessarily save you from that huge slug flying towards you because your ship hangs around for a split second and might eat it before the jump is complete.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 08, 2018, 11:33:32 AM
I've been playing SS with this on for the past couple days, I gotta say I really like it. I love how you changed up the weapon mounts and sizes, it makes each ship feel a bit more versatile. I especially like how different variants of each ship (Eg Wolf - Standard, Pirate and XIV) have different characteristics, and that D-hull Wolves have a degraded phase jumper. Speaking of the Wolf, the phase jump feels a lot less overpowered now, it won't necessarily save you from that huge slug flying towards you because your ship hangs around for a split second and might eat it before the jump is complete.


Thanks glad to hear it!  :)

That little ship was one of the harder things to get feeling right- because of the drastic changes that had to be made thematically between factions. I had to make several built-in hullmods and tinker quite a bit to get it balanced, so good to know that effort paid off!



Couple side notes for everyone:

- Pretty confident (with help from Alex and AxleMC131, thanks!) at this point that I squashed the "Show Planet Info" bug, so I will hopefully have the Core Worlds seeded by the end of today if my schedule goes according to plan.

- Anyone try out the Pirate Start? You get a couple more starting options and two officers with that route, but your reputation is, of course, worse than a normal trader or mercenary. Reason I ask: I'm thinking of sneaking in the Mercenary Start option to this next patch as well. Anyone have thoughts?

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 08, 2018, 01:14:43 PM
I kinda despise the phase jumper that the lower tech wolfs have now. Not because its not useful, or less mobile or w.e, but because with a lack of landmarks, it can be hard to tell which direction you will teleport in in some cases.

----

The pirate buffalo, I think, seems to be considered a combat vessel for autodeploy.
Quite a few ships with different ship systems have charges and a cooldown, which happens to be longer than it takes to recharge one charge..... Can't point any examples from here atm tho, can't access game at this time.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 09, 2018, 01:57:34 PM
I kinda despise the phase jumper that the lower tech wolfs have now. Not because its not useful, or less mobile or w.e, but because with a lack of landmarks, it can be hard to tell which direction you will teleport in in some cases.

----

The pirate buffalo, I think, seems to be considered a combat vessel for autodeploy.
Quite a few ships with different ship systems have charges and a cooldown, which happens to be longer than it takes to recharge one charge..... Can't point any examples from here atm tho, can't access game at this time.


Ha! I empathize more than you know on this. The number of times I've jumped the wrong way and left my engines directly exposed to hammers is frankly just silly  :P

On pirate buffalo: It is. "Everyone fights" in pirate fleets.  ;) (Its so the AI will deploy it in the campaign)

Thanks for the info on the systems. Corrected (or at least another pass at them) for this next update.



Speaking of which! The Core Worlds are seeded and everything seems stable in the dev-build so release may even happen tonight if I get time away from Java courses to actually write the ~12 or so descriptions for the custom strongholds. EZFaction or LazyLib utility mods are no longer required to run the mod. They will, however, still be compatible if you want to use them (Have to write your own EZFaction text files to do so). The only exceptions to this are the capitals for the Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium. Making new seeded systems for those, and I don't want to push my luck bug-testing that without a stable release as a control to test prior errors.

But, no more crashes on Show Info from what I can tell, improved performance and now my factions will also have food shortages, system bounties and that related stuff.

Today's update on all of your feedback:

- I've added ~7-8 small weapons in the "Strike" and "Fire Support" category spread across missile and ballistic weapon types. I'm hoping this will make frigates closer in "load-out variety" to the larger ships and increase the overall fun of personally piloting them. These weapons will surely test your flux management skills!

- Starting variants have been adjusted to account for the new weapons, and I've added new variants or modified existing ones across many factions (especially pirates) so you will have access to the new weapons pretty early on. This also ensures they are spread out among faction markets.

- On the Hound: I've decided to give this ship some love! I gave it another small weapon (composite!) to make it a more attractive ship to pilot (As it should be!) and customize n general with now having access to a whole new weapon type! Load-outs of all variants have been adjusted and this ship is a lot more dangerous and fun now.  ;) Increased deployment cost to 2 supplies (up from 1) to account for the increase in power. This has an intended side-effect of reducing the number of PD drone deployments in max fleets- to further help to continue to improve battle performance.

Thank you for everyone's patience! Just a little bit more polish and I'll have the download link updated!!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 09, 2018, 05:20:29 PM
Can't Wait :D

-----

About the pirate buffalos. Suggest adding that to the tooltip for pirate modded ships, that they autodeploy. Optionally, make it a result of a custom hullmod that the player can remove or something.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.0a) (Hotfix 1/2)
Post by: Morrokain on January 10, 2018, 03:05:50 AM
Can't Wait :D

-----

About the pirate buffalos. Suggest adding that to the tooltip for pirate modded ships, that they autodeploy. Optionally, make it a result of a custom hullmod that the player can remove or something.


Oh ok that's a good idea I'll look into it.  :)


Update is live!!  ;D  It will most certainly break saves, however! I put in the mercenary start to give a few good ships and a new start location to relieve that pain a bit.  ;)

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.1 1/10/2018
Spoiler

Content Additions
  • Faction colonies are now seeded directly into the Core Worlds.
  • Faction colonies now have unique descriptions describing their place in the sector and their respective owners' goals and culture.
  • Added ~7-8 small weapons in the "Strike" and "Fire Support" category spread across missile and ballistic weapon types.
  • Starting variants have been adjusted to account for the new weapons.
  • Added new variants or modified existing ones across many factions (especially pirates).

Bug Fixes and Design Improvements
  • Fixed crash on clicking "Show Info" on planets while in the Intel tab.
  • All new factions now generate system bounties, food shortages, survey missions, etc.
  • Added a small composite weapon slot to the Hound All variants have been adjusted to reflect this - deployment cost increased to 2 supplies.
  • Captain personality will now properly reduce or improve the amount of credits requisitioned or demanded from fleets as intended.
  • "Safety Overrides" description will now properly display what it does.
  • Fixed more scenarios where bribery failed to get the enemy to disengage.
  • Updated Bribe description to include information previously obscured to the player when bribing a fleet captain.
  • Changed "Max and Min Battle Slider" settings to more accurately reflect standard Performance Requirements. (100 - 300 with default at 150)
  • Slightly increased Capital Ship deployment costs.
  • Balance pass through ship systems - generally increasing time to regenerate charges substantially.
  • Flares have been reworked to regenerate.
  • Fixed several description typos and outdated references.

Performance Improvements and Misc
  • Improved performance of starting a new game and loading the mod by ~33%.
  • EZFaction and LazyLib utility tools are no longer required to play the mod.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 10, 2018, 10:51:54 AM
Whoops corrected the download link to not include the "out" directory and take you to a main folder as opposed to all the data.

Sorry about that! 
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 10, 2018, 12:09:16 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 10, 2018, 09:47:40 PM
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!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: AxleMC131 on January 10, 2018, 11:07:05 PM
...
- 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?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 10, 2018, 11:18:43 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: AxleMC131 on January 11, 2018, 12:16:13 AM
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)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 11, 2018, 12:41:53 AM
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!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 11, 2018, 08:28:02 AM

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
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- 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)
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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?
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- 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.
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Glad this update helped things, though!
Indeed.

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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

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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)
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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.
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Went through many of the "Missions". Fighters are BRUTAL.
I really, really wish Guardian PD worked. XD
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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?)
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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...
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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)
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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.
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Blah, Blah, Card games Blah.
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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.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 11, 2018, 11:30:19 AM
The reserve deployment on the Conquest is kinda useless considering how much flux it generates and that it only has 2 bays.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 11, 2018, 01:17:32 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 11, 2018, 01:19:17 PM
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)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on January 11, 2018, 08:53:16 PM
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!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: AxleMC131 on January 11, 2018, 09:15:33 PM
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.  ;)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 12, 2018, 01:30:27 PM
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)
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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]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 12, 2018, 01:36:57 PM
I think giving it maneuvering jets again would be fine.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 12, 2018, 02:07:36 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 12, 2018, 05:30:56 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on January 13, 2018, 07:49:37 AM
@Medium Weapons
Its more that I keep expecting to find medium weapon slots on ships that have them in vanilla and they don't, than it is hard to find them.
More because I couldn't find support/strike weapons for the no-shield, small slot only ships, and hence flux did nothing.

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Unfortunately, I am currently busy playing Warframe, so I have been entirely sidetracked. Stupid addicting video games.
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Hmm. Does the normal PD AI hull mod actually do anything useful here? I've never found it useful. Does this mod make it effective in more cases?
Might actually make it into a mod that goes, "Laser PD will also attack fighters, -50% damage" or something.

Not really sure though. I just seriously have trouble with High-grade PD not PD-ing. XD.
And I have said that many times.
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Anyhow, will probably get back to playtesting/playing eventually.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on January 13, 2018, 07:51:10 AM
Haven't been playing Starsector for the past few days, but I have been randomly coming back here. I suggest a hullmod that makes using the engage order for fighters generates no flux, but bringing up shields generates flux like normal...normal for this mod anyway.

Also, a comment about the Wolf: I do remember what hullmods I had and what weapons I had, but putting 3 vents (I think) ended up with me not losing or gaining flux. Not sure if this was intended or not, but I can see it becoming annoying as you won't be able to fire weapons, take any amount of fire, and keep shields up for long. I'd prefer to have a little soft flux dissipation when I am not firing my weapons. :/
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 13, 2018, 08:22:25 AM
@Medium Weapons
Its more that I keep expecting to find medium weapon slots on ships that have them in vanilla and they don't, than it is hard to find them.
More because I couldn't find support/strike weapons for the no-shield, small slot only ships, and hence flux did nothing.

Hmm. Does the normal PD AI hull mod actually do anything useful here? I've never found it useful. Does this mod make it effective in more cases?
Might actually make it into a mod that goes, "Laser PD will also attack fighters, -50% damage" or something.

Not really sure though. I just seriously have trouble with High-grade PD not PD-ing. XD.
And I have said that many times.

I see what you mean. Hopefully solving the second problem will noticably soften the effects of the first.

PD AI hullmod is pretty decent when combined with weapons like Mass Drivers or Pulse Cannons. These weapons have longer range than most PD weapons, but are still pretty accurate. They offer a "first screen of defense" to take out leading missiles in larger clusters or do a bit of upfront damage to tougher things like torpedoes. PD then mops anything that gets through the first screen. The trade-off, besides the OP cost, is a slight reduction to Ship - to - Ship combat capabilities.

No worries on the high tier PD, it will operate better soon!  :)

Haven't been playing Starsector for the past few days, but I have been randomly coming back here. I suggest a hullmod that makes using the engage order for fighters generates no flux, but bringing up shields generates flux like normal...normal for this mod anyway.

Also, a comment about the Wolf: I do remember what hullmods I had and what weapons I had, but putting 3 vents (I think) ended up with me not losing or gaining flux. Not sure if this was intended or not, but I can see it becoming annoying as you won't be able to fire weapons, take any amount of fire, and keep shields up for long. I'd prefer to have a little soft flux dissipation when I am not firing my weapons. :/

No worries on not getting a chance to play, just let it come natural if it sounds fun.  :)

On Wolf, if you get a moment, can you describe the situation you were in that frustrated you a little more? Do you mean you had a specific custom build that didn't have soft flux at all, and wish it did? Or just think soft flux is too absent as a whole?

This could play into the issue with Stabilized Shields a bit. Ships with it are just so much better at using Strike/Support weapons, and it is far more efficient in terms of OP than Vents. So maybe, to counterbalance a reduction in how much that hullmod reduces raised shield flux, most vessels can get ~10-15 base soft flux?



On Engage Fighters:

Working on a couple possible solutions to this. I'll give more info when I've narrowed down the one I'm going with.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 13, 2018, 10:28:49 AM
How easy would it be to remove the flux generation of the "Engage Fighters" command?

Basically impossible, it's hardcoded.

Ah ok that's what I suspected. Thanks!  :)

Well, that's one solution out of the window. Now to see about a hullmod.


EDIT**

Also, forgot about this:

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.

I originally wanted to make that system regen charges faster, but forgot that you can't. Regen for clips cannot currently be modified in the API. Its hard-coded after the weapons file entry. So that even means things like systems cannot touch that stat.

For that system dropping shields, that's it's trade-off (besides charges) since it doesn't generate flux and increases damage output significantly. It's also almost always on heavily armored vessels. As a side note, I also made it do this so the AI doesn't use it and waste the active timer shielding too early (therefore slowing down enough to not be able to close the distance in time to really get any extra damage in).
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 13, 2018, 12:21:51 PM
Ok, this is a list of currently changed or planned stuff for the next update. May add other things- depending.

Next Patch Changes: Very Rough ETA: 1/20 - 1/30

Content Additions

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes and Design Improvements


**EDIT**

Made the hullmod and early tests indicate it does solve the "Engage Fighters Problem." without sacrificing the combat mechanics too much. This also means raising shields no longer slows down a ship. They must take a few significant hits to be slowed - or use a strike/support weapon.

I'll see how this shakes up as I continue to test things, but I will say it is a lot more fun to be able to pick targets for my fighters without having to sacrifice my mobility. I think this will end up being a very good thing for the mod overall.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 13, 2018, 04:14:02 PM
The various "Systems" hullmods for converted ships are a bit too strong. The "Simple Core Systems" hullmod on the hegemony wolf makes it shields far worse than any low tech clunker, which is a bit odd. Similarly, the "Updated Core Systems" hullmod gives ships shields better than any high tech ships.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 13, 2018, 05:19:00 PM
The various "Systems" hullmods for converted ships are a bit too strong. The "Simple Core Systems" hullmod on the hegemony wolf makes it shields far worse than any low tech clunker, which is a bit odd. Similarly, the "Updated Core Systems" hullmod gives ships shields better than any high tech ships.


Thanks! I'll see about adjusting them.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Shimrodt on January 14, 2018, 02:53:50 AM
Hi there! first of all, i must say i love your mod very much, thank you for bringing us such a new (and wonderful!) take on starsector.

There are 2 things i have noted about the mod that i would like to know whether they are intentional or not (only 2 for now because i am still early in my campaign).

The first is the cargo capacity on the Hermes class shuttle is at 250, for only 1supply/month. Is it normal? This seems like an enormous upgrade in terms of cargo capacity compared to all other freighter available in early game (Hound/Cerberus/Wayfarer), as those are around 100-150 cargo for around 3supplies/month.

The second is the description for the D-mod Faulty Power Grid reads "flux capacity and flux dissipation rate reduced by ONE THIRD". Does this mean the rank 3 of safety procedures doesn't reduce by 50% the negative effects of that D-mod like the others? (from what i could see on some of my ships, it didn't, but i'd like to know whether it is working as intended or not).

Thank you for your time, and once again, thank you for a wonderful mod.

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 14, 2018, 03:19:35 PM
Hi there! first of all, i must say i love your mod very much, thank you for bringing us such a new (and wonderful!) take on starsector.

There are 2 things i have noted about the mod that i would like to know whether they are intentional or not (only 2 for now because i am still early in my campaign).

The first is the cargo capacity on the Hermes class shuttle is at 250, for only 1supply/month. Is it normal? This seems like an enormous upgrade in terms of cargo capacity compared to all other freighter available in early game (Hound/Cerberus/Wayfarer), as those are around 100-150 cargo for around 3supplies/month.

The second is the description for the D-mod Faulty Power Grid reads "flux capacity and flux dissipation rate reduced by ONE THIRD". Does this mean the rank 3 of safety procedures doesn't reduce by 50% the negative effects of that D-mod like the others? (from what i could see on some of my ships, it didn't, but i'd like to know whether it is working as intended or not).

Thank you for your time, and once again, thank you for a wonderful mod.

Firstly, thank you very much for the kind words and feedback and welcome to the forums!  :)

Your questions:

- On the Hermes, to be honest I wanted to give the player a reason to buy the ship. I might have tuned it a bit too high though. Re-evaluating.

My thought process: Since, as a high level trader you are concerned with cargo space over supplies per month, this freighter would probably not be ideal (considering the max ship cap) compared to the larger freighters like Tarsus and Buffalo. As a frigate wolfpack commander wanting to keep a fast, bounty hunting fleet, however, the burn speed is still nice for so little maintenance and decent cargo space to store loot compared to the faster Mercury. The Hound, Cerberus and Wayfarer, on the other hand, are combat freighters. They sacrifice much (but not all- if you look at dedicated combat vessels) of their utility to have combat capabilities closer to light frigates.

- I'm not sure on "safety procedures" rank 3. I'll check for this, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: AuzzieOprix on January 18, 2018, 07:03:51 AM
No matter what i do/Have done i can't seem to start a new game past the "Skip/Play tutorial" options as both are grey and cannot be selected :(
I've tried just the 3 base mods and other assortments but nothing helps.
Please assist ;-; :'( 
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2018, 04:40:55 PM
No matter what i do/Have done i can't seem to start a new game past the "Skip/Play tutorial" options as both are grey and cannot be selected :(
I've tried just the 3 base mods and other assortments but nothing helps.
Please assist ;-; :'(  
Ah, I think this is a bug! Very sorry!

Question: Have you played the base game's tutorial? If not, this is the most likely reason. If you un-select the mod and play the standard tutorial first, then re-activate the mod it should solve that issue.

Completely forgot to uncheck that in the Rules. I'll go ahead and release something tonight or tomorrow- ahead of schedule so no new ships or weapons, but it should solve that bug for new players and add a few quality of life improvements, bugfixes and added descriptions for the new faction's colonies.

**EDIT** Wait, 3 base mods? Are you using LazyLib and EZFaction? Those mods are no longer required to play the current version. Well, you can still use them, but you may get errors if any exist in those mods or if they for some reason clash with mine. They probably wouldn't, but I can't completely know for sure. Try just the Archean Order mod if the above advice does not work. Just corrected the error, if that's what it is, and will release a new version soon.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1a) (Update 1/18)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 18, 2018, 05:54:55 PM
I had the same issue. You just need to start one unmodded game to fix it.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1a) (Update 1/18)
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2018, 06:05:14 PM
Current Patch Changes: Update v1.1a 1/18/2018
Spoiler
Content Additions
  • New hullmod - Priority Beam Defense AI - Makes all PD Burst Beams only target missiles.

Balance Changes
  • The Conquest and Falcon now have Maneuvering Jets as their ship system (was Deploy Reserve Fighters).
  • Deploy Reserve Fighters and Targeting Feed ship systems no longer generate flux on use. Instead, they start with 3 charges, gaining one charge greatly exceeds the system's cooldown.
  • Burst PD Laser and Heavy Burst PD Laser now auto-target fighters and ships as well as missiles. To balance this change, both weapons have had their charge regeneration reduced (burst damage is the same).
  • Guardian PD System now targets fighters and ships as well as missiles. To balance this change, the weapon has been converted to a charge-based weapon (with 8 charges) and reduced burst damage by 20 percent.
  • Increased the accuracy of the Artillery Cannon by ~20 percent.
  • Reduced effectiveness on Flux of built-in faction systems by ~33 percent.
  • Trebuchet LRM is now tier 0.
  • Rapier SRM is now tier 1. Rarity reduced.
  • Light Mortar Cannon is now tier 0.
  • Rarity of Maelstrom LRM reduced slightly.

Bug Fixes and Design Improvements
  • Fixed a few variants with errors.
  • Added a few variants with new weapons configurations and rebalanced previous ones using them to operate more effectively, where necessary.
  • Updated tooltips of several weapons (Ie. Mining Laser, Mining Blaster, Guardian PD System) to better describe their function and power.
  • Updated tooltips of fighters to better describe their roles and strengths at a glance.
  • Corrected a few more typos and awkward language in descriptions - mostly campaign related entities.
  • Added regen back in for the Atropos Torpedo(Single). Dagger Bomber now has a custom built-in version without regen.
  • All vessels now gain the "0-Flux Boost" until 5% flux. Changing Tier 3 Helmsmanship to allow up to 35% flux before boost cuts off.
  • Hermes cargo capacity reduced to be more in line with other freighters.
  • Hornet SRM is now renamed to Vespid SRM (id is same for modders).
  • Added new descriptions to some key faction colonies to better improve immersion.
  • Reduced the rarity of a couple flux- weapons.
[close]


Ok it's updating now. I'd give it ~ an hr or so before attempting a download.  ;)

EDIT - Forgot to add those things.

EDIT2 - Further forgotten changes.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1a) (Update 1/18)
Post by: AuzzieOprix on January 18, 2018, 09:31:37 PM
I had the same issue. You just need to start one unmodded game to fix it.
Far out thank you :D
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1a) (Update 1/18)
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2018, 10:14:10 PM
Hotfix**

Quickly fixed a couple things after a bit of further testing.

 - Railguns (Light, Dual and Heavy) now generate a small amount of flux to compensate for their range with the new flux changes.

 - Fighters have description shortcuts as intended. (Wasn't showing up before)

Shouldn't break saves.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1a) (Update 1/18)
Post by: Morrokain on February 02, 2018, 10:24:01 AM
Hey just wanted to quickly say sorry the update is going to be later than planned. Might be a few more days  ::) but a lot more weapons, a couple ships, some balance changes and weapon design improvements and new illustrations and faction colonies are on the horizon!

Going to update the notes under patch info.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Morrokain on February 10, 2018, 11:38:30 AM
Update is out!  ;D

Some considerable balance changes and a ton of new content. See the below list for details and some screens and gifs. Updated the main webpage with new content screens and gifs and improved the installation picture under Download Instructions to more accurately reflect that the player no longer needs utility mods.

Also a really super big thank you to Andreas Rocha for allowing me to use some of his artwork for illustrations! Seriously check out some of his stuff on the linked website under Credits and Thanks. I find his work to be really inspiring and the ones I've included really set the mood for the factions well, imo.  :)

http://www.andreasrocha.com/info.htm (http://www.andreasrocha.com/info.htm)

So, here are the notes:

Spoiler

Content Additions
  • Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium have new systems near the Core Worlds containing their respective capitals and main strongholds.
  • Many new faction colonies now have custom illustrations and all new colonies have custom descriptions.
  • New Independent and Sci-Corps colonies - Penelopes Star is now a part of the Core Worlds (this should make a couple early game bounties slightly less risky and weapons/ships from those factions more accessible).
  • Made the "Random Battle" Mission have a much wider selection of variants to randomly pull from. -a great way to test out max battles and get a feel of the new combat without investing too heavily into the campaign.
  • 5 New low tier energy strike/fire support weapons.
  • 3 New low tier ballistic strike/fire support weapons.
  • 1 New high tier missile strike weapon.
  • 2 New low tech frigates with medium energy mounts found easily early on.
  • 1 New mid tech destroyer with medium hybrid mounts in Lions Guard and Trader Guilds patrols/markets.
Balance Changes
  • Harpoon MRM and its large variant has more missiles per salvo, and higher regen. To balance this change they deal less damage per shot and have less armor penetration. This small rebalance makes them a lot more reliable to use, and the AI will use them more liberally as well. Two direct hits will still destroy most frigates- if caught unshielded.
  • The Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance are now proper assault weapons, as classified. They will also now autofire and target fighters if no other combat ships are in range. Reduced turn rate, beam speed, and burst mechanics for the weapon and buffed its damage. Persean League was suffering in most fights due to its lackluster performance. It penetrates armor slightly better, but is still poor at it overall.
  • Hegemony XIVth vessels now have an increased deployment cost in association with their armor and ordinance point buffs. This better balances these powerful vessels and slightly nerfs the overwhelming campaign power of the Hegemony (They could beat any faction (except maybe the highest tier ones) too easily in pitched battles before).
  • Adjusted most starting variants to support new weapons and spread them out over multiple factions. They should now be found in most early markets.
  • Added new variants and edited existing ones - the aim of this was to both reduce weapon redundancy and give a platform to acquire the new strike/fire support weapons more easily.
  • The Hound's composite hardpoint is now universal - allows the use of small, low tier energy strike weapons in pirate and independent fleet compositions.
  • The Eagle now has a few small hybrid turrets to better support its intended Jack-Of-All-Trades combat role. Variants adjusted accordingly.
[close]

Showcase screens/gifs of the new features:

**Warning**These may contain light lore spoilers:

Gifs
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/2q9UdAQ.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/FCZUj3D.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/jliDecM.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/ORuoS3f.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/51YHsNW.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/rxxFAdZ.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/jGkhAhv.gif)
[close]

Screenshots
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/mvx0AJe.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Oy7ChhX.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/qFMQ5g3.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/r66ljgv.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/MqAXN0r.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/lKSiKMX.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/CYjUCPu.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/7vHlJ6J.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/BUK0wxt.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Igncom1 on February 11, 2018, 12:04:58 PM
Seems pretty cool. Interesting to get my head around a new style of combat.

I've got a few low tech frigates and a mule freighter but I'm not too sure what to do against enemy fighter swarms. Any suggestions?

I've been finding it difficult to keep some of my frigates alive in the face of enemy cruisers/destroyers al though the same can be said of the vanilla game.

I find that my ships flux out in seconds which does make it challenging when facing enemies with medium sized weapons.

The lasher frigates seem kinda bad in my opinion, they get overloaded and caught almost instantly in battle but this might be due to them not being hegemonic auxiliary or 14th fleet ships. When compared to the wolf frigates/kites/rhinos that I have picked up they seem really lacking.

Looking forward to getting into the bigger battles with proper destroyers!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 11, 2018, 12:59:10 PM
Bring more pd and intercepters. Fighters are nasty. Ships that are mostly PD are actually useful.

Anti-fighter missiles are surprisingly effective. I try to get a medium missile slot asap purelyto fit a locust(I Think) because of how quickly it breaks fighters. Last game i has a ship with 3 of them and missile rack to deal with heavy gunships. Highly effective. And that work on normal ships too, if not as well.

Cant be sure exactly what you need witgout more data.


Flux is easier to deal with if you have enough vents. Or better yet stabalized shields. If you use non-assault weapons it spends your shields way more than vanilla.
Flux capaciters ARE worthwhile here far more than vanilla.

Flux works differently than vanilla. Shields prevent all dissipation not from vents.so add vents and stabelized shield to get combat dissipation. Capaciters help if you want to use flux hungry strike or support weapons.

Stabalized shields are almost manditory if you use shields and strike weapons at the same time.

Read the manual/guide on the op as well.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 11, 2018, 02:25:36 PM
Gah. Just ran into a mudskipper 2. Had reaper torpedos, which is normal. Dodged the first one. Second one took half my shield down (using a rhino class)
Next two managed to hit, tore my shield down, and took 90% of my hull.

After the shield went down, I was like, Oh crap. Then the next one came out, and I was like, OH S**T. Then, a fifth one came out, and killed me..... I did not see that coming. I thought it would be only 4 at best. Ouch.......

Fun times.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Igncom1 on February 11, 2018, 02:41:49 PM
I have a reaper on my mule. Easily the most powerful ship in my fleet so far.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 11, 2018, 03:02:21 PM
I have a reaper on my mule. Easily the most powerful ship in my fleet so far.
Indeed. Reapers always hurt. A lot. I just didn't expect 5 of them at once. I expected 2 of them.
Ouch.

I knew I could eat two reapers safely, even though I would overload. It was a mudskipper, and hence only a threat via it's missiles.
-----

Whats with the "Stabilized Drive Conduit" mod? What specifically makes a ship have that mod?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on February 11, 2018, 03:45:28 PM
Gah. Just ran into a mudskipper 2. Had reaper torpedos, which is normal. Dodged the first one. Second one took half my shield down (using a rhino class)
Next two managed to hit, tore my shield down, and took 90% of my hull.

After the shield went down, I was like, Oh crap. Then the next one came out, and I was like, OH S**T. Then, a fifth one came out, and killed me..... I did not see that coming. I thought it would be only 4 at best. Ouch.......

Fun times.
Mudskipper is no longer a meh ship.

Mudskipper is now a ship to fear.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 11, 2018, 04:19:57 PM
Gah. Just ran into a mudskipper 2. Had reaper torpedos, which is normal. Dodged the first one. Second one took half my shield down (using a rhino class)
Next two managed to hit, tore my shield down, and took 90% of my hull.

After the shield went down, I was like, Oh crap. Then the next one came out, and I was like, OH S**T. Then, a fifth one came out, and killed me..... I did not see that coming. I thought it would be only 4 at best. Ouch.......

Fun times.
Mudskipper is no longer a meh ship.

Mudskipper is now a ship to fear.
Indeed. Their ability to wield heavy-duty missiles, which now regenerate make them actually a sort-of sane ship design. Still fragile as h**l, but they now actually have enough firepower to make up for it.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on February 11, 2018, 04:23:38 PM
Gah. Just ran into a mudskipper 2. Had reaper torpedos, which is normal. Dodged the first one. Second one took half my shield down (using a rhino class)
Next two managed to hit, tore my shield down, and took 90% of my hull.

After the shield went down, I was like, Oh crap. Then the next one came out, and I was like, OH S**T. Then, a fifth one came out, and killed me..... I did not see that coming. I thought it would be only 4 at best. Ouch.......

Fun times.
Mudskipper is no longer a meh ship.

Mudskipper is now a ship to fear.
Indeed. Their ability to wield heavy-duty missiles, which now regenerate make them actually a sort-of sane ship design. Still fragile as h**l, but they now actually have enough firepower to make up for it.
You make me want to spawn 20 and fit them all with Reaper launchers just to kill an Onslaught. :)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 11, 2018, 04:34:09 PM

You make me want to spawn 20 and fit them all with Reaper launchers just to kill an Onslaught. :)
That sounds fun. Just hope the Onslaught doesn't have Heavy PD and a decent escort.
In this mod, It kinda hurts.

Still probably quite fun.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Morrokain on February 11, 2018, 07:19:48 PM
Seems pretty cool. Interesting to get my head around a new style of combat.

I've got a few low tech frigates and a mule freighter but I'm not too sure what to do against enemy fighter swarms. Any suggestions?

I've been finding it difficult to keep some of my frigates alive in the face of enemy cruisers/destroyers al though the same can be said of the vanilla game.

I find that my ships flux out in seconds which does make it challenging when facing enemies with medium sized weapons.

The lasher frigates seem kinda bad in my opinion, they get overloaded and caught almost instantly in battle but this might be due to them not being hegemonic auxiliary or 14th fleet ships. When compared to the wolf frigates/kites/rhinos that I have picked up they seem really lacking.

Looking forward to getting into the bigger battles with proper destroyers!

Keeping your feedback in mind, thank you! I am definitely thinking along the same lines as you on the lasher. I think it needs slightly more flux and dissipation, but slightly less shield efficiency. It's not so much that I want it's shields to perform better under fire compared to, say, the wolf, but the difference between it and the wolf's ability to use strike weapons is a little too drastic right now. It doesn't help that the stock variant comes with several flux-hungry strike weapons to start, either. The Iridium Cannon in particular is tricky to use. If it's hitting anything other than shields with its burst, it's actually hurting your own defenses in flux build up more than the enemy's. That's why it has such high damage for only 4 OP.

On fighters and destroyers/cruisers, what Ranakastrasz says is solid advice, and I would avoid trying to tackle heavier vessels with frigates (try to negotiate a cease-fire with enemy commanders if you see a destroyer and are facing similar numbers), if at all possible, until you either have enough frigates to attack from multiple directions (pick off it's faster escorts first, if you can) or have a solid tactical wolfpack.

What I mean by this: 1-2 Assault oriented vessels to "hold the line", 1-2 full PD-oriented frigates, or your own interceptors to provide point defense against enemy fighters, missiles and bombers AND 1-2 support or strike oriented vessels with heavy strike weapons, long range weapons, assault fighters, gunships or bombers to support your front line assault vessels.

Then
, once it's escorts are removed, coordinate a strike (right click to assign eliminate) with your wolfpack. The heavier weapons should seem less daunting since your frigates will distribute the fire.

In this mod, tactics are slightly more emphasized over ship control. I'm hoping this more like an RTS than vanilla. The combination of multiple ship specializations working together are designed to have exponentially increasing effectiveness. (if you disagree that this is the case, please let me know! I am very interested in this sort of feedback, and why, if possible  :) )


An increase in hull-size generally gives a higher payoff in direct confrontational power than vanilla. This will continue to be the case for destroyers->cruisers and cruisers->capitals. I was playing the other day, and was surprised at how difficult it was to just take down a pirate buffalo mkII with 3 frigates. It has enough hull to take a serious beating by frigate weapons, and it's bola srms can leave you suddenly without any mobility, under heavy fire by its weapons and pd drones.

But, I managed to take it down with one assault heg wolf using forward mounted micro repeaters, a mass driver and two assault autocannons to constantly press the attack. My other heg wolf had trebuchet lrms, a light ion cannon and 5 pd weapons. My kite had two swarmers and a mass driver, its stock loadout from the campaign start. Lost the Kite, but the trebuchets took their toll until a choice ion cannon shot hit its engines. My assault wolf closed, hit it with the micro repeaters while two more trebuchets found their target. Fight over, if by the skin of my teeth.

I had, quite ironically, lost my lasher to a reaper-armed mudskipper mkII in an earlier battle  ::) Those little guys sneak up on me at the worst of times, I swear.
---------------------------------

@ Ranakastrasz: It actually does only have 4, but that variant also has expanded missile racks. So, it means pirate markets have that hullmod, and it will drop off pirate fleets, too. But, the trade-off is that a reaper armed mudskipper, or if I'm honest, even a Pilum-armed one can become a big problem long term. They are usually priority targets for me since they lack shields, but can be so devastating if ignored.

Whats with the "Stabilized Drive Conduit" mod? What specifically makes a ship have that mod?

All ships should, I'm pretty sure. (The Rhino and Bull don't in the current build - working on a hotfix for that, soon!)

It is so that raising shields and sending fighters out to attack or defend targets won't remove the flux speed boost. The A.I is too bad at determining when to do that, otherwise. The relevant skills that used to do that now increase the tolerance for loosing the boost very substantially. I think like 30-35%.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Morrokain on February 11, 2018, 07:26:35 PM
So, how would everyone feel about a slight increase in base soft flux dissipation (like 10-15% with shields raised over the current 0%) and a slight reduction in the effectiveness of the Stabilized Shields hullmod? I felt that it was too good before, and as time goes on I am feeling more certain of it.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 12, 2018, 07:25:44 AM
So, how would everyone feel about a slight increase in base soft flux dissipation (like 10-15% with shields raised over the current 0%) and a slight reduction in the effectiveness of the Stabilized Shields hullmod? I felt that it was too good before, and as time goes on I am feeling more certain of it.
Yes. That would be sensible. 10% innate and +20-30% from stabilized. Or make stabilized give hard flux dissipation? Actually no, Given the flux polorization, hard and soft flux aren't as differentiated as they are in vanilla
So yea, 90% shield cost of innate dissipation, with it dropping to 60 or 70% with stabilized shield.
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Doublecheck the frontal shield emitter. Given its supposed to be a crap-tier shield(Or did you change that?), it should, by default, be equal to dissipation, but currently isn't that way for all ships.

---

Why not modify the 14th Battlefleet hullmod to add the core-strain effect? It currently says "No downsides", but you can change that to point out the strain on the core.
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I could have sworn there was a way to make all ships innately have that zero-flux bonus without a hull-mod. I might be mistaken however.

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Most mods which give weapons with no flux cost don't apply that to most ships. I think Vacuum is the only example I can think of that also does this.

It is possible to setup a ship without flux usage. This has the nice effect of giving the zero-flux boost at all times.
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The larger variety of weapon of various types helps a lot. Laser and projectile small energy PD weapons, many, many Strike and support varients. Its far better fleshed out and I have a lot more choices on how to optimize.
I've tried out quite a few other small missiles. The wide range of roles helps design ships to use missiles.

The larger number of hybrid slots helps too.
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Heavy Mortor (I think, its a medium balistic) still says it is strike, but the classification is support (1300 range?)
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Bolo missiles are nasty. Spin out of control. Quite lethal, and almost always worth giving one to any destroyer just to pin down frigates. And yet another way this TC focuses on PD vs Fighter/Missile focus.
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Some of the vanilla fighters still don't have that tooltip giving a quick description.
Some also don't have the Figher Systems hullmod.
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Had some luck with the Rhino frigate. Keep losing it, but it's my new go-to flagship early game, given it's medium energy slot. Phase beam or mining laser work pretty well.
Mining laser lacks Alpha, but works on fighters and just keeps the pressure up.

It's got highly flexable PD turret slots, and a single small missile slot too. Generally I use the forward-left slot for a railgun, use the Main slot for it's strike power, and the missile for a trebuchet to make up for it's somewhat slow speed. The four corner slots get PD or some kind.
Works great, although it's not as mobile as the wolf. I can act as PD support, harrass from a distance, and have a heavy strike weapon. Works for my general role as Assasin without too much worry about DEATH FROM BEES. Vanilla, fighters can be ignored half the time. Here, If I don't use PD I can't dive. The phase beam tears through a single unshielded frigate without too much issue, but can't quite deal with destroyers. The PD lets me cover opponents, and the LR missile lets me slow a fleeing enemy so allies can catch up.

Not the perfect ship I've wanted, and the manuverability leaves a bit to be desired. Burn drive isn't AS reliable as an escape method and all
But, then, the manual did say I had to make tradeoffs if I wanted someone able to do everything. I have a strike, PD, and LR harrass, and traded the +speed and manuverability and +survability, and it doesn't excel at any of those.
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Still trying to find a good interceptor Frigate to interdict those fast frigates. Maybe a Kite?
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The Gemini is a terrifyingly effective PD weapon at the current Frigate-Destroyer phase I am in. Two flak, and 3 Locust anti-figher missiles. Fighters that get close tend to get shredded.
I've also tried giving it LRM instead like vanilla tends to (sabots) but it isn't as impressive that way.
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Since you've shuffled around all those weapon slots, I've been trying out many other ships that I didn't in vanilla, generally searching for medium slots of various types.
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MUDSKIPPERS!!!!!!! ARGH.
Glass cannons of horrid death. Urgh.
Stupid expanded missile racks.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2) (Update 2/10)
Post by: Morrokain on February 12, 2018, 04:27:18 PM
A nice take on things, thanks.  :)  Got some patch notes incoming taking your feedback into account. It's pretty close to what you and Igncom1 suggested:

 - Buffed Lasher's ability to use strike weapons. Base flux and dissipation increased. Shield efficiency lowered.

 - Buffed Lancer's ability to use it's missiles and ship system. Base flux and dissipation increased. Shield efficiency lowered.

 - All ships now have 10%/15%/20% base soft flux dissipation when shields are raised (up from 0%), depending on if the hull is considered lowtech/midline/hitech.

 - Reduced the benefit of Stabilized Shields hullmod by 15% (Now +35%).

 - Changed Heavy Mortar description to better describe its intended role.

 - Short role description added to the Interdictor Drone.

 - Fighter-Class Systems hullmod is now present on all fighter wings.

This is a pretty significant reduction in the Borer Drones effectiveness, something that was probably necessary considering how many you get and that they are supposed to be worse than anything else, combat-wise. I'll play around and see if anything else was significantly affected.



For an interdictor frigate, trying putting just a couple assault and low OP PD weapons on a wolf, hound or lasher and then also try and get safety overrides and unstable injector on it. That speed can catch just about anything short of the fastest Pathers, and burndriving gets you a lot farther.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] Total Conv: "Archean Order" - RP/Adventure/Combat (v1.1) (Update 1/10)
Post by: Morrokain on February 13, 2018, 11:17:12 AM
The second is the description for the D-mod Faulty Power Grid reads "flux capacity and flux dissipation rate reduced by ONE THIRD". Does this mean the rank 3 of safety procedures doesn't reduce by 50% the negative effects of that D-mod like the others? (from what i could see on some of my ships, it didn't, but i'd like to know whether it is working as intended or not).

I wanted to give an update on my findings here. For one, the tooltip calculation was actually a bug in the first place. It incorrectly stated it reduced those stats by 1/3, when in reality it is only a 25% reduction. Corrected that tooltip for the next release.

As to Safety Procedures Rank 3, I took a look at the code and it was an older implementation of the Faulty Powergrid D-Mod that was the culprit. Fixed for the next release. The skill should properly reduce it's effects now.

Thanks again for the helpful bug catching and improving the mod!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 19, 2018, 11:59:22 AM
New update, mainly a pretty large balance pass and round of bug fixing, but some content worked its way in there too. The goal is to flesh out the doctrinal differences between combat styles of the Sci-Corps and Tri-Tachyon corporation. Enjoy!

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.2.1 2/19/2018


Content Additions

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Igncom1 on February 19, 2018, 12:03:08 PM
Will this break save files?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 19, 2018, 12:07:57 PM
Will this break save files?

I don't believe so. Can't be 100 percent certain, but off the top of my head I don't think I've changed anything that would break them since there aren't any new markets or campaign objects added.

You probably won't see new stuff for an in-game month or two though, since the fleet/economy managers will only replace things with the new stuff once old things disappear.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 19, 2018, 02:54:39 PM
The Brawler(T)'s tooltip still states that it has manuvering jets while it was replaced with High Energy focus.

Might be a vanilla issue admittedly.
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I've finally got a Cruiser up and running. Given I still am trying to keep a relatively fast fleet, I am using tugs and Augmented Drive fields.
I looted a wrecked Falcon class Cruiser (which still had full engine power) and gave it plenty of anti-shield assault weapons. Tried a few combos before I ended up using a heavy annihilation launcher to deal with armor. Also gave it Injector for speed.
It is quite nasty. Despite having 3 damage mods, Its extremely effective, and can take a decient amount of fire comapared to destroyers. The fighters help too.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 20, 2018, 10:47:39 AM
The Brawler(T)'s tooltip still states that it has manuvering jets while it was replaced with High Energy focus.

Added a blurb to the hull skin description describing that fact, as well as one to the the Pather version of the hull, which uses an ammofeeder. If I have time, I will do a full check of the skin files for this sort of discrepancy.

I've finally got a Cruiser up and running. Given I still am trying to keep a relatively fast fleet, I am using tugs and Augmented Drive fields.
I looted a wrecked Falcon class Cruiser (which still had full engine power) and gave it plenty of anti-shield assault weapons. Tried a few combos before I ended up using a heavy annihilation launcher to deal with armor. Also gave it Injector for speed.
It is quite nasty. Despite having 3 damage mods, Its extremely effective, and can take a decient amount of fire comapared to destroyers. The fighters help too.

Glad to see someone getting deeper into the campaign  :)
Touching on one of your earlier suggestions:

Why not modify the 14th Battlefleet hullmod to add the core-strain effect? It currently says "No downsides", but you can change that to point out the strain on the core.

I did change the description to reflect that there are downsides for the next small release, but I'm fairly sure combining the hullmods into a single one would break saves for anybody with hegemony ships in their fleet or nearby (so most people, I would assume  :P ). I'm not sure that would be worth it, but maybe for the next major content release- like the tutorial or something that would likely break saves anyway- I may look into it then.
---------------------------

Some inquiries, if anyone feels like giving some targeted feedback:

- So I am hoping the new balance changes and weapons/fighters make the early game more exciting and accessible during frigate combat. I would call my implementation a "light balance" pass though due to time limitations, so let me know if anything seems overly broken. I have a model I follow, so nothing should be too crazy, but things still may need adjustments here and there.

- Also, I haven't really heard anything on this so I assume it hasn't been too much of an issue, but how is supply and fuel management in the mod? Is it more accessible? Less? Are people running out often or constantly oversupplied? I lowered the payout for bounty fleets and increased the payout for general bounties, so attempting to ensure bounty-hunting is still profitable.

- Similarly, do people feel that using the fuel/supply request feature for NPC fleets is mandatory for effective play? Is is too farmable? Are the downsides not potent enough to discourage that, too potent? Etc.

--------
Assuming the combat system is in a pretty decent spot at this point, and most of the pet peeves are eliminated, I am going to start work on the tutorial again, and finally get around to polishing and adding to the Intimidation and Bribery systems since they are far behind the Commodity Request feature in complexity and nuance.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 20, 2018, 12:28:01 PM
Quote
I did change the description to reflect that there are downsides for the next small release, but I'm fairly sure combining the hullmods into a single one would break saves for anybody with hegemony ships in their fleet or nearby (so most people, I would assume  Tongue ). I'm not sure that would be worth it, but maybe for the next major content release- like the tutorial or something that would likely break saves anyway- I may look into it then.

Really? You added hull mods to existing ships, and they changed. Does it break only when removing them?

And honestly, given the game doesn't care if you change OP costs and it goes over, I don't see how this would happen.

Test it anyhow.

Quote
Added a blurb to the hull skin description describing that fact, as well as one to the the Pather version of the hull, which uses an ammofeeder. If I have time, I will do a full check of the skin files for this sort of discrepancy.

I'll Report any other cases I see.

Quote
- Also, I haven't really heard anything on this so I assume it hasn't been too much of an issue, but how is supply and fuel management in the mod? Is it more accessible? Less? Are people running out often or constantly oversupplied? I lowered the payout for bounty fleets and increased the payout for general bounties, so attempting to ensure bounty-hunting is still profitable.
I appreciate the general bounty-hunting boost. I haven't had any serious supply issues yet, but my fleet is growing pretty quickly so it might happen soonish.

Quote
- Similarly, do people feel that using the fuel/supply request feature for NPC fleets is mandatory for effective play? Is is too farmable? Are the downsides not potent enough to discourage that, too potent? Etc.
I have yet to have to use it. Generally I keep my supplies healthy, and if it gets bad, I drop ships off at Corvus and downsize until I feel I can expand again.
(I probably expand too aggressively, honestly)

Quote
Assuming the combat system is in a pretty decent spot at this point, and most of the pet peeves are eliminated, I am going to start work on the tutorial again, and finally get around to polishing and adding to the Intimidation and Bribery systems since they are far behind the Commodity Request feature in complexity and nuance.

Combat seems great currently. Only complaint I have is that I can't install the Automous Ships (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13199.0) mod which would help a lot. Not sure exactly why.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 20, 2018, 04:55:12 PM
Really? You added hull mods to existing ships, and they changed. Does it break only when removing them?

And honestly, given the game doesn't care if you change OP costs and it goes over, I don't see how this would happen.

Test it anyhow.

Yeah good point. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that because new ids being read on load would be different from missing ids that were supposed to have been there and are absent (causing save incompatibility), but that is making some assumptions based on older builds of the game that are irrelevant now anyway. I will test and get back to you. I have a save file I can use. :)

I appreciate the general bounty-hunting boost. I haven't had any serious supply issues yet, but my fleet is growing pretty quickly so it might happen soonish.

Good to know it's been smooth so far for you.

I have yet to have to use it. Generally I keep my supplies healthy, and if it gets bad, I drop ships off at Corvus and downsize until I feel I can expand again.
(I probably expand too aggressively, honestly)

This is a good sign, it is not meant to be mandatory, but optional when in an otherwise difficult situation away from markets or low on credits.

A couple things that may or may not prove helpful:

 - with high rep, getting help is mostly successful for mainstream factions, so don't be shy if you find yourself low on funds and have some allies nearby. They will remind you if you ask too much.

 - it can sometimes be easier to at least attempt the request over a re-load if a bounty goes awry or a distress beacon leads to a pirate ambush and you can't escape with everything. I guess it depends on how often you save.

Combat seems great currently. Only complaint I have is that I can't install the Automous Ships (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13199.0) mod which would help a lot. Not sure exactly why.

The mod_info file specifically overrides the hullmods.csv which I assume that mod uses. Not sure if it HAS to, though, if I just did it as a safeguard. I'll test and see. If not, then I don't see why this mod wouldn't work as long as its set as a utility mod.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 22, 2018, 08:41:16 AM
Yeah good point. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that because new ids being read on load would be different from missing ids that were supposed to have been there and are absent (causing save incompatibility), but that is making some assumptions based on older builds of the game that are irrelevant now anyway. I will test and get back to you. I have a save file I can use. :)

Confirmed it does break saves. Holding off on that change until a major content release.

The mod_info file specifically overrides the hullmods.csv which I assume that mod uses. Not sure if it HAS to, though, if I just did it as a safeguard. I'll test and see. If not, then I don't see why this mod wouldn't work as long as its set as a utility mod.

I have changed the mod_info file to no longer override hullmods.csv and the mod you referenced appears to work fine. You will, however, have to change your own mod_info file to not consider the archean order mod a total conversion in order to run the autonomous ships mod simultaneously.

I'll release an update with the changes in a couple of days if I have time.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 24, 2018, 02:26:13 PM
I think the cruicible missile destroyer is a bit too powerful.
The whole, 18 reapers in 12 seconds thing. Just a little..... Yea..... Its almost a constant stream of reaper missile, one per second sustained (not sure exactly the cooldown on reloading)

Its kinda fun, but I think that's a few too many reaper missiles from one destroyer.

As in, I fed around 20 of them to an Afflictor Frigate (Phase frigate) and eventually one of them connected. Being able to throw reapers at a Phase frigate until it fails to dodge is a little bit silly.

The only downside is the serious cost in CR, but taking out cruisers with almost trivial ease, well....
--
Oh, wait, I had it on no-repair. There isn't a large CR cost either.

I think you put the wrong name on the ability. The function is the missile autoforge or whatever it was, while the name is the one that resets the cooldown on missiles so you can fire another volly instantly. Admittedly given how the missile mechanics work in this mod they aren't quite as disimilar, but still.
Unlike the mudskipper 2, It doesn't have a downside (fragile, minimal defenses, slow-ish, flux problems) to go with the extreme strike capacity.


If this IS intentionall, I suggest nerfing it, making it so that it gives a +30-60 seconds of full regen, instead of full 100% regen.
------

I just  noticed that many ships don't have a peak performance anymore. Afflictor at least has it still, and I would expect anything else extremely agile. Hyperion perhaps. Any particular reason?

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Do the Adamantian Consortium not pay out bounties? I am not an enemy of them, but there is no message after killing Pirates there. Are they allied with pirates or something?
--
Huh, apprently they have No relationship with Pirates. There isn't even an entry between the two. Bug maybe?

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Got myself a proper Sunder. It WAS a wrecked version with ill-advised modifications (meaning it loses one of the three medium weapons as soon as it tries to fire) But I repaired it (kinda pricy).
After that, I fed it 3 Phase beams. deals terrible, terrible damage to whatever it catches up to. Overloads shields without too much trouble, And whatever is left tends to melt as well. Very strike destroyer build.

Shame I haven't found any advanced optic mods yet. Would be awesome (even if it would cost 40% more flux, a sensible tradeoff IMO)
Also shame it's shield is now omni and not exactly large....
After the 3 phase beams it's OP is a bit limited, especially if I want it to hold onto some flux for shielding.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 24, 2018, 05:34:20 PM
I think the cruicible missile destroyer is a bit too powerful.
The whole, 18 reapers in 12 seconds thing. Just a little..... Yea..... Its almost a constant stream of reaper missile, one per second sustained (not sure exactly the cooldown on reloading)

Its kinda fun, but I think that's a few too many reaper missiles from one destroyer.

As in, I fed around 20 of them to an Afflictor Frigate (Phase frigate) and eventually one of them connected. Being able to throw reapers at a Phase frigate until it fails to dodge is a little bit silly.

The only downside is the serious cost in CR, but taking out cruisers with almost trivial ease, well....
--
Oh, wait, I had it on no-repair. There isn't a large CR cost either.

I think you put the wrong name on the ability. The function is the missile autoforge or whatever it was, while the name is the one that resets the cooldown on missiles so you can fire another volly instantly. Admittedly given how the missile mechanics work in this mod they aren't quite as disimilar, but still.
Unlike the mudskipper 2, It doesn't have a downside (fragile, minimal defenses, slow-ish, flux problems) to go with the extreme strike capacity.


If this IS intentionall, I suggest nerfing it, making it so that it gives a +30-60 seconds of full regen, instead of full 100% regen.

Hmm, yeah that was designed when reapers cost flux and were weaker in pd health. Practically infinite is too much DPS. I'll implement a charge based cd, as well, to decrease the amount of times a player can use the system. That shouldn't hurt the use of other missiles, either.

I just  noticed that many ships don't have a peak performance anymore. Afflictor at least has it still, and I would expect anything else extremely agile. Hyperion perhaps. Any particular reason?

I, personally, dislike the peak performance system. It is useful for the ships you mentioned, and I think the Hyperion also has it. I'll double check because it really should. As a whole, I felt that the increased speed and utilization of fighters (especially among all slow capitals) solve most of the "infinite kiting" problems that peak performance was designed to solve. So instead I generally limit that mechanic to phase ships and extremely agile ones. I should probably implement that mechanic to ships who equip Safety Overrides, too, if possible, since that can also stack with Unstable Injector.

Do the Adamantian Consortium not pay out bounties? I am not an enemy of them, but there is no message after killing Pirates there. Are they allied with pirates or something?
--
Huh, apprently they have No relationship with Pirates. There isn't even an entry between the two. Bug maybe?

It isn't explicitly mentioned (except through exploration of the faction's colonies in a way I won't spoil), but, yes the Adamantine Consortium is pretty indifferent to pirates. Bounties are most likely for Sci-Corps patrols- who frequently attack Consortium holds because of the barons' reputation for cruelty. (It should pay out if you attack a Sci-Corps patrol)

Got myself a proper Sunder. It WAS a wrecked version with ill-advised modifications (meaning it loses one of the three medium weapons as soon as it tries to fire) But I repaired it (kinda pricy).
After that, I fed it 3 Phase beams. deals terrible, terrible damage to whatever it catches up to. Overloads shields without too much trouble, And whatever is left tends to melt as well. Very strike destroyer build.

Shame I haven't found any advanced optic mods yet. Would be awesome (even if it would cost 40% more flux, a sensible tradeoff IMO)
Also shame it's shield is now omni and not exactly large....
After the 3 phase beams it's OP is a bit limited, especially if I want it to hold onto some flux for shielding.

Nice, I would check Tri-Tachyon and Sci-Corps markets for that hullmod. Their ships frequently use it, and I've seen it there more often.

---------------------------

Updated notes for the next patch. (Not yet available for download, though)

Next Patch Changes: v1.2.1a

Content Additions

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 24, 2018, 06:18:30 PM

Hmm, yeah that was designed when reapers cost flux and were weaker in pd health. Practically infinite is too much DPS. I'll implement a charge based cd, as well, to decrease the amount of times a player can use the system. That shouldn't hurt the use of other missiles, either.

Not infinite, silly, its more like 6k DPS. Not infinite at all, just massive for a destroyer :P

Which system was it based on anyway? missile autoforge or fast racks? I do think they should be merged for this mod tho.
Vanilla had it have 1 charge and that was it I think at one point.
Quote


I, personally, dislike the peak performance system. It is useful for the ships you mentioned, and I think the Hyperion also has it. I'll double check because it really should. As a whole, I felt that the increased speed and utilization of fighters (especially among all slow capitals) solve most of the "infinite kiting" problems that peak performance was designed to solve. So instead I generally limit that mechanic to phase ships and extremely agile ones. I should probably implement that mechanic to ships who equip Safety Overrides, too, if possible, since that can also stack with Unstable Injector.
Makes sense. I didn't like it when it was added, but it did help with some serious issues.

Delicate Machinery I think should be the mod that implements it. Implies that both it is harder to maintain, but also that it doesn't last as long during combat as normal ships.

Its critical for phase frigates to have it because they are just never going to die otherwise. 3x faster than other ships and so on.

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It isn't explicitly mentioned (except through exploration of the faction's colonies in a way I won't spoil), but, yes the Adamantine Consortium is pretty indifferent to pirates. Bounties are most likely for Sci-Corps patrols- who frequently attack Consortium holds because of the barons' reputation for cruelty. (It should pay out if you attack a Sci-Corps patrol)
I still think they shouldn't have an undefined relationship though. Its entirely missing....
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Nice, I would check Tri-Tachyon and Sci-Corps markets for that hullmod. Their ships frequently use it, and I've seen it there more often.

Saw the hullmod in, I think, a Persian League commission shop. But I have been chasing bounties mainly and haven't hit those systems enough yet.
Thanks for advise.
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---------------------------

Updated notes for the next patch. (Not yet available for download, though)
NOOOOOOOOOOOO (http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/)
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Next Patch Changes: v1.2.1a

Content Additions
  • New factions now have custom dialogue when you hire their officers.
  • You can now "Rescue" Officers from the Adamantine Consortium if you cannot afford to pay a "hiring" bribe. This will make the barons less than pleased, of course.
  • New variant for the Osprey-class light carrier that features Mining Drones - added to independent and scavenger fleets.

Balance Changes
  • Tempest-class frigate now has a "small" version of the Wasp interceptor wing wing built-in. This wing has 4 max interceptors instead of 6.
  • Acolyte-class heavy frigate now has a "small" version of the Spectre interceptor wing built-in. This wing has 4 max interceptors instead of 6.
Hmm. interesting. Any specific reason for the downgrades?
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  • Removed built-in Talon wing for the Atlas superfreighter. Now has two open flight decks instead of one, but not enough Ordinance to carry much heavy strike craft. Standard variant adjusted.
Quite nice. Maybe I will get one eventually. No capitals yet.
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  • The Mining Drone wing now has a combat assault range similar to other gunships, and Assault AI. Ordinance cost increased to 2 (from 0).
I find it amusing how this mod took the junk mining weapons and stuff and made them inefficient, but potent weapons.
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  • Built-in Mining Drone wing on the Venture-class combat freighter has been modified to retain its short range support role, as intended.
Meaning limited to a smaller radius around the ship, right?
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  • Redacted heavy fighter primary weapon replaced with something stronger. Was too weak for its number/OP cost.
  • Redacted interceptor has had its secondary weapon removed. Was too strong for its number/OP cost.
Vanilla Redacted, right? Not one of the two new factions?
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Bug Fixes
  • You can now hire new faction mercenary officers as intended. A bug in Rules.csv prevented the dialogue option to hire them from appearing.
  • Removed override of hullmods.csv file to allow power user opt-in of Autonomous Ships mod. (Must still set totalConversion to "false" in the mod_info.json file)
  • Fighter wings should no longer disappear from inventory after visiting the refit screen if hulls with built-in versions of the same type exist within your fleet.
  • Corrected name error in Mining Drone wing tooltip.
  • Redacted heavy bomber will now correctly use its primary weapon.



Apperently splitting a quote across lists break formatting, who knew :P
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on February 24, 2018, 08:26:02 PM
The sound effects of the repeater and the iridium cannon are a bit too loud. It makes using them annoying and the fighters armed with them are deafening.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 24, 2018, 08:37:28 PM
Not infinite, silly, its more like 6k DPS. Not infinite at all, just massive for a destroyer :P

Which system was it based on anyway? missile autoforge or fast racks? I do think they should be merged for this mod tho.
Vanilla had it have 1 charge and that was it I think at one point.

It's the code of autoforge (mostly, had to change AI), but called fast missile racks because that is the function it plays with new missiles.

Right now, I'm thinking two charges, relatively fast basic cd but very long recharge per charge.

I still think they shouldn't have an undefined relationship though. Its entirely missing....

It's actually set to favorable for Consortium->Pirates, but Suspicious Pirates->Consortium, so that's why it doesn't show up under "ally" or "enemy", since they are technically neither. But its's not undefined. Do you mean you want it to show up?

Saw the hullmod in, I think, a Persian League commission shop. But I have been chasing bounties mainly and haven't hit those systems enough yet.
Thanks for advise.

No problem!  :)

NOOOOOOOOOOOO (http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/)

Haha, soon, soon!

Hmm. interesting. Any specific reason for the downgrades?

Those frigates were slightly too powerful compared to similar ones due to having full wings of advanced interceptors. Also, I needed to change the ids anyway due to a bug that removes any wings of built in fighters present in the player's inventory when visiting the refit screen if they share an id.

Meaning limited to a smaller radius around the ship, right?

Vanilla Redacted, right? Not one of the two new factions?

Yes, and yes.

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 24, 2018, 08:40:22 PM
The sound effects of the repeater and the iridium cannon are a bit too loud. It makes using them annoying and the fighters armed with them are deafening.

Thanks, made a note! Sorry about that!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 24, 2018, 08:55:18 PM

It's actually set to favorable for Consortium->Pirates, but Suspicious Pirates->Consortium, so that's why it doesn't show up under "ally" or "enemy", since they are technically neither. But its's not undefined. Do you mean you want it to show up?


I mean it doesn't show up in the Faction menu as a relationship. Every other faction has a link to every other faction (I think)

-----

The Condor has a similar issue with it's fast racks. Missiles use a LOT of flux in general, (and their tooltips base flux cost on recharge rate, not max fire rate)
I can either try to use it for missiles, or else get good fighters. Either way, its not exactly good.


Harpoons use 2k Flux/second, not the 150 I previously expected. Kinda a vanilla issue, but still. If that is intended, I think that needs to be more clearly stated in tooltips for missiles.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 24, 2018, 09:26:40 PM
I mean it doesn't show up in the Faction menu as a relationship. Every other faction has a link to every other faction (I think)

Not that I can see on my end, just that factions allies and enemies. Pirates just happen to be enemies with just about everyone  :)

The Condor has a similar issue with it's fast racks. Missiles use a LOT of flux in general, (and their tooltips base flux cost on recharge rate, not max fire rate)
I can either try to use it for missiles, or else get good fighters. Either way, its not exactly good.

It uses less flux once it has charges (reduced by 33% over the current build) so hopefully that will help with that.

Harpoons use 2k Flux/second, not the 150 I previously expected. Kinda a vanilla issue, but still. If that is intended, I think that needs to be more clearly stated in tooltips for missiles.

I don't think I can do anything about the way its weighted, but what would you suggest for tooltip info? Just that it has a very large flux cost per salvo? Or higher than the tooltip?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 25, 2018, 06:51:29 AM

Not that I can see on my end, just that factions allies and enemies. Pirates just happen to be enemies with just about everyone  :)
Ah, nevermind. I see
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It uses less flux once it has charges (reduced by 33% over the current build) so hopefully that will help with that.
Rephrase that? Not specific enough, not sure what you are talking about
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I don't think I can do anything about the way its weighted, but what would you suggest for tooltip info? Just that it has a very large flux cost per salvo? Or higher than the tooltip?
Uhm, I think it costs way too much flux, at least for the kind of ships it can fit on, and the tooltip should probably state that it costs 2k flux given vanilla tooltip parts don't tell you that.

Its pretty obvious that fast-missile racks are a bit of a problem atm.
Harpoon missile flux costs are actually pretty reasonable given other Medium strike-type weapons, looking at them. I think its mainly the whole fast missile racks that throws it all off.

Any strike/Support weapon with a ROF less than 10/minute (As Clip regen as well as normal cooldown) probable needs a "Flux Impulse" in it's tooltip, stating how much flux it generates in an instant. I spent a long time having useless weapons on some ships that I didn't realize didn't actually have enough flux storage to fire it. This isn't nearly as common as vanilla so it isn't a huge deal there, but here it kinda is.

The math is somewhat simple, but it is still annoying. Especially as it tends to involve parts of 60 AND fractions.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 25, 2018, 11:09:06 AM
Rephrase that? Not specific enough, not sure what you are talking about

Sorry I was typing that response too quickly and didn't proofread enough. It was pretty vague.  

What I meant was: Fast Missile Racks in the current build generates 15% of the base flux of the ship per use (not including capacitors, concentrated shields, etc). I have changed that in the next build to only generate 10% base flux per use, a 33% reduction in its cost. It keeps its small cooldown between uses (10 secs) and now only has 2 charges. Charges will take significantly longer to regenerate than the cd (every 100 secs I think).

The charge-based ship system is quickly becoming a necessary theme.   :P

Uhm, I think it costs way too much flux, at least for the kind of ships it can fit on, and the tooltip should probably state that it costs 2k flux given vanilla tooltip parts don't tell you that.

Its pretty obvious that fast-missile racks are a bit of a problem atm.
Harpoon missile flux costs are actually pretty reasonable given other Medium strike-type weapons, looking at them. I think its mainly the whole fast missile racks that throws it all off.

Trying to make sure I completely understand what you mean or would like to see: So you think Harpoons cost too much flux? Or they cost too much flux when used with Fast Missile Racks? Or is it more the issue that I will respond to below, as well, regarding misleading tooltip info?

Also, just so I have a frame of reference for your experience, is this mostly through equipping them on condors, or have you also tried them out on any higher tech ships, if you have them? I can understand what you mean about the condor's lack of flux if you are equipping advanced missiles like the Harpoon or Hunter. Because of its nature as a conversion warship from a freighter, I tried to somewhat limit its combat capabilities in accordance with lore. It's cheaper, and easier to maintain and deploy compared to full combat destroyers, and provides decent fighter support without sacrificing every last drop of combat ability like the Anchorage does- the other low tech destroyer-sized carrier in this category.

Fast Missile Racks being present is also misleading when outfitting the condor for the AIs use. Since that system will likely be entirely wasted- even in the next build, if you are using advanced missiles that generate more flux than the condor can handle. So you are right in this case that builds for this carrier will likely revolve around: Do I lean more on its combat ability (luddic church, hegemony and pirates typically take this route) or do I give it some heavy-duty fighters, bombers or gunships and use fast missile racks for things like swarmers, trebuchets, bolas and salamanders. Combining the ship system with lighter costing missiles or a combination of heavy flux missiles like the trebuchet and flux free ones like the salamander can really let you see the system shine even on the condor.

Maybe that ship needs a little more in its description to let players know its missile limitations. Your thoughts? Any counter arguments?

**Edit: Also, the Harpoon(single) or Sabot(single) version works a lot better on the condor with its system, and saves some ordinance points as well.
  
Any strike/Support weapon with a ROF less than 10/minute (As Clip regen as well as normal cooldown) probable needs a "Flux Impulse" in it's tooltip, stating how much flux it generates in an instant. I spent a long time having useless weapons on some ships that I didn't realize didn't actually have enough flux storage to fire it. This isn't nearly as common as vanilla so it isn't a huge deal there, but here it kinda is.

The math is somewhat simple, but it is still annoying. Especially as it tends to involve parts of 60 AND fractions.

I agree that tooltips describing "flux per shot/salvo/burst" are needed. Unfortunately, unless things have changed since I last checked, the U.I is off limits to mods. Otherwise I would add both of those entries below "flux per second."

If it has indeed changed, an API file path to the file that handles the weapon tooltips would be very helpful in this case.

On your suggestion: By tooltip do you mean the description in the tooltip? That, I can edit at least. I can try and add that information, but it will kind of look weird and out of place. Guess its better than not having it though, and so likely necessary, especially considering ships just wont be able to use certain weapons, like you said. Still, it will take a little time to get all that information into the descriptions. There are quite a few weapons that fall into that category.  :)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 25, 2018, 12:07:04 PM


Sorry I was typing that response too quickly and didn't proofread enough. It was pretty vague.  

What I meant was: Fast Missile Racks in the current build generates 15% of the base flux of the ship per use (not including capacitors, concentrated shields, etc). I have changed that in the next build to only generate 10% base flux per use, a 33% reduction in its cost. It keeps its small cooldown between uses (10 secs) and now only has 2 charges. Charges will take significantly longer to regenerate than the cd (every 100 secs I think).

The charge-based ship system is quickly becoming a necessary theme.   :P

Heh, true enough. I think that sounds reasonable.
Wasn't it a x cost per missile slotted before? Or am I recalling that wrongly?
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Trying to make sure I completely understand what you mean or would like to see: So you think Harpoons cost too much flux? Or they cost too much flux when used with Fast Missile Racks? Or is it more the issue that I will respond to below, as well, regarding misleading tooltip info?
The second mainly. Using them with Fast Missile racks. Hence the changes should help with them, Reapers, and so on.

Most missiles cost a lot more flux, and there are not a lot of "Assault" variants. (As in, low-no flux cost) Mainly there are those PD missiles. Which excluding assault mostly makes sense, It is hard to find a reasonable missile to use.
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Also, just so I have a frame of reference for your experience, is this mostly through equipping them on condors, or have you also tried them out on any higher tech ships, if you have them? I can understand what you mean about the condor's lack of flux if you are equipping advanced missiles like the Harpoon or Hunter. Because of its nature as a conversion warship from a freighter, I tried to somewhat limit its combat capabilities in accordance with lore. It's cheaper, and easier to maintain and deploy compared to full combat destroyers, and provides decent fighter support without sacrificing every last drop of combat ability like the Anchorage does- the other low tech destroyer-sized carrier in this category.
Ah yes. In vanilla, it is far easier to use all the slots without horrible flux costs. The problem is that there aren't many missiles which aren't flux hungry, and ships like the Condor and Crucible, and honestly most missile-heavy ships tend to have to either use Reapers, anti-fighter missiles, or suffer massive flux costs. There aren't many lighter-weight missiles around. Will try the smaller racks though.
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Fast Missile Racks being present is also misleading when outfitting the condor for the AIs use. Since that system will likely be entirely wasted- even in the next build, if you are using advanced missiles that generate more flux than the condor can handle. So you are right in this case that builds for this carrier will likely revolve around: Do I lean more on its combat ability (luddic church, hegemony and pirates typically take this route) or do I give it some heavy-duty fighters, bombers or gunships and use fast missile racks for things like swarmers, trebuchets, bolas and salamanders. Combining the ship system with lighter costing missiles or a combination of heavy flux missiles like the trebuchet and flux free ones like the salamander can really let you see the system shine even on the condor.
Yea, it has too few reasonable builds, and it's ability really doesn't fit it since it still doesn't have enough flux to run it all, or even close.
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Maybe that ship needs a little more in its description to let players know its missile limitations. Your thoughts? Any counter arguments?

**Edit: Also, the Harpoon(single) or Sabot(single) version works a lot better on the condor with its system, and saves some ordinance points as well.

I agree that tooltips describing "flux per shot/salvo/burst" are needed. Unfortunately, unless things have changed since I last checked, the U.I is off limits to mods. Otherwise I would add both of those entries below "flux per second."

If it has indeed changed, an API file path to the file that handles the weapon tooltips would be very helpful in this case.

On your suggestion: By tooltip do you mean the description in the tooltip? That, I can edit at least. I can try and add that information, but it will kind of look weird and out of place. Guess its better than not having it though, and so likely necessary, especially considering ships just wont be able to use certain weapons, like you said. Still, it will take a little time to get all that information into the descriptions. There are quite a few weapons that fall into that category.  :)
I know you can't touch the built-in tooltip, something I asked for as a suggestion a while ago. Would be really useful for a lot of modders.
I mean the description, like how you did for fighters. (Something that got lost from vanilla when they became weapons and you couldn't read it's stats anymore)
Just something like: 2,000 Flux/shot, and 2,000 Flux/sec for 3 seconds would do it. It says 60 shots a second peak, and you got 3 ammo? Easy to calculate by brain.
That just says 2k minimum flux storage, and 6k or 8k to unload all the missiles.

I wonder... Can you hack the cooldown on those missiles, such that after firing it sets the cooldown to 1 second? Or for, like, any strike type weapon?
I mean, being able to unleash 3 missiles in seconds which do terrible, terrible damage is one of the perks of a Harpoon, and even with the flux cost that is the purpose. Just that 450 flux is not quite 6k flux.

The big problem though, is that I looked at the missile, saw 150 flux/second, and said, Yes, I can equip that. I have 200 or so flux dissipation, so it will be a bit tight, but no issue. However, once I try to actually use it, the serious flux impulse shows that is not really the case.


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Concentrated Shield Emmiter's tooltip says it reduces shield damage taken by 25. you forgot the % there.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 25, 2018, 01:19:50 PM
Heh, true enough. I think that sounds reasonable.
Wasn't it a x cost per missile slotted before? Or am I recalling that wrongly?

I think so, yes. It may still be, to be honest. That part of the code is not public (or I can't find it, at least). I built the AI for the system off the fast missile racks AI, only tracking current ammo instead of weapon cd, but keeping the same weights on size and safeguards for max flux so the AI doesn't overuse it.

That's just the AI though. I'm hoping using the system doesn't add any flux past the .csv entry, at least.

The second mainly. Using them with Fast Missile racks. Hence the changes should help with them, Reapers, and so on.

Most missiles cost a lot more flux, and there are not a lot of "Assault" variants. (As in, low-no flux cost) Mainly there are those PD missiles. Which excluding assault mostly makes sense, It is hard to find a reasonable missile to use.

Ok yeah we will see how the changes go for that system.

On missiles, I can see what you mean here. But some may seem to cost more than they really do. Part of that may be just because the condor's flux capabilities are quite weak. I am buffing its flux while nerfing its shields (similar to the lasher in the last update). There are the two torpedoes, the two anti-fighter missiles, annihilator rockets, frag bombs, bolas and swarmers that should all be very condor friendly. Even more so after the next buff.

I'll continue to monitor this though and if this doesn't help let me know.

I know you can't touch the built-in tooltip, something I asked for as a suggestion a while ago. Would be really useful for a lot of modders.
I mean the description, like how you did for fighters. (Something that got lost from vanilla when they became weapons and you couldn't read it's stats anymore)
Just something like: 2,000 Flux/shot, and 2,000 Flux/sec for 3 seconds would do it. It says 60 shots a second peak, and you got 3 ammo? Easy to calculate by brain.
That just says 2k minimum flux storage, and 6k or 8k to unload all the missiles.

Ok, that should be fairly easy to handle in the description.

I wonder... Can you hack the cooldown on those missiles, such that after firing it sets the cooldown to 1 second? Or for, like, any strike type weapon?
I mean, being able to unleash 3 missiles in seconds which do terrible, terrible damage is one of the perks of a Harpoon, and even with the flux cost that is the purpose. Just that 450 flux is not quite 6k flux.

The big problem though, is that I looked at the missile, saw 150 flux/second, and said, Yes, I can equip that. I have 200 or so flux dissipation, so it will be a bit tight, but no issue. However, once I try to actually use it, the serious flux impulse shows that is not really the case.

Hm, sorry not sure what you mean by this. The cooldowns, themselves are too long? Or trying to fool the tooltip calculation by an everyframe script?

If the second, not really worth the memory, imo, when I can just add the relevant info into the description. I'm not 100% sure that would even work, though that's only an early presumption.

Concentrated Shield Emmiter's tooltip says it reduces shield damage taken by 25. you forgot the % there.

Thanks, I'll correct.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 25, 2018, 02:08:30 PM

Ok yeah we will see how the changes go for that system.

On missiles, I can see what you mean here. But some may seem to cost more than they really do. Part of that may be just because the condor's flux capabilities are quite weak. I am buffing its flux while nerfing its shields (similar to the lasher in the last update). There are the two torpedoes, the two anti-fighter missiles, annihilator rockets, frag bombs, bolas and swarmers that should all be very condor friendly. Even more so after the next buff.

I'll continue to monitor this though and if this doesn't help let me know.
Its more that the LRM or other stronger missiles use so much flux that ships that have one of them have trouble running it, regardless if military or not. Most ships with one or two small missile slots can run a pair of hunters, but only if they don't use the flux for anything else. It just seems a little TOO much flux is spent on those larger missiles compared to the size, if not effect.
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Hm, sorry not sure what you mean by this. The cooldowns, themselves are too long? Or trying to fool the tooltip calculation by an everyframe script?

If the second, not really worth the memory, imo, when I can just add the relevant info into the description. I'm not 100% sure that would even work, though that's only an early presumption.

Probably worth it admittedly. Just a thought anyhow.
Better to just add the extra bit to the description.
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Concentrated Shield Emmiter's tooltip says it reduces shield damage taken by 25. you forgot the % there.

Thanks, I'll correct.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 25, 2018, 06:07:21 PM
Wow. I just got a Dominator XIV, and gave it two Mark IX Cannons and two heavy railguns (among other lesser weapons)

The amount of firepower that brings is horrifying. Tears apart lesser cruisers in seconds. I suppose that is to be expected from an actual military cruiser.

I mean wow.. The range and damage on that....

I can't wait till Capital ships are inside my price range :D

----

Salvaged a Pillager Class capital ship from a pirate bounty. Even more nasty. Shame it has wrecked armor and hull, but it's ability to focus 3-4 large cannons on a target is scary. Plus it can take quite a bit of punishment. Never got close to losing it, although cruisers do tend to take quite a bit more fire.

The idea of Cruisers being a huge force multiplier is clearly accurate from what I've seen. While They can and do get taken down, they take a lot of damage and have massive levels of firepower, thanks to those medium and large slots.

I am clearly having a lot more fun than vanilla Starsector. I haven't previously gotten this far before. I think I might have gotten an Onslaught a while back, but that was many Starsector Versions ago.


That said, I think the part when I went after a bounty, saw two fleets, paused, and realized that the second one had a pair of Paragons was the point I realized that A, I should run away, and B, I need more firepower before I am confidant in my having "Won" the game.
I do not want to face a Paragon quite yet....

-----
Did you change any of the missions? Sinking the Bismar has a different set of ships that I remember. It might be vanilla, but it might be this mod.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: A Random Jolteon on February 26, 2018, 02:35:51 PM
Wow. I just got a Dominator XIV, and gave it two Mark IX Cannons and two heavy railguns (among other lesser weapons)

The amount of firepower that brings is horrifying. Tears apart lesser cruisers in seconds. I suppose that is to be expected from an actual military cruiser.

I mean wow.. The range and damage on that....

I can't wait till Capital ships are inside my price range :D

----

Salvaged a Pillager Class capital ship from a pirate bounty. Even more nasty. Shame it has wrecked armor and hull, but it's ability to focus 3-4 large cannons on a target is scary. Plus it can take quite a bit of punishment. Never got close to losing it, although cruisers do tend to take quite a bit more fire.

The idea of Cruisers being a huge force multiplier is clearly accurate from what I've seen. While They can and do get taken down, they take a lot of damage and have massive levels of firepower, thanks to those medium and large slots.

I am clearly having a lot more fun than vanilla Starsector. I haven't previously gotten this far before. I think I might have gotten an Onslaught a while back, but that was many Starsector Versions ago.


That said, I think the part when I went after a bounty, saw two fleets, paused, and realized that the second one had a pair of Paragons was the point I realized that A, I should run away, and B, I need more firepower before I am confidant in my having "Won" the game.
I do not want to face a Paragon quite yet....

-----
Did you change any of the missions? Sinking the Bismar has a different set of ships that I remember. It might be vanilla, but it might be this mod.
From a realistic standpoint, Cruisers are faster and easier to maintain than a Capital ship (Carrier, Battlecruiser, Battleship). However, they pack more fire power than a destroyer and can take a bigger beating. So it WOULD make sense that they would be the main "killing force" of any good sized fleet. I'd say 1 cap ship for every 5-7 cruisers is a good center force.


As for the Paragon's: Good choice. I never fought against or alongside a Paragon in this mod, but in Sim it was still a very strong ship. 2 Paragons are almost a fleet on their own.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1) (Update 2/19)
Post by: Morrokain on February 26, 2018, 04:08:01 PM
Its more that the LRM or other stronger missiles use so much flux that ships that have one of them have trouble running it, regardless if military or not. Most ships with one or two small missile slots can run a pair of hunters, but only if they don't use the flux for anything else. It just seems a little TOO much flux is spent on those larger missiles compared to the size, if not effect.

It is really important for small LRMs to generate a ton of flux, or they can become a huge problem when massed on every ship. That's why they are only supportable in smaller numbers than other weapons. That being said, I'll keep this feedback in mind. They may indeed be tuned too high. Once I have done some more testing I'll get back to you.

Wow. I just got a Dominator XIV, and gave it two Mark IX Cannons and two heavy railguns (among other lesser weapons)

The amount of firepower that brings is horrifying. Tears apart lesser cruisers in seconds. I suppose that is to be expected from an actual military cruiser.

I mean wow.. The range and damage on that....

I can't wait till Capital ships are inside my price range :D

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Salvaged a Pillager Class capital ship from a pirate bounty. Even more nasty. Shame it has wrecked armor and hull, but it's ability to focus 3-4 large cannons on a target is scary. Plus it can take quite a bit of punishment. Never got close to losing it, although cruisers do tend to take quite a bit more fire.

The idea of Cruisers being a huge force multiplier is clearly accurate from what I've seen. While They can and do get taken down, they take a lot of damage and have massive levels of firepower, thanks to those medium and large slots.

I am clearly having a lot more fun than vanilla Starsector. I haven't previously gotten this far before. I think I might have gotten an Onslaught a while back, but that was many Starsector Versions ago.


That said, I think the part when I went after a bounty, saw two fleets, paused, and realized that the second one had a pair of Paragons was the point I realized that A, I should run away, and B, I need more firepower before I am confidant in my having "Won" the game.
I do not want to face a Paragon quite yet....

From a realistic standpoint, Cruisers are faster and easier to maintain than a Capital ship (Carrier, Battlecruiser, Battleship). However, they pack more fire power than a destroyer and can take a bigger beating. So it WOULD make sense that they would be the main "killing force" of any good sized fleet. I'd say 1 cap ship for every 5-7 cruisers is a good center force.


As for the Paragon's: Good choice. I never fought against or alongside a Paragon in this mod, but in Sim it was still a very strong ship. 2 Paragons are almost a fleet on their own.

:D That made my day, thank you!

On dominator, they have huge forward concentrated firepower that is just barely shy of most capitals, but they are very, very easily flanked.  ;) Tried to stay true to vanilla, there.

On paragons, yes any of the stronger factions' capitals will be a difficult fight, especially if facing more than one. I actually have a harder time deciding which is most difficult to take down. Astrals, in particular, are significantly harder to deal with in anything less than a well-equipped heavy cruiser or capital. Give the Predator or Prey mission a try to see what I mean.

That's not even including monsters like the Megalith or Tyrant. And well, the greatest threat (vanilla redacted top-end enemy)... it destroys max fleets full of capitals and cruisers by itself. You will need several waves of fleets, from what I can see in the simulator.


Did you change any of the missions? Sinking the Bismar has a different set of ships that I remember. It might be vanilla, but it might be this mod.

All of them have been reworked to be balanced for the mod, yes. Some to a higher degree than others. Random Battle has a HUGE number of variants to pull from, and can give a sense of how strong capitals are in comparison to everything else.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on February 27, 2018, 04:07:13 PM
New update. Mostly polish.

The next small update will deal with improving some of the current features.

Content Additions

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes

** May break saves if near vanilla Redacted in the campaign.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 04, 2018, 03:06:58 PM
Very nice. I now have respect for exactly how much power those strike weapons take. Its a lot more than I previously assumed (until I did the math manually)

Explains exactly why Hunters cost so much flux, and other stuff.

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What are the exact values on fast missile racks?

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Just ran some tests with a Dominator. The spread out reapers make it sometimes feasible to box in a frigate and get at least one hit of the 3.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 04, 2018, 04:16:01 PM
What are the exact values on fast missile racks?

2 Charges - 10 second cd - 0.01/s charge regen - 10% base flux per use (doesn't include capacitors added or hullmods)

Effect: Completely restores missile ammo in all missile weapons on the ship- allows immediate secondary salvo of all missiles (up to two additional times over standard vessels)

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Very nice. I now have respect for exactly how much power those strike weapons take. Its a lot more than I previously assumed (until I did the math manually)

Explains exactly why Hunters cost so much flux, and other stuff.

Great, hopefully outfitting effective strike ships should be much easier now.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 04, 2018, 05:22:23 PM
Yea. Getting an idea of exactly how flux hungry a weapon is in the short term matters a lot.

The flux costs are around 10x or so what i initially thought, honestly.

And just reinforces my initial thought that capacity is similarly, or even more important than dissipation in many cases.

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 04, 2018, 06:21:36 PM
Is it clear that "Flux per Salvo" means all possible ammunition? (not including expanded mags of course)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 04, 2018, 06:44:00 PM
Is it clear that "Flux per Salvo" means all possible ammunition? (not including expanded mags of course)

After a few seconds of thought yea. Its how much flux you have to spend to flush it's entire ammo stock out. As such, to use it effectively you generally want at least that much flux capacity available, and that is how much your shields will be taxed if you try to fire it.

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I like a lot of the turret slot changes, especially the addition of tons of multi-type slots.
The downscaling or replacement of some slots is annoying, especially with weapons being scaled up, but makes sense. More smaller weapons and medium/large weapons are a serious upgrade in power. Plus some get replaced by additional fighter slots.(sometimes causing loss of symmetry)

That was rather incoherent. I must have been tired.

You converted or replaced quite a few medium slots with smaller slots, which while annoying initially seems reasonable.
You also replaced some slots with fighter bays, which makes a lot of sense here.
Also, you in general added quite a few extra smaller slots (and larger slots too)
As a bonus, the larger weapons seem proportionally more powerful than vanilla (but I might be wrong. I generally find that range is the greater focus in vanilla half the time)

Overall its a..... Change

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Why did the hammerhead have its missiles and ballistic slots swapped? It just looks sooooo wrong..... I don't know why it bugs me soooo much.

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I much preferred the original "Sinking the Bismar" mission. Mainly because it let you try out the Hyperion without actually finding one. Expensive, fragile (1k health?), high upkeep, and horrifyingly good at flanking and strikes, as well as the fastest ship in the game. It is probably still quite a bit faster than fighters too.

More importantly in this mod, at drastically higher risk from fighters, such that new tactics may be required, and heavier point defence mounted.
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Made some suggestions on your manual.

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There don't seem to be many/any assault medium/large flux weapons. The mining laser at least should qualify imo.
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Some weapon niches are harder to find.
Is there a small energy strike weapon similar to the Antimatter blaster in vanilla? Long cooldown and high impulse damage?

Medium ballistic assault like Assault chaingun (current version is very burst fire instead of the constant stream gattling cannon I like)

Where is the vulcan cannon? is it Small or medium now?

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I've started using armored weapon mounts and engine insulation, and might try advanced repairs. Fighters and bola missiles justify it.
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The sheer size of fighter furballs in larger battles is insane. Especially amsuing how well those swarms block beams. (fighter disrupts the beam, explodes, and it has to re-extend)
My interdiction frigates are more tuned to Assault/PD and work reasonably well here, both as escorts and outriders.

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Its vanilla, but the effect of U.I. and S.O. has an interesting effect. Range or speed? S.O. gives 100% constant flux venting in effect, and speed too (and you plan to make that give them a peak performance limit?)

Like a number of other mechanics, the effects are exaggerated here. With speeds being far more normalized, and fighters outrunning most everything, frigates aren't nearly as fast as I was used to. Trying to use those speed boosters is important, but the crippled range causes them to be VERY specialized.
that said, U.I. and S.O. make for rather potent assault ships, able to dance in and out of combat, (although they have to be exposed to more danger than normal)
And, naturally, as said before, that is how you get interdiction ships.


In vanilla, I tend towards heavily hybridized ships, with most ships being assault/strike, and carriers as LR support missile-boats, and general PD coverage.

Here, I've messed with pure assault, strike, which had to have PD support (although constant fighters certainly help), support, assault/strike, and assault/support ships.

Supports are harder to build, because its generally not feasible to get enough flux to fill out all main turrets with LR support weapons. If it goes to near flux-overflow and can sustain it with minimal venting, its great, but... yea.... And missiles like Harpoons are full-fledged Strike-Support weapon hybrids, with the missile trait. Homing and support-level range, and hits like a proper strike weapon, but it's flux cost is intense. its not a finisher like vanilla, or rather it is, but the flux cost makes it a serious strike weapon.


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Fighter-wise, I mostly go with shielded variants. Mainly because they seem more resilient.

Cruisers, I usually give an interdictor and a PD/intercepter. (2 slots)

Carriers, generally bombers and intercepters, although I am planning to try out some serious gunships soon.
Having frigate-carriers helps a lot, but you won't get too many fighters on the field.

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The makeshift carrier deck hullmod seems unnessesary in this mod. Almost every you might consider using it on already has fighter slots. Maybe make it an "expanded Fighter Deck" hullmod, which gives +1-2 extra fighter slots (at the cost of even less OP to spend on anything else)


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The civilian star-liner ship has a tooltip from vanilla claiming it lacks a fighter deck. this is no longer the case.


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I just reread the manual, and you stated that armor is tougher. I suppose that is why armor-based ships seem feasible to use again.
Being able to take some hits and not be massively concerned about it isn't something I tend to experience in vanilla. Armor breaks very fast unless it is shrugging off low-grade kinetic damage. Here, it can take quite a few solid hits to break through armor. That said, I frequently face Gatling laser equipped frigates, and similar, so yea...

Also Reapers are scary.

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I would note that the other half of Peak performance was to balance shield and armor-based ships. Shield ships tended to have far lower performance, so neither armor nor shield based ships could last forever. Shielded ships would malfunction, so their theoretical infinite damage resistance doesn't really apply.
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           - >   Fighters are smaller, faster, more numerous, and can deal extra damage to ships' weapons and engines.
How much exactly? double damage? How is it done? EMP? some kind of damage modifier effect?

Either way, the effects are obvious.

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Though the weapons they carry are the same ones (visually/sound/lore) as the ship-based versions equipped on combat vessels, all fighters have a built-in hullmod (visible by title only in the in-game codex) called Fighter Systems that Reduces missile ammo by 50%, Beam range by 50%, Energy Weapon Damage by 33% and Energy Charges(if Strike) by 66%. This is so fighters can be more numerous without making carriers/cruisers/capitals overwhelmingly powerful. As it is, they are very strong.

What were the justifications for the fighter hull mod's changes.

-less Ammo - Forces them to reload more often, reduces the burst size. Same with strike. Why exclude Ballistic? Even if there are no Balistic strike weapons,
-Beam range - force fighters to get closer. Why not the same for missiles/Ballistic
-Missile regen - Forces fighters to reload. - Should this include all strike weapon's regen in general? A fighter is small and might not fit a proper autoloader XD
-Energy weapon damage - Why?

It might be outdated, but as stated seems wrong.

Should be, Replace all strike/missiles with non-regen versions.
-50-66% ammo on all weapons
-33% or something damage on all weapons
-50% range on all weapons

At least thats the thought I am running on.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2018, 01:29:26 PM
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Some weapon niches are harder to find.
Is there a small energy strike weapon similar to the Antimatter blaster in vanilla? Long cooldown and high impulse damage?

Yes, the Heavy Blaster, but similar to the medium-sized Antimatter blaster it is pretty rare. Notable factions that use/may sell it are Tri-Tachyon, Adamantine Consortium and possibly Sci-Corps. It can also be found in any black market. I've seen it a couple times in my games. It's a pretty nice find if you get one.

As a side note, if you are curious as to why those two weapons had their sizes reversed, it was because I wanted to keep the Antimatter Blaster weapon's graphic, and it was obviously too big to keep as a small weapon in this mod.

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Medium ballistic assault like Assault chaingun (current version is very burst fire instead of the constant stream gattling cannon I like)

Closest thing to that would be the Bolter, but it's burst-oriented like you said. The Heavy Assault Cannon is a constant stream of fire and fulfills that combat role, but it's not as fast firing as the Assault Chaingun- that's for sure.

Similar to small weapons, the mod could use a few additions to the medium and large categories to add some more depth to weapon choices. While I am aware of this, it may be a few weeks before I can truly dedicate the dev time to it. :( Weapons, in particular, require a fair bit of effort to implement because they require a lot of file additions, often new sound effects, balance work, and then implementation into the campaign through variant additions/edits and then adding those variants intelligently into their respective factions' doctrine.


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Where is the vulcan cannon? is it Small or medium now?

It was removed in this mod, mainly because its role overlapped too much with the Machine Gun, which is now fragmentation instead of kinetic damage. The addition of the PD Cannon filled the role of a mid-level anti-fighter/missile weapon. The Shredder was removed for similar reasons, though I could possible see a weapon at least similar to that returning, eventually, with the success of the Scythe Cannon.

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Why did the hammerhead have its missiles and ballistic slots swapped? It just looks sooooo wrong..... I don't know why it bugs me soooo much.

Ha, I actually kind of like the way it looks now :P but to each their own.

I changed it for a more practical reason: Its medium weapons were often difficult to focus fire on faster targets like frigates. Especially beams. Missiles often have tracking, and even still, equipping two Heavy Annihilators often confuses the AI and so it refuses to fire on frigates because it won't decide which one to use when it can't hit with both.


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I much preferred the original "Sinking the Bismar" mission. Mainly because it let you try out the Hyperion without actually finding one. Expensive, fragile (1k health?), high upkeep, and horrifyingly good at flanking and strikes, as well as the fastest ship in the game. It is probably still quite a bit faster than fighters too.

More importantly in this mod, at drastically higher risk from fighters, such that new tactics may be required, and heavier point defence mounted.

The Hyperion can't beat an Onslaught. It just really don't think it can be done in this mod. Well, at least, certainly not by me. Not even close, hehe.

I can definitely add a mission that is beatable with the Hyperion though!

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S.O. gives 100% constant flux venting in effect, and speed too (and you plan to make that give them a peak performance limit?)

Yes, that is the plan.

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Supports are harder to build, because its generally not feasible to get enough flux to fill out all main turrets with LR support weapons. If it goes to near flux-overflow and can sustain it with minimal venting, its great, but... yea.... And missiles like Harpoons are full-fledged Strike-Support weapon hybrids, with the missile trait. Homing and support-level range, and hits like a proper strike weapon, but it's flux cost is intense. its not a finisher like vanilla, or rather it is, but the flux cost makes it a serious strike weapon.

My strategy for support vessels is to generally focus on a single damage type, maybe two on more capable ships, and emphasize that until at peak flux efficiency, then fill out the rest with cheap PD since fighters tend to focus on support ships more anyway. Then synergize my assault vessels to emphasize the complementary damage type.

There was a build, at one time, that had cheaper fire support costs. Support ships were, hands down, the best ships in that build. They could kite almost infinitely with their dissipation giving them speed boosts faster, or at least as fast, as the assault ships under fire. So the assault ships would never close the distance. They would eventually reach critical flux levels from fire, and begin retreating- completely wasting the entire charge in the first place. Overwhelming numbers were required, and even then if you had enough support ships focus fire ensured there would still be heavy losses from the assault.

I also tried increasing the time it took to fully vent flux to counter the first problem, and combat became sluggish and dull. Half of the time, a player would be waiting for flux to vent so they could catch things. The AI was also noticeably worse at deciding when it was a good time to do this.

I will continue to monitor this for potential improvements, however, and thank you as always for the feedback!

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The makeshift carrier deck hullmod seems unnessesary in this mod. Almost every you might consider using it on already has fighter slots. Maybe make it an "expanded Fighter Deck" hullmod, which gives +1-2 extra fighter slots (at the cost of even less OP to spend on anything else)

A nice suggestion, and I will see what I can do!

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The civilian star-liner ship has a tooltip from vanilla claiming it lacks a fighter deck. this is no longer the case.

Thanks, fixed!

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What were the justifications for the fighter hull mod's changes.

Balance was the largest factor here.

It is not as noticeable in this build of Starsector because fighters generally spend less time fighting each other, rather than ships, than they used to, but making that hullmod universally effect all weapons severely weakens ballistic-equipped fighters like the Talon, Marauder, Gladius, Vanguard and Broadsword. But, without the hullmod, the Claw, Trident, Liberator, and especially the phase fighters used by the Consortium and Archean Order would be supremely powerful.

It is definitely messy because now much of a fighter's stats are hidden, unfortunately, but I lack an elegant solution to the above problem.  :-[

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I would note that the other half of Peak performance was to balance shield and armor-based ships. Shield ships tended to have far lower performance, so neither armor nor shield based ships could last forever. Shielded ships would malfunction, so their theoretical infinite damage resistance doesn't really apply.

So, you mean without peak performance, shielded ships have too much of an advantage since they can kite and vent more easily?

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How much exactly? double damage? How is it done? EMP? some kind of damage modifier effect?

Coded into the hullmod to deal more damage to turrets and engines specifically- not EMP, since I didn't want hullmods reducing the effect.
Good to know it's noticeable though!

Actually, I double checked and it is EMP, after all. 33% more damage from Talons, 100% more from Gladius and Broadsword. I had made a note to convert it to the hullmod for a base 50% increase, instead, and thought I had. Whoops, I'll see about correcting that! It may be that I ended up not being able to do that with the API and just don't remember.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2018, 02:00:18 PM
Oh, also meant to say that the manual is now a little outdated with the changes since the mod's release and honestly since .8 (I wrote that manual before the fighter update was live and fighters were sub-optimal in vanilla)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 06, 2018, 02:25:47 PM

My strategy for support vessels is to generally focus on a single damage type, maybe two on more capable ships, and emphasize that until at peak flux efficiency, then fill out the rest with cheap PD since fighters tend to focus on support ships more anyway. Then synergize my assault vessels to emphasize the complementary damage type.

There was a build, at one time, that had cheaper fire support costs. Support ships were, hands down, the best ships in that build. They could kite almost infinitely with their dissipation giving them speed boosts faster, or at least as fast, as the assault ships under fire. So the assault ships would never close the distance. They would eventually reach critical flux levels from fire, and begin retreating- completely wasting the entire charge in the first place. Overwhelming numbers were required, and even then if you had enough support ships focus fire ensured there would still be heavy losses from the assault.

I also tried increasing the time it took to fully vent flux to counter the first problem, and combat became sluggish and dull. Half of the time, a player would be waiting for flux to vent so they could catch things. The AI was also noticeably worse at deciding when it was a good time to do this.

I will continue to monitor this for potential improvements, however, and thank you as always for the feedback!
Makes sense. Frustrating, but I will just have to figure out a way to handle it. That was also what the whole peak performance was about.
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So, you mean without peak performance, shielded ships have too much of an advantage since they can kite and vent more easily?
Sort of, yea. High-tech ships tend to have lower CR time than low-tech, and I feel that is partly to balance the armor-vs-shield equation. Shields regenerate. Armor doesn't. The CR means that if it comes down to attrition, instead of shields always winning, armor based ships will keep their peak performance longer.

Its not exact or anything, but that seemed like a factor. Armor vs Shield and kiting/speed. Plus, naturally, if a battle goes for more than 5 minutes something probably went wrong.
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Coded into the hullmod to deal more damage to turrets and engines specifically- not EMP, since I didn't want hullmods reducing the effect.
Good to know it's noticeable though!

Actually, I double checked and it is EMP, after all. 33% more damage from Talons, 100% more from Gladius and Broadsword. I had made a note to convert it to the hullmod for a base 50% increase, instead, and thought I had. Whoops, I'll see about correcting that! It may be that I ended up not being able to do that with the API and just don't remember.

Hmm. So flux venting thinggy would resist it. Why the different values for different ship types? Seems like something to just make linear. Does the talon weapon have more raw damage because fragmentation, so a lower value is needed? If it is a hullmod, do the different fighters have different versions?

Oh, also meant to say that the manual is now a little outdated with the changes since the mod's release and honestly since .8 (I wrote that manual before the fighter update was live and fighters were sub-optimal in vanilla)

Ah, well, may want to put an OUTDATED warning on it. Its the main reason I tried the mod out honestly.

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Is collision damage modified, or is it normal to have ramming damage tear away 20k armor and half of a pillagers health on impact? I never really had burn-drive capable ships in vanilla.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2018, 05:13:58 PM
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Makes sense. Frustrating, but I will just have to figure out a way to handle it. That was also what the whole peak performance was about.

Well, peak performance wouldn't really help here since the issue is that assault ships basically become obsolete. Besides, if the only way to deal with support ships was to tank their damage until they malfunctioned, would it really be all that fun anyway?

Is it certain ships you really feel are underwhelming in this role?

Also, it may be useful to go off of existing variants, when possible, for support builds to start. They don't seem to suffer from ineffectiveness on my end (so far, at least), and can give you a sense of how to outfit them successfully. The difference between having a couple of Bulls with Artillery Blasters or a Wolf with a LRM or two can be significant, from what I've found. Increasingly so when equipping larger ships. The elite Astral, for instance, can maintain fire of several separate Missile Batteries, projecting enough firepower to outright eliminate most vessels below a cruiser in a single volley.

If the issue is that you, yourself, are trying to pilot a support ship, remember that by design you need assault ships as a defense screen. Using the escort command can be key to this tactic. Otherwise assault ships will eventually close into combat range and you will be very vulnerable and unable to even strike back due to your high flux levels.

Fire Support weapons compliment well with PD, or, in certain cases, a longer range assault weapon or utility missile.

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Hmm. So flux venting thinggy would resist it. Why the different values for different ship types? Seems like something to just make linear. Does the talon weapon have more raw damage because fragmentation, so a lower value is needed? If it is a hullmod, do the different fighters have different versions?

It was originally based on the number per wing and the effectiveness in combat trials, but yes, the idea of the hullmod is to make it linear at 50% for simplicity. That kind of nuance is no longer needed, and I did not want any emp-reducing hullmods or skills to factor in- only armored weapon mounts and automated repair.

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Ah, well, may want to put an OUTDATED warning on it. Its the main reason I tried the mod out honestly.

Going to update it with the next release. Also, thanks for your notes. They catch many of the changes already.  :)

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Is collision damage modified, or is it normal to have ramming damage tear away 20k armor and half of a pillagers health on impact? I never really had burn-drive capable ships in vanilla.

 :o What did you hit??

Could be based on mass, but nothing should be out of the ordinary there.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 06, 2018, 05:56:00 PM

Well, peak performance wouldn't really help here since the issue is that assault ships basically become obsolete. Besides, if the only way to deal with support ships was to tank their damage until they malfunctioned, would it really be all that fun anyway?

Is it certain ships you really feel are underwhelming in this role?

Also, it may be useful to go off of existing variants, when possible, for support builds to start. They don't seem to suffer from ineffectiveness on my end (so far, at least), and can give you a sense of how to outfit them successfully. The difference between having a couple of Bulls with Artillery Blasters or a Wolf with a LRM or two can be significant, from what I've found. Increasingly so when equipping larger ships. The elite Astral, for instance, can maintain fire of several separate Missile Batteries, projecting enough firepower to outright eliminate most vessels below a cruiser in a single volley.

If the issue is that you, yourself, are trying to pilot a support ship, remember that by design you need assault ships as a defense screen. Using the escort command can be key to this tactic. Otherwise assault ships will eventually close into combat range and you will be very vulnerable and unable to even strike back due to your high flux levels.

Fire Support weapons compliment well with PD, or, in certain cases, a longer range assault weapon or utility missile.
Yea. I never said Peak Performance was a good fix, more of a patch. It just feels like it kinda sorta balances out Shields, Kiting, and long range support. It doesn't do a good job, and since you found another way to do it, its great, but..... That just happens to be the way that I feel about it. What do you think?

As for my personal experience, Its pretty much, I build a LR support ship by putting as many LR missiles on it as will fit, and the rest is PD. When a ship can't handle that, it feels wrong.

I haven't really bothered piloting a support ship, because assault and strike ships are more fun, and it feels like it adds more to my combat potential.

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It was originally based on the number per wing and the effectiveness in combat trials, but yes, the idea of the hullmod is to make it linear at 50% for simplicity. That kind of nuance is no longer needed, and I did not want any emp-reducing hullmods or skills to factor in- only armored weapon mounts and automated repair.
Don't forget Insulated Engine Assembly :p
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Going to update it with the next release. Also, thanks for your notes. They catch many of the changes already.  :)
Heh. Nice. I just had an hour and felt like complaining. Its always nice to be able to complain constructively.
And again, that manual heavily implied to me that you put a lot of thought into the TC, hence why I Tried it out. Making it better can only help, surely?
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 :o What did you hit??

Could be based on mass, but nothing should be out of the ordinary there.
Huh. Rammed my pillager into one of those... Uhm.... Archean Order Cruisers (I think)..... I would suspect it was the death explosion, but still...
And just because my armor and hull were reduced shouldn't have caused that, although admittedly i DID ram a cruiser. However, it was a high tech cruiser. You would think low-tech pillager, with ramming drive would be built for that.

In vanilla it rarely did much even to armor, although I never scaled up to cruisers, let alone capital ships. Given it was a lethal ramming, intended mainly to force the shield to overload and hopefully put a hole in the armor, I am not sure what happened.

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 07, 2018, 05:26:01 PM
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Yea. I never said Peak Performance was a good fix, more of a patch. It just feels like it kinda sorta balances out Shields, Kiting, and long range support. It doesn't do a good job, and since you found another way to do it, its great, but..... That just happens to be the way that I feel about it. What do you think?

As for my personal experience, Its pretty much, I build a LR support ship by putting as many LR missiles on it as will fit, and the rest is PD. When a ship can't handle that, it feels wrong.

I haven't really bothered piloting a support ship, because assault and strike ships are more fun, and it feels like it adds more to my combat potential.

Hmm. Well, I'm willing to give it a try and add it back in with a higher timer, especially now knowing the mod is compatible with Autonomous Ships. The main reason I dislike the mechanic is because I can't avoid taking additional CR damage in any prolonged fights without serious micromanagement. The global warnings are insufficient for me, or I miss them completely in the heat of battle. I may also see if the combat chatter mod is compatible. That may help things as well.

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Don't forget Insulated Engine Assembly :p

Ah, true!

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Heh. Nice. I just had an hour and felt like complaining. Its always nice to be able to complain constructively.
And again, that manual heavily implied to me that you put a lot of thought into the TC, hence why I Tried it out. Making it better can only help, surely?

Absolutely! I really appreciate constructive feedback, irregardless if I happen to agree with the proposed change. In this case, I certainly think its important to have the manual up to date for new players or those still adjusting to the combat changes. The input so far has already greatly improved the mod experience, imo, so keep it coming whenever you feel like it! :)

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Huh. Rammed my pillager into one of those... Uhm.... Archean Order Cruisers (I think)..... I would suspect it was the death explosion, but still...
And just because my armor and hull were reduced shouldn't have caused that, although admittedly i DID ram a cruiser. However, it was a high tech cruiser. You would think low-tech pillager, with ramming drive would be built for that.

In vanilla it rarely did much even to armor, although I never scaled up to cruisers, let alone capital ships. Given it was a lethal ramming, intended mainly to force the shield to overload and hopefully put a hole in the armor, I am not sure what happened.

Hmm, could be the ramming weakened the armor and the explosion caused the hull damage. The larger the ship and the higher the speed the more damage collisions deal, as far as I can tell.  Also, you battle rammed an Archean heavy cruiser? A bold move, indeed.  ;)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 07, 2018, 05:28:31 PM

Well, peak performance wouldn't really help here since the issue is that assault ships basically become obsolete. Besides, if the only way to deal with support ships was to tank their damage until they malfunctioned, would it really be all that fun anyway?

Is it certain ships you really feel are underwhelming in this role?

Also, it may be useful to go off of existing variants, when possible, for support builds to start. They don't seem to suffer from ineffectiveness on my end (so far, at least), and can give you a sense of how to outfit them successfully. The difference between having a couple of Bulls with Artillery Blasters or a Wolf with a LRM or two can be significant, from what I've found. Increasingly so when equipping larger ships. The elite Astral, for instance, can maintain fire of several separate Missile Batteries, projecting enough firepower to outright eliminate most vessels below a cruiser in a single volley.

If the issue is that you, yourself, are trying to pilot a support ship, remember that by design you need assault ships as a defense screen. Using the escort command can be key to this tactic. Otherwise assault ships will eventually close into combat range and you will be very vulnerable and unable to even strike back due to your high flux levels.

Fire Support weapons compliment well with PD, or, in certain cases, a longer range assault weapon or utility missile.
Yea. I never said Peak Performance was a good fix, more of a patch. It just feels like it kinda sorta balances out Shields, Kiting, and long range support. It doesn't do a good job, and since you found another way to do it, its great, but..... That just happens to be the way that I feel about it. What do you think?

As for my personal experience, Its pretty much, I build a LR support ship by putting as many LR missiles on it as will fit, and the rest is PD. When a ship can't handle that, it feels wrong.

I haven't really bothered piloting a support ship, because assault and strike ships are more fun, and it feels like it adds more to my combat potential.

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It was originally based on the number per wing and the effectiveness in combat trials, but yes, the idea of the hullmod is to make it linear at 50% for simplicity. That kind of nuance is no longer needed, and I did not want any emp-reducing hullmods or skills to factor in- only armored weapon mounts and automated repair.
Don't forget Insulated Engine Assembly :p
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Going to update it with the next release. Also, thanks for your notes. They catch many of the changes already.  :)
Heh. Nice. I just had an hour and felt like complaining. Its always nice to be able to complain constructively.
And again, that manual heavily implied to me that you put a lot of thought into the TC, hence why I Tried it out. Making it better can only help, surely?
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 :o What did you hit??

Could be based on mass, but nothing should be out of the ordinary there.
Huh. Rammed my pillager into one of those... Uhm.... Archean Order Cruisers (I think)..... I would suspect it was the death explosion, but still...
And just because my armor and hull were reduced shouldn't have caused that, although admittedly i DID ram a cruiser. However, it was a high tech cruiser. You would think low-tech pillager, with ramming drive would be built for that.

In vanilla it rarely did much even to armor, although I never scaled up to cruisers, let alone capital ships. Given it was a lethal ramming, intended mainly to force the shield to overload and hopefully put a hole in the armor, I am not sure what happened.


The Gods of Ram may have given you extra power. I heard it happens from time to time.

Edit: Hmm...is it possible to get a start with a closer relation to the newer factions, or maybe with the vanilla ones? Not saying to start me out with a bloody cruiser like in Nex, but it would be nice to have a head start going into one of the factions.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 07, 2018, 10:50:46 PM
Edit: Hmm...is it possible to get a start with a closer relation to the newer factions, or maybe with the vanilla ones? Not saying to start me out with a bloody cruiser like in Nex, but it would be nice to have a head start going into one of the factions.

If you start as a Mercenary Captain you will have some starting rep with the Trader Guilds as well as a small fleet under your command, though you will be suspicious with some other factions.

I can add more starting options pretty easily, however, which faction did you have in mind, or what sort of scenario?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 08, 2018, 06:02:45 AM


Hmm. Well, I'm willing to give it a try and add it back in with a higher timer, especially now knowing the mod is compatible with Autonomous Ships. The main reason I dislike the mechanic is because I can't avoid taking additional CR damage in any prolonged fights without serious micromanagement. The global warnings are insufficient for me, or I miss them completely in the heat of battle. I may also see if the combat chatter mod is compatible. That may help things as well.
It works fine. Been using it since I started this mod.

You could take roughly vanilla times and increase them by 5x or so. It would still only apply in rare cases, but you could them use that for the hullmods, like SO and High Maintenance and Phase Field which cut it down to a more vanilla level.
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Absolutely! I really appreciate constructive feedback, irregardless if I happen to agree with the proposed change. In this case, I certainly think its important to have the manual up to date for new players or those still adjusting to the combat changes. The input so far has already greatly improved the mod experience, imo, so keep it coming whenever you feel like it! :)

As a programmer and game modder (Factorio, Warcraft III) I get into the habit of finding things that need improvement or that I don't like, recording them, and fixing them.
Its only a small step from there to sending suggestions to the actual developer, or suggesting to the people who wrote the game.

Its highly satisfying when my suggestions or reports are responded to.
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Hmm, could be the ramming weakened the armor and the explosion caused the hull damage. The larger the ship and the higher the speed the more damage collisions deal, as far as I can tell.  Also, you battle rammed an Archean heavy cruiser? A bold move, indeed.  ;)

Heh. Yea, How much of a bang do death bangs actually deal? I have wonderful memories of using a wolf with 4 reapers (expanded missile skill), ramming other frigates or destroyers, unloading death, raising shield, and being overloaded for like 15 seconds. Sadly reapers now have an arming time so they aren't functional in that situation anymore. Which is probably a good thing, given how silly powerful that combo was.

If I didn't raise the shield, I tended to take heavy damage or explode.....

Stupid reapers now just bounce off at melee range.

MELEE NUKES! BRING THEM BACK.

Ahem...

Presumably the death bang is the problem. Mainly I use it to close the distance or get into broadside range.
Pillager's main turrets spread a large arc, and there isn't a point where it gets full coverage, If you get the angle right you can get 4 cannons running however. Kinda reminding me of the Fatboy from Supreme Commander.

------

Oh god, the BEES
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 08, 2018, 06:27:49 AM
Edit: Hmm...is it possible to get a start with a closer relation to the newer factions, or maybe with the vanilla ones? Not saying to start me out with a bloody cruiser like in Nex, but it would be nice to have a head start going into one of the factions.

If you start as a Mercenary Captain you will have some starting rep with the Trader Guilds as well as a small fleet under your command, though you will be suspicious with some other factions.

I can add more starting options pretty easily, however, which faction did you have in mind, or what sort of scenario?
I was actually thinking having a start that was similar to that, but all the other new factions. It doesn't need to be like that with the vanilla factions as there would be less new stuff with them, and they are more familiar to players.

With the scenario's: I can't actually think of many, but maybe a raiding party for the Consortium (Frigates and a destroyer with a freighter), Science related fleet for the Sci-Corps (couple frigates, destroyer, freighter or tanker), and a combat fleet (couple destroyers and either a few carriers or frigates) for the Archeus?

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 09, 2018, 02:18:11 PM
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You could take roughly vanilla times and increase them by 5x or so. It would still only apply in rare cases, but you could them use that for the hullmods, like SO and High Maintenance and Phase Field which cut it down to a more vanilla level.

Yeah this is what I was thinking. Something along those lines.


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As a programmer and game modder (Factorio, Warcraft III) I get into the habit of finding things that need improvement or that I don't like, recording them, and fixing them.
Its only a small step from there to sending suggestions to the actual developer, or suggesting to the people who wrote the game.

Its highly satisfying when my suggestions or reports are responded to.

Agreed. ;D It's one of the reasons I have followed this game for so long throughout its development.


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Heh. Yea, How much of a bang do death bangs actually deal? I have wonderful memories of using a wolf with 4 reapers (expanded missile skill), ramming other frigates or destroyers, unloading death, raising shield, and being overloaded for like 15 seconds. Sadly reapers now have an arming time so they aren't functional in that situation anymore. Which is probably a good thing, given how silly powerful that combo was.

I'm not completely sure, but it has destroyed my flagship in the past so it must be pretty significant. I remember that reaper strategy, ha, gave a kind of jousting feel to fighting destroyers in a frigate.


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Pillager's main turrets spread a large arc, and there isn't a point where it gets full coverage, If you get the angle right you can get 4 cannons running however. Kinda reminding me of the Fatboy from Supreme Commander.

My favorite experimental  8)

This is going a ways back in the design phase of development, but I'm pretty sure a lot of ships were designed to have sweet spots like this. It's actually for two reasons: Besides the fun aspect of combat tactics, it helps give the AI a clear preferred attack angle to reduce its tendency to rotate shots off its armor. That is important because generally reduced turn rates in assault weapons cause significant loss of accuracy on constantly moving ships.


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Oh god, the BEES

Haha, which fighters/bombers/gunships do you find the most difficult to handle?


I was actually thinking having a start that was similar to that, but all the other new factions. It doesn't need to be like that with the vanilla factions as there would be less new stuff with them, and they are more familiar to players.

With the scenario's: I can't actually think of many, but maybe a raiding party for the Consortium (Frigates and a destroyer with a freighter), Science related fleet for the Sci-Corps (couple frigates, destroyer, freighter or tanker), and a combat fleet (couple destroyers and either a few carriers or frigates) for the Archeus?

Sure, that sounds fun!

I will try and get that into a release soon.


Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 10, 2018, 05:14:40 PM
I may also see if the combat chatter mod is compatible. That may help things as well.
I am about to do some testing on that for you, but I can confirm that Combat chatter does NOT cause any crashes or problems at the very least.

Edit: I did some testing, and Combat Chatter works perfectly fine! I have noticed no difference when I use this mod and when I use other mods, so it's definitely safe.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 10, 2018, 05:21:04 PM
I may also see if the combat chatter mod is compatible. That may help things as well.
I am about to do some testing on that for you, but I can confirm that Combat chatter does NOT cause any crashes or problems at the very least.

Currently I am using Autonomous ships, Autosave, Combat Chatter, Common Radar, Leading Pip, and Upgraded Rotary Weapons (which I have no idea if it does anything here)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 11, 2018, 10:49:50 PM
Currently I am using Autonomous ships, Autosave, Combat Chatter, Common Radar, Leading Pip, and Upgraded Rotary Weapons (which I have no idea if it does anything here)

I am about to do some testing on that for you, but I can confirm that Combat chatter does NOT cause any crashes or problems at the very least.

Edit: I did some testing, and Combat Chatter works perfectly fine! I have noticed no difference when I use this mod and when I use other mods, so it's definitely safe.

Thanks for the confirmation! Much appreciated!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 12, 2018, 08:02:48 AM
Currently I am using Autonomous ships, Autosave, Combat Chatter, Common Radar, Leading Pip, and Upgraded Rotary Weapons (which I have no idea if it does anything here)

I am about to do some testing on that for you, but I can confirm that Combat chatter does NOT cause any crashes or problems at the very least.

Edit: I did some testing, and Combat Chatter works perfectly fine! I have noticed no difference when I use this mod and when I use other mods, so it's definitely safe.

Thanks for the confirmation! Much appreciated!
No problem. The only thing I have noticed through more testing is that there is no random chatter like "Engaging hostiles" or "Could use some help here!". So far they have only been "Overloading", "X% hull left", and stuff like that.

Still extremely useful and all you actually NEED to know, but still worth mentioning considering that is a part of the mod.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 13, 2018, 06:20:20 AM

No problem. The only thing I have noticed through more testing is that there is no random chatter like "Engaging hostiles" or "Could use some help here!". So far they have only been "Overloading", "X% hull left", and stuff like that.

Still extremely useful and all you actually NEED to know, but still worth mentioning considering that is a part of the mod.

Are you sure that's enabled? I seem to recall some of the stuff being disabled by default. Although its been a while.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 13, 2018, 07:31:54 AM

No problem. The only thing I have noticed through more testing is that there is no random chatter like "Engaging hostiles" or "Could use some help here!". So far they have only been "Overloading", "X% hull left", and stuff like that.

Still extremely useful and all you actually NEED to know, but still worth mentioning considering that is a part of the mod.

Are you sure that's enabled? I seem to recall some of the stuff being disabled by default. Although its been a while.
I have not messed with it at all, and I get them when I don't have this mod running.

If it's my fault that those are not showing them I take back what I said, but I don't think it is.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 13, 2018, 12:25:30 PM

No problem. The only thing I have noticed through more testing is that there is no random chatter like "Engaging hostiles" or "Could use some help here!". So far they have only been "Overloading", "X% hull left", and stuff like that.

Still extremely useful and all you actually NEED to know, but still worth mentioning considering that is a part of the mod.

Are you sure that's enabled? I seem to recall some of the stuff being disabled by default. Although its been a while.
I have not messed with it at all, and I get them when I don't have this mod running.

If it's my fault that those are not showing them I take back what I said, but I don't think it is.

I haven't had a ton of time to work on the mod lately, but I am in the process of accumulating the last several batches of feedback into a schedule or at least a priority list. I will include investigating this as a part of that.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 28, 2018, 01:05:03 PM
Alrighty, so I have an update to current dev progress. As stated before, I've slowed down development a bit, in preparation for a new professional position, but I'm still working on cool things!  :)

Specifically, improving the fleet encounter dialogue mechanics takes a lot of trial and error. The scripts have random components that are supposed to generate a certain subjective "feel" and that can take a while to get right.

I really wanted to make bribes more mainstream if the player wants to avoid a battle, even if heavily outnumbered (or sometimes, specifically in that case). Currently in the available build, bribes only occur when prompted by the enemy commander. This just doesn't feel complete to me, so I am in the process of adding upfront bribes, and increasing the volatility of the results between the various factions.

This, of course, also presents a fair workload in dialogue- faction specific responses, etc. But I think it will feel much more natural and provide some interesting choices for the player in the end.

I've also worked on another small balance pass, and added in previously requested content: new missions, start scenarios and the reintroduction of a peak performance time.

Here's a summary of current progress. Asterisks* indicate W.I.P status:

Content Additions

 - *Improved Bribery mechanic: Now also allows for bribery upfront- greatly increases the chances of a successful ceasefire negotiation.

      - Can include several increments of bribes(with varying levels of cultual implications per faction) to increases chances of success- the highest bribe almost guarantees success with certain factions.
      - Should the player choose not to bribe upfront and the negotations fail, the player will have a second opportunity to bribe the enemy commander at a higher cost.

 - Improved Cease-Fire mechanic: Now can successfully negotiate a ceasefire with Vengeful rep Pirates (was guaranteed to fail before) and new bribery mechanics allow for more controllable, consistent results for the player, should they really want to avoid a battle.

 - 2 new missions featuring the Hyperion-class Experimental Frigate as a flagship.

 - Added 3 new starting options for new factions- now consolidated with the former two additions under "Advanced Start".

 - Consolidated "Normal Start" options (containing the basic start options and separating the destroyer-sized starts more clearly)


Balance Changes

 - Peak Performance mechanic implemented back into all vessels. Timers greatly increased for all but phase ships, and ships with High Maintenance from their experimental nature, such as the Sunder, Hyperion etc.

 - Safety Overrides' Peak Performance reduction now greatly limits prolonged combat performance as a downside to balance out its benefits. OP to install reduced by 33% as a result. This will also make Pathers less annoying to fight in prolonged engagements where the player doesn't happen to have any pursuit or interdiction vessels.

 - Reduced Flux per Salvo of Trebuchet LRM by 33%, missile speed reduced by ~20% (This should make the missile less of an issue when massed and allow it to be more easily added to load-outs. It was also too powerful/useful for its tier and in comarison to the advanced Hunter LRM).

 - Nova Cannon damage increased by 25% to compensate for loss of EMP component. It should now properly take its place as a top tier PD option with a secondary assault role.

 - Added the Refit Time effect of Damaged Flightdeck to Civgrade Hullmod.

 - Op Cost of Operations Center hullmod reduced by 33%.

 - Converted Hangar hullmod now increases the number flight decks on existing carriers by +1/+1/+2 on destroyers/cruisers/capitals in addition to its normal effects. This hullmod can now also be installed on existing carriers.

 - Significant buffs to Hyperion and now has medium universal hardpoints at each wing. Increased cost and supplies to maintain/deploy.

 - Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range.

 - Decreased Tyrant-class Battleship's turn rate by 60%. It was too inaccurate with beams otherwise.

 - Liberator Heavy Fighter has had one of its Icer Guns removed, and Limited Range Finders hullmod is now built-in.

 - Ion Torpedo projectile hitpoints reduced by 40%.

 - Changed starting variant load-out for Medusa.


Bug Fixes

 - Fixed description for civilian Star-Liner to include its built-in, yet poorly operating fighter bay.

 - Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.

 - *Updated and corrected Tactics Manual to reflect changes since release.

 - *Fixed bug with Adamantine Consortium Comm-Relay encounter not taking priority over Tribute requests.

 - *Added story text to "The Great Restructuring" mission.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 28, 2018, 03:16:02 PM
Alrighty, so I have an update to current dev progress. As stated before, I've slowed down development a bit, in preparation for a new professional position, but I'm still working on cool things!  :)

Specifically, improving the fleet encounter dialogue mechanics takes a lot of trial and error. The scripts have random components that are supposed to generate a certain subjective "feel" and that can take a while to get right.

I really wanted to make bribes more mainstream if the player wants to avoid a battle, even if heavily outnumbered (or sometimes, specifically in that case). Currently in the available build, bribes only occur when prompted by the enemy commander. This just doesn't feel complete to me, so I am in the process of adding upfront bribes, and increasing the volatility of the results between the various factions.

This, of course, also presents a fair workload in dialogue- faction specific responses, etc. But I think it will feel much more natural and provide some interesting choices for the player in the end.

Yea, I don't do Dialog much, and my ability to "Feel" is really lacking. So I can't really have an opinion there at all.

The Vengeful part of reputation level, I do think that a different approach to reputation might be sane.
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9786.0
Old suggestion, and might not be quite correct, but a tiered reputation system might be sane given your intention of an RPG-like system.
Essentially, each level of reputation is harder to get, like vanilla, but much more clear cut. Allied/Vengful specifically would take serious, deliberate effort to obtain, via Quest/Killing capital fleets.

Quote
I've also worked on another small balance pass, and added in previously requested content: new missions, start scenarios and the reintroduction of a peak performance time.

Here's a summary of current progress. Asterisks* indicate W.I.P status:

Content Additions

 - *Improved Bribery mechanic: Now also allows for bribery upfront- greatly increases the chances of a successful ceasefire negotiation.

      - Can include several increments of bribes(with varying levels of cultual implications per faction) to increases chances of success- the highest bribe almost guarantees success with certain factions.
      - Should the player choose not to bribe upfront and the negotations fail, the player will have a second opportunity to bribe the enemy commander at a higher cost.

 - Improved Cease-Fire mechanic: Now can successfully negotiate a ceasefire with Vengeful rep Pirates (was guaranteed to fail before) and new bribery mechanics allow for more controllable, consistent results for the player, should they really want to avoid a battle.

No Comment
Quote
- 2 new missions featuring the Hyperion-class Experimental Frigate as a flagship.
Yay. Can't wait. Hyperion is always fun :D
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- Added 3 new starting options for new factions- now consolidated with the former two additions under "Advanced Start".

 - Consolidated "Normal Start" options (containing the basic start options and separating the destroyer-sized starts more clearly)
Well, that could be nice, although I don't start new games often.
Quote

Balance Changes

 - Peak Performance mechanic implemented back into all vessels. Timers greatly increased for all but phase ships, and ships with High Maintenance from their experimental nature, such as the Sunder, Hyperion etc.

 - Safety Overrides' Peak Performance reduction now greatly limits prolonged combat performance as a downside to balance out its benefits. OP to install reduced by 33% as a result. This will also make Pathers less annoying to fight in prolonged engagements where the player doesn't happen to have any pursuit or interdiction vessels.
Good. Make sure tooltips on those hullmods explain exactly why they cut the PP so much.
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- Reduced Flux per Salvo of Trebuchet LRM by 33%, missile speed reduced by ~20% (This should make the missile less of an issue when massed and allow it to be more easily added to load-outs. It was also too powerful/useful for its tier and in comarison to the advanced Hunter LRM).
Could make it more usable. Flux costs on those hurt, xd. Those Low-tier LR missiles, honestly, I could go for them having that kind of change overall, maybe except for the single Hunter varient (which is powerful for it's size)
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- Nova Cannon damage increased by 25% to compensate for loss of EMP component. It should now properly take its place as a top tier PD option with a secondary assault role.
Hmm. I missed Nova cannon losing EMP damage. What does EMP damage do to missiles anyway? If anything at all?
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- Added the Refit Time effect of Damaged Flightdeck to Civgrade Hullmod.

Sensible enough. Hmm..

As an idea, let Civ Hullmod be removed somehow, similar to removing D-Mods (but seperate). Make sure Civ has an upside, like +Fuel eco or -Maintenance, in addition to the downsides if that is the case.
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- Op Cost of Operations Center hullmod reduced by 33%.
That makes it way more usable.
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- Converted Hangar hullmod now increases the number flight decks on existing carriers by +1/+1/+2 on destroyers/cruisers/capitals in addition to its normal effects. This hullmod can now also be installed on existing carriers.

 - Significant buffs to Hyperion and now has medium universal hardpoints at each wing. Increased cost and supplies to maintain/deploy.
Oh, so you downgunned it before, and made it medium again? And isn't it's Maintance harsh enough? :p
Quote
- Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range.
Would prefer a lower cooldown personally, or maybe a 3-charge system with cooldown on recharge.
Quote
- Decreased Tyrant-class Battleship's turn rate by 60%. It was too inaccurate with beams otherwise.

 - Liberator Heavy Fighter has had one of its Icer Guns removed, and Limited Range Finders hullmod is now built-in.

 - Ion Torpedo projectile hitpoints reduced by 40%.

 - Changed starting variant load-out for Medusa.

No Comments
Quote

Bug Fixes

 - Fixed description for civilian Star-Liner to include its built-in, yet poorly operating fighter bay.
Heh, awesome
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- Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.
Hmm. What effect does removing EMP do anyway?
Quote
- *Updated and corrected Tactics Manual to reflect changes since release.
Is that deployed on the front page? Want to READ!
Quote
- *Fixed bug with Adamantine Consortium Comm-Relay encounter not taking priority over Tribute requests.

 - *Added story text to "The Great Restructuring" mission.
No Comment, yet.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 28, 2018, 05:11:35 PM
Quote
- Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.
Hmm. What effect does removing EMP do anyway?
EMP against Missiles will cause them to flame out. They can still detonate, but they can't maneuver...Best used against missiles that actually have the ability to turn.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 28, 2018, 07:40:08 PM
Quote
The Vengeful part of reputation level, I do think that a different approach to reputation might be sane.
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9786.0
Old suggestion, and might not be quite correct, but a tiered reputation system might be sane given your intention of an RPG-like system.
Essentially, each level of reputation is harder to get, like vanilla, but much more clear cut. Allied/Vengful specifically would take serious, deliberate effort to obtain, via Quest/Killing capital fleets.

I took a look at this, and yes I have something... well, similar, in mind when the time comes. I don't know about just a timer decay, but there will be ways that you can lose reputation besides smuggling and betraying friendly fleets.

Quote
Hmm. I missed Nova cannon losing EMP damage. What does EMP damage do to missiles anyway? If anything at all?

This is just since the fighter systems hullmod now makes all fighter weapons deal extra damage to weapons and engines, so it wasn't necessary anymore. Since that nerfs its assault role for ship (its emp component actually played a larger role there) I increased its damage and made it more specialized as a superior pd weapon over the electron cannon.

Quote
Oh, so you downgunned it before, and made it medium again? And isn't it's Maintance harsh enough? :p

No, it was just only missile weapons before, so I mostly just made it more flexible. I also made its shields at a cruiser level, and its now the fastest frigate by a large margin. The extra maintenance is necessary, trust me.  ;)

Quote
Is that deployed on the front page? Want to READ!

Not yet, when this update is finished and live the changes will be visible there as well. I'm actually focusing on those the second I'm finished with the Rules.csv entries for the bribery mechanics. Already finished the rule command script for it and it's best to do all that while the memory of all the variable names is fresh.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 28, 2018, 08:22:44 PM
Please snip the quote down to the part you are replying to.
Sorry, got distracted IRL and forgot to do that.  :-\
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Dal on March 28, 2018, 09:36:09 PM
I'm sure this has been asked before, but what is the author's philosophy on having the features and content aspects of this mod separate? I've now played several hours of the mod, and I enjoy its features, but between using it and playing the base game and all its addons, vanilla and other mods win out. I would love to include this mod's campaign features alongside the version of the game that I play. Not to mention Nexerelin... :)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 29, 2018, 05:59:16 AM
I'm sure this has been asked before, but what is the author's philosophy on having the features and content aspects of this mod separate? I've now played several hours of the mod, and I enjoy its features, but between using it and playing the base game and all its addons, vanilla and other mods win out. I would love to include this mod's campaign features alongside the version of the game that I play. Not to mention Nexerelin... :)

Combat wise, Unless things have changed, there is no easy way, short of manually modifying every single ship and weapon in another mod, to have another mod work with this one. There needs to be a script that allows you to integrate arbitrary weapons and Ships, and modify them via script. Otherwise, the whole thing requires you to manually integrate them.

If you mean the campaign layer, I have no idea :D
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 29, 2018, 07:32:08 AM
I'm sure this has been asked before, but what is the author's philosophy on having the features and content aspects of this mod separate? I've now played several hours of the mod, and I enjoy its features, but between using it and playing the base game and all its addons, vanilla and other mods win out. I would love to include this mod's campaign features alongside the version of the game that I play. Not to mention Nexerelin... :)
TBH, I'd be able to play this mod forever if Nex was compatible. As of now, I end up needing breaks because I am use to the weapon ship and style variety that comes from having multiple mods, and the stuff that Nex provides.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 29, 2018, 08:59:03 AM
I'm sure this has been asked before, but what is the author's philosophy on having the features and content aspects of this mod separate? I've now played several hours of the mod, and I enjoy its features, but between using it and playing the base game and all its addons, vanilla and other mods win out. I would love to include this mod's campaign features alongside the version of the game that I play. Not to mention Nexerelin... :)

Hey thanks for trying out the mod and I can understand what you mean, haha. It's pretty hard to surpass the collective mastery and efforts of the mod community as one person working on a TC, but hopefully over time and updates that gap will lessen and become less noticeable as more mechanics and extra content is added in. I have no illusion that a TC is quite hard to maintain and keep competitive alongside all the faction, quality of life and utility mods, though!

If Histidine doesn't mind, in the future I will look into adding Nex-like features into this TC. Similarly, my scripts are all open source, and if someone wants to use my campaign features I have no problems with that. I've had a constructive conversation with Alex in the past about including some of the fleet dialogue/request features in Vanilla. He likes the system, but is holding off until the core features are done (roof last, and all that) and then will, perhaps, investigate something similar.

On my ToDo list there is "Making Tutorials on Rules.csv and advanced scripting" which will hopefully help modders better able to understand how I do things.

On keeping the two layers separate, I had originally hoped to do just that. Depending on what you mean by campaign layer, however, it is very difficult to separate the two. It would require me to build and maintain an additional mod of just campaign features (there isn't a way to make the new mod compatible with the TC, I would just have to do double work, so to speak), and then make it Nex compatible. That would probably be beyond my time scope, and .9 may make some of those features redundant.

That being said, if you have time, do you mind breaking it down for me a little? When you say campaign features do you mean everything- the factions, strongholds, and new dialogue options? What, specifically, about the  stuff in other mods wins out? More variety, stronger design principles, etc? Anything I can do to improve your experience? That sort of thing.  :)

TBH, I'd be able to play this mod forever if Nex was compatible. As of now, I end up needing breaks because I am use to the weapon ship and style variety that comes from having multiple mods, and the stuff that Nex provides.

Thanks and noted! :) I definitely don't plan on stopping content additions at the moment (Got a couple ideas for some new frigates as we speak type). Also, if anyone is interested, I can give details on faction conversion for the mod. That way other modders' factions can be included if they wish.

Quote
- Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range.
Would prefer a lower cooldown personally, or maybe a 3-charge system with cooldown on recharge.

Almost forgot to say that I am thinking this will end up being the case. It's simply more fun to manage charges over just a cooldown.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Dal on March 29, 2018, 08:30:32 PM
Quote
That being said, if you have time, do you mind breaking it down for me a little?

Sure, let me expand a bit. When I said content I meant to refer to the new things (ships, factions, stat changes), when I said features I meant new actions (bribing, intimidating, etc). The big draw your mod has over others is in characterization. You've got lots of flavor in your lore, lots of consistency in your ships, and lots of interaction with your characters. These, and in particular the last one, are very hard to find in regular Starsector. There's obviously only so much you can change outside of a TC, but I still long for a middle ground where you could bribe and extort other fleets and so forth in the base game (only using more generic dialog out of necessity).

Unfortunately it goes both ways; you've clearly put a lot of thought into your work, and it's really distinct... but it's really distinct. I don't have any major suggestions for you because you seem to be following a vision of the game very closely and very well. There are little things, like how Archean ships are in a whole different class of speed compared to everything else, but that's barely a blip.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: A Random Jolteon on March 29, 2018, 08:37:27 PM
It's pretty hard to surpass the collective mastery and efforts of the mod community as one person working on a TC

If Histidine doesn't mind, in the future I will look into adding Nex-like features into this TC
Considering how you are one person, I think you are 80-90% matched in the awesomeness.


As for Nex: The only thing I think would be a problem is the Asgard Station. Even then, it's just the weapons that are the problem...Although it wou-I am going to stop there so I don't ramble on possibilities.

Either way, I don't think Nex would be hard to make compatible. Not like you are trying to get Blackrock or Dassault-Mikoyan compatible. Nex doesn't add weapons or ships.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Ranakastrasz on March 29, 2018, 08:48:49 PM
It's pretty hard to surpass the collective mastery and efforts of the mod community as one person working on a TC

If Histidine doesn't mind, in the future I will look into adding Nex-like features into this TC
Considering how you are one person, I think you are 80-90% matched in the awesomeness.
True that.
Quote
Either way, I don't think Nex would be hard to make compatible. Not like you are trying to get Blackrock or Dassault-Mikoyan compatible. Nex doesn't add weapons or ships.

The difficulty is that this mod doesnt just add stuff, it changes everything to do with game balance. While yea, you could probably easily integrate it with nex, it would be extremely imbalanced. Bring fighters from another mod here? No idea of op or not. Slow, but way more firepower, so probably act like cheap gunships.
All vanilla and Order ships have heavier armor and tougher shields, zero flux boost. Most of these weapons cost no flux. Missile spam. Etc, etc. You could do it, but i suspect balance would be difficult.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1a) Update 2/27
Post by: Morrokain on March 30, 2018, 08:59:33 AM
Sure, let me expand a bit. When I said content I meant to refer to the new things (ships, factions, stat changes), when I said features I meant new actions (bribing, intimidating, etc). The big draw your mod has over others is in characterization. You've got lots of flavor in your lore, lots of consistency in your ships, and lots of interaction with your characters. These, and in particular the last one, are very hard to find in regular Starsector. There's obviously only so much you can change outside of a TC, but I still long for a middle ground where you could bribe and extort other fleets and so forth in the base game (only using more generic dialog out of necessity).

Unfortunately it goes both ways; you've clearly put a lot of thought into your work, and it's really distinct... but it's really distinct. I don't have any major suggestions for you because you seem to be following a vision of the game very closely and very well. There are little things, like how Archean ships are in a whole different class of speed compared to everything else, but that's barely a blip.

Thanks for the breakdown, I appreciate the feedback! I have been thinking about it, and it may be possible to separate that portion of the mod(fleet dialogue features) into a mini-mod that could work outside of a TC. Like you said, it would probably only be the "base case" since most of the alternate flavor dialogue is for the new factions, but it would be something! I also have been meaning to get some more dialogue into Vanilla factions, so when I do that I can separate the two out. I will see what I can do once this next update is done.  :)

Considering how you are one person, I think you are 80-90% matched in the awesomeness.
True that.

Aw shucks, thanks! :) I just have a lot of passion for both coding and this game, and I myself have dreamed of some of these features from before the campaign was even available! I am pretty confident at this point that I will continue development for a long while, assuming .9 doesn't break too much. Can never be sure there, but I'm hopeful.

As for Nex: The only thing I think would be a problem is the Asgard Station. Even then, it's just the weapons that are the problem...Although it wou-I am going to stop there so I don't ramble on possibilities.

Either way, I don't think Nex would be hard to make compatible. Not like you are trying to get Blackrock or Dassault-Mikoyan compatible. Nex doesn't add weapons or ships.

I spent some time going over Nex's source code, and the biggest obstacle will probably be in the way it generates new games. It's completely rebuilt from Vanilla, so I would have to integrate my own starts into that new system, once I understand it better. Still, it doesn't seem insurmountable.

(As a side note, Nex is AWESOME. Truly a lot of work went into the features, and should I effectively implement them here... wow... it will be more than I ever thought possible)

The difficulty is that this mod doesnt just add stuff, it changes everything to do with game balance. While yea, you could probably easily integrate it with nex, it would be extremely imbalanced. Bring fighters from another mod here? No idea of op or not. Slow, but way more firepower, so probably act like cheap gunships.
All vanilla and Order ships have heavier armor and tougher shields, zero flux boost. Most of these weapons cost no flux. Missile spam. Etc, etc. You could do it, but i suspect balance would be difficult.

Well, from what I can tell I don't think those ships are actually included, just the option to include those mods. So I just need to be sure I understand and can implement the code for the features- stuff like colony-capturing, diplomacy, invasions, mining, etc.

Since I hand place many of my factions' strongholds, I would also have to build in safeguards that check for Corvus Mode, or not include the completely random map as part of the features.

Even if those ships were included, I could probably balance other faction mods' content for this TC, however, given enough time. I have a system that seems to work pretty well at this point. The 13 or so small weapons I added in last month have only needed some minor tweaks from their initial balance because I plugged them directly into established and "proven" stat ranges. Time is the main factor here, per usual.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2018, 11:35:08 AM
Patch is up.

Phew, that was a lot of work to re-update the manual and document the dialogue mechanics. :) It took way longer than expected.

This is a pretty big balance pass, as well, and the update version is a little misleading as there is actually quite a bit of new and revised content for such a tiny update in the version id lol.

I also spent a good amount of time refactoring older scripts and improving existing features. I'm especially excited for bribery to be more fleshed out. The faction specific responses haven't been implemented yet, but I wan't to make sure the "base case" is working as intended before going down that rabbit hole.

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.2.1b 4/8/2018
Spoiler
Content Additions
  • Improved Bribery mechanic: Now also allows for bribery upfront- greatly increases the chances of a successful ceasefire negotiation.

          - Can include several increments of bribes(with varying levels of cultural implications per faction) to increases chances of success- the highest bribe almost guarantees success with certain factions.
          - Should the player choose not to bribe upfront and the negotations fail, the player will have a second opportunity to bribe the enemy commander at a higher cost.

  • Improved Cease-Fire mechanic: Now can successfully negotiate a ceasefire with Vengeful rep Pirates (was guaranteed to fail before) and new bribery mechanics allow for more controllable, consistent results for the player, should they really want to avoid a battle.
  • 2 new missions featuring the Hyperion-class Experimental Frigate as a flagship.
  • Added 3 new starting options for new factions- now consolidated with the former two additions under "Advanced Start".
  • Consolidated "Normal Start" options (containing the basic start options and separating the destroyer-sized starts more clearly).
  • New skin and variants for Archean Order's Wolf-class frigate.

Balance Changes
  • Peak Performance mechanic implemented back into all vessels. Timers greatly increased for all but phase ships, and ships with High Maintenance from their experimental nature, such as the Sunder, Hyperion etc.
  • Safety Overrides' Peak Performance reduction now greatly limits prolonged combat performance as a downside to balance out its benefits. OP to install reduced by 33% as a result. This will also make Pathers less annoying to fight in prolonged engagements where the player doesn't happen to have any pursuit or interdiction vessels.
  • Reduced Flux per Salvo of Trebuchet LRM by 33%, missile speed reduced by ~20% (This should make the missile less of an issue when massed and allow it to be more easily added to load-outs. It was also too powerful/useful for its tier and in comparison to the advanced Hunter LRM).
  • Nova Cannon damage increased by 25% to compensate for loss of EMP component. It should now properly take its place as a top tier PD option with a secondary assault role.
  • Added the Refit Time effect of Damaged Flightdeck to Civgrade Hullmod.
  • Op Cost of Operations Center hullmod reduced by 33%.
  • Converted Hangar hullmod now increases the number flight decks on existing carriers by +1/+1/+2 on destroyers/cruisers/capitals in addition to its normal effects. This hullmod can now also be installed on existing carriers.
  • Significant buffs to Hyperion: now has medium universal hardpoints at each wing. Increased cost and supplies to maintain/deploy. Variants adjusted accordinly.
  • Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range significantly.
  • Decreased Tyrant-class Battleship's turn rate by 60%. It was too inaccurate with beams otherwise.
  • Liberator Heavy Fighter has had one of its Icer Guns removed, and Limited Range Finders hullmod is now built-in.
  • Ion Torpedo projectile hitpoints reduced by 40%.
  • Changed starting variant load-out for Medusa.
  • Redistributed success rates for some dialogue features- now that bribery is a more mainsteam feature.
  • Minor tweaks to deployment costs across all ships (couple exceptions of "minor", like Scarab, that were pseudo bugs), Fleet Points in ships and across skins now properly correlates to deployment cost for calculations in some scripts.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed description for civilian Star-Liner to include its built-in, yet poorly operating fighter bay.
  • Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.
  • Updated and corrected Tactics Manual to reflect changes since release. Also greatly expanded the manual, including non-technical documentation of dialogue features and mechanics as well as tips for tactics against certain factions for new players.
  • Fixed bug with Adamantine Consortium Comm-Relay encounter not taking priority over Tribute requests.
  • Added story text to "The Great Restructuring" mission.
  • Corrected a few scripts that had incorrect IDs for the Tri-Tachyon corporation.
  • Bribe calculation in Cease Fire requests now stems from enemy fleet strength, as intended, rather than player fleet strength.
  • Corrected fleet strength calculations in Cease-Fire and Commodity request features. It was too punishing when severely outnumbered (almost never happened).
  • Refactored code of several scripts to run more efficiently and have less redundancy.

[close]

Next up, planning on looking into Nex-like feature implementation, if possible.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 08, 2018, 05:41:59 PM
One minor issue, the pulse laser costs too much OP for what it does. It is about as effective as the machine gun is an anti-fighter weapon and outclassed by the pulse beam against missiles. For an example of this, load up the first Condor (P) in the simulator.

The burst PD laser has the same problem, being slightly better than the pulse beam against fighters and larger missiles, only decisively superior against rocket barrages and swarms of light fighters.


If the intent was to make energy based PD worse, than the pulse beam is in need of a nerf, probably to range. If not, the pulse beam and burst PD laser are in need of re-balancing.

Edit: The void driver seems to have this issue as well, but is a passable ship-to-ship weapon. I would suggest reducing its OP cost to 5. (also, its desc. mentions losing burst damage rapidly but the stats don't reflect this.)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 08, 2018, 06:20:38 PM
The iridium cannon, Icer gun, and micro repeater have issues with their sound. They are louder than other weapons and their sound effects seem to drown out other effects.

Sorry for all the nitpicking, I like this mod and want to help make it better.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 08, 2018, 06:52:27 PM
More balance issues, The Graviton Beam is only slightly better than the Burst Siege Beam. It has ~50% higher sustained dps, ~100 higher damage per burst, and slightly less flux per sedond. The Burst Siege Beam has 200(!) more range, and has the ability to store charges as well has costing less than half as much. reducing the Siege Beam's range down to 800 or lowering its charge reloading rate would be a good fix.

The balance issues of the Siege Beam are most apparent on bigger ships, like the Aurora and Paragon, where they can be assembled in batteries. An Aurora with 6 Siege Beams and expanded mags obliterates everything short of capital ships.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2018, 07:55:36 PM
The iridium cannon, Icer gun, and micro repeater have issues with their sound. They are louder than other weapons and their sound effects seem to drown out other effects.

Sorry for all the nitpicking, I like this mod and want to help make it better.
One minor issue, the pulse laser costs too much OP for what it does. It is about as effective as the machine gun is an anti-fighter weapon and outclassed by the pulse beam against missiles. For an example of this, load up the first Condor (P) in the simulator.

The burst PD laser has the same problem, being slightly better than the pulse beam against fighters and larger missiles, only decisively superior against rocket barrages and swarms of light fighters.


If the intent was to make energy based PD worse, than the pulse beam is in need of a nerf, probably to range. If not, the pulse beam and burst PD laser are in need of re-balancing.

Edit: The void driver seems to have this issue as well, but is a passable ship-to-ship weapon. I would suggest reducing its OP cost to 5. (also, its desc. mentions losing burst damage rapidly but the stats don't reflect this.)
One minor issue, the pulse laser costs too much OP for what it does. It is about as effective as the machine gun is an anti-fighter weapon and outclassed by the pulse beam against missiles. For an example of this, load up the first Condor (P) in the simulator.

The burst PD laser has the same problem, being slightly better than the pulse beam against fighters and larger missiles, only decisively superior against rocket barrages and swarms of light fighters.


If the intent was to make energy based PD worse, than the pulse beam is in need of a nerf, probably to range. If not, the pulse beam and burst PD laser are in need of re-balancing.

Edit: The void driver seems to have this issue as well, but is a passable ship-to-ship weapon. I would suggest reducing its OP cost to 5. (also, its desc. mentions losing burst damage rapidly but the stats don't reflect this.)

Thanks for the balance feedback! Working on looking at what you said and may release a very minor hotfix build tonight addressing the sound issues and looking at various weapons' balance.  :) (I like nitpicking btw, so no worries there!)

I'm hoping to not have to reduce or raise an Ordinance costs, since that will effect variants and require far more work. So I will try other balance levers. If it ends up seeming like the only way, however, I will certainly do it if necessary.

I'll give some more detailed responses in a bit after taking a closer look at things.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 08, 2018, 08:15:54 PM
One bug I found, adding the converted hanger seems to add thousands to the skeleton crew requirement.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2018, 08:58:52 PM
One bug I found, adding the converted hanger seems to add thousands to the skeleton crew requirement.

What ship did you equip it on, for reference?

Edit: nvm, it's an improper calculation. Fixed for hotfix, which I will upload shortly.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2018, 09:46:04 PM
Hotfix uploading now.

I'd give it another hour or two according to dropbox.

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 09, 2018, 03:00:34 PM
The Hegemony Auxiliary Condor has 20 less OP than the standard Condor. Bug?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 09, 2018, 03:29:27 PM
The Hegemony Auxiliary Condor has 20 less OP than the standard Condor. Bug?

Yup! Old stat in the skin files. Same with the Luddic Church variant. Fixed. That actually partially explains some of the issues I had with their balance in the earlier iteration. They may be tuned too high now, though we will see.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 09, 2018, 04:43:17 PM
The Hellcat fighter doesn't seem to require crew, and its description doesn't say it's a drone. Is this a bug?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 09, 2018, 05:15:07 PM
The Hellcat fighter doesn't seem to require crew, and its description doesn't say it's a drone. Is this a bug?

Yes! Corrected min crew requirements of Hellcat, Cyclops, Liberator, Renegade and Hydra fighter.

Looking close to another hotfix tonight at this rate.  :P
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 10, 2018, 04:02:53 PM
It seems the converted hanger hullmod only adds 1 flight deck to the Atlas despite it being a capital ship. Is this because it is also a civilian ship or actually counted as a cruiser?
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 10, 2018, 04:57:47 PM
It seems the converted hanger hullmod only adds 1 flight deck to the Atlas despite it being a capital ship. Is this because it is also a civilian ship or actually counted as a cruiser?


Another good catch, yes, it was set as a cruiser in it's ship file. Fixed! Going to add a little more before another release, but next patch notes currently at this point:

Balance Changes

 - Reduced upcharge, increased recharge of Iridium Cannon. -This will allow Hellcats to combat interceptors a little better. Before they could almost never effectively target them. They are still inaccurate at it, just less so.

 - Replaced one of the Drover-class Light PD Carrier's Hydra Gunship wings with a Hercules Gunship wing to give it a fair amount of assault potential for an insignifcant loss in overall PD strength.


Bug Fixes

 - Fixed min crew requirements of Hydra, Renegade, Liberator, Cyclops and Hellcat fighter-craft.

 - Fixed OP of Hegemony, Pirate and Luddic Church Condor skins. Variants adjusted accordingly.

 - Atlas now correctly read as a capital ship, so Converted Hangar hullmod will add 2 fighter bays, as intended.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 10, 2018, 06:15:59 PM
I just finished all the missions with 100%. The balance is pretty good. They are hard, but not impossible. The only one that I have an issue with is The Captain's Gambit. It's fairly easy if you outfit all the ships with sparks, xyphos, renegades, and daggers. The issue is getting all the carriers to actually engage the tyrant. After killing all the other ships, they just kited away from it. Only the fighter only carriers sent their wings against it, doing almost nothing. I had to run the tyrant out of CR and then switch to a carrier to bomb it.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 10, 2018, 07:44:54 PM
I just finished all the missions with 100%. The balance is pretty good. They are hard, but not impossible. The only one that I have an issue with is The Captain's Gambit. It's fairly easy if you outfit all the ships with sparks, xyphos, renegades, and daggers. The issue is getting all the carriers to actually engage the tyrant. After killing all the other ships, they just kited away from it. Only the fighter only carriers sent their wings against it, doing almost nothing. I had to run the tyrant out of CR and then switch to a carrier to bomb it.

Ah nice! Hope you had fun with those!  :)

Hm, as far as the carriers in The Captain's Gambit, did you keep the stock loadouts on weapons?

AI wise - The Epiphany is a pure carrier, and won't engage directly without Full Assault + Eliminate command and may even need a reckless officer if facing a capital with the firepower of the Tyrant.

**Edit** You probably know this already, but just in case: a combat carrier or carrier defaults to the "Fighter Strike" command when mass selecting ships and right clicking enemies on the tactical map. If you want the carriers to follow an "Eliminate" command on the Tyrant, select the Tyrant itself and then select "Eliminate" under the available commands for that ship and then mass select your carriers and right click the Tyrant to assign that specific command to them.

The Apogee, on the other hand, is a combat carrier, so it should be more willing to directly engage things. That said, they are default equipped for long range missile strikes, and so would be pretty unwilling to engage things directly no matter what orders you gave them. Their Twin Tactical Beam is just a deterrent for the stray destroyer or frigate that gets too close.

The direct engagement vessel in this scenario is the Hyperion. Though, that ship will struggle against the Tyrant: A single volley from its main battery is enough to one shot you, in most cases. You are supposed to whittle it down and distract it with coordinated fighter strikes as your carriers flee, and let it burn its ship system so it can't turn fast enough to get you within a full batteries' arc.

Even then, one of the harder missions to do the upfront way. The running it out of CR solution is not the most fun of scenarios... may look into that.  ;)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 10, 2018, 08:23:45 PM
The issue was that I was using fighter strike, but the epiphanys were not sending their xyphos and bombers to engage. Even when I put the whole fleet on an eliminate order they still fled without using their bombers.

These were the ship loadouts I was using.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/ouVP32j.png)
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Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/TxwGBGr.png)
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Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 10, 2018, 08:31:56 PM
The only thing I can think of at first thought is the effective range difference between the two classes somehow confusing the AI.

Gunships have about half the effective range of bombers and interceptors, as a generalization. There are exceptions, but I don't believe the Xyphos is one of them.

Try one carrier full bombers, one full gunships, and see if that solves the issue.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 10, 2018, 09:47:51 PM
I was flying around Askonia and saw this...

Spoiler
The gate's orbit might need to be extended a bit :P(https://i.imgur.com/FeDToOr.png)
[close]

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 10, 2018, 11:28:37 PM
You might want to change Hybrasil a bit, at the moment the Tri-Tachyon-Archean Order fighting continually creates debris fields and high tech derelicts. It can make the early game easy if you snag an Aurora or Doom.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2018, 03:21:23 PM
I was flying around Askonia and saw this...

Spoiler
The gate's orbit might need to be extended a bit :P(https://i.imgur.com/FeDToOr.png)
[close]



Ha, yeah never considered that such a close orbit might put the Archean Outpost within the gas giant at points during its orbit. I'll expand the orbit radius of the gate, though it will take a new game to see the effects.

You might want to change Hybrasil a bit, at the moment the Tri-Tachyon-Archean Order fighting continually creates debris fields and high tech derelicts. It can make the early game easy if you snag an Aurora or Doom.

Yeah I see what you mean. Those are powerful cruisers and they would make many smaller factions' much easier to defeat.

However, their war is the centerpiece of the ToBe story, and part of the difficulty behind the Archean Order start scenario. So, completely removing their clashes would be a bit hit to the continuity of the lore and the "feel" of the sector.

I'm wondering if there is any way to make a reasonable middle ground. It is kind of a difficult scenario to tackle without an EveryFrameScript removing the most potent derelicts...

Or... hmm... maybe, just maybe this may work:

So, if I understand it correctly, derelicts and board-able vessels rely on the those ships not breaking apart during combat. At the very least, it greatly reduces the chances they will be recoverable, right?

If I set the majority of hi-tech vessels that are too powerful for such a new start character to always break apart, then that should render them purchase-able, but difficult to obtain otherwise. I think I am ok with this, but if others disagree feel free to respond!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 11, 2018, 03:39:35 PM
Hmm. A hullmod, probably that delicate machinery one. Gives a 90% chance of breaking up. :p
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 11, 2018, 05:31:59 PM
If the conflict is intended, you should buff up the spawnrate of TT fleets. Whenever I show up in the system 2-8 huge Templar fleets with multiple megaliths swarm Eochu Bres.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2018, 05:46:55 PM
Hmm. A hullmod, probably that delicate machinery one. Gives a 90% chance of breaking up. :p

Yeah, that could work, and would be descriptive to the player as to why they rarely find the ships. Originally I was thinking of just putting in the stat under ship_data.csv, but I like this idea better.

If the conflict is intended, you should buff up the spawnrate of TT fleets. Whenever I show up in the system 2-8 huge Templar fleets with multiple megaliths swarm Eochu Bres.

For reference, how late are you in the campaign, typically? I have noticed it tends to go back and forth. They kind of take turns overrunning each other with bigger and bigger fleets over time.

Since I'm already editing the campaign layer for Askonia, I may as well test a couple tweaks. Maybe putting the colonies a little farther apart would help things a bit.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 11, 2018, 09:25:17 PM
Quite late, got a fleet of 2 paragons and a few Auroras.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on April 11, 2018, 09:35:33 PM
Penembrous and Eochu Bres get pretty damn close.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/UmaFCLg.png)
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Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2018, 09:47:42 PM
Penembrous and Eochu Bres get pretty damn close.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/UmaFCLg.png)
[close]
Quite late, got a fleet of 2 paragons and a few Auroras.

Great! Thanks for the info! I haven't tested that late in the campaign in a while and this is really good data to help adjust strongholds for those very reasons. If you happen to find anything else amiss while on that save let me know and I'll incorporate more stronghold adjustments, if needed, in hopefully one or two updates. I don't want to keep breaking everyone's saves, if possible, as that's already inevitable enough as it is.  :)

I may try and get to those built-in hullmod consolidations for some factions while I'm at it.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 13, 2018, 06:28:19 PM
Ran into an issue. Tried to start a game. Got 3 shipping orders to another system, took them. Got to the stations, the person requesting them wasn't there. Maybe he went out for a smoke break?

Hyperion doesn't seem to have delicate machinery hullmod. Not sure why.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 13, 2018, 06:36:35 PM
Ran into an issue. Tried to start a game. Got 3 shipping orders to another system, took them. Got to the stations, the person requesting them wasn't there. Maybe he went out for a smoke break?

Hyperion doesn't seem to have delicate machinery hullmod. Not sure why.

What stations were they? Did you ping the map from the mission log and did those planets/stations flash?

Edit** Trying to get a sense of where the potential bug would be. I'm seeing if these planets are in any way modified by my code, as a start. Or if its specific to stations, etc.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 14, 2018, 07:25:23 AM
Weapon shipments, 3x 10 each. From Jangala in the Corvus system to Sphinx and Tigra City in the Samarra System. Sphinx shipment worked fine. Tigra gave me the route (autopilot to the dock) but once I docked, couldn't complete as the person wasn't there. Quartermaster had a different name. Also, no yellow excelmation point indicating it.

Spelling might be wrong, XD
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 14, 2018, 09:11:07 AM
Weapon shipments, 3x 10 each. From Jangala in the Corvus system to Sphinx and Tigra City in the Samarra System. Sphinx shipment worked fine. Tigra gave me the route (autopilot to the dock) but once I docked, couldn't complete as the person wasn't there. Quartermaster had a different name. Also, no yellow excelmation point indicating it.

Spelling might be wrong, XD

Hmm. That is strange. It might be a vanilla bug.

As far as I know, I haven't done anything that modifies that mission class, and the only planet that is modified in any way in that scenario is Jangala's commander from the tutorial ending. It shouldn't affect anything regarding other NPCs or missions.

If you could see the NPC, and there was a yellow exclamation point, but the dialogue to drop the ship was replaced with a generic greeting, that would be a Rules.csv issue. But not being there at all? Strange.

Let me know if it keeps happening. I'll look into it, but I'm honestly not sure where to start.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 14, 2018, 12:01:49 PM
Hyperion doesn't seem to have delicate machinery hullmod. Not sure why.

Fixed.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1c) Hotfix 4/9
Post by: Morrokain on April 14, 2018, 11:15:35 PM
New update available by morning. A couple notes on a couple requested features.

I decided against implementing Delicate Machinery across all hi-tech hulls, for now, and instead have hopefully corrected the loot and balance issues in the Hybrasil system of the campaign layer. If this is not enough, I will investigate further.

I have also decided not to consolidate faction hullmods of the Hegemony, because they are actually purposefully kept separate to accommodate both the Heg Auxiliary buff and the XIV Legion buff, which are different in what stats they give, but the balancing effect remains the same, if that makes sense.

As usual, squeezed in a little new content as well.  :)

Here are the notes:

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.2.1d 4/15/2018
Spoiler

Content Additions
  • Two new frigates, the Neophyte and Exile, have been added to the Archean Order fleets in order to better diversify their tactics and ships from the Adamantine Consortium.
  • Added new skins\variants for the Condor-class Light Carrier and Scarab-class Drone Carrier found in Adamantine Consortium dreadlord fleets.

Balance Changes
  • Reduced upcharge, increased recharge of Iridium Cannon. -This will allow Hellcats to combat interceptors a little better. Before they could almost never effectively target them. They are still inaccurate at it, just less so.
  • Replaced one of the Drover-class Light PD Carrier's Hydra Gunship wings with a Hercules Gunship wing to give it a fair amount of assault potential for an insiginifcant loss in overall PD strength.
  • Increased Peak Operating Time of Megalith and Tyrant.
  • All Interceptors/Fighters/Bombers/Gunships of the same tech level will have the same combat range. (Should solve AI issues with carriers and allow for more diverse fighter-type combinations).

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed min crew requirements of Hydra, Renegade, Liberator, Cyclops and Hellcat fighter-craft.
  • Fixed OP of Hegemony, Pirate and Luddic Church Condor skins. Variants adjusted accordingly.
  • Atlas now correctly read as a capital ship, so Converted Hangar hullmod will add 2 fighter bays, as intended.
  • Corrected Askonia Gate orbit to match nearby entities' orbit speed (now they shouldn't collide in the late campaign).
  • Corrected late-game campaign issues with Archean Order and Tri-Tachyon in Hybrasil. Archean Order strongholds are much, much farther away from the system's star. (There should be less hi-tech debris and the markets should hopefully be a little more stable.)
  • Hyperion-class frigate now has Delicate Machinery hullmod built-in.
  • Slight re-work of Wolf (Arc) skin sprite.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on April 20, 2018, 03:44:13 PM
I now have permission for Nex features.  :)

I'm going to start implementing those fairly soon, but moving this weekend so work won't start immediately.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 12, 2018, 10:48:17 AM

Reduced upcharge, increased recharge of Iridium Cannon. -This will allow Hellcats to combat interceptors a little better. Before they could almost never effectively target them. They are still inaccurate at it, just less so.[/li][/list]
Upcharge is the spool-up time, how long between deciding and firing, and actually firing. So less delay and fires faster?
Quote
Replaced one of the Drover-class Light PD Carrier's Hydra Gunship wings with a Hercules Gunship wing to give it a fair amount of assault potential for an insiginifcant loss in overall PD strength.
Increased Peak Operating Time of Megalith and Tyrant.
No comment
Quote
All Interceptors/Fighters/Bombers/Gunships of the same tech level will have the same combat range. (Should solve AI issues with carriers and allow for more diverse fighter-type combinations).
Good. AI issues always a pain, at least if they are on your side.
Now we just need them to send fighter escorts to the correct person....
Quote
Fixed min crew requirements of Hydra, Renegade, Liberator, Cyclops and Hellcat fighter-craft.
Fixed OP of Hegemony, Pirate and Luddic Church Condor skins. Variants adjusted accordingly.
Difference skins had different Stats too? I mean, quality might say different stats, but did not expect that.
Quote
Atlas now correctly read as a capital ship, so Converted Hangar hullmod will add 2 fighter bays, as intended.
Heh. Oops
Quote
Corrected Askonia Gate orbit to match nearby entities' orbit speed (now they shouldn't collide in the late campaign).
Don't worry Warp gates are all equipped with phase shift drive coil thingies, so they can go through planets with no ill effects XD
Quote
Corrected late-game campaign issues with Archean Order and Tri-Tachyon in Hybrasil. Archean Order strongholds are much, much farther away from the system's star. (There should be less hi-tech debris and the markets should hopefully be a little more stable.)
Heh. In those systems, there is only war.
Quote
Hyperion-class frigate now has Delicate Machinery hullmod built-in.
Heh. I would note that Hyperions have an above average chance to be vaporized due to their low health already.
Quote
Slight re-work of Wolf (Arc) skin sprite.
No comment
Patch is up.

Phew, that was a lot of work to re-update the manual and document the dialogue mechanics. :) It took way longer than expected.
I guess I will review and add more complaintsFeedback to it. After I play some more anyway.
Quote
This is a pretty big balance pass, as well, and the update version is a little misleading as there is actually quite a bit of new and revised content for such a tiny update in the version id lol.

I also spent a good amount of time refactoring older scripts and improving existing features. I'm especially excited for bribery to be more fleshed out. The faction specific responses haven't been implemented yet, but I wan't to make sure the "base case" is working as intended before going down that rabbit hole.


Improved Bribery mechanic: Now also allows for bribery upfront- greatly increases the chances of a successful ceasefire negotiation.

      - Can include several increments of bribes(with varying levels of cultural implications per faction) to increases chances of success- the highest bribe almost guarantees success with certain factions.
      - Should the player choose not to bribe upfront and the negotations fail, the player will have a second opportunity to bribe the enemy commander at a higher cost.

Hmm. Can't say much yet. I don't bribe as a matter of course, only when I am certain it is better than trying to fight.
Quote

Improved Cease-Fire mechanic: Now can successfully negotiate a ceasefire with Vengeful rep Pirates (was guaranteed to fail before) and new bribery mechanics allow for more controllable, consistent results for the player, should they really want to avoid a battle.
2 new missions featuring the Hyperion-class Experimental Frigate as a flagship.
Added 3 new starting options for new factions- now consolidated with the former two additions under "Advanced Start".
Consolidated "Normal Start" options (containing the basic start options and separating the destroyer-sized starts more clearly).
New skin and variants for Archean Order's Wolf-class frigate.

Good. Although I would far prefer my idea of the Rep system, that is a good stopgap. The whole, Vengeful requires you to be an existential threat to the faction, and/or become well known for breaking your word (They surrender, you accept, get loot, and then you kill them anyway)
New missions? YAY

Quote
Peak Performance mechanic implemented back into all vessels. Timers greatly increased for all but phase ships, and ships with High Maintenance from their experimental nature, such as the Sunder, Hyperion etc.
Do those ships also have the new higher timers, which are cut by the hullmod? If not, adding/removing that hullmod later would require extra work.
Also, Yay!
Quote
Safety Overrides' Peak Performance reduction now greatly limits prolonged combat performance as a downside to balance out its benefits. OP to install reduced by 33% as a result. This will also make Pathers less annoying to fight in prolonged engagements where the player doesn't happen to have any pursuit or interdiction vessels.
Good. Is the range modifier adjusted in any way from vanilla?

What is Pather anyway? Obviously slang for something.
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Reduced Flux per Salvo of Trebuchet LRM by 33%, missile speed reduced by ~20% (This should make the missile less of an issue when massed and allow it to be more easily added to load-outs. It was also too powerful/useful for its tier and in comparison to the advanced Hunter LRM).
Awesome. Those two missiles were too similar imo, this gives a less powerful and more useable LRM.
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Nova Cannon damage increased by 25% to compensate for loss of EMP component. It should now properly take its place as a top tier PD option with a secondary assault role.
No comment, not Familiar enough with said weapon. Still, a PD/Assault hybrid is cool.
Quote
Added the Refit Time effect of Damaged Flightdeck to Civgrade Hullmod.
Cool. I will have to note the effect that has on those civilian carriers that were treated as dedicated carriers/Freighters. Can't recall which ones those are atm, but yea.
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Op Cost of Operations Center hullmod reduced by 33%.
Yay. More Command points... In most cases.
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Converted Hangar hullmod now increases the number flight decks on existing carriers by +1/+1/+2 on destroyers/cruisers/capitals in addition to its normal effects. This hullmod can now also be installed on existing carriers.
Nice. Does it stack with expanded flight decks?
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Significant buffs to Hyperion: now has medium universal hardpoints at each wing. Increased cost and supplies to maintain/deploy. Variants adjusted accordinly.
Such a legendary ship, now with more customization... And upkeep.
Quote
Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range significantly.
Which one was Phase teleporter again?
Quote
Decreased Tyrant-class Battleship's turn rate by 60%. It was too inaccurate with beams otherwise.
Huh. What if you had given it built in turret Gyros instead :P
Quote
Liberator Heavy Fighter has had one of its Icer Guns removed, and Limited Range Finders hullmod is now built-in.
As a fighter hullmod, I have no idea what that does. Sounds like a double nerf, but I can't be certain.
Quote
Ion Torpedo projectile hitpoints reduced by 40%.
Don't Ion torpedos work through shields (direct impact, either way dumps flux into the buffer?)
If so, yea, I approve. Otherwise unsure.
Quote
Changed starting variant load-out for Medusa.
Can't say much, aside from Medusa no longer being the Wolf II from vanilla I recall, and this doesn't change that
Quote
Redistributed success rates for some dialogue features- now that bribery is a more mainsteam feature.
No details, only vague understanding of mechanic, so no comment.
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Minor tweaks to deployment costs across all ships (couple exceptions of "minor", like Scarab, that were pseudo bugs), Fleet Points in ships and across skins now properly correlates to deployment cost for calculations in some scripts.
Fixes are always good.
Quote

Fixed description for civilian Star-Liner to include its built-in, yet poorly operating fighter bay.
But we can still go for joyrides, right?
Quote
Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.
Good. Although, wasn't that EMP on small PD weapons mainly to overload fighters? Not complaining, but yea.
Quote
Updated and corrected Tactics Manual to reflect changes since release. Also greatly expanded the manual, including non-technical documentation of dialogue features and mechanics as well as tips for tactics against certain factions for new players.
Will be around to complainReview when I get the time.
Quote
Fixed bug with Adamantine Consortium Comm-Relay encounter not taking priority over Tribute requests.
Huh. So you refuse Tribute AND are trying to hack their Comm-Relay. I guess they ought to just try and kill you?
Quote
Added story text to "The Great Restructuring" mission.
Fluff! Yay!
Quote
Corrected a few scripts that had incorrect IDs for the Tri-Tachyon corporation.
What kind of scripts? Code scripts, Dialog Scripts, or what?
Quote
Bribe calculation in Cease Fire requests now stems from enemy fleet strength, as intended, rather than player fleet strength.
Wait, so was it looking at ratio between your fleet and your fleet, instead of their fleet and your fleet?
Quote
Corrected fleet strength calculations in Cease-Fire and Commodity request features. It was too punishing when severely outnumbered (almost never happened).
Refactored code of several scripts to run more efficiently and have less redundancy.
Well, If you are seriously outnumbered, attempting to Surrender (with a bribe) should be an option, but just a cease fire (to conserve resources on both sides) should be reasonable.
As for requesting stuff, well, Allies should be more willing if you are weak, enemies if you are strong. Maybe.
Quote
Next up, planning on looking into Nex-like feature implementation, if possible.
Cool. I still think Reputation system is more important :P
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 12, 2018, 02:12:06 PM
I figured out the mod that caused the missions issue. Naturally, it was the one I wrote.

I have no idea WHY it does that however, I don't think I overwrote anything I shouldn't have.

Edit: Went and did a Notepad++ Dif, and commented out every line I didn't change, and the problem went away. So I clearly overwrote SOMETHING.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on June 13, 2018, 09:15:03 PM
Hey thanks for the feedback! :) Rest assured I am responding but that's a lot to go through so it may take a day or two to get to everything.

Edit: I do want to respond to this, first, though.
Sorry I've been away for a while. I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about this.

Oh no worries I too take breaks from things I play but thanks I always appreciate it!  :D

I have been slacking a little on development after the move, but still working on things slowly.  I will probably pick up speed again soon once things at work settle a bit.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 14, 2018, 06:32:35 AM
Hey thanks for the feedback! :) Rest assured I am responding but that's a lot to go through so it may take a day or two to get to everything.

Edit: I do want to respond to this, first, though.
Sorry I've been away for a while. I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about this.

Oh no worries I too take breaks from things I play but thanks I always appreciate it!  :D

I have been slacking a little on development after the move, but still working on things slowly.  I will probably pick up speed again soon once things at work settle a bit.
No problem. I've been busy, College and Internship, so, like, less free time.
Take your time, no hurry, Real life is real and hence somehow more important, etc.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 15, 2018, 09:19:01 AM
Overall comparison between vanilla and this total conversion. Things that are different, and things that are very different

The conversion has four main focuses.

Increasing importance and usability of Fighters and Missiles (and point defense in reaction)
Overhauling Flux mechanics.
Exaggerating differences between weapon types and Ship Types.
Reduced effect of kiting and "Outlasting"

Spoiler
Code
Fighters are smaller, faster, more numerous, and far more dangerous. They still get hard-countered without too much difficulty, but have a dramatic effect.
The majority of ships have fighters of some kind, And fighters have a drastically increased role in the combat meta.

Missiles are something of a combination of Strike and Support weapons (Below) and have limited ammo capacity and use non-trivial amounts of flux. The ammo regenerates over time.


Basic scheme with vanilla examples.

Point Defense - Short range, anti-fighter/Missile. Low damage, often fragmentation. Uses no flux.
-Machine gun, Burst Laser, Flak, Guardian PD laser.
-Deals with Fighters and missiles, and can somewhat damage frigates/stripped armor
Assault - Shorter ranged, common weapon type. Uses no flux.
-Assault gun, Autocannon, Pulse Laser.
-Short range guns, goes with SO and UI well. Large versions often have a flux cost, but generally you can fire freely. Makes fast and High DPS ships.

Strike - Shorter range, stronger weapon with heavy alpha strike. Significant flux cost, limited ammo. The kind of thing that tears through shield or armor in a single shot. Some missiles use this as a subtype.
-Antimatter Blaster, Phase Lance, Plasma Cannon. Rocket Pods, Harpoon(Ish), Reaper, Hammer.
-Assasin/Duelist ships. Focuses on large alpha strikes. Should it fail, massive flux costs can be lethal, so often requires assault ships to assist. Horrific vs smaller scale ships.

Support - Longer range, Normal damage, uses significant flux. Often has limited ammo. Allows engagement from out of normal range, but costs flux (and costs speed boost) as a result. Not good on it's own, but can interdict or support other ships from a distance. Missiles tend to be of this type.
-Needler, Mauler, Hypervelocity Driver, Tachyon Lance, Pilum, Mirv, Locust, Sqall.
-Artillery/Missile ships. Uses large amounts of flux to get high range. Damage is subpar, but supports other ships from a longer distance.

Many weapons and ships have changed loadouts, and some even have different roles.
Medusa is now a high-tech carrier, instead of a teleporter, and the Hound lost it's medium weapon slot for point defence drones.

Weapons as well. Many weapons have been bumped up an extra size. Harpoons are considered medium or large, and Heavy mauler is large. A lot of new small weapons were added (or are left as is, like the machine gun) Some weapons changed roles (Swarmer missile is more anti-frigate than anti-fighter, and the Locust/Hornet/Stinger family takes it's place) Salamander is a medium missile, with a smaller Bolo missile replacing it.
As such, read descriptions before buying.

As a consequence, Many ships will have far lower tier weapons, (but more of them) and as ships get larger, they will be decidedly scarier. (Especially because of the range advantage with size)

Most ships have fighter wings. Frigates have them a bit more often, destroyers often have at least one. Cruisers almost always have at least 2 wings, and Capitals have at least 4.
Some are hardcoded(DRM broke civilization, so it isn't too surprising), so you can't swap PD drones out for bombers, but many more let you customize.


Flux mechanics are quite different from normal.
Hard and soft flux are less distinguished in general.
Shield upkeep is massive, 70-90% of default flux. As such, simply raising shields will cut flux disipation by a massive amount.
Strike and support weapons, especially missiles, use large chunks of flux up instantly, or at least per volly, ranging from trivial 50 to 5k flux instantly.
So, make sure that you have enough flux to cover the cost of firing AND enough vents to maintain constant fire. If you don't have much give, expect shields to not help you much.
As such, in addition to flux vents, capacity is extremely important, just to let you fire powerful weapons.
Magazines and Missile racks give a +50% to capacity, which corresponds to a 50% increase in instant flux used. (But not sustained, since it doesn't effect regeneration)


Zero-flux bonus is a 5% bonus, so ships with shields up or only using PD/Assault weapons will always get a significant boost to speed. Correspondingly, Support and strike ships will suffer in speed, in exchange for their alpha-strike/Range advantage. As such, Assassins and Sniper/Kite builds will be more difficult or impractical (At least without support)


So, you can make an assassin (Strike, Speed, but fragile and may strain flux. Or use torpedos, which recharge very slowly but use no flux)
Assault Brawler (Assault focus, maybe with a but of strike/support) which is fast, short range, and has plenty of flux for shields.
Assault/Striker (Unloads strike, but sticks around, relying on armor and assault weapons to win, or uses assault weapons and then strike to overload the target.)
Support (Long ranged weapons/Missiles. Flux heavy, so will need to be covered with fighters/Assault ships to protect it) Is likely to spend most of it's flux on periodic vollies, and it's speed and shield suffers as a result.
Carrier - Many ships of many types count as carriers, although their OP budget can suffer.
PD - Carriers lots of PD weapons to ward off fighters, and/or plenty of intercepters/PD drones. Surprisingly useful, given that just covering most angles with 1-2 PD guns tends to be insufficient. Intercepter missiles are especially effective.
Can seriously wreck swarms of fighters or the heavier, but still agile fighters.


Outlasting ships by just kiting them until their CR runs out is far less practical.
Assault ships tend to be fast but short lived, so it doesn't take long, but they will catch any ship that tries to kite, or fail rather quickly.
Support/Long ranged ships tend to suffer from a lack of zero-flux, so cannot run effectively. Both speed boosting mods (Injector and SO) cut range drastically, so they can't really use them.
Fighters are faster than you, and love to damage your weapons and Engines (Built in EMP) so fleets will generally have intercepters/Interdictors around. (Forcing you to take at least 5% shield damage or breaking your engines)
As such, avoiding combat is much harder. Even the Tempest itself will have trouble.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on June 16, 2018, 03:25:56 PM
Upcharge is the spool-up time, how long between deciding and firing, and actually firing. So less delay and fires faster?
Yes, the spool-up time was long enough that by the time the weapon would actually fire its first shot the targeted interceptor had moved out of the firing arc and so the AI stops charging the weapon until a new  target is found... and rinse and repeat. It made it rare to even see them fire in some cases. Its much more visually accurate from a fighter dogfight perspective now, and the heavy fighters can at least somewhat combat interceptors without being able to hit an interceptor with a full salvo of their weapon.

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Now we just need them to send fighter escorts to the correct person....
I think I saw somewhere that has been suggested and fixed for the next update? Not 100% sure.

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Difference skins had different Stats too? I mean, quality might say different stats, but did not expect that.
Yup! At least 70% or more of the skins come with stat modifiers. Faction skins, especially, tune the ship towards that faction's doctrine, weapons, built-in hullmods and ship systems.

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Don't worry Warp gates are all equipped with phase shift drive coil thingies, so they can go through planets with no ill effects XD
This issue was you couldn't click on the base when it was encompassed by the planet, so you couldn't dock there for a time. It also looked quite messy. :P

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Heh. In those systems, there is only war.
*Sad face* Well, more extreme measures may have to be taken and a script to remove cruisers and up from wrecks may be necessary. I thought distance mattered more. Oh well.

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Heh. I would note that Hyperions have an above average chance to be vaporized due to their low health already.
Cruiser sized shields though! If you don't have major flux using weapons slotted it can take a serious beating when its shields are up.

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Good. Although I would far prefer my idea of the Rep system, that is a good stopgap. The whole, Vengeful requires you to be an existential threat to the faction, and/or become well known for breaking your word (They surrender, you accept, get loot, and then you kill them anyway)
I would actually like to redo the rep system at some point, but it may already be happening in the next update since so much is changing on the campaign layer with faction colonies and blueprints. Since there are other equally cool and pressing things to do, such as Nex features, Tutorial (there is some really cool stuff there being backlogged by a single encounter not working as intended), more customize-able officers through mercenary recruitment centers, and talking to your officers on the campaign level for advice on engagements and nearby points of interest, I am taking a "wait and see" stance for now. I feel the same way about the current dialogue system implementing escorts from friendly factions and assaults on strongholds. Why take the time to build that when I will likely get a working (and probably better designed :D ) version of it when .9 comes out? If not, well, then I'll tackle that with the likely new API I'll have access to at that point.

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New missions? YAY
:)

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Do those ships also have the new higher timers, which are cut by the hullmod? If not, adding/removing that hullmod later would require extra work.
Also, Yay!
I think they were boosted, but I can't remember to be honest. I know at the time I had a certain balance in mind. You should never be able to always outlast CR in one of those ships compared to one with normal timers. I think I was factoring in skill boosts and hullmod boosts to that stat, so phase ship timers are probably pretty low, and ships like the Sunder and Hyperion. If not, those ships would be pretty broken since they can either move around unhindered due to speed, or attack from a seriously long range.

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Good. Is the range modifier adjusted in any way from vanilla?

What is Pather anyway? Obviously slang for something.
I think its either 400 or 600 (plus 25% original weapon range, so weapons like the trebuchet actually still have a bit of range to them)

Ha, "Pather" is slang for Luddic Path. I think I saw it used in a blog post somewhere once upon a time. David maybe? You know I'm not sure at this point, I've been following this game for so long... maybe I made that up?? :P

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Nice. Does it stack with expanded flight decks?
I don't see that hullmod. I know I renamed the original hullmod this is based on, so maybe that is what you are thinking of?

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Such a legendary ship, now with more customization... And upkeep.
It's pretty darn fun to fly now, imo. :D

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Which one was Phase teleporter again?
The ship system the Hyperion uses. Long range teleport.

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Huh. What if you had given it built in turret Gyros instead :P
It's accelleration was pretty high considering you also have phase acceleration and the time warp ship system to increase. It kind of needed it, and the AI is much scarier with that ship now. Much, much, scarier.

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As a fighter hullmod, I have no idea what that does. Sounds like a double nerf, but I can't be certain.
It is, and it was needed. Massing them was way too optimal against almost everything. Having the ability to keep many ships at high flux from long range is a big deal.


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Don't Ion torpedos work through shields (direct impact, either way dumps flux into the buffer?)
If so, yea, I approve. Otherwise unsure.
They do equal damage to all defense types, but they don't penetrate shields. I nerfed their hit points because massing Renegade fighter-bombers could kill almost anything regardless of point defense. They feel adequately strong now.

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No details, only vague understanding of mechanic, so no comment.
Essentially, I reworked NPCs to ask for bribes less often, and only when a player has not offered a bribe themselves. I also made it harder to negotiate a cease-fire without a bribe, but the bribe tiers give a lot of customization to how much you are willing to invest to end hostilities and avoid a fight. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but there is also some political ramifications to certain bribes for certain factions, but I'm not telling there... ;)

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But we can still go for joyrides, right?
Always!

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Good. Although, wasn't that EMP on small PD weapons mainly to overload fighters? Not complaining, but yea.
It was so fighters would do more damage to weapon and engine hardpoints. It had the side effect of making PD better against fighters, but that was unintended and actually caused me to have to build in the anti-emp hullmod in a few cases of the higher-tech fighters and bombers that don't have shields.

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Huh. So you refuse Tribute AND are trying to hack their Comm-Relay. I guess they ought to just try and kill you?
Have you tried it? I believe that is likely how that would end, haha. They are far less forgiving than any other faction.

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Fluff! Yay!
:) more of that in the future for sure!

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What kind of scripts? Code scripts, Dialog Scripts, or what?
Code scripts. Technical explanation: some of my nested loops in certain calculations were redundant and could be reduced to a single loop higher up in the script. It causes the script to run and load a bit faster. Probably not noticeable for most, but optimization is always good.

*As a side note for those technically inclined, my code in this mod is purposefully not isolated in classes so that players new to coding can find everything that's manipulated in a single script. I find it amusing that when I started out it was easier to read "bad" code. I could more clearly see how the data was manipulated downstream in the code's workflow since it was contained in a single file and not passed into new classes all the time. I obviously won't go too crazy with that for readability, but for those that were wondering that's the reason.

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Wait, so was it looking at ratio between your fleet and your fleet, instead of their fleet and your fleet?
No, but your own fleet size played too large a role in how much of a bribe was required, rather than how many enemies you would theoretically be paying off. This just feels more intuitive.

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Well, If you are seriously outnumbered, attempting to Surrender (with a bribe) should be an option, but just a cease fire (to conserve resources on both sides) should be reasonable.
As for requesting stuff, well, Allies should be more willing if you are weak, enemies if you are strong. Maybe.
Try it out. I think you will find bribing while outnumbered is possible if you are willing to pay a large amount to do so. Cease-fires without a bribe would be pretty rare unless dealing with a nice faction and a generous commander. As for requesting things, its actually pretty complicated. Allies typically are more willing to help in general, but there are a lot of variables. Commanders who are more aggressive are less likely, and not every faction treats fleet strength the same way. Warlike factions are swayed by strength far more (almost 4 times more influenced if I remember) and greedy factions will often agree only if you pay an exorbitant amount for the goods. There are definitely many patterns and trends to discover in how different cultures will react to things, but I wouldn't expect or rely on the same result in the same circumstance each time. Its meant to be as unpredictable as real people would be.

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Cool. I still think Reputation system is more important :P
Noted. :)  See above explanation for why I am not tackling that just yet.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 16, 2018, 04:19:41 PM

Yes, the spool-up time was long enough that by the time the weapon would actually fire its first shot the targeted interceptor had moved out of the firing arc and so the AI stops charging the weapon until a new  target is found... and rinse and repeat. It made it rare to even see them fire in some cases. Its much more visually accurate from a fighter dogfight perspective now, and the heavy fighters can at least somewhat combat interceptors without being able to hit an interceptor with a full salvo of their weapon.
Ah, the whole, Open fire, they are out of range, then the projectile is released. Yea, that ruins accuracy. Do guns track while spooling up? And do their turn speed slow down when spooling up? Either way, I can see the issue.
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I think I saw somewhere that has been suggested and fixed for the next update? Not 100% sure.
Hmm. In the command screen, there isn't a distinction between telling the carrier to escort and fighters to escort. Mainly because fighters are missiles now. Or something.
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Yup! At least 70% or more of the skins come with stat modifiers. Faction skins, especially, tune the ship towards that faction's doctrine, weapons, built-in hullmods and ship systems.
Like Pirates, which always fight. Is it possible to make that a hullmod you can remove?
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This issue was you couldn't click on the base when it was encompassed by the planet, so you couldn't dock there for a time. It also looked quite messy. :P
Ah, selection box issues. Yep. I remember that from Warcraft III.
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*Sad face* Well, more extreme measures may have to be taken and a script to remove cruisers and up from wrecks may be necessary. I thought distance mattered more. Oh well.
Haven't seen a full on battle there yet, although I AM trying to provoke one.
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Cruiser sized shields though! If you don't have major flux using weapons slotted it can take a serious beating when its shields are up.
I meant that if you break through the shields, the Hyperion doesn't have much health behind it, so it highly likely to be overkilled enough it would just disinitigate into fragments instead of being potentially recoverable.
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I would actually like to redo the rep system at some point, but it may already be happening in the next update since so much is changing on the campaign layer with faction colonies and blueprints. Since there are other equally cool and pressing things to do, such as Nex features, Tutorial (there is some really cool stuff there being backlogged by a single encounter not working as intended), more customize-able officers through mercenary recruitment centers, and talking to your officers on the campaign level for advice on engagements and nearby points of interest, I am taking a "wait and see" stance for now. I feel the same way about the current dialogue system implementing escorts from friendly factions and assaults on strongholds. Why take the time to build that when I will likely get a working (and probably better designed :D ) version of it when .9 comes out? If not, well, then I'll tackle that with the likely new API I'll have access to at that point.
True that. Wait and see, given we have upcoming patch notes.
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I think they were boosted, but I can't remember to be honest. I know at the time I had a certain balance in mind. You should never be able to always outlast CR in one of those ships compared to one with normal timers. I think I was factoring in skill boosts and hullmod boosts to that stat, so phase ship timers are probably pretty low, and ships like the Sunder and Hyperion. If not, those ships would be pretty broken since they can either move around unhindered due to speed, or attack from a seriously long range.
Eh, not a huge deal either way. Will report if any actual issues are visible.
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I think its either 400 or 600 (plus 25% original weapon range, so weapons like the trebuchet actually still have a bit of range to them)

Ha, "Pather" is slang for Luddic Path. I think I saw it used in a blog post somewhere once upon a time. David maybe? You know I'm not sure at this point, I've been following this game for so long... maybe I made that up?? :P
Ah. Right. Makes sense. Using that from now on.
I saw the code for it at one point. I think it is 450, but was asking if the equation or mechanic was changed or not.
And missiles don't really get effected, aside from autofire range.
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I don't see that hullmod. I know I renamed the original hullmod this is based on, so maybe that is what you are thinking of?
There are two hullmods in vanilla. One that gives better flight deck stats (faster rearming and respawning) and one that adds flight decks to ships without them.
I actually can't recall exactly what you did with them.
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It's pretty darn fun to fly now, imo. :D
Oh yes. Its so clearly a hero's customized super-frigate that you might expect from an RPG. But it still hates fighters, and isn't THAT durable.
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The ship system the Hyperion uses. Long range teleport.
Theres Phase teleporter, whatever the wolf has in vanilla, whatever it has in this TC, (Phase skimmer and something else) and possibly a few others. I can never get them straight.

Shame the Hyperion has a teleport cooldown lol. But, well, it does make it about as fast as a fighter instead of way faster, so yea.
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It's accelleration was pretty high considering you also have phase acceleration and the time warp ship system to increase. It kind of needed it, and the AI is much scarier with that ship now. Much, much, scarier.
Yep. Just pointing out that Gyros also could resolve that problem. Faster turret turning speed and all.
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It is, and it was needed. Massing them was way too optimal against almost everything. Having the ability to keep many ships at high flux from long range is a big deal.
Uhm, I was asking what it does. What all the fighter hullmods do while I'm at it, since you can't exactly view them ingame.... Should be part of the codex imo.
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They do equal damage to all defense types, but they don't penetrate shields. I nerfed their hit points because massing Renegade fighter-bombers could kill almost anything regardless of point defense. They feel adequately strong now.
Energy damage missiles eh? Huh. Might have been a different mod that had Ion torpedos that on impact added flux to the target directly.
That... Is a scary thought.
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Essentially, I reworked NPCs to ask for bribes less often, and only when a player has not offered a bribe themselves. I also made it harder to negotiate a cease-fire without a bribe, but the bribe tiers give a lot of customization to how much you are willing to invest to end hostilities and avoid a fight. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but there is also some political ramifications to certain bribes for certain factions, but I'm not telling there... ;)
Yep. I haven't had to mess with bribes for a bit, but the flexability might well help.
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Always!
XD
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It was so fighters would do more damage to weapon and engine hardpoints. It had the side effect of making PD better against fighters, but that was unintended and actually caused me to have to build in the anti-emp hullmod in a few cases of the higher-tech fighters and bombers that don't have shields.
Yea. I suppose that makes sense.
Do fighter weapons still deal EMP, and as such the EMP resist hullmod effects it? If not, how does it work again?
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Have you tried it? I believe that is likely how that would end, haha. They are far less forgiving than any other faction.
Naw. Com relays are basically useless atm. Sure, it tells you the prices, sometimes, but you can't find planets with resources you need for a mission, or anything useful.. Maybe with the intel revamp they will be useful though.
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:) more of that in the future for sure!

Code scripts. Technical explanation: some of my nested loops in certain calculations were redundant and could be reduced to a single loop higher up in the script. It causes the script to run and load a bit faster. Probably not noticeable for most, but optimization is always good.

*As a side note for those technically inclined, my code in this mod is purposefully not isolated in classes so that players new to coding can find everything that's manipulated in a single script. I find it amusing that when I started out it was easier to read "bad" code. I could more clearly see how the data was manipulated downstream in the code's workflow since it was contained in a single file and not passed into new classes all the time. I obviously won't go too crazy with that for readability, but for those that were wondering that's the reason.
Am a programmer, and I prefer being able to trace where the code goes. Usually you can goto the definition of a function easily, but notepad++ or w.e. can't do that. I guess if I was serious about Starsector modding, I might try to setup a proper environment.
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No, but your own fleet size played too large a role in how much of a bribe was required, rather than how many enemies you would theoretically be paying off. This just feels more intuitive.
Ah. So the larger your fleet, the more of a bribe it cost, when it really ought to be kinda the opposite. to an extent. Maybe.
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Try it out. I think you will find bribing while outnumbered is possible if you are willing to pay a large amount to do so. Cease-fires without a bribe would be pretty rare unless dealing with a nice faction and a generous commander. As for requesting things, its actually pretty complicated. Allies typically are more willing to help in general, but there are a lot of variables. Commanders who are more aggressive are less likely, and not every faction treats fleet strength the same way. Warlike factions are swayed by strength far more (almost 4 times more influenced if I remember) and greedy factions will often agree only if you pay an exorbitant amount for the goods. There are definitely many patterns and trends to discover in how different cultures will react to things, but I wouldn't expect or rely on the same result in the same circumstance each time. Its meant to be as unpredictable as real people would be.
I haven't been caught in a bad spot in my current game, but I will certainly attempt it if needed.
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Noted. :)  See above explanation for why I am not tackling that just yet.
Indeed.
------
I might have mangled the quote a bit.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Garsad on June 19, 2018, 09:21:14 AM
Awesome mod! I can't sleep -_-
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: MesoTroniK on June 19, 2018, 05:29:40 PM
At first this mod was not flagged as a totalConversion in the mod_info file, then some folks commented on it and then it was flagged as such.

But now it appears the latest version is again not flagged as a TC when it really should be.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 19, 2018, 06:08:22 PM
At first this mod was not flagged as a totalConversion in the mod_info file, then some folks commented on it and then it was flagged as such.

But now it appears the latest version is again not flagged as a TC when it really should be.

That was also at request amusingly enough. Some mods were fully compatable but were prevented because TC flag.

I don't have strong opinions either way. I am a modder, ao am already the kind of person to modify those settings myself.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: MesoTroniK on June 19, 2018, 06:50:33 PM
Well, trying to run it along side pretty much all mods will break said mods brutally. This is a headache for other modders, resulting in a nearly infinite number of both obvious and anomalous issues.

Archean Order *is* a TC, and not flagging it as one is illogical to say the least.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: A Random Jolteon on June 19, 2018, 07:23:34 PM
Well, trying to run it along side pretty much all mods will break said mods brutally. This is a headache for other modders, resulting in a nearly infinite number of both obvious and anomalous issues.

Archean Order *is* a TC, and not flagging it as one is illogical to say the least.
I'm pretty sure some mods may not be affected. Mods like Music mods, Combat chatter, Combat Radar, etc etc should be fine. (Been months since I last played with this mod, so I forget which mods I tried, and which ones worked and which ones didn't)
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: MesoTroniK on June 19, 2018, 07:30:01 PM
Right the problem is *far* more mods will explode on it than ones that will not.

And just because those in the know, and will be able to pick the scant few mods will that will work with it actually means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The *vast* majority of end users will not be so careful, and will turn on Archean Order along side mods it will not work with.

Running Archean Order alongside other mods, should be a power user opt-in. Making it not require an opt in via modifying one line in its mod_info is guaranteed to cause problems and the problems will be with those other mods not Archean Order while the source of the issues would be not those other mods.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on June 19, 2018, 07:34:38 PM
We don't want a repeat of a previous situation where a modder had a mod that was breaking other mods and causing crashes and it created tons of bug reports and yet the modder did not fix the simple issue (had a built in mod that was from another mod) for several months
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 19, 2018, 07:39:48 PM
Makes sense. Wish the built in mod manager has a manual override.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Histidine on June 20, 2018, 04:52:24 AM
FYI: mods designated as "utility" will already work with TCs and will not be deactivated in the mod menu when a TC is selected or vice-versa.

There may be some mods that don't do this when perhaps they should (Audio Plus is one, perhaps because it modifies some vanilla sounds).
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on June 20, 2018, 03:53:53 PM
Awesome mod! I can't sleep -_-

Thank you! I'm glad you are enjoying it! Definitely more to come. :)

At first this mod was not flagged as a totalConversion in the mod_info file, then some folks commented on it and then it was flagged as such.

But now it appears the latest version is again not flagged as a TC when it really should be.

Hey sorry about that! I actually already caught that bug and fixed it for next release... though time is an issue so not 100% sure when that will be. Could be days could be weeks. If it's sincerely worth a hotfix I can make that happen too. It was caused because I had deflagged it at one point to try out Combat Chatter, Targeting pip and a couple others and then completely forgot to reflag it back before I released my last update.  :-[

@Ranakastrasz
Will reply soon to feedback! Maybe later tonight if time.

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 20, 2018, 06:17:55 PM
Yea, don't recall which one, but I use all three of those mods, and quite a few others, and it works fine. I wouldn't object to having to manually change the version.

After all, my perspective is quite skewed.

For a user-friendly thing, could make two copies, or have a readme explaining how to change it, or something.

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Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 25, 2018, 04:20:01 PM
The "Heavy Shockstorm Launcher" appears to have a massive knockback in some situations. Not sure exact condutions, but....

Saw this in the "Ambush" Mission.

Is this intended? if so, the tooltip should reflect it.

It doesn't seem to be the enemy's ship system or anything, so yea.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2018, 03:48:24 PM
Ah, the whole, Open fire, they are out of range, then the projectile is released. Yea, that ruins accuracy. Do guns track while spooling up? And do their turn speed slow down when spooling up? Either way, I can see the issue.
Yes to both.

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Hmm. In the command screen, there isn't a distinction between telling the carrier to escort and fighters to escort. Mainly because fighters are missiles now. Or something.
Yeah, you as the captain can do that by clicking an ally and pressing "z" to send fighters to escort, but the A.I is autowired in how it handles fighters other than explicit "send fighters to attack this ship" command. I think its called Fighter Strike. The AI is pretty good most of the time, but in the largest battles I do feel it often has the tendency to start a giant fighter furball that marauders across the battlespace like the loony toons' Tazmanian Devil. XD

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Like Pirates, which always fight. Is it possible to make that a hullmod you can remove?
Probably? I'm actually not 100% sure if I can edit that attribute with a hullmod instead of a skin file. I'll look into it.

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I meant that if you break through the shields, the Hyperion doesn't have much health behind it, so it highly likely to be overkilled enough it would just disinitigate into fragments instead of being potentially recoverable.
Oh! Yes that is very true. That prototype may be difficult to obtain until blueprints. Even then, if I have it my way it will take an epic quest chain and access to a crazy amount of resources to get that blueprint and manufacture one. :)

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And missiles don't really get effected, aside from autofire range.
A.I won't fire them until "within range" so it effects allies more profoundly than it does the player.

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There are two hullmods in vanilla. One that gives better flight deck stats (faster rearming and respawning) and one that adds flight decks to ships without them.
I actually can't recall exactly what you did with them.
The first one(deck stats) is unchanged. The second one now adds one flight deck to all ships regardless if they already have one. The exceptions are frigates and phase ships of course, but it adds 2 flight decks to capital ships!

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Yep. Just pointing out that Gyros also could resolve that problem. Faster turret turning speed and all.
Oh right yeah. I just don't want to over-saturate built in hullmods for something like that. If it affected the vessel's ability to effectively engage smaller, faster targets too much then I would reconsider that approach, but so far it doesn't appear to be the case. To be honest, I often die in The Captain's Gambit from losing track of the Tyrant then suddenly getting hit with concentrated Atronarch Beams after it uses its ship system to zoom up and close to firing range. I'm certainly no pro pilot or anything, though, so I don't know how much that counts for.  ::)

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Uhm, I was asking what it does. What all the fighter hullmods do while I'm at it, since you can't exactly view them ingame.... Should be part of the codex imo.
Agreed on the codex part, but then they are equipable in the refit screen in missions, I'm pretty sure. Can't have that.

Fighter-class Systems reduces energy weapon charges by 40%, lowers energy weapon damage by 66% and beams by 50%, and increases the fighter's damage to weapon and engine hardpoints by 50%
Warp Field prevents the engines from ever flaming out
Limited Range Finders reduces all weapons to 50% range past a 400 range threshold (similar to overdriven ships)

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Energy damage missiles eh? Huh. Might have been a different mod that had Ion torpedos that on impact added flux to the target directly.
That... Is a scary thought.
I haven't dug into weapon scripts just yet, but they certainly aren't off the table!

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Do fighter weapons still deal EMP, and as such the EMP resist hullmod effects it? If not, how does it work again?
The ship system makes all fighter weapons deal an extra 50% damage to engines and weapons built-in. Most weapons that had an EMP component for that sake have had it removed. If the weapon still has an EMP component, however, the fighters who have that weapon will still also cause EMP damage on top of the extra 50% (so gunships like Xyphos (has an Ion Pulser) are pretty nasty).

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Am a programmer, and I prefer being able to trace where the code goes. Usually you can goto the definition of a function easily, but notepad++ or w.e. can't do that. I guess if I was serious about Starsector modding, I might try to setup a proper environment.
Me too at this point, but I am more speaking to the higher percentage of casual modders who only want to get as technical as editing text files and maybe a spreadsheet here and there. That was how I started, and I stuck to those waters for a couple years, even when already coding C++ in VS. That in no way means an IDE like IntelliJ is not waaaaaay better because it is! But, "setup" is the key element here. You can't just install IntelliJ, open starsector with it somehow and get to work. It can take a fair amount of configuring and even then the IDE is just a finicky beast sometimes. Looking at you, Maven Dependencies.  :P

I guess my point is that there are tons of creative people out there who never cross that threshold even when it would inevitably make their modding lives a lot easier. I'm doing my best to accommodate both perspectives, but maybe I'm fooling myself. Rules.csv is powerful but also pretty confusing, and almost anything you would use my scripts for would also use that file.

For a user-friendly thing, could make two copies, or have a readme explaining how to change it, or something.
Yeah I think a readme would be a good idea while not causing problems for the rest of the modding community. I'll probably take that approach.

The "Heavy Shockstorm Launcher" appears to have a massive knockback in some situations. Not sure exact condutions, but....

Saw this in the "Ambush" Mission.

Is this intended? if so, the tooltip should reflect it.

It doesn't seem to be the enemy's ship system or anything, so yea.
I think it may be the high speed and a high impact? It also has to do with flameouts, but I'm unclear on the specifics. It's not completely intended, but makes sense with the weapon as a high end kinetic rocket. I'll add a blurb to the description.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 26, 2018, 04:44:12 PM


Yeah, you as the captain can do that by clicking an ally and pressing "z" to send fighters to escort, but the A.I is autowired in how it handles fighters other than explicit "send fighters to attack this ship" command. I think its called Fighter Strike. The AI is pretty good most of the time, but in the largest battles I do feel it often has the tendency to start a giant fighter furball that marauders across the battlespace like the loony toons' Tazmanian Devil. XD
Huh. I've seen said furballs myself, but it tends to just be between the two fleets, and acts as a projectile shield... Well more of an Anti-beam shield actually. Beams get stuck on fighters constantly.
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Oh! Yes that is very true. That prototype may be difficult to obtain until blueprints. Even then, if I have it my way it will take an epic quest chain and access to a crazy amount of resources to get that blueprint and manufacture one. :)
Dear god why.
Yes, Quests and other stuff like that would be awesome.
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Agreed on the codex part, but then they are equipable in the refit screen in missions, I'm pretty sure. Can't have that.

Fighter-class Systems reduces energy weapon charges by 40%, lowers energy weapon damage by 66% and beams by 50%, and increases the fighter's damage to weapon and engine hardpoints by 50%
Warp Field prevents the engines from ever flaming out
Limited Range Finders reduces all weapons to 50% range past a 400 range threshold (similar to overdriven ships)
That clears things up. If you ever add hullmods to fighters, it has to be documented somewhere, because it ain't in the codex, and it ain't available ingame anywhere.

Warp field. Huh. Does that work by adding like 100000% more health or is there an actual invulnerability flag?
Rangefinders. That makes sense. Cuts half of the range past 400 range, but a 450 range will go to 425, not 225, right?
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I haven't dug into weapon scripts just yet, but they certainly aren't off the table!

I just recall an "Ion Torpedo" that did that. Don't recall what mod that was though.
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The ship system makes all fighter weapons deal an extra 50% damage to engines and weapons built-in. Most weapons that had an EMP component for that sake have had it removed. If the weapon still has an EMP component, however, the fighters who have that weapon will still also cause EMP damage on top of the extra 50% (so gunships like Xyphos (has an Ion Pulser) are pretty nasty).
Huh. So you can just add damage to weapons/engines without EMP trait, and you removed the usage of EMP for that.
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I think it may be the high speed and a high impact? It also has to do with flameouts, but I'm unclear on the specifics. It's not completely intended, but makes sense with the weapon as a high end kinetic rocket. I'll add a blurb to the description.

Hmm. Do projectiles have a Mass? Admittedly the physics simulation is weird anyway, or at least engines make a lot of it be partly ignored.
Kinetic damage is not kinetic energy, so yea.
I will try and see if a flameout was involved.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on June 27, 2018, 03:58:53 PM
Huh. I've seen said furballs myself, but it tends to just be between the two fleets, and acts as a projectile shield... Well more of an Anti-beam shield actually. Beams get stuck on fighters constantly.
Once upon a time, I fiddled with piercing beams (through fighters) because of that issue in larger fights. It didn't go well. Either it simply didn't work, or it created an error that I couldn't solve. I may revisit it to see if it's now possible at some point.

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Dear god why.
Yes, Quests and other stuff like that would be awesome.
A few of those are actually already in the tutorial (an more extended and story-based version of the stock tutorial with defined characters and player choices leading to different outcomes). But I need to better learn the battle context before I can lay the finishing touches to things. In my knowledge, I don't think it's been done quite like this in a mod before, and I'm really exited to release it.

That being said, the method I used to implement said mission arcs is ~90% for sure to change in .9, so that is something to factor in when considering anything past the tutorial for now.

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That clears things up. If you ever add hullmods to fighters, it has to be documented somewhere, because it ain't in the codex, and it ain't available ingame anywhere.

Warp field. Huh. Does that work by adding like 100000% more health or is there an actual invulnerability flag?
Rangefinders. That makes sense. Cuts half of the range past 400 range, but a 450 range will go to 425, not 225, right?
It's 500x the health and 90% damage reduction. I've never seen a claw flame out. Destroyed in one hit maybe...

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Huh. So you can just add damage to weapons/engines without EMP trait, and you removed the usage of EMP for that.
With a built in hullmod for fighters, yes. EMP implementation was weapon-specific, which made it necessary to give balance trade offs that weren't strictly necessary without the EMP component. A hullmod allowed me to separate those two dependencies.

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Hmm. Do projectiles have a Mass? Admittedly the physics simulation is weird anyway, or at least engines make a lot of it be partly ignored.
Kinetic damage is not kinetic energy, so yea.
I will try and see if a flameout was involved.

I don't know for sure, but flamed out missiles and ships/fighters are a different "hit class", so that may be why the collision behavior is different than what you would normally expect.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 27, 2018, 05:51:09 PM

Once upon a time, I fiddled with piercing beams (through fighters) because of that issue in larger fights. It didn't go well. Either it simply didn't work, or it created an error that I couldn't solve. I may revisit it to see if it's now possible at some point.
Huh. According to the wiki (https://starsector.wikia.com/wiki/Tactical_Laser) The tactical beam penetrates missiles without being disrupted.
It is an interesting problem, and I have no idea how it might be resolved.
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It's 500x the health and 90% damage reduction. I've never seen a claw flame out. Destroyed in one hit maybe...
Well, you clearly haven't fired enough ION blasts at one.
You can't give it 100% damage reduction? Do some things ignore 100% resistance?
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I don't know for sure, but flamed out missiles and ships/fighters are a different "hit class", so that may be why the collision behavior is different than what you would normally expect.
Yea, The simulation is complex, and I don't really know the rules.
I recall a beam weapon that caused fighters to flame out and spin in circles. No idea what mod it was though, and I have no idea how it happened.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 28, 2018, 05:46:44 PM
The Template A class appears to have the Phase field hullmod, but uses shields instead.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on August 01, 2018, 05:52:19 PM
The Template A class appears to have the Phase field hullmod, but uses shields instead.
The Eagle A also has the hullmod and is clearly not a phase ship. The hullmod only states the ship is capable of running a low grade phase field not fully phase cloaking.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on August 07, 2018, 10:52:37 PM
The XIV wolf might need some addressing. It's shield has a Flux/Damage ratio of 1.83.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on August 10, 2018, 02:48:04 AM
The terminator drones have crew, despite being drones.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: ciago92 on November 19, 2018, 07:29:47 AM
Bit of a necro here (sorry to everyone excited thinking it's been updated) but I wanted to ask if there were plans to update this for .9, as it was one of my favorite mods recently. Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on November 19, 2018, 09:16:59 AM
Given op has been offline for a while, it will likely be a while. I too cant wait.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on November 22, 2018, 10:27:46 AM
Bit of a necro here (sorry to everyone excited thinking it's been updated) but I wanted to ask if there were plans to update this for .9, as it was one of my favorite mods recently. Thanks!

Given op has been offline for a while, it will likely be a while. I too cant wait.

No worries everyone!  ;) I am still planning on supporting this mod and getting it ready for .9 - hopefully alongside the addition of some Nex features assuming those play nice-ish with the update.

Haven't had time until recently and to be honest I've also been doing some research on the side. What does that mean, you ask:


I've been very outspoken about the need for immersion and a feel of a living sector where your choices matter and fleet interaction is heavily nuanced and fun. The biggest example in recent gaming history is bioware's npc interaction system found in games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Since I want to introduce something like that with Starsector's officer system (anyone who has dug into my source code probably sees the areas I've developed story characters that can be saved and called from the game's local memory) and have messed around with story characters and branching story arc's with multiple endings in the tutorial I thought it would be prudent to refresh myself on past successes and how they handle certain situations.

So I am currently replaying Dragon Age Origins and taking some notes. I also played Mass Effect (1+2) and have been reviewing things to include in story content.

This may take some time, but I am still pretty excited to get started on it. I wanted to give everyone an update here to let you all know I haven't forgotten about this mod and plan to continue its support with more updates in the near future!

Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on November 24, 2018, 05:20:12 PM
Dev Update Future Plans Vol 2

I've taken a bit of time to test out the new update to see how much some things have changed and also spent some time in dev mode.

I think an update to 0.9a won't be too hard to manage and I have a few additions to put in as well for new content. It will essentially come down to fortress encounters and getting new ships/variants set up with balanced loadouts after all the weapon changes Archean Order needs to remain balanced. This will also include new ship systems, hullmods, skills, etc.

To really polish things I'm sure I will also have to spend some campaign time looking for ways in which the existing scripts are broken, but the good news is that I did not yet implement the way in which Nex generates sectors or deals with faction aggression. That code likely has to be rewritten before it will work with the update.

I'll keep everyone updated with progress periodically, but early estimates are the mod could be 0.9a ready in a couple months with some new content additions on top of what was added to the update.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Ranakastrasz on November 24, 2018, 05:55:34 PM
I would honestly prefer a quick and dirty update followed by a few months of polish. But if you prefer to delay for good content, not gonna blame you
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Embercloud on November 26, 2018, 11:36:16 PM
Wow, just found this and it looks amazing, I love the rich story you have created. Looking forward to seeing it in 0.9.

I also kind agree with Ranakastrasz. A compatability patch should be the priority.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on November 27, 2018, 06:03:00 PM
I would honestly prefer a quick and dirty update followed by a few months of polish. But if you prefer to delay for good content, not gonna blame you

Wow, just found this and it looks amazing, I love the rich story you have created. Looking forward to seeing it in 0.9.

I also kind agree with Ranakastrasz. A compatability patch should be the priority.

I hear you. :)

Unfortunately not much quick and easy about a compatibility release either haha but I'll release a 0.9 update before I release new features.

I do want to correct a few of the reported bugs for quality's sake, though.


My original thought had been to implement a custom officer recruitment system that loaded each officer into local memory like my script does.

It lays the foundation for a lot of the story and officer-based content later to come. I will hold off on that for the time being, however. Just remember each new update will likely break saves. So I was trying to get officers into memory as a priority since so much of the following content relies on that.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: CookieJarvisz on November 30, 2018, 02:45:37 AM
Just found this mod, I'm sad I can't play it yet! Looks amazing!
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on December 06, 2018, 08:15:04 PM
Thanks for the support :)

Dev Update 3


I officially have the game running with the mod.

There is a lot of work to be done yet, however. The variants are messed up for some reason like the game is reading vanilla variants and mod variants at the same time. So thats confusing..

And then there is polish like filling in weapon tags and things to accommodate faction colonies and station battles.

So a large hurdle is over and gone at least.

I'll keep everyone posted on progress as I feel anything important happens.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on December 09, 2018, 11:53:11 AM
Dev Update 4

I solved the variant issue most likely. Thank you Alex for the quick support! :)

Now just working on updating the mod for the new features for .9 -- mainly stations, blueprints and colony-related industries, so shouldn't be too terribly long now.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on January 06, 2019, 10:32:40 PM
Dev Update 5

Looking for a .9 compatible build to be available by the end of next weekend assuming nothing unexpected happens.

The new variants have been updated and station balance seems good.

It has taken more time to implement the blueprint system than expected, however, as fine tuning the balance faction by faction will require some effort. Most blueprints should currently be available to the player in my current dev build, though, so that should at least ensure that will be a feature of the next release.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 07, 2019, 04:51:43 AM
 ;D
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Morrokain on January 15, 2019, 07:59:57 PM
Sorry about the extended wait, it will be a couple more days.  :-[

It'll be the difference between procgen spawning ships with no weapons on occasion and broken capitals without large guns vs some pretty cool variance among factions, though.

I really, really like the new faction file formats, but they require a fair bit of suffering thought, trial and error to get the right fleets generated and I think the extra polish time will definitely be worth it for the update. It's necessary to maintain the .8 version's experience.

Still, apologies.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1d) Update 4/15
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on January 15, 2019, 10:04:29 PM
Take as long as you need.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 19, 2019, 12:01:18 PM
Disclaimer: I haven't been able to play test the late game as much as I would have liked, but I want to get an update out there and faction fleets, markets and everything related to the original dialogue scripts look pretty good. There is still plenty of polish left, but this should be a good start. Feedback welcome. I'll also post what I will focus on in the next update a little later, but a general idea is already listed under "Patch Notes and Features" on the first page.

Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tp24gdke0i7dzpl/AACU8gAw7fGjMuWi-cLcZMiXa?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tp24gdke0i7dzpl/AACU8gAw7fGjMuWi-cLcZMiXa?dl=0)

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.3.0 1/19/2019
Spoiler

Content Additions

Updated for Starsector 0.9a features

New Ships
  • Shrike
  • Gremlin
  • Guardian
  • Radiant

New Ships
  • Cobra
  • Perdition

Station Battles
  • Stations come in 3 tiers, like the base Starsector original design.
  • All factions now have stations guarding their primary strongholds, with station strength varying depending on the colony's importance.
  • New station types for a couple of the new factions and updated existing faction's stations designed around Archean Order's balance.
  • Increased strength difference between tiers such that upgrades have more impact.
  • Third tier stations can single handedly combat multiple fleet deployment waves.
  • Lowered station deployment cost to allow for more escorting fleet ships.
  • Third tier stations can single handedly combat multiple fleet deployment waves.
  • Station upgrades typically impact at least 3 of 4 general areas. See description text for details. General upgrade areas listed below
  • Long range strike capability.
  • Fighter wing additions/fighter defense capability.
  • Defenses, either stronger existing ones or additional layers of defense.

Blueprint System
  • Complete rework of blueprint spawn rates to balance for Archean Order's tiered weapon balance.
  • Base blueprints are much smaller in number, but blueprint unlocks are more varied and slightly more common in the case of packages.
  • Blueprint packages spawn in three tiers for each tech type with increasing drop rarity as tier strength increases.
  • New ultra rare blueprints and packages give access to the most powerful weapons, hulls and fighters available.
  • Blueprint lines available for most factions, to increase replay-ability and give a bit more randomness to loot.
  • Each blueprint line unlocks multiple sets of blueprints based on the factions preferences similar to tech tiered packages.
  • Blueprint package lines based on factions spawn at varying rates depending on the strength of the blueprints unlocked.

Procgen Autofit System
  • I tried to do my best to playtest enough to treat this on a case by case basis where possible. As it currently stands:
  • Most high tech capitals or higher end variants of cruisers or destroyers relying on large weapons for balance will not autofit.
  • Most vessels below the cruiser level will autofit based on faction weapon doctrine.
  • Hopefully the above changes will provide a stable, balanced experience with factions yet greatly increase overall npc fleet variance.


Balance Changes
  • Merged a few of the new factions' minor colonies with their nearby stations to further improve campaign performance. See below for details.
  • Description text remains to separate the two entities (like Jangala), but their markets are now shared.
  • Merged markets will be displayed without the station in the starmap.
  • Increased Interceptor and Fighter refit time across the board.
  • Built-in drones, such as those found on the Acolyte or Tempest, are now generally replaced less quickly than standard Drone LPCs.
  • Increased hit strength of graviton beam line of weapons by ~25%.
  • Increased defenses of midline capitals substantially to better align their combat capability with other tiered tech counterparts.

Bug Fixes
  • Corrected attack run ranges of a few bombers that led to them not releasing their payloads fast enough when engaging a targeted enemy.
  • Corrected falcon_d skin's weapon changes so that its large weapon is now a medium weapon as intended. A wrong id was causing it to change one of its missile slots.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: d12ddd on January 19, 2019, 01:47:31 PM
I only registered to thank you for making this mod. This is truly an overhaul that makes the game much more fun and challenging. Starsector is a great game but the battles are way too dynamic for me and the way you rebalanced everything made me love the game once more. I stopped playing the game quite a lot of time ago and didn't play it until the huge colonisation update came out, but I just couldn't get into it because I didn't like the combat without AO. Now that the mod is finally updated my soul can rest in peace I can finally play the crap out of this game once more. ;D
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 19, 2019, 02:59:35 PM
^
Thank you very much for your kind words! I hope to continue to bring such content in the future, and it is because I love this game and the modding support it has received. :)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: A Random Jolteon on January 19, 2019, 07:18:14 PM
Yes it's been updated!!!...Sadly I'll be doing stuff for a tournament so I won't be playing as long as I'd like, but I'll still be playing each day!
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 19, 2019, 09:30:23 PM
Thanks for the support! Let me know if anything seems weird. I haven't been able to fully test autofit in every scenario yet so I'm sure adjustments will be needed in some cases.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Bishi on January 28, 2019, 07:05:41 AM
I finally got around to trying your mod.
I seem to have run into an issue early on though, I accepted a delivery mission (350 domestic goods) at the second station I visited and proceeded to fly to the destination (Sci Corps Directorship HQ), the problem is they don't seem to want to receive the goods. I've double checked the mission and its definitely this location.
Am I missing something obvious? I've played vanilla starsector lots so im used to the trading
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2019, 11:31:40 AM
I finally got around to trying your mod.
I seem to have run into an issue early on though, I accepted a delivery mission (350 domestic goods) at the second station I visited and proceeded to fly to the destination (Sci Corps Directorship HQ), the problem is they don't seem to want to receive the goods. I've double checked the mission and its definitely this location.
Am I missing something obvious? I've played vanilla starsector lots so im used to the trading

Hmm, I haven't checked missions yet for new factions in this build. It could be the Rules for those have changed, and so it is not picking up the mission return rule in the dialogue. If you have a second, more information would be great. Do you at least see the person you are supposed to drop the goods off to? Is the issue that you talk to them and they don't give you the correct dialogue to finish the mission, or absolutely no contact and the market just looks normal?

And is this happening with all missions or just that particular one?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will investigate.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: DatonKallandor on January 28, 2019, 03:24:07 PM
The heavy shocklauncher missile probably has too much mass - if they hit something between flameout and fadeout whatever they hit gets launched away at ludicrous speeds. This might also be true for other missiles, but the shocklauncher one is where I noticed it (because of the starting sunder).
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2019, 03:39:11 PM
The heavy shocklauncher missile probably has too much mass - if they hit something between flameout and fadeout whatever they hit gets launched away at ludicrous speeds. This might also be true for other missiles, but the shocklauncher one is where I noticed it (because of the starting sunder).

Yeah I think a couple people pointed that out before and it was on a to-do list before development had to stop. Non-pd Beams piercing through missiles was another item there.

Is mass what does that? I had thought it was possibly a very high launch speed, and reworked all rockets for the next release because of that and I haven't seen it happen since. I was able to reproduce it a couple times before those changes, so I'm hoping the next release fixes it.  That should be pretty soon I think, depending on what bugs are found and how much I decide to tackle content wise.

Speaking of that, may as well update the patch notes I've documented:

**RELEASE DOWNLOAD NOT YET AVAILABLE THIS IS JUST DOCUMENTATION**

Content Additions

 -- New Ships:
    -


 -- New Strike Craft:
    - Mauler (Heavy Interceptor)
    - Barbarian (Base Gunship)
    - Warrior (Lowtech Gunship)
    - Talon (Hegemony)
    - Talon (Luddic)
    - Talon (Tri-Tachyon)
    - Vanguard (Hegemony)
    - Vanguard (Luddic)
    - Warthog (Hegemony)
    - Warthog (Luddic)


 -- New Weapons:
    -

 -- Campaign:
    - New/replaced stations for many major factions strongholds. Now there should be a lot more tactical diversity even among tech tiers.


 -- Station Battles:
    - Balanced most factions' station style to match their respective technological access and doctrine.
    - Upgraded the tier of some stations, and added some where none existed. The purpose was better faction balance.
    - Unique station looks and loadouts for:
       - Hegemony
       - Pirates

 -- Blueprint System:
    - Further separation of tech tiers with more base strike craft available at the start.
    - Higher tier versions of some base strike craft bp available as single drops or in the various tech/faction bp packages.



Balance Changes

 - Hegemony now has slightly better strike craft with a tactical focus on anti-ship weaponry. They no longer use bombers very often.
 - Luddic Church and Luddic Path have new strike craft skins with unique loadouts.
 - Higher tier strike craft has increased the Luddic factions' military potency by a noticeable degree. Not to the degree of the highest tier military powers, however.
 - Slightly adjusted sprite for Perdition to match its role as a Luddic heavy bomber. Now has two side-turret Machine Guns to support against interceptors.
 - Tri-Tachyon Corporation now has a heavy interceptor to support their advanced interceptor drones.
 - Hercules-class Heavy Gunship has had its primary turreted weapon upgraded to a dual cannon, and has an updated sprite.
 - Hydra-class Gunship has an updated sprite.
 - Added shield modules to the sides of Trader Guilds' battlestations. They were slightly weaker -defensively- than intended.
 - Changed rocket launch behavior. Only a minor adjustment in overall functionality, but a different start-up to full speed. (Reduced launch speed but greatly increased proj acceleration).
 - Marauder, Warthog, and Gauntlet are now base bps.
 - Vanguard is now a low_tech bp (tier 1).
 - Rebalanced Luddic Church Condor variants.


Bug Fixes

 - Hopefully corrected issues with rockets sending flamed-out ships launching away at large speeds.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: eidolad on January 28, 2019, 06:42:44 PM
first five minute impressions:

1.  Whoa tech base is way different...laughs as I inadvertently phase-collide, um, I mean, phase jump my frigate right into an enemy ship, and we both die to end the battle.  Didn't salvage the frigate. 

2.  Stopped to read the faction descriptions...there's some seriously tasty sci-fi lore in here. 

3.  This pirate group sure has a lot of...fighters who just ate my face.  Because I was too busy watching my Condor screaming around fighting like an Enforcer on intravenous Red Bull.

Gonna be in this for awhile...think I'll join the sci dudes for awhile and see what happens.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2019, 07:52:16 PM
Thanks for the impressions. :)

I highly recommend glancing through the Tactics Manual if you find yourself stuck or wanting some additional information on the combat system. It details some of the tech changes and basic strategies. I haven't added station tactics there yet but the majority of the early game is covered.

-----

I also wanted to let everyone playing know that I am aware of the current inability to hire new faction officers, though I think traditional markets will be fine. This is also likely a rules issue so I am going to need to go through that file. I'll update the upcoming patch notes as I go.

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Bishi on January 29, 2019, 07:07:08 AM
I finally got around to trying your mod.
I seem to have run into an issue early on though, I accepted a delivery mission (350 domestic goods) at the second station I visited and proceeded to fly to the destination (Sci Corps Directorship HQ), the problem is they don't seem to want to receive the goods. I've double checked the mission and its definitely this location.
Am I missing something obvious? I've played vanilla starsector lots so im used to the trading

Hmm, I haven't checked missions yet for new factions in this build. It could be the Rules for those have changed, and so it is not picking up the mission return rule in the dialogue. If you have a second, more information would be great. Do you at least see the person you are supposed to drop the goods off to? Is the issue that you talk to them and they don't give you the correct dialogue to finish the mission, or absolutely no contact and the market just looks normal?

And is this happening with all missions or just that particular one?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will investigate.

Images of issue: https://pasteboard.co/HYHFFjf.jpg https://pasteboard.co/HYHFLMs.jpg
Save game: http://www.filedropper.com/savenasty8109031963081034761

No idea if it happens with other missions as I'd only just started a new game and played for 15 minutes and I haven't played since I encountered the issue :)

Btw you should ask them to update the mod sticky as it still says your mod is not 0.9 compatible.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Noomsy on January 29, 2019, 01:57:24 PM
Fun mod, nice change of pace.

A few bugs/issues Ive seen:

Wolf seems imbalanced, I started with 80 of 50 op....also it feels like it has too many mounts given its OP.

I bought a hammerhead and it had ghost mounts ballistic/hybrid, and i could add a weapon to one mount and it "teleported" to another spot? Weird...

I seem to be getting negative faction hits alot from just carting around normal pirate drops. (from bounty hunting)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 29, 2019, 04:56:53 PM
No idea if it happens with other missions as I'd only just started a new game and played for 15 minutes and I haven't played since I encountered the issue :)

Hah I can't say I blame you there. :) I'm truly sorry the first experience was an immediate bug. That is the risk one takes when they do a compatibility update without multiple polish/test iterations. :-X


Thanks the picture helped, and unfortunately, more may be at play here. It doesn't look like the mission character is even there, though it could be it works differently from the last update, with which I am more familiar at the moment.

I tried to reproduce your delivery bug last night and couldn't get a delivery mission to spawn despite having two freighters and plenty of credits  ::)

Minor campaign content spoilers below:
Spoiler
I did, however, confirm that you can still give station commanders A.I cores and accept commissions like before, and finally did a test run against a derelict to test blueprint spawning. The loot seemed decent for a first run.
[close]

Quote
Btw you should ask them to update the mod sticky as it still says your mod is not 0.9 compatible.

Oh, thanks no I didn't realize. If the topic is still open I'll ask but to be honest with the bugs reported... I may wait until the next update.

This has been kind of a trial run update, anyway, due to time constraints.

Fun mod, nice change of pace.

Thanks! :)

Quote
A few bugs/issues Ive seen:

Wolf seems imbalanced, I started with 80 of 50 op....also it feels like it has too many mounts given its OP.

I bought a hammerhead and it had ghost mounts ballistic/hybrid, and i could add a weapon to one mount and it "teleported" to another spot? Weird...

What operating system are you using? These sound like file merging issues with mod_info.json's replace array.

If you aren't on Windows, maybe even specifically Windows 10 (what I test on), that may be a base Starsector bug that is going to be corrected in the next official update. I will double check on my end to be sure, however. There are.. a lot.. of files to replace and it is very possible I missed some.

If time, what start did you choose? The standard bounty hunter? Or was it a wolf variant in one of the faction start's fleets? This will help me narrow it down and confirm if it works on my end or not.

Quote
I seem to be getting negative faction hits alot from just carting around normal pirate drops. (from bounty hunting)

Hm, weird, any chance for more info? What faction/factions, and in what context? You are getting chased down for contraband, or the campaign engine is just giving you rep hits like you are smuggling and they find out after the fact?

Even better would be a screenshot of your cargo so I can see if there is anything there that would cause that to happen.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 29, 2019, 10:02:42 PM
I wanted to post a follow up to the missions issue.

It looks like Rules has changed how missions are turned in from markets to be planet level instead of commboard level.

I know it will affect a lot of missions, so sorry about that. The campaign may be limited to mostly bounties and derelicts for now.

I need to do some serious Rules work to get that sorted out, because it will have to be corrected for each faction too. To do this, I will go ahead and bite the bullet and format it so it can be read by the new tool and make things easier in the long run.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Bishi on January 30, 2019, 05:33:59 AM
Ah thanks for the update, i'll wait until this is fixed then. Good luck! :)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Noomsy on January 30, 2019, 09:59:47 AM
Quote
What operating system are you using? These sound like file merging issues with mod_info.json's replace array.

If you aren't on Windows, maybe even specifically Windows 10 (what I test on), that may be a base Starsector bug that is going to be corrected in the next official update. I will double check on my end to be sure, however. There are.. a lot.. of files to replace and it is very possible I missed some.


Hmmm I noticed these on my Macbook Pro so OSX. I haven't used those ships on my desktop (Win 10) so that sounds pretty likely.

Quote
If time, what start did you choose? The standard bounty hunter? Or was it a wolf variant in one of the faction start's fleets? This will help me narrow it down and confirm if it works on my end or not.

Standard bounty hunter start. But maybe it's related to the above merge issue.

I'll have to play some more to see if I can get better repro steps on the faction hits. It just stuck out to me because I had no illegal cargo and less then 150 units of space, so i was barely carrying anything. (lotta small weapons i guess, not sure how that system works))

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 30, 2019, 09:54:53 PM
Ah thanks for the update, i'll wait until this is fixed then. Good luck! :)

Np!, and hopefully fairly soon, but I want the next update to feel a little more polished. :)

Hmmm I noticed these on my Macbook Pro so OSX. I haven't used those ships on my desktop (Win 10) so that sounds pretty likely.

Standard bounty hunter start. But maybe it's related to the above merge issue.

I'll have to play some more to see if I can get better repro steps on the faction hits. It just stuck out to me because I had no illegal cargo and less then 150 units of space, so i was barely carrying anything. (lotta small weapons i guess, not sure how that system works))

Ok that helps, and just to be safe, I'll check, but yeah likely the said issue. It hopefully won't be an issue for long.

On the faction hits-- there are some less tolerant factions in the sector in this mod, for instance, who are very easily provoked, so I was wondering if that was the case. I'll keep a look out for that behavior and see if it is expected or not as I test play! :)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Noomsy on January 31, 2019, 11:40:06 AM
So looking at the mod_info.json...

I looked at replace and noticed \\ was being used as a separator for file paths.
I replaced them all with / and it appears to work fine now. (Weapon slots match the .ship info)

Not really sure what that means....something is probably horribly broken somewhere....
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on January 31, 2019, 04:16:59 PM
So looking at the mod_info.json...

I looked at replace and noticed \\ was being used as a separator for file paths.
I replaced them all with / and it appears to work fine now. (Weapon slots match the .ship info)

Not really sure what that means....something is probably horribly broken somewhere....

Oh good, glad that worked for you!

Its just that your operating system has different escape characters that the game recognizes that is different from windows.

For instance:           "data\\campaign\\econ/askonia.json",

does't work unless that specific path format is used.

          "data\\campaign\\econ\\askonia.json",
or
          "data/campaign/econ/askonia.json",

won't replace the file. No crashes, but those weird glitches you saw happen.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morbo513 on February 02, 2019, 05:35:54 AM
Ed: Ignore, did a fresh install and it's all good


I get a crash on trying to start a new game. AO is the only mod running.

Code
75435 [Thread-4] INFO  com.fs.graphics.TextureLoader  - Cleaned buffer for texture graphics/particlealpha32sq.png (using cast)
75466 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.public  - Creating streaming player for music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
75467 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.H  - Playing music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
79774 [Thread-4] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Reading save data from [..\saves\save_OsirisLee_8077689570174871142\descriptor.xml]
81265 [Thread-8] INFO  sound.public  - Cleaning up music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
81475 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.public  - Creating streaming player for music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
81475 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.H  - Playing music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
81635 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.fs.starfarer.Object.int.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.checkSplit(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I'm re-downloading the game though, I'm not sure if I'm on a slightly older version of 0.9
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 02, 2019, 10:26:56 AM
Ed: Ignore, did a fresh install and it's all good

Glad that did it. :)

------------------------------

So quick question for anyone who has been playing this mod for a while in .8, did anyone happen to find and read the secret story text back in the starting zone? Please! No spoilers here! Just a simple "I found it" or "yes" will do. :D

I ask because it may be relevant to the next update. I would kind of be surprised if anyone did, as it is about as far out of the way and hidden as it gets. Hints on how to find it in the spoiler below:

Spoiler

It won't happen if you "Advanced Start" the campaign, and you have to wait ~30 in-game days before it will trigger something back in the starting zone. Another hint in spoiler:

Spoiler

If you know about the memorial and who wrote it then you've found it.
[close]

[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morbo513 on February 03, 2019, 03:30:58 PM
Alright, couple real issues this time.
In attempting to speak to a mercenary officer on Ilys, the only option I get is "A former Templar of the Archean Order? Interesting...". I cannot exit the dialogue, and it says IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 1, Size: 1 three times. I am running with Common Radar, Leading Pip and LazyLib (All latest versions).

Another issue I had earlier was in accepting a bar quest to deliver food to the same planet, I get no option to deliver the goods on reaching the destination. Job was to deliver 80, it gave me 80.
Not sue if it's anything to do with the planet or what.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 03, 2019, 04:01:29 PM
Alright, couple real issues this time.
In attempting to speak to a mercenary officer on Ilys, the only option I get is "A former Templar of the Archean Order? Interesting...". I cannot exit the dialogue, and it says IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 1, Size: 1 three times. I am running with Common Radar, Leading Pip and LazyLib (All latest versions).

Another issue I had earlier was in accepting a bar quest to deliver food to the same planet, I get no option to deliver the goods on reaching the destination. Job was to deliver 80, it gave me 80.
Not sue if it's anything to do with the planet or what.

Sorry about that, both of those are known issues being currently resolved. It is because the way Rules handles those events has been changed and I didn't catch it for the last update.

You will only be able to do bounties/commissions and derelict runs to get colonies/faction rep up this update. Trading and bar missions and mercs from new factions won't work this update.

You can still turn in cores to base commanders (verified) and should be able to hire officers and administrators from the base factions colonies though.

As a status update on that, btw, I have officially formatted the file for SafariJohn's Rule Tool. So that should make things quite a bit easier, putting it lightly.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morbo513 on February 03, 2019, 05:18:38 PM
Awesome, glad to hear it.

I will say I find the early-game very difficult to enjoy in this mod. The only real reason being how fighter-heavy it is even small-scale, and I've never liked how fighers worked in SS to begin with, especially with how AI responds to them. I really like the diversity in weapons and the general pace of things though. One of the bigger factors in that is how rare PD weapons seem to be (I imagine this is also something to do with 0.9 migration), compared to how essential they are in mitigating fighter attacks. With the number of ships able to launch fighters, it might be interesting to give most ships (particularly those without fighter bays) some built-in token anti-fighter PD. That way, ships that are meant for picking on someone their own size (or larger) are more than practically defenceless, but they would still need to sacrifice weapon slots and flux generation to be effective against fighters.
I think greater diversity in PD/anti-fighter weaponry would help too. I'm not sure how feasible it'd be but I'd like to see a swarm-missile launcher that specifically has its missiles attack different targets to one another as an example.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 03, 2019, 07:46:12 PM
^
Thank you I really appreciate this sort of feedback, and I believe it is the second of that kind lately, so that will definitely require some followup investigation.

Unfortunately, since Archean Order doesn't currently do much to add weapons or fighters to markets, and relies on the base game code to do that, changes in updates like this can have unintended consequences.

I think the changes to fighters take some getting used to even without an unintended problem like that. They are more numerous across ship hulls and are present in most, if not all battles, so having adequate defense against them is priority, especially early on, like you said. They are the most punishing of all the weapons at the AI's disposal in the beginning since they have the farthest effective range and can be massed on single targets.

This will actually get worse in the next update too, because I will have added ~10 additional wing types to better differentiate faction fighters... so yeah, that is definitely a problem.

Would you mind clarifying a few points so I know I am on the same page as you in what you are experiencing?

What faction start or starts have you tried, and what would you define as early game? -Anything before a cruiser, for instance, or anything before high faction rep/commission, etc. That will tell me how widespread this is and whether the above solutions would be sufficient.

If it is just a matter of getting the player off the ground, so to speak, then that is one thing. If it is a deeper problem before colonies, that will require more effort and a different solution implementation.

------
I am hesitant to go the built in PD route because it forces certain play-styles or bullet effects too much and I want to try and keep that as customize-able as possible.

Maybe I am picky, but I absolutely hate it when I'm partially forced down a style path. If I want all my bullets green, or blue, or white, or any combination of above, I should be able to do so in the majority of circumstances. So in respect of that I want to at least try alternatives first.

I definitely like the missile idea, and that would be a great change for a couple of the existing ones too.

I can also think of a few things that may help as well:

1) Finally getting the tutorial finished so the player starts fighting pirates with a decent fleet and with a stockpile of weapons. This also includes adding more to the basic start's cargo if a player chooses to skip the tutorial.

2) Include a small stockpile of weapons and lowtech fighters in each campaign start. Here you run into the problem of having to tell the player about them, so it would require some tutorial-like scripting for each start, but that wouldn't be terrible.

3) Including a couple light carriers of some kind in each start to ensure a small and weak, yet present, fighter screen is available right away.

4) In addition to the above, more effective examples and strategies in the Tactics Manual to better prepare new players for fighter assaults and harassment. Specifically, knowing what you can and cannot take on early, and how to prepare for what you realistically can fight.

Part of the problem, though certainly not all of it, may be that in comparison to vanilla, some players may be inadvertently tricked into thinking they can handle more pirates than would typically be safe in the fleet they are commanding (not saying that is the case here, but that it may the case for others who never got to the point where they would post about it).

Pirates actually aren't the lowest tier enemy and aren't even necessarily what I designed to be a Player's easiest first target. Small frigate/single destroyer fleets maybe, but those are mostly only found in the starting zones.

Derelicts are actually the intended lowest-tier easy pickings, and they never have fighters. Pirates are just above that, but they are designed to be dangerous and scary to a new player when outnumbering them, which is one of the reasons why I introduced a feature to help avoid combat sometimes (bribery/cease-fire).

In my bias as creator and balancer, I instinctively know what I can deal with, but it can be hard to effectively translate what is safe and not safe in general descriptions and the manual's tips.

Another tip while I am thinking about it:
One of the things I notice, myself, is that when you try to fly a fleet without any fighters of your own to counter/defend enemy fighter strikes, it can be really rough going in the beginning. Once you get higher tier PD it becomes more feasible, but even a single wing or two to distract long enough for flux to vent can be the difference between winning and losing. The Hound and Cerberus are a good early choices specifically for their built-in Light PD Drones to provide a bit of cover. But they are extremely fragile, so having a Talon wing or two to support is ideal.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morbo513 on February 04, 2019, 08:20:32 AM
Quote
What faction start or starts have you tried, and what would you define as early game? -Anything before a cruiser, for instance, or anything before high faction rep/commission, etc. That will tell me how widespread this is and whether the above solutions would be sufficient.
I'd define early-game as the period before the player's able to sustain at least one cruiser and a handful of destroyers - which usually necessitates either a colony or a commission.
As for faction starts, I've not tried any. I've only done the basic start that begins with you orbiting Jangala.



But the biggest issue I have overall, is it seems to make battles much more about the comparative size of your and your opponent's fleets and how many ships are able to field fighters; they severely limit how much the player's decision-making within a battle can influence its outcome. In other words, the threat of ships being mobbed by fighters is much greater than the firepower of any one ship alone. So it becomes more about countering that threat with PD or matching/exceeding it with your own fighters, than out-maneuvering or isolating parts of the enemy fleet.

Typically the player finds themself fighting fleets larger than their own, so more often than not you'll be fighting battles where the enemy has more fighter wings than you have ships and fighter wings, more or less incapacitating your fleet; they're either equipped well enough to counter the swarms in which case they won't stand up well to the enemy's non-carrier ships, or vice-versa. So the only optimal solution there is to ensure you have many more fighters than your enemy can deal with.

To sum it up even further, compared to vanilla it's much less likely you can win (without cheesing) against a numerically superior enemy, or lose against a numerically inferior enemy, simply because of the effectiveness of fighters per-OP compared to any other weapon, and how prevalent they are in this mod.

The idea behind built-in PD was a bad one really, like you say it'd probably end up railroading those ships into anti-fighter roles. So instead; A point-defence hullmod. For ~8OP (Frigate), the ship's hull is fitted with several small-calibre PD weapons (less effective than any given weapon-mount PD turret) at the expense of increased crew requirements. There could be several different variants of this - Beam (Energy) weapons with high accuracy and good damage, but weak ROF and flux generation; Ballistic weapons with area-of-effect, but a long reload time between magazines (Flak); Smaller ballistic weapons with weak damage and middling accuracy, but high sustained ROF (CIWS); EMP weapons with high flux generaion and weak damage, but a decent ROF and accuracy.
Another idea is a weapon-mount PD that's an "active" countermeasure; It spits out explosives (or an EMP variant) in a 360deg arc and detonates them after they reach some distance from the ship.
Something else is the fact that fighters are able to shoot down most missiles. Again not sure as to the feasibility of this, but rendering them only able to destroy (Not just target, but actually hit) torpedos would help balance them out.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: verlonxx on February 05, 2019, 05:01:09 AM
Quote
What faction start or starts have you tried, and what would you define as early game? -Anything before a cruiser, for instance, or anything before high faction rep/commission, etc. That will tell me how widespread this is and whether the above solutions would be sufficient.
I'd define early-game as the period before the player's able to sustain at least one cruiser and a handful of destroyers - which usually necessitates either a colony or a commission.
As for faction starts, I've not tried any. I've only done the basic start that begins with you orbiting Jangala.



But the biggest issue I have overall, is it seems to make battles much more about the comparative size of your and your opponent's fleets and how many ships are able to field fighters; they severely limit how much the player's decision-making within a battle can influence its outcome. In other words, the threat of ships being mobbed by fighters is much greater than the firepower of any one ship alone. So it becomes more about countering that threat with PD or matching/exceeding it with your own fighters, than out-maneuvering or isolating parts of the enemy fleet.

Typically the player finds themself fighting fleets larger than their own, so more often than not you'll be fighting battles where the enemy has more fighter wings than you have ships and fighter wings, more or less incapacitating your fleet; they're either equipped well enough to counter the swarms in which case they won't stand up well to the enemy's non-carrier ships, or vice-versa. So the only optimal solution there is to ensure you have many more fighters than your enemy can deal with.

To sum it up even further, compared to vanilla it's much less likely you can win (without cheesing) against a numerically superior enemy, or lose against a numerically inferior enemy, simply because of the effectiveness of fighters per-OP compared to any other weapon, and how prevalent they are in this mod.

The idea behind built-in PD was a bad one really, like you say it'd probably end up railroading those ships into anti-fighter roles. So instead; A point-defence hullmod. For ~8OP (Frigate), the ship's hull is fitted with several small-calibre PD weapons (less effective than any given weapon-mount PD turret) at the expense of increased crew requirements. There could be several different variants of this - Beam (Energy) weapons with high accuracy and good damage, but weak ROF and flux generation; Ballistic weapons with area-of-effect, but a long reload time between magazines (Flak); Smaller ballistic weapons with weak damage and middling accuracy, but high sustained ROF (CIWS); EMP weapons with high flux generaion and weak damage, but a decent ROF and accuracy.
Another idea is a weapon-mount PD that's an "active" countermeasure; It spits out explosives (or an EMP variant) in a 360deg arc and detonates them after they reach some distance from the ship.
Something else is the fact that fighters are able to shoot down most missiles. Again not sure as to the feasibility of this, but rendering them only able to destroy (Not just target, but actually hit) torpedos would help balance them out.

i can agree with this i just played this mod its hard to get income as well during the start. the pirate bounties are really tough with all those fighters. I was hoping a bit like the starfarer days where ships gain exp.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 05, 2019, 08:42:23 AM
I'd define early-game as the period before the player's able to sustain at least one cruiser and a handful of destroyers - which usually necessitates either a colony or a commission.
As for faction starts, I've not tried any. I've only done the basic start that begins with you orbiting Jangala.



But the biggest issue I have overall, is it seems to make battles much more about the comparative size of your and your opponent's fleets and how many ships are able to field fighters; they severely limit how much the player's decision-making within a battle can influence its outcome. In other words, the threat of ships being mobbed by fighters is much greater than the firepower of any one ship alone. So it becomes more about countering that threat with PD or matching/exceeding it with your own fighters, than out-maneuvering or isolating parts of the enemy fleet.

Typically the player finds themself fighting fleets larger than their own, so more often than not you'll be fighting battles where the enemy has more fighter wings than you have ships and fighter wings, more or less incapacitating your fleet; they're either equipped well enough to counter the swarms in which case they won't stand up well to the enemy's non-carrier ships, or vice-versa. So the only optimal solution there is to ensure you have many more fighters than your enemy can deal with.

To sum it up even further, compared to vanilla it's much less likely you can win (without cheesing) against a numerically superior enemy, or lose against a numerically inferior enemy, simply because of the effectiveness of fighters per-OP compared to any other weapon, and how prevalent they are in this mod.

The idea behind built-in PD was a bad one really, like you say it'd probably end up railroading those ships into anti-fighter roles. So instead; A point-defence hullmod. For ~8OP (Frigate), the ship's hull is fitted with several small-calibre PD weapons (less effective than any given weapon-mount PD turret) at the expense of increased crew requirements. There could be several different variants of this - Beam (Energy) weapons with high accuracy and good damage, but weak ROF and flux generation; Ballistic weapons with area-of-effect, but a long reload time between magazines (Flak); Smaller ballistic weapons with weak damage and middling accuracy, but high sustained ROF (CIWS); EMP weapons with high flux generaion and weak damage, but a decent ROF and accuracy.
Another idea is a weapon-mount PD that's an "active" countermeasure; It spits out explosives (or an EMP variant) in a 360deg arc and detonates them after they reach some distance from the ship.
Something else is the fact that fighters are able to shoot down most missiles. Again not sure as to the feasibility of this, but rendering them only able to destroy (Not just target, but actually hit) torpedos would help balance them out.

Ah ok I see, thank you for taking the time to reply in detail.  :)  Response below.

i can agree with this i just played this mod its hard to get income as well during the start. the pirate bounties are really tough with all those fighters. I was hoping a bit like the starfarer days where ships gain exp.

I miss that too! I'm not sure if I can re-implement it though. It was unsupported quite a long time ago and I'm not sure the plugs into the campaign would be sufficient anymore.

For income, did you happen to try derelicts? They should be easier and more profitable in the beginning than bounties. Bounties would be considered tier 2 early game. If that is not your playstyle, though, no worries. I have a few things I may try listed below to make pirates a little easier.

---------

So the issue is two-fold. The first part is the lack of counters to fighters early on, because there just isn't enough available pd to the player.  The second, and more interesting problem to solve, is the ability for fighters to mass attack targets more effectively than ships with weapons ever could, so you are saying fighter strength is the number one factor in any given battle and you feel that ship load-outs almost exclusively revolve around that layer of combat. Does that about sum it up, or am I off somewhere?


I can certainly agree with your analysis on numerical superiority, and actually that is by design. Personally, I feel that vanilla Starsector is too easy, and the only challenging part is, in fact, the beginning where you are mostly outnumbered and outgunned by everyone. I'm not sure I completely agree on the player's inability to influence the battle, though. I think a player controlled ship is still a far more serious threat than an AI controlled one, at least in my experience, but you are right that it will only be noticeable when fighter strength between the two fleets is at least close enough that one fleet won't have complete free reign of the battlespace over the other.

There are numerous posts about the reverse difficulty curve and how it is a problem, and each update Alex adds more to address it, but I can empathize with how difficult it is to get that to feel just right. This is only compounded on by differing view points on what is difficult and what is not- based on player skill and experience with the game as a whole.

So when I intended to solve the endgame difficulty issues through all these balance changes, the trade off is that the early game is of course also more difficult because you still have very little tools and your enemies are tougher.

All of that being said, I would love to get a discussion going because I do feel like there are a few lighter touch solutions that would really help in this area. Feel free to disagree or add. :)

On the hullmod idea: That may work, and I certainly don't dislike it as a solution, conceptually, but there is a considerable problem there. Something like that would require me to add built in weapon mounts to every ship, and then the hullmods that add weapons to those mounts, which would mean that the weapon mount ids would have to be universal. I am not even sure it is possible to equip built-in weapons with hullmods, but even if it was it would be a huge amount of work to get it implemented, and even more to balance it properly. Then I have to somehow communicate to the player that those hullmods are almost required until you get your own pd. Wouldn't ensuring the player simply has access to a proper amount of standard pd weapons be more appealing?

Speaking of hulldmods, though, what about balancing pirates, and by association, independents, through changes to D-Mods? So, there is already a D-Mod that reduces fighter replacement rate, and I'm not sure if that is on every pirate carrier. That could be a start, though.

Then, I could add an additional D-Mod that reduces fighter stats by some amount, and also make sure that is included on pirate carriers ( really anything pirates have that use fighters). So a double whammy to pirate fighter strength that does nothing to modify the endgame difficulty of fighting high tier military factions, and doesn't require me to re-invent the wheel on fighter/PD balance.

Combine both of those with higher pd and fighter accessibility for the player, and that may be enough to at least reduce the difficulty of the early pirate bounties. All of this will require some ample playtesting, of course.

Thoughts?

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morbo513 on February 05, 2019, 01:28:16 PM
Quote
you are saying fighter strength is the number one factor in any given battle and you feel that ship load-outs almost exclusively revolve around that layer of combat
Yep, that's the long-and-short of it. Re: PD, in many cases I don't feel as though they're effectie/efficient enough either.


To me the fundemental issue with fighters/carriers, vanilla or otherwise and at any stage of the game, is that their combat effectiveness will in practice pretty much always out-last the battle (Provided the carrier isn't destroyed). You lose or retreat eg a destroyer, it's gone for the entirety of the battle. It could've destroyed 100 fighters, but the impact that has only goes so far as the immediate damage prevented - the fighters still exist as a threat. In other words, it doesn't feel like you achieve anything in eliminating swathes of fighters.

I don't know how this could be changed mechanically while still sitting right with the AI (especially since I don't fully understand the current fighter mechanics), or otherwise not being a huge amount of work. But to brainstorm it:


General reduction of replacement rate

CR for fighters (ie "Fuel") - Regardless of damage/casualties/ammo expenditure, they only have X seconds' combat time before pulling back to their carrier

Limited ammo for all fighter weapons

Destruction of all fighters in a wing either eliminates that wing from the battle, or incurs a very long delay before they start to be replaced


Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 05, 2019, 02:08:07 PM
^

I have messed with replacement rate before, and the current system sort of has an invisible pendulum at play there. It doesn't mean that isn't an option, but I have to be careful.

Too fast of reinforcements and the replacement rate never decreases, but too slow of reinforcements and carriers tend to quickly drain and permanently stay at 30% replacement rate for the entirety of the battle after the first minute. This is because the thing that determines replacement rate either increasing or decreasing is the wing percentage of active fighters. So, naturally ones that replace faster are less effected by replacement rate as a whole because they tend to get past that threshold a lot easier than a bomber wing with 2 fighters and 30 second replacement rate each.


I thought I had found a good balance here where I see a gradual decline in reinforcement fighters as a battle wears on, but I can see if I can get some improvements out of it among the interceptor and fighter lines. Those are likely the ones that are the issue in the first place.

-----
I really, really like the limited ammo suggestion. That would be fairly simple to implement too, because most fighters at this point have built-in lower quality versions of the weapons they use anyway.

It would also make carriers like the Astral that use the fighter warp ship system less railroaded into bomber builds... hmm.

-----
The other two would probably be difficult to implement because I don't think that code is exposed to modders. I could be wrong, but likely that is the case. I could maybe write a script to override the replacement rate or something, but that would be a bit hit to performance.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: atgc on February 05, 2019, 05:36:39 PM
I played the mod for a few hours, got my first colony up and running recently. Here are my 2 cents :

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 05, 2019, 08:43:53 PM
^

Thanks for the impressions. :)

I won't be able to respond to everything in detail just yet, but in general I took a look and yes there is indeed a large difference between .8 and .9's markets as far as, oddly enough, pd weapons in particular.

For some reason, the new markets tend to mostly spawn strike weapons and missiles, assault weapons rarely, and almost never pd weapons. That is probably why you feel like all weapons are burst fire, because most strike weapons are, and have limited ammo in their magazines.

It is a little bizarre to me as to what would cause that. Well, there is a greater variety of fighter LPCs for some reason, so that's something.

In .8, there was almost always 6-10 Light Machine Guns in any given market, but now I can't really find any pd other than proximity mines and, decent enough if you have a medium missile slot: Locust SRM Launchers.

----
For next update, I plan on implementation of:

-- larger starting fleets in all starting options to make early pirates less of a pain.
-- storage nearby with a stockpile of weapons OR a tanker and an assortment of weapons right in your starting fleet.

I'm intrigued by the limited ammo idea, but I don't think that will make next update because that is a huge change and I want a lot of time to test that out to make sure it doesn't break the feel of combat. Definitely going to experiment with the idea, though.

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: verlonxx on February 08, 2019, 03:18:47 AM
when recruiting new officers it get error message null with three lines. i don't have any other mods on.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2019, 10:25:01 AM
when recruiting new officers it get error message null with three lines. i don't have any other mods on.

Known issue I'm working on and don't quite have a fix for yet. I originally thought Rules had changed, but that upon looking at it that isn't the reason. Still working on figuring out what changed to cause that issue from .8 to .9

It should only affect faction officers at faction markets however, I'm pretty sure the "normal" officers at places like Jangala should be fine. Let me know if not, because that points to deeper issues than I thought, which is quickly looking to be the case anyway.. :(
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: verlonxx on February 08, 2019, 12:22:11 PM
i see there was a defector girl she seemed to have a nice backstory sadly i crashed without saving lol.... a bit annoyed haha
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2019, 06:09:14 PM
i see there was a defector girl she seemed to have a nice backstory sadly i crashed without saving lol.... a bit annoyed haha

Doh! Sorry :(
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 15, 2019, 02:53:48 PM
Been trying the Missions. They differ from vanilla quite a bit, so it is interesting.
The "Forlorn hope" mission is currently not something I can handle with the base ship. If I refit it as I want the mission is pretty much trivial.
Essentially you have an assault/pd/Missile strike Paragon vs "Everything".
Thus far, I haven't managed to kill any of the three Cruiser/Capital ships that are involved.

You have a ton of assault blaster type weapons, some minor PD, and two Guardians. Also 3 ion blasters. This deals with most missiles and fighters, and tends to discourage any frigates getting close.

Missile wise, you have 4x12 Hunters, 2x10 Squalls and 2x2 Thunderbolts. This is where most of the firepower comes from.
I can flush all the squalls and thunderbolts for ~2/3rds of my flux, and the hunters for ~90% of flux.
Squalls don't seem to do anything. They either have the worst targeting ever, or are trying for engine hits. Either way, they almost never connect.
Thunderbolts are pretty effective since they fission into 10 missiles each.
And the Hunters use all of your flux, and easily eat all your flux regeneration, but are fully capable of obliterating frigates and destroyers with a full volly, should a large fraction connect.

You also have two wings of Wasps (Pd/intercepter) and two wings of Xyphos (Shield hybrid gunship)

One thing I am trying to figure out is whether or not Energy Weapon Focus effects hunter missiles (They deal energy damage) And whether it is determined when you fire or when they impact. If it works, this is probably key to taking down the cruisers and capitals.

I spend most of the battle kiting, flushing hunters and thunderbolts to deal with the frigates and destroyers as they get too close. This is pretty effective, but I end up spending a ton of flux doing this.

The two cruisers have potent assault weapons that mean I have to keep kiting, (Since I can't kill them) and will break my armor/shield. They also have 3 reapers each, which if I don't PD down or shield from (Forward shield means I can't trivially react to them) I pretty much lose right there (Armor gone, weapons offline in that arc)

I mostly leave fighters on defense, but I send them to attack destroyers when they get out of position. Problem is that if I leave them out too long they all die, and then half my PD is gone.

Tough as my shields are, they can't withstand two dominators and an Onslaught. I just can't find a way to get through.

Any suggestions?

-----

Campaign wise, I haven't seen any PD weapons thus far in any of the 3 shops I've checked. I am pretty sure I should have seen at least 1.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 15, 2019, 08:29:15 PM
^ (Edit* Was too much of a wall of text when the quote is right above lol)

Hmm, I wonder when I changed the variant of the Paragon from the Elite to the Raider variant? Yes, it would be immensely difficult to use a Fire Support outfitted vessel to take down Assault outfitted vessels of the same class, let alone when outnumbered. Fire Support shines when surrounded by Assault-oriented allies, similar to the concept of using archers to support cavalry and infantry. In that mission you have no allies, so that doesn't make sense. The Elite variant may be too specialized for fleet combat too, though, so I'll change it to the Escort variant. That would probably be the best suited for the mission. :)

On the pd weapon shortage, that is a known issue of .9 that Alex has told me he is going to look at for the next official release. That being said, his balance is different so that doesn't necessarily mean it will be 100% effective in dealing with the problem. To help a little extra, I've done a couple things that have already been implemented for the next update.

1) All starting fleets under Normal and Advanced Start are, in general, larger. Secondary fleet choices have also been upgraded. This well help with starting bounties and pirates considerably. I think I may buff derelicts to match pirates since this will be the case. I intended derelicts to be easier "first encounter" enemies, but that doesn't make sense from an RP perspective since some players don't want to be an explorer/salvage expert right at the start, or even at all.

2) All starts include a cargo freighter so that I can populate the player's cargo with a stockpile of basic PD weapons to help with losses from destroyed ships and help re-arm recovered or bought ships. Hopefully, this stockpile will be large enough to get you through to a commission to open up a regular supply of weapons or until you can build your own.

3) Advanced Start has been renamed Faction Start to better reflect what it actually is now that Normal Start options have been expanded and fleet size is roughly the same in most cases.

I'm still working on the bugs for officers and the faction procurement missions. There is some definite weirdness there.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 18, 2019, 06:11:31 AM
Lore wise, Isn't the Paragon cut off from support and has to hold the line, heroically? Despite being set for support fire?

----
I don't know if the Tachyon lance is just OP (May well be) or if missiles are underpowered, but I find the sheer power and range of the Lance compared to the flux compares exceptionally favorably to any missiles with similar range, if purely from the reliability.

One thing I have always found problematic in this mod is the sheer flux cost of missiles. Yea, they are horrifically powerful, about as much as vanilla, and the regeneration is balanced by massive flux costs, but given how counterable they are, I don't think the massive flux costs are quite appropriate. Admittedly, you see this in a lot of other strike weapons, and yes, there is absolutely a line that needs to not be crossed, but...

Ships with epic flux stats, like the paragon can't fire off full volleys of some missiles, certainly can't keep up with regeneration with their flux stats, and I just have to ask if the level of flux cost on those weapons is intended to be so high as to eat a ship's entire flux budget on it's own.

Also they compare unfavorably to fighters, which have similar power, but cost much less flux (OP cost vs vents + upkeep while on hunt mode)

A rough -50% or so flux cost reduction of strike/support weapons on average might be sane enough honestly.
----

If it didn't require probably crippling script support, I would think that having you fire missiles for ~10% flux, and then spend the other 90% over the regeneration cycle would be sensible. It is very much that the sheer impulse cost is crippling.

----
On PD spawning, could you try messing with the rarity/level of weapons to see what shows up in shops maybe? Admittedly I have little idea how it used to work, nor how it works now, but presumably there isn't anything special about PD weapons that makes them not show up.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on February 18, 2019, 04:12:06 PM
I agree with the missile flux cost, particularly with the hunter missile. The incredible cost makes them unfavorable as they lack in both burst and sustained damage.
Title: Re: [0.8.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.2.1b) Update 4/8
Post by: Morrokain on February 18, 2019, 11:28:59 PM
Beams get stuck on fighters constantly.

This should be solved for the next update. :) 

All non-pd beams will pierce fighters. However, some balance changes had to be made in order for that to not cripple fighters after the new replacement rate changes. As an aside, those feel pretty good so far. The AI sends fighter attack waves much more strategically in .9 and tends to be more present of its fighter losses and let its replacement rate recover. That way fighters don't suddenly disappear forever if they are destroyed in large numbers, but they still have a significant enough delay before respawning that taking out a whole wing feels more impactful to the defender. This may have to be looked at again after limited ammo is introduced in order to not render fighters obsolete since they will have to continuously rearm, but for now it should help reduce the feeling that eliminating fighters is pointless.

Fighters will now have 60% beam damage reduction included in their built-in hullmod (The one that adds 50% extra damage from their weapons to weapon and engine hardpoints. Other effects of that hullmod may be removed in the future when limited ammo is introduced to fighters).

Because of the crippling effect that reduced damage will have on pd beams, their damage has been increased considerably. However, because the Advanced Optics hullmod gives too large a range increase to beams for that kind of damage output to be sensible, it has been changed to only increase PD beams by 200su. OP cost remains the same.
--------------------------------------
@Ranakastrasz
@Death_Silence_66
I'll respond to your two posts on missile flux costs a little later on when I have a more thought-out reply. I've been thinking about that a bit and have some opinions/details to share, but I agree that some changes are likely in order. More details to come!
--------------------------------------

For now, I wanted to update the patch notes. Still not downloadable as I want this next release to be bug free if I can help it. :)

Content Additions
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    - Malevolent (Capital-class Dreadcarrier)

 -- New Strike Craft:
    - Mauler (Heavy Interceptor)
    - Mauler (Pirates)
    - Barbarian (Base Gunship)
    - Warrior (Lowtech Gunship)
    - Talon (Hegemony)
    - Talon (Luddic)
    - Talon (Tri-Tachyon)
    - Talon (Pirates)
    - Vanguard (Hegemony)
    - Vanguard (Luddic)
    - Warthog (Hegemony)
    - Warthog (Luddic)
    - Broadsword (Pirates)
    - Broadsword (Adamantine)

 -- New Weapons:
    -

 -- Campaign Changes/Additions:
    - New/replaced stations for many major factions strongholds. Now there should be a lot more tactical diversity even among tech tiers.
    - Adamantine Consortium has a capital-class carrier and a unique heavy fighter(skin) added to their fleets.
    - Nightmare-class heavy fighter is now unique to the Archean Order's fleets.
    - Pirates have unique fighter(skins) added to their fleets.
    - Increased Adamantine Consortium aggression, reduced Archean Order and Trader Guilds aggression.
    - If not already present in the last patch, added Adamantine Consortium strongholds to the list of player colony threats.
    - Derelicts have increased in difficulty to match pirates. Pirates have had their fighter numbers considerably weakened.
    - Increased the starting player fleets for any new game start to roughly match early pirate bounties in size.
    - The two changes listed above should make either salvage or bounty hunting a good starting option for any new game.
    - Added most of the new game starts available to the base game from .9 to the Normal Start option list.
    - All new starts now contain a cargo freighter of some kind and a small supply of pd weapons.
    - Pirates now have unique fighter craft. These are considerably weaker than standard fighter craft, but can be deployed more easily

 -- Station Battles:
    - Balanced most factions' station style to match their respective technological access and doctrine.
    - Upgraded the tier of some stations, and added some where none existed. The purpose was better faction balance.
    - Unique station looks and loadouts for:
       - Hegemony
       - Pirates

 -- Blueprint System:
    - Further separation of tech tiers with more base strike craft available at the start.
    - Higher tier versions of some base strike craft bp available as single drops or in the various tech/faction bp packages.


Combat Balance/Content Changes
-------------
 - Increased OP cost of Talon to 2 from 0. Its combat effectiveness remains unchanged. Pirate version has 0 OP requirement.
 - Hegemony now has slightly better fighter craft with a tactical focus on anti-ship weaponry. They no longer use bombers very often.
 - Luddic Church and Luddic Path have new fighter craft skins with unique loadouts.
 - Higher tier fighter craft has increased the Luddic factions' military potency by a noticeable degree. Not to the degree of the highest tier military powers, however.
 - Slightly adjusted sprite for Perdition to match its role as a Luddic heavy bomber. Now has two side-turret Machine Guns to support against interceptors.
 - Tri-Tachyon Corporation now has a heavy interceptor to support their advanced interceptor drones.
 - Hercules-class Heavy Gunship has had its primary turreted weapon upgraded to a dual cannon, and has an updated sprite.
 - Hydra-class Gunship has an updated sprite.
 - Added shield modules to the sides of Trader Guilds' battlestations. They were slightly weaker -defensively- than intended.
 - Changed rocket launch behavior. Only a minor adjustment in overall functionality, but a different start-up to full speed. (Reduced launch speed but greatly increased proj acceleration).
 - Marauder, Warthog, and Gauntlet are now base bps.
 - Vanguard is now a low_tech bp (tier 1).
 - Rebalanced Luddic Church Condor variants.
 - Increased Paragon's max flux by 8000, flux dissipation by 300, and armor by 300. It was slightly too weak compared to similar tiered vessels and sometimes couldn't make use of all its weapons when surrounded.
 - Reduced fighter replacement rates across the board. I put an extra special emphasis on drones and interceptors that seemed to spawn continuously, and tended to only slightly increase bomber deployment rates.
 - Increaed PD Beam damage by ~40%-70% accross the board. This won't interfere with missile effectiveness (other than make them better against torps which is their intended purpose).
 - Changed Advanced Optics hullmod to only increase PD beam weapons by 200su (down from 500su) to balance the large damage increase for those weapons.
 - Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Super Computer hullmod by 10%.
 - Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Advanced Targeting Core hullmod by 20%.

Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Hopefully corrected issues with rockets sending flamed-out ships launching away at large speeds.
 - All assault and strike beams now pierce fighters. Fighters now take 60% less damage(40% of total damage) from beams.
 - Fixed Templar Strike variant's weapon groups.
 - Corrected Hegemony ship size in fleet doctrine.
 - Corrected Adamantine ship size in fleet doctrine.
 - Forlorn Hope mission's flagship is now the Escort("Fleet" in-game) variant of the Paragon instead of the Raider variant.
 - Corrected OP of Condor(A) variants.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 20, 2019, 11:21:45 PM
when recruiting new officers it get error message null with three lines. i don't have any other mods on.

I found the cause for this and it will be fixed in the next update. I didn't catch it at first, but there was a new parameter added to a couple of the Rule scripts that needed to be included.

This will also include custom faction text for admins and likely expanded text on that encounter as a whole. (Thanks SafariJohn's Rule Tool!)

Lore wise, Isn't the Paragon cut off from support and has to hold the line, heroically? Despite being set for support fire?

Hold the line heroically? Yes. But equipped specifically as Fire Support? Less clear to me based on the mission description. It could be possible even now to use that variant with the general Paragon buff though. It's pretty substantial.
-----------------------------------------
On Missile Flux:

The reason that most missile flux costs are high in the case of long range missiles like the the Hunter was originally because ships can mass equip and focus fire those weapons even over allied ships guarding them. Ballistic or energy strike weapons, by contrast, must have a direct line of sight to the target or they will cause friendly fire, so more allies in front to guard have diminishing returns. Those weapons also still cause a lot of flux build up too, but yes the impulse is generally lower that full missile salvos.

Fighters also accomplish massed strikes, however, and they are more effective in their strikes since they stick around and keep firing. Limited ammo will help a little bit, but missiles do seem a little weak in comparison. Consider though that missile slots are far more common than fighter bays (It may not seem that way but it is true. :P) and so they can be massed more easily and don't have a built-in limiting mechanic like fighters other than flux and regen.

There are some other reasons, too, like ensuring long range missiles generate a lot of flux to avoid too much kiting from full salvo bursting then 0-flux boosting until you can do so again. In large fleet encounters this is less effective because there are so many fighters to screen against missiles, but in small engagements missiles become overwhelming and cheap when used this way.

That being said, the Hunter and a few other missiles could use a re-evaluation after the power creep of fighters when trying to diversify their weapon loadouts. Vessels firing them should still find themselves vulnerable, but maybe not defenseless as is the case sometimes.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 21, 2019, 06:32:40 AM

Hold the line heroically? Yes. But equipped specifically as Fire Support? Less clear to me based on the mission description. It could be possible even now to use that variant with the general Paragon buff though. It's pretty substantial.
True enough. Also, I can't see any reason to use missiles over tachyon lances, given their sheer efficiency. Seriously, the missile is pretty easy if you replace pretty much any of the large slots (except maybe the rear ones) with a tachyon lance. They are just so powerful. And un-dodgeable. Seriously, cores a frigate in one shot, when a full volly from two squalls can't match that (Admittedly EMP, so w.e.) or you have to flush at least 3 of the medium hunter launcher thinggies. The lance has all the advantages of missiles, and none of the counters. The only downside is it requires Line of sight, but, well, that isn't nearly enough of a downside.
Quote
-----------------------------------------
On Missile Flux:

The reason that most missile flux costs are high in the case of long range missiles like the the Hunter was originally because ships can mass equip and focus fire those weapons even over allied ships guarding them. Ballistic or energy strike weapons, by contrast, must have a direct line of sight to the target or they will cause friendly fire, so more allies in front to guard have diminishing returns. Those weapons also still cause a lot of flux build up too, but yes the impulse is generally lower that full missile salvos.
True enough. But you can't really build missile-boats, or even get close to them. The flux costs are just too extreme, and you end up at the point where you can't keep up constant fire even with venting after each volly. And it gets worse for those ships with Missile autoload, since that also makes flux.
Strike and support weapons have a similar problem, but nowhere near as extreme.
Quote
Fighters also accomplish massed strikes, however, and they are more effective in their strikes since they stick around and keep firing. Limited ammo will help a little bit, but missiles do seem a little weak in comparison. Consider though that missile slots are far more common than fighter bays (It may not seem that way but it is true. :P) and so they can be massed more easily and don't have a built-in limiting mechanic like fighters other than flux and regen.
Missile slots are more common, yes, but the flux to run them isn't.
Also, hanger conversion, plus they relaunch without flux (Although fighter replacement tweaks might make the decay more notable)
Quote
There are some other reasons, too, like ensuring long range missiles generate a lot of flux to avoid too much kiting from full salvo bursting then 0-flux boosting until you can do so again. In large fleet encounters this is less effective because there are so many fighters to screen against missiles, but in small engagements missiles become overwhelming and cheap when used this way.
True enough, but, well, its more extreme than is needed. I mean, a frigate, except maybe the Hyperion, can't launch a hunter missile without losing it's zero-flux bonus. A destroyer, maybe, a Cruiser, almost always, and a Capital absolutely. But, well, It doesn't need to be that extreme.
If you can only throw one hunter, then shields/pd can probably handle it, even on a frigate.
The volleys are what matters.

Yes, Having lots of frigates shooting one missile while kiting is a problem. But, the flux cost is such that you can't safely even shoot a volly from a single frigate without nearing overload. It doesn't need to be that extreme to avoid hitting the kiting point. Also, as a ship gets larger, the issues with kiting should be smaller, so they don't need massive flux costs either, and probably shouldn't have to slow down to shoot a few small missiles.
Quote
That being said, the Hunter and a few other missiles could use a re-evaluation after the power creep of fighters when trying to diversify their weapon loadouts. Vessels firing them should still find themselves vulnerable, but maybe not defenseless as is the case sometimes.
Yea. A hunter ought to eat 10-30% of the flux budget, maybe. Not 50-200%.

But I need to look at the math and figure out what I think should happen to get good answers. After you fix the PD thing ofc.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 21, 2019, 06:05:29 PM
True enough. Also, I can't see any reason to use missiles over tachyon lances, given their sheer efficiency. Seriously, the missile is pretty easy if you replace pretty much any of the large slots (except maybe the rear ones) with a tachyon lance. They are just so powerful. And un-dodgeable. Seriously, cores a frigate in one shot, when a full volly from two squalls can't match that (Admittedly EMP, so w.e.) or you have to flush at least 3 of the medium hunter launcher thinggies. The lance has all the advantages of missiles, and none of the counters. The only downside is it requires Line of sight, but, well, that isn't nearly enough of a downside.

The Tachyon Lance admittedly is a bit of a special case. It is one of the rarest and highest tiered weapons in the mod, and so it can definitely be used to great effect. The Apocalypse Cannon is another example of an extremely potent weapon. Other more common strike weapons are far more limiting. If you want a missile example, though, try out the Hivemind. Would that roughly compare in strength?

Quote
True enough. But you can't really build missile-boats, or even get close to them. The flux costs are just too extreme, and you end up at the point where you can't keep up constant fire even with venting after each volly. And it gets worse for those ships with Missile autoload, since that also makes flux.
Strike and support weapons have a similar problem, but nowhere near as extreme.

Yeah definitely agreed. I will make some adjustments for the worst offenders that were mentioned and see how that plays out.

Quote
Missile slots are more common, yes, but the flux to run them isn't.
Also, hanger conversion, plus they relaunch without flux (Although fighter replacement tweaks might make the decay more notable)

Hopefully, and also the Converted Hangars hullmod I'm pretty sure also further reduces replacement rate so that should add to that balance change. It was definitely a bit too strong before.

Quote
True enough, but, well, its more extreme than is needed. I mean, a frigate, except maybe the Hyperion, can't launch a hunter missile without losing it's zero-flux bonus. A destroyer, maybe, a Cruiser, almost always, and a Capital absolutely. But, well, It doesn't need to be that extreme.
If you can only throw one hunter, then shields/pd can probably handle it, even on a frigate.
The volleys are what matters.

Yes, Having lots of frigates shooting one missile while kiting is a problem. But, the flux cost is such that you can't safely even shoot a volly from a single frigate without nearing overload. It doesn't need to be that extreme to avoid hitting the kiting point. Also, as a ship gets larger, the issues with kiting should be smaller, so they don't need massive flux costs either, and probably shouldn't have to slow down to shoot a few small missiles.

Yea. A hunter ought to eat 10-30% of the flux budget, maybe. Not 50-200%.

But I need to look at the math and figure out what I think should happen to get good answers. After you fix the PD thing ofc.

Well, a single missile, like you said, isn't actually a big deal with pd being what it is. The issue is when an entire volley can be fired and a retreat is still mostly a viable option. Then the support vessels last the entire battle without any real pressure.

So, the idea was to always have assault oriented vessels available to screen against enemy assault vessels coming to kill your own support. Would you say that this is too limiting to missiles as a whole, since they can also be effectively countered by strong pd or overwhelming numbers?
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: verlonxx on February 22, 2019, 11:37:54 PM
is there going to any update soon >.< im wanna start playing the mod again but the hero crash is stopping me lol. Also there no need to rush it as well.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 23, 2019, 01:13:15 AM
^ I think soon, maybe even this weekend. I just really want to fix that procurement mission bug first. It only happens under certain circumstances and I haven't quite tracked down its source yet. So it will likely depend upon how hard that turns out to be.

(I had also wanted to get the Luddic Church stations in, ideally, but if an update is possible this weekend and I can't get to it I'll push that to the next update after this one).
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: didntnoagoodname on February 24, 2019, 07:50:18 PM
Buggy Mercenary Officer Hiring?
Cant seem to hire mercinaries of any of the new factions
Every time i talk to one i just have the 1st option that would be (in vanilla) "interesting, what are your skills" to press over and over
on the bottom of the test it says "IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 1,Size 1"
Tried reinstalling and turning all of the mods off, it didnt help
Cant seem to find anyone mentioning this bug in the replies
Am i the only one with this problem? Am i missing something?
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 25, 2019, 08:45:20 AM
Buggy Mercenary Officer Hiring?
Cant seem to hire mercinaries of any of the new factions
Every time i talk to one i just have the 1st option that would be (in vanilla) "interesting, what are your skills" to press over and over
on the bottom of the test it says "IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 1,Size 1"
Tried reinstalling and turning all of the mods off, it didnt help
Cant seem to find anyone mentioning this bug in the replies
Am i the only one with this problem? Am i missing something?

Hey there, welcome to the forums!

Yes that is a known bug that is already fixed for the next update, sorry!

I have something I am going to try to solve the other known bug (some market procurement missions aren't able to be turned in) and if that works I may update later today. I've been fighting a severe illness the last two days and that has slowed me down considerably.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: verlonxx on February 25, 2019, 12:52:13 PM
sickness thats sad please get well
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: didntnoagoodname on February 25, 2019, 05:06:37 PM
Buggy Mercenary Officer Hiring?
Cant seem to hire mercinaries of any of the new factions
Every time i talk to one i just have the 1st option that would be (in vanilla) "interesting, what are your skills" to press over and over
on the bottom of the test it says "IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 1,Size 1"
Tried reinstalling and turning all of the mods off, it didnt help
Cant seem to find anyone mentioning this bug in the replies
Am i the only one with this problem? Am i missing something?

Hey there, welcome to the forums!

Yes that is a known bug that is already fixed for the next update, sorry!

I have something I am going to try to solve the other known bug (some market procurement missions aren't able to be turned in) and if that works I may update later today. I've been fighting a severe illness the last two days and that has slowed me down considerably.
Thanks so much for a fast reply, glad to know its not just me
Hope you get well soon and good luck in your future work
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: FeudalWulf on February 26, 2019, 11:53:47 AM
I've read around a bit, are you planning on adding the rest of the blueprint later? I got an Archean phase-tech blueprint with nothing on it, wondering if it's either a bug or something not yet added.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 26, 2019, 07:23:57 PM
I've read around a bit, are you planning on adding the rest of the blueprint later? I got an Archean phase-tech blueprint with nothing on it, wondering if it's either a bug or something not yet added.

Hm, what tier does it say? You are talking about a blueprint package? It is likely supposed to have some weapons and ships attached, unless you happened to have found single blueprints for them all already, which I would think is unlikely. So probably a bug, but could be inadvertently fixed in the upcoming update.

sickness thats sad please get well

Thanks so much for a fast reply, glad to know its not just me
Hope you get well soon and good luck in your future work

Thank to you both, I am finally starting to feel much better. :)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 27, 2019, 10:50:29 AM
The update is ready, but I am waiting on a modding question to be answered that will determine if I need to make a couple very quick changes to special_items.csv before I release it- to solve the potential blueprint package bug.

*Edit (I may be able to do some tests with Console Commands to verify otherwise but I'm not sure on that yet.)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Hiroyuchi on February 27, 2019, 10:23:54 PM
A few others have mentioned this bug in here, but I might as well mention it too. I've run into a bug with delivery missions where occasionally after arriving at the destination it will not turn in. I have confirmed it is the correct location and that I have the required number of resources and that there is no specific NPC I need to contact. This particular mission was to deliver Ore to a Sci-corps station, and I know that I have had the same problem when delivering to an Archean Order world. It does not happen with every delivery mission, but both times it has happened have been with ones where you only need to dock at the location, but not every mission where you need to dock is bugged like this.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 27, 2019, 10:29:33 PM
A few others have mentioned this bug in here, but I might as well mention it too. I've run into a bug with delivery missions where occasionally after arriving at the destination it will not turn in. I have confirmed it is the correct location and that I have the required number of resources and that there is no specific NPC I need to contact. This particular mission was to deliver Ore to a Sci-corps station, and I know that I have had the same problem when delivering to an Archean Order world. It does not happen with every delivery mission, but both times it has happened have been with ones where you only need to dock at the location, but not every mission where you need to dock is bugged like this.

Sorry! That is solved for the next update. It was an issue with the order of triggers from Rules.csv inadvertently skipping the turn in scripts. That, at least, wouldn't require a new game. (Though many of the next update's features would, so might be worthwhile to start one anyway)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 28, 2019, 12:42:17 AM
This update should fix most if not all the reported bugs and provide a pretty large amount of new content.

I also fixed blueprint spawning issues with packages, and tried to better level out the tech tier system as a whole when balanced against faction specific blueprint packages. Faction based blueprints also include an assortment of weapons those factions typically utilize.

The early game pd issues should be helped now that the player starts with larger starting fleets and stockpiles of light pd weapons at the start of a new game.

Enjoy and let me know if I missed any bugs. :)

Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nmfif5xc3xkrckm/AAB-fheNqMFLzy-g8FA3Rheja?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nmfif5xc3xkrckm/AAB-fheNqMFLzy-g8FA3Rheja?dl=0)

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.3.1 2/28/2019
Spoiler

Content Additions

New Ships
  • Malevolent (Capital-class Dreadcarrier)

New Strike Craft
  • Mauler (Heavy Interceptor)
  • Mauler (Pirates)
  • Barbarian (Base Gunship)
  • Warrior (Lowtech Gunship)
  • Talon (Hegemony)
  • Talon (Luddic)
  • Talon (Tri-Tachyon)
  • Talon (Pirates)
  • Vanguard (Hegemony)
  • Vanguard (Luddic)
  • Warthog (Hegemony)
  • Warthog (Luddic)
  • Broadsword (Pirates)
  • Broadsword (Adamantine)

Campaign Changes/Additions
  • New/replaced stations for many major factions strongholds. Now there should be a lot more tactical diversity even among tech tiers.
  • Adamantine Consortium has a capital-class carrier and a unique heavy fighter(skin) added to their fleets.
  • Nightmare-class heavy fighter is now unique to the Archean Order's fleets.
  • Pirates have unique fighter(skins) added to their fleets.
  • Increased Adamantine Consortium aggression, reduced Archean Order and Trader Guilds aggression.
  • If not already present in the last patch, added Adamantine Consortium strongholds to the list of player colony threats.
  • Derelicts have increased in difficulty to match pirates. Pirates have had their fighter numbers considerably weakened.
  • Increased the starting player fleets for any new game start to roughly match early pirate bounties in size.
  • The two changes listed above should make either salvage or bounty hunting a good starting option for any new game.
  • Added most of the new game starts available to the base game from .9 to the Normal Start option list.
  • All new starts now contain a cargo freighter of some kind and a small supply of pd weapons.
  • Pirates now have unique fighter craft. These are considerably weaker than standard fighter craft, but can be deployed more easily.

Station Battles
  • Balanced most factions' station style to match their respective technological access and doctrine.
  • Upgraded the tier of some stations, and added some where none existed. The purpose was better faction balance.
  • Unique station looks and/or loadouts for Hegemony, Pirates, Sci-Corps and Luddic factions

Blueprint System
  • Added Blueprint Packages for Adamantine Consortium, Trader Guilds, Persean League, Sci-Corps and Tri-Tachyon Corporation.
  • Further separation of tech tiers with more base strike craft available at the start.
  • Higher tier versions of some base strike craft bp available as single drops or in the various tech/faction bp packages.
  • Added icons to all blueprint packages.
  • New legendary blueprint packages.


Balance Changes
  • Increased OP cost of Talon to 2 from 0. Its combat effectiveness remains unchanged. Pirate version has 0 OP requirement.
  • Hegemony now has slightly better fighter craft with a tactical focus on anti-ship weaponry. They no longer use bombers very often.
  • Luddic Church and Luddic Path have new fighter craft skins with unique loadouts.
  • Higher tier fighter craft has increased the Luddic factions' military potency by a noticeable degree. Not to the degree of the highest tier military powers, however.
  • Slightly adjusted sprite for Perdition to match its role as a Luddic heavy bomber. Now has two side-turret Machine Guns to support against interceptors.
  • Tri-Tachyon Corporation now has a heavy interceptor to support their advanced interceptor drones.
  • Hercules-class Heavy Gunship has had its primary turreted weapon upgraded to a dual cannon, and has an updated sprite.
  • Hydra-class Gunship has an updated sprite.
  • Added shield modules to the sides of Trader Guilds' battlestations. They were slightly weaker -defensively- than intended.
  • Changed rocket launch behavior. Only a minor adjustment in overall functionality, but a different start-up to full speed. (Reduced launch speed but greatly increased proj acceleration).
  • Marauder, Warthog, and Gauntlet are now base bps.
  • Vanguard is now a low_tech bp (tier 1).
  • Rebalanced Luddic Church Condor variants.
  • Increased Paragon's max flux by 8000, flux dissipation by 300, and armor by 300. It was slightly too weak compared to similar tiered vessels and sometimes couldn't make use of all its weapons when surrounded.
  • Reduced fighter replacement rates across the board. I put an extra special emphasis on drones and interceptors that seemed to spawn continuously, and tended to only slightly increase bomber deployment rates.
  • Increaed PD Beam damage by ~40%-70% accross the board. This won't interfere with missile effectiveness (other than make them better against torps which is their intended purpose).
  • Changed Advanced Optics hullmod to only increase PD beam weapons by 200su (down from 500su) to balance the large damage increase for those weapons.
  • Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Super Computer hullmod by 10%.
  • Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Advanced Targeting Core hullmod by 20%.
  • Reduced the flux cost of all Fire Support Missiles by ~50%.

Bug Fixes
  • Corrected issues with rockets sending flamed-out ships launching away at large speeds.
  • All assault and strike beams now pierce fighters. Fighters now take 60% less damage from beams.
  • Fixed Templar Strike variant's weapon groups.
  • Corrected Hegemony and Adamantine Consortium ship size in fleet doctrine.
  • Forlorn Hope mission's flagship is now the Escort variant of the Paragon instead of the Raider variant.
  • Corrected OP of Condor(A) variants.
  • Fixed bug when hiring faction officers, added text for faction administrators.
  • Fixed bug with procurement missions not able to be turned in.
  • Fixed bug with some bar missions not able to be turned in.
  • Fixed bug where your crew would not leave even if you owed them considerable debt.
  • Corrected issue with Tri-Tachyon blueprint package adding Persean League ships, fighters and weapons.
  • Fixed bug where blueprints of higher tiers were empty of hulls, weapons or wings.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: Hiroyuchi on February 28, 2019, 12:55:04 AM
Sounds good! I haven't noticed any other bugs in my playthrough after about 20 cycles.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: Morrokain on February 28, 2019, 01:14:42 AM
Sounds good! I haven't noticed any other bugs in my playthrough after about 20 cycles.

Nice! Hope the update makes that zero bugs but we'll see ;)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Ranakastrasz on February 28, 2019, 06:54:58 AM

Campaign Changes/Additions
  • New/replaced stations for many major factions strongholds. Now there should be a lot more tactical diversity even among tech tiers.
  • Adamantine Consortium has a capital-class carrier and a unique heavy fighter(skin) added to their fleets.
  • Nightmare-class heavy fighter is now unique to the Archean Order's fleets.
  • Pirates have unique fighter(skins) added to their fleets.
More specilized fighters, and crappy pirate fighters are good.
Quote
  • Increased Adamantine Consortium aggression, reduced Archean Order and Trader Guilds aggression.
  • If not already present in the last patch, added Adamantine Consortium strongholds to the list of player colony threats.
Well, trader guilds are notorious for aggressive :P
Colony integration is always good
Quote
  • Derelicts have increased in difficulty to match pirates. Pirates have had their fighter numbers considerably weakened.
Good. Pirates should be newbie's first target. Derelicts second. Everything else third. I thin?
Quote
  • Increased the starting player fleets for any new game start to roughly match early pirate bounties in size.
  • The two changes listed above should make either salvage or bounty hunting a good starting option for any new game.
  • Added most of the new game starts available to the base game from .9 to the Normal Start option list.
Sounds good
Quote
  • All new starts now contain a cargo freighter of some kind and a small supply of pd weapons.
Still can't fix the PD issue? Does tweaking rarity/tier not help? Maybe it has to do with OP cost?
Quote
  • Pirates now have unique fighter craft. These are considerably weaker than standard fighter craft, but can be deployed more easily.
Die pirates die. Less overwhelming fighters will help.
Quote

Station Battles
  • Balanced most factions' station style to match their respective technological access and doctrine.
  • Upgraded the tier of some stations, and added some where none existed. The purpose was better faction balance.
  • Unique station looks and/or loadouts for Hegemony, Pirates, Sci-Corps and Luddic factions

Blueprint System
  • Added Blueprint Packages for Adamantine Consortium, Trader Guilds, Persean League, Sci-Corps and Tri-Tachyon Corporation.
  • Further separation of tech tiers with more base strike craft available at the start.
  • Higher tier versions of some base strike craft bp available as single drops or in the various tech/faction bp packages.
  • Added icons to all blueprint packages.
  • New legendary blueprint packages.


Balance Changes

  • Increased OP cost of Talon to 2 from 0. Its combat effectiveness remains unchanged. Pirate version has 0 OP requirement.
How is pirate version nerfed?
Quote
  • Hegemony now has slightly better fighter craft with a tactical focus on anti-ship weaponry. They no longer use bombers very often.
  • Luddic Church and Luddic Path have new fighter craft skins with unique loadouts.
  • Higher tier fighter craft has increased the Luddic factions' military potency by a noticeable degree. Not to the degree of the highest tier military powers, however.
  • Slightly adjusted sprite for Perdition to match its role as a Luddic heavy bomber. Now has two side-turret Machine Guns to support against interceptors.
  • Tri-Tachyon Corporation now has a heavy interceptor to support their advanced interceptor drones.
  • Hercules-class Heavy Gunship has had its primary turreted weapon upgraded to a dual cannon, and has an updated sprite.
  • Hydra-class Gunship has an updated sprite.
General fighter specialization and rebalancing.
Quote
  • Added shield modules to the sides of Trader Guilds' battlestations. They were slightly weaker -defensively- than intended.
  • Changed rocket launch behavior. Only a minor adjustment in overall functionality, but a different start-up to full speed. (Reduced launch speed but greatly increased proj acceleration).
Rocket Launch? is there a generic rocket launcher weapon, or is this for all dumbfire missiles, or what?
Quote
  • Marauder, Warthog, and Gauntlet are now base bps.
  • Vanguard is now a low_tech bp (tier 1).
Not sure exactly how blueprints work, so yea....
Quote
  • Rebalanced Luddic Church Condor variants.
  • Increased Paragon's max flux by 8000, flux dissipation by 300, and armor by 300. It was slightly too weak compared to similar tiered vessels and sometimes couldn't make use of all its weapons when surrounded.
Can't wait to try.
Quote
  • Reduced fighter replacement rates across the board. I put an extra special emphasis on drones and interceptors that seemed to spawn continuously, and tended to only slightly increase bomber deployment rates.
Less fighters, so use them smarter.
Quote
  • Increaed PD Beam damage by ~40%-70% accross the board. This won't interfere with missile effectiveness (other than make them better against torps which is their intended purpose).
  • Changed Advanced Optics hullmod to only increase PD beam weapons by 200su (down from 500su) to balance the large damage increase for those weapons.
  • Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Super Computer hullmod by 10%.
  • Reduced the range bonus on PD weapons on ships equipping Advanced Targeting Core hullmod by 20%.
Yea, beams vs missiles as opposed to beams vs shields. Or hull honestly. Makes sense to not get as much out of PD. Linear range boosts are massive on short ranged weapons.
Quote
  • Reduced the flux cost of all Fire Support Missiles by ~50%.
Awesome. Lets see if this makes them too powerful now.
Quote

Bug Fixes
  • Corrected issues with rockets sending flamed-out ships launching away at large speeds.
Snerk. How did this happen anyway?
Quote
  • All assault and strike beams now pierce fighters. Fighters now take 60% less damage from beams.
This is why you increased PD beam damage I assume.
Quote
  • Fixed Templar Strike variant's weapon groups.
  • Corrected Hegemony and Adamantine Consortium ship size in fleet doctrine.
Can't say much here.
Quote
  • Forlorn Hope mission's flagship is now the Escort variant of the Paragon instead of the Raider variant.
Is it possible to enable the raider/escort variants as default loadouts so I can try the Raider variant again?
Quote
  • Corrected OP of Condor(A) variants.

Quote
  • Fixed bug when hiring faction officers, added text for faction administrators.
  • Fixed bug with procurement missions not able to be turned in.
  • Fixed bug with some bar missions not able to be turned in.
Hurray! No more out to lunch persons.
Quote
  • Fixed bug where your crew would not leave even if you owed them considerable debt.
Wages? Ha. You are a slave now. Get back to work! Mutiny? What do you mean? ARGHHH NOT THE AIRLOCK! AGGH><...... *Sufficates*
Quote
  • Corrected issue with Tri-Tachyon blueprint package adding Persean League ships, fighters and weapons.
  • Fixed bug where blueprints of higher tiers were empty of hulls, weapons or wings.
Well, more blueprint stuff I haven't gotten into.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.0) Update 1/19
Post by: Morrokain on February 28, 2019, 09:01:00 AM
Good. Pirates should be newbie's first target. Derelicts second. Everything else third. I thin?

I would say major military factions like the Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Adamantine Consortium, etc, and REDACTED- would probably be considered fourth in the line of enemies. 3rd would be factions like Luddic Church, Independents, Luddic Path, Trader Guilds if enemies with them, or Deserter Pirates if you've done a lot of bounties.

Jumping straight from derelicts to fighting the Adamantine Consortium would be a bit of leap difficulty-wise. Especially after this update. (Just realized I forgot to implement the Malevolent's ships system.. ugh!)

Quote
Still can't fix the PD issue? Does tweaking rarity/tier not help? Maybe it has to do with OP cost?

It's internal to unmodded Starsector and the workaround is essentially custom modifying that whole system and I wasn't in a place to do that for this release. Alex has said looking at weapon spawn rates was on his todo list for the next official Starsector update so I'm hoping that helps considerably, but if not then I will consider the alternative in future updates. I'm not completely opposed to it as a whole, it is just lower in priority when it could be fixed later when I could be implementing systems I've been meaning to for a while now, like Marine-oriented campaign mechanics and a some more encounter nuance while exploring the Core Worlds. (Don't want to spoil anything)

Quote
How is pirate version nerfed?

It only has 3 max fighters per wing instead of 4, and replaces slightly slower as well, so over 25% reduced effectiveness overall.

Quote
Rocket Launch? is there a generic rocket launcher weapon, or is this for all dumbfire missiles, or what?

All rockets in the mod had a high stat in the weapon_data.csv file that caused:

Quote
Snerk. How did this happen anyway?

I changed the launch speed stat (different than the max speed, acceleration and travel speed) of rockets and increased to others. This has the same relative look and feel in the mod, but solves the issues with flameouts causing ships to be cast away at large speeds when hit with rockets.

Quote
This is why you increased PD beam damage I assume.

Yep. :)

Quote
Is it possible to enable the raider/escort variants as default loadouts so I can try the Raider variant again?

Yes, I can probably hot-fix that in.

Quote
Wages? Ha. You are a slave now. Get back to work! Mutiny? What do you mean? ARGHHH NOT THE AIRLOCK! AGGH><...... *Sufficates*

XD

Quote
Well, more blueprint stuff I haven't gotten into.

They were pretty broken in the last update anyway. They feel like they are in a good spot now and will hopefully make salvaging a lot more rewarding.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: Morrokain on February 28, 2019, 09:15:35 AM
Wow. The RNG gods were quite kind to me that first 30 seconds into a new start as Archean Order... too bad it was for testing  >:(

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/tqi81Sy.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/RR2GVTE.png)

Mine, mine, mine... *mothballs and furiously burns away from the numerous Tachyon detachments en route*

(https://i.imgur.com/MRQyLcp.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: pringdew on March 01, 2019, 01:12:36 AM
too funny...killed myself saving for one of those...
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: Morrokain on March 02, 2019, 01:05:39 PM
too funny...killed myself saving for one of those...

lol I bet. They are pretty hard to acquire in the average game, and wow are you lucky if you get the blueprint. Legendary blueprints like the Megalith and Tachyon Lance have ~ 5% spawn chance on the best of loot rolls.

I've never even had enough time to save for one in the campaign, myself. New features require me to start new games too often and the drop rate on that hull is pretty low as far as wrecks go-- so this was a very, very lucky find. (It was already high before at 60%, but in the next update the Megalith will now have an 85% chance of breaking apart due to its size. I think that outright prevents it from being a wreck. Even if it succeeds on that roll, wrecks are not guaranteed to be recoverable, etc.)
-------------
Starting balance:
I think I am going to substantially increase the payout for fleet bounties. They are much stronger than past versions at level 0, and the derelict payout is a lot higher for often a far less demanding threat.

I'm not sure why derelict probes only spawn three frigate-class defenders, but lv 0 pirate bounties often include multiple destroyers, but I need to at least make adjustments so that either are a good choice for a new starting fleet, at least financially.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: Morrokain on March 02, 2019, 08:19:16 PM
Found a pretty big bug with the latest release that I will patch by the end of the weekend. Sorry for everyone who just started new campaigns but the Sci-Corps stations will not spawn correctly because their variants were not defined correctly in the industries data. It will take a new start upon release to see the stations. Ugh, thought I had fixed everything again I apologize for the oversight and not checking new content more thoroughly. :(
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.1) Update 2/28
Post by: Morrokain on March 03, 2019, 11:15:36 PM
A bit more additional content and the another round of bug fixes and campaign polish (including the Sci-Corps stations). Will require new games unfortunately.

I also got the ship system in that I had originally intended for the Malevolent.

Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovkgvk4qsdl4g81/AAC7DAaUJcqTKIdnZsjZ45zta?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovkgvk4qsdl4g81/AAC7DAaUJcqTKIdnZsjZ45zta?dl=0)

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.3.2 3/4/2019
Spoiler
Content Additions
-------------
 -- New Shipsystem:
    - Phase Shell Projector (Malevolent-class Dreadcarrier).
        - 20 Second activated buff.
        - Reduces damage taken by the carriers fighters by 90% for the duration.

 -- New Strike Craft:
    - Sabertooth Gunship. (Heavy Strike)

 -- New Weapons:
    - Hailstone Rocket Launcher (Small).
    - Fury Rocket System (Large).

 -- Campaign Changes/Additions:
    - Increased base payout for starting fleet bounties (pirates) and the payout per level of higher tiered bounties (deserters).
    - Due to performance improvements in the last official Starsector release, increased default total battlesize to 200, and max total battlesize to 400.
    - Independents and Scavengers are now much less likely to use Luddic Church, Luddic Path, Pirate, or Hegemony fighters, ships and weapons.



Combat Balance/Content Changes
-------------
 - Autofit now has more variants available as goal variants than the last release for many hulls. I think this may help increase variety while still maintaining core combat effectiveness.
 - More variety in strike craft and weapons for the Lions Guard and Trader Guilds.

Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Sci-Corps Stations will now correctly appear in the campaign map.
 - Updated Fire Support missile weapon descriptions to accurately reflect the 50% flux per salvo reduction.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2) Update 3/4
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on March 07, 2019, 08:31:49 PM
The high resolution sensors hullmod says it increases "sensor strength by null for capital ships".
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2) Update 3/4
Post by: Morrokain on March 07, 2019, 11:55:23 PM
The high resolution sensors hullmod says it increases "sensor strength by null for capital ships".

Hotfix v1.3.2a 3/8/2019
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovkgvk4qsdl4g81/AAC7DAaUJcqTKIdnZsjZ45zta?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovkgvk4qsdl4g81/AAC7DAaUJcqTKIdnZsjZ45zta?dl=0)

-- Corrected High Resolution hullmod tooltip and it will now correctly increase capital ship's sensor range by an extra amount.
-- Corrected the implementation for a couple campaign logistics hullmods to be current with Starsector release 0.9a.
   - Solar Shielding
   - Augmented Drive Field
   - Salvage Equipment
   - Blast Doors
-- Fixed bug with Civilian-grade Hull not correctly reducing fighter deployment rates as indicated in the tooltip.

To apply the fixes, just re-download the original link and replace the mod directory (delete and replace is safer than merging in my experience).

Shouldn't break saves.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2a) Hotfix 3/8
Post by: Death_Silence_66 on March 09, 2019, 08:33:26 PM
I encountered an odd bug. The echo proximity mines given to the player at the start of the game don't appear when refitting ships.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2a) Hotfix 3/8
Post by: Morrokain on March 09, 2019, 11:03:26 PM
I encountered an odd bug. The echo proximity mines given to the player at the start of the game don't appear when refitting ships.

Thanks it got tagged as a system. I checked and I can change that without breaking saves.

Hotfix v1.3.2b 3/10/2019
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovkgvk4qsdl4g81/AAC7DAaUJcqTKIdnZsjZ45zta?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovkgvk4qsdl4g81/AAC7DAaUJcqTKIdnZsjZ45zta?dl=0)

-- Can now refit small missile mounts with the tier 0 proximity mines as intended.

(I normally wouldn't hotfix immediately for a single bug, but this one is pretty substantial for early game.)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: verlonxx on March 11, 2019, 07:09:17 PM
....lol i brought 2 weapons in black market i get scanned by templar and they instanly attack lol.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on March 11, 2019, 07:49:11 PM
....lol i brought 2 weapons in black market i get scanned by templar and they instanly attack lol.

They really don't like you stealing their stuff, yeah :) Not all factions will tolerate smuggling or black market activity in the same way. In .8 Archean black markets had some very high tier weapons on average, but that has been toned down a bit in .9. Even still, it shouldn't be very trivial to get phase orb launchers or phase cannons, and general black market penalties are not enough.

I do get that it is frustrating to not know that a little more upfront however. I plan on implementing more dialogue options on general encounters that will give even more detailed faction behavior descriptions, and probably introduce that concept through story arcs as well further down the development line.

*Edit* Also as some follow up advice, I'd have to double check but I'm fairly sure after a certain reputation with them they will no longer instantly attack, just incur a reputation penalty. Also, carrying AI cores will distract them from attacking if you turn them over. Even a single core I'm pretty sure can bait them away from your actual cargo like stolen weapons.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2019, 03:42:15 PM
Finally got around to updating my notes, but it will likely be a few more weeks before a release is available. There is a lot of testing to be done in order to balance out all the changes to the fighter combat layer. I've also tried to add more PD options in general. Input welcome.

I will probably also add a few more ships, maybe expand the dialogue further, and finally get the Adamantine Consortium stations to have a unique look and loadout. (Its a huge effort to edit stations and balance them, so this could very likely get pushed to a later release)

Next Patch Changes: Rough ETA: A few weeks
Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    -

 -- New Fighters:
    - Banshee-class Heavy Interceptor

 -- New Weapons:
    - Shattercell Cannon (Small PD/Assault energy weapon)
    - Heavy Shattercell Cannon (Medium PD/Assault energy weapon)
    - Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Small Anti-Fighter rocket weapon)
    - Heavy Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter rocket weapon)
    - Twin Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Triple Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Rupture Shockwave System (Large Strike Rocket System)


 -- Market Changes:
    - Bomb Bay is no longer an available weapon in markets. It was mostly useless and was taking up valuable weapon choices when it spawned. (Now bomber only)
    - Removed slight rarity modifier of PD Cannon spawning in markets.
    - Reduced rarity modifier of Burst PD Laser spawning in markets.

 -- Faction Balance Changes:
    - Another round of dialogue polish. (Meaning as I catch things)
    - Replaced Piranha bombers from pirate Enforcer-class destroyers with pirate Mauler heavy interceptors.
    - Adamantine Consortium will no longer deploy many Spectre interceptor drones, and will favor Banshee heavy interceptors instead.
    - Osprey-class Light Carrier no longer autofits. Variants for each factions have been expanded to compensate. (Too many empty fighter bays in campaign fleets)
    - Zero chance for non-standard fighters (faction-equipped variants) to be found in Independent fleets and a very, very low chance in Scavenger fleets.
    - Reduced chance for Exile-class Light Carriers to spawn in Archean Order fleets.
    - Separated out Doom variants between Adamantine Consortium and Tri-Tachyon Corporation. (Tri-Tachyons shouldn't be using phasetech weapons)
    - Changed some factions so that when they pursue the player for smuggling or black market activity that they actively pursue the fleet instead of sometimes merely harrassing.
    - Changed some factions so that under certain varying circumstances when pursuing players for black market activity or contraband high rep will:
        - prevent contraband from being confiscated.
        - cause a negative impact to reputation rather than an outright attack.

 -- Blueprint Changes:
    - Pirate Talon is now a pirate blueprint unlock instead of a base blueprint.
    - Luddic and Pirate blueprints are no longer unlocked by tiered tech blueprint sets (lowtech in particular).
    - Bomb bay is no longer a blueprint.
    - Spectre-class interceptor drones are no longer unlocked by the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Added Cobra heavy bomber and Banshee heavy interceptor to the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.

 -- Feature Enhancements/Additions:

   Cease Fire Enhancements:
     - Adamantine Consortium fleets can be more successfully negotiated with if you hire one of their officers and so know their politics.
     - New description, dialogue and possible results when negotiating Cease Fires for:
              - Archean Order
              - Adamantine Consortium
              - Pirates
              - Luddic Path
     - Bribes
      - Bribe results and descriptions are more faction specific for some factions to shed more light on how effective bribery will be for that faction's commanders.
                - Increased base chance for bribe requests over outright refusals when attempting a bribe-free Cease-Fire.
                - Pirates will have an even greater chance to ask for credits rather than fight when attempting bribe-free Cease-Fires.
      - Pirates will accept bribes and ask for bribes over fighting even when vengeful to the Player's faction.
      - Less lawful factions like the Luddic Path, Adamantine Consortium and Pirates will now give a reputation boost for successful bribes up to a certain reputation level.

-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Slightly increased deployment cost of Legion, Megalith, Malevolent, Tyrant, Astral, and Paragon.
 - Increased range of Rapier SRMs. (From 900 to 1000)
 - Slightly lowered max charges for Micro Repeater and reduced the amount of charges returned each recharge cycle.
 - Nova Cannon proximity blast radius is doubled, and the fuse range is doubled, but the fuse will now only trigger on missiles.
 - Increased Nova Cannon damage by 20%.
 - Increased Machine Gun damage by 25%.
 - Increased Electron Cannon damage by 33% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Pulse Laser Damage by 50% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Assault Beam damage by ~15%.
 - Increased PD Beam damage by ~40% and increased range to 350, up from 300.
 - Increased Squall SRM hitpoints by 200%, missile speed and turn rate by ~50%, and range by 200. (Was very underwhelming in larger battles)
 - Reduced Atropos Torpedo turn rate by 40%. (I'm hoping this reduces the chances of the AI wasting it against slower fighters like gunships)
 - Changed Ion Cannon and Heavy Ion Cannon to now have regenerating charges, but they also deal more burst damage either through faster firing or damage per shot.
 - Fissure Cannon (formerly Sunder Cannon) has increased range (500 to 600). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Iridium Cannon has increased range (500 to 700). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Scythe Cannon has decreased range. (600 to 500)
 - Assault Autocannon has increased range. (600 to 650)
 - Icer Gun has increased range. (600 to 700)
 - Lowered projectile velocity of Phalanx Cannon and Hypervelocity Driver. (They were a little too powerful and hopefully this will balance them out a bit)
 - Increased turn rate of Strike beams to help prevent the A.I from wasting them while maneuvering to evenly distribute armor damage.

 -- Overhauled flux costs of the entire rocket line of weapons:
     - Reduced flux cost of Shockstorm rockets per salvo by 50%, increased max rockets for medium variant, and increased rocket speed and range slightly. (Large buff overall)
     - Increased flux cost of Annihilator rockets (small variant) by 25%, but flux costs for medium variant reduced to match flux per rocket of the small variant.
     - Annihilator rockets (small variant) now gets 4 rockets back on reload (was 2) though reload time per rocket (DPS) remains roughly the same.
     - Reduced flux cost of Javelin rockets by 25%, and reduced their flight speed.
     - Reduced flux cost of Fury Rocket System and Hailstone rockets by 33%.

 -- Overhauled Fighter Combat Layer --    
 -- Not all of the individual changes will be documented. Here are some general points:
     - Now over 60 different fighter wings.
     - All fighters now have limited ammunition which gives them a specific combat time before some kind of rearmament is required.
     - Rearmament design-wise is intended to give ships a window of recovery between strikes and reduce fighter swarming in favor of assault wave behavior.
     - Rearmament stats are unique to each individual fighter weapon, though some general rules apply:
     - Magazines of fighter weapons only last around 5 seconds of active combat time.
          - Non-missile weapons will reload their magazines in a set amount of time, typically 12-20 seconds depending on the the fighter role. (AI can't handle finite ammo)
     - Missile weapons almost always require redocking with the carrier, and often have even more limited ammunition than non-missile fighter weapons.
     - Fighters, gunhsips and interceptors that use finite missiles will usually redock with the carrier immediately, or soon after they have used them all.
     - Mostly removed the use of flares in midtech and low tech fighters, gunships and bombers. Only the highest tiered craft will use them.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to other fighters, making interceptors and anti-fighter roles a serious threat to unescorted bombers and gunships.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to ship hardpoints (weapons and engines), up from 150%.
     - Balance pass on most fighter replacement rates. Some have increased rates, some have decreased rates depending on balance adjustments. As a soft rule, however:
          - Bombers have increased replacement times. (They also tend to have the highest strike impulse)
          - Gunships have been moved to closely match Bombers in their replacement times. (They also tend to have the longest active combat times and largest magazines)
          - Fighters have slightly reduced replacement times. (They have various specialized roles)
          - Interceptors have moderately reduced replacement times. (They are powerful bomber/gunship killers, and important escorts for your own fighter/bomber/gunship strike groups)
     - Removed Fighter Systems hullmod's effect on weapons in favor of fighter-specialized weapons. Fighter weapons are now less effective against ships.
     - Though still present for descriptive flavor, Limited Range Finders hullmod on fighters doesn't actually do anything. Range is handled through fighter weapons.
     - Reduced health and shields of high tech gunships and bombers and some midline and low tech gunships and bombers.
     - Reduced general health of the higher tiered fighters, and any fighters that use shields have much lower flux dissipation to make PD beams more effective against them.
     - Rebalanced OP cost around new fighter craft additions that were added in some of the more recent updates.
     - Reduced OP cost and efficiency of some pirate fighters even further, while balancing other weaker ones to make them useful to the player in some circumstances.
     - Many low tech fighters, bombers, gunships and interceptors now have proper OP costs considering their combat effectiveness.
     - OP to Power ratio when scrolling up and down the "equip fighter wheel" on the refit screen should now make more intuitive sense.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Corrected issue with Cease Fire requests not working on patrols who are attacking you from smuggling or black market activity.
 - Fixed issue with overspawning faction-specific fighters in Independent and Scavenger fleets.
 - Corrected Pirate Talon bug with base blueprints.
 - Devastator Cannon should now properly hit ships along certain angles of fire that caused the proximity fuse behavior to trigger early.
 - The Nova Cannon should now effectively hit ships at all times, making it more in line with the intended dual assault/pd role.
 - Removed accidental chance for Fighter-class Light Pulse Laser to spawn in campaign markets or loot.
 - Added a description to the Archean Order station's heavy anti-capital weapon in the codex.
 - Hopefully resolved issues with Hailstone Rockets and Fury Rocket System sometimes causing the flameout slingshot behavior on ships.
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium Condor skin to no longer change its medium missile mount to energy.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Due to storage space, versions lower than v1.2.1b are no longer downloadable, though their patch notes will remain documented.
 - Sunder Cannon has been renamed to Fissure Cannon to avoid confusion with the Sunder-class destroyer. XD Must have been in a hurry on that one lol.
-----

[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: ciago92 on April 19, 2019, 12:39:17 PM
Running into the following crash after a second or two at the main menu. Doesn't happen in vanilla, no other mods installed. Let me know if I can do anything to help reproduce/test fixes

Spoiler
30455 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.H  - Playing music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
35912 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.Object.int.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.checkSplit(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 19, 2019, 03:51:57 PM
Running into the following crash after a second or two at the main menu. Doesn't happen in vanilla, no other mods installed. Let me know if I can do anything to help reproduce/test fixes

Spoiler
30455 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.H  - Playing music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
35912 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.Object.int.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.checkSplit(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

Thanks for the report, I will investigate. It may be an issue with dropbox not uploading all the files if I had connectivity issues while performing the bulk upload, or I may have missed something. I'll pull down the latest version and run some tests later tonight to try and reproduce it.

Anyone else having this issue? Sorry if I did not realize this was happening commonly with the latest update.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 19, 2019, 09:57:10 PM
^
I pulled it down and I'm not getting a nullpointer on the main menu or when scrolling through all the variants in devmode. What operating system are you using? If it isn't windows, that is probably a known issue with Starsector incorrectly reading the "replace" section of the mod_info file that overrides the root game files. It will be fixed in 0.9.1a of Starsector, but in the meantime you can try and change the path delimiter in that section. I think some have made it work on other operating systems that way.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: ciago92 on April 21, 2019, 09:18:01 AM
Running into the following crash after a second or two at the main menu. Doesn't happen in vanilla, no other mods installed. Let me know if I can do anything to help reproduce/test fixes

Spoiler
30455 [Thread-10] INFO  sound.H  - Playing music with id [MainTheme01.ogg]
35912 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.Object.int.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.checkSplit(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.missile.MirvAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

Thanks for the report, I will investigate. It may be an issue with dropbox not uploading all the files if I had connectivity issues while performing the bulk upload, or I may have missed something. I'll pull down the latest version and run some tests later tonight to try and reproduce it.

Anyone else having this issue? Sorry if I did not realize this was happening commonly with the latest update.

I'll redownload the file and test it, but I am on windows yes
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 22, 2019, 07:59:07 PM
I'll redownload the file and test it, but I am on windows yes

Any luck with this?

If not, are you on windows 10 specifically? Trying to narrow things down a little.

Is it always within the first few seconds of the main menu? Never during the startup progress bar, etc?

Without being able to reproduce it, it will be really hard to track what it could be without some more info.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: cardgame on April 25, 2019, 04:30:39 AM
I cannot freaking believe I haven't heard of or tried this mod before, it looks absolutely fantastic!
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 25, 2019, 03:59:07 PM
^ Thanks, glad you think so! :D Let me know if you have any feedback on balance, bugs or really just about anything.
-------------------------------

So, I've had a bit now to try out the new fighter combat and I have to say I really like it. The assault wave behavior is interesting because the changes really make interceptors much better than before. In order to make large, slow gunships and bombers actually survive point defense they almost never would be vulnerable to an interceptor because from .8 on (fighter combat was originally balanced around .6  :P ) all wings attack the same target and only engage each other when they clash en route. They go to the same general location and interceptors only "duel" for a very brief amount of time before they focus on their target and generally ignore other units. Now when they duel you can usually visibly see the casualties based on the interceptor's strength, and bombers left undefended went from mostly ok to basically sitting ducks. Without an escort only 2 bombers in 5 generally get their payloads to their target, and even then the point defense can easily mop up the rest.

I also like the reduced damage to ships this change makes possible. Frigates and Destroyers should feel noticeably stronger alongside their health buffs and spend less time being picked off by massed fighter strikes. It will still happen, don't get me wrong, but the difference is that it takes a lot longer to kill each target and fighters should no longer be the sole influence on the battle's outcome.

There is still a lot to do, and more polish is probably necessary, but I wanted to give a status update with my thoughts on how that particular change is progressing. :) The overall dev goal was to make fighters still very much relevant, present, and noticeably effective under the right circumstances, but reduce their overall combat dominance they currently enjoy.

As always, input and discussion is welcome.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: cardgame on April 27, 2019, 12:29:31 AM
Is your post reflecting the current state of the mod or an update you're working on? Because I do have some thoughts on fighters, notably that because they are so damn numerous, if you don't have your own fleet of interceptors or PD drones, you get totally dunked on and there's nothing you can do about it. Not necessarily because fighters are OP but because the AI rolls around with ungodly numbers of them. Unpolished brute-force fix suggestion: give +25% more armor and hull strength to all ships by default. This would also help extend the combat a bit, as right now it feels pretty fast. Alternatively, buff some of the PD damage. Bombers are in a decent place, at least against other ships, but fighters, due to their swarm/encircle tactics, are nearly unstoppable, and a more severe threat than bombers usually are, since they will max your shield flux with their massive quantities of kinetic weapons, disable your engines, and are more agile and numerous. Alternatively, if you think fighters should be this strong, give bombers a small buff :) On a more positive note, I love the unique weapons in this mod, especially the dual bolter, so far my favorite.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 27, 2019, 09:43:02 AM
^ It is something in progress for the next release meant to fix what you are experiencing.

The next update weakens Interceptor dps while strengthening that dps against other fighters (so maintaining their core purpose), weakens and limits fighter secondary weapons like srms and rockets so that they can only be used in the initial attack instead of continuously, strengthens point defense weapons since they are now separated from fighters, and increases the health of ships below cruisers by about 25%.

As a concrete example for reference, the Light Pulse Laser on a Wasp does 100 dps in the current release. For the next release, it will only do 25 dps sustained. (100 dps for only a few seconds until it has to recharge)

Bomber payloads have also been slightly weakened, but that doesn't have as much of an impact per strike as the fighter and interceptor changes.

-------------------------

I'll see about maybe posting some "then and now" videos later on to visibly showcase the differences.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on April 27, 2019, 08:33:32 PM
Fired the latest mod version up today and some quick impressions:

1.  I like that pirates are:
   
a) A fairly significant threat due to their fighter swarms.  If I bring fair amount of PD they lose their bite once the initial squadrons masses are thinned out.  Thankfully they think that weaponized tankers can act like cruisers.

b) Yet the number of d-mods (five on average) means that they aren't a cheap and easy way to get early ships.  There has to be a reason to fight pirates (hi system bounties)...I think this is exactly what a pirate should be:  annoying and worthless all at the same time.

2.  Zero flux weaponry?  Tasty.  Collecting these is almost a mini-game in itself.  Then I salvaged this immense horseshoe shaped carrier with tons more weapon mounts than it could possible power....ah.

3.  I got overwhelmed trying to sort/order all of the ballistic weapons.  Choice is good...but my goodness.

4.  Regarding this mod:  the force is strong in this one.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 28, 2019, 11:24:52 AM
Yea, zero flux weapons are a huge perk, but don't forget to compare that to the sheer punch a good strike weapon, artillery support, or a missileboat can provide.

But yes, zero flux weapons are wonderful. Just remeber the tradeoffs.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 28, 2019, 01:27:27 PM
Fired the latest mod version up today and some quick impressions:

1.  I like that pirates are:
   
a) A fairly significant threat due to their fighter swarms.  If I bring fair amount of PD they lose their bite once the initial squadrons masses are thinned out.  Thankfully they think that weaponized tankers can act like cruisers.

b) Yet the number of d-mods (five on average) means that they aren't a cheap and easy way to get early ships.  There has to be a reason to fight pirates (hi system bounties)...I think this is exactly what a pirate should be:  annoying and worthless all at the same time.

2.  Zero flux weaponry?  Tasty.  Collecting these is almost a mini-game in itself.  Then I salvaged this immense horseshoe shaped carrier with tons more weapon mounts than it could possible power....ah.

3.  I got overwhelmed trying to sort/order all of the ballistic weapons.  Choice is good...but my goodness.

4.  Regarding this mod:  the force is strong in this one.

Thanks for the impressions!

I agree with your point of view on pirates. I have heard their reputation may get locked to hostile in the future, which would cause me to have to separate a few distinct groups out into their own factions since I want that to be a little more dynamic to player choices:

Spoiler
Xelion Pirate Base, Kanta's Den, Derinkyu Rogue Miners, Thulian Raider's and Lost Astropolis in particular.
[close]

Fighter combat should be better in the next update, and I also plan on doing a lot to expand the lore and immersion if possible. Dialogue has turned out to be surprisingly difficult to populate, mostly due to the scope I've created by adding so many fleet conversation options.  ::) Worth it though.

I want to eventually get those to be completely unique with each faction you meet, and change based on your reputation with them and the commander you are talking to. It is a pretty big task, so I also try to expand the content while I'm at it to keep things fresh and interesting, and so your comment on weapon choices, well... they may get even more varied with the next update.  :-X

------------------
Yea, zero flux weapons are a huge perk, but don't forget to compare that to the sheer punch a good strike weapon, artillery support, or a missileboat can provide.

But yes, zero flux weapons are wonderful. Just remeber the tradeoffs.

This is quite true. It can be very tempting to look at the on-paper stats of flux-free assault weapons and assume they are superior since they have the highest dps for no flux cost, but they typically dole out that high dps over regular intervals of fire that allow kiting to vent flux without either a proper tactical surround or support weapons to disable your target's engines repeatedly. They also often cannot easily pierce the heavy armor of low-tech vessels due to low per-hit damage in comparison to strike weapons.

Range and burst damage that come alongside fire support and strike weapons, however, navigate around that either by dealing their damage within a very short window (meaning retreating is virtually impossible) or through effective range (the most powerful stat in Starsector) which means that retreating won't matter since you can still hit them for a much larger window than they can hit you. Flux-free assault weapons actually balances that out a bit by allowing the increased 0-flux speed boost that this mod provides let assault ships better close with fire support vessels that would otherwise severely out-range and kite them into oblivion.

That is the basic standard the mod goes by, conceptually, though there are exceptions to those rules based on other limitations like OP cost or worse-than-average stats in one area to increase potency in another area, etc.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on April 28, 2019, 02:04:27 PM
Flux free weapons seems to open up a new way to approach flux budgeting.  My intended use of flux-free weapons: 

a) use the flux budget for my favorite strike weapons and missile combo for that ship (initial focus:  ship killer setup, emphasis:  flux hungry badass weapons that take up the fewest slots).  Soooo many strike weapon choices will take awhile to figure this out.

b) fill the rest of the slots with flux-free weapons (initial focus:  PD)

I'm hoping that AI loadouts won't take advantage of free slots like this...and there is at least one flagship that I've seen that would really, really take advantage.  Good thing I'm not actually posting this where the mod meister can see it.  Um.

Well anyway:  some feature requests: 

a) elite groups that fill the post-flux-budget slots up with flux-free weapons.
b) perhaps hide a few of "elite deserters" in AI fleets (esp. pirates) who follow this "max slot" (I guess what I'm really aiming for is a feature that adds uncertainty to farming pirates).


Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 28, 2019, 02:46:19 PM
I'm hoping that AI loadouts won't take advantage of free slots like this...and there is at least one flagship that I've seen that would really, really take advantage.  Good thing I'm not actually posting this where the mod meister can see it.  Um.

Well anyway:  some feature requests: 

a) elite groups that fill the post-flux-budget slots up with flux-free weapons.
b) perhaps hide a few of "elite deserters" in AI fleets (esp. pirates) who follow this "max slot" (I guess what I'm really aiming for is a feature that adds uncertainty to farming pirates).

 8)

I have added enough weapons, and soon to be ships, and re-balanced OP costs of everything so much that all variants will need a pass through, which will mean some optimization is in order. The new weapons will also mean I will need to add many, many more variants to get everything represented in the campaign... including some elite variants, and maybe even boss encounters if there is time considering I have secured some pretty amazing encounter music.

You may also notice a new faction tag...  :-X
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on April 28, 2019, 03:12:18 PM
NICE
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 28, 2019, 06:05:44 PM
Two things.

1: The Helmsmanship skill tooltip has duplicated level effects except for the third level, which has a "up to 1%" and "up to 25%" flux.
That said, it might be a result of another mod.

2: Did you find a solution to the PD weapons not showing up in shops enough?


Edit: more importantly, Ran a mission to deliver to an Archean order world, no reciever person again, and on talking to a merc officer I got 3 index out of range errors and an inescapable infinite loop
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 28, 2019, 08:27:28 PM
^

1: Likely a replace array issue I haven't gotten to trouble shooting yet, I'll take a look for the next release.

2: Added a bunch of new pd weapons across all tiers and rarity, including 0 rarity tier 0 for small, medium and large weapons. Re-writing the market script is out of scope, though, at least until 0.9.1a of Starsector is released and I see what that fixes. I'm hoping that update is under playtesting so will be released soon.
---------

On the bugs, that sounds like issues from two release versions ago. Maybe I didn't solve all instances of it? What faction's market did you find the mercenary where this happened?

I would be absolutely sure you do a full delete of the mod directory and re-download the latest version just to be safe though. It might even fix it without a new game in those cases. I only say that because I haven't run into those while playtesting in a bit, but to be fair a lot of time has been spent in the combat simulator rather than the campaign lately.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on April 29, 2019, 12:07:25 AM
Second game in the current version, now just getting into the cruiser "era":

a) find it really hard to grind rep with Archean Order...is this intended?  Mostly I've been able to gain rep with other factions via the system bounties.

b) Fighter swarms are part of the landscape sure... 

c) ...however my ships are tending towards large missile loadouts.  I find that I worry the most (and do my killing the most with) missiles.  Venting flux gets REALLY interesting when my opposite number suddenly flings harpoons and trebuchets at me.  And a dual setup with heavy rapier batteries...oh my.  Got to know those in the simulator against the patrol Hammerhead...had to have me some.

c)  Never thought I'd want a bunch of laser machine guns so badly.  Front batteries of PD with the point defense ship mod have become top priority for missile defense first, and fighter defense second.  Energy PD hard to come by.  Ranged PD is really really desirable now to shut down the various missile threats.

d) The pirate battlecruisers are worthy opponents...great addition to their fleets.

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 29, 2019, 06:14:33 AM
Turns out leaving an unzipped folder of the old version was probably responsible. Worked fine the second time.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 29, 2019, 10:34:39 AM
Milterized Subsystems doesn't negate all penalties from Civilian grade hulls. The effect of having a second logistics hullmod, like expanded cargo bay isn't removed. Is this intended?
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 29, 2019, 01:14:07 PM
Fixed issue with the Helmsmanship skill stacking with the original version for the next release. (On windows)

-------------------------
Second game in the current version, now just getting into the cruiser "era":

a) find it really hard to grind rep with Archean Order...is this intended?  Mostly I've been able to gain rep with other factions via the system bounties.

Advice for now:
Are you not finding other missions by them, like salvaging derelicts or running cargo missions, etc? And by system bounties you mean where they offer a general payment of credits per ship, not bounties for deserters or pirate leaders?

The best place to look for that would be:

Spoiler
Hybrasil near Penumbros and the Eldritch Fortress. Tri-Tachyon battlegroups from the Culann Starforge occasionally cause a system bounty to be posted there. Similarly, the Obsidian Crucible in Askonia sometimes posts bounties from pirate or pather activity since it is essentially a waystation and very lightly garrisoned most of the time.

Not much gets through the defense of their home system though, so I wouldn't bother looking there unless you are lucky enough that Meiros patrols cause enough trouble at Xolydunne or something of that nature.
[close]

At a point where you feel confident, I would take the commission with them too and just hunt Tri-Tachyon patrols. That will certainly help.

Future plans on that:
- I am almost to the point where I will add a few faction-based quest lines that will increase rep and offer commissions as you complete them, etc. At that point, high tier factions will likely require the quest chain to be completed before they can get commissioned. Those quest chains will vary in difficulty by faction.

Quote
c) ...however my ships are tending towards large missile loadouts.  I find that I worry the most (and do my killing the most with) missiles.  Venting flux gets REALLY interesting when my opposite number suddenly flings harpoons and trebuchets at me.  And a dual setup with heavy rapier batteries...oh my.  Got to know those in the simulator against the patrol Hammerhead...had to have me some.

Nice to see the reduction in flux costs is having the intended effect :)

If you like the Rapier, you will also likely enjoy the heavy Shockstorm rockets in the next update that fixes their cost. Its similar, but you also get emp arcs on hits when they lower their shields.

Quote
c)  Never thought I'd want a bunch of laser machine guns so badly.  Front batteries of PD with the point defense ship mod have become top priority for missile defense first, and fighter defense second.  Energy PD hard to come by.  Ranged PD is really really desirable now to shut down the various missile threats.

Weapons in markets are a bit of an issue right now from .9, but there will at least be a lot more of them (especially on the low end and therefore more common side of things) in the next update to potentially get drawn from the selection pool from market to market.

Quote
d) The pirate battlecruisers are worthy opponents...great addition to their fleets.

I'm really happy with how the Atlas MkII turned out. Though it will have to be called the Atlas MkIII after .9.1a lol Alex must have liked the idea because he has added his own version ;D I'm excited to see it and find a way to make both versions unique to pilot.
-------------------------

Turns out leaving an unzipped folder of the old version was probably responsible. Worked fine the second time.

Nice good to hear!

Milterized Subsystems doesn't negate all penalties from Civilian grade hulls. The effect of having a second logistics hullmod, like expanded cargo bay isn't removed. Is this intended?

I took a look at the script for this and it looks like it just removes the penalties on sensor strength and sensor profile, does it also have more hidden effects in standard Starsector? If so, it isn't clear how that happens, at least at the moment.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 29, 2019, 01:18:54 PM

Milterized Subsystems doesn't negate all penalties from Civilian grade hulls. The effect of having a second logistics hullmod, like expanded cargo bay isn't removed. Is this intended?

I took a look at the script for this and it looks like it just removes the penalties on sensor strength and sensor profile, does it also have more hidden effects in standard Starsector? If so, it isn't clear how that happens, at least at the moment.

Hmm. I thought you added it. Its been a long time since I played after all. Although, are the other parts vanilla as well? if so, that is weird.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 29, 2019, 01:36:00 PM
^ I added an effect to the Civgrade hullmod to reduce fighter bay effectiveness because it was too obvious to turn them all into carriers, but the Militarized Subsystems hullmod is from .9 I think, and explicitly removes those penalties of civgrade. I could change it to also remove the penalty to fighter bay effectiveness, but would that make it too powerful?
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 29, 2019, 02:59:13 PM
No idea. Honestly the plus1 burnspeed is enough. I just hate tooltip or logical inconsistancies.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on April 29, 2019, 04:32:20 PM
I gotcha. Changed the tooltip to be more specific in what it does. Will be in the next release.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on April 29, 2019, 05:31:06 PM
Snuck in some gaming during work today (ssssh):

1.  Known bug?  On my shiny new Revenant cruiser, I have built in "Advanced Targeting Core" that is supposed to disallow installation of an ITU...yet I was able to add an ITU.


More padawan-learner impressions:

1.  Archean flux war:

a.  a heavy missile loadout and a bit of excess flux budget worked great for general pirates swarms or working the edge of a mid-game sized battle line hunting and killing smaller ships.  However this ship setup does poorly when stuck into the middle of a battle line (the above Revenant cruiser) and having to "hold"...way too long delays between salvos.  Now moderating to solid beam with solid missile salvo...AND a fair amount of overhead to deal with the hard flux coming in from...let's see:   a billion fighters, missiles, debris, beams, lasers, and kitchen sinks. 

So back to the simulator...and:  Gauss cannon, artillery blasters, max flux capacity/distributors, and some burst pd means I can duel an Onslaught (slowly).  Sure great for duelist config...will have to see how it does in the "Archean mid-game threat environment"

b.  It was horrifying when I booted up the simulator against a Paragon and the thing blasted me from outside visual range.  And then proceeded to hound me off the field like a Man Mountain the Sumo wrestler.  However since I have just joined the Archean Order, I shall pay back these Tri-Tachyon Paragon on the field of battle...eventually.


2.  Along with X4 game, this mod has given me a (good) reason to upgrade my circa 2008 computer...joining an assault on a Pirate base brought my machine to its knees.


3.  Forgot to add:  Before I was even enlisted in the Archean Order...they were willing to sell me their Revenant design (I think I had 7% favor with their faction).  Thus far as I can tell, that is their #2 largest warship...they are willing to sell this beast to just anyone?

a.  Other little thing:  the Open Market is willing to hire out Marines to anyone it appears...yet the military market for Archean Order restricts soldiers to "cooperative" reputation AND a commission.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on April 29, 2019, 07:18:48 PM
Snuck in some gaming during work today (ssssh):

1.  Known bug?  On my shiny new Revenant cruiser, I have built in "Advanced Targeting Core" that is supposed to disallow installation of an ITU...yet I was able to add an ITU.


More padawan-learner impressions:

1.  Archean flux war:

a.  a heavy missile loadout and a bit of excess flux budget worked great for general pirates swarms or working the edge of a mid-game sized battle line hunting and killing smaller ships.  However this ship setup does poorly when stuck into the middle of a battle line (the above Revenant cruiser) and having to "hold"...way too long delays between salvos.  Now moderating to solid beam with solid missile salvo...AND a fair amount of overhead to deal with the hard flux coming in from...let's see:   a billion fighters, missiles, debris, beams, lasers, and kitchen sinks. 

So back to the simulator...and:  Gauss cannon, artillery blasters, max flux capacity/distributors, and some burst pd means I can duel an Onslaught (slowly).  Sure great for duelist config...will have to see how it does in the "Archean mid-game threat environment"

b.  It was horrifying when I booted up the simulator against a Paragon and the thing blasted me from outside visual range.  And then proceeded to hound me off the field like a Man Mountain the Sumo wrestler.  However since I have just joined the Archean Order, I shall pay back these Tri-Tachyon Paragon on the field of battle...eventually.

Yea, missile boats and other long-range support designs are horrifically effective in their role, but can't handle a melee. Paragon doesn't really count, given the whole, normal design is really more an assault with several TACHYON LANCES. The Support paragon is, while not horrible, is absolutely a support ship which without guards cannot handle much on it's own.

I generally think of it in rough D&D-ish RPG terms. With Support as Wizard, Assault as Warrior, and Strike as Assassin, with some overlap and a few other traits.

Support vessels, naturally. Long range, and hence ability to pick and chose targets and push them over the edge. Missiles or long range support weapons. But in melee combat, the shield's upkeep makes it lose half it's damage output, and it loses the other half from the tradeoff that long range support weapons make, of flux cost and lower damage for range.

Assault Vessel. Fast, tough, and they get in your face and prevent you from doing anything clever. The Low-Flux speed boost makes them great at interceptions. Assault weapons have the best DPS, and use no flux, so while they get barely any alpha potential, they DO have the ability to just make a target's shields remain under strain, and keep them slow. The lack of flux cost means stronger shields, and higher speed, but the lack of alpha potential means no real finishing power unless you have several teaming up, or, more likely, from support vessles or having assasin traits.

Strike Vessel. Has a powerful alpha strike, but needs opportunities to take advantage of. They are fast and great at obliterating targets in the opening volly, but they have no staying power to speak of. Zero-flux helps them get into position, but since they tend to spend easily half or more of their flux in their strike, they obviously won't maintain it afterwards. Best used as hiding behind Assaults, until the target's shields are weakened enough for you to tear through them. And then backoff, vent, and wait for ammunition to reload.

Carriers are weird, and are more an afterthought, even in this mod. Mostly it just makes them worse quality, while supporting fighters, so they are more strategic target. I really have no idea how to think about them, aside from them being really important and high priority targets.

Hybrids exist, but it has serious costs. Adding a few strikes to the assault helps it break stalemates on it's own, but the loss of DPS and survivability hurts. Adding support helps it intercept or maintain contact, but again, costs DPS and survivability.

Point defense is pretty universal. That said, dedicated PD vessels can work, although I have no idea if the AI really handles the correctly.
-----

Been using an Archean Order Frigate as my flagship. After my entire starting force kinda died horribly though the incompetent commander.
Not sure what it was called, but it has 6 small missile slots, 2 charges of missile forge, and 2 small energy slots.

I think I have 6 trebuchet missile launchers, extended racks, unstable injector, and safety overrides (Plus hardened subsystems). And two sorta-pd/assault guns.

It is horrifyingly effective as a support vessel. I can unload 3 vollies of 18 missiles from the start, although the second reforge has a longer cooldown. I can generally obliterate 2 frigates in an opening volly, from way, way out of range. That said, between the long restocking time and the saftey overrides, I can generally manage around 3 more full vollies, barely, before CR decay sets up.

But, the shield is tough, its fast enough to sorta evade fighters (at least get to support before the shield collapses) and is a horrifically effective support/assassin hybrid.

I tried using short range missiles, like Swarmer, or torpedoes, or rocketpods, or w.e., but nothing can match the sheer potential I got from 18 longrange missiles. I can't even really get a good shield breaker missile to work. Its just that there aren't any similarly FAST missiles. I don't have to get close either.

That said, its not OP enough. It takes a lot to even pound down a frigate's shield, and even two vollies doesn't do much to a destroyer. Hence I have to wait for vulnerable targets.
Point defense on frigates generally isn't enough to save them, but it certainly makes me spend more ammunition. Larger ships can pretty much ignore the huge waves though.

Past that, when ammunition is depleted I have a 10 second delay before I get 6 missiles back, and I can only kinda kill fighters, and mildly poke frigates with the secondary guns.

Overall, highly effective, but not even close to being able to, say, solo an enemy fleet.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on April 29, 2019, 10:11:39 PM
If i could guarantee that my AI pilots would buddy up into pairs, I'd love to create hammer/anvil sorts of setups with dedicated roles.  But too many times any ship on the field can end up soloing more than one opponent...and I need mine to stay alive doing so until something shifts the battle odds elsewhere.

The AI is good at handling generalist configs, and especially good at opportunist shooting at downed shields/flux venting.  If I have the budget I like to give them unstable injector so that they are a bit faster than their class because they are also, unfortunately, good at getting themselves into trouble.

For carriers in vanilla SS:  I like unstable injector, salamander (two, perhaps to threaten a destroyer's engines and certainly shut down a frigate's), and at least one 600+ range weapon.  Stay alive, harass and potentially create opportunities.  However in Archean Order universe, I'm seeing more 360 degree shield coverage...and the range needs to be 800+ to keep the AI at bay.

Regarding a trebuchet setup:  I think it shows how powerful the super long range missiles/beams are in Archean Order.  That long range purple beam (ion cannot? name escapes me), Gauss cannon, etc. are so good that they sometimes seem a bit OP...other than massed Harpoon salvos...they have become my main concern.  It's also that the human player has the special magical power of finding and picking on individual enemy ships...range lets the human player have a massive local effect.

Um, well my goodness that [Redacted] capital that just elbowed its way through my battle line...perhaps that is more my main concern.  My two cruisers are no match.  Time to retreat and jump out.

However I have a new theory of generalist ship setup:  any given ship sized destroyer or above must, at zero flux, must have the ability to take down an unshielded frigate (cripple or destroy it) within, say, three alpha strikes.  Doesn't matter the weapon type, or range.  And have the flux budget to recharge and do this for an extended battle.  For Archean Order:  must also have three zero-flux PD weapons...at least two front half, one back.  The idea being:  the key to winning is simple: which side that starts killing frigates first...to start the snowball effect of sheer numbers.  Could be me...but it seems that the side that starts off killing first...usually wins.

Or at the very least:  keep the AI at bay since the AI tends to hang out of alpha strike range unless they have a large local superiority.  Then it is up to the human player to make things happen before that local superiority occurs.

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on May 01, 2019, 02:44:24 PM
I've not spent much time with a Dominator, either in the game or in the simulator...so perhaps the below is a known "issue" with the class:

I got a shiny new Dominator cruiser gave it and total flux budget of 600 with @250 to spare.  I converted the ship to a strong, fixed frontal shield.

In the simulator:  four DE (two Hammerheads and the two DE to the right in the list) were easily able to overload the ship if I had shields up.  The hull mods I had active were front shield conversion, stabilized shields, extended shields.  In fact it was a single salvo from one of the Hammerheads that maxed the budget.  I didn't have an opportunity to swap in/out those hull mods as I just scrapped the ship in disgust.  I even tried zero-flux weapons (for a whopping 600 spare flux budget) as an alternative but same results.

On the other hand, an Apogee cruiser with a flux budget of only 200 surplus...never had that "easy to overload issue" described above.

If I salvage another Dominator I'll try to reproduce but I don't really have a place for this beast on a permanent basis.  Cruisers are a vital ship class for me.

The only thing I can think of is:  the Dominator's poor turn rate and limited fwd arcs for its heavy weapons made the AI go buck wild in attempting to flank...I did also try better thrusters (50% turn rate hull mod, cannot recall the exact name) but same result.

In fact...those two large fwd emplacements are so limited in arc that an attacker doesn't even have to flank...they can just come in from a forward quarter and perhaps face only one of the two big guns...

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: JDCollie on May 01, 2019, 03:28:02 PM
Just FYI eidolad, Low Tech ships like the Dominator are balanced toward armor tanking over shield tanking, while High Tech ships like the Apogee are designed for shield tanking (and just so you know, you couldn't have picked a worse comparison. The Apogee is one of the best shield tankers in the game)

The way this balance is accomplished is partially through flux capacity and passive flux values, but another major component is shield efficiency. That is, damage to shield ratio. The Apogee converts damage done to shields into flux at a 1:0.6 ratio, while the Dominator is 1:1. That alone makes the Apogee significantly better at shield tanking. Basically, you shouldn't shield tank the Dominator because even with the hullmods, it still won't have as good a shield as the Apogee does stock. On the other hand, the Dominator has 1500 base armor, while the Apogee has only 750. Try and stack strength on strength. ( I apologize if you already understand all this, I just didn't see it mentioned in your post.)

The limited arc on the forward emplacements is intentional. The Dominator has three medium missile mounts, two heavy kinetic mounts, and two medium kinetic mounts all capable of hitting the same target. That is an utterly massive amount of firepower. To balance this out, the Dominator is easily flankable. Lore wise, it's a ship of the line designed to fight with escorts, and that plays out in-game. A lone Dominator is a dead Dominator.

Also, what do you mean by "total flux budget 600 with @250 to spare"? (I don't know what values in the refit screen you're referring to.)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 01, 2019, 03:34:32 PM
I can't respond in full detail at the moment, but a couple points that stood out from the above couple posts I wanted to respond to:

1) Markets - yeah I liked how markets were handled in .6 the best, honestly. Then it limited weapons/ships to mostly whatever the hulls/variants of the market's faction utilized, and locked all the good stuff (tier 2 and above) behind that faction's military market. Then the black market had some of that tier 2 and 3 stuff, and a few other things at complete random it seemed. It had a nice feel to it. The current market system seems like it just randomly pulls weapons based on their tier and rarity across all markets evenly, and doesn't do important things like guarantee point defense weapons are always available.

2) DnD is exactly the kind of dynamic I was going for, yeah. I play a lot of RPG's as well as RTS, and that has definitely been an influence for this entire mod. :)

3) AI assault/support pairs or task force groups - You can do this pretty reliably actually. Keep in mind there are increased command points in this mod, so:

Step 1: Select your assault group and tell it to escort a support ship. The recommendation for this is that the assault escorts are either a class smaller or at least fairly faster than the support ship. 0-flux boosting helps this a lot with assault and strike ships though, so you will be surprised what you can get away with there. Do this for each support ship in your fleet.

Step 2: Select the support/strike ships (Only the support/strike ships, mind you) you want to have target a priority enemy ship and right click that enemy vessel. The support ships will focus either their missiles or fighter waves on that ship, and strike vessels will close for a salvo.

Why this works well:
- The key here is that the AI is very aware of when it is "flankable" and will behave much more cautiously when it has that liability unless an eliminate command is explicitly given. That's why numbers are so important because the larger group has the flank advantage and can sometimes outright intimidate the other side into being overly defensive and not using their strike weapons until its too late. Escorts, however, provide flank defense the AI is aware of, and even the minor distraction of having to briefly engage an escorting frigate can buy enough time to make the AI confident enough to fully engage their weapons. This can often mean the difference between an attack killing a target (optimal outcome) or merely overloading it and hoping the long range missiles can get through the enemy fighter screen and finish it as it limps off. The escorts for your long range support ships are to ensure that they don't get similarly surrounded and sniped while your "away" at the enemy battle line.

4) Carrier weakness/uniqueness from the large fighter nerf that's coming will be addressed because they will all have built-in hullmods reducing fighter replacement time substantially- both to give them the actual sense of being a carrier and slightly weaken the fighter strength of standard assault vessels so comparison between the two classes can be more easily drawn. It isn't as noticeable for frigates or destroyers since the majority of them can't field fighters if they aren't carriers, but the lines get really blurred above that. Cruisers meant to be hybrids (like the midline Eagle or Megalith, for instance) will still feel that way because of their ship systems. For many carriers, limited ammo being a factor will also greatly increase the strength of the majority of carrier-based ship systems in comparison to the current release, so that will also make them stand out more.

5) ITU can stack in this mod with the built-in range modifiers to make some ships unique (Paragon, Megalith, Astral and Apogee), or the general range modifiers of cruisers and capitals because they need them to feel as powerful as they do.

6) The Dominator is terrible when flanked and not recommended as a stand alone ship so that's probably why you didn't have much luck in the simulator. It benefits the most from larger fleet actions where it can be supported, and there is shines, as it can outmatch or keep pace with almost anything of its class no matter the tech level. Impressive for such an old geezer, I promise you. ;) As a side note, improving shields is useful, but its shields are also terrible because it is low tech and from back when shields were new. Rely on them against fighters, but rely on your armor and massive forward dps combined with your Ammo Feeder to engage other ships.

To be honest, I more fear a Dominator catching me over-extending with its guns in range far more than an Aurora or Eagle. If it engages its ship system, even at low flux I'll probably be lucky to escape with my armor intact, if I escape at all.

*Edit* Actually for a really good example of this, try out the "Last Hurrah" mission. If you are unlucky enough to get the spawn where the Onslaught actually comes in first (doesn't always happen) escorted by the two Dominators and a frigate/destroyer screen, you will see just how hard a nut that can be to crack through a frontal assault. :D
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: JDCollie on May 01, 2019, 03:50:17 PM
Just so you know, Alex is addressing weapon availability in the next update:

Quote
Weapon availability at colonies:

    Ensures weapons for several different roles (PD, anti-shield, etc) are available if possible
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 01, 2019, 05:04:05 PM
^ Indeed.  :)

 That is why I am not providing a custom solution for markets just yet, I am hoping that fix will suffice for this mod. The scope is already pretty big as it is.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on May 01, 2019, 06:38:18 PM
I'll freely admit that I've never needed to test a Dominator in the simulator in the various Starsector games/mods: this ship just does its job.  AND I rarely pilot one because I am much more valuable roaming around then tanking/holding.  Then, I forgot why I like/want this ship and jump in the simulator when I salvage BOTH an Apogee and a Dominator in the same battle in an early phase of my game career...and grump/post.

Sorry JDCollie for not being clear:  my Dominator could dissipate 600+ flux...while full weapons fire would consume 350-400 of that dissipation capability...leaving @250 dissipation capability left to deal with hard flux reduction.  Seemed like a fairly good setup.

Your advice I think points out that I'm completely about shield fighting and that a Dominator is not a good ship at all for me to pilot/figure out in the simulator except for perhaps one-on-one to determine  weapons and resiliency.  Especially for a pilot who also gets an Apogee so rarely that I wasn't aware of how good it is at fighting alone.

In-game, I peeked at the ship hull description card for the Dominator vs. Apogee and here are the numbers posted for "Shield flux/damage" in the current Archean Order mod version:

Apogee:  .8
Dominator: 1.2

I'm not much for engineering/numbers in my gaming worlds, so I don't know exactly the math involved with the above numbers...I spend my time on the bridge where all the girls are.  Still, comparing the two numbers...the Apogee's shields are 35%-ish better in total flux performance if my English-major interworking with Windows calculator app serves me properly. 

I do see the Dominator as having a position/role indeed:  stuck right in the exact middle (horizontally speaking) of the entire battle line...where shields go down lots and thick armor is a big deal...and friends are on either side.  Want some Dominator, Mr. Enemy?  Gotta close in and pay cash to a cruiser's front side that has the armor to spare.  In fact I rarely lose one in vanilla once I get to a fleet size to want one...so I guess I'll be nicer to the next one I salvage.  I think I'll christen her the "Armor Warrior" in honor of your (and Morrokain's) feedback.

______


Morrokain:  interesting stuff about the rpg-grouping.  I guess I am too used to assigning escort orders and watching those ships die because their overall engagement locus becomes centered on the escortee...and they end up in exactly the wrong place (hi Shepherd...what are you doing IN FRONT OF ME with that enemy on the other side?  I just wanted you to loiter safely near me to have your mining drone wing nearby, not die hero-stupidly).  So I like to preserve my command points entirely for fleet/carrier strikes or for fine positioning...and give all ships full independence of movement.

It could be because the only time I give escort orders are

1.  for an occasional frigate escort for a carrier.

2.  For an evenly matched, large fleet battle, Admiral Eidolad sometimes calls for a "CAP and strike":

a) I lead my fleet and get the closest ASAP to the enemy capitals to draw all enemy attention (and most of their fighters)
b) Before, or once, the enemy fighter key begin to key on me:  I order my carriers to escort me:  fighters are on me for "Combat Air Patrol" to begin a battle with to ensure that enemy fighters do most of the dying first
c) prior to me telling the carriers who to kill (usually near me, but farther away from the enemy main than where I am, since I'm still the "fighter lure")

Otherwise I don't bother at all with escort orders if my fleet is outnumbered.  No way...my guys need full mobility.  Let *me* do the risky stuff (with carrier strike support) while the rest of work 100% on staying alive.

______

Okay I feel really dumb:  how do I access "named missions" like "Last Hurrah?"?


Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 02, 2019, 01:11:07 PM
Oh yeah you will still lose escorts for certain, but in an even strength battle you will ...probably... lose less overall with said tactic. That being said, its certainly not a hard and fast rule and my playstyle may just synergize better with that strategy, who knows. I play the game like a tactical RTS and typically only directly give orders to my flagship in emergency situations where I feel my second isn't being bold, or scared enough. :)

They aren't unlimited or the skills wouldn't matter, but from my last estimation of unmodded Starsector I believe you get a considerable amount of command points in comparison. But I haven't actually checked the tone of that in a while.

I will say you have to keep track of the evolving battle and get snapshots of the battlefield from time to time to make sure nothing is closing in that can just pommel everything in the task force or it won't matter and all the escorts will die lol. "Avoid" orders can help with this, but sometimes its better to simply select the whole group and set a rally point to just get the hell out of there depending on what's coming.

In this mod if its bigger it will probably kill you and all your friends so be careful. Capitals especially, and especially-especially well supported capitals.
------------------------

You can play missions from the main menu where you started the new campaign. They contain both new lore based around the new factions, and the old stock missions (should be) are balanced for the mod.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Ranakastrasz on May 02, 2019, 04:47:20 PM
The Simple Core Systems Hull Mod doesn't have a percentage label for the second variable.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 02, 2019, 05:07:07 PM
^ Thanks fixed
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on May 02, 2019, 07:45:43 PM
thanks...I've only played campaign mode the whole time I've played SS and didn't even see the missions...double duh.

So I think I've gotten a good early sense of the mod's very very tasty weapons and ship setups from my 2-3 days playing, and evolved from:

1.  loving those non-flux weapons...hey lets try to build around them.  Nope don't have infinite OP points to spare.  Now I only mount the non-flux burst PD weapons to cover all axes.

2.  loving the missile loadouts...hey let's try to build around them.  Nope.  Flux budgets.  Only a few of my ships have a alpha missile strike.  However those non-flux finisher loadouts are still really golden given that most have auto-loaders now.

3.  collected a huge armory of 4 of every weapon...then tried them out.  Yup...balanced designs with good flux margins work for me.

4.  A solid core of carriers with preferably advanced "class blue" fighters is reasonable dress code at all times.

5.  Loving the 360 shields given the evil Salamanders and their sneaky cousins the Bolo missiles.

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 02, 2019, 08:12:19 PM
^ You will probably like the next update then. Added quite a few more weapons to fill in various niches.

And I just saw two Lashers and an Enforcer take down a Valkyrie MkII with some heavy weapons. It was hard won victory, but I am definitely pleased with the destroyer and frigate health buff.

Cruisers and Capitals that are well supported will still likely be very difficult to defeat, but I find myself ignoring the smaller ships much less now in larger battles. It feels pretty nice.
-------------------------------

Still a lot to do, but updating patch notes. Star-wrapped notes are whats new over the last post:

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    -

 -- New Fighters:
    - Banshee-class *Interceptor* (No longer a heavy interceptor)
    *- Sentinel-class Heavy Interceptor*
    *- Goliath-class Heavy Gunship*

 -- New Weapons:
    - Shattercell Cannon (Small PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Shattercell Cannon (Medium PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Small Anti-Fighter Rocket Weapon)
    - Heavy Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter rocket weapon)
    - Twin Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Triple Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Rupture Shockwave System (Large Strike Rocket System)
    *- Obliterator Cannon (Medium Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)*
    *- Heavy Obliterator Cannon (Large Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)*
    *- Burst Pulser (Medium Assault Energy Weapon)*
    *- Punisher Artillery System (Large Ballistic Fire Support Weapon)*
    *- Heavy Fissure Cannon (Large Ballistic Strike Weapon)*
    *- Razor Tri-Beam (Large Energy Assault Weapon)*
    *- Heavy Autocannon (Medium Ballistic Assault Weapon) - Original Heavy Autocannon renamed.*
    *- Vulcan PD Cannon (Medium Ballistic PD Weapon)*
    *- Heavy Vulcan PD System (Large Ballistic PD Weapon)*
    *- Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon) - Original Mirco Repeater renamed.*
    *- Dual Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon)*
    *- Cutlass Laser (Medium Energy PD Weapon)*
    *- Heavy Cutlass Laser (Large Energy PD Weapon)*
    *- Proximity Mine Launcher (Large Missile PD Weapon)*
    *- Trapdoor Mine Launcher (Large Energy PD Weapon)*
    *- Widow MRM Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)*
    *- Heavy Widow Launcher (Large Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)*


 -- Market Changes:
    - Bomb Bay is no longer an available weapon in markets. It was mostly useless and was taking up valuable weapon choices when it spawned. (Now bomber only)
    - Removed slight rarity modifier of PD Cannon spawning in markets.
    - Reduced rarity modifier of Burst PD Laser spawning in markets.
    *- Now over 130 different weapons, not including built in fighter weapons.*

 -- Faction Balance Changes:
    - Another round of dialogue polish. (So as I catch things)
    - Replaced Piranha bombers from pirate Enforcer-class destroyers with pirate Mauler heavy interceptors.
    - Adamantine Consortium will no longer deploy many Spectre interceptor drones, and will favor Banshee interceptors instead.
    - Osprey-class Light Carrier no longer autofits. Variants for each factions have been expanded to compensate. (Too many empty fighter bays in campaign fleets)
    - Zero chance for non-standard fighters (faction-equipped variants) to be found in Independent fleets and a very, very low chance in Scavenger fleets.
    - Reduced chance for Exile-class Light Carriers to spawn in Archean Order fleets.
    - Separated out Doom variants between Adamantine Consortium and Tri-Tachyon Corporation. (Tri-Tachyons shouldn't be using phasetech weapons)
    - Changed some factions so that when they pursue the player for smuggling or black market activity that they actively pursue the fleet instead of sometimes merely harrassing.
    - Changed some factions so that under certain varying circumstances when pursuing players for black market activity or contraband high rep will:
        - prevent contraband from being confiscated.
        - cause a negative impact to reputation rather than an outright attack.

 -- Blueprint Changes:
    - Pirate Talon is now a pirate blueprint unlock instead of a base blueprint.
    - Luddic and Pirate blueprints are no longer unlocked by tiered tech blueprint sets (lowtech in particular).
    - Bomb bay is no longer a blueprint.
    - Spectre-class interceptor drones are no longer unlocked by the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Added Cobra heavy bomber and Banshee heavy interceptor to the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    *- Apocalypse Cannon is now ultra rare instead of legendary.*
    *- The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now legendary bp.*
    *- Goliath-class Heavy Gunship has been added as a legendary bp.*

 -- Feature Enhancements/Additions:

   Cease Fire Enhancements:
     - Adamantine Consortium fleets can be more successfully negotiated with if you hire one of their officers and so know their politics.
          - New description, dialogue and possible results when negotiating Cease Fires for:
      - Archean Order
      - Adamantine Consortium
      - Pirates
       - Luddic Path
     - Bribes
      - Bribe results and descriptions are more faction specific for some factions to shed more light on how effective bribery will be for that faction's commanders.
                - Increased base chance for bribe requests over outright refusals when attempting a bribe-free Cease-Fire.
                - Pirates will have an even greater chance to ask for credits rather than fight when attempting bribe-free Cease-Fires.
      - Pirates will accept bribes and ask for bribes over fighting even when vengeful to the Player's faction.
      - Less lawful factions like the Luddic Path, Adamantine Consortium and Pirates will now give a reputation boost for successful bribes up to a certain reputation level.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Slightly increased deployment cost of Legion, Megalith, Malevolent, Tyrant, Astral, and Paragon.
 - Increased range of Rapier SRMs. (From 900 to 1000)
 - Slightly lowered max charges for Micro Repeater and reduced the amount of charges returned each recharge cycle.
 - Nova Cannon proximity blast radius is doubled, and the fuse range is doubled, but the fuse will now only trigger on missiles.
 - Increased Nova Cannon damage by 20%.
 - Increased Machine Gun damage by 25%.
 - Increased Electron Cannon damage by 33% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Pulse Laser Damage by 50% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Assault Beam damage by ~15%.
 - Increased PD Beam damage by ~40% and increased range to 350, up from 300.
 *- Increased Squall SRM hitpoints by 200%, missile speed and turn rate by ~600%, and range by 200. (Was VERY underwhelming for its tier in larger battles)*
 - Reduced Atropos Torpedo turn rate by 40%. (I'm hoping this reduces the chances of the AI wasting it against slower fighters like gunships)
 - Changed Ion Cannon and Heavy Ion Cannon to now have regenerating charges, but they also deal more burst damage either through faster firing or damage per shot.
 - Fissure Cannon (formerly Sunder Cannon) has increased range (500 to 600). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Iridium Cannon has increased range (500 to 700). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Scythe Cannon has decreased range. (600 to 500)
 - Assault Autocannon has increased range. (600 to 650)
 - Icer Gun has increased range. (600 to 700)
 - Lowered projectile velocity of Phalanx Cannon and Hypervelocity Driver. (They were a little too powerful and hopefully this will balance them out a bit)
 - Increased turn rate of Strike beams to help prevent the A.I from wasting them while maneuvering to evenly distribute armor damage.
 *- Apocalypse Cannon is now 30 op (down from 32)*
 *- The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now an available weapon at 32 op.*
 *- Increased health of destroyers and frigates by ~15-20%. (Slightly better balances out the strength of cruisers' easy access to fighter bays)*
 *- Increased damage of Ion Pulser by ~70%.*
 *- Rebalanced stats and OP cost of medium ballistic line of weapons.*
 *- Hivemind nanite clusters now go directly for the kill rather than seeking the targets engines.*

 -- Overhauled flux costs of the entire rocket line of weapons:
     - Reduced flux cost of Shockstorm rockets per salvo by 50%, increased max rockets for medium variant, and increased rocket speed and range slightly. (Large buff overall)
     - Increased flux cost of Annihilator rockets (small variant) by 25%, but flux costs for medium variant reduced to match flux per rocket of the small variant.
     - Annihilator rockets (small variant) now gets 4 rockets back on reload (was 2) though reload time per rocket (DPS) remains roughly the same.
     - Reduced flux cost of Javelin rockets by 25%, and reduced their flight speed.
     - Reduced flux cost of Fury Rocket System and Hailstone rockets by 33%.

 -- Overhauled Fighter Combat Layer --    
 -- Not all of the individual changes will be documented. Here are some general points:
     - Now over 60 different fighter wings.
     - All fighters now have limited ammunition which gives them a specific combat time before some kind of rearmament is required.
     - Rearmament design-wise is intended to give ships a window of recovery between strikes and reduce fighter swarming in favor of assault wave behavior.
     - Rearmament stats are unique to each individual fighter weapon, though some general rules apply:
     - Magazines of fighter weapons only last around 5 seconds of active combat time.
          - Non-missile weapons will reload their magazines in a set amount of time, typically 12-20 seconds depending on the the fighter role. (AI can't handle finite ammo)
     - Missile weapons almost always require redocking with the carrier, and often have even more limited ammunition than non-missile fighter weapons.
     - Fighters, gunhsips and interceptors that use finite missiles will usually redock with the carrier immediately, or soon after they have used them all.
     - Mostly removed the use of flares in midtech and low tech fighters, gunships and bombers. Only the highest tiered craft will use them.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to other fighters, making interceptors and anti-fighter roles a serious threat to unescorted bombers and gunships.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to ship hardpoints (weapons and engines), up from 150%.
     - Balance pass on most fighter replacement rates. Some have increased rates, some have decreased rates depending on balance adjustments. As a soft rule, however:
          - Bombers have increased replacement times. (They also tend to have the highest strike impulse)
          - Gunships have been moved to closely match Bombers in their replacement times. (They also tend to have the longest active combat times and largest magazines)
          - Fighters have slightly reduced replacement times. (They have various specialized roles)
          - Interceptors have moderately reduced replacement times. (They are powerful bomber/gunship killers, and important escorts for your own fighter/bomber/gunship strike groups)
     - Removed Fighter Systems hullmod's effect on weapons in favor of fighter-specialized weapons. Fighter weapons are now less effective against ships.
     - Though still present for descriptive flavor, Limited Range Finders hullmod on fighters doesn't actually do anything. Range is handled through fighter weapons.
     - Reduced health and shields of high tech gunships and bombers and some midline and low tech gunships and bombers.
     - Reduced general health of the higher tiered fighters, and any fighters that use shields have much lower flux dissipation to make PD beams more effective against them.
     - Rebalanced OP cost around new fighter craft additions that were added in some of the more recent updates.
     - Reduced OP cost and efficiency of some pirate fighters even further, while balancing other weaker ones to make them useful to the player in some circumstances.
     - Many low tech fighters, bombers, gunships and interceptors now have proper OP costs considering their combat effectiveness.
     - OP to Power ratio when scrolling up and down the "equip fighter wheel" on the refit screen should now make more intuitive sense.
     *- All fighter weapons are now added to the codex with a basic description of how fighter weapons differ from standard ship weapons as well as hard weapon stats.*
     *- Balance pass on fighter crew requirements and costs. General increase in crew required for gunships and bombers, scaling better with size.*
     *- Balance pass on fighter mass. (Doesn't make too much a difference but documented anyway just in case).*
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Corrected issue with Cease Fire requests not working on patrols who are attacking you from smuggling or black market activity.
 - Fixed issue with overspawning faction-specific fighters in Independent and Scavenger fleets.
 - Corrected Pirate Talon bug with base blueprints.
 - Devastator Cannon should now properly hit ships along certain angles of fire that caused the proximity fuse behavior to trigger early.
 - The Nova Cannon should now effectively hit ships at all times, making it more in line with the intended dual assault/pd role.
 - Removed accidental chance for Fighter-class Light Pulse Laser to spawn in campaign markets or loot.
 - Added a description to the Archean Order station's heavy anti-capital weapon in the codex.
 - Hopefully resolved issues with Hailstone Rockets and Fury Rocket System sometimes causing the flameout slingshot behavior on ships.
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium Condor skin to no longer change its medium missile mount to energy.
 *- All fighter wing descriptions should have the brief summary portion that describes their role.*
 *- Fixed merge issue with Helmsmanship skill stacking on top of the original version.*
 *- Correct equip-screen description of Militarized Subsystems to better reflect what downsides it removes from civilian hulls.*
 *- Hivemind nanite clusters now effectively hit ships at all angles.*
 *- Corrected Simple Core System's description.*
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Due to storage space, versions lower than v1.2.1b are no longer downloadable, though their patch notes will remain documented.
 - Sunder Cannon has been renamed to Fissure Cannon to avoid confusion with the Sunder-class destroyer. XD Must have been in a hurry on that one lol.
 *- Round of polish on the Heavy Apocalypse Cannon sprite.*
 *- The Heavy Autocannon has been renamed to the Heavy Dual Autocannon.*
 *- Slight round of polish on the Velocity Cannon.*
 *- Micro Repeater has been renamed to Micro Blaster because the original name felt better for a PD weapon and this was more of a strike weapon.*
-----

[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on May 02, 2019, 08:58:57 PM
MORE weapons.  It's funny how far down my four-across armory in my inventory stretched already :)

TLDR:  Request to add some middle-weight ships (a few cruisers, or a destroyer or two or five) to the Luddic and Pirate fleets?  They are trying to hold battle lines with modded freighters and tons of frigates...all massively lumbered up with up to five d-mods each as well!
_____

I feel a bit guilty after reading the sheer tonnage of the incoming changes to the mod to ask, but could we do some tinkering with the "enemy" fleet compositions at some point?

A buff on the weight of metal for Luddic Path and Pirate fleets, if possible.  The last two Luddic Path systems I stumbled across were rolled over easily...mostly due to their defensive fleets having a bunch of combat freighters and light carriers as the core.  They could use some legit CR/DDs in their order of battle.

The sheer number of d-mods should be enough of a nerf for most players to find these two groups to be good early prey...especially given the incredible power of the lead faction ships.  Sure, do continue to have lots of d-mods on those CR/DDs...it is too easy to salvage them otherwise so make them worth less to the player makes sense.

I only speak from a solid experience as an Archean Order Rogue Knight.  My next game when the incoming patch rolls in will likely take me into Adamantine Consortium service.

However I wouldn't want to suggest that there would be more of those nasty pirate battlecruisers laying about.  Nah, that would be...

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 03, 2019, 03:44:04 PM
^ Noted I'll see what I can do. :)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 11, 2019, 12:35:54 PM
Yay! 0.9.1a of Starsector is out!  ;D

Going to have to double my efforts to get this next release polished and and out there, but there is a lot to do and now even more was added with the new update.

Once I get everything compatible, I'll start investigating whether or not this was sufficient enough to solve the market issues the mod has been having lately.

More updates soon, but for now some update patch notes. :)
-----------------------------

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    *- Prometheus MkII*
    *- Atlas MkIII*

    - New Skins:
       *- Luddic Path Eagle*
   *- Luddic Path Crucible*
   *- Luddic Church Crucible*
   *- Luddic Path Rhino*
   *- Luddic Church Rhino*
   *- Luddic Church Wolverine*
   *- Luddic Path Enforcer*
   *- Luddic Church Enforcer*
   *- Luddic Path Hammerhead*
   *- Luddic Church Hammerhead*
   *- Luddic Path Condor*
   *- Luddic Path Mora*
   *- Luddic Church Lancer*
   *- Pirate Shrike*

 -- New Fighters:
    - Banshee-class Interceptor
    - Sentinel-class Heavy Interceptor
    - Goliath-class Heavy Gunship

 -- New Weapons:
    - Shattercell Cannon (Small PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Shattercell Cannon (Medium PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Small Anti-Fighter Rocket Weapon)
    - Heavy Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter rocket weapon)
    - Twin Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Triple Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Rupture Shockwave System (Large Strike Rocket System)
    - Obliterator Cannon (Medium Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Obliterator Cannon (Large Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Burst Pulser (Medium Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Punisher Artillery System (Large Ballistic Fire Support Weapon)
    - Heavy Fissure Cannon (Large Ballistic Strike Weapon)
    - Razor Tri-Beam (Large Energy Assault Weapon)
    - Heavy Autocannon (Medium Ballistic Assault Weapon) - Original Heavy Autocannon renamed.
    - Vulcan PD Cannon (Medium Ballistic PD Weapon)
    - Heavy Vulcan PD System (Large Ballistic PD Weapon)
    - Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon) - Original Mirco Repeater renamed.
    - Dual Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon)
    - Cutlass Laser (Medium Energy PD Weapon)
    - Heavy Cutlass Laser (Large Energy PD Weapon)
    - Proximity Mine Launcher (Large Missile PD Weapon)
    - Trapdoor Mine Launcher (Large Energy PD Weapon)
    - Widow MRM Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)
    - Heavy Widow Launcher (Large Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)


 -- Market Changes:
    - Bomb Bay is no longer an available weapon in markets. It was mostly useless and was taking up valuable weapon choices when it spawned. (Now bomber only)
    - Removed slight rarity modifier of PD Cannon spawning in markets.
    - Reduced rarity modifier of Burst PD Laser spawning in markets.
    - Now over 130 different weapons, not including built in fighter weapons.

 -- Faction Balance Changes:
    - Another round of dialogue polish. (So as I catch things)
    - Replaced Piranha bombers from pirate Enforcer-class destroyers with pirate Mauler heavy interceptors.
    - Adamantine Consortium will no longer deploy many Spectre interceptor drones, and will favor Banshee interceptors instead.
    - Osprey-class Light Carrier no longer autofits. Variants for each factions have been expanded to compensate. (Too many empty fighter bays in campaign fleets)
    - Zero chance for non-standard fighters (faction-equipped variants) to be found in Independent fleets and a very, very low chance in Scavenger fleets.
    - Reduced chance for Exile-class Light Carriers to spawn in Archean Order fleets.
    - Separated out Doom variants between Adamantine Consortium and Tri-Tachyon Corporation. (Tri-Tachyons shouldn't be using phasetech weapons)
    - Changed some factions so that when they pursue the player for smuggling or black market activity that they actively pursue the fleet instead of sometimes merely harrassing.
    - Changed some factions so that under certain varying circumstances when pursuing players for black market activity or contraband high rep will:
        - prevent contraband from being confiscated.
        - cause a negative impact to reputation rather than an outright attack.
    *- Numerous new variants for the new skins for Luddic factions have been added to the campaign fleets.*
    *- Ships supplies per month is much lower, universal among tech tiers and based on hull size. (I felt it was unncessary now with monthly costs per crew filling the same role)*

 -- Blueprint Changes:
    - Pirate Talon is now a pirate blueprint unlock instead of a base blueprint.
    - Luddic and Pirate blueprints are no longer unlocked by tiered tech blueprint sets (lowtech in particular).
    - Bomb bay is no longer a blueprint.
    - Spectre-class interceptor drones are no longer unlocked by the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Added Cobra heavy bomber and Banshee heavy interceptor to the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Apocalypse Cannon is now ultra rare instead of legendary.
    - The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now legendary bp.
    - Goliath-class Heavy Gunship has been added as a legendary bp.

 -- Feature Enhancements/Additions:

   Cease Fire Enhancements:
     - Adamantine Consortium fleets can be more successfully negotiated with if you hire one of their officers and so know their politics.
          - New description, dialogue and possible results when negotiating Cease Fires for:
      - Archean Order
      - Adamantine Consortium
      - Pirates
       - Luddic Path
     - Bribes
      - Bribe results and descriptions are more faction specific for some factions to shed more light on how effective bribery will be for that faction's commanders.
                - Increased base chance for bribe requests over outright refusals when attempting a bribe-free Cease-Fire.
                - Pirates will have an even greater chance to ask for credits rather than fight when attempting bribe-free Cease-Fires.
      - Pirates will accept bribes and ask for bribes over fighting even when vengeful to the Player's faction.
      - Less lawful factions like the Luddic Path, Adamantine Consortium and Pirates will now give a reputation boost for successful bribes up to a certain reputation level.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Slightly increased deployment cost of Legion, Megalith, Malevolent, Tyrant, Astral, and Paragon.
 - Increased range of Rapier SRMs. (From 900 to 1000)
 - Slightly lowered max charges for Micro Repeater and reduced the amount of charges returned each recharge cycle.
 - Nova Cannon proximity blast radius is doubled, and the fuse range is doubled, but the fuse will now only trigger on missiles.
 - Increased Nova Cannon damage by 20%.
 - Increased Machine Gun damage by 25%.
 - Increased Electron Cannon damage by 33% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Pulse Laser Damage by 50% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Assault Beam damage by ~15%.
 - Increased PD Beam damage by ~40% and increased range to 350, up from 300.
 - Increased Squall SRM hitpoints by 200%, missile speed and turn rate by ~600%, and range by 200. (Was VERY underwhelming for its tier in larger battles)
 - Reduced Atropos Torpedo turn rate by 40%. (I'm hoping this reduces the chances of the AI wasting it against slower fighters like gunships)
 - Changed Ion Cannon and Heavy Ion Cannon to now have regenerating charges, but they also deal more burst damage either through faster firing or damage per shot.
 - Fissure Cannon (formerly Sunder Cannon) has increased range (500 to 600). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Iridium Cannon has increased range. (500 to 700) The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Scythe Cannon has decreased range. (600 to 500)
 - Assault Autocannon has increased range. (600 to 650)
 - Icer Gun has increased range. (600 to 700)
 - Lowered projectile velocity of Phalanx Cannon and Hypervelocity Driver. (They were a little too powerful and hopefully this will balance them out a bit)
 - Increased turn rate of Strike beams to help prevent the A.I from wasting them while maneuvering to evenly distribute armor damage.
 - Apocalypse Cannon is now 30 op (down from 32)
 - The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now an available weapon at 32 op.
 - Increased health of destroyers and frigates by ~15-20%. (Slightly better balances out the strength of cruisers' easy access to fighter bays)
 - Increased damage of Ion Pulser by ~70%.
 - Rebalanced stats and OP cost of medium ballistic line of weapons.
 - Hivemind nanite clusters now go directly for the kill rather than seeking the targets engines.
 *- Slightly reduced deployment cost of Aegis cruiser.*
 *- Increased max flux of Aegis and Eagle cruiser by 1000.*

 -- Overhauled flux costs of the entire rocket line of weapons:
     - Reduced flux cost of Shockstorm rockets per salvo by 50%, increased max rockets for medium variant, and increased rocket speed and range slightly. (Large buff overall)
     - Increased flux cost of Annihilator rockets (small variant) by 25%, but flux costs for medium variant reduced to match flux per rocket of the small variant.
     - Annihilator rockets (small variant) now gets 4 rockets back on reload (was 2) though reload time per rocket (DPS) remains roughly the same.
     - Reduced flux cost of Javelin rockets by 25%, and reduced their flight speed.
     - Reduced flux cost of Fury Rocket System and Hailstone rockets by 33%.

 -- Overhauled Fighter Combat Layer --    
 -- Not all of the individual changes will be documented. Here are some general points:
     - Now over 60 different fighter wings.
     - All fighters now have limited ammunition which gives them a specific combat time before some kind of rearmament is required.
     - Rearmament design-wise is intended to give ships a window of recovery between strikes and reduce fighter swarming in favor of assault wave behavior.
     - Rearmament stats are unique to each individual fighter weapon, though some general rules apply:
     - Magazines of fighter weapons only last around 5 seconds of active combat time.
          - Non-missile weapons will reload their magazines in a set amount of time, typically 12-20 seconds depending on the the fighter role. (AI can't handle finite ammo)
     - Missile weapons almost always require redocking with the carrier, and often have even more limited ammunition than non-missile fighter weapons.
     - Fighters, gunhsips and interceptors that use finite missiles will usually redock with the carrier immediately, or soon after they have used them all.
     - Mostly removed the use of flares in midtech and low tech fighters, gunships and bombers. Only the highest tiered craft will use them.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to other fighters, making interceptors and anti-fighter roles a serious threat to unescorted bombers and gunships.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to ship hardpoints (weapons and engines), up from 150%.
     - Balance pass on most fighter replacement rates. Some have increased rates, some have decreased rates depending on balance adjustments. As a soft rule, however:
          - Bombers have increased replacement times. (They also tend to have the highest strike impulse)
          - Gunships have been moved to closely match Bombers in their replacement times. (They also tend to have the longest active combat times and largest magazines)
          - Fighters have slightly reduced replacement times. (They have various specialized roles)
          - Interceptors have moderately reduced replacement times. (They are powerful bomber/gunship killers, and important escorts for your own fighter/bomber/gunship strike groups)
     - Removed Fighter Systems hullmod's effect on weapons in favor of fighter-specialized weapons. Fighter weapons are now less effective against ships.
     - Though still present for descriptive flavor, Limited Range Finders hullmod on fighters doesn't actually do anything. Range is handled through fighter weapons.
     - Reduced health and shields of high tech gunships and bombers and some midline and low tech gunships and bombers.
     - Reduced general health of the higher tiered fighters, and any fighters that use shields have much lower flux dissipation to make PD beams more effective against them.
     - Rebalanced OP cost around new fighter craft additions that were added in some of the more recent updates.
     - Reduced OP cost and efficiency of some pirate fighters even further, while balancing other weaker ones to make them useful to the player in some circumstances.
     - Many low tech fighters, bombers, gunships and interceptors now have proper OP costs considering their combat effectiveness.
     - OP to Power ratio when scrolling up and down the "equip fighter wheel" on the refit screen should now make more intuitive sense.
     - All fighter weapons are now added to the codex with a basic description of how fighter weapons differ from standard ship weapons as well as hard weapon stats.
     - Balance pass on fighter crew requirements and costs. General increase in crew required for gunships and bombers, scaling better with size.
     - Balance pass on fighter mass. (Doesn't make too much a difference but documented anyway just in case).
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Corrected issue with Cease Fire requests not working on patrols who are attacking you from smuggling or black market activity.
 - Fixed issue with overspawning faction-specific fighters in Independent and Scavenger fleets.
 - Corrected Pirate Talon bug with base blueprints.
 - Devastator Cannon should now properly hit ships along certain angles of fire that caused the proximity fuse behavior to trigger early.
 - The Nova Cannon should now effectively hit ships at all times, making it more in line with the intended dual assault/pd role.
 - Removed accidental chance for Fighter-class Light Pulse Laser to spawn in campaign markets or loot.
 - Added a description to the Archean Order station's heavy anti-capital weapon in the codex.
 - Hopefully resolved issues with Hailstone Rockets and Fury Rocket System sometimes causing the flameout slingshot behavior on ships.
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium Condor skin to no longer change its medium missile mount to energy.
 - All fighter wing descriptions should have the brief summary portion that describes their role.
 - Fixed merge issue with Helmsmanship skill stacking on top of the original version.
 - Correct equip-screen description of Militarized Subsystems to better reflect what downsides it removes from civilian hulls.
 - Hivemind nanite clusters now effectively hit ships at all angles.
 - Corrected Simple Core System's description.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Due to storage space, versions lower than v1.2.1b are no longer downloadable, though their patch notes will remain documented.
 - Sunder Cannon has been renamed to Fissure Cannon to avoid confusion with the Sunder-class destroyer. XD Must have been in a hurry on that one lol.
 - Round of polish on the Heavy Apocalypse Cannon's sprite.
 - The Heavy Autocannon has been renamed to the Heavy Dual Autocannon.
 - Slight round of polish on the Velocity Cannon sprite.
 - Micro Repeater has been renamed to Micro Blaster because the original name felt better for a PD weapon and this was more of a strike weapon.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on May 13, 2019, 06:10:31 PM
Having now encountered the new Atlas pirate refits in vanilla .91a...like I've got a pirate grand fleet with SIX of those things and massive numbers of companions, floating around unchallenged.   Nothing else in the system is even close to its power

...I cannot await a clash when the new Archean Order is ready and the pirates come calling with such a formation.

Well I mean, when I'm ready.  Taking down just one of those things with my early destroyer level fleet was...interesting.

Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 17, 2019, 05:24:10 PM
I haven't quite balanced everything yet, including the new pirate atlas. Getting pretty close though. The biggest thing will be rebalancing and adding variants based on the new weapons and general huge list of balance changes.. Not looking forward to that at all.  :P

I have spent a pretty large amount of time doing another balance pass on stations, because it is important for the player to be able to choose the station they want based on play style or flavor, not which one is the best, and the flux changes to long range missiles along caused some stations to be stronger than others, sometimes very noticeably so. I've managed to get orbital stations and battlestations unilaterally balanced, so now moving on to starfortresses (easier because they are just meant to be hugely strong)

Right now as it stands, however, there are two tiers:  ---SPOILERS AHEAD---

Spoiler
Tier 1 station sets: (meaning orbital stations, battlestations, and starfortresses collectively)

 - Pirate (Low-tech stations)- Weakest station meant to be a second level introduction to station combat after the weaker REDACTED.

 - Independent (Low-tech stations)- Weaker than core faction's stations, but stronger than pirate stations. Mostly this way simply due to lore. This may change in the future.


Tier 2, or otherwise standard player station sets:

 - Luddic (Low-tech stations)- Focused on armor/structure defense, long range ballistic cannons, and unguided rockets and torpedoes.

 - Hegemony (Low-tech stations)- Focused on very powerful heavy strike cannons, high armor, and long range guided low tech missiles.

 - Trader Guilds (Mid-tech stations)- Focused on very powerful long range kinetic cannons, gunships, and superb anti-fighter defenses.

 - Persean League (Mid-tech stations)- Focused on heavy kinetic assault beams, heavy fighter and interceptor defense swarms, and massive waves of high tech missiles.

 - Tritachyon Corporation (Hi-tech stations)- Focused on very powerful strike beams, heavy bomber strikes, and long range guided high tech missiles.

 - Sci-Corps (Hi-tech stations)- Focused on both long range and close range ion weaponry, large concentrations of high tech missiles, and heavy kinetic assault beams.

 - Archean Order/Adamantine Consortium (Hi-tech stations)- Focused on capital-class long range energy cannons, numerous weapon platforms, and long range energy missiles and AI nanite strikes.

[close]
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Rybon66 on May 24, 2019, 02:17:09 PM
So I thought I would try the mod and I am getting the following error.   Fatal:Ship hull Spec(Legion_Hegemony not Found!   I am currently using Starsector 0.9.1a-RC should I be using something different.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 24, 2019, 03:15:49 PM
It specifically says "Legion_Hegemony"? That is strange. ??? That might be a new error logging feature from the latest release pointing to the "legion_xiv" skin, because there isn't a file by that name that I know of in the mod or the standard game.

But to answer your question the mod hasn't officially been updated for 0.91a-RC and so probably won't run with it yet. Try 0.9a and let me know if that is any better, but make sure you run that version on windows or the file merging section won't read correctly and you will get a crash.

Any other mods running?

(The update to .91a is still very much underway, but I have to review all variants and add a bunch more from all the new weapons and fighters that will also be included. That will take a bit, but hopefully will be worth the wait.)
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 24, 2019, 07:06:16 PM
So I thought I would try the mod and I am getting the following error.   Fatal:Ship hull Spec(Legion_Hegemony not Found!   I am currently using Starsector 0.9.1a-RC should I be using something different.

Ah, so the graphic is actually named "legion_hegemony.png" so that is what it may be referring to. Is that present in the graphics portion of the mod? Its present in the mod download link at least. Let me know if there is any additional info or anything else I can do, but things seem ok on this end. :(
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Rybon66 on May 25, 2019, 04:57:47 AM
Well thanks for looking into it.   The funny part is I updated just before trying the mod.    If it makes any differences the game would load and let me make all my choices and the when it was building everything it would get through about 3/4 of the bar and the give me the error.  I am going to play the game I started and then come back and give this Mod a go.   Looks fun.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on May 25, 2019, 10:50:53 AM
Well thanks for looking into it.   The funny part is I updated just before trying the mod.    If it makes any differences the game would load and let me make all my choices and the when it was building everything it would get through about 3/4 of the bar and the give me the error.  I am going to play the game I started and then come back and give this Mod a go.   Looks fun.

No worries :) I'll see if I can reproduce what you are experiencing and try and provide a fix if I can for the next update.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: marianojoey on May 25, 2019, 11:19:55 AM
I'm having the same issue. Downloaded the mod twice, just to make sure I had all the files. For me, the game crashes when reaching March 1, just as the game is about to start, after loading everything.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on May 25, 2019, 06:12:13 PM
Archean Order with .9a version of StarSector was very stable for me...
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: marianojoey on May 26, 2019, 04:13:48 AM
Sure, but there's a new version out now (0.9.1a), and Archean seems to be broken, for some people at least. The question is, if everyone using 91a is using Archean 132b, why some have no problems while others can't play no more? And if everyone really using 91a can't use Archean 132b, then the Index (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=177.0), should reflect that by changing Archean 132b to red.

In any case, I'm sure someone will figure it out soon and Morrokain will have a fix in an instant. :D
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on June 13, 2019, 03:19:15 PM
It has been slow going due to some lingering health issues, but I'm about 85% of the way done editing/improving/expanding every variant in the mod, and I will have a final number somewhere in the range of 500 when all is said and done. Also added ~3 large ballistic weapons not currently in the notes.

I will expand the notes later on, but for now focusing on getting this finally ready for a release. Keep in mind every balance change I had to make isn't documented, because that would soon become a novel nobody wants to read haha. I will keep it generalized for the most part.

This combat rebalance has been very much worth all the effort. I have had some time and I truly love what this does to balance missiles and fighters better alongside standard weapons.

Hopefully most will agree once the update is live. :D
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: ciago92 on June 13, 2019, 07:21:59 PM
Can't wait!! Thanks for all your hard work on this mod!
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: vorpal+5 on June 13, 2019, 08:49:34 PM
I guess Nexerelin and Archean Order are not compatible? That's a pity...
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: eidolad on June 14, 2019, 06:05:40 PM
I can say that my .9a game instance with Archean Order was good/unique on its own...that I didn't really notice the absence of Nex as being an issue in itself. 

For me the best parts of StarSector are in the first half...once I've got the ability to sustain colony-takeovers and capital ship building I start thinking about the next game instance/mod mix...

...though I have a certain curiosity in seeing an Interstellar Imperium formation go up against the Archean Order I do admit.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on June 19, 2019, 07:47:14 PM
No they are not for right now. I have permission to merge Nex features with Archean Order, but the Nex project (unsurprisingly) is pretty complex and it would take a huge amount of effort to merge with Archean Order. Its definitely on the list of things I want to do, but I had other things that needed to come first. Story events of some kind is one thing in particular I really want to implement soon. And a better rep system. Not fully redone, just a few additional tweaks to make it a little more intuitive to players. For one, getting a commission with some of the more xenophobic or ruthless factions should be more difficult than it currently is.

One of the number one reasons it would be difficult: we both override the starting options in complex ways.

I may try and scalpel some of the cooler Nex features out of the project and provide a custom implementation though.. I haven't quite decided yet how to best make that happen.

Thanks for the support of the mod, and I hope to bring some more content in the very near future, I just want it to be extra polished if I can help it. This is the version I'm hoping to get up on Nexus Mods.
Title: Re: [0.9a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.2b) Hotfix 3/10
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2019, 04:26:29 PM
I have some final quality assurance tests to run.. but release is imminent. Probably an hour or two.

Here are the final patch notes for this release: (Assuming no critical bugs are found of course)

Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    - Prometheus MkII
    - Atlas MkIII

    - New Skins:
       - Luddic Path Eagle
   - Luddic Path Crucible
   - Luddic Church Crucible
   - Luddic Path Rhino
   - Luddic Church Rhino
   - Luddic Church Wolverine
   - Luddic Path Enforcer
   - Luddic Church Enforcer
   - Luddic Path Hammerhead
   - Luddic Church Hammerhead
   - Luddic Path Condor
   - Luddic Path Mora
   - Luddic Church Lancer
   - Pirate Shrike
   - Hegemony Centurion

 -- New Fighters:
    - Banshee-class Interceptor
    - Sentinel-class Heavy Interceptor
    - Goliath-class Heavy Gunship

 -- New Weapons:
    - Shattercell Cannon (Small PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Shattercell Cannon (Medium PD/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Small Anti-Fighter Rocket Weapon)
    - Heavy Smokescreen Rocket Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter rocket weapon)
    - Twin Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Triple Shockwave Launcher (Medium Strike Rockets)
    - Rupture Shockwave System (Large Strike Rocket System)
    - Obliterator Cannon (Medium Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Heavy Obliterator Cannon (Large Strike/Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Burst Pulser (Medium Assault Energy Weapon)
    - Punisher Artillery System (Large Ballistic Fire Support Weapon)
    - Heavy Fissure Cannon (Large Ballistic Strike Weapon)
    - Razor Tri-Beam (Large Energy Assault Weapon)
    - Heavy Autocannon (Medium Ballistic Assault Weapon) - Original Heavy Autocannon renamed.
    - Vulcan PD Cannon (Medium Ballistic PD Weapon)
    - Heavy Vulcan PD System (Large Ballistic PD Weapon)
    - Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon) - Original Mirco Repeater renamed.
    - Dual Micro Repeater (Small Energy PD Weapon)
    - Cutlass Laser (Medium Energy PD Weapon)
    - Heavy Cutlass Laser (Large Energy PD Weapon)
    - Proximity Mine Launcher (Large Missile PD Weapon)
    - Trapdoor Mine Launcher (Large Energy PD Weapon)
    - Widow MRM Launcher (Medium Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)
    - Heavy Widow Launcher (Large Anti-Fighter Missile Weapon)
    - Tri-Railgun (Large Kinetic Ballistic Weapon)
    - Iridium Hyperdriver (Large Kinetic Ballistic Weapon)
    - Guillotine Cannon (Large High Explosive Ballistic Weapon)

 -- Market Changes:
    - Bomb Bay is no longer an available weapon in markets. It was mostly useless and was taking up valuable weapon choices when it spawned. (Now bomber only)
    - Removed slight rarity modifier of PD Cannon spawning in markets.
    - Reduced rarity modifier of Burst PD Laser spawning in markets.
    - Now over 130 different weapons- not including built in fighter versions.

 -- Faction Balance Changes:
    - Another round of dialogue polish. (So as I catch things)
    - Replaced Piranha bombers from pirate Enforcer-class destroyers with pirate Mauler heavy interceptors.
    - Adamantine Consortium will no longer deploy many Spectre interceptor drones, and will favor Banshee interceptors instead.
    - Osprey-class Light Carrier no longer autofits. Variants for each factions have been expanded to compensate. (Too many empty fighter bays in campaign fleets)
    - Zero chance for non-standard fighters (faction-equipped variants) to be found in Independent fleets and a very, very low chance in Scavenger fleets.
    - Reduced chance for Exile-class Light Carriers to spawn in Archean Order fleets.
    - Separated out Doom variants between Adamantine Consortium and Tri-Tachyon Corporation. (Tri-Tachyons shouldn't be using phasetech weapons)
    - Changed some factions so that when they pursue the player for smuggling or black market activity that they actively pursue the fleet instead of sometimes merely harrassing.
    - Changed some factions so that under certain varying circumstances when pursuing players for black market activity or contraband high rep will:
        - prevent contraband from being confiscated.
        - cause a negative impact to reputation rather than an outright attack.
    - Numerous new variants for the new skins for Luddic factions have been added to the campaign fleets.
    - Ships supplies per month is much lower, universal among tech tiers and based on hull size. (I felt it was unncessary now with monthly costs per crew filling the same role)
    - Added a huge amount of variants utilizing new weapons and fighter craft for most traditional player enemies.
    - Added new variants utilizing new weapons for major factions such as the Hegemony, Trader Guilds, Luddic Church, Adamantine Consortium and Sci-Corps.
    - Redacted now have more variants, utilize a greater variety of weaponry, and in the earliest cases are far more robust and well-armed than before.
    - Adamantine Consortium now starts hostile to the player in most game starts. They are an evil, merciless faction and should act as such. (Players can still become friendly through tribute - a.k.a bribery)

 -- Blueprint Changes:
    - Pirate Talon is now a pirate blueprint unlock instead of a base blueprint.
    - Luddic and Pirate blueprints are no longer unlocked by tiered tech blueprint sets (lowtech in particular).
    - Bomb bay is no longer a blueprint.
    - Spectre-class interceptor drones are no longer unlocked by the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Added Cobra heavy bomber and Banshee heavy interceptor to the Admantine Consortium blueprint package.
    - Apocalypse Cannon is now ultra rare instead of legendary.
    - The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now a legendary bp.
    - Goliath-class Heavy Gunship has been added as a legendary bp.

 -- Feature Enhancements/Additions:

   Cease Fire Enhancements:
     - Adamantine Consortium fleets can be more successfully negotiated with if you hire one of their officers and so know their politics.
          - New description, dialogue and possible results when negotiating Cease Fires for:
      - Archean Order
      - Adamantine Consortium
      - Pirates
       - Luddic Path
     - Bribes
      - Bribe results and descriptions are more faction specific for some factions to shed more light on how effective bribery will be for that faction's commanders.
                - Increased base chance for bribe requests over outright refusals when attempting a bribe-free Cease-Fire.
                - Pirates will have an even greater chance to ask for credits rather than fight when attempting bribe-free Cease-Fires.
      - Pirates will accept bribes and ask for bribes over fighting even when vengeful to the Player's faction.
      - Less lawful factions like the Luddic Path, Adamantine Consortium and Pirates will now give a reputation boost for successful bribes up to a certain reputation level.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Slightly increased deployment cost of Legion, Megalith, Malevolent, Tyrant, Astral, and Paragon.
 - Increased range of Rapier SRMs. (From 900 to 1200)
 - Slightly lowered max charges for Micro Blaster and reduced the amount of charges returned each recharge cycle.
 - Nova Cannon proximity blast radius is doubled, and the fuse range is doubled, but the fuse will now only trigger on missiles.
 - Increased Nova Cannon damage by 20%.
 - Increased Machine Gun damage by 25%.
 - Increased Electron Cannon damage by 33% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Pulse Laser Damage by 50% and increased range to 450. (Up from 400)
 - Increased Assault Beam damage by ~15%.
 - Increased PD Beam damage by ~40% and increased range to 350, up from 300.
 - Increased Squall SRM hitpoints by 200%, missile speed and turn rate by ~600%, and range by 200. (Was VERY underwhelming for its tier in larger battles)
 - Reduced Atropos Torpedo turn rate by 40%. (I'm hoping this reduces the chances of the AI wasting it against slower fighters like gunships)
 - Changed Ion Cannon and Heavy Ion Cannon to now have regenerating charges, but they also deal more burst damage either through faster firing or damage per shot.
 - Fissure Cannon (formerly Sunder Cannon) has increased range (500 to 600). The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Iridium Cannon has increased range. (500 to 700) The fighter variant range remains 500.
 - Scythe Cannon has decreased range. (600 to 500)
 - Assault Autocannon has increased range. (600 to 650)
 - Icer Gun has increased range. (600 to 700)
 - Lowered projectile velocity of Phalanx Cannon and Hypervelocity Driver. (They were a little too powerful and hopefully this will balance them out a bit)
 - Increased turn rate of Strike beams to help prevent the A.I from wasting them while maneuvering to evenly distribute armor damage.
 - Apocalypse Cannon is now 30 op (down from 32)
 - The Heavy Apocalypse Cannon is now an available weapon at 32 op.
 - Increased health of destroyers and frigates by ~15-20%. (Slightly better balances out the strength of cruisers' easy access to fighter bays)
 - Increased damage of Ion Pulser by ~70%.
 - Rebalanced stats and OP cost of medium ballistic line of weapons.
 - Hivemind nanite clusters now go directly for the kill rather than seeking the target's engines.
 - Slightly reduced deployment cost of Aegis cruiser.
 - Increased max flux of Aegis and Eagle cruiser by 1000.
 - Increased turn rate of Flak line of weapons, and increased their rate of fire by ~25%.
 - Removed stealth minefield from midline starfortesses and added it to the hegemony starfortresses instead of the standard mine field.
 - Reduced Trebuchet missile speed slightly to better separate it from the Harpoon in effectiveness.
 - Reduced distance for Sabot missile to enter is second stage to allow point defense more time to take it out, and reduced its hitpoints. It was too reliable before for its tier.
 - Greatly improved Thunderbolt missiles strike potential, and increased the speed of the secondary warhead. This should feel scarier than Harpoons or Sabots now, as intended.
 - General re-work of missile balance with the goal of making high tier missiles more attractive, and increasing the reliability and range of others.
 - All carriers now have a built-in hullmod increasing the replacement rate of all equipped fighter craft by 50%.
 - Large buffs to the Colossus-based Pirate and Luddic Path variants.*
 - Large rework of most of the early Redacted vessels, and many others have many more variants to give more variety to campaign fights early on.
 - Safety Overrides hullmod range reduction threshold increased to 950 from 450. (One of the primary reasons this hullmod and the Luddic Path were suboptimal).
 - Luddic Conversion hullmod now allows for more flux and dissipation for its benefits.
 - General re-work of Large Ballistic weapons now that several more have been added. Most notably, a large buff to the Excalibur Cannon.

 -- Overhauled flux costs of the entire rocket line of weapons:
     - Reduced flux cost of Shockstorm rockets per salvo by 50%, increased max rockets for medium variant, and increased rocket speed and range slightly. (Large buff overall)
     - Increased flux cost of Annihilator rockets (small variant) by 25%, but flux costs for medium variant reduced to match flux per rocket of the small variant.
     - Annihilator rockets (small variant) now gets 4 rockets back on reload (was 2) though reload time per rocket (DPS) remains roughly the same.
     - Reduced flux cost of Javelin rockets by 25%, and reduced their flight speed.
     - Reduced flux cost of Fury Rocket System and Hailstone rockets by 33%.

 -- Overhauled Fighter Combat Layer --    
 -- Not all of the individual changes will be documented. Here are some general points:
     - Now over 60 different fighter wings.
     - All fighters now have limited ammunition which gives them a specific combat time before some kind of rearmament is required.
     - Rearmament design-wise is intended to give ships a window of recovery between strikes and reduce fighter swarming in favor of assault wave behavior.
     - Rearmament stats are unique to each individual fighter weapon, though some general rules apply:
     - Magazines of fighter weapons only last around 5 seconds of active combat time.
          - Non-missile weapons will reload their magazines in a set amount of time, typically 12-20 seconds depending on the the fighter role. (AI can't handle finite ammo)
     - Missile weapons almost always require redocking with the carrier, and often have even more limited ammunition than non-missile fighter weapons.
     - Fighters, gunhsips and interceptors that use finite missiles will usually redock with the carrier immediately, or soon after they have used them all.
     - Mostly removed the use of flares in midtech and low tech fighters, gunships and bombers. Only the highest tiered craft will use them.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to other fighters, making interceptors and anti-fighter roles a serious threat to unescorted bombers and gunships.
     - Fighters now deal 200% additional damage to ship hardpoints (weapons and engines), up from 150%.
     - Balance pass on most fighter replacement rates. Some have increased rates, some have decreased rates depending on balance adjustments. As a soft rule, however:
          - Bombers have increased replacement times. (They also tend to have the highest strike impulse)
          - Gunships have been moved to closely match Bombers in their replacement times. (They also tend to have the longest active combat times and largest magazines)
          - Fighters have slightly reduced replacement times. (They have various specialized roles)
          - Interceptors have moderately reduced replacement times. (They are powerful bomber/gunship killers, and important escorts for your own fighter/bomber/gunship strike groups)
     - Removed Fighter Systems hullmod's effect on weapons in favor of fighter-specialized weapons. Fighter weapons are now less effective against ships.
     - Though still present for descriptive flavor, Limited Range Finders hullmod on fighters doesn't actually do anything. Range is handled through fighter weapons.
     - Reduced health and shields of high tech gunships and bombers and some midline and low tech gunships and bombers.
     - Reduced general health of the higher tiered fighters, and any fighters that use shields have much lower flux dissipation to make PD beams more effective against them.
     - Rebalanced OP cost around new fighter craft additions that were added in some of the more recent updates.
     - Reduced OP cost and efficiency of some pirate fighters even further, while balancing other weaker ones to make them useful to the player in some circumstances.
     - Many low tech fighters, bombers, gunships and interceptors now have proper OP costs considering their combat effectiveness.
     - OP to Power ratio when scrolling up and down the "equip fighter wheel" on the refit screen should now make more intuitive sense.
     - All fighter weapons are now added to the codex with a basic description of how fighter weapons differ from standard ship weapons as well as hard weapon stats.
     - Balance pass on fighter crew requirements and costs. General increase in crew required for gunships and bombers, scaling better with size.
     - Balance pass on fighter mass. (Doesn't make too much a difference but documented anyway just in case).
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Corrected issue with Cease Fire requests not working on patrols who are attacking you from smuggling or black market activity.
 - Fixed issue with overspawning faction-specific fighters in Independent and Scavenger fleets.
 - Corrected Pirate Talon bug with base blueprints.
 - Devastator Cannon should now properly hit ships along certain angles of fire that caused the proximity fuse behavior to trigger early.
 - The Nova Cannon should now effectively hit ships at all times, making it more in line with the intended dual assault/pd role.
 - Removed accidental chance for Fighter-class Light Pulse Laser to spawn in campaign markets or loot.
 - Added a description to the Archean Order station's heavy anti-capital weapon in the codex.
 - Hopefully resolved issues with Hailstone Rockets and Fury Rocket System sometimes causing the flameout slingshot behavior on ships.
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium Condor skin to no longer change its medium missile mount to energy.
 - All fighter wing descriptions should have the brief summary portion that describes their role.
 - Fixed merge issue with Helmsmanship skill stacking on top of the original version.
 - Correct equip-screen description of Militarized Subsystems to better reflect what downsides it removes from civilian hulls.
 - Hivemind nanite clusters now effectively hit ships at all angles.
 - Corrected Simple Core System's description.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Due to storage space, versions lower than v1.2.1b are no longer downloadable, though their patch notes will remain documented.
 - Sunder Cannon has been renamed to Fissure Cannon to avoid confusion with the Sunder-class destroyer. XD Must have been in a hurry on that one lol.
 - Round of polish on the Heavy Apocalypse Cannon's sprite.
 - The Heavy Autocannon has been renamed to the Heavy Dual Autocannon.
 - Slight round of polish on the Velocity Cannon sprite.
 - Micro Repeater has been renamed to Micro Blaster because the original name felt better for a PD weapon and this was more of a strike weapon.
 - Guardian PD System has been renamed Paladin PD System to match unmodded Starsector since the weapons share similar roles.

-----
[close]

However, since these notes are so massive... I'll provide a quick basic summary.

1) Major rebalance of combat in the sense that this should bring missiles, fighters, and pure combat ships more closely aligned with one another. Previously fighters dominated the battlespace.
2) Lots of enhancements to the bribery mechanic including reputation increases for some factions as a result of successful bribes. More custom dialogue for factions as well.
3) A massive amount of new content in the form of new weapons, fighters, custom ship paintjobs and a much, much larger variety of enemy variants to face. (Over 700)
4) Easier access to blueprints (hopefully... found a bug there I think)
5) A more balanced experience with beginning enemies that will better challenge the player during exploration as well as bounty hunting.
6) A more powerful and well equipped Luddic Church and Luddic Path.

EDIT*

Seems good on the older system. No immediate crashes when starting a campaign. Lets give this a go. :)

Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d9uv2cuu78g0dwj/AAAGA0bQHj1VHJ71DcGJyb8Ia?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d9uv2cuu78g0dwj/AAAGA0bQHj1VHJ71DcGJyb8Ia?dl=0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: eidolad on July 19, 2019, 12:16:35 PM
0.9.1a compatible?  let's give this a spin...
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on July 19, 2019, 03:07:16 PM
0.9.1a compatible?  let's give this a spin...

Yes 0.9.1a compatible :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on July 19, 2019, 03:54:15 PM
Feedback inquiry for those inclined:

1) Are fighters too weak now, or do they still feel good in the right situations?

2) PD should be far more accessible than the last update. Does this hold true and is multi-purpose outfitting accessible? How does weapon variety feel now between factions?

3) How do early enemies feel compared to early fleet strength? (Mostly this includes pirates and early game REDACTED - Luddic Path should now be second tier, and Adamantine Consortium third tier)

4) You can now bribe pirates as a faction into being friendly to you. Does this break the campaign ever, and if so- in what ways? (PM me if there are spoilers you'd rather not share)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: NoFoodAfterMidnight on August 04, 2019, 06:03:13 PM
So I've been using the mod for a bit now, are ship prices supposed to be this cheap? It feels REALLY easy to get your hands on a significant fleet compared to vanilla.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 04, 2019, 06:48:50 PM
I haven't really looked at ship prices in a while, so they are probably back from ohhh maybe .65?

It may be time to re-evaluate the price progression.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Moose on August 06, 2019, 04:44:01 AM
Hi, having trouble with trade missions as whenever i accept one i can no longer buy anything other than weapons at planets and stations, and no one hails me to receive the goods. Any thoughts?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Saval on August 08, 2019, 02:45:06 AM
Hey, running the mod on an i5 6500 and an rx480 I've had a quite fun experience at first, but after battles became max size I experienced significant fps drop.
Fighter heavy battles bring my fps down to lower than 20 unfortunately.
All things considered the new features are pretty fun, except I joined the order for galaxy domination but couldn't really immerse myself into it, it was just a lot of killing other factions with overpowered ships. The new archeon ships are far too strong compared to the other ones: After my first capital, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, the big high tech carrier and some smaller vessels the game was a piece of cake. Slicing through fleets and battlestations like a hot knife through butter.

Upside: New factions, dialogue, fighter heavy playstyle
Downsides: fighter heavy battles bring down fps, ships too easy to acquire  and archean are also op
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Ahoy on August 08, 2019, 06:04:09 PM
Question, are the 15 extra markets removed? I don't see the extra goods in my game.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2019, 08:31:03 AM
Hi, having trouble with trade missions as whenever i accept one i can no longer buy anything other than weapons at planets and stations, and no one hails me to receive the goods. Any thoughts?

Strange I'll try and reproduce this. What happens to the other commodities such as fuel? Do they disappear or just are no longer purchase-able?

Upside: New factions, dialogue, fighter heavy playstyle
Downsides: fighter heavy battles bring down fps, ships too easy to acquire  and archean are also op

Thanks for the feedback! :) Glad you are mostly having fun, but as far as your concerns go what would you say is the root cause of your fleet feeling too powerful? Weapons on the ships or the ships stats themselves? The reason I ask is because each one would take a different approach when re-balancing them.

Or is it simply pure accessibility? I will say I am planning on making a commission with the Archean Order more difficult in the future by requiring the player to complete difficult quests first. Adamantine Consortium is already significantly more difficult since they start hostile now.

Another possible solution could be to adjust the rarity modifier of the bigger Archean ships. That won't prevent them from being salvageable though.

There will be a general increase in ship prices in the next release.

Question, are the 15 extra markets removed? I don't see the extra goods in my game.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by extra markets and goods. Do you mean faction markets that are unique to this mod? They should all still be functioning as normal. Was something like this added in the last Starsector update and I missed it?

If this is a spoiler feel free to PM me more details on the issue :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2019, 10:00:29 AM
Hi, having trouble with trade missions as whenever i accept one i can no longer buy anything other than weapons at planets and stations, and no one hails me to receive the goods. Any thoughts?
Strange I'll try and reproduce this. What happens to the other commodities such as fuel? Do they disappear or just are no longer purchase-able?

I tried both bar trade missions and intel trade missions and they seem to be fine on my end. I can see and purchase other commodities while accepting them, and the dialogue to turn them in populates as expected when docking with the planet or station.

In the case of bar missions, the dialogue and reward is generated immediately along with the market description text. For intel missions, it populates with an npc. Black market missions that require transponder off trade also appeared to work.

I did not, however, get to try every faction yet. Were these missions from the new factions? I'll keep trying to reproduce it in the meantime.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Ahoy on August 09, 2019, 10:21:25 AM
Question, are the 15 extra markets removed? I don't see the extra goods in my game.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by extra markets and goods. Do you mean faction markets that are unique to this mod? They should all still be functioning as normal. Was something like this added in the last Starsector update and I missed it?

If this is a spoiler feel free to PM me more details on the issue :)

Within your "Screenshots and Gifs" section - Factions - you have a new item/good called Hand-Weapons listed within the illegal commodities for some factions like the Sci-Fi Corps as shown here.
Sci-Fi Corps
(https://i.imgur.com/OwTbg7z.png)
[close]
In my game, I don't have that listed in the illegal commodities nor can I find it. Also, for the Consortium, they have food as a illegal commodity - is that normal? 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2019, 12:54:14 PM
Within your "Screenshots and Gifs" section - Factions - you have a new item/good called Hand-Weapons listed within the illegal commodities for some factions like the Sci-Fi Corps as shown here.
Sci-Fi Corps
(https://i.imgur.com/OwTbg7z.png)
[close]
In my game, I don't have that listed in the illegal commodities nor can I find it. Also, for the Consortium, they have food as a illegal commodity - is that normal?

On the last question, yes that is normal. The Barons hold their territory and slaves with an iron fist. They therefore seek to control the flow of all commodities to their markets. Carrying food especially (to possibly use as a way to provoke a rebellion) is considered a high crime in their politics, and that is assuming you can get on their good side in the first place. As of this update I think the only way is continual bribery. I may also include domestic goods in the illegal goods category some time in the future.

On the Hand Weapons in the picture, those are a little dated from a few releases ago at this point. :-[ I need to update them. I believe that particular item is a carry-over from before that item became.. .errrr... "Heavy Weapons" I think?

That is probably the inconsistencies you are seeing. Heavy Weapons should now take that item's place and have a different icon picture.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Ahoy on August 09, 2019, 01:46:44 PM
Within your "Screenshots and Gifs" section - Factions - you have a new item/good called Hand-Weapons listed within the illegal commodities for some factions like the Sci-Fi Corps as shown here.
Sci-Fi Corps
(https://i.imgur.com/OwTbg7z.png)
[close]
In my game, I don't have that listed in the illegal commodities nor can I find it. Also, for the Consortium, they have food as a illegal commodity - is that normal?

On the last question, yes that is normal. The Barons hold their territory and slaves with an iron fist. They therefore seek to control the flow of all commodities to their markets. Carrying food especially (to possibly use as a way to provoke a rebellion) is considered a high crime in their politics, and that is assuming you can get on their good side in the first place. As of this update I think the only way is continual bribery. I may also include domestic goods in the illegal goods category some time in the future.

On the Hand Weapons in the picture, those are a little dated from a few releases ago at this point. :-[ I need to update them. I believe that particular item is a carry-over from before that item became.. .errrr... "Heavy Weapons" I think?

That is probably the inconsistencies you are seeing. Heavy Weapons should now take that item's place and have a different icon picture.

Cool, cool. So, are there any new added trade-able goods?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2019, 02:01:49 PM
^ Not as of yet, but there are plans for them. Maybe alongside missions? (target of the next update)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Ahoy on August 09, 2019, 02:08:57 PM
^ Not as of yet, but there are plans for them. Maybe alongside missions? (target of the next update)
Nice. Also, while this may not be the right thread to ask, how can I select two different mods? Every-time I try to select one mod then the other mod is unchecked. 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2019, 02:20:10 PM
^ Go to the mod_info file located in the mod directory root and set:   "totalConversion":"true",     to:     "totalConversion":"false",

Keep in mind that as a total conversion which reworks combat stats so heavily this mod is not compatible with the majority of other mods (Including Nex, sorry! Possibly compatibility may come later, or at least similar features, but that is further down the dev road.)

Utility mods are usually compatible, though. If you like, you can give me the list of mods you want to use alongside this one and I can tell you if I've heard of other players using those alongside this one running into any problems.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Ahoy on August 09, 2019, 08:21:57 PM
^ Go to the mod_info file located in the mod directory root and set:   "totalConversion":"true",     to:     "totalConversion":"false",

Keep in mind that as a total conversion which reworks combat stats so heavily this mod is not compatible with the majority of other mods (Including Nex, sorry! Possibly compatibility may come later, or at least similar features, but that is further down the dev road.)

Utility mods are usually compatible, though. If you like, you can give me the list of mods you want to use alongside this one and I can tell you if I've heard of other players using those alongside this one running into any problems.
Well, Starship Legends for now.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2019, 09:12:17 PM
^ Should be fine. Let me know if otherwise.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: JenkoRun on August 15, 2019, 11:42:12 AM
Hi, new here. Can you completely destroy other factions with Archean like in other mods? Thanks.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 15, 2019, 02:05:36 PM
Hi and welcome!  :)

Unfortunately no. Though I do have an endgame planned, I'm not sure if completely eradicating factions will be a part of that or not. I am planning a size-able narrative and having such a dynamic sector completely driven by the player would severely complicate that process. That doesn't mean that decisions made by the player within the framework of the narrative wouldn't have similar consequences to colonies or maybe even factions, but I want it to be through that medium rather than simply giving the player the freedom to blow up whomever they choose whenever they choose. ;)

After the story is finished there might be more things along those lines, but even then if I went that route I would have to code around it in the future, so it is a decision I am making with care.

It seems to be an in-demand feature, however, since you are not the first to bring it up lol. That may eventually force my hand so to speak. We will see.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Salv on August 16, 2019, 08:51:50 AM
Hey. I really dig the changes you made to fighters. Smaller size makes them blend into the background of the battle more, which i like for smallcraft. A question though. Did the changes to weapon size also affect the particle effects? They seem kind of smaller.

Also, I know there is a separate section for questions regarding modding, but pardon me if I ask how you go about resizing weapon sprites? I just started modding and I haven't started dealing with the sprites yet. If i were to start it would be with this. I know how to do that for ships, but not for weapons.

Thanks.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 16, 2019, 10:15:25 AM
^ Hi glad you are enjoying the mod. No worries on the modding questions I don't mind. :)

The particles are indeed typically resized for fighter weapons, though not in all cases. Mostly in the ones that would be more noticeable. On the technical side: they are separate weapon files from the ship-based ones so they can have separate projectile files as well, or in the case of beams I can just make the particles smaller in the weapon file itself.

As a side note, I think they may be slightly reduced in size by default as well. It at least certainly seems that way for missiles and torpedoes.

As far as the weapon sprites getting shrunk down.. I wish there was an easy answer here- such as simply putting the weapon sprite components in paint and reducing image size by 50% or something - but they are actually all custom drawn (I use paint.net) and kitbashed from existing weapons. Reducing size often makes the image quite blurry.

What I do:

I spend some time looking at the weapon I want to shrink to see what detail would be impossible to reproduce in a smaller form (so I know to ignore it when kitbashing or paint over it) then try and get a good idea of the weapon sprite's "shell" and basic features. At that point if I can use bits of the original weapon for kitbashing I do. Sometimes I take 15 or more tiny pieces to create the form and then blend/erase them using colors taken from the original until it looks right. Sometimes it just takes 2 or 3 pieces.

There are also instances where I had a small version of the weapon that fits the medium weapon size well enough to use that sprite. Its different case by case.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Salv on August 16, 2019, 12:45:53 PM
I see. So I assume that after you had made the sprites you had to readjust the all weapon files, muzzle flashes and all. Darn, that's a lot of work. Anyway, thank you for the answer and the mod  :).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 16, 2019, 03:18:12 PM
No problem, the interest is appreciated. Good luck on your future modding and if you have other questions feel free to ask.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Rutaki on August 17, 2019, 10:16:03 AM
Hi, sorry if this question has already been asked previously, I would like to know if you intend to do a non-Total Conversion separate version of the mod? Having compatibility with faction mods, Nexerelin and all that
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 17, 2019, 02:12:44 PM
^ Hi there. I've actually thought about it a lot. Its not something I would never do, but it would be a substantial amount of work to balance for vanilla and the other faction mods. Months if not years. I would have to completely rework the sprites, ship stats, weapons and fighters and then support both. The names of many ships and weapons would also have to change to prevent inter-mod naming conflicts.

What would be more likely in the future would be to separate out certain easier-to-manage features (such as fleet dialogue) in stand-alone utility mods, and for the Archean Order mod I will either merge in Nex features to the standard download or create similar ones of my own design.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Rutaki on August 17, 2019, 07:59:23 PM
Sad, but thanks for the clarification, anyway you really did a excellent mod, keep it up :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Moose on August 18, 2019, 05:56:02 AM
Hi, having trouble with trade missions as whenever i accept one i can no longer buy anything other than weapons at planets and stations, and no one hails me to receive the goods. Any thoughts?

Strange I'll try and reproduce this. What happens to the other commodities such as fuel? Do they disappear or just are no longer purchase-able?

it doesn't disappear in my inventory, just in the store.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 18, 2019, 11:32:20 AM
Sad, but thanks for the clarification, anyway you really did a excellent mod, keep it up :)

Thanks will do! :)

it doesn't disappear in my inventory, just in the store.

Hmm gotcha. Very strange. Well, I haven't been able to reproduce that issue yet, I'm sorry. It seems to work fine for me. :(

Sorry for the string of additional questions, but without being able to reproduce it I need to narrow it down further.

So, this only occurs after you have selected a trade mission in particular? It doesn't occur on bounties or other kinds of bar missions? Do the items disappear after the mission is accepted the next time you visit the market? Or is it just never replenished after it is bought?

Couple other things to help troubleshoot:

1) Any other mods installed?

2) What operating system are you using?

3) Are you on the latest version of Starsector: 0.9.1a?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on August 20, 2019, 01:55:24 PM
So the next minor update (which should be fairly soon) will mostly involve a lot of clean up and polishing/expanding/finishing existing features to catch up on some accumulated tech debt. It shouldn't break saves.

It may also include a test campaign mission or two, but it will mostly just be setting the stage for all of that for the next major update- 1.3.4. Though I will certainly squeeze in a bit of new content, 1.3.4 will be mostly a lore and campaign feature update. I just finished up a new rule command which allows me to manipulate all factions' reputation with each other using rules. This has a lot of impact on the campaign for 1.3.3a:
---
1) I have already included some situations that use this to lock away some of the higher quality ships and weapons by heavily punishing the player's reputation with that faction.

2) This also means accepting a commission to get brief access to military markets and then canceling the commission won't just give you a reputation hit. In some causes it will completely eradicate the good relationship with that faction or even make them hostile.

3) Rescuing an Adamantine Consortium officer instead of buying off the barons will have more severe and permanent impact to the player's reputation (in other words, it will reset all the gains they may have had by bribing dreadlord commanders.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: marcelin23cm on September 03, 2019, 06:51:58 PM
So hey I completely loved the mod but I have one question do you have plans to make a similar mod to the "console command mod" anytime soon? I kinda wished I had some of the resources I have on my main save and skip foward the boring things I have to do at the start of the game, namely all the small exploration quests to earn a living. Thanks man, waiting.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 04, 2019, 09:58:19 AM
If you go to the mod_info file located in the mod directory root and set:   "totalConversion":"true",     to:     "totalConversion":"false"

- you can install Console Commands and that mod works with Archean Order (unless something has changed recently). I used it to test blueprints and make sure they actually contained the correct hulls and weapons.

When I release the next update I am going to spend some time updating the main page too. One of the things I am going to try and add is a "Recommended and Verified Utility Mods" section that will list some mods that don't have issues with the TC but can enrich the experience with Archean Order. There are actually quite a few utility/feature mods that are compatible.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Daynen on September 08, 2019, 04:41:32 AM
Loving the mod overall.  Lots of options, lots of niches filled, lots more need for specialization AND generalist ships.  Good stuff.  Fighters don't completely suck, lots of weapons are far more usable, fair AND fun and the diversity in factions means choices kinda matter now.  Thumbs up.  I gotta ask though:

WHAT THE F#*^ IS WITH THOSE REMNANTS?  Their FRIGATES have better shields than most CAPITAL SHIPS!  I load up, for example, an atlas mkII with rapiers, firestorms and hammer barrages and unload on their destroyers...and the volley gets their flux up to about HALF.  I can alpha strike a CONQUEST with a volley like that!  I can 1v1 a PARAGON with similarly armed ships!  Remnants just go "meh, no big deal."  Also their awareness feels downright cheaty.  Jumped into a nascent well thinking "ok this is nowhere NEAR any jump points so I should be able to safely have a look and burn off if they see me...right?"

Wrong.

Three armadas right on top of me.  Couldn't even emergency burn before they made contact.  It was ugly.  Over a dozen ships, easily 3 million credits worth of highly tuned, heavily armed capitals, cruisers and escorts just ground into paste like they were unarmed cargo ships.  Just...holy crap.  I'mma have to bring like 20 megaliths loaded with apocalypse cannons or something because those things are a half step away from unbreakable, man.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 08, 2019, 12:38:03 PM
Hi welcome to the forums and thanks for the feedback! I'm very glad you are having fun. :)

Regarding your concerns:
- That faction is the biggest threat (tier 4) to the player right now (another one is planned) and designed to be extremely dangerous as the lore suggests. In that sense, I really want to keep them very scary, but I'll take a very close look and make sure they aren't completely unbeatable or so difficult as to force a certain tech or faction choice. Especially since the next Starsector update will let players pilot them under special circumstances. This is really a very good time to look at that anyway since I'm already working on fine tuning faction balance. More details on that below.

-As far as getting jumped from the nascent well, that is entirely a Vanilla thing and may very likely have been bad luck rather than those fleets being aware that you were there. I'm not completely sure how that works to be honest. I know jump points should give you a warning if hostile fleets are nearby, but I'm not sure about nascent wells.

My advice:
- In this current release Archean Order ships like the Revenant-class heavy cruiser and Megalith-class dreadnought are probably your best bet because they are far too strong right now lol. Enjoy that while it lasts, however, because there are substantial changes coming to that faction.

------------------------
------------------------
The next planned update has, among other things like campaign progression changes, also inadvertently turned into a major balance pass across several areas of the mod. This is partly tech debt from the introduction of so many new weapons, fighters and hull paintjob/stat variations in the last release, but it is also partly in response to the trials and tests of the new Random Faction Battle mission in the Missions portion of the mod outside the campaign.

Battles inside the campaign have a lot more variables (such as officers, randomized weapons, and extra D-mods) so it can be harder to test balance. This mission boils it down to just the factions ships and their designed variants- with the caveat that deployment cost is still based on fleet points in missions for some reason instead of supplies to deploy, and skin files that change fleet point values to increase deployment costs aren't taken into consideration. Anywhoo, that new mission along with player feedback has given me a lot of insight into a few problem areas that I am hoping to correct:

*Edit*
Spoiler
Factions
- Archean Order ships and weapons are too strong, especially in the player's hands. This is partly from stats, and partly from an underestimation of how powerful range actually is in Starsector.
- Hegemony legion vessels have way too high of a deployment cost in comparison to high tech ships.
- The Luddic Church is still much weaker than I want it to be.

*Edit* (Whoops, added too many to the list here. I don't want to be counter-intuitive to the tactics manual, and need to make a note to update the status of the Luddic Church as a primary military faction there.)
- Tri-Tachyon, Hegemony, Archean Order, Persean League, Adamantine Consortium, Luddic Church and Lion's Guard should all feel roughly similar in terms of combat effectiveness (not ship to ship but overall fleet to fleet) in campaign patrols, yet they don't. I want to do my best to make the choice of *primary military* faction commissions to be based on flavor, lore and play style rather than which one is the strongest as far as ships and weapons go. (Clarification of this point) This doesn't mean each faction will get access to the same weapons and tech of course. Its more that militarily each primary faction will have a specific strategy that is mostly effective relative to numerical superiority and fleet composition- meaning that it is certainly not a hard-and-fast rule since certain variants counter each other with various degrees of severity and fleet composition and tactics matter a great deal. It is more that I don't want any primary faction to feel easy to beat in a fair fight.
-To clarify commission balance in non-military prioritized factions: Trader Guilds will eventually give the player financial/commodity-based reasons to chose them as a commission even though they aren't a primary military faction, and Sci-Corps will have similar benefits even though militarily they are slightly less well-armed. Pirates, Luddic Path, Independents, Scavengers, Sindrian Diktat and REDACTED all keep their various threat tiers to the player and neighboring enemies.
*/Edit*

Weapons
- Non-missile Fire Support weapons have for the most part had their range reduced. They are a little too hard to counter sometimes- for the AI in particular.
- Beams supported with the Advanced Optics will be the longest ranging weapons besides missiles. The Tachyon Lance will have half the range but recharges 50% faster.
- Projectile-based Energy weapons have had their damage increased almost across the board. Things like the Thermal Cannon and Obliterator Cannon are currently a little too weak for their OP compared to ballistic equivalents.
- I'm planning on increasing the chance for rockets and torpedoes to get through pd. Long range missiles feel pretty good, however.
[close]

-----
That is the short version, anyway. Full details are in the notes.

I'm not exactly sure when the next update will be ready, but it shouldn't be too much longer. I'm planning on doing a few more things first. I just wanted to get these notes/changes out there in case anyone had opinions on them.

Notes So Far (Long):
Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 -- New Ships:
    - Justicar-class cruiser (new Archean Order cruiser due to Revenant-class changes)

 -- Market Changes:
    - Significantly increased the cost of ships across the board to better match unmodded starsector.
    - Adamantine Consortium: Friendly market theme now only contains one music track instead of two. They had (imo) conflicting vibes to them and I'm saving the other one for something special lore-wise.
    - Smuggling at Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order markets now has more serious consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Resigning a comission with Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order now has more severe consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Rescuing an Adamantine Consortium officer or administrator now has a major impact to the player's reputation with the barons.

 -- Faction Changes:
    - Added custom dialogue for comissions for all new factions.
    - Added two extra variants to the Odyssey battlecruiser for the Sci-Corps.
    - Added three extra variants to the Revenant battlecruiser for the Archean Order.
    - Changed Tri-Tachyon fleet composition- they should hopefully now contain more destroyers and cruisers instead of merely large numbers of frigates supporting capitals.
    - Added default variants to the Lion's Guard faction from designed variants from .8
    - Removed chance for Acolyte-class frigate to be found in Adamantine Consortium dreadfleets.
    - Increased the presence of Elite Mercenary variants in Trader Guild fleets.
    - Added more variants for the Vigilance, Drover and Hammerhead for Lions Guard, Trader Guilds and Persean League fleets.

 -- Missions:
    - Added a Random Faction Battle Mission that pits the player against a random faction's fleets. Player factions have around a 50% less chance to generate capital ships in their support fleets to increase overall difficulty.

 -- Feature Enhancements/Additions:

   Cease Fire Changes/Additions:
     - Doubled the credit cost of the standard bribe.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Plasma Jets ship system regenerates a charge far less often and has an increased cooldown between uses.
 - Increased hitpoints of Shockwave Rockets.
 - Reduced OP cost of Interdiction Drones by 1 OP point, reduced refit time by a few seconds (Made it a more thrifty option than pirate Broadswords which perform the same role but slightly better)
 - Tachyon Lance now fires about 50% faster, but has half the range (2500 from 5000) and costs more flux to fire. Damage per second overall has increased but strike damage remains the same. (Was by far the most powerful 32 OP weapon- especially in a player's hands)
 - Razor Tri-Beam damage per second has been increased.
 - Slightly reduced Phase Beam damage per second.
 - Increased Heavy PD Burst Laser and Paladin PD System's damage.
 - Almost all non-missile Fire Support weapons, including the Ion Beam, have reduced range, some have reduced flux cost to compensate. See Archean Order notes in particular further down this section.
 - Fury and Hailstorm rockets have less effective range.
 - Beams with advanced optics are now the longest range non-missile weapon.
 - Rebalanced most Projectile-based Assault, PD and Strike weapons above small:
     - Obliterator Cannon now deals significantly more damage, fires at regular intervals, and costs less flux per shot to better match its heavy assault role.
     - Heavy Obliterator Cannon now deals more damage per shot.
     - Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon have increased damage per shot. Firing rate remains the same. Thermal Cannon now deals slightly more damage per second than Thermal Pulser and has increased strike potential.
     - Increased Cutlass Laser and Heavy Cutlass Laser damage per shot.
     - Plasma Cannon deals more damage per second, has increased strike damage per salvo, and has longer range. Costs more flux to fire.
     - Antimatter Blaster charges up more quickly and can fire charges more often. More flux to fire, but extra charge regeneration has also increased dps considerably.
 - Rebalanced entire line of Archean Order energy weapons:
     - Reduced Void Driver damage per shot slightly.
     - Increased Phase Cannon damage but reduced its range. Now costs minor flux to fire.
     - Eclipse Cannon now has less range but increased damage per shot (increased anti-armor effectiveness).
     - Apocalypse Cannon Ordinance Point cost reduced to 28, range reduced by about half, increased damage and reduced flux cost to fire.
     - Heavy Apocalypse Cannon range reduced by about half, significantly increased damage and reduced flux cost to fire.
 - Reduced negative impact of Luddic Conversion hullmod on Luddic Church ships and reduced those ships deployment cost. Now improves handling rather than reducing it. (Luddic Church vessels still needed improvement)
 - Reduced the penalty of increased deployment cost for Hegemony 14th Legion vessels. Armor now calculates as a percentage increase that varies with hull size instead of a flat increase.
 - Reduced the deployment cost reduction benefit associated with Simple Core Systems hullmod.

-- Ship Changes:
 - Megalith-class Dreadnought:
     - 100 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Greatly reduced flux dissipation.
     - More effective shield resilience.
     - Increased shield radius. (Larger target)
     - Increased crew and fuel requirements.
     - Increased max crew storage.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Revenant-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Redesignated and redesigned as a Light Battlecruiser.
     - All stats reworked.
     - Added built-in Phase Field.
     - Replaced built-in Advanced Targeting Core with Dedicated Targeting Core.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 5 more.
 - Templar-class (Archean) Heavy Destroyer:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Paragon-class Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
 - Onslaught-class (XIV) Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Dedicated Targeting Core with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - Removed core stress hullmod and merged effects with XIV Legion hullmod.
     - Has a much lower deployment cost over the last update (down to ~28 from 34)
 - Acolyte-class Heavy Frigate:
     - 20 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 2000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation by 140.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Neophyte-class Frigate:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 1000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 1 more.
 - Exile-class Light Carrier:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Reduced max speed by 50% (Still faster than the Vigilance-class).
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Increased shield resilience.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Wolf-class (Arc) Frigate:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 3 more.
 - Aurora-class Cruiser:
     - Increased flux dissipation.
     - Increased armor.
     - Slightly more effective shield resilience.
 - Eagle-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Slightly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Dominator-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Increased armor.
 - Pillager-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Malevolent-class Dreadcarrier:
     - Costs 3 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Sprite re-work/polish.
 - Tyrant-class Phase Battleship:
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Reduced armor.
     - Reduced hull.
 - Legion-class Battlecarrier:
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Conquest-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 2 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Executor-class Battlecarrier:
     - Costs 4 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Havok-class Heavy Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Heron-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Mora-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 less point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Tempest-class Heavy Frigate:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Shrike-class Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced max speed.
 - Spectre-class Interceptor Drone:
     - Reduced hull and armor.
     - Increased replacement time.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Added Carrier Bays built-in hullmod to Epiphany, Exile, Executor, Drover, Medusa, and Osprey as intended.
 - Corrected Megalith description to better reflect its combat role and power, as well as its lore compared to campaign realism.
 - Fixed and expanded station descrtiptions in the industry layer - to give players a concise tactical reason to choose a station based on playstyle and faction choice.
 - Corrected the names of ranks and posts for administrative staff and ground military for new factions.
 - Corrected outdated reputation relationship descriptions for Adamantine Consortium in the intel window from when the faction started neutral to the player.
 - Fixed situations where a player with their transponder off who was stopped by an Archean Order patrol was attacked even though they had high reputation.
 - Fixed situations where a player with A.I cores would have them confiscated even after complying and turning their transponder on and having high reputation with the Archean Order.
 - Corrected some drones need of crew due to missing values in the spreadsheet instead of 0s.
 - Added Fleet Paragon variant to the Tri-Tachyon Corporation fleets as intended.
 - Removed possible- though highly unlikely- case where the defective Falcon variant was used instead of the Pirate Falcon skin that has a large hardpoint.
 - Corrected crew requirements for Tyrant-class battleship.
 - Changed Iridium Hyperdriver to target fighters when no better targets are available.
 - Fixed issue with Guillotine Cannon firing at fighters too often. (Strike tag was on the wrong weapon)
 - Corrected situations
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished the Guillotine Cannon recoil sprite to better differentiate it from the Heavy Cutlass Laser.
 - Continued dialogue polish.
 - Reduced Rules.csv inefficiency for the new fleet dialogue features. (Removed some absurdly large score weights, cleaned up RT directory organization, etc).
 - Improved Commodity Request script (more efficient- includes adjustments for all factions for non-upfront bribe calculations).
 - Adjusted all variants utilizing OP adjusted weapons.
 - Slight round of polish on the Punisher Artillery Cannon sprite.
 - Round of polish on the Obliterator Cannon hardpoint sprite.
 - Reduced sound level of Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon and heavily reduced sound of the Fighter variant.
 - Removed use of ASSAULT Fighter AI tag since it has been deprecated. Replaced with FIGHTER tag.
 - Corrected the descriptions of hullmod changes and made sure to include all effects in the description. (couple outliers there)
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Daynen on September 16, 2019, 03:28:31 AM
OKAY! So!  After a little more time and trial and error, I figured out the problem.  Their destroyers have an absolutely incredible damage to flux ratio...aaaaaaaand fleet AI is generally stupid when not specifically ordered around.  My missile ships were shoving their way to the front while my bulwarks were just chilling at fire support range.  Even had the right officers for them.  Probably just Vanilla coding.  Anyway once the destroyers shields overload they pop like balloons.  Apparently I just got hit by the mother of all ambushes back there so...I guess your mileage may vary.

Now though?  I have a new love: the Tyrant.  A PHASE BATTLESHIP is absolute madness and the hardpoints allow for alpha strike potential like the galaxy has never seen.  It's the beefiest backstabber in the sector.  On a related note, you seem to have felt the same way about Tachyon Lances as I do: they were underwhelming.  Yours, however, are GODLIKE.  The range, the destructive power and the SOUND--my god that SOUND.  You feel that thunder in your BONES, man.  It's especially awesome when you hear one go off while phasing.  I F*$&ING LOVE IT.  On a good day my flagship leaves graveyards behind.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 17, 2019, 12:37:17 PM
Hey thanks! :)

Yeah I got pretty lucky with that sound effect, for sure! I tried to make sure all the highest tier weapons sound... meaty? heavy? powerful? Kind of hard to put my finger on it but they should sound scary anyway.

On REDACTED destroyers- I will take a look there. Could be some adjustments are needed. Still wrapping up a balance pass on stations for now.

Side note: You will also get to fire the Tachyon Lance twice as often in the next update. Its damage is the same, but its range has been reduced to half (still the longest ranged non-missile weapon by a large margin)  The flux cost to fire has increased but... that pretty much doesn't matter in a Tyrant. Phase ships' dissipation is much higher than normal ships' dissipation.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Daynen on September 17, 2019, 03:51:56 PM
Half the range and half the cooldown?  You're practically BEGGING people to put lances on a tyrant then because range means nothing when I phase through the enemy ship and pop up right on their engines.  That's gonna be devastating.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 17, 2019, 05:12:31 PM
True, but that's also only when you can acquire and get both. Might not always be easy, and may be harder in the future.

It's also just as effective on a paragon or megalith. Heck, even a revenant or heavy modified sunder could probably support one.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 17, 2019, 08:32:51 PM
If you go to the mod_info file located in the mod directory root and set:   "totalConversion":"true",     to:     "totalConversion":"false"

- you can install Console Commands and that mod works with Archean Order (unless something has changed recently). I used it to test blueprints and make sure they actually contained the correct hulls and weapons.

When I release the next update I am going to spend some time updating the main page too. One of the things I am going to try and add is a "Recommended and Verified Utility Mods" section that will list some mods that don't have issues with the TC but can enrich the experience with Archean Order. There are actually quite a few utility/feature mods that are compatible.

Right, so some misleading things here, sorry about that. You don't have to set totalConversion to false to run Console Commands. It can be selected anyway, but you need to make sure you also have LazyLib enabled and should probably run the latest dev version of Console Commands rather than the standard outdated link. I got an error on start-up when running the outdated primary link without LazyLib (just in case that was what some people were experiencing).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Macdaddy on September 18, 2019, 11:01:28 AM
Not sure how to make my own post, so I'm just gonna reply here sorry! I am trying to play your mod, but when it starts loading after I've made my decisions for a new game it always crashes. The pop up always reads "Fatal: Ship hull spec [legion_hegemony] not found! Check starsector.log for more info." This is my first time modding starsector so any help would be great! thanks
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 18, 2019, 11:09:00 AM
Hi there and welcome to the forums!  :)

Sorry about your issue. This is indeed the appropriate place to post an issue like that since it is likely related to my mod. Someone else reported the same thing a while back before the latest release but I thought it was because the mod hadn't been updated to 0.9.1a at the time. It is now and I haven't run into that error myself while testing.

Few things that would help:

Are you on the latest version of Starsector -  0.9.1a?

Do you have the latest version of the mod - 1.3.3?

Any other utility mods installed?

What start are you choosing?


*EDIT*

Just to try and reproduce it I took the game off dev mode and ran through every starting condition. About 10-15 new game starts and no errors so far. I will run a few more but may need some more info to troubleshoot further.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Marco on September 20, 2019, 07:13:29 AM
After playing this for a few days, I like a lot of it.

All missiles having autoloaders is great, plus more ships having missile/synergy hardpoints to fill the skies with missile spam.

Thunderbolts are seriously OP, though, when you can put 6 or so on a single ship. Press a button, overload(or destroy) the target. And they reload real quickly for that kind of damage too. Not even a Paragon can stand up to that kind of missile spam. I parked a Megalith in the middle of the simulation map, then spawned in 2 Onslaughts, an Astral, a couple Eagles, and a ton of frigates. The Megalith did not move, did not target anything, just raised shields, set weapons to autofire, and set 6 Nightmare Fighter squads to engage. I think a few things got close enough for them to come in range of its other weapons, but that was mostly enemy fighters. The rest of the enemy died to the Megalith's 6 Thunderbolt launchers.

Speaking of the Megalith, Archean ships really are stupidly OP, mostly the Megalith and Revenant. I, flying a Megalith, and 2 Revenants flown by level 20 officers have taken out entire Luddic path armada fleets. It takes some tactics to not let ourselves get surrounded, but that's what the corner of the map is for. After that, it's just a matter of flux management and slowly thinning out their numbers.

My one real complaint about the mod is the slowdown in large fleet battles. Some of it is just Starsector, but I feel like a large part is the fighter spam. I've had issues with the aforementioned Luddic Path armadas fielding so many fighters that I've had multiple instances of not being able to finish off enemies simply because of ablative fighter swarms eating all my shots. And during those times, the game just grinds to a crawl.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 20, 2019, 10:20:57 AM
Hi thanks for the feedback!

Regarding the Thunderbolt - That was recently buffed because it was once underwhelming considering its OP. I probably just tuned it too high. One of the reasons I think it is too good is that point defense is less effective against MIRVs because of the spread of the secondary stage missiles. I don't necessarily want to reduce its damage.. but maybe making point defense more reliable against it would do a lot to prevent it from feeling too strong.

Archean Ships: Yep! They certainly are and there are a lot of changes to bring them closer to other ships in the next release. The weapons they typically use was also part of the problem, and have been adjusted accordingly. The Revenant-class has been redesigned as a light battlecruiser and a new ship, the Justicar-class has taken over the primary cruiser role.

Performance issues in late game: I have adjusted the default and minimum battle sizes in the next release. That will help a little bit, but I have been thinking about potential solutions for that issue and I may release a separate version (not sure when I would be able to fit this in) that uses less resource-intensive effects for engines, particles etc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Barracuda on September 26, 2019, 06:19:39 AM
I maybe encountering a mistake on the XIV Legion, It is I think supposed to have 2 Large Ballistic or maybe Composite mounts, 5 medium ballistic mounts and 2 medium missile mounts. However the current one has 2 Large missiles and 7 Medium Ballistics. Just wanted to let you know so you can fix this small issue in this great mod.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 26, 2019, 10:17:41 AM
@Hiigaran

Hi thanks for pointing that out! :) I don't always catch those types of things.

In this case I had caught it when doing a bit of balancing work for the Legion and forgot to include it in the notes under bugfixes for the next update. Adding it now.

The 5 forward medium turrets should be Composite in the next release to support missile or ballistic weapons for either the original or XIV version.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 26, 2019, 10:46:10 AM
^ Actually, nvm something is weird with the legion_xiv skin file merging with the vanilla file and it's changing the weapon mounts even when it shouldn't be.

Sorry for misunderstanding!

I had to check the variant in game again more closely to see it. The mediums are being converted back to ballistic from the vanilla file related to that ship. I... actually don't quite know why the large slots are Composite.. neither file does that currently, though I will change mine so that it does. It was intended.

I'll investigate what is going on and make sure it is fixed for the next update.

*EDIT*

Wow I really needed more caffeine. It is fixed now. The replace array didn't correctly include the onslaught (which didn't end up mattering) or legion skin files for the Hegemony. I have corrected that and made the Large turrets Composite for the Legion (XIV)

But far more importantly:

So I thought I would try the mod and I am getting the following error.   Fatal:Ship hull Spec(Legion_Hegemony not Found!   I am currently using Starsector 0.9.1a-RC should I be using something different.

I'm having the same issue. Downloaded the mod twice, just to make sure I had all the files. For me, the game crashes when reaching March 1, just as the game is about to start, after loading everything.

Not sure how to make my own post, so I'm just gonna reply here sorry! I am trying to play your mod, but when it starts loading after I've made my decisions for a new game it always crashes. The pop up always reads "Fatal: Ship hull spec [legion_hegemony] not found! Check starsector.log for more info." This is my first time modding starsector so any help would be great! thanks

First of all, I am very sorry it took so long for me to figure this out. I have never actually reproduced it and troubleshooting something you can't actually see happening is difficult. I am not 100% positive the next update will fix this either, but the issue with the legion skin file was likely the culprit.

My skin file for the hegemony legion uses a different sprite - "legion_hegemony.png" instead of vanilla's "legion_xiv.png." It may have been trying to set both for some reason and caused an error. It shouldn't... the mod sprite should override the vanilla one in theory since they share ids, but I've seen stranger things happen. I'll also take the time to make the names identical (they weren't in the first place for legacy reasons) just in case.

If you never solved that issue and are up for it, take another try once this update is released. Hopefully that fixes it for good. I will try and get it ready for the weekend since this is a critical fix!

Important note for updating: Make sure you delete the entire mod directory before downloading the new version, however, or you will run into issues since several files have been removed and need to no longer be there for the mod to work correctly.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Barracuda on September 26, 2019, 11:39:38 AM
Currently trying to recreate the quick fix myself, but when it comes to modding I'm a complete novice  :-\ . Could you go into more detail? Either way I appreciate the quick response to our comments!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 26, 2019, 12:16:46 PM
Sure, go to the mod_info file in the main directory of the mod:

Spoiler
Replace:    "data\\hulls\\skins\\onslaught_xiv",  (its around line 96)

with:        "data\\hulls\\skins\\onslaught_xiv.skin", (line 96)
        "data\\hulls\\skins\\legion_xiv.skin",       (line 97)

Then:

 - Go to the skin file itself: data\hulls\skins\legion_xiv.skin

Add (see below for where you add it):

   "weaponSlotChanges":{
      "WS 000":{
        "type": "COMPOSITE"
      },
      "WS 001":{
        "type": "COMPOSITE"
      },
    },

 - you add the above JSON section under:
   "builtInWeapons":{
    },
 - but above the final "}" of the file
[close]


That should handle the fix for the Legion itself and hopefully the campaign error as well, but just in case as far as the error is concerned -

- there is another additional thing you can do if that doesn't work:

Spoiler
After the above changes, look at the spriteName portion of the skin file and change the name of the image there to:

   "spriteName":"graphics/ships/rebalance/legion/legion_xiv.png",

from:

   "spriteName":"graphics/ships/rebalance/legion/legion_hegemony.png",

Then:

 - Go to the sprite and rename it to match: (graphics\ships\rebalance\legion\ is the directory)

Change legion_hegemony.png to legion_xiv.png
[close]

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Barracuda on September 26, 2019, 12:31:25 PM
Thanks a million for the hotfix! My railgun and devastator fueled domination of the sector can now continue! Also can't wait for the next update to the mod  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 26, 2019, 12:32:02 PM
^  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 26, 2019, 02:07:19 PM
Updating the notes with recent work:

Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 --- New Ships:
-------------
    - Justicar-class cruiser (new Archean Order cruiser due to Revenant-class changes)
    - Nightreaver-class light battlecarrier (Adamantine Consortium- cruiser-sized)

 --- New Skins:
-------------
    -

 --- New Fighters:
-------------
    - Hellbeast Attack Drones (Does not drop. Built-in to the Medusa (Ad)-class drone carrier for the Adamantine Consortium).
    - Imp PD Drones (Does not drop. Built-in to the Acolyte (Ad)-class drone carrier for the Adamantine Consortium).

 --- New Weapons:
-------------
    -

--- Overall Design Strategy behind most faction/market changes:
-------------
    - Increase the sense of player progression. Access to higher quality ships and weapons should be more limited.
    - Primary factions' militaries shouldn't dominate by stats/weapons but rather by circumstantial fleet compososition logistics or tactics.
    - ^ That being said- each primary faction has its own flavor, tech options and tactical strategies. (Mostly already in place, just being continually fine-tuned)

 --- Market Changes:
-------------
    - Significantly increased the cost of ships across the board to better match unmodded starsector.
    - Increased cost difference between weapon tiers and increased weapon costs in general.
    - Adamantine Consortium: Friendly market theme now only contains one music track instead of two. They had (imo) conflicting vibes to them and I'm saving the other one for something special lore-wise.
    - Smuggling at Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order markets now has more serious consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Resigning a comission with the Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order now has more severe consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Rescuing an Adamantine Consortium officer or administrator now has a major impact to the player's reputation with the barons.
    - Increased the extra cost multiplier of Hegemony Legion vessels. Reduced their deployment cost substantially. Faction AI buffed by ship system changes better suiting their overall tactics.
    - Standardized cost increase multiplier of Luddic Converted warships. Lower than Hegemony but higher than standard. Reduced their deployment costs in addition to the benefits and drawbacks of the conversion.

 --- Faction Changes: (The idea behind most of these is to increase the sense of player progression.)
-------------
    - Added custom dialogue for comissions for all new factions.
    - Added two extra variants to the Odyssey battlecruiser for the Sci-Corps.
    - Adamantine Consortium has a new look and theme to their vessels and fighters.
    - Added three extra variants to the Revenant battlecruiser for the Archean Order.
    - Changed Tri-Tachyon fleet composition- they should hopefully now contain more destroyers and cruisers instead of merely large numbers of frigates supporting capitals.
    - Added default variants to the Lion's Guard faction from designed variants from .8
    - Removed chance for Acolyte-class frigate to be found in Adamantine Consortium dreadfleets.
    - Increased the presence of Elite Mercenary variants in Trader Guild fleets.
    - Added more variants for the Vigilance, Drover and Hammerhead for Lions Guard, Trader Guilds and Persean League fleets.
    - Adamantine Consortium vessels have a more intimidating and streamlined look.
    - Many of the most advanced and rare vessels are now removed from loot after combat. Especially for the Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order, advanced vessels are now only obtain-able through faction commissions or black market smuggling that has already had an increase in penalty.

 --- Missions (Outside of campaign):
-------------
    - Added a Random Faction Battle Mission that pits the player against a random faction's fleets. Player factions have around a 50% less chance to generate capital ships in their support fleets to increase overall difficulty.

 --- Feature Enhancements/Additions:
-------------

    --- Cease Fire Changes/Additions:
   -------------
     - Doubled the credit cost of the standard bribe.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
--- Overall Design Strategy Behind Weapons Changes:
   1) All Strike weapons are now efficient unless they are hitting less effective defenses in the case of damage specialized ballistic or energy weapons. Energy projectile strike weapons generally cost more flux and are less efficient than specialized hitting correct defenses- but more damaging for higher OP.
    2) Beams are more efficient than projectile energy weapons since they deal soft flux. They tend to have lower dps and higher strike damage than most projectile strike weapons. (Exceptions exist and typically sacrifice range or flux efficiency to achieve higher strike damage)
        3) Beams turning into Fire Support weapons by equipping Advancted Optics become among the longest ranged non-missile weapons, but also become very inefficient to fire.
    4) Almost all non-missile Fire Support weapons, including the Ion Beam, have reduced range, some have reduced flux costs to compensate, but are always inefficient.
    5) Missile Strike weapons range from flux-free to far more efficient than other weapon types, but have lower effective dps either from point defense mitigation or the weapon stats themselves. Unmitigated strike damage remains very high, however. (So essentially opportunity weapons.)
    6) Rockets and torpedoes have a much higher chance to get through point defense than fire support weapons, but have shorter range.
    7) Fire Support missiles are actually typically flux efficient and have much longer range and ease of fire than other types since they can travel through allies, but are easily mitigated by pd. The less efficient the missile, the more likely it should get through pd (Thundebolt, Hurricane, Hunter, etc)

--- Details For Changes:
-------------
 - Increased hitpoints of Shockwave Rockets substantially. Less flux efficient to fire and has less overall dps than Annihilators, but much higher anti-armor capability and longer effective range.
 - Increased hitpoints of Hammer, Atropos and Reaper torpedoes.
 - Reduced flux cost of Annihilator Rockets. Increased hitpoints slightly.
 - Reduced flux cost of Javelin Rockets. Increased hitpoints slightly.
 - Reduced OP cost of Interdiction Drones by 1 OP point, reduced refit time by a few seconds (Made it a more thrifty option than pirate Broadswords which perform the same role but slightly better)
 - Tachyon Lance now fires about 50% faster, but has half the range (2500 from 5000) and costs more flux to fire to make it very inefficient. Damage per second overall has increased but strike damage remains the same. (Was by far the most powerful 32 OP weapon- especially in a player's hands)
 - Razor Tri-Beam damage per second has been increased.
 - Slightly reduced Phase Beam damage per second. Increased flux cost to fire, but only inefficient if modified by Advanced Optics into a fire support weapon.
 - Increased Heavy PD Burst Laser and Paladin PD System's damage.
 - Fury and Hailstorm rockets have less effective range.
 - Beams with advanced optics are now the longest range non-missile weapons (one or two exceptions exist).
 - Increased projectile speed and hit damage of PD Cannon and Scythe Cannon. Reduced Scythe Cannon's flux costs. Reduced PD Cannon's fire rate - Updated description to describe weakness against fast-firing missiles but is better against fighters.
 - Increased durability of ship-based torpedoes substantially. Increased time to reload on those weapons. (More reliable, lower dps)
 - Reduced Atronarch Beam dps slightly and increased its flux cost to fire. Still efficient unless equipping Advanced Optics to increase range.
 - Quadrupled the magazine size and clip regeneration size for the Squall SRM. Hit damage and and emp per hit reduced to compensate. Reload rate remains the same. (Again trying to make it more reliable in a fleet setting.)
 - Terminator Drones have much more durable shields- damage remains the same.

-- Rebalanced most Projectile-based Assault, PD and Strike Energy weapons above small:
     - Obliterator Cannon now deals significantly more damage and fires at regular intervals to better match its heavy assault role. Flux costs adjusted- Hybrid weapon.
     - Heavy Obliterator Cannon now deals more damage per shot. It costs more flux to fire, however is still very efficient compared to strike weapons- Hybrid weapon.
     - Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon have increased damage per shot. Firing rate remains the same. Thermal Cannon now deals slightly more damage per second than Thermal Pulser and has increased strike potential. Both have slightly increased range.
     - Increased Cutlass Laser and Heavy Cutlass Laser damage per shot.
     - Plasma Cannon deals more damage per second, has increased strike damage per salvo, and has longer range. Costs more flux to fire and is one of the more inefficent strike weapons available. Relatively high OP.
     - Antimatter Blaster charges up more quickly and can fire charges more often. More flux to fire, but extra charge regeneration has also increased dps considerably. Lower range but higher damage all around than Plasma Cannon. Higher OP.

-- Rebalanced entire line of Archean Order energy weapons:
     - Reduced Void Driver damage per shot slightly.
     - Increased Phase Cannon hit damage and reduced its range. Dps remains similar or slightly reduced. No flux cost but very high OP.
     - Eclipse Cannon now has less range but increased damage per shot (increased anti-armor effectiveness). Overall dps reduced but still among the most flux efficient Energy Fire Support weapons, though with a very high OP cost.
     - Apocalypse Cannon Ordinance Point cost reduced to 28, range reduced by about half, increased damage per second but reduced armor penetration. Among the most efficient Fire Support weapons, though with lower dps than assault weapons.
     - Heavy Apocalypse Cannon range reduced by about half, significantly increased damage per second but reduced armor penetration. Among the most efficient Fire Support weapons, though with lower dps than assault weapons.

--- Faction Hullmod Changes:
-------------
 - Reduced negative impact of Luddic Conversion hullmod on Luddic Church ships and reduced those ships deployment cost. Now greatly improves handling rather than reducing it but causes more damage to engines. (Luddic Church vessels still needed improvement.)
 - Reduced the penalty of increased deployment cost for Hegemony 14th Legion vessels. Armor now calculates as a percentage increase that varies with hull size instead of a flat increase.
 - Reduced the deployment cost reduction benefit associated with Simple Core Systems hullmod.

--- Station Balance Changes:
-------------
 - Station weapons no longer generate flux on station modules. Dissipation adjusted to compensate for modules that share shields with weapons. (This should buff beams effectiveness vs some stations and helps to better balance station modules all around)
 - Added a few extra high explosive Dual Artillery Cannons to Trader Guilds' stations. (It had an imbalance of anti-shield to anti-armor at optimal defense range.
 - Now that no ships (to my knowledge anyway) have the Targeting Supercomputer hullmod, increased its effectiveness to strengthen stations across the board. (No longer able to outrange them as easily, if at all, depending on the station.)
 - Additional armor and hull and light shield capacity for basic Archean Order station.
 - Additional armor and hull and flux dissipation for Persean League (midline) basic station.
 - Redesign of stations' shield systems. Weapon modules no longer generate flux. Shield adjusted to be weaker with poor dissipation and 0% dissipation when shields are raised. This helps beams be more effective while keeping the defense level the same for other weapons.
 - Removed Flux Shunt on Luddic station variants of low tech. Removed flux capacity bonuses. (Other weapon improvements made these changes no longer necessary)
 - Increased basic hightech station's armor and hull. Increased max flux and dissipation of weapon modules separate from shields.
 - Tri-Tachyon and Archean Order stations will no longer interrupt high damage burst weapons due to flux venting. They will no longer vent flux since shield venting is separate and they have enough flux dissipation that venting is actually harmful in most cases.
 - Replaced Graviton Lances with Heavy Obliterator Cannons on Sci-Coprs stations to give more solid defense rather than pure opportunity based strikes that become volatile to the station's long term durability in some situations.

--- Ship System Changes:
-------------
 - Accelerated Ammo Feeder renamed to Combat Capacitors - now also increases ship speed by 40 and increases acceleration in addition to its usual effects.
 - Plasma Jets regenerates a charge far less often and has an increased cooldown between uses.
 - Active time for Phase Shell Projector has been reduced by almost half.
 - Interdictor Array now has charges.
 - Reduced flux cost of Quantum Disruptor and Entropy Amplifier.
 - Added a cooldown to High Energy Focus. (Still has charges- more so the AI doesn't burn it too fast)

--- Ship Changes:
-------------
 - Megalith-class Dreadnought:
     - 100 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Greatly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - More effective shield resilience.
     - Increased shield radius. (Larger target)
     - Increased crew and fuel requirements.
     - Increased max crew storage.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Revenant-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Redesignated and redesigned as a Light Battlecruiser.
     - All stats reworked.
     - Added built-in Phase Field.
     - Replaced built-in Advanced Targeting Core with Dedicated Targeting Core.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 5 more.
 - Templar-class (Archean) Heavy Destroyer:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Paragon-class Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
 - Onslaught-class (XIV) Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Dedicated Targeting Core with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - Removed core stress hullmod and merged effects with XIV Legion hullmod.
     - Has a much lower deployment cost over the last update (down to ~28 from 34)
 - Acolyte-class Heavy Frigate:
     - 20 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 2000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation by 140.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Neophyte-class Frigate:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 1000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 1 more.
 - Exile-class Light Carrier:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Reduced max speed by 50% (Still faster than the Vigilance-class).
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Increased shield resilience.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Wolf-class (Arc) Frigate:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 3 more.
 - Aurora-class Cruiser:
     - Increased flux dissipation.
     - Increased armor.
     - Slightly more effective shield resilience.
 - Eagle-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Slightly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Dominator-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Increased armor.
 - Pillager-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Malevolent-class Dreadcarrier:
     - Costs 3 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Sprite re-work/polish.
 - Tyrant-class Phase Battleship:
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Reduced armor.
     - Reduced hull.
     - Now costs 30 supplies to deploy
 - Legion-class Battlecarrier:
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Conquest-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 2 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Executor-class Battlecarrier:
     - Costs 4 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Havok-class Heavy Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Heron-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Mora-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 less point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Tempest-class Heavy Frigate:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Shrike-class Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced max speed.
 - Spectre-class Interceptor Drone:
     - Reduced hull and armor.
     - Increased replacement time.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Added Carrier Bays built-in hullmod to Epiphany, Exile, Executor, Drover, Medusa, and Osprey as intended.
 - Corrected Megalith description to better reflect its combat role and power, as well as its lore compared to campaign realism.
 - Fixed and expanded station descrtiptions in the industry layer - to give players a concise tactical reason to choose a station based on playstyle and faction choice.
 - Corrected the names of ranks and posts for administrative staff and ground military for new factions.
 - Corrected outdated reputation relationship descriptions for Adamantine Consortium in the intel window from when the faction started neutral to the player.
 - Fixed situations where a player with their transponder off who was stopped by an Archean Order patrol was attacked even though they had high reputation.
 - Fixed situations where a player with A.I cores would have them confiscated even after complying and turning their transponder on and having high reputation with the Archean Order.
 - Corrected some drones need of crew due to missing values in the spreadsheet instead of 0s.
 - Added Fleet Paragon variant to the Tri-Tachyon Corporation fleets as intended.
 - Removed possible- though highly unlikely- case where the defective Falcon variant was used instead of the Pirate Falcon skin that has a large hardpoint.
 - Corrected crew requirements for Tyrant-class battleship.
 - Changed Iridium Hyperdriver to target fighters when no better targets are available.
 - Fixed issue with Guillotine Cannon firing at fighters too often. (Strike tag was on the wrong weapon)
 - Corrected situations where a player would token bribe the Luddic Path and there would not be a dialogue option to continue.
 - Luddic Path now has custom dialogue for success cases for all bribe types.
 - Removed flux cost of the large-slot Atropos Torpedo launcher.
 - Stations should no longer waste strike weapons on fighters.
 - Station hangars should no longer lose replacement time when fighters are destroyed.
 - Advanced Targeting Core (on the Paragon, Megalith, etc) now increases PD weapons up to the Dedicated Targeting Core's benefit to capital ships. Standard weapon range increase remains the same.
 - Large Atropos launcher no longer costs flux to fire.
 - All station hangars now correctly have chassis storage hullmod to ensure replacement rate does not decrease from fighter losses.
 - Legion class now has the correct weapon types for the Hegemony version.
 - Hopefully corrected issue with "'hegemony_legion' not found" error upon campaign start.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished the Guillotine Cannon recoil sprite to better differentiate it from the Heavy Cutlass Laser.
 - Continued dialogue polish.
 - Reduced Rules.csv inefficiency for the new fleet dialogue features. (Removed some absurdly large score weights, cleaned up RT directory organization, etc).
 - Improved Commodity Request script (more efficient- includes adjustments for all factions for non-upfront bribe calculations).
 - Adjusted all variants utilizing OP adjusted weapons.
 - Slight round of polish on the Punisher Artillery Cannon sprite.
 - Round of polish on the Obliterator Cannon hardpoint sprite.
 - Reduced sound level of Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon and heavily reduced sound of the Fighter variant.
 - Removed use of ASSAULT Fighter AI tag since it has been deprecated. Replaced with BOMBER tag to ensure the same assault behavior.
 - Corrected the descriptions of hullmod changes and made sure to include all effects in the description. (couple outliers there)
 - Round of polish on the Malevolent-class dreadcarrier sprite.
 - All Adamantine Consortium skin files have been separated into individual hulls and their theme now better reflects the faction. (There wasn't difference between the two implementations anyway)
-----
[close]
----------------------------------

I will also give a bit of a teaser of the new Adamantine Consortium look (including a glimpse of the Nightreaver)  8)

https://youtu.be/O-t_OyffTRA (https://youtu.be/O-t_OyffTRA)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on September 30, 2019, 04:16:49 PM
Sorry everyone I didn't quite make it to the weekend release. Still finishing up the new Adamantine Consortium stations. Looking to release maybe late tonight or sometime tomorrow. It depends on how long the final coat of polish takes.

I had been putting this particular addition off for far too long though. I really wanted it in this update because its save breaking (or at least requires a new game to see the new station in the campaign).

Annndd as I was writing this I realized all the "Flux cost per burst" numbers in many of the weapon descriptions are now inaccurate...  ::) sigh cascading effects are a pain.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Barracuda on October 01, 2019, 11:45:41 AM
Me waiting for this update
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/8c48121f1280eaef851e6c3a967fe978/tenor.gif?itemid=14388145)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on October 01, 2019, 01:11:40 PM
^  ;D  ;)

-------------------------------
Update:

So not as polished as I would like but I am out of time since my free time is getting more limited for a couple months. I will still squeeze in hotfixes for bugs and cleanup though.

Some known minor issues I didn't get to in time:
1) Flux burst per salvo/shot in the description of weapons may be inaccurate and reflect the last update. -I will try and get to this one first.
2) Adamantine Consortium campaign start doesn't have the new Consortium vessels added for phase vessels instead of stock ones. -Will be in a hotfix soon so hold off on that start if you want all the starting ships to be new ones. (some already are)
3) Jangala is still not a Hegemony station. -On the list for the next big update.
4) Some descriptions are missing for new built-in drones and the Adamantine Consortium drone system for their stations. -Will get this into a hotfix when I can.
5) (Edit)  For some dialogue the switch to the Rules Tool made it so that "\n" is treated as characters rather than New Line (Or I just have the wrong slash like I did before the edit :P ). -Planning on also getting this into a hotfix at some point.

Full Update Notes:
Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------
 --- New Ships:
-------------
    - Justicar-class cruiser (new Archean Order cruiser due to Revenant-class changes)
    - Nightreaver-class light battlecarrier (Adamantine Consortium- cruiser-sized)


 --- New Fighters:
-------------
    - Hellbeast Attack Drones (Does not drop. Built-in to the Medusa (Ad)-class drone carrier for the Adamantine Consortium).
    - Imp PD Drones (Does not drop. Built-in to the Acolyte (Ad)-class drone carrier for the Adamantine Consortium).


--- Overall Design Strategy behind most faction/market changes:
-------------
    - Increase the sense of player progression. Access to higher quality ships and weapons should be more limited.
    - Primary factions' militaries shouldn't dominate by stats/weapons but rather by circumstantial fleet compososition logistics or tactics.
    - ^ That being said- each primary faction has its own flavor, tech options and tactical strategies. (Mostly already in place, just being continually fine-tuned)

 --- Market Changes:
-------------
    - Significantly increased the cost of ships across the board to better match unmodded starsector.
    - Increased cost difference between weapon tiers and increased weapon costs in general.
    - Adamantine Consortium: Friendly market theme now only contains one music track instead of two. They had (imo) conflicting vibes to them and I'm saving the other one for something special lore-wise.
    - Smuggling at Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order markets now has more serious consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Resigning a comission with the Adamantine Consortium or Archean Order now has more severe consequences to reputation with those factions.
    - Rescuing an Adamantine Consortium officer or administrator now has a major impact to the player's reputation with the barons.
    - Increased the extra cost multiplier of Hegemony Legion vessels. Reduced their deployment cost substantially. Faction AI buffed by ship system changes better suiting their overall tactics.
    - Standardized cost increase multiplier of Luddic Converted warships. Lower than Hegemony but higher than standard. Reduced their deployment costs in addition to the benefits and drawbacks of the conversion.

 --- Faction Changes: (The idea behind most of these is to increase the sense of player progression.)
-------------
    - Added custom dialogue for comissions for all new factions.
    - Added two extra variants to the Odyssey battlecruiser for the Sci-Corps.
    - Adamantine Consortium has a new look and theme to their vessels and fighters.
    - Added three extra variants to the Revenant battlecruiser for the Archean Order.
    - Changed Tri-Tachyon fleet composition- they should hopefully now contain more destroyers and cruisers instead of merely large numbers of frigates supporting capitals.
    - Added default variants to the Lion's Guard faction from designed variants from .8
    - Removed chance for Acolyte-class frigate to be found in Adamantine Consortium dreadfleets.
    - Increased the presence of Elite Mercenary variants in Trader Guild fleets.
    - Added more variants for the Vigilance, Drover and Hammerhead for Lions Guard, Trader Guilds and Persean League fleets.
    - Many of the most advanced and rare vessels are now removed from loot after combat. Especially for the Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order, advanced vessels are now only obtain-able through faction commissions or black market smuggling that has already had an increase in penalty.
    - Adamantine Consortium finally has their own station type. The design is based off the Archean Order station but loadouts for each upgrade are different and present a different tactic for the player to overcome. The station's theme should also better match the new streamlined Adamantine Consortium's hellish ghost-ship look.
    - Removed use of Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon from Sci-Corps. Added more use of the Obliterator Cannon.
    - Added more use of Thermal Cannons and Reapers to Admantine Consortium fleets to help offset their high flux strike weapons and make them scarier as a whole.
    - Adamantine Consortium Phase ships generally equip Hardened Subsystems to help them maintain fleet presence for longer periods of time. This also helps prevent cheap tactics from defeating them.

 --- Missions (Outside of campaign):
-------------
    - Added a Random Faction Battle Mission that pits the player against a random faction's fleets. Player factions have around a 50% less chance to generate capital ships in their support fleets to increase overall difficulty.

 --- Feature Enhancements/Additions:
-------------

    --- Cease Fire Changes/Additions:
   -------------
     - Doubled the credit cost of the standard bribe.
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
--- Overall Design Strategy Behind Weapons Changes:
   1) All Strike weapons are now efficient unless they are hitting less effective defenses in the case of damage specialized ballistic or energy weapons. Energy projectile strike weapons generally cost more flux and are less efficient than specialized hitting correct defenses- but more damaging for higher OP.
    2) Beams are more efficient than projectile energy weapons since they deal soft flux. They tend to have lower dps and higher strike damage than most projectile strike weapons. (Exceptions exist and typically sacrifice range or flux efficiency to achieve higher strike damage)
        3) Beams turning into Fire Support weapons by equipping Advancted Optics become among the longest ranged non-missile weapons, but also become very inefficient to fire.
    4) Almost all non-missile Fire Support weapons, including the Ion Beam, have reduced range, some have reduced flux costs to compensate, but are always inefficient.
    5) Missile Strike weapons range from flux-free to far more efficient than other weapon types, but have lower effective dps either from point defense mitigation or the weapon stats themselves. Unmitigated strike damage remains very high, however. (So essentially opportunity weapons.)
    6) Rockets and torpedoes have a much higher chance to get through point defense than fire support weapons, but have shorter range.
    7) Fire Support missiles are actually typically flux efficient and have much longer range and ease of fire than other types since they can travel through allies, but are easily mitigated by pd. The less efficient the missile, the more likely it should get through pd (Thundebolt, Hurricane, Hunter, etc)

--- Details For Changes:
-------------
 - Increased hitpoints of Shockwave Rockets substantially. Less flux efficient to fire and has less overall dps than Annihilators, but much higher anti-armor capability and longer effective range.
 - Increased hitpoints of Hammer, Atropos and Reaper torpedoes.
 - Reduced flux cost of Annihilator Rockets. Increased hitpoints slightly.
 - Reduced flux cost of Javelin Rockets. Increased hitpoints slightly.
 - Reduced OP cost of Interdiction Drones by 1 OP point, reduced refit time by a few seconds (Made it a more thrifty option than pirate Broadswords which perform the same role but slightly better)
 - Tachyon Lance now fires about 50% faster, but has half the range (2500 from 5000) and costs more flux to fire to make it very inefficient. Damage per second overall has increased but strike damage remains the same. (Was by far the most powerful 32 OP weapon- especially in a player's hands)
 - Razor Tri-Beam damage per second has been increased.
 - Slightly reduced Phase Beam damage per second. Increased flux cost to fire, but only inefficient if modified by Advanced Optics into a fire support weapon.
 - Increased Heavy PD Burst Laser and Paladin PD System's damage.
 - Fury and Hailstorm rockets have less effective range.
 - Beams with advanced optics are now the longest range non-missile weapons (one or two exceptions exist).
 - Increased projectile speed and hit damage of PD Cannon and Scythe Cannon. Reduced Scythe Cannon's flux costs. Reduced PD Cannon's fire rate - Updated description to describe weakness against fast-firing missiles but is better against fighters.
 - Increased durability of ship-based torpedoes substantially. Increased time to reload on those weapons. (More reliable, lower dps)
 - Reduced Atronarch Beam dps slightly and increased its flux cost to fire. Still efficient unless equipping Advanced Optics to increase range.
 - Quadrupled the magazine size and clip regeneration size for the Squall SRM. Hit damage and and emp per hit reduced to compensate. Reload rate remains the same. (Again trying to make it more reliable in a fleet setting.)
 - Terminator Drones have much more durable shields- damage remains the same.
 - Reduced speed and spread of secondary stage of the Thunderbolt MIRV to better allow point defense the ability to counter it.

-- Rebalanced most Projectile-based Assault, PD and Strike Energy weapons above small:
     - Obliterator Cannon now deals significantly more damage and fires at regular intervals to better match its heavy assault role. Flux costs adjusted- Hybrid weapon.
     - Heavy Obliterator Cannon now deals more damage per shot. It costs more flux to fire, however is still very efficient compared to strike weapons- Hybrid weapon.
     - Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon have increased damage per shot. Firing rate remains the same. Thermal Cannon now deals slightly more damage per second than Thermal Pulser and has increased strike potential. Both have slightly increased range.
     - Increased Cutlass Laser and Heavy Cutlass Laser damage per shot.
     - Plasma Cannon deals more damage per second, has increased strike damage per salvo, and has longer range. Costs more flux to fire and is one of the more inefficent strike weapons available. Relatively high OP.
     - Antimatter Blaster charges up more quickly and can fire charges more often. More flux to fire, but extra charge regeneration has also increased dps considerably. Lower range but higher damage all around than Plasma Cannon. Higher OP.

-- Rebalanced entire line of Archean Order energy weapons:
     - Reduced Void Driver damage per shot slightly.
     - Increased Phase Cannon hit damage and reduced its range. Dps remains similar or slightly reduced. No flux cost but very high OP.
     - Eclipse Cannon now has less range but increased damage per shot (increased anti-armor effectiveness). Overall dps reduced but still among the most flux efficient Energy Fire Support weapons, though with a very high OP cost.
     - Apocalypse Cannon Ordinance Point cost reduced to 28, range reduced by about half, increased damage per second but reduced armor penetration. Among the most efficient Fire Support weapons, though with lower dps than assault weapons.
     - Heavy Apocalypse Cannon range reduced by about half, significantly increased damage per second but reduced armor penetration. Among the most efficient Fire Support weapons, though with lower dps than assault weapons.

--- Faction Hullmod Changes:
-------------
 - Reduced negative impact of Luddic Conversion hullmod on Luddic Church ships and reduced those ships deployment cost. Now greatly improves handling rather than reducing it but causes more damage to engines. (Luddic Church vessels still needed improvement.)
 - Reduced the penalty of increased deployment cost for Hegemony 14th Legion vessels. Armor now calculates as a percentage increase that varies with hull size instead of a flat increase.
 - Reduced the deployment cost reduction benefit associated with Simple Core Systems hullmod.

--- Station Balance Changes:
-------------
 - Station weapons no longer generate flux on station modules. Dissipation adjusted to compensate for modules that share shields with weapons. (This should buff beams effectiveness vs some stations and helps to better balance station modules all around)
 - Added a few extra high explosive Dual Artillery Cannons to Trader Guilds' stations. (It had an imbalance of anti-shield to anti-armor at optimal defense range.)
 - Now that no ships (to my knowledge anyway) have the Targeting Supercomputer hullmod, increased its effectiveness to strengthen stations across the board. (No longer able to outrange them as easily, if at all, depending on the station.)
 - Additional armor and hull and light shield capacity for basic Archean Order station.
 - Additional armor and hull and flux dissipation for Persean League (midline) basic station.
 - Redesign of stations' shield systems. Weapon modules no longer generate flux. Shield adjusted to be weaker with poor dissipation and 0% dissipation when shields are raised. This helps beams be more effective while keeping the defense level the same for other weapons.
 - Removed Flux Shunt on Luddic station variants of low tech. Removed flux capacity bonuses. (Other weapon improvements made these changes no longer necessary)
 - Increased basic hightech station's armor and hull. Increased max flux and dissipation of weapon modules separate from shields.
 - Tri-Tachyon and Archean Order stations will no longer interrupt high damage burst weapons due to flux venting. They will no longer vent flux since shield venting is separate and they have enough flux dissipation that venting is actually harmful in most cases.
 - Replaced Graviton Lances with Heavy Obliterator Cannons on Sci-Corps stations to give more solid defense rather than pure opportunity based strikes that become volatile to the station's long term durability in some situations.

--- Ship System Changes:
-------------
 - Accelerated Ammo Feeder renamed to Combat Capacitors - now also increases ship speed by 40 and increases acceleration in addition to its usual effects.
 - Plasma Jets regenerates a charge far less often and has an increased cooldown between uses.
 - Active time for Phase Shell Projector has been reduced by almost half.
 - Interdictor Array now has charges.
 - Reduced flux cost of Quantum Disruptor and Entropy Amplifier.
 - Added a cooldown to High Energy Focus. (Still has charges- more so the AI doesn't burn it too fast)

--- Ship Changes:
-------------
 - Megalith-class Dreadnought:
     - 100 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Greatly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - More effective shield resilience.
     - Increased shield radius. (Larger target)
     - Increased crew and fuel requirements.
     - Increased max crew storage.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Revenant-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Redesignated and redesigned as a Light Battlecruiser.
     - All stats reworked.
     - Added built-in Phase Field.
     - Replaced built-in Advanced Targeting Core with Dedicated Targeting Core.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 5 more.
 - Templar-class (Archean) Heavy Destroyer:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Paragon-class Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Targeting Supercomputer with Advanced Targeting Core.
 - Onslaught-class (XIV) Battleship:
     - Replaced built-in Dedicated Targeting Core with Advanced Targeting Core.
     - Removed core stress hullmod and merged effects with XIV Legion hullmod.
     - Has a much lower deployment cost over the last update (down to ~28 from 34)
 - Acolyte-class Heavy Frigate:
     - 20 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 2000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation by 140.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Neophyte-class Frigate:
     - 15 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux by 1000.
     - Reduced max speed.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Shield resilience to 0.7 from 0.85.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 1 more.
 - Exile-class Light Carrier:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Reduced max flux.
     - Reduced max speed by 50% (Still faster than the Vigilance-class).
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Increased shield resilience.
     - Adjusted all variants.
 - Wolf-class (Arc) Frigate:
     - 10 less Ordinace Points.
     - Adjusted all variants and added 3 more.
 - Aurora-class Cruiser:
     - Increased flux dissipation.
     - Increased armor.
     - Slightly more effective shield resilience.
 - Eagle-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Slightly reduced flux dissipation.
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Dominator-class Heavy Cruiser:
     - Increased armor.
 - Pillager-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Malevolent-class Dreadcarrier:
     - Costs 3 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Sprite re-work/polish.
 - Tyrant-class Phase Battleship:
     - Reduced flux dissipation.
     - Reduced armor.
     - Reduced hull.
     - Now costs 30 supplies to deploy
 - Legion-class Battlecarrier:
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Conquest-class Battlecruiser:
     - Costs 2 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Executor-class Battlecarrier:
     - Costs 4 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Havok-class Heavy Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Heron-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Mora-class Carrier:
     - Costs 1 less point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Increased armor, max flux and flux dissipation.
 - Tempest-class Heavy Frigate:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
 - Shrike-class Destroyer:
     - Costs 1 more point/supply to deploy in battle.
     - Reduced max speed.
 - Spectre-class Interceptor Drone:
     - Reduced hull and armor.
     - Increased replacement time.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Added Carrier Bays built-in hullmod to Epiphany, Exile, Executor, Drover, Medusa, and Osprey as intended.
 - Corrected Megalith description to better reflect its combat role and power, as well as its lore compared to campaign realism.
 - Fixed and expanded station descrtiptions in the industry layer - to give players a concise tactical reason to choose a station based on playstyle and faction choice.
 - Corrected the names of ranks and posts for administrative staff and ground military for new factions.
 - Corrected outdated reputation relationship descriptions for Adamantine Consortium in the intel window from when the faction started neutral to the player.
 - Fixed situations where a player with their transponder off who was stopped by an Archean Order patrol was attacked even though they had high reputation.
 - Fixed situations where a player with A.I cores would have them confiscated even after complying and turning their transponder on and having high reputation with the Archean Order.
 - Corrected some drones need of crew due to missing values in the spreadsheet instead of 0s.
 - Added Fleet Paragon variant to the Tri-Tachyon Corporation fleets as intended.
 - Removed possible- though highly unlikely- case where the defective Falcon variant was used instead of the Pirate Falcon skin that has a large hardpoint.
 - Corrected crew requirements for Tyrant-class battleship.
 - Changed Iridium Hyperdriver to target fighters when no better targets are available.
 - Fixed issue with Guillotine Cannon firing at fighters too often. (Strike tag was on the wrong weapon)
 - Corrected situations where a player would token bribe the Luddic Path and there would not be a dialogue option to continue.
 - Luddic Path now has custom dialogue for success cases for all bribe types.
 - Removed flux cost of the large-slot Atropos Torpedo launcher.
 - Stations should no longer waste strike weapons on fighters.
 - Station hangars should no longer lose replacement time when fighters are destroyed.
 - Advanced Targeting Core (on the Paragon, Megalith, etc) now increases PD weapons up to the Dedicated Targeting Core's benefit to capital ships. Standard weapon range increase remains the same.
 - Large Atropos launcher no longer costs flux to fire.
 - All station hangars now correctly have chassis storage hullmod to ensure replacement rate does not decrease from fighter losses.
 - Legion class now has the correct weapon types for the Hegemony version.
 - Hopefully corrected issue with "'hegemony_legion' not found" error upon campaign start.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished the Guillotine Cannon recoil sprite to better differentiate it from the Heavy Cutlass Laser.
 - Continued dialogue polish.
 - Reduced Rules.csv inefficiency for the new fleet dialogue features. (Removed some absurdly large score weights, cleaned up RT directory organization, etc).
 - Improved Commodity Request script (more efficient- includes adjustments for all factions for non-upfront bribe calculations).
 - Adjusted all variants utilizing OP adjusted weapons.
 - Slight round of polish on the Punisher Artillery Cannon sprite.
 - Round of polish on the Obliterator Cannon hardpoint sprite.
 - Reduced sound level of Thermal Pulser and Thermal Cannon and heavily reduced sound of the Fighter variant.
 - Removed use of ASSAULT Fighter AI tag since it has been deprecated. Replaced with BOMBER tag to ensure the same assault behavior.
 - Corrected the descriptions of hullmod changes and made sure to include all effects in the description. (couple outliers there)
 - Round of polish on the Malevolent-class dreadcarrier sprite.
 - All Adamantine Consortium skin files have been separated into individual hulls and their theme now better reflects the faction. (There wasn't difference between the two implementations anyway)
-----
[close]


Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7o9143ebl8i60uo/AABj1DGX17x9YcE12E2_lgVza?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7o9143ebl8i60uo/AABj1DGX17x9YcE12E2_lgVza?dl=0)


Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: gmansawesome on October 04, 2019, 06:48:53 PM
Hi, I finally decided to try this mod and I want to know if the following mods are compatible:
-lazylib
-graphicslib
-disassemble reassemble
-Combat Chatter
-Audio+
-Speed up
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 04, 2019, 10:48:34 PM
@gmansawesome: Thanks for trying it out, first of all, and of that list all will be compatible with two caveats:

1) For Audio+ and disassemble reassemble you will need to set the total conversion setting in the mod_info file to false as described in earlier posts. Let me know if you need a further explanation there. Audio+ seems to operate fine once that is done.

2) For disassemble reassemble specifically, it seems to be compatible in that I didn't see any immediate crashes when trying it out, starting a campaign, and getting into a battle or two with some of its custom entities.

However, a word of caution: The weapons disassemble brings to the table certainly aren't balanced around Archean Order(mod not faction) and neither are the ships. Just keep that in mind because that particular mod is more balanced towards Vanilla. You might feel either feel very powerful or very underwhelming when flying those vessels. And Archean Order(mod not faction) ships with that mod's weapons might very well be broken to the point of making the campaign feel trivial or feel worthless in comparison to Archean Order(mod not faction) weapons.

Then again, maybe not. I've not tried the two together myself beyond a compatibility test.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: JenkoRun on October 05, 2019, 04:18:04 AM
*Whoop!*

Btw, how can you acquire a Tyrant?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 05, 2019, 11:56:46 AM
It is fairly difficult now.

Your best bet if you don't want to get a commission with the Adamantine Consortium is to look to buy it on the black market at worlds like Lilith or Dagmoth. Probably won't be easy though since that's the Mordreath Triangle, but it's meant to be hard since the Tyrant is more than likely the best player ship in the game.

In case you missed it in the notes or posts, you can bribe Adamantine Consortium dreadlords to get rep up until they are no longer immediately hostile. (If you want to go the commission route)

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 06, 2019, 01:03:55 PM
Update on disassemble reassemble compatibility:

1) Got a crash going through the variants on the eagle_d skin. Some edits to those variants, at least, will be necessary.

2) Regarding balance- some better news there. From what I have seen until the crash, the weapons and ships are actually decently balanced with Archean Order at a first glance- though the variants will be off in many cases and some minor adjustments might have to be made. Consider using Trylobot's ship editor to fix those:

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=375.0

(I recommend this even though DeathFly's editor is at 0.9.1a because there seems to be some bugs specifically related to variants at this time. Once these issues are corrected and the editor is stable that will probably be better to use since its updated to the current Starsector version.)

 - The only outliers I did see at a glance as far as balance goes: A couple low deployment cost fighters being very, very OP due to having ship-based assault weapons.


 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 07, 2019, 12:02:32 PM
Ok, a few more things that will be in the hotfix:

1) Punisher Artillery System is still efficient so I must have not looked through large ballistic weapons thoroughly enough. That will be corrected because that weapon being efficient considering its range (tied for longest range ballistic and only the Tachyon Lance and Ion Beam out-ranging it on the energy side) would be very OP.

2) Antimatter Blaster is outdated in its look and that's getting corrected, but it is also getting at least a 20% damage reduction (maybe more but not sure yet). This is mostly because the Aurora makes it look God-Tier. It can single burst Eagles 100% healthy to dead with its system active and that's only with two blasters plus some an Atropos or two to deal the killing blow once overload makes PD irrelevant. Even with its high Ordinance cost and low range, no other weapon can come close to that level of effectiveness in that category. It was actually fine on the majority of other vessels due to flux costs making it difficult to fire, but they will still be as effective after this change because even after that a shot landing is devastating.

It is now less efficient, but still more efficient than the Plasma Cannon- which has less strike potential but higher overall dps and range. I feel that this brings a very healthy balance to these powerful weapons.

3) The Legion is getting a substantial increase to its max flux and dissipation. It just still wasn't worth the Deployment cost compared to the Onslaught, and I wanted to give a greater emphasis to its role as a capital-class carrier-assault tank. It can take a ton of punishment on the front lines, but has more limited firepower and relies more on its fighter craft (Since it has high Ordinance Points to access powerful numbers of bombers and gunships) to support it in battle. I am also going to make sure it takes advantage of the latest changes to combat carrier AI and that its variants actually utilize its high Ordinance for gunships and bombers as a general rule.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Barracuda on October 09, 2019, 03:56:41 AM
Not sure if related to this mod but it seems like the Galatia system never reconnects with the rest of the sector. Though It might be something else causing it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 09, 2019, 11:06:11 AM
Not sure if related to this mod but it seems like the Galatia system never reconnects with the rest of the sector. Though It might be something else causing it.

Thanks I'll take a look. There were code changes regarding the tutorial from .8 (where that particular thing I know was working) to .9 so it may be I have an outdated implementation of that script that calls the wrong methods, etc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.3) Update 7/16
Post by: Morrokain on October 09, 2019, 01:36:28 PM
My one real complaint about the mod is the slowdown in large fleet battles. Some of it is just Starsector, but I feel like a large part is the fighter spam. I've had issues with the aforementioned Luddic Path armadas fielding so many fighters that I've had multiple instances of not being able to finish off enemies simply because of ablative fighter swarms eating all my shots. And during those times, the game just grinds to a crawl.

I wanted to say I've made a few design decisions for the hotfix to help address this concern. I'll post some details later when I'm more sure about the exact changes coming.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: CMDR Malanior on October 10, 2019, 07:49:40 AM

mod compatible with Nexerelin?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 10, 2019, 10:21:14 AM

mod compatible with Nexerelin?

No, sorry! I might merge the features at some point but it will be a bit before that happens. Still fine tuning the combat engine at this point and I want to get some immersion content in first as well. There are parts of the last feature that will involve some new things but  :-X
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Chaotic-Entropy on October 10, 2019, 11:43:44 AM
Can't help but thinks that stations are a bit OP now... with a one star threat level small station collapsing the shields of and maiming a cap ship before it even gets in range, Consortium especially with their ridiculously powerful fast fire rate blasters (of some sort). Now I'm surrounded by Consortium and Luddic bases that I can't dislodge due to fleets and station.

It wouldn't be so bad if literally anyone else on the map cared about anything going on beyond the borders of their own system but I'm just stuck with whatever happens to be going on.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 10, 2019, 12:23:32 PM
Can't help but thinks that stations are a bit OP now... with a one star threat level small station collapsing the shields of and maiming a cap ship before it even gets in range, Consortium especially with their ridiculously powerful fast fire rate blasters (of some sort). Now I'm surrounded by Consortium and Luddic bases that I can't dislodge due to fleets and station.

Thanks for the feedback. :)

Is this a colony specific issue you are having in regards to raids? Or just that stations as a whole feel too strong when attempting to combat them? They were mostly buffed due to the range increase from the last update. Capitals will certainly help against them but massed cruisers and destroyers are also ideal to draw fire, retreat and vent (to mitigate the station's damage and allow heavy hitters like capitals close in and deal damage. Are you using max fleets and just feel the cost is too high?

It wouldn't be so bad if literally anyone else on the map cared about anything going on beyond the borders of their own system but I'm just stuck with whatever happens to be going on.

Can you explain what you mean? (Sorry trying to help but a little confused) Do you want allied factions to assist your colonies in defense? Or follow your fleet and help against enemy stations?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Marco on October 12, 2019, 05:48:45 PM
Can you explain what you mean? (Sorry trying to help but a little confused) Do you want allied factions to assist your colonies in defense? Or follow your fleet and help against enemy stations?

I imagine he means the fact that the NPC factions never attempt to take out hidden bases, leaving them to build up over time and become monstrously strong. Not to mention the super strong fleets they tend to have in system.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 12, 2019, 08:07:10 PM
Can you explain what you mean? (Sorry trying to help but a little confused) Do you want allied factions to assist your colonies in defense? Or follow your fleet and help against enemy stations?

I imagine he means the fact that the NPC factions never attempt to take out hidden bases, leaving them to build up over time and become monstrously strong. Not to mention the super strong fleets they tend to have in system.

Got it that makes sense. I do have something planned for that. Probably not in the hotfix, but there are more important performance issues to solve first, and I do want stations to feel really strong both to encourage actual battles with them if you're nearby (rather than relying on auto-resolve because its just as good) and to provide a difficulty boost to the endgame.

I haven't really done as much play-testing with Star Fortresses in particular, so they could be tuned too high.

----------------
Performance Issue Solution:

The next update, as a general design change:
- Reduce the number of fighters in each individual wing by 33%-50% (Closer to vanilla numbers per wing, but still more fighters per battle due to assault ships above destroyer size having fighter bays)
- Add more fighter bays to dedicated carriers and combat carriers to further differentiate them (their Carrier Bays hullmod also has been improved)
- Give dedicated carriers an additional built-in hullmod to reduce the 0-flux boost by a large amount (helps reduce carrier edge kiting with non flux pd weapons and missiles only)
- Revert supply per deploy gap between hull sizes back to before the gap was reduced (Not vanilla levels but the gap is significantly wider than before)
- Increase deployment cost of any frigate using built-in fighters over combat frigates. (The built-in wing numbers have also been reduced in most cases)
- Increase battle sizes (minimum only by a little but default and max sizes get a nice boost)
- Combat carriers: add more or larger weapons and dedicated carriers above destroyer size: add additional bays to offset fighter strength reduction. In some cases add Ordinance Points.

The changes increase performance on my PC by about 33 to 40%, so a significant improvement. It also makes all fleets (but capital ship and cruiser fleets especially) more expensive to deploy and increases the cost of CR draining effects of all kinds. So there will be an increase to combat operation costs in general.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: ArnaudB on October 13, 2019, 11:17:34 AM
I have wanted to play this mod. Unfortunately everytime at sector generation the game crash:

Quote
97339 [Thread-4] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.loading.LoadingUtils  - Loading JSON from [DIRECTORY: C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\starsector-core\..\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4 (data\campaign\econ/mordreath.json)]
98718 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: n must be positive
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: n must be positive
   at java.util.Random.nextInt(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.BaseEventManager.updateMax(BaseEventManager.java:37)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.BaseEventManager.<init>(BaseEventManager.java:29)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.PersonBountyManager.<init>(PersonBountyManager.java:16)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.addScriptsIfNeeded(CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.java:421)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.onNewGameAfterEconom yLoad(CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.java:662)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.K.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.if.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.0000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.O0Oo.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I couldn't figure out the problem. I do have the library mods so that shouldn't be the problem.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 13, 2019, 01:03:15 PM
I have wanted to play this mod. Unfortunately everytime at sector generation the game crash:

Spoiler
Quote
97339 [Thread-4] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.loading.LoadingUtils  - Loading JSON from [DIRECTORY: C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\starsector-core\..\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4 (data\campaign\econ/mordreath.json)]
98718 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: n must be positive
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: n must be positive
   at java.util.Random.nextInt(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.BaseEventManager.updateMax(BaseEventManager.java:37)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.BaseEventManager.<init>(BaseEventManager.java:29)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.PersonBountyManager.<init>(PersonBountyManager.java:16)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.addScriptsIfNeeded(CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.java:421)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.onNewGameAfterEconom yLoad(CoreLifecyclePluginImpl.java:662)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.K.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.if.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.0000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.O0Oo.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

I couldn't figure out the problem. I do have the library mods so that shouldn't be the problem.

Thanks a lot for showing the error. :)

It seems to at least point to a specific file. I've never seen this come up before so I will take a look at the file in question and see what turns up.

(You shouldn't need any library mods to run Archean Order - maybe try taking those off and seeing if that helps it in the meantime? I don't think that's the problem most likely since I have used lazylib myself because its required for console commands, but at least that rules it out completely if they aren't being installed)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: ArnaudB on October 13, 2019, 02:05:18 PM
I just tried to start a new game with ONLY Archeon Order, absolutely nothing else active, and I still get the same crash.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 13, 2019, 06:42:03 PM
I just tried to start a new game with ONLY Archeon Order, absolutely nothing else active, and I still get the same crash.

per Alex:

This will happen if, in settings.json, "minPersonBounties" is set higher than "maxPersonBounties".

Have you edited your core settings file by chance?

<install directory>/starsector-core/data/config/settings.JSON

If you have, be aware that there is a setting for maxPersonBounties in the mod:

<install directory>/mods/Archean Order TC v1.3.4/data/config/settings.JSON

So if you increased the number of minPersonBounties but didn't either remove that portion of the mod or change it to be higher to reflect the core settings, that error could occur. I will change it in the next update to override both slider settings so that at the very least it won't cause an error if a player had decided to modify the core file in the past.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: ArnaudB on October 14, 2019, 02:04:50 AM
It works!

The Bounty setting indeed seem to have been the problem. I had set the settings at minbounty=8 and max=20 for a bounty-only run with Varya's Sector.

I set the value to min=3 and max=5 and I was able to successfully start the game. I'll go see what the mod offers now.

Thank you.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 14, 2019, 02:30:37 AM
It works!

The Bounty setting indeed seem to have been the problem. I had set the settings at minbounty=8 and max=20 for a bounty-only run with Varya's Sector.

I set the value to min=3 and max=5 and I was able to successfully start the game. I'll go see what the mod offers now.

Thank you.

Happy to help  :) Thanks for pointing out that potential issue. I have made a note to make sure to correct it for the next update.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 19, 2019, 08:47:42 PM
Not sure if related to this mod but it seems like the Galatia system never reconnects with the rest of the sector. Though It might be something else causing it.

I think I fixed this. It wasn't using the override version of the script I intended it to in some cases for faction-specific starts. So certain colonies' ownership wasn't being changed or included in the economy.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 23, 2019, 10:51:43 AM
Notes for upcoming update/"hotfix."

Let me know if anything seems wonky. Hoping to have it out by the weekend.

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Advanced and rarer vessels are less accessible as a whole in markets, and should no longer be salvageable through post-battle recovery (Enemy-wise) though you can still find them as derelicts from warzones for now (changing that later).
    - Starting options contain less starting vessels than before with the exception of harder starts such as Pirate or Adamantine Consortium.
    - Increased minimum bounties active at a time.
    - Reduced amount of enemy raider bases active.
    - Increased payouts for bounties.
    - Removed use of autofit in NPC fleets.

 --- Faction Changes:
-------------
    - Further increased Luddic Church vessels' effectiveness.
    - Reduced most factions' use of dedicated carrier vessels (Improves large-scale campaign performance.)
    - Hegemony Condor now gains Targeting Feed ship system instead of Burn Drive. (Carrier changes make this necessary.)
    - Luddic Church Condor now gains Reserve Deployment ship system instead of Burn Drive. (Carrier changes make this necessary.)
    - Removed use of Retibution fighters, Thermal Pulsers and Thermal Cannons from Sci-Corps fleets (personal preference. It had too much of a Christmas kind of feel :P )
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Frigates: Added built in hullmod that lets frigates low-flux boost up to 35% max flux and increases damage dealt to fighters by 100% and incoming missiles by 50%.
 - Further increased hitpoints of Atropos torpedoes and Shockwave rockets.
 - Increased flux cost of Punisher Artillery System to be inefficient like other non-missile Fire Support weapons.
 - Slightly reduced hit damage of Devastator Cannon.
 - Reduced hit damage of Antimatter Blaster by 20%. (Was too good for being so flux efficient despite the short range.)
 - Increased flux per shot of Plasma Cannon. Almost inefficient.
 - Increased Peak Performance Time on many rare ships and all phase ships.
 - Increased armor penetration and burst damage of the Claw bomber's light tactical laser.
 - Reduced Heavy Thunderbolt Launcher's damage per second by 33% (Not its strike damage).
 - All dedicated carriers now have a large penalty to their low-flux speed bonus to better prevent kiting. (Carriers now absolutely require escorts to offset their combat range.)
 - Reduced Fighters per wing by a range of 33% - 50% in all cases but the highest tiered fighters.
 - Increased fighter bay amount in dedicated carriers and most combat carriers past the destroyer-sized hull size.
 - Increased supply per deployment gap between hull sizes.
 - Increased supply per deployment gap (slightly) between pure assault-class and fighter-carrying hulls.
 - Increased fighter replacement times substantially.
 - Increased the benefit of the built in carrier hullmod reducing fighter replacement times.
 - Changed Barrage Hammer launcher back to alternating fire behavior. (turns out linked fire makes it weaker to flak rather than stronger overall as I had hoped)
 - Further increased the range threshold of Safety Overrides. (continuing to improve Luddic Path combat strength)
 - Reduced the CR decay per second on dedicated carriers to allow them to more effectively retreat since their speed has been greatly reduced.

--- Faction Hullmod Changes:
-------------
 - Simple Core Systems now increase armor by 100 in addition to its usual effects.
 - Updated Core Systems now increases max flux by 20% in addition to its usual effects, and the shield damage reduction bonus has increased.
 - Luddic Church now has even more increased speed but reduced hull flexibility as far as weapon loadouts (Lower Ordinance Points) and variants have been adjusted accordingly.
    - ^(Similar to Luddic Path- but a less patched-together zealous feel because of the removal of both permanent weapon failures and low PPT associated with Pather hulls.)
    - ^(With these changes, I'm hoping to provide capitalization on strengths and minimalization of weaknesses from an AI standpoint.)
    - ^(To the player, the hulls will seem more balanced as far as player piloting is concerned since previously the hulls mostly provided benefits over drawbacks.)

--- Station Balance Changes:
-------------
 -
--- Ship System Changes:
-------------
 -

--- Ship Changes:
-------------
 - Increased Legion max flux and dissipation.
 - Added an additional Large Ballistic turret slot to Legion.
 - Added additional fighter bays to Legion, Executor, Astral, Megalith, Nightreaver, Epiphany, Odyssey and Pillager hulls.
 - Increased Havok armor.
 - Increased Shrike armor.
 - Aegis now designated a light cruiser. (Better fits its size and power)
 - Added an additional two Large Synergy turrets to the Executor in place of its former side-facing medium Synergy turrets.
 - ^(Adjusted variants accordingly.)
 - Increased Justicar, Revenant and Megalith max flux, and dissipation (reduced their potency a bit too much last update.)
 - Increased Revenant weapon count.
 - Increased Megalith and Revenant fighter bay count and ordinance points (Not as high as before).
 - Re-adjusted cruiser and destroyer speed.
 - Increased Malevolent and Astral max flux.
 - Reduced Malevolent armor and slightly increased Megalth armor.
 - Added additional fighter bay to Eagle to synergize wtih its standard ship system and soften the blow of the number per wing reduction to fighters.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed calculation of Simple Core System's shield damage increase in its description to match its actual effects.
 - Fixed calculation of Updated Core System's shield damage decrease in its description to match its actual effects.
 - Added rarity modifiers to all ship hulls (actually missed the very presence of that column in the ship.csv file, ugh)
 - Corrected Adamantine Consortium faction start to use correct ships instead of the Tri-Tachyon variant.
 - Removed chance for an error to occur during campaign start due to overrides within the settings portion of the mod.
 - Dedicated carriers should now act accordingly among all faction variants and attempt to avoid the front lines and remain behind combat vessels.
 - Hopefully fixed issue with some faction starts causing Galatia to not properly reconnect with the Core World's economy.
 - Jangala is now finally a Hegemony starfortress instead of a Persean League starfortress.
 - Xanathos now actually acts like a black hole instead of a standard star. It is now an extreme hazard. Some colonies are moved father away from the event horizon to prevent too many patrols from being caught in its grip.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished Adamantine Consortium stations look to have better lighting at the edges.
 - Polished Condor (Ad) sprite to better match new theme for the Consortium.
 - Updated Antimatter Blaster sprite to match modern Starsector.
 - Increased battle size defaults (can still be lowered) due to better performance.
 - Hopefully increased performance in late campaign during max battles by 25%-40%.
 - Changed engine color of conversions that change tech to match the tech that the hull is being converted to.
 - Reduced fleet strength variance in Random Battle and Random Fleet Battle missions.
 - Changed Retribution sprite to better match a Hegemony-dominated production.
 - Increased the radius of orbit for several Archean Order entities to help prevent their patrols from crossing the event horizon of Xanathos.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4) Update 10/01
Post by: Morrokain on October 31, 2019, 07:55:59 PM
Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tkdrcv13rkj9ox4/AAD__6SLl40l2SmhH_i2Xaf0a?dl=0]https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tkdrcv13rkj9ox4/AAD__6SLl40l2SmhH_i2Xaf0a?dl=0]https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tkdrcv13rkj9ox4/AAD__6SLl40l2SmhH_i2Xaf0a?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tkdrcv13rkj9ox4/AAD__6SLl40l2SmhH_i2Xaf0a?dl=0)

Update consolidated notes:

- Better performance as a whole (hopefully 40%-66% better)
- Less overpowered carriers.
- Larger battle size.
- All bugs fixed to my knowledge. (please correct me if not)
- Better weapon toolitps. (see detailed notes)
- Better balance between each hull size as far as deployment and combat strength is concerned.

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Advanced and rarer vessels are less accessible as a whole in markets, and should no longer be salvageable through post-battle recovery (Enemy-wise) though you can still find them as derelicts from warzones for now (changing that later).
    - Starting options contain less starting vessels than before with the exception of harder starts such as Pirate or Adamantine Consortium.
    - Increased minimum bounties active at a time.
    - Reduced amount of enemy raider bases active.
    - Increased payouts for bounties.
    - Removed use of autofit in NPC fleets.
    - Added many portraits from various portrait packs for the player and re-added new faction portraits as well (with permission).
    - Removed several portraits from Archean Order factions (most of the anime style ones) to save for future lore.

 --- Faction Changes:
-------------
    - Further increased Luddic Church vessels' effectiveness.
    - Reduced most factions' use of dedicated carrier vessels (Improves large-scale campaign performance.)
    - Hegemony Condor now gains Targeting Feed ship system instead of Burn Drive. (Carrier changes make this necessary.)
    - Luddic Church Condor now gains Reserve Deployment ship system instead of Burn Drive. (Carrier changes make this necessary.)
    - Removed use of Retibution fighters, Thermal Pulsers and Thermal Cannons from Sci-Corps fleets (personal preference. It had too much of a Christmas kind of feel :P )
    - Added many more portraits from various portrait packs to factions (with permission).
    - Restored the CIVILIAN tag to faction freighter conversions so that they won't autodeploy in combat anymore. (Pirates, Adamantine Consortium, Damaged, Trader Guilds)
-----


Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Frigates: Added built in hullmod that lets frigates low-flux boost up to 35% max flux and increases damage dealt to fighters by 100% and incoming missiles by 50%.
 - Further increased hitpoints of Atropos torpedoes and Shockwave rockets.
 - Increased flux cost of Punisher Artillery System to be inefficient like other non-missile Fire Support weapons.
 - Slightly reduced hit damage of Devastator Cannon.
 - Reduced hit damage of Antimatter Blaster by 20%. (Was too good for being so flux efficient despite the short range.)
 - Increased flux per shot of Plasma Cannon. Almost inefficient.
 - Increased Peak Performance Time on many rare ships and all phase ships.
 - Increased armor penetration and burst damage of the Claw bomber's light tactical laser.
 - Reduced Heavy Thunderbolt Launcher's damage per second by 33% (Not its strike damage).
 - All dedicated carriers now have a large penalty to their low-flux speed bonus to better prevent kiting. (Carriers now absolutely require escorts to offset their combat range.)
 - Reduced Fighters per wing by a range of 33% - 50% in all cases but the highest tiered fighters.
 - Increased fighter bay amount in dedicated carriers and most combat carriers past the destroyer-sized hull size.
 - Increased supply per deployment gap between hull sizes.
 - Increased supply per deployment gap (slightly) between pure assault-class and fighter-carrying hulls.
 - Increased fighter replacement times substantially.
 - Increased the benefit of the built in carrier hullmod reducing fighter replacement times.
 - Changed Barrage Hammer launcher back to alternating fire behavior. (turns out linked fire makes it weaker to flak rather than stronger overall as I had hoped)
 - Further increased the range threshold of Safety Overrides. (continuing to improve Luddic Path combat strength)
 - Reduced the CR decay per second on dedicated carriers to allow them to more effectively retreat since their speed has been greatly reduced.
 - Greatly reduced total flux per shot of the Guillotine Cannon to make it more efficient considering its other drawbacks.
 - Increased time between bursts of the Heavy Fissure Cannon to make it more in line with typical ballistic strike weapons. Dps remains the same but overall strike potential reduced.
 - Shade (Ad) and Afflictor (Ad) now have Phase Jumper ship systems instead of their original design's ship systems.

--- Faction Hullmod Changes:
-------------
 - Simple Core Systems now increase armor by 100 in addition to its usual effects.
 - Updated Core Systems now increases max flux by 20% in addition to its usual effects, and the shield damage reduction bonus has increased.
 - Luddic Church now has even more increased speed but reduced hull flexibility as far as weapon loadouts (Lower Ordinance Points) and variants have been adjusted accordingly.
    - ^(Similar to Luddic Path- but a less patched-together zealous feel because of the removal of both permanent weapon failures and low PPT associated with Pather hulls.)
    - ^(With these changes, I'm hoping to provide capitalization on strengths and minimalization of weaknesses from an AI standpoint.)
    - ^(To the player, the hulls will seem more balanced as far as player piloting is concerned since previously the hulls mostly provided benefits over drawbacks.)

--- Station Balance Changes:
-------------
 -
--- Ship System Changes:
-------------
 -

--- Ship Changes:
-------------
 - Increased Legion max flux and dissipation.
 - Added an additional Large Ballistic turret slot to Legion.
 - Added additional fighter bays to Legion, Executor, Astral, Megalith, Nightreaver, Epiphany, Odyssey and Pillager hulls.
 - Increased Havok armor.
 - Increased Shrike armor.
 - Aegis now designated a light cruiser. (Better fits its size and power)
 - Added an additional two Large Synergy turrets to the Executor in place of its former side-facing medium Synergy turrets.
 - ^(Adjusted variants accordingly.)
 - Increased Justicar, Revenant and Megalith max flux, and dissipation (reduced their potency a bit too much last update.)
 - Increased Revenant weapon count.
 - Increased Megalith and Revenant fighter bay count and ordinance points (Not as high as before).
 - Re-adjusted cruiser and destroyer speed.
 - Increased Malevolent and Astral max flux.
 - Reduced Malevolent armor and slightly increased Megalth armor.
 - Added additional fighter bay to Eagle to synergize wtih its standard ship system and soften the blow of the number per wing reduction to fighters.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed calculation of Simple Core System's shield damage increase in its description to match its actual effects.
 - Fixed calculation of Updated Core System's shield damage decrease in its description to match its actual effects.
 - Added rarity modifiers to all ship hulls (actually missed the very presence of that column in the ship.csv file, ugh)
 - Corrected Adamantine Consortium faction start to use correct ships instead of the Tri-Tachyon variants.
 - Removed chance for an error to occur during campaign start due to overrides within the settings portion of the mod.
 - Dedicated carriers should now act accordingly among all faction variants and attempt to avoid the front lines and remain behind combat vessels.
 - Hopefully fixed issue with some faction starts causing Galatia to not properly reconnect with the Core World's economy.
 - Jangala is now finally a Hegemony starfortress instead of a Persean League starfortress.
 - Xanathos now actually acts like a black hole instead of a standard star. It is now an extreme hazard.
 - Corrected flux per salvo and other statistics. (They are no longer in the description but actually featured on the tooltip)
 - Corrected the Adamantine Consortium mistakenly constructing Archean Order stations for raider bases. Now uses Adamantine Consortium stations.
 - Fixed post designations for Archean Order to make more sense from perspective on their ranks (hopefully).
 - Corrected Citizen rank for Adamantine Consortium to something more appropriate for that faction's setting.
 - Added descriptions to ships, weapons, ship systems and fighters that still needed them. (Some are still placeholders for the lore update)
 - Fixed faction starts that sometimes wouldn't assign officers to vessels.
 - Fixed faction starts that sometimes wouldn't assign officers to the player fleet at all.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Polished Adamantine Consortium stations look to have better lighting at the edges.
 - Polished Condor (Ad) sprite to better match new theme for the Consortium.
 - Updated Antimatter Blaster sprite to match modern Starsector.
 - Increased battle size defaults (can still be lowered) due to better performance.
 - Hopefully increased performance in late campaign during max battles by 25%-40%.
 - Changed engine color of conversions that change tech to match the tech that the hull is being converted to.
 - Reduced fleet strength variance in Random Battle and Random Fleet Battle missions.
 - Changed Retribution sprite to better match a Hegemony-dominated production.
 - Increased the radius of orbit for several Archean Order entities to help prevent their patrols from crossing the event horizon of Xanathos.
 - Added more important details and statistics to most weapon tooltips.
 - Helmsmanship skill tier 3 increased to 50% flux level threshold in order to reflect recent frigate changes.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Barracuda on November 03, 2019, 02:26:21 AM
Great work as always on the update! Recently I've been trying to play with this mod and Nex. Ive only noticed two issues, one that some of the stations used by the new factions are not in place. Two Nex does not recognize the new factions. If this mod and Nex were compatible I would be set for life! I prefer your mod's weapons and ships way more than vanilla
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Morrokain on November 03, 2019, 10:43:59 AM
Thank you!

I'll send Histidine a message regarding Nex compatibility. I may have some time to work on that in the near future. From what I remember back when I was looking at the details of the Nex project the primary issue was the first one. Both Archean Order and Nex modify parts of the procgen and I wasn't (at the time) quite sure about how to reconcile both starts.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: PyroFuzz on November 05, 2019, 06:15:54 PM
I feel like this has already been asked, sorry in advance. But how compatible is this mod with other faction mods?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Damienov on November 05, 2019, 06:49:00 PM
I feel like this has already been asked, sorry in advance. But how compatible is this mod with other faction mods?
very low compatibility, because this is a total conversion mod. A snippet of the info on the main post

Quote
However, "Archean Order" is a TOTAL CONVERSION and will NOT work with the majority of other mods due to its comprehensive editing of core files.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Morrokain on November 05, 2019, 07:54:43 PM
I feel like this has already been asked, sorry in advance. But how compatible is this mod with other faction mods?

Correct as PyroFuzz Damienov (was looking at the name of the poster when typing  :P ) said completely overriding the weapons and ships list means any faction mod that makes use of any Vanilla weapons or ships probably won't work and will cause random crashes if weapon slots have been removed and that mod has variants that try to put weapons there.

If the faction mod is completely unique then it may work without crashes but there is no guarantee that balance will match up very well.

However, lots of utility and feature mods are compatible.

--------------------------------------

Well I am very happy to announce that it does look like 0.9 changes has made it so that merging in Nex will be a lot easier. Probably not easy, but I think I can get it done. I'll give more details when I have them.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Barracuda on November 05, 2019, 09:11:18 PM
Well I am very happy to announce that it does look like 0.9 changes has made it so that merging in Nex will be a lot easier. Probably not easy, but I think I can get it done. I'll give more details when I have them.  :)
Glad to hear! Keep up the great work!  :D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Daynen on November 06, 2019, 02:41:45 AM
Man, merging this with Nexerelin would be pretty hardcore.  Can't wait to take my Tyrant out on a galaxy-conquering spree.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Morrokain on November 06, 2019, 10:35:06 AM
It turns out its even better than merging. I can actually make it compatible so it can be an optional mod alongside the TC (have to disable the TC flag of course). This is really important because merging means I have to also support all the changes both for Starsector updates and current Nex bugs (if any), and that was a huge downside for me since it would probably double the work and its not code I wrote or am familiar with. This way, Histidine's changes for bugfixes and updates will can be easily included by redownloading Nex rather than having to tell me about it and I have to change it in Archean Order's code.

I've already fixed the faction markets not spawning. It was honestly far easier than I expected it to be. The only thing I can't get to connect to the sector economy so far (at least while Nex is active) is Eldrus, which is trivial enough since it is a level 1 market mostly for story purposes anyway.

Now I just need to set up the config so that Nex recognizes Archean Order factions and hopefully override the starting ship options to stay true to Archean Order faction flavor.

Then I'm merging another portrait pack and providing a new commission feature where you can lock the player faction's portraits to your commission factions portrait list. Ever wanted to just have your colonies spawn Hegemony or Archean Order officers? Now you can!

It is both optional and reversible too.  ;)

The next update will be small, but its impact will be huge. I'm pretty excited about it!
---------------

*edit*

Ok I have 3 of the factions plugged in but they need polish and fine-tuning for all the features because there are a lot of them. I also fixed an issue with Random Core Worlds causing a nullpointer so that should be a possible start option now.

The only thing I may not be able to do anything about is that Nex itself modifies starting ships, items, the defense stations uses and a couple other things for Vanilla factions.

My changes to them just merge with Nex, so unless there is a weight variable like for stations, that will show up more than likely. Luckily there is a weight for stations so those will remain mostly standard to Archean Order's balance.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Morrokain on November 08, 2019, 03:46:00 PM
Alright I added all the portraits from the new merged portrait pack (thanks Interestio!) and I have 40 of the 60 rules done for faction portraits. There was an unforeseen issue on that feature I am trying to solve, and I need to add the Trader Guilds to the Nex faction config and finish the polish for Sci-Corps as well.

If I can get all of that done I'll release a Nex compatible update late tonight. No promises though: a lot could come up.  ;)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Morrokain on November 09, 2019, 04:20:05 PM
Trying to fix one last stubborn issue.  >:(
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: I_is_nublet on November 09, 2019, 04:52:14 PM
Alright I added all the portraits from the new merged portrait pack (thanks Interestio!) and I have 40 of the 60 rules done for faction portraits. There was an unforeseen issue on that feature I am trying to solve, and I need to add the Trader Guilds to the Nex faction config and finish the polish for Sci-Corps as well.

If I can get all of that done I'll release a Nex compatible update late tonight. No promises though: a lot could come up.  ;)

While it would be amazeballs if it happens tonight, no pressure :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG (v1.3.4a) Update 10/31
Post by: Morrokain on November 09, 2019, 06:59:04 PM
Going to spend another 30 minutes on it then update start the update process if no progress has been made. Its not game breaking. Just be aware that if you change your faction to only use your commissioned factions portraits, and then betray your commissioned faction without resigning it in person at a market, your player factions portraits will be locked until you can sneak into a market and speak with a commission npc to reset them.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 09, 2019, 09:25:09 PM
Here's the Nex update!  ;D

I still couldn't fix the issue with dropping a commission outside of a market failing to cause player portraits to reset, so be aware of that. Other than that there shouldn't be many bugs at least that I have found. Feedback always welcome. Enjoy!

Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dqh1a3f56ioe101/AAAzewtc2tih16Sbzt88sXBHa?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dqh1a3f56ioe101/AAAzewtc2tih16Sbzt88sXBHa?dl=0)

Compatible with Nexerelin
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0)

Directions to Enable Nexerelin and Other Non-Utility Mods:
Spoiler
1) Go to mod_info.json located directly within the the first level of the mod directory and open it.

2) Change the value 
Code
 "totalConversion":"true"
to: 
Code
 "totalConversion":"false",

3) You can now enable the other mods when running the game.
[close]

Update Notes v1.3.4b:
 
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Now Nex compatible!
    - Megalith spawns slightly more often in Archean Order fleets.
    - Added 375 new portraits spread among all factions including some of the Archean Order-specifc factions.

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Can request faction-specific portraits for player owned-fleets for more faction flavor customization once you have a commission with them.
-----

Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed some dialogue text not respecting new lines.
 - Add tech types to stations.
 - Corrected weapon blueprints for changes in theme for Adamantine Consortium and Sci Corps from last update.
-----

Misc
-------------
 - Game loads slightly faster
-----
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Ranakastrasz on November 09, 2019, 09:27:48 PM
Sorry if I missed it, but does this work with nex and other mods that add ships? Or just nex itself?

It is kinda hard to imagine it otherwise.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 09, 2019, 09:31:54 PM
Yeah just Nex itself.  ;)

Other mods that add ships should actually be fine as long as they do not modify any core vanilla ships or variants. Really its the variants of vanilla ships that is the big problem because that would cause random nullpointers if I have removed weapon mounts, etc.

That doesn't mean they will be balanced, though, since other ship mods balance around Vanilla (mostly).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Eliteempire on November 11, 2019, 08:19:47 PM
hey chief, when ya say its Now Nex compatible is that implying the Nexerelin by Histidine, Zaphide mega mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 12, 2019, 11:37:55 AM
hey chief, when ya say its Now Nex compatible is that implying the Nexerelin by Histidine, Zaphide mega mod?

Yes. :) Though there is a bug with my helmsmanship skill I just found out about that I need to correct.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Eliteempire on November 12, 2019, 05:07:51 PM
hey chief, when ya say its Now Nex compatible is that implying the Nexerelin by Histidine, Zaphide mega mod?

Yes. :) Though there is a bug with my helmsmanship skill I just found out about that I need to correct.

Is it game breaking? I wanna update as I didn't even realize this was updated but if its a big bad bug then I can't really risk it?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 12, 2019, 06:04:10 PM
Yes, though I myself cannot reproduce it. I have provided what could potentially be a fix on this thread but haven't heard anything to confirm it yet:

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17217.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17217.0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Eliteempire on November 12, 2019, 06:51:48 PM
dang. well i'm bad enough with mods i'll just wait until its fully fixed and its rolled out.

Thanks chief.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 12, 2019, 07:35:10 PM
No worries  ;) hopefully I'll get a proper update out soon. I want to be sure it actually solves the problem first. I hate things I cant reproduce. It greatly limits my ability to troubleshoot.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Eliteempire on November 12, 2019, 07:51:26 PM
I understand that issue greatly, all I can say is I wish ya luck. I've been having a blast in the version i've been running of this mod. 3 of the Archean Capital ships with max carriers is a blast, laggy but a blast
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 12, 2019, 08:11:39 PM
Thank you I'm glad you are having fun. :)

Depending on your current version, this next version (once hotfixed) will hopefully improve that lag a bit too.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: WASP103 on November 13, 2019, 12:42:00 AM
I totally love the idea of the more immersive interactions of your mod here. Is there any safe way to only implement that way without the faction-, ship- and weapon-modifications, -additions?

I know it's basically getting rid of the most important part, which by the way I really love the idea and design of. I'm stunned by its beauty, especially the sci faction & background <3
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Daynen on November 13, 2019, 01:53:27 AM
Holy crap this is actually happening.  You do not know what you have unleashed upon the galaxy.  MISSILE BOATS AWAY!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: Morrokain on November 13, 2019, 02:27:28 PM
I have officially hotfixed the fatal error with the Helmanship skill. It has been reported as solved as of today. Simply re-download the mod, delete your old mod directory and replace it with the new one. It will seem like the skill has been weakened according to the tooltip, but each hullmod that affects that value stacks so functionally it remains almost the same. Frigates with that skill should be pretty fun to pilot now.

The new version should read "Archean Order TC v1.3.4c" when downloading.

Notes: (minor)
Spoiler
Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed fatal error when taking the helmanship skill tier 3.
-----
[close]

---------------------------------------------------------

I totally love the idea of the more immersive interactions of your mod here. Is there any safe way to only implement that way without the faction-, ship- and weapon-modifications, -additions?

I know it's basically getting rid of the most important part, which by the way I really love the idea and design of. I'm stunned by its beauty, especially the sci faction & background <3

Thanks I appreciate your enthusiasm!  :)

To make sure I understand what you are asking, you want the dialogue features without the combat rebalance or new factions? Or you want the dialogue features and new factions (minus their ships, weapons, fighters, etc) but without the combat rebalance?

The first one will probably happen anyway, I'm just not 100% done fleshing out that system yet (its a lot of rules work) and I want to wait until then to release it as a stand-alone mod that can be used with all mods.

The second request would be possible but more difficult. I'm not sure how worth it that particular amount of work would be, however, since it removes most of the iconic themes associated with each faction.

If you don't want to wait for me (understandable haha) then you can probably get the dialogue into other mods with a bit of work:

Spoiler
1) Open the rules.csv file using SafariJohn's rule tool:
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13976.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13976.0)

2) delete all the rules other than the directories titled "fleet interaction menu options" "cease fire interaction" and "commodity request/demand interactions"

3) look at the src directory and find the rulecmd directory under "src/archeus"

4) the rule commands you would need to compile into a jar are: "CeaseFireBribeCalc" "CeaseFireRequestCalc" "CommodityRequestCalc" "ReqCredits" "ReqFuel" "ReqSupplies" "SetReputationLevel"

5) add the jar (name it whatever) to the setting file in your starsector directory.
[close]

All I ask if you do this is that you don't release it and keep it as a personal mod (because I will release an official one eventually).

Holy crap this is actually happening.  You do not know what you have unleashed upon the galaxy.  MISSILE BOATS AWAY!

 ;D Have fun and let me know if you run into any issues!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Eliteempire on November 13, 2019, 03:47:48 PM
Thanks chief, and the one I was running was 1.3.3
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 13, 2019, 04:06:32 PM
Oh I see! A lot has changed since then as far as balance and hopefully performance goes. Let me know if that worsens or enhances your experience.

Battles should be larger and frigates have more of a role due to some recent buffs in their category of vessel. Archean Order ships and weapons have been reworked a bit, but their overall strength in the player hands should be a bit less overwhelming for the benefit of the AI having a noticeable improvement with them. I think that should balance out to a more fun end game experience. Previously the player could absolutely destroy with them (the Megalith was a bit OP honestly) and now end game threats should offer a bit more of a challenge if playing as that faction. Simultaneously, playing against the Archean Order should be more challenging and less about the "wait for high flux then pounce" play-style that the fire support weapons often forced. Their weapons still max their vessels flux quickly, but their salvos are more damaging and require more careful mitigation. They cannot snipe and kite nearly as effectively, however.

I'm hoping those changes provide adequate trade-offs.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Eliteempire on November 13, 2019, 04:44:17 PM
Oh I see! A lot has changed since then as far as balance and hopefully performance goes. Let me know if that worsens or enhances your experience.

Battles should be larger and frigates have more of a role due to some recent buffs in their category of vessel. Archean Order ships and weapons have been reworked a bit, but their overall strength in the player hands should be a bit less overwhelming for the benefit of the AI having a noticeable improvement with them. I think that should balance out to a more fun end game experience. Previously the player could absolutely destroy with them (the Megalith was a bit OP honestly) and now end game threats should offer a bit more of a challenge if playing as that faction. Simultaneously, playing against the Archean Order should be more challenging and less about the "wait for high flux then pounce" play-style that the fire support weapons often forced. Their weapons still max their vessels flux quickly, but their salvos are more damaging and require more careful mitigation. They cannot snipe and kite nearly as effectively, however.

I'm hoping those changes provide adequate trade-offs.

Well that seems like hell with me then, I was struggling with the CIS battleship which I think is the Megalith? against REDACTED and other faction ships of equal size weight. BUt I'll check it out later tonight. Thanks for keeping these updated as fast and fixed best ya can chief!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/9
Post by: WASP103 on November 14, 2019, 12:26:26 AM

If you don't want to wait for me (understandable haha) then you can probably get the dialogue into other mods with a bit of work:

Spoiler
1) Open the rules.csv file using SafariJohn's rule tool:
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13976.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13976.0)

2) delete all the rules other than the directories titled "fleet interaction menu options" "cease fire interaction" and "commodity request/demand interactions"

3) look at the src directory and find the rulecmd directory under "src/archeus"

4) the rule commands you would need to compile into a jar are: "CeaseFireBribeCalc" "CeaseFireRequestCalc" "CommodityRequestCalc" "ReqCredits" "ReqFuel" "ReqSupplies" "SetReputationLevel"

5) add the jar (name it whatever) to the setting file in your starsector directory.
[close]

All I ask if you do this is that you don't release it and keep it as a personal mod (because I will release an official one eventually).


Thank you very much! this is actually exactly what I was hoping for! :)
And a standalone is already in planning? Perfect!
 And I'm looking forward to that as well. Keep up the good work mate :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 14, 2019, 01:14:10 PM
Well that seems like hell with me then, I was struggling with the CIS battleship which I think is the Megalith? against REDACTED and other faction ships of equal size weight. BUt I'll check it out later tonight. Thanks for keeping these updated as fast and fixed best ya can chief!

Yup, the Megalith is inspired by the Lucrehulk battleship. It will really depend on what you were struggling with though. Its shields are better but it has less dissipation and ordinance points than before. Its primary cannons have shorter range, but higher hit damage to make them more effective at other battleships like the onslaught.

So there were some trade offs but the biggest change was less range so the Megalith doesn't make stations practically obsolete when using Apocalypse Cannons.

Thank you very much! this is actually exactly what I was hoping for! :)
And a standalone is already in planning? Perfect!
 And I'm looking forward to that as well. Keep up the good work mate :)

 ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: mxyzptlk on November 15, 2019, 09:03:34 AM
These mods are causing crash in my game in someway, seems the only ones incompatibles

Kadur Remnant 3.0.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649.0)
Ship Weapons Pack 1.10.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0)
Underworld 1.4.1 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11002.0)
prv Starworks v11 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12553.0)

My modlist (selected one arent enabled):

http://prntscr.com/pxhn3q
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Barracuda on November 15, 2019, 10:16:59 AM
Any mods that rely on vanilla StarSector as a base will cause the game to crash. Pretty much the only mods that work with Archean Order are ones that only add or change things that have nothing to do with the ships or weapons unfortunately.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 15, 2019, 01:22:22 PM
These mods are causing crash in my game in someway, seems the only ones incompatibles

Kadur Remnant 3.0.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649.0)
Ship Weapons Pack 1.10.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0)
Underworld 1.4.1 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11002.0)
prv Starworks v11 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12553.0)

My modlist (selected one arent enabled):

http://prntscr.com/pxhn3q

I'm actually more surprised at how many are compatible- that's a pretty long list for a TC. Thank you for posting this. I'm sorry about the ones that don't work.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Barracuda on November 15, 2019, 04:20:48 PM
These mods are causing crash in my game in someway, seems the only ones incompatibles

Kadur Remnant 3.0.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649.0)
Ship Weapons Pack 1.10.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0)
Underworld 1.4.1 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11002.0)
prv Starworks v11 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12553.0)

My modlist (selected one arent enabled):

http://prntscr.com/pxhn3q

How did you manage to get Vayra's Sector running? Just tried it a second ago in a new save and just going into the simulator caused it to crash
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 15, 2019, 05:09:20 PM
Any mods that rely on vanilla StarSector as a base will cause the game to crash. Pretty much the only mods that work with Archean Order are ones that only add or change things that have nothing to do with the ships or weapons unfortunately.

Its not quite that limited, but yeah pretty darn close. If the mod in question adds custom ships and weapons and only references already defined vanilla variants- that haven't been modified in their code (as opposed to custom vanilla variants they made or edited from existing variants)- then it should theoretically be fine.

Vayra's Sector seems improbable considering its a mega mod though. I didn't catch that at first. Assuming the simulator was never tried, it could be that the variant that is causing the simulator crash hasn't been encountered in the campaign yet. When it is, it will probably crash there as well.

Besides the simulator, a good thing to do to test mod compatibility is to put the game in dev mode and go to the "edit variants" button. Scroll all the way down and if there aren't any crashes then the mod is more likely to be safe. Sometimes not, but its a good early indicator.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Barracuda on November 16, 2019, 02:02:52 AM
Makes sense, though the only parts of Varya's Sector I was interested in was the Bounties and that the pirates/path will stop spawning if you take out their faction.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: mxyzptlk on November 16, 2019, 08:28:48 AM
These mods are causing crash in my game in someway, seems the only ones incompatibles

Kadur Remnant 3.0.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649.0)
Ship Weapons Pack 1.10.4 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0)
Underworld 1.4.1 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11002.0)
prv Starworks v11 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12553.0)

My modlist (selected one arent enabled):

http://prntscr.com/pxhn3q

How did you manage to get Vayra's Sector running? Just tried it a second ago in a new save and just going into the simulator caused it to crash

I've got crash in Vayra after looking for some of their bounty. It's incompatible too.

But these mods that ive listed, you can even start Starsector with them on.

I played i bit with TC and really enjoyed this one, but its sad that you can't play with these others, including Vayra that brings good features.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 16, 2019, 11:22:11 AM
I played i bit with TC and really enjoyed this one, but its sad that you can't play with these others, including Vayra that brings good features.

Yeah that is the downside of the combat changes being so universal it is really hard to make Vanilla-modified mods work well. It would require an entire rework of almost all the ship files to make it possible, and then balancing for actual fun would be some serious math.

Stuff like: (hullsize weapon count) * (Avg dps of large weapons across vanilla and mods / number of average additional Archean Order large weapons(by hullsize))

So each Archean Order weapon would have to correlate to a certain fraction of vanilla damage (since there are more of them per ship) and then the number of weapon slots and fighter bays per hull (by hullsize) would have to be standardized against vanilla (and alongside other Archean Order ships).

Archean Order was not designed under these strict parameters. It was quite honestly designed for "fun" in the sense of cinematic battles that look similar to Star Wars battles. The weapons and ship mounts were mostly designed around aesthetics and then balanced afterward. I would not recommend this approach for normal game design, but for a mod its a design choice that I can make confidently and fine tuning over many years paid off in the long run.

For instance, the Megalith went through ~40 different looks before the mod was released the first time. I watched every video I could find of a Lucrehulk battleship firing a spread of lasers and wanted the top-down forward firing of the Megalith to look very similar. The weapon placement is key to make that happen and so the Megalith (as one of the most powerful ships in the mod) was the cornerstone that most of the other ships were balanced around rather than that being the consideration while designing weapon placements.

Archean Order weapons were then designed partly around the Megalith's weapon slots. That is why they are the longest ranged weapons- the Megalith has forward-facing weapon slots practically at the back of the ship lol but that's required to get the firing look it needs. Most weapons also have a very slight firing delay that differs from weapon to weapon. Again this is purely aesthetic because it creates the staggered fire iconic to Star Wars instead of salvo-based volleys that are more in line with WWII naval combat.

That should give some insight into the combat changes and why they are difficult to revert back to Vanilla standards.

I'm not done adding ships and weapons to the mod though, so if there are any ships and weapons from other mods you would like to see in Archean Order let me know (Permission from the mod author will be strictly required of course) and I can rebalance them.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Eliteempire on November 16, 2019, 02:10:49 PM
I played i bit with TC and really enjoyed this one, but its sad that you can't play with these others, including Vayra that brings good features.

I'm not done adding ships and weapons to the mod though, so if there are any ships and weapons from other mods you would like to see in Archean Order let me know (Permission from the mod author will be strictly required of course) and I can rebalance them.


Shame ya said just other mods cause the pizza wedges would be a great add in I'd think.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 16, 2019, 04:24:24 PM
Shame ya said just other mods cause the pizza wedges would be a great add in I'd think.

This mod?

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12243.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12243.0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Eliteempire on November 16, 2019, 05:06:02 PM
Shame ya said just other mods cause the pizza wedges would be a great add in I'd think.

This mod?

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12243.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12243.0)

Aye reminds me alot of the venators and other republic era ships.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 16, 2019, 05:34:51 PM
Oh yes they certainly look inspired from Star Wars. :)

Have you tried it yet? I think it should actually work with Archean Order by looking at the mod. You just need to disable the TC flag to include it in your mod list. Directions are on the front page (it is very simple)

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Eliteempire on November 16, 2019, 06:02:35 PM
Oh yes they certainly look inspired from Star Wars. :)

Have you tried it yet? I think it should actually work with Archean Order by looking at the mod. You just need to disable the TC flag to include it in your mod list. Directions are on the front page (it is very simple)

TC flag meaning totalConversion line?

And I've played it by itself when I first acquired the game, but haven't sense. Been this mod only because well, Its a big blast.

Ah, And I hit a Null Error when picking out starting stuff. Ya can't swap the picture or it crashes the game. I'm using the Ao mod and the Nexeraline as well if that helps pinpoint it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 16, 2019, 06:11:30 PM
TC flag meaning totalConversion line?

Yes the totalConversion line. I checked it out myself and it will run alongside Archean Order with the appropriate library mods. 2 things:

1) The library mods tank CPU performance (at least for me) so be aware of that going in.

2) The FDS mod works fine but variants will seem underpowered because they use vanilla balanced weapons. I'll send the mod author a message about letting me rebalance them for the Archean Order mod since the themes match well, but for performance reasons I will have to separate out the library mods so that could cause complications.

Quote
And I've played it by itself when I first acquired the game, but haven't sense. Been this mod only because well, Its a big blast.

Ah, And I hit a Null Error when picking out starting stuff. Ya can't swap the picture or it crashes the game. I'm using the Ao mod and the Nexeraline as well if that helps pinpoint it.

Thank you I'm very happy you think so!  :)

Hmm, let me take a look at that crash.

*Edit*

Not seeing a crash on my end when selecting a new portrait (new game using the latest Nex and AO release)

It does pause a tiny bit though, which indicates it is a little system intensive to load all the portraits. Was the crash a null pointer or just a generic "null" and can you select random portrait without it crashing?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Eliteempire on November 16, 2019, 06:20:57 PM
I have zero idea what ya mean at all by the library mods tank stuff, or that stuff.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex Update! 11/13
Post by: Morrokain on November 16, 2019, 06:26:13 PM
I have zero idea what ya mean at all by the library mods tank stuff, or that stuff.

Sorry I meant they decrease your systems performance and will cause a lot of slow down while in battles (most likely).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 18, 2019, 01:25:48 AM
Some bug fixes and improvements with Nex config. Simply redownload to update but will likely require new starts for all of the changes to take effect.

Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dqh1a3f56ioe101/AAAzewtc2tih16Sbzt88sXBHa?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dqh1a3f56ioe101/AAAzewtc2tih16Sbzt88sXBHa?dl=0)

Notes:
Spoiler
Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed issues with Eldrus still not being effectively plugged into the sector economy. (Including Nex starts with Core Worlds enabled)
 - Added High Command to the new factions' capitals replacing Military Bases.
 - Fixed potential crash on new game start relating to a possible nullpointer in the start-up scripts.
 - Corrected Wolf variants for the Eldrus Guard script to use Archean Order variants.
 - Added Nex config for new factions' spawn points and capitals.
 - Corrected faction markets to not use duplicate industries (as in an upgrade and a downgrade of the same industry) to prevent possible future conflicts.
 - Fixed minor typo with Trader Guilds' stations on the industry panel.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 19, 2019, 07:43:59 PM
If you are having issues with some markets seeming unattached to the sector economy, having blank comm lists without any npcs, or having a ton of shortages and not selling commodities, please see this thread for the solution. Also, please get back to me with the information requested in the thread regarding operating system and the solution that works for you so that I can help remove this error from being a problem in the future. Thanks!  :)

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17278.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17278.0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: morriganj on November 21, 2019, 11:29:06 PM
Sorry I can't get this mod to work. I tried changing the line to false, and it still crashes and gives a null error.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Alfa Cor on November 22, 2019, 12:37:46 AM
Sorry I can't get this mod to work. I tried changing the line to false, and it still crashes and gives a null error.
What does your starsector.log say?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 22, 2019, 10:10:20 AM
@morriganj Sorry you are having trouble. :( I'll try to help but I'd need some more information.

What mods are you attempting to use alongside and what is your operating system? As Alfa Cor already mentioned the log of the error would help as well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: morriganj on November 23, 2019, 03:31:36 AM
Here are the mods currently enabled...

Trailer moments
Another portrait pack
Appro Light
Arsenal Expansion
Cari's UI
Celestial Mount Circle
Combat Chatter
Common Radar
Console commands
Diable Avionics
Disassemble Reassemble
ED Shipyard
Galatia Complete (Music replacer)
Grand sector
Hazard Mining
High Tech Armada
Hiigaran Descendants
Interstellar Imperium
Kiith Nabaal Shipyard
Kipling Radiative
LazyLib
Luddic Enhancement
MagicLib
Mayasauran Navy
Missing Ships
New Galactic Order (From nexus mods site)
Nexerelin
ORA
Portrait pack
Practice Targets
Second Wave Options
Sevrets of the frontier
Ship Weapon Pack
Station Construction
Tahlon Shipworks
Tiadong Heavy Industries
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition
Unkown Skies
Upgraded Rotary Weapons
Version Checker
ZZ Audio
ZZ GraphicsLib
Prv Starworks
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: morriganj on November 23, 2019, 03:34:15 AM
I try the log too, I am just not sure what I am looking for.

When the game crashes with Archeon and line = false, It gives me a null error.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 23, 2019, 10:59:35 AM
Ah ok that makes sense then. Even though many mods work with this one, its still a Total Conversion. So it is not universally compatible.

Some of those faction mods are incompatible with Archean Order because they both modify core ship and variant files. I know Ship and Weapon Pack for sure will cause this issue, for instance. Faction mods that add unique ships and weapons should work fine, but ones that change or add new variants for Vanilla ships won't work.

My advice:

Disable all faction mods and keep all the feature mods. Run the game in dev mod (let me know if you need directions on how to do that) and that will enable the "Edit Variants" button at the bottom of the main menu. Select that and scroll all the way down. If that doesn't cause a crash you are probably safe.

Next, enable one faction mod at a time, and each time check the variants and make sure there aren't any random null crashes.

*Edit*

Updated the main post to include info about the mod being a total conversion within the directions to enable Nex. It was already included in the install instructions further down the page, but if players didn't happen to read that they may not have realized.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Trensicourt on November 23, 2019, 07:44:14 PM
I don't know why this is happening but when I select a mod, sometimes Archean Order turns itself off. Why does it do this?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 23, 2019, 08:58:30 PM
@Trensicourt

You have to disable the TC flag because Archean Order is a total conversion and this keeps additional mods as turned off by default since some faction mods that edit core files cause issues with this mod.

You can get directions to disable this behavior through the "How to enable Nexerelin and other non-utility mods" portion of the main page.

A couple players have also posted a few mod lists that work for them to help avoid errors, and the method provided above in the last couple posts can further help to narrow down which faction mods are compatible.

Eventually I'll get a list going of verified mods but its a little low priority at the moment compared to RL things.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: morriganj on November 23, 2019, 09:24:37 PM
I'll finish my current playthrough and then revisit your mod later :) I really wanna try it
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Daynen on November 24, 2019, 06:43:22 PM
When I first realized you'd swapped out the Tyrant's temporal shell for a phase jumper I was upset.

Then I figured out how it actually works.

Holy crap.  Ludd himself soils his pants when I fly this ship.  Cloak right up to the enemy, decloak, jump behind them and open up on those engines.  Boom.  Capital ship dead or out of the fight.  It's like fighting the...brilliant?  Radiant class?  The remnant capital ship that jumps.  It's like that but playable.  I honestly scare myself with this thing.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 24, 2019, 07:29:04 PM
Haha yes its a very good ship and giving it that system improved the AI's use of it which was the actual design goal. Since it is harder to get than most capitals and REDACTED ships will be pilot-able in the next update anyway, I'm not worried about it being particularly unbalanced even though in the player hands it is an especially devastating vessel.

It is still pretty vulnerable to surrounds and massed bomber strikes though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Daynen on November 25, 2019, 03:30:55 AM
Only if they catch you with both your jumps AND cloak on cooldown...otherwise it's "OMAE WA...MO SHINDEIRU..."

"NANI!?"  Boom.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Ranakastrasz on November 27, 2019, 09:30:16 AM
The Heavy Hunter Launcher doesn't have it's Volly data included.
----
Love the new innate hullmods. Different low-flux stats, and different speeds (for carriers)
How exactly does Lockdown Protocol work? I've seen derelicts of these ship types, so is it just not 100% reliable, despite implying such?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on November 27, 2019, 01:09:10 PM
The Heavy Hunter Launcher doesn't have it's Volly data included.
----
Love the new innate hullmods. Different low-flux stats, and different speeds (for carriers)
How exactly does Lockdown Protocol work? I've seen derelicts of these ship types, so is it just not 100% reliable, despite implying such?

Thanks! Fixed the Heavy Hunter's tooltip, I forgot to add the string portion that populates the salvo and capacity values.

*EDIT* Oh also I added the fix to the download link for Archean Order TC v1.3.4d so you can redownload and replace the weapon_data.csv file and the flux stats should show up.

Yeah the frigate built ins feel especially good. Very happy with how that turned out. They seem to actually have a bigger role in combat other than interdiction vessels when running down fleeing enemy fleets. Now they make decent support ships.

A while ago when the mod first came out. Thaago was kind enough to give some feedback on the feel of frigate vs frigate combat, and the final result was somewhere in the "slow and boring" range partly due to high defense stats vs weapons and partly due to a lack of weapon variety. I'm hoping with all the added weaponry that I have managed to shore that up a bit with this update especially.

As far as Lockdown Protocol is concerned, I spoke to Alex and there is no easy way to remove derelicts or the ability to recover ships in debris fields right now. That may change in the next Starsector update, but for now yeah it makes the description a little misleading. It just means you can't recover those hulls after combat unless you, as the player, own the ship.

I may try making them all unrecoverable in general (like REDACTED) and then using the hullmod to make them recoverable after combat for the player only, but I'm not sure if I can get that to work or not.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Daynen on November 30, 2019, 10:59:58 PM
Given that only the player can really recover ships in the first place I'm not sure if the lockdown protocol idea is really worth the trouble...it seems like it's basically just a way to deny the player certain ships after battle but since we're probably not looking TOO closely at the hullmods on enemy ships before a fight it's probably going to feel just like rolling badly on the RNG.

If I may ask, what's the real design goal of lockdown protocol?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 01, 2019, 01:01:11 AM
If I may ask, what's the real design goal of lockdown protocol?

You may always ask/debate. Feedback helps the mod get better.  :)

Its a trial run of a slew of design intentions with this overall goal: Make faction commissions very unique and create more replay-ability along those sorts of lines.

There is already replay-ability each playthrough simply with the proc gen, but for the most part you can get access to the ships you want without much consideration into choosing to ally with a faction or not. Allying with a faction is more about credits. That is because you can harvest ships off enemy fleets or wait for npc campaign skirmishes to salvage whats left behind in the wreckage. Its mostly up to RNG. Similarly, blueprints come down to salvage RNG and raiding for what you are unlucky enough to not find.

I had desired to lock out or reduce that RNG in the case of ships (already made tiers of blueprint rarity that makes high end blueprints more rare), while opening up the accessibility of ships when getting commissioned by a faction through blueprint packages rewarded at the time of commission.

To me, this makes the choice of which faction, if any, to ally with more interesting. What is your goal this playthrough? Advanced and powerful ships and weapons? Tri-Tachyon, Sci-Corps, Archean Order or Adamantine Consortium are good choices and each specialize in something different with their own flavor, motivations and political implications.

Money and salvage boosts more your style? Pirates and Trader Guilds will make strong choices for that. (Not yet implemented)

Political influence or otherwise throwing your weight around to get faction aid appealing? Hegemony or Luddic Church gives those kinds of perks (Not yet implemented) alongside access to their custom ships and weapons that have their own strengths/drawbacks.

So, to summarize:

The intent was to further emphasize and make more interesting the choice of faction alignment. Since it is half-baked at the moment, and the derelict complication is probably not worth the effort for now while I work on more lore-related things, I'll likely remove it until I can get more pieces of the puzzle working.

Right now, it admittedly feels a little more punishing than anticipated since the flavor of faction choice is only halfway implemented and certain features that are designed to hook into those perks aren't developed yet.



Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Eliteempire on December 01, 2019, 12:37:43 PM
If ya ain't having a single end game ship fighting entire fleets with 1 colony system fully stocked are ya really winning?

Also uh question does the AI in this with Nexerelin actually expand too newly found worlds yet or nah?

And will there be a way of removing the lockdown parts in the future? I'm a fan of mixing my ships so ya have the best of each world but that takes along time with my terrible play style as is.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 01, 2019, 04:04:17 PM
If ya ain't having a single end game ship fighting entire fleets with 1 colony system fully stocked are ya really winning?

Also uh question does the AI in this with Nexerelin actually expand too newly found worlds yet or nah?

And will there be a way of removing the lockdown parts in the future? I'm a fan of mixing my ships so ya have the best of each world but that takes along time with my terrible play style as is.

The AI should expand as long as I have the settings right.

I am changing lockdown protocol to only reduce the chance of recovery over low tech and midline rather than outright prevent it. I'd say maybe 10-20% less likely. Would that feel better?

That feature will ideally feel more in place at a higher reduction once other things have been included to offset the reduced RNG accessibility of high tech vessels.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Star-Wars-Inspired Combat/RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Eliteempire on December 01, 2019, 07:05:05 PM
If ya ain't having a single end game ship fighting entire fleets with 1 colony system fully stocked are ya really winning?

Also uh question does the AI in this with Nexerelin actually expand too newly found worlds yet or nah?

And will there be a way of removing the lockdown parts in the future? I'm a fan of mixing my ships so ya have the best of each world but that takes along time with my terrible play style as is.

The AI should expand as long as I have the settings right.

I am changing lockdown protocol to only reduce the chance of recovery over low tech and midline rather than outright prevent it. I'd say maybe 10-20% less likely. Would that feel better?

That feature will ideally feel more in place at a higher reduction once other things have been included to offset the reduced RNG accessibility of high tech vessels.

Ya thats fine, It makes actually picking them large fleets rewarding then and a reason too buy screener ships for me anyway. Thanks chief. And I'll keep running my game then seeing if they set up shop on new worlds. They have a strange thing of murdering entire planets/stations of orbital defenses and then.... never invading even with like just 3 guards planet-side.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 05, 2019, 07:11:39 PM
It was recently pointed out to me that there might be confusion regarding the nature of this mod in that it could be perceived as another attempt at a Star Wars mod for Starsector. This was because of references to Star Wars in the mod subject title and features description. I have removed these references in order to avoid that confusion. I will also remove them from the Tactics Manual as I rewrite it to include all the combat changes. Thanks to all who took the time to post! I had a very healthy amount of community feedback that I think resulted in a much better mod.

So basically I just wanted to clarify: I'm not saying I don't love Star Wars because I do! -but Archean Order is not a Star Wars mod.

Though some ships and weapons are certainly inspired by Star Wars, they take inspiration from multiple sources in their creation like any good world building. :)

This is also true for faction lore. I have made my own unique stories tied into the lore of Starsector. Much of the lore in the Mordreath system, as an example, is inspired from about 20 different things that range in sources from television and movies to books and historical events.

So, to summarize, if you saw this mod and thought it was "just another Star Wars mod" then maybe this will inspire you to take a second look.

Just wanted to clear that up, thanks for reading! ;)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Ranakastrasz on December 05, 2019, 08:25:21 PM
I thought the star wars INSPIRED made that clear enough.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: kencko on December 07, 2019, 12:37:12 PM
Hey I'm new to mods for this game and compatability, is the Galactic Order compatible. Problem is the faction isn't using its custom shipset
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 07, 2019, 01:46:24 PM
Hey I'm new to mods for this game and compatability, is the Galactic Order compatible. Problem is the faction isn't using its custom shipset

Hmm, not 100% sure. I can't think of anything offhand that would cause that to happen. It would likely use its own faction file to do that I'd imagine. Nothing I've done should override that to my knowledge.

That being said, this mod is still a TC so it could be possible that I have and I didn't realize.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: kencko on December 07, 2019, 02:03:49 PM
thanks for the reply
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 07, 2019, 02:06:15 PM
No problem, sorry I couldn't be of more help.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: susitsu on December 11, 2019, 08:54:31 AM
Hey there! Ive been using this mod and Nexerelin for about two months now, playing Starsector off on on and Ive really enjoyed it.

I'm not done with it, but I was wondering if there were other mods people use commonly with the Archean Order? Preferably more in line with gameplay changes and not just the addition of factions and ships on top of the ones Ive already got. Although, I'd gladly take any working changes to the Remnants. They can be a little uninteresting.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 11, 2019, 09:09:56 PM
Hey there! Ive been using this mod and Nexerelin for about two months now, playing Starsector off on on and Ive really enjoyed it.

I'm not done with it, but I was wondering if there were other mods people use commonly with the Archean Order? Preferably more in line with gameplay changes and not just the addition of factions and ships on top of the ones Ive already got. Although, I'd gladly take any working changes to the Remnants. They can be a little uninteresting.

For now, what I've gathered:

Starship Legends: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0)
Combat Chatter: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0)
Unknown Skies: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0)
Ruthless Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0)
Second Wave Options: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0)
Grand Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0)
Commissioned Crews: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0)
Common Radar: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0)
Fuel Siphoning: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0)
Sundiving: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0)
SpeedUp: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0)
Updated Rotary Weapons: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0)
Automatic Orders: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0)
Hyperdrive: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0)
Player Station Construction: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0)

Ships/Weapons/Hullmods
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0)
Outer Rim Alliance: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Eliteempire on December 12, 2019, 05:54:28 PM
Hey there! Ive been using this mod and Nexerelin for about two months now, playing Starsector off on on and Ive really enjoyed it.

I'm not done with it, but I was wondering if there were other mods people use commonly with the Archean Order? Preferably more in line with gameplay changes and not just the addition of factions and ships on top of the ones Ive already got. Although, I'd gladly take any working changes to the Remnants. They can be a little uninteresting.

For now, what I've gathered:

Starship Legends: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0)
Combat Chatter: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0)
Unknown Skies: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0)
Ruthless Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0)
Second Wave Options: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0)
Grand Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0)
Commissioned Crews: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0)
Common Radar: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0)
Fuel Siphoning: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0)
Sundiving: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0)
SpeedUp: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0)
Updated Rotary Weapons: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0)
Automatic Orders: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0)
Hyperdrive: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0)
Player Station Construction: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0)

Ships/Weapons/Hullmods
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0)
Outer Rim Alliance: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0)

life is suffering with just those 2 Ship mods
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 12, 2019, 07:29:06 PM
For now, what I've gathered:
life is suffering with just those 2 Ship mods

 ;) Not a complete list yet- just what I had time to verify last night. I'll try a few more and update the list as I verify no crashes on variants. It won't guarantee other bugs won't crop up but it is the best thing I can realistically do to verify a mod list.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Eliteempire on December 12, 2019, 09:34:16 PM
For now, what I've gathered:
life is suffering with just those 2 Ship mods

 ;) Not a complete list yet- just what I had time to verify last night. I'll try a few more and update the list as I verify no crashes on variants. It won't guarantee other bugs won't crop up but it is the best thing I can realistically do to verify a mod list.

Bless lad, was just a joke. Wish i could help but I am techno *** dumb.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 12, 2019, 11:26:18 PM
Bless lad, was just a joke. Wish i could help but I am techno *** dumb.

I'm a little awkward at text sometimes and tone is always ambiguous through that medium, haha, but yeah. *sheepish grin*  ;D

In general, though, I do want to convey a helpful, open-minded and receptive attitude towards feedback. In this case, I recognize that there are those out there who would appreciate a compatible mod list of all kinds and I will work towards that. I, myself, am very excited to try out all the mods I haven't had a chance to play in a couple of years now, anyway, but for the moment my free time has been dedicated to making this mod better and working towards what is an admittedly ambitious lore update that will come in several parts. Speaking of, current notes:

Spoiler
--- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Adamantine Consortium no longer trades when hostile to the player with their transponder on. (Can use tribute to avoid fighting in some cases)
    - Adamantine Consortium still pursues an otherwise neutral player with their transponder off. (Can use tribute to avoid fighting in some cases)
    - Lockdown Protocol changed to reduce chance to recover the vessel by 25% if not player owned instead of completely preventing recovery.
    - Increased the amount of dialogue variance for some interactions for new factions.

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - More custom colonies have custom descriptions upon docking with that colony that are centered around that systems lore.
    - Xelion is now a free port to allow some limited and dangerous access to Adamantine Consortium tech even while hostile to that faction.
    - Dialogue descriptions are now unique between planetary markets and the more notable lore based stations that guard them.
    - Many of the new factions' colonies have changing dialogue based around the players reputation with that faction.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed issues with Galar description text under certain circumstances.
 - Fixed some inaccurate cease fire result decriptions for the Adamantine Consortium.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Igncom1 on December 20, 2019, 06:50:26 AM
Not sure what version I am playing compared to what you are working on, but is the Revanant supposed to have a more efficient fuel/light year jump cost then the Justicar? You'd figure a larger ship would take more fuel to move around.

Having fun so far, just surveying and salvaging for money. Played 'king maker' by selling the order and the science guys 3 fuel cores to make their fuel industries better. At very least it might make long term fuel purchases for everyone cheaper by flooding the market.

Now I just need to decide what to do. Was going to commission myself with the church but they have no fuel or heavy industries, making them awkward targets to ally with and support due to relying on imports. So I dunno, might colonise and might not.

edit: I have the Devastator super weapon on my falcon. I can't be 100% sure, but I think I killed a pirate dominator in one volley. Holy crap is this a cool gun!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 20, 2019, 03:39:57 PM
Not sure what version I am playing compared to what you are working on, but is the Revanant supposed to have a more efficient fuel/light year jump cost then the Justicar? You'd figure a larger ship would take more fuel to move around.

Yes I agree that was not intended. Thanks for pointing it out.  :)

I adjusted the fuel per light year and fuel capacity of a few vessels for the next release.

Now I just need to decide what to do. Was going to commission myself with the church but they have no fuel or heavy industries, making them awkward targets to ally with and support due to relying on imports. So I dunno, might colonise and might not.

Hmm good point. They could use some fuel production at the very least. Maybe I'll add another market for the Luddic Church in Penelope's Star... but not 100% decided on where yet.

edit: I have the Devastator super weapon on my falcon. I can't be 100% sure, but I think I killed a pirate dominator in one volley. Holy crap is this a cool gun!

Thanks! Most of the legendary weapons turned out pretty good, I think. I'd say the only underwhelming one in sound and look right now is the Hivemind. I've added a mental note to take a look at that at some point.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Timid on December 28, 2019, 11:15:10 AM
Hey there! Ive been using this mod and Nexerelin for about two months now, playing Starsector off on on and Ive really enjoyed it.

I'm not done with it, but I was wondering if there were other mods people use commonly with the Archean Order? Preferably more in line with gameplay changes and not just the addition of factions and ships on top of the ones Ive already got. Although, I'd gladly take any working changes to the Remnants. They can be a little uninteresting.

For now, what I've gathered:

Starship Legends: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0)
Combat Chatter: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0)
Unknown Skies: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0)
Ruthless Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0)
Second Wave Options: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0)
Grand Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0)
Commissioned Crews: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0)
Common Radar: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0)
Fuel Siphoning: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0)
Sundiving: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0)
SpeedUp: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0)
Updated Rotary Weapons: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0)
Automatic Orders: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0)
Hyperdrive: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0)
Player Station Construction: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0)

Ships/Weapons/Hullmods
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0)
Outer Rim Alliance: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0)

You may put Supply Forging (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503) on that list and I'd like to talk why Better Colonies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103) seems to crash for players that I believe it's more related to the OrbitalStation.java. Was wondering if you modified OrbitalStation by any chance?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 28, 2019, 01:55:55 PM
You may put Supply Forging (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503) on that list and I'd like to talk why Better Colonies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103) seems to crash for players that I believe it's more related to the OrbitalStation.java. Was wondering if you modified OrbitalStation by any chance?

Thanks for the info! I'll add it to the list.

I haven't really had much time to work on this in the last week or two, but I got some free time today so I can take a quick look and see what I can see as far as the crash goes. Do you mean com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation when you say OrbitalStation? I haven't modified that file, no, but I have overridden the orbital station industry entries in the csv file. Does your mod need those for anything?

*EDIT*

This is the error you are getting, right? Looking into this now.

(https://i.imgur.com/l9xUDXU.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/AtfPIiS.png)

*EDIT 3*
I was wrong. I wasn't reading the error correctly. Updated info below.

Seems to be related to this line:
      
Code
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD newOSL = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD)market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation");

in:
Code
\Starsector\mods\Better Colonies\jar\src.zip\src\data\scripts\GDModPlugin.java

So, I'll check to see if this tag is missing from my industries entries(they were correct afaik) markets and update here.

*EDIT4*

Think I found it. The industries defined in some of the vanilla stations are redefined by faction. For instance, "jangalas_rest_station" (though not actually vanilla) is defined with industry:

Code
			"industries":[
...
"orbitalstation_guilds",
],

and "sphinx" (actually vanilla) in Samarra is defined with:

Code
			"industries":[
...
"orbitalstation_heg",
],
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Timid on December 28, 2019, 06:09:48 PM
You may put Supply Forging (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503) on that list and I'd like to talk why Better Colonies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103) seems to crash for players that I believe it's more related to the OrbitalStation.java. Was wondering if you modified OrbitalStation by any chance?

Thanks for the info! I'll add it to the list.

I haven't really had much time to work on this in the last week or two, but I got some free time today so I can take a quick look and see what I can see as far as the crash goes. Do you mean com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation when you say OrbitalStation? I haven't modified that file, no, but I have overridden the orbital station industry entries in the csv file. Does your mod need those for anything?

*EDIT*

This is the error you are getting, right? Looking into this now.

(https://i.imgur.com/l9xUDXU.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/AtfPIiS.png)

*EDIT 3*
I was wrong. I wasn't reading the error correctly. Updated info below.

Seems to be related to this line:
      
Code
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD newOSL = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD)market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation");

in:
Code
\Starsector\mods\Better Colonies\jar\src.zip\src\data\scripts\GDModPlugin.java

So, I'll check to see if this tag is missing from my industries entries(they were correct afaik) markets and update here.
That's great, what was the solution? Just change the OrbitalStation entry into something that your csv is correlating an entry to?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on December 28, 2019, 06:12:34 PM
That's great, what was the solution? Just change the OrbitalStation entry into something that your csv is correlating an entry to?

Working on this. Hopefully will have an update in a bit. Trying to keep the fix as simple as possible.

*EDIT*

So, duplicate entries like this:

Code
                                                Object OSLObj = market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation" );
if( OSLObj != null && OSLObj instanceof com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation ) {
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation shield = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation)OSLObj;
float disrupted = shield.getDisruptedDays();
float build = shield.getBuildOrUpgradeProgress();
market = econ.getMarket( market.getId() );
market.removeIndustry( "orbitalstation", null, false );
market.addIndustry( "orbitalstation" );
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD newOSL = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD)market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation" );
if( build > 0 ) newOSL.setNewBuild( build );
if( disrupted > 0 ) newOSL.setDisrupted( disrupted, true );
}

but check for faction by:

Code
if (ArcheanOrderEnabled**See below for details) {
        if (entity.getMarket().getFactionId() = "hegemony") {
                                                Object OSLObj = market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation_heg" );
if( OSLObj != null && OSLObj instanceof com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation ) {
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation shield = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation)OSLObj;
float disrupted = shield.getDisruptedDays();
float build = shield.getBuildOrUpgradeProgress();
market = econ.getMarket( market.getId() );
market.removeIndustry( "orbitalstation_heg", null, false );
market.addIndustry( "orbitalstation_heg" );
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD newOSL = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD)market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation_heg" );
if( build > 0 ) newOSL.setNewBuild( build );
if( disrupted > 0 ) newOSL.setDisrupted( disrupted, true );
}
}
}

** This is a boolean that checks for Archean Order being enabled, so I think Histidine is the best source for direction on how to check for that. If I need to implement anything on my end please let me know. I'm not familiar with how to check for that myself.

also you would have to: change each battlestation and starfortress entry to correlate to the above changes. I can give you the ids you would need if you feel like going through that effort, but no worries if not.

- change each industry check for each faction to correlate to- faction id:industry id with these implementations:

hegemony:orbitalstation_heg
hegemony:battlestation_heg
hegemony:starfortress_heg
luddic_path:orbitalstation_luddic
luddic_path:battlestation_luddic
luddic_path:starfortress_luddic
luddic_church:orbitalstation_luddic
luddic_church:battlestation_luddic
luddic_church:starfortress_luddic
pirates:orbitalstation_pirate
pirates:battlestation_pirate
pirates:starfortress_pirate
trader_guilds:orbitalstation_guilds
trader_guilds:battlestation_guilds
trader_guilds:starfortress_guilds
scicorps:orbitalstation_scicorps
scicorps:battlestation_scicorps
scicorps:starfortress_scicorps
archean_order:orbitalstation_archean
archean_order:battlestation_archean
archean_order:starfortress_archean
adamantine_consortium:orbitalstation_adamantine
adamantine_consortium:battlestation_adamantine
adamantine_consortium:starfortress_adamantine

Note: All of this code would be under the ArcheanOrderEnabled if statement block.

Note2: If any of this is unclear because I can kind of suck at explanations sometimes, PM me and I can hopefully provide code that can be added to an experimental jar to see if it solves the issue.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 05, 2020, 06:42:57 PM
There has been some really nice discussion in the suggestions sub-forum on fighters and design:

Balancing fighter swarms without nerfing fighters (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17507.0)

In particular, something that struck me as a potential problem that I'm concerned could be even more amplified in Archean Order's design is Megas' comment on the state of optimal carrier builds:

Now, because fighters have become weapons, carriers must focus mostly or solely on fighters instead of real guns to do their basic job competently.  What is the point of weapon mounts on dedicated carriers now?

Since technologically advanced carriers like the Astral "double-down" on OP-heavy armaments and OP expensive fighter types, their OP pool is exceedingly large to accommodate this necessity when taking a comparison of their low tech counter-parts. I've tried to reduce that disparity (I think, iirc) by allowing more hullmods or higher tier weapons and fighters of the same tech level on low tech vessels, and high tech vessels also cost a fair amount more to deploy and repair. Is this enough, though?

One of the solutions I suggested for vanilla that I think has the highest candidacy for application in the mod is:

Give all carriers a hullmod like the Legion that reduces weapon costs and makes them feel more competitive. I'd even be ok with making that hullmod completely take off the "base" cost of the standard weapon of each size. Then only "upgrades" actually cost any OP. It's similar to the idea of the talon being free so there wouldn't be any fighter-less carriers acting like warships.

Any thoughts?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: NITEGHXST on January 09, 2020, 04:01:41 AM
Broken Custom Faction Ships & Weapons

I have been playing with this mod for the past days and it only now occured to me something wasn't right.

NO Custom Faction uses their OWN ships or weapons. I also already played around with mods and it appears this mod breaks it.

Anyone else have this problem??

(I am currently searching around files seeing what could be causing this, will update if I find a solution if needed/wanted)

EDIT 1:

I just found a post from the past of someone also stating this problem but only with the New Galactic Order. I got it with all.
Apparently it has not been fixed yet.

Hey I'm new to mods for this game and compatability, is the Galactic Order compatible. Problem is the faction isn't using its custom shipset

Hmm, not 100% sure. I can't think of anything offhand that would cause that to happen. It would likely use its own faction file to do that I'd imagine. Nothing I've done should override that to my knowledge.

That being said, this mod is still a TC so it could be possible that I have and I didn't realize.

EDIT 2:

Well, I know where the problem is in a general area. In the "mod_info.json" I deleted all lines that belong to the "Replace" function, and all factions have their own ships.
Now it's the question which of the first 59 lines that are called breaks factions.... Because it's within that area  where something breaks it.

EDIT 3 [The File That Breaks Factions, or at least the ships]:
So, by luck and listening to my mind, I found the line of code within the "mod_info.json" file, first try.

The line I am talking about is:'        "data\\world\\factions\\default_ship_roles.json",         '. Apparently this changes the shiproles to such an extent, it actually changes the way the game reads shiproles. Because of this, the game is unable to read the shiproles used in mods as those are practically not used since Archean Order overrides the default shiproles.


Is this a fixable problem? I don't know how the mod is designed, nor have full knowledge of how to mod Starsector, but this problem is to bad for me to use this mod. I mean, custom factions are there for a reason; adding more to the game in ways of ships, weapons, hullmods, etc.


EDIT 4 (Weapons, Wings, Hullmods):
And when it comes to weapons and wings, those break because the mod overrides the following 3 files:
   "data\\weapons\\weapon_data.csv",
     "data\\hulls\\ship_data.csv",
     "data\\hulls\\wing_data.csv",

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 09, 2020, 03:38:19 PM
*snip* (problem in mod_info.json replace array replacing important custom faction mod files)

Is this a fixable problem?

First of all, thank you for pointing that out!  ;D

I hadn't considered that but it makes complete sense that it would cause that behavior. To answer the question, I'm not sure if that is legacy from older vanilla versions or if I just did it as a safeguard back when this mod was strictly a total conversion (I've been trying to ease the constraints as much as I can while preserving the combat balance of the base mod). Let me investigate removing those lines and see if there are any solutions in case that is not an option for some reason.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: NITEGHXST on January 10, 2020, 12:11:49 AM
*snip* (problem in mod_info.json replace array replacing important custom faction mod files)

Is this a fixable problem?

First of all, thank you for pointing that out!  ;D


Ofcourse no problem! :D I love what the mod does to add to the game, so I wanted to do as much research into what could cause the problem myself as I have worked on mods in teams here and there for other games and know that certain files can't be replaced/overridden without breaking Something.

I hadn't considered that but it makes complete sense that it would cause that behavior. To answer the question, I'm not sure if that is legacy from older vanilla versions or if I just did it as a safeguard back when this mod was strictly a total conversion.

To be honest, I didn't really see differences in ships used compared to vanilla when the files were there. Most notably every faction used Ventures as Cruisers and never anything higher than Low Tech ships. Made for interesting fights as it sometimes would just stalemate and no-one would hit eachother  XD

(I've been trying to ease the constraints as much as I can while preserving the combat balance of the base mod). Let me investigate removing those lines and see if there are any solutions in case that is not an option for some reason.

I noticed that already by having it Nexerelin Compatible. I'll hear it if anything changes, good luck!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 10, 2020, 01:17:07 AM
*Updated compatible mods list on main page*

Ofcourse no problem! :D I love what the mod does to add to the game, so I wanted to do as much research into what could cause the problem myself as I have worked on mods in teams here and there for other games and know that certain files can't be replaced/overridden without breaking Something.

Thank you! I really appreciate that and the effort you took to solve the problem.  :)

To be honest, I didn't really see differences in ships used compared to vanilla when the files were there. Most notably every faction used Ventures as Cruisers and never anything higher than Low Tech ships. Made for interesting fights as it sometimes would just stalemate and no-one would hit eachother  XD

Me either- at least from the play testing I was able to get in today. It seems like removing those constraints are completely ok and should hopefully solve the issues everyone is having. These will be included in the next update which hopefully I can get out very soon- just a couple more descriptions to get through- which can take a bit of time as I try to put thought into them and my first drafts are often typo-prone. XD But I will especially rush in this case to provide this fix and the fix to recovery of rare vessels post combat through Lockdown Protocol changes- as has already been brought to my attention.

The power of .9's merging is most impressive.  :)

For specifics:
Replaced files now available for merging with custom factions:

Code
"data\\weapons\\weapon_data.csv",
"data\\hulls\\ship_data.csv",
"data\\hulls\\wing_data.csv",
"data\\world\\factions\\default_fleet_type_names.json",
"data\\world\\factions\\default_ranks.json",
"data\\world\\factions\\default_ship_roles.json",
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: NITEGHXST on January 10, 2020, 07:21:57 AM

Ofcourse no problem! :D I love what the mod does to add to the game, so I wanted to do as much research into what could cause the problem myself as I have worked on mods in teams here and there for other games and know that certain files can't be replaced/overridden without breaking Something.

Thank you! I really appreciate that and the effort you took to solve the problem.  :)


No problem! Least I could do to help you out solve the problem ;) I know how frustrating it can be when you know there's a problem but don't know what is causing it.
And to be honest, also thank yourself and the game. If the way the coding in the files is set up was different, it wouldn't have been as easy to find certain files without even looking online as it is now.
Keep in mind, I never modded in Starsector before XD It does probably help I'm an application developer student though. Got an eye for problems, and I love solving them.


To be honest, I didn't really see differences in ships used compared to vanilla when the files were there. Most notably every faction used Ventures as Cruisers and never anything higher than Low Tech ships. Made for interesting fights as it sometimes would just stalemate and no-one would hit eachother  XD

Me either- at least from the play testing I was able to get in today. It seems like removing those constraints are completely ok and should hopefully solve the issues everyone is having. These will be included in the next update which hopefully I can get out very soon- just a couple more descriptions to get through- which can take a bit of time as I try to put thought into them and my first drafts are often typo-prone. XD But I will especially rush in this case to provide this fix and the fix to recovery of rare vessels post combat through Lockdown Protocol changes- as has already been brought to my attention.

The power of .9's merging is most impressive.  :)


As soon as possible as long as you don't rush yourself hahah. Long glad there's a high chance we got that problem fixed :D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dimzki on January 14, 2020, 12:31:40 AM
i found something weird, not sure if it's from this mod or from Tyrador Safeguard Coalition

there is a weapon called Pulse Cannon MkII with 0 damage

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 14, 2020, 03:09:53 AM
Hmm, yes that's weird. It looks like maybe it shares the weapon id with a mod that is overriding it... maybe? The weapon is from my mod, though that's not even the correct weapon sprite for that weapon.

Can I get a full mod list? I'll try and troubleshoot from there. Also, have you removed anything from the replace array in mod_info.json by chance? That will help me narrow it down further from recent suggestions for bugfixes.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dimzki on January 14, 2020, 03:29:18 AM
Hmm, yes that's weird. It looks like maybe it shares the weapon id with a mod that is overriding it... maybe? The weapon is from my mod, though that's not even the correct weapon sprite for that weapon.

Can I get a full mod list? I'll try and troubleshoot from there.

These are the mods that im using right now:
Spoiler
  Lightshow (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11528.0)
  Autosave (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9748.0)
  Boggled Terraforming (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17060.0)
  Combat Analytics (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11551.0)
  Combat Chatter (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0)
  Commissioned Hull Mods (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0)
  Common Radar (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0)
  Fuel Siphoning (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0)
  Grand Sector (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0)
  Hyperdrive (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0)
  LazyLib (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5444.0)
  Logistics Notification (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17379.0)
  MagicLib (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13718.0)
  Nexerelin (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0)
  Planetary Shield Access Control (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14990.0)
  SkilledUp (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14293.0)
  Starship Legends (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0)
  Player Station Construction (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0)
  Supply Forging (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503.0)
  Tyrador Safeguard Coalition (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0)
  Unknown Skies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0)
  Upgraded Rotary Weapons (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0)
  Version Checker (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8181.0)
  Weapons Group Controls (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13431.0)
  GraphicLib (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10982.0)
[close]

Also, have you removed anything from the replace array in mod_info.json by chance? That will help me narrow it down further from recent suggestions for bugfixes.

no, i didn't do anything besides changing the totalconversion from true to false

but just to be save, i'll try to redownload the mod and clean install it

also, is it possible to make a compatibility fix for diable avionics ?
their ship and fighter models are just too awesome to miss in any playthrough ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: henryho96 on January 14, 2020, 07:13:03 AM
Hey there, thanks for the mod. I'm loving it so far but I've got a question. If I run this mod with a compatible mod to add factions or ships, would they be affected by the vanilla changes of having additional launch bays and smaller weapon mount?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 14, 2020, 02:28:10 PM
no, i didn't do anything besides changing the totalconversion from true to false

but just to be save, i'll try to redownload the mod and clean install it

Did that help?

I checked and Tyrador Safeguard Coalition seems to be fine as long as you have the latest update (from yesterday I believe).

Also, make sure this line is in the replace array in mod_info.json

Code
	"data\\weapons\\lrpdlaser.wpn",

That's the file that is being merged with the vanilla variant (marking it as a beam instead of a projectile weapon so it doesn't read the correct damage data from weapon_data.csv)

Since replacing files doesn't affect mods, it could be a mod that is changing that weapon. Nothing on the list you gave me seems to, however, though I didn't check most of the feature mods.

The other potential issue could be operating system related. Are you running the game on windows?

Quote
also, is it possible to make a compatibility fix for diable avionics ?
their ship and fighter models are just too awesome to miss in any playthrough ;D

Agreed. It's already compatible actually :) (Though not necessarily balanced since it bases its balance off of vanilla)
--------------

Hey there, thanks for the mod. I'm loving it so far but I've got a question. If I run this mod with a compatible mod to add factions or ships, would they be affected by the vanilla changes of having additional launch bays and smaller weapon mount?

Thanks for the support. :)

Ah, I very much wish that was possible, but alas it is not. The only way to do that would be for me to either get permission from the mod author to rework their balance for Archean Order as a separate standalone release (not sure how many would agree to that) or have the mod authors do it themselves. It is potentially a lot of work depending upon how many assets would have to be rebalanced.

Even if I could somehow proceedurally rebalance existing factions using code in Archean Order, there would be many mod authors who would find that kind of hackery to be aggressive or abusive to their vision of their mod- and so I'd have to set up a list of approved mods, etc, etc.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ask them if you want that, but I wouldn't be surprised if the response was a polite decline. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: henryho96 on January 14, 2020, 05:48:06 PM
Hey there, thanks for the mod. I'm loving it so far but I've got a question. If I run this mod with a compatible mod to add factions or ships, would they be affected by the vanilla changes of having additional launch bays and smaller weapon mount?

Thanks for the support. :)

Ah, I very much wish that was possible, but alas it is not. The only way to do that would be for me to either get permission from the mod author to rework their balance for Archean Order as a separate standalone release (not sure how many would agree to that) or have the mod authors do it themselves. It is potentially a lot of work depending upon how many assets would have to be rebalanced.

Even if I could somehow proceedurally rebalance existing factions using code in Archean Order, there would be many mod authors who would find that kind of hackery to be aggressive or abusive to their vision of their mod- and so I'd have to set up a list of approved mods, etc, etc.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ask them if you want that, but I wouldn't be surprised if the response was a polite decline. :)
[/quote]

Ah, I thought as much. While I would like even more fighters, weapons, and ship hulls in-game, it would be horrible to play if the balance was out of wack. I am a big believer in the superiority of fighters after all  ;)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 14, 2020, 06:11:32 PM
I will likely add more ships and weapons at some point after the lore updates are finished, so there is that at least.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dimzki on January 15, 2020, 09:50:50 AM
Did that help?
i haven't checked, been busy IRL, will do when i have the time to play :(

Also, make sure this line is in the replace array in mod_info.json
Code
   "data\\weapons\\lrpdlaser.wpn",
yes, it's in the json file of your mod, i just checked

Since replacing files doesn't affect mods, it could be a mod that is changing that weapon. Nothing on the list you gave me seems to, however, though I didn't check most of the feature mods.

The other potential issue could be operating system related. Are you running the game on windows?
i'm using windows 10, so I don't think it's the problem, most likely some files got corrupted while downloading since it failed a few times and I had to retry the download...
not sure why, been having problem with dropbox, downloading from other sites seem fine


Agreed. It's already compatible actually :) (Though not necessarily balanced since it bases its balance off of vanilla)
yeah, I've noticed that ships from Tyrador Safeguard Coalition have different values compared to your mod, the maintenance per month, extra fighter bays, it's speed, etc
I've been wondering if it's possible to make a compatibility fix, but after reading your reply to henryho96 about the permission issue, now I know why...

it's a shame really, your mod made much more sense that fighter superiority is lacking in the vanilla and the ship stats need to be adjusted, especially the ship maintenance... although I know that from developer point of view, it's a way for player to sink their credits in, but it doesn't make sense that in an advanced world like starsector, there's no self-sustaining ship for growing food, as for hard materials, they should be able to process them from raw ores mined from asteroids or something, although the Supply Forging (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503.0) mod fixed that issue...
that's just my personal opinion though, I'm sure others have different ones


anyway, this is a very satisfying mod, great vision and very well implemented.

but i do hope that someday, there'll be a compatibility fix for the other faction mods, i really like to play with this mod but im missing the other ships that other mods provided  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 15, 2020, 02:19:47 PM
@dimzki

First off, I really appreciate the kind words. Thanks for the encouragement! ;D I will do my best to maintain that kind of quality in future updates. I still have a lot of ideas to try out.

As to your issue, no worries on time constraints I know all about that haha. Just let me know if a clean install doesn't fix it whenever you do. If dropbox is the issue there, I can always host another download on another site.

Faction mods:

Well, here's what I can do. It may take me some time because the next update is priority and its very close to being ready, but I will make a separate thread in the modding subforum that does two things:

1) Explains the details of how I would give credit/a link to their mod should they make a rebalance of their mod as a standalone release - or alternatively give me permission to do it and maintain it while they still would retain credit as the mod author/authors.

2) Explain in very great detail the balancing levers behind Archean Order's combat and the intent/vision behind it. Things like "standard number of guns by weapon size and hull size", "standard scale of maintenance costs by hullsize", "what factors are taken into account when making a new weapon (emp, range, mitigation for things like missiles, etc)"- stuff like that.

The second point is both for current modders as a reference point for how to go about it themselves should they choose that route, and for new modders who would want to make an Archean Order compatible faction mod.

Again, I don't want you to get your hopes up, but at least the information would be out there.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dantesrb on January 16, 2020, 09:19:20 AM
Well, I just wanted to play a different challenge, and I installed this over vanilla.... In 10 mins I earned 500k running supplies to same pirate base... Is this meant to play like this?
Can you please add 1 if-then that will goes like this:
If: u exploit
then: u can do it after 1 year...

In practice:
If: I make s good trade run
then: I cant do same run for xxx period of time....

Or is this meant to be a trainer mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 16, 2020, 11:03:58 AM
Well, I just wanted to play a different challenge, and I installed this over vanilla.... In 10 mins I earned 500k running supplies to same pirate base... Is this meant to play like this?
Can you please add 1 if-then that will goes like this:
If: u exploit
then: u can do it after 1 year...

In practice:
If: I make s good trade run
then: I cant do same run for xxx period of time....

Or is this meant to be a trainer mod?


Hi thanks for your feedback! What pirate base was it that you could exploit this way? And just so I'm clear on the issue, you are saying you cannot do the same thing with pirate bases in vanilla?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dantesrb on January 16, 2020, 01:35:02 PM
The beginner Derinkuyu mining station. But also there is spam of other good trading opportunities. 
Station keep asking for 200 supplies. There were even double contract... I went to the base with 600 supplies and finished 2 contract with 100k.
It is simple really... this is not a multiplayer game, so u can make boundaries. U cant make machine beat a brain in this, just set a rule that if 1 run is made, there are no other in 1 year or so.... simple as that.
So it will handle it self automatically.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 16, 2020, 03:53:00 PM
The beginner Derinkuyu mining station. But also there is spam of other good trading opportunities. 
Station keep asking for 200 supplies. There were even double contract... I went to the base with 600 supplies and finished 2 contract with 100k.
It is simple really... this is not a multiplayer game, so u can make boundaries. U cant make machine beat a brain in this, just set a rule that if 1 run is made, there are no other in 1 year or so.... simple as that.
So it will handle it self automatically.

Gotcha yeah I get what you are saying code-wise. I'm not sure I have access to that portion of the code though. I could be wrong and I'll ask around to make sure, but post trade code is not accessible in the API afaik. That would be required to check if a trade was lucrative such as you suggest.

These were commodity missions? Or just a lucrative sell to a pirate market without a tariff? It seems like missions from your post (which are inherently supposed to be profitable) and if not or if you would like a cap on these missions to prevent them as being spammable, then I would suggest that you post in the suggestions sub-forum as that is not my design- that is vanilla and it would take changes on that front most likely.

*EDIT*

Per Alex: (thank you for being such a helpful dev!)  ;D

Ahh, I see. There's some stuff I need to work out there - apparently Derinkuyu suffers from the same or a related issue on new game start, but you could remove procurement missions entirely by removing them from the generic mission manager on every game load:

GenericMissionManager manager = GenericMissionManager.getInstance();

And then iterate over manager.getCreators() to remove whatever you like. And then, possibly, replace it with your own version.

My response:

Thanks for the information!  :)

I don't think I will go to that length most likely as it has the potential to break in future updates and be harder to maintain, but it's really awesome that this is possible.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 16, 2020, 07:49:57 PM
I uploaded a special emergency hotfix for a variant of the Exile light carrier that can break the ability to load a save file. It is fixable if this occurs but it will be more work than simply redownloading the mod from the main DL and doing a clean install before it happens.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. Sorry for any inconvenience.

See this thread for reference:

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17673.msg278133#new (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17673.msg278133#new)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: NITEGHXST on January 17, 2020, 01:38:20 PM
FYI, I have also had problems with the Tyrador faction and one or more other faction mods, mostly due too either not running with Archean Order, or because they conflict with other Faction mods. Or Nexerelin ofcourse.

Lets just say some are known for having compatibility issues including Tyrador now and then.


And yes, I am still active and subbed on this thread, to see if I may be able to help here and there if needed :P
After all, I helped fix a game breaking bug, and love this mod enough to help where I can!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 17, 2020, 03:13:14 PM
FYI, I have also had problems with the Tyrador faction and one or more other faction mods, mostly due too either not running with Archean Order, or because they conflict with other Faction mods. Or Nexerelin ofcourse.

Lets just say some are known for having compatibility issues including Tyrador now and then.


And yes, I am still active and subbed on this thread, to see if I may be able to help here and there if needed :P
After all, I helped fix a game breaking bug, and love this mod enough to help where I can!

Thanks for the continued assistance! I'm a little unclear what this means, though. Do you mean the same issue that should be fixed for the next release or a separate issue altogether? If it's a separate issue I can try and fix that for the next release too. What kind of incompatibility behavior is happening?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: NITEGHXST on January 18, 2020, 05:06:00 AM
Thanks for the continued assistance! I'm a little unclear what this means, though. Do you mean the same issue that should be fixed for the next release or a separate issue altogether? If it's a separate issue I can try and fix that for the next release too. What kind of incompatibility behavior is happening?
Ofcourse!

It's either a Space Station error I'm getting saying something of a station couldn't be written, or a NULL error with literally 0 information. What exactly I don't remember anymore. But as I said, I am also not sure if it's either from Archean Order or because of Faction Incompatibilty between the "problem factions" and others. What I can conclude from the errors though from what I remember is that multiple things try to (over)write the same line of code or something like that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2020, 01:40:14 PM
Ofcourse!

It's either a Space Station error I'm getting saying something of a station couldn't be written, or a NULL error with literally 0 information. What exactly I don't remember anymore. But as I said, I am also not sure if it's either from Archean Order or because of Faction Incompatibilty between the "problem factions" and others. What I can conclude from the errors though from what I remember is that multiple things try to (over)write the same line of code or something like that.

Ah, ok, that makes sense. If you are getting the random null error, that is because Archean Order changes ship hull weapon emplacement ids over vanilla. When a faction mod adds new variants of existing vanilla ships, the expect that id to be there. When its not, a nullpointer is generated but not captured and logged- so there is no information available as to where it came from. I may eventually fix this by cross referencing the needed ids and trying to change existing ones that should hopefully match the vanilla equivalents, but that may prove to be difficult considering the changes. It would be a substantial amount of work at least, so it is on the back burner for now.

The station issue is a new one. If you run into it again, any additional information or pictures you can give me will be helpful. The only thing I know of in that arena is that Better Colonies has some issues trying to get the correct script to run for my stations since I override their industry entries.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dimzki on January 18, 2020, 07:44:39 PM
Rejoice
i found the culprit of the Pulse Cannon MkII Bug,
it's the Lightshow (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11528.0)

after turning on/off each mods im using, this one mess the stats.
dunno why
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2020, 08:39:17 PM
Rejoice
i found the culprit of the Pulse Cannon MkII Bug,

*snip*

after turning on/off each mods im using, this one mess the stats.
dunno why

Ah thanks! I'll take a look and see if there is anything I can do.

*EDIT* Yup this is going to be some work to solve. I will have to change the id for that weapon (and therefore edit every variant file that uses it), and then design a beam weapon under that id. It probably won't be in the next update, but it's on the list!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: dimzki on January 19, 2020, 05:22:50 PM
Rejoice
i found the culprit of the Pulse Cannon MkII Bug,

*snip*

after turning on/off each mods im using, this one mess the stats.
dunno why

Ah thanks! I'll take a look and see if there is anything I can do.

*EDIT* Yup this is going to be some work to solve. I will have to change the id for that weapon (and therefore edit every variant file that uses it), and then design a beam weapon under that id. It probably won't be in the next update, but it's on the list!

thanks :D
right now im playing without the lightshow, or else AI might be firing with a toygun  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: zamingu on January 20, 2020, 02:41:53 PM
So, im having a problem with Outer Rim Alliance and Tyrador safeguard Coalition modded guilds.

It seems like that both factions dont use their own ships and i cant find it to sell anywhere.
Is there a way to fix it or i should just turn off the mod?

Using both Archean Order and Nexerelin together.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 20, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
So, im having a problem with Outer Rim Alliance and Tyrador safeguard Coalition modded guilds.

It seems like that both factions dont use their own ships and i cant find it to sell anywhere.
Is there a way to fix it or i should just turn off the mod?

Using both Archean Order and Nexerelin together.

The update I'm going to release in the next hour or two will fix this and add a bunch of lore descriptions for colonies and some additional music.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: zamingu on January 20, 2020, 03:13:50 PM
So, im having a problem with Outer Rim Alliance and Tyrador safeguard Coalition modded guilds.

It seems like that both factions dont use their own ships and i cant find it to sell anywhere.
Is there a way to fix it or i should just turn off the mod?

Using both Archean Order and Nexerelin together.

The update I'm going to release in the next hour or two will fix this and add a bunch of lore descriptions for colonies and some additional music.  :)

Great!
I just found your "fix" a couple pages back by deleting a few lines of code , what should i do when you release the update? Should i just reinstall the whole mod?

Thx a bunch and awesome job.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 20, 2020, 03:32:37 PM
Thanks!  ;D

You can clean reinstall to experience all the new features (shouldn't break saves afaik)* or use the fix to solve the problem immediately. Either should work.

* *EDIT* Just in case: there are market changes with this update that I don't think will break saves- but may require a new game to generate and cause the right dialogue to appear. I think I have coded around this but wanted to provide that disclaimer as well. Carry on.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: zamingu on January 20, 2020, 04:06:47 PM
Thanks!  ;D

You can clean reinstall to experience all the new features (shouldn't break saves afaik)* or use the fix to solve the problem immediately. Either should work.

* *EDIT* Just in case: there are market changes with this update that I don't think will break saves- but may require a new game to generate and cause the right dialogue to appear. I think I have coded around this but wanted to provide that disclaimer as well. Carry on.  :)

Ok! I'll do a clean reinstall just to be sure.
Another thing that i think you should know is that deleting the code lines requires you to create a new save so things go back in place.
I tried the fix and roamed around a few minutes in a old save i had and it didnt replace ships on both guilds fleets.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 20, 2020, 04:16:37 PM
Another thing that i think you should know is that deleting the code lines requires you to create a new save so things go back in place.
I tried the fix and roamed around a few minutes in a old save i had and it didnt replace ships on both guilds fleets.

Oh, whoops! Thanks for the info and sorry for the confusion.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on January 20, 2020, 04:17:15 PM
Download
Main Mod Directory
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tnslghgssliwo9n/AABGehH6E0cocpDE0WXpnwska?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tnslghgssliwo9n/AABGehH6E0cocpDE0WXpnwska?dl=0)


Update notes:
 
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Adamantine Consortium no longer trades when hostile to the player with their transponder on. (Can use tribute to avoid fighting in some cases)
    - Adamantine Consortium still pursues an otherwise neutral player with their transponder off. (Can use tribute to avoid fighting in some cases)
    - Lockdown Protocol changed to reduce chance to recover the vessel by 25% if not player owned instead of completely preventing recovery.
    - Increased the amount of dialogue variance for some interactions for new factions.
    - Tripled cost of Adamantine Consortium tribute demands while traveling through their territory.
    - New music across the new factions' fleet and market encounters (the old music is still there as well- though may have been moved).

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - More new faction colonies have custom descriptions upon docking with that colony that are centered around the system's lore.
    - Xelion is now a free port to allow some limited though dangerous access to Adamantine Consortium tech even while hostile to that faction.
    - Dialogue descriptions are now mostly unique between planetary markets and the more notable lore based stations that guard them.
    - Many of the new factions' colonies have changing dialogue based around the player's reputation with that faction.
    - Temple of the Dark Stars and Ilyss are now separate markets. Temple of the Dark Stars is the High Command military center of the Archean Order.
    - Eldritch Fortress and Penumbros are now separate markets.
    - Temple of the Dark Stars is only accessible for trade with a welcoming reputation with the Archean Order.
    - Some markets are now inaccessible for legal trade when reputation falls to suspicious for some factions' markets.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed issues with Galar description text under certain circumstances.
 - Fixed some inaccurate cease fire result decriptions for the Adamantine Consortium.
 - Corrected fuel costs per lightyear and fuel capacity for some vessels.
 - Fixed instances where tribute requests for the Adamantine Consortium resulted in weird behavior or failed to prevent the fleet's hostility if accepted.
 - Some dialogue and typo polish from the last update of the commodity request system.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Corrected compatibility with custom mod faction fleets. (Further working towards as much mod diversity as possible!)
 - Tidied up sounds.json overrides to only include Archean Order faction weapons and sounds instead of overriding the entire vanilla sounds spectrum as a safeguard.
 - Added quite a bit of new music. Not all of it is currently implemented, and some will be separated out for eventual boss encounters.
-----

New music from - Adrian von Ziegler (purchased with receipt available)- https://adrianvonziegler.bandcamp.com/ (https://adrianvonziegler.bandcamp.com/)

*EDIT* Mismatched the ids for the Trader Guilds' Economy Center trade panel description and Traveler's Triumph station trade panel description. That has been corrected. Just redownload the rules.csv file under "data\campaign" to fix- but overall a very minor issue.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Croy07 on January 21, 2020, 08:04:18 AM
Hello! This is my first post; Im really loving the game and all of the mods for it so far! But, I've stumbled upon what might be a problem?
I paid to govern a planet, Eldrus (Barren World), under the Archean Order. I'm commissioned by them, and chose that as a start for me.
The problem is... It doesn't have Population and Infrastructure built, and it says that it cannot be built. Industry is 1/0, and it has some other strucutes and industries already built.  I have some other mods enabled as well, and I'll post them all at the end in case anyone here knows if theres one that causes a problem like this. (Copy pasting my enabled_mods.json) I looked through the list and I know I have some that aren't on the verified compatible list, but I also couldn't find stuff that is for sure incompatible either. Other than Varya's Sector, but I read through the comments to find that one.
Thank you for reading through this and helping out, if there's any help that can be had from this!

Spoiler

 "anotherportraitpack",
  "archeus",
  "lw_autosave",
  "sd_boardable_unboardables_vanilla",
  "chatter",
  "lw_console",
  "gflportraitpack",
  "sun_hyperdrive",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "leadingPip",
  "sun_new_beginnings",
  "nexerelin",
  "portrait",
  "bonomel_skilledup",
  "speedUp",
  "sun_starship_legends",
  "Boggled Station Construction",
  "terraforming",
  "US"
[close]

Edit: Also, a faction fleet of the Archeon Order now hails me, and wont let me leave the window without engaging, even though I have relations at 100. They even ask me to direct their wrath... but if I fight them, I lose all relations with them. So I'm not really sure what to do about this now either. Archeon Order Templar Gaurd, right outside of one of their big worlds in their main sector.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 21, 2020, 03:33:47 PM
Hi thanks for the feedback! Been a busy day IRL for me but I should have some time later tonight to investigate the industry issue.

Quick question on the patrol issue: Were you smuggling beforehand or did you turn your transponder off? If you happen to get a chance- a screenshot of the dialogue, even, would be great. There are a lot of possible interactions it could be, but it sounds like an issue with a rules.csv entry having too high a weight in a specific encounter.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Croy07 on January 21, 2020, 05:41:25 PM
Nope, I haven't smuggled and I had my transponder on. I was trying to go to the planet and it just.. hailed me. I don't have a screenshot, if it happens again I'll be sure to! (I also dont know the screenshot button, I'll look that up immediately!)
It said that my fleet was too large to disengage, but they wouldn't let me go either. I got around it by loading an earlier save, going back, and then just.. waited around the planet for a while, staying just within range of their sensors to see if theyd try to follow me.. but it only happened when I tried to go to the planet, it was weird. It happened about 3 times in a row, before I tried that, and then .. it just stopped. It only happened after I warped into the sector and immediately went to the planet. If it happens again I'll screenshot and document it as best as I can!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 21, 2020, 09:41:41 PM
Thanks yeah hmm that is strange I'll try and reproduce it after I work on the industry bug with Eldrus.

You can take a screenshot with the "print screen" button. The pics are under *base directory*\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\screenshots.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 22, 2020, 01:49:15 AM
I believe I corrected the issue with Eldrus not being able to be governed. I forgot to add that industry in the market code. It will unfortunately require a clean install and a new game to take effect. Sorry about that.  :(

(I added all the files to the main download link so redownloading the mod from there will hopefully solve the problem and prevent it from happening in the future.)

To make this effort a little more worth it I took the time for some very minor description polish and rules clean up for market flavor text as well as balanced out the economy for some markets that break the rules as far as industry maximums are concerned. This was mostly legacy cleanup that would require a new game in the first place. It doesn't seem to break the economy though it does cause a couple minor shortages.

Let me know if this causes anything unexpected, but it seems stable enough.
-------

I wasn't able to reproduce the patrol behavior yet. I flew around on full reputation with a commission with the Archean Order and tried to see if any patrols pursued me. I started about 3 or 4 new games for variance and didn't see anything. If this happens again please let me know.

On a side note just in case, if you had smuggled at some point in the past maybe? Sometimes the patrols will remember that and search your fleet when you return. Kind of a shot in the dark at this point but worth noting.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: dimzki on January 22, 2020, 02:08:34 AM
@Morrokain, is that Eldrus part of the new update of was it in the old one too ? i haven't updated my game yet in fear of breaking save...    how's the Lightshow mod compatibility going ?  ;D

i want to ask whether the whooping increase to flux for beam weapon by 60% if i install Advanced Optics is intended? i mean, i could understand if it's 20% or 30%
but 60% is way too much, i think... idk, im not a pro at this game
in the end, i used that thing only if im using a non-flux beam weapon... in fear of raking too much soft flux

also, i think a dreadnaught (megalith) in the mod is a bit underwhelming compared to a battleship,
i mean, dreadnaught is supposed to instill fear to its enemies, but i can fight it just fine with paragon...
at first i thought "oh ***, do i have to fight it ?" when they send a raid force to my lovely terran planet
but then... "that wasn't as hard as i thought it'll be"

i want to feel like when facing a dreadnaught, i couldn't win unless i surround it with 3-4 battleship or another dreadnaught... me 'em bigger and more badass please  ::)

or maybe because the AI is not as smart as i thought ::)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Croy07 on January 22, 2020, 08:33:31 AM
Thank you so much! It's fine, I'll start a fresh save and let you know if I find anything weird! As for the patrols.. yeah, that was really weird, and it hasn't happened since I averted it the first time. I had saved past that, but now I wish I hadn't so I could send you a screen shot! Still, if it happens again, I'll be sure to post it here. Thank you for looking into it for me though :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 22, 2020, 03:13:23 PM
@Morrokain, is that Eldrus part of the new update of was it in the old one too ? i haven't updated my game yet in fear of breaking save...    how's the Lightshow mod compatibility going ?  ;D

i want to ask whether the whooping increase to flux for beam weapon by 60% if i install Advanced Optics is intended? i mean, i could understand if it's 20% or 30%
but 60% is way too much, i think... idk, im not a pro at this game
in the end, i used that thing only if im using a non-flux beam weapon... in fear of raking too much soft flux

also, i think a dreadnaught (megalith) in the mod is a bit underwhelming compared to a battleship,
i mean, dreadnaught is supposed to instill fear to its enemies, but i can fight it just fine with paragon...
at first i thought "oh ***, do i have to fight it ?" when they send a raid force to my lovely terran planet
but then... "that wasn't as hard as i thought it'll be"

i want to feel like when facing a dreadnaught, i couldn't win unless i surround it with 3-4 battleship or another dreadnaught... me 'em bigger and more badass please  ::)

or maybe because the AI is not as smart as i thought ::)

Eldrus fix:

Its just in the jar for 1.3.4e at the moment, though I can add it to 1.3.4d just as easily if that would be desirable. It would require a new start all the same, however, so if you want to keep your current save then hold off on updating. (I don't think updating would break it, per se, but since I can't be 100% sure- this is the safest way)

Lightshow:

Havent even started...  :P I still have some reported errors to get through from the last update. Most critically: there is a rather obscure CTD error for linux users. That may take some time in the worst case scenario.

Advanced Optics:

I'll have to double check the math- a reduction in penalty could be possible. The idea of that hullmod is that it converts a "perfect accuracy" strike weapon to a "perfect accuracy" fire support/siege weapon. It's a pretty substantial range increase for most beams- and so it needs a really harsh penalty to the base stats or beams will become very OP. Without that hullmod, beams are flux efficient high alpha strike weapons that are somewhat mitigated by good flux dissipation. With that hullmod, they become the same thing- but typically 50% or more additional range- so they must become flux inefficient to compensate- or players/AI will kite to victory every time.

So an explanation on theory is all well and good, but how does it feel? Have you tried a beam focused ship using that hullmod yourself? If you have, and the flux buildup still feels too harsh- I'm open to the idea. Knowing your build will help too, so I know what weapons you are trying on what ships, etc.  :)

Dreadnoughts:

So I'm not the only one who feels this way?  :D

In all seriousness, though, the Megalith was once really OP. It had 100 more ordinance points and quite a bit more shield strength and flux dissipation than it does now. Archean Order weapons had a lot more range as a whole too. To use the words my brother used when fighting it in an Onslaught... oh wait I can't they wouldn't get through the filter XD. It was something along the lines of "really, really, really, ridiculously unfair."

That didn't bother me so much, actually, as the REDACTED ship of the same size is equally scary. The main problem is that the Megalith can be flown by the player. Due to player power creep, it made things way too easy. A tyrant can be very scary as well, but phase ships suffer from AI problems at the moment. A Tyrant generally dominates the battlespace in the hands of the player.

Because I don't want to increase the cost of deploying these ships to the point where its basically the only ship deployable in a standard battle, I have to ride this particular balance line very carefully.

As far as AI goes, yes there is some variance there too in my experience. Part of the reason a high deployment cost like the vanilla paragon is a problem is that the AI will deploy its smaller ships first and then only deploy their capital power when the support has been picked off (since deployment cost limitations means it can't deploy a sizable enough support group that includes the battleship/dreadnought). Or vice versa- deploy capital without support and then send in reinforcements once the capital dies from being surrounded.

I may tweak it a little bit higher in stats/deployment and see how it works out, though, because it should feel scary to go up against one- even in a Paragon or Tyrant.

Thank you so much! It's fine, I'll start a fresh save and let you know if I find anything weird! As for the patrols.. yeah, that was really weird, and it hasn't happened since I averted it the first time. I had saved past that, but now I wish I hadn't so I could send you a screen shot! Still, if it happens again, I'll be sure to post it here. Thank you for looking into it for me though :)

Any time!  :) I'll keep my eye out too.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: dimzki on January 22, 2020, 11:04:00 PM
A Tyrant generally dominates the battlespace in the hands of the player.

i got one after a bloody battle involving 2 tyrants and 1 malevolent, sadly only got 1 tyrant at the end.
i've been "hunting" that ship ever since, whenever i see them, i chase   ;D


anyway,
i took the "capital" of Sci-Corps, Directorate Headquarters, and inside there are 7 industries over the limit of 4
that's cheating  :P


**
not sure if it's known yet, i updated my game to the latest mod version, and this eldrus station thing won't recognize my fleet as having its transponder turned off.
i had a trade mission with pirates inside that station, but no matter what i do, the station still recognizes me even if i went dark...
**
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Eliteempire on January 23, 2020, 10:20:11 PM
well lad dumb question, how do i get grand sector with this mod?

I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: dimzki on January 24, 2020, 01:49:41 AM
well lad dumb question, how do i get grand sector with this mod?

I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns

check the installation method in grand sector, grand sector requires you to make changes to the vanilla game data
once you've dont that, open archean mod folder, edit the totalConversion from true to false, and voila.

i've been using grand sector in all my playthrough, it's amazing
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 24, 2020, 04:06:02 PM
well lad dumb question, how do i get grand sector with this mod?

I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns

check the installation method in grand sector, grand sector requires you to make changes to the vanilla game data
once you've dont that, open archean mod folder, edit the totalConversion from true to false, and voila.

i've been using grand sector in all my playthrough, it's amazing

If that doesn't work let me know just in case I broke something.

I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns

Hmm, that should have been fixed in the current update. Are you using an older version to preserve your save?

A Tyrant generally dominates the battlespace in the hands of the player.

i got one after a bloody battle involving 2 tyrants and 1 malevolent, sadly only got 1 tyrant at the end.
i've been "hunting" that ship ever since, whenever i see them, i chase   ;D


anyway,
i took the "capital" of Sci-Corps, Directorate Headquarters, and inside there are 7 industries over the limit of 4
that's cheating  :P


**
not sure if it's known yet, i updated my game to the latest mod version, and this eldrus station thing won't recognize my fleet as having its transponder turned off.
i had a trade mission with pirates inside that station, but no matter what i do, the station still recognizes me even if i went dark...
**

 ;D

Reported Eldrus transponder issue:

Thanks for the info! I should have some time in a few hours to take a look at that. Hopefully that can be fixed without breaking saves.


Sci-Corps Headquarters:

Still planning on separating these out but don't want to break the economy too bad. I'm shooting for those changes and an additional market or two for the Luddic Church in the next update.  :)

 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 25, 2020, 02:41:19 AM
Hopefully fixed the issue with having the transponder off not effecting market trade/missions for specific markets. It has been hotfixed (along with some general typo corrections) to the main download.

For those wishing to preserve their save from an older version or prevent a complete reinstall, you can replace the standard rules.csv file of the mod with the one in this hotfix download:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0)

See:

*home directory*\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order v.1.3.4e\data\campaign\

-for the file location.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 26, 2020, 12:26:03 AM
I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns

Hmm, that should have been fixed in the current update. Are you using an older version to preserve your save?

I think I found some additional potential problems with mod compatibility. I hotfixed some additional legacy overrides in mod_info.json for the main download- all csv files should now merge and only override specific instances of vanilla implementation in the sense of mod compatibility.

I also removed some needless vanilla overrides in special_items.csv.

I want to make a general exception and hotfix these particular constraints (still figuring out what is good and not good to hotfix) for new players trying out the mod, but I sincerely apologize that these hotfix items would require a new download and save to see upon a fresh install.

*Edit* Also, the population and infrastructure industry won't apply to Eldrus without the new jar in the hotfixed update without Nexerelin. I apparently placed this code in the wrong place in the first run and just now caught it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Prolbo on January 26, 2020, 01:28:33 AM
Sounds great, especially part about Negotations, Bribery, Threats/Demands (*Space Ranger music plays in my head*) and smaller & faster mosquito fleet wich probably would be real mosquito fleet now, not a dwarf frigates.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Yela on January 26, 2020, 02:15:39 AM
I keep getting crashes with variances on:

Fatal: Slot Id [WS 004] not found on hull [mule]

Whats up with that?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 26, 2020, 02:44:27 AM
I keep getting crashes with variances on:

Fatal: Slot Id [WS 004] not found on hull [mule]

Whats up with that?
To help me troubleshoot, what version of Archean Order are you on, and what is your currently installed mods list?

*For my own knowledge on this subject* I need to fix the vanilla overrides as far as ship files are concerned to include all the expected weapon ids in vanilla variant extensions that mods might take advantage of. I override all the vanilla variants myself, so this would only include extensions of the base ship file in mod variants. So, in part this is due to the apparent placement of a "0" in each weapon slot id as far as the ship editor is concerned, and I have relied heavily upon that to place weapon, hit-box border and engine placements, etc. It's extremely useful, but this has been a side effect. In this case, I will have to cross reference each weapon id with vanilla counterparts' ids I've inadvertently deleted by replacing them with ship editor ids. This is to ensure that all apparent ids are placed for other modders' variants' to be viable without a crash. This will take a substantial amount of time. I will work towards this as fast as I can, but I am but one person after all. Just a disclaimer. I will do my best to get there- and make it as compatible as I can.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Yela on January 27, 2020, 01:37:49 PM
Archean Order 1.3.4e is the one I was running, but I've recently changed over to a bunch of other mods that were incompatible with yours so I'm not entirely sure what I had at the time.

I recall having these, and ensuring that there wasn't anything to do with factions or weren't directly listed under the compatible mods you have on the main page. (Excluding any that didn't make major changes to the game either by adding sounds/portrait packs etc.)

Another Portrait Pack
Combat Chatter
Console Commands
Girls Frontline Portrait Pack 1.3
LazyLib 2.4e
MagicLib 0.28
Station Construction 3.0.0
Unknown Skies 0.42
ZGrand Sector 0.3.0
ZZ Audio Plus 1.1.1
ZZ GraphicsLib 1.4.1
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 27, 2020, 03:48:24 PM
Archean Order 1.3.4e is the one I was running, but I've recently changed over to a bunch of other mods that were incompatible with yours so I'm not entirely sure what I had at the time.

I recall having these, and ensuring that there wasn't anything to do with factions or weren't directly listed under the compatible mods you have on the main page. (Excluding any that didn't make major changes to the game either by adding sounds/portrait packs etc.)

Another Portrait Pack
Combat Chatter
Console Commands
Girls Frontline Portrait Pack 1.3
LazyLib 2.4e
MagicLib 0.28
Station Construction 3.0.0
Unknown Skies 0.42
ZGrand Sector 0.3.0
ZZ Audio Plus 1.1.1
ZZ GraphicsLib 1.4.1

Thanks, I'll take a look! I forgot to mention the operating system in case it happens to be Linux, but the version and mod list lets me start troubleshooting possible causes. I'll also download and make sure the hotfixed update works on my test computer just to be extra certain it's not a download issue.

----

Lighshow (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11528.0) compatibility:

-Will be fixed in the next update. (I also want to work out the Industries economy and add additional markets, etc. I may be able to tackle that tonight, actually.)

----
Also, potentially some big news regarding mod faction compatibility:

I may be able to accelerate this process considerably using my IDE. Assuming the game's behavior when loading mods holds to my assumptions, it will be far easier to correct than I had originally thought. Not saying it might not take some time, but it hopefully will not be the monumental effort I had originally assumed it would be- based upon early-on modding experiences and a lack of technical tool application.

We shall see. I'm hopeful though!  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Destructor on January 27, 2020, 04:10:33 PM
Hi would you ever consider making a sub mod with the ships and guns only?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 27, 2020, 06:47:14 PM
Hi would you ever consider making a sub mod with the ships and guns only?

It wouldn't be particularly hard to do, but it wouldn't be balanced for use with other mod factions any more that way. Other than fleet dialogue and campaign faction additions, the core mod mostly acts this way already using Nex's randomly generated start.

Are you saying you would prefer a mod without the new factions' content? (Not a bad thing if you are- just to be clear  :) )
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Destructor on January 27, 2020, 07:24:37 PM
Hi would you ever consider making a sub mod with the ships and guns only?

It wouldn't be particularly hard to do, but it wouldn't be balanced for use with other mod factions any more that way. Other than fleet dialogue and campaign faction additions, the core mod mostly acts this way already using Nex's randomly generated start.

Are you saying you would prefer a mod without the new factions' content? (Not a bad thing if you are- just to be clear  :) )

I love the ships and guns the mod adds i run heavy modded game so its not compatible with some of the mods so would love to see a sub mod containing say the ships and guns implemented so instead of full conversion mod a soft mod thats not changing any of the core game files. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 27, 2020, 08:14:59 PM
I love the ships and guns the mod adds i run heavy modded game so its not compatible with some of the mods so would love to see a sub mod containing say the ships and guns implemented so instead of full conversion mod a soft mod thats not changing any of the core game files. :)

Ah, so a rebalance of the core stats back to Vanilla standards. Not going to say never by any means, but there are some other things that will likely come first. - Such as fleshing out the fleet dialogue system as a stand-alone mod, etc etc.

I'll definitely keep this in mind, though, and thank you for the compliment!  :)

*EDIT* 

As a way of explanation of this thought process, part of the reason is that core vanilla stats are not yet finalized. They are close, but the tweaks required to make everything feel good to revert this mod back are time intensive. So, if I were to do such a thing I would want it to be under the implication that future maintenance would be minimal (so as to not overload my workload by maintaining too many projects).

Overall, this mod was intended to provide an alternative gameplay implementation more along the lines of RTS/DnD-esque style games- backed up with immersive lore content telling my own stories. I would consider vanilla, currently, to fall more under the Rogue-Like Tactical Arcade shooter with a secondary campaign layer of Mount and Blade? Idk... it's pretty hard to put Starsector in a box. That is one of the reasons it's a fantastic game, but that is the best way I can explain design vision.

So that comes first and foremost, but I am not trying to give the impression that I am discluding the general community by a stubborn unwillingness to separate out popular features, for example. I just want the features to be finished first (so I am not doing double work- even assuming replacing files in two directories is always possible- which it may not be).

TLDR: I am taking the cautious route to preserve dev time, but I'm definitely open to multiple, separate, feature mods in the future.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: tseikk1 on January 28, 2020, 02:50:45 PM
Is there some kind of guide for this mod, as in what ships and weapons are good etc.? It looks really nice (especially the factions) but I don't really want to relearn the game, as it seems almost everything from weapon names to ship hulls is changed
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Destructor on January 28, 2020, 03:24:04 PM
I love the ships and guns the mod adds i run heavy modded game so its not compatible with some of the mods so would love to see a sub mod containing say the ships and guns implemented so instead of full conversion mod a soft mod thats not changing any of the core game files. :)

Ah, so a rebalance of the core stats back to Vanilla standards. Not going to say never by any means, but there are some other things that will likely come first. - Such as fleshing out the fleet dialogue system as a stand-alone mod, etc etc.

I'll definitely keep this in mind, though, and thank you for the compliment!  :)

*EDIT* 

As a way of explanation of this thought process, part of the reason is that core vanilla stats are not yet finalized. They are close, but the tweaks required to make everything feel good to revert this mod back are time intensive. So, if I were to do such a thing I would want it to be under the implication that future maintenance would be minimal (so as to not overload my workload by maintaining too many projects).

Overall, this mod was intended to provide an alternative gameplay implementation more along the lines of RTS/DnD-esque style games- backed up with immersive lore content telling my own stories. I would consider vanilla, currently, to fall more under the Rogue-Like Tactical Arcade shooter with a secondary campaign layer of Mount and Blade? Idk... it's pretty hard to put Starsector in a box. That is one of the reasons it's a fantastic game, but that is the best way I can explain design vision.

So that comes first and foremost, but I am not trying to give the impression that I am discluding the general community by a stubborn unwillingness to separate out popular features, for example. I just want the features to be finished first (so I am not doing double work- even assuming replacing files in two directories is always possible- which it may not be).

TLDR: I am taking the cautious route to preserve dev time, but I'm definitely open to multiple, separate, feature mods in the future.  :)

Yea better be cautious then hasty but yea you doing a great job i just love extra pew pew in my game  ;D ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2020, 03:36:30 PM
Is there some kind of guide for this mod, as in what ships and weapons are good etc.? It looks really nice (especially the factions) but I don't really want to relearn the game, as it seems almost everything from weapon names to ship hulls is changed

There is the Tactics Manual, yes, but it is ~2 years old and so a little dated since there have been a lot of improvements since then. I've been meaning to tidy that up but it is admittedly a tedious job.

These old posts may also help a bit as far as some player experiences and a description of the general combat tactics' design:

Spoiler

*snip*

1.  Archean flux war:

a.  a heavy missile loadout and a bit of excess flux budget worked great for general pirates swarms or working the edge of a mid-game sized battle line hunting and killing smaller ships.  However this ship setup does poorly when stuck into the middle of a battle line (the above Revenant cruiser) and having to "hold"...way too long delays between salvos.  Now moderating to solid beam with solid missile salvo...AND a fair amount of overhead to deal with the hard flux coming in from...let's see:   a billion fighters, missiles, debris, beams, lasers, and kitchen sinks. 

So back to the simulator...and:  Gauss cannon, artillery blasters, max flux capacity/distributors, and some burst pd means I can duel an Onslaught (slowly).  Sure great for duelist config...will have to see how it does in the "Archean mid-game threat environment"

b.  It was horrifying when I booted up the simulator against a Paragon and the thing blasted me from outside visual range.  And then proceeded to hound me off the field like a Man Mountain the Sumo wrestler.  However since I have just joined the Archean Order, I shall pay back these Tri-Tachyon Paragon on the field of battle...eventually.

Yea, missile boats and other long-range support designs are horrifically effective in their role, but can't handle a melee. Paragon doesn't really count, given the whole, normal design is really more an assault with several TACHYON LANCES. The Support paragon is, while not horrible, is absolutely a support ship which without guards cannot handle much on it's own.

I generally think of it in rough D&D-ish RPG terms. With Support as Wizard, Assault as Warrior, and Strike as Assassin, with some overlap and a few other traits.

Support vessels, naturally. Long range, and hence ability to pick and chose targets and push them over the edge. Missiles or long range support weapons. But in melee combat, the shield's upkeep makes it lose half it's damage output, and it loses the other half from the tradeoff that long range support weapons make, of flux cost and lower damage for range.

Assault Vessel. Fast, tough, and they get in your face and prevent you from doing anything clever. The Low-Flux speed boost makes them great at interceptions. Assault weapons have the best DPS, and use no flux, so while they get barely any alpha potential, they DO have the ability to just make a target's shields remain under strain, and keep them slow. The lack of flux cost means stronger shields, and higher speed, but the lack of alpha potential means no real finishing power unless you have several teaming up, or, more likely, from support vessles or having assasin traits.

Strike Vessel. Has a powerful alpha strike, but needs opportunities to take advantage of. They are fast and great at obliterating targets in the opening volly, but they have no staying power to speak of. Zero-flux helps them get into position, but since they tend to spend easily half or more of their flux in their strike, they obviously won't maintain it afterwards. Best used as hiding behind Assaults, until the target's shields are weakened enough for you to tear through them. And then backoff, vent, and wait for ammunition to reload.

Carriers are weird, and are more an afterthought, even in this mod. Mostly it just makes them worse quality, while supporting fighters, so they are more strategic target. I really have no idea how to think about them, aside from them being really important and high priority targets.

Hybrids exist, but it has serious costs. Adding a few strikes to the assault helps it break stalemates on it's own, but the loss of DPS and survivability hurts. Adding support helps it intercept or maintain contact, but again, costs DPS and survivability.

Point defense is pretty universal. That said, dedicated PD vessels can work, although I have no idea if the AI really handles the correctly.
-----

Been using an Archean Order Frigate as my flagship. After my entire starting force kinda died horribly though the incompetent commander.
Not sure what it was called, but it has 6 small missile slots, 2 charges of missile forge, and 2 small energy slots.

I think I have 6 trebuchet missile launchers, extended racks, unstable injector, and safety overrides (Plus hardened subsystems). And two sorta-pd/assault guns.

It is horrifyingly effective as a support vessel. I can unload 3 vollies of 18 missiles from the start, although the second reforge has a longer cooldown. I can generally obliterate 2 frigates in an opening volly, from way, way out of range. That said, between the long restocking time and the saftey overrides, I can generally manage around 3 more full vollies, barely, before CR decay sets up.

But, the shield is tough, its fast enough to sorta evade fighters (at least get to support before the shield collapses) and is a horrifically effective support/assassin hybrid.

I tried using short range missiles, like Swarmer, or torpedoes, or rocketpods, or w.e., but nothing can match the sheer potential I got from 18 longrange missiles. I can't even really get a good shield breaker missile to work. Its just that there aren't any similarly FAST missiles. I don't have to get close either.

That said, its not OP enough. It takes a lot to even pound down a frigate's shield, and even two vollies doesn't do much to a destroyer. Hence I have to wait for vulnerable targets.
Point defense on frigates generally isn't enough to save them, but it certainly makes me spend more ammunition. Larger ships can pretty much ignore the huge waves though.

Past that, when ammunition is depleted I have a 10 second delay before I get 6 missiles back, and I can only kinda kill fighters, and mildly poke frigates with the secondary guns.

Overall, highly effective, but not even close to being able to, say, solo an enemy fleet.


DnD-esque is exactly the kind of battle dynamic I was going for, yeah. I play a lot of RPG's as well as RTS, and that has definitely been an influence for this entire mod. :)

AI assault/support pairs or task force groups - You can do this pretty reliably *snip*:

Step 1: Select your assault group and tell it to escort a support ship. The recommendation for this is that the assault escorts are either a class smaller or at least fairly faster than the support ship. 0-flux boosting helps this a lot with assault and strike ships though, so you will be surprised what you can get away with there. Do this for each support ship in your fleet.

Step 2: Select the support/strike ships (Only the support/strike ships, mind you) you want to have target a priority enemy ship and right click that enemy vessel. The support ships will focus either their missiles or fighter waves on that ship, and strike vessels will close for a salvo.

Why this works well:
- The key here is that the AI is very aware of when it is "flankable" and will behave much more cautiously when it has that liability unless an eliminate command is explicitly given. That's why numbers are so important because the larger group has the flank advantage and can sometimes outright intimidate the other side into being overly defensive and not using their strike weapons until its too late. Escorts, however, provide flank defense the AI is aware of, and even the minor distraction of having to briefly engage an escorting frigate can buy enough time to make the AI confident enough to fully engage their weapons. This can often mean the difference between an attack killing a target (optimal outcome) or merely overloading it and hoping the long range missiles can get through the enemy fighter screen and finish it as it limps off. The escorts for your long range support ships are to ensure that they don't get similarly surrounded and sniped while your "away" at the enemy battle line.

4) Carrier weakness/uniqueness from the large fighter nerf that's coming will be addressed because they will all have built-in hullmods reducing fighter replacement time substantially- both to give them the actual sense of being a carrier and slightly weaken the fighter strength of standard assault vessels so comparison between the two classes can be more easily drawn. It isn't as noticeable for frigates or destroyers since the majority of them can't field fighters if they aren't carriers, but the lines get really blurred above that. Cruisers meant to be hybrids (like the midline Eagle or Megalith, for instance) will still feel that way because of their ship systems. For many carriers, limited ammo being a factor will also greatly increase the strength of the majority of carrier-based ship systems in comparison to the current release, so that will also make them stand out more.

[close]

Yea better be cautious then hasty but yea you doing a great job i just love extra pew pew in my game  ;D ;D

Thank you :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: dimzki on January 28, 2020, 08:39:25 PM
Also, potentially some big news regarding mod faction compatibility:

I may be able to accelerate this process considerably using my IDE. Assuming the game's behavior when loading mods holds to my assumptions, it will be far easier to correct than I had originally thought. Not saying it might not take some time, but it hopefully will not be the monumental effort I had originally assumed it would be- based upon early-on modding experiences and a lack of technical tool application.

We shall see. I'm hopeful though!  ;D

does this apply to the ship stats of other mods?
 ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2020, 11:59:14 PM
Also, potentially some big news regarding mod faction compatibility:

I may be able to accelerate this process considerably using my IDE. Assuming the game's behavior when loading mods holds to my assumptions, it will be far easier to correct than I had originally thought. Not saying it might not take some time, but it hopefully will not be the monumental effort I had originally assumed it would be- based upon early-on modding experiences and a lack of technical tool application.

We shall see. I'm hopeful though!  ;D

does this apply to the ship stats of other mods?
 ;D

No, sorry, not that compatible in terms of editing other mods or anything. It will hopefully make all faction mods compatible in use with Archean Order and Nex without Archean Order overriding most of the core vanilla files. This should open up more mods that edit vanilla files to being compatible. Stat imbalances will remain. I may handle that in the future but that would probably be further down the road when core stats are more finalized and therefore more easily balanced around.

I'll give more precise details when I have them. I'm working from the projectile files on up to see how much I can get away with as far as campaign balance is possible concerning the base mod. I want to preserve that balance as well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: tseikk1 on January 29, 2020, 07:52:22 AM
I can't seem to grasp this mod. Why is everything so fast, why does every second ship have entropy amplifier as its ship system, why is there a ship with 4000+ armor(LC legion)? Every weapon type (missile/energy/ballistic) has good(ish?) weapons for every type of damage making them feel homogenous. Everything has charges. Carriers seem even more overpowered than in vanilla. PD guns use no flux...

It might be that I'm just a bad player, actually that is very likely since I haven't learned much about this mod, but IMO some of the balance/design decisions seem quite questionable.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on January 29, 2020, 08:21:17 AM
It uses a completely different system of balance and gameplay. TC, not just a mod. Can't compare anything in it to vanilla - because it's not vanilla or vanilla compatible.

Even how you design ships is different, with capacity being far more important, and the flux-per-second stats being almost entirely an ignorable stat. Flux-per-burst is the stat that actually matters most for example.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 29, 2020, 03:34:23 PM
I can't seem to grasp this mod. Why is everything so fast, why does every second ship have entropy amplifier as its ship system, why is there a ship with 4000+ armor(LC legion)? Every weapon type (missile/energy/ballistic) has good(ish?) weapons for every type of damage making them feel homogenous. Everything has charges. Carriers seem even more overpowered than in vanilla. PD guns use no flux...

It might be that I'm just a bad player, actually that is very likely since I haven't learned much about this mod, but IMO some of the balance/design decisions seem quite questionable.

I'm sorry you feel that way and thank you for the feedback! Always appreciated!  :)

DatonKallandor is correct that this is a TC and the design balance is different than vanilla for many reasons- some of them aesthetic and some of them design changes to make other things possible. As one minor example based upon one of your comments/concerns: I don't like how- in vanilla- PD and smaller assault weapons stop firing at high flux. It feels weird to me and though changing it requires other balance changes to compensate, it was an early design goal. That is why the majority of PD and assault weapons are flux free. Longer ranged weapons are oftentimes very superior in vanilla, and so I wanted some kind of trade off there. High flux generation (to offset flux-free weapons) seemed like a good solution. Similarly with missiles, AI issues and limited ammo make that weapon category pretty niche and mostly build-specific. Giving missiles regeneration (again with the offset of high flux generation) let's them be another weapon category choice in most set-ups.

Yup, that can make things feel homogenous if the design goal is to make every weapon feel especially unique. On the other hand, I wanted to make each weapon type able to perform more roles within that category so that A) faction commission choice is more interesting in that it unlocks a lot more unique weapons- and B) there is a larger variety of aesthetics to choose from, and, if you want to focus on a weapon category- you can- without being forced into a specific playstyle. If you think about it, vanilla doesn't have to particularly worry about that concern because the faction mods fill in those gaps with their own weapons. I started this out as a TC, so I couldn't (especially at the time due to technical reasons) rely on that for this mod.

If you want to flesh out that last sentence, feel free, and I'll see if any changes are warranted. Details like: what part of the game are you in? (early-mid-late)- what is your fleet composition?- what particularly are you struggling with?, etc, will help me give you advice if you want to learn-

I don't really want to relearn the game, as it seems almost everything from weapon names to ship hulls is changed

-but if you are looking for just another vanilla experience with different ships and weapons, this mod is probably not for you. :) I will likely release some kind of balanced ship and weapon/faction pack at some point in the future, but there is a lot to get through first.

In the meantime, if that is what you are looking for, there are lots and lots of high quality faction mods out there that are very vanilla-friendly. There is also a guide on the modding sub-forum that attempts to categorize them by how close to vanilla standards they are.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Eliteempire on January 31, 2020, 11:48:26 AM
well lad dumb question, how do i get grand sector with this mod?

I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns

check the installation method in grand sector, grand sector requires you to make changes to the vanilla game data
once you've dont that, open archean mod folder, edit the totalConversion from true to false, and voila.

i've been using grand sector in all my playthrough, it's amazing

If that doesn't work let me know just in case I broke something.

I've also learned via the few faction mods i've played with, it seems that they don't actually 'use' there faction's ships and default too the base game ones. Pretty funny.

Blackrock, Legacy are the two. 0 crashes but just defaults everywhere, expect there guns

Hmm, that should have been fixed in the current update. Are you using an older version to preserve your save?

A Tyrant generally dominates the battlespace in the hands of the player.

i got one after a bloody battle involving 2 tyrants and 1 malevolent, sadly only got 1 tyrant at the end.
i've been "hunting" that ship ever since, whenever i see them, i chase   ;D


anyway,
i took the "capital" of Sci-Corps, Directorate Headquarters, and inside there are 7 industries over the limit of 4
that's cheating  :P


**
not sure if it's known yet, i updated my game to the latest mod version, and this eldrus station thing won't recognize my fleet as having its transponder turned off.
i had a trade mission with pirates inside that station, but no matter what i do, the station still recognizes me even if i went dark...
**

 ;D

Reported Eldrus transponder issue:

Thanks for the info! I should have some time in a few hours to take a look at that. Hopefully that can be fixed without breaking saves.


Sci-Corps Headquarters:

Still planning on separating these out but don't want to break the economy too bad. I'm shooting for those changes and an additional market or two for the Luddic Church in the next update.  :)

I didn't see there was an update, I'll try it and see if the factions work now.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 31, 2020, 04:03:17 PM
I didn't see there was an update, I'll try it and see if the factions work now.

If not, let me know, but removing the overrides should have done it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Eliteempire on February 01, 2020, 05:33:09 PM
I didn't see there was an update, I'll try it and see if the factions work now.

If not, let me know, but removing the overrides should have done it.

Well I haven't had a single crash yet, and all factions are spawning with there faction designed ships. Its a nice surprise but if I run into a bug I will let you know.

 Just pain because Arch ships aren't busted anymore lol
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 02, 2020, 11:41:47 AM
Well I haven't had a single crash yet, and all factions are spawning with there faction designed ships. Its a nice surprise but if I run into a bug I will let you know.

 Just pain because Arch ships aren't busted anymore lol

Ah good glad to hear it!  :)

Still not finalized on the Megalith and Revenant in particular as far as strength/deployment goes, so we shall see where they end up for the next release.

Probably going to take a bit of a break though other than fixing any new bugs. I'll slowly work on full mod compatibility (as far as not crashing goes) as I'm up for it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Spatzz on February 02, 2020, 08:54:40 PM
I can't seem to grasp this mod. Why is everything so fast, why does every second ship have entropy amplifier as its ship system, why is there a ship with 4000+ armor(LC legion)? Every weapon type (missile/energy/ballistic) has good(ish?) weapons for every type of damage making them feel homogenous. Everything has charges. Carriers seem even more overpowered than in vanilla. PD guns use no flux...

It might be that I'm just a bad player, actually that is very likely since I haven't learned much about this mod, but IMO some of the balance/design decisions seem quite questionable.

I'm sorry you feel that way and thank you for the feedback! Always appreciated!  :)

DatonKallandor is correct that this is a TC and the design balance is different than vanilla for many reasons- some of them aesthetic and some of them design changes to make other things possible. As one minor example based upon one of your comments/concerns: I don't like how- in vanilla- PD and smaller assault weapons stop firing at high flux. It feels weird to me and though changing it requires other balance changes to compensate, it was an early design goal. That is why the majority of PD and assault weapons are flux free. Longer ranged weapons are oftentimes very superior in vanilla, and so I wanted some kind of trade off there. High flux generation (to offset flux-free weapons) seemed like a good solution. Similarly with missiles, AI issues and limited ammo make that weapon category pretty niche and mostly build-specific. Giving missiles regeneration (again with the offset of high flux generation) let's them be another weapon category choice in most set-ups.

Yup, that can make things feel homogenous if the design goal is to make every weapon feel especially unique. On the other hand, I wanted to make each weapon type able to perform more roles within that category so that A) faction commission choice is more interesting in that it unlocks a lot more unique weapons- and B) there is a larger variety of aesthetics to choose from, and, if you want to focus on a weapon category- you can- without being forced into a specific playstyle. If you think about it, vanilla doesn't have to particularly worry about that concern because the faction mods fill in those gaps with their own weapons. I started this out as a TC, so I couldn't (especially at the time due to technical reasons) rely on that for this mod.

If you want to flesh out that last sentence, feel free, and I'll see if any changes are warranted. Details like: what part of the game are you in? (early-mid-late)- what is your fleet composition?- what particularly are you struggling with?, etc, will help me give you advice if you want to learn-

I don't really want to relearn the game, as it seems almost everything from weapon names to ship hulls is changed

-but if you are looking for just another vanilla experience with different ships and weapons, this mod is probably not for you. :) I will likely release some kind of balanced ship and weapon/faction pack at some point in the future, but there is a lot to get through first.

In the meantime, if that is what you are looking for, there are lots and lots of high quality faction mods out there that are very vanilla-friendly. There is also a guide on the modding sub-forum that attempts to categorize them by how close to vanilla standards they are.

Morrokain, similar to tseikk1 I was having issues figuring out the balance and choice making, it made my own decisions feel like guess work.  While finally searching for what I realized must be common issue I stumbled across your above explanation.  I appreciate the well thought out and candid response on what felt like the major pain points.  Going into the next campaign I'll give it another shot with less expectations from prior knowledge. 

I'll also keep digging for guides but if you can point me towards a good summary of the major differences or a CAQ threat I would appreciate it.  Thanks for the effort as it's a real specific itch your mod scratches in a game that was already hitting spots I almost didn't know I even had. 

Cheers,

*edit* Big oof, just found the .doc . 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Eliteempire on February 06, 2020, 12:32:58 PM
Sup lad its me again, Really strange glitch I keep stumbling into when black market dealing and haven't found a workaround it yet in game.

When the AI heads this way too search me after I sell VAST amounts of goods at 0 traiffs, they are stuck in a 'engage or open coms' without the ability too leave without fighting them which RUINS my relationship or relogging an earlier save. I've had this happen at 2 different ports. Both were Archean order this run so far but this is a strictly allied Archen run or atleast was.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 06, 2020, 12:42:03 PM
Is there a way to make the AI stop firing large, overpowered weapons with long cooldowns at enemy fighters and instead just leave that to their dozen point defense guns instead so that they can actually use their megacannons on actual enemy ships?

I know this is probably just a vanilla thing, but I thought I'd ask.  I also noticed that the AI has real trouble with the large laser tri-beam; specifically its range.  It always seems to fire it at targets that are just past its actual range.  That's the only weapon that seems to have that issue, too, at least as far as I've noticed.

Meanwhile... have you ever thought about doing (or asking someone to do) compatibility patches with various shipmods?  Because the flux system from Achean is awesome, but once other shipmods come into play they don't mesh well with it at all.  So something that bridges those mods to fit the Achean system where PD doesn't use flux and the other/new ships are further tweaked to fit into the system here better?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 07, 2020, 02:11:18 PM
Meanwhile... have you ever thought about doing (or asking someone to do) compatibility patches with various shipmods?  Because the flux system from Achean is awesome, but once other shipmods come into play they don't mesh well with it at all.  So something that bridges those mods to fit the Achean system where PD doesn't use flux and the other/new ships are further tweaked to fit into the system here better?

Ask other modders to make extra version of their mods with every ship having more mounts and a completely rebalanced set of weapons is your best bet.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: TimeDiver on February 07, 2020, 02:57:58 PM
Is there a way to make the AI stop firing large, overpowered weapons with long cooldowns at enemy fighters and instead just leave that to their dozen point defense guns instead so that they can actually use their megacannons on actual enemy ships?
If you're feeling up to some client-side (i.e. your own computer) personalized modding, adding the following:

"STRIKE, USE_VS_FRIGATES"

to the 'tags' column of the weapon(s) in question in \StarSector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4e\data\weapons\weapon_data.csv, would at least minimize the wasted weapons fire (will only deliberately target frigates or larger, but stray fighters WILL absorb said weapons fire, if in the way).

As I do not use this mod myself, I cannot make the changes for you, as I have little knowledge as to which weapons need the changes to suit your needs.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2020, 12:24:10 PM
Morrokain, similar to tseikk1 I was having issues figuring out the balance and choice making, it made my own decisions feel like guess work.  While finally searching for what I realized must be common issue I stumbled across your above explanation.  I appreciate the well thought out and candid response on what felt like the major pain points.  Going into the next campaign I'll give it another shot with less expectations from prior knowledge. 

I'll also keep digging for guides but if you can point me towards a good summary of the major differences or a CAQ threat I would appreciate it.  Thanks for the effort as it's a real specific itch your mod scratches in a game that was already hitting spots I almost didn't know I even had. 

Cheers,

*edit* Big oof, just found the .doc .

Thanks and hope the doc helped. It's a little outdated. That's one of the things I want to take care of for the next update for sure.  :)

Sup lad its me again, Really strange glitch I keep stumbling into when black market dealing and haven't found a workaround it yet in game.

When the AI heads this way too search me after I sell VAST amounts of goods at 0 traiffs, they are stuck in a 'engage or open coms' without the ability too leave without fighting them which RUINS my relationship or relogging an earlier save. I've had this happen at 2 different ports. Both were Archean order this run so far but this is a strictly allied Archen run or atleast was.

Thanks for the report and sorry for the experience. (I thought I tidied all that up but looks like I was wrong :( ) That might be fixable in a hotfix since it sounds like a rules issue. So I'm clear on the details: it happens only while smuggling with high reputation with the Archean Order faction or were you aligned with another faction? (That's the problem when a faction matches the name of the mod- it can create a little confusion at times haha)

Is there a way to make the AI stop firing large, overpowered weapons with long cooldowns at enemy fighters and instead just leave that to their dozen point defense guns instead so that they can actually use their megacannons on actual enemy ships?

I know this is probably just a vanilla thing, but I thought I'd ask.  I also noticed that the AI has real trouble with the large laser tri-beam; specifically its range.  It always seems to fire it at targets that are just past its actual range.  That's the only weapon that seems to have that issue, too, at least as far as I've noticed.

Meanwhile... have you ever thought about doing (or asking someone to do) compatibility patches with various shipmods?  Because the flux system from Achean is awesome, but once other shipmods come into play they don't mesh well with it at all.  So something that bridges those mods to fit the Achean system where PD doesn't use flux and the other/new ships are further tweaked to fit into the system here better?

Weapons:

What weapons were you using, specifically?

If you're feeling up to some client-side (i.e. your own computer) personalized modding, adding the following:

"STRIKE, USE_VS_FRIGATES"

to the 'tags' column of the weapon(s) in question in \StarSector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4e\data\weapons\weapon_data.csv, would at least minimize the wasted weapons fire (will only deliberately target frigates or larger, but stray fighters WILL absorb said weapons fire, if in the way).

As I do not use this mod myself, I cannot make the changes for you, as I have little knowledge as to which weapons need the changes to suit your needs.

First off, thanks for helping out someone who posted on this thread. I appreciate it. :)

Most weapons that fit the description NephilimNexus used already have that tag, so that ideally shouldn't be the problem unless I missed something- which is very possible. That tag doesn't prevent the AI from using the weapon against fighters if no other ships are in range and the AI ship feels "threatened" by nearby fighter swarms.

In the past, I've requested a separate tag from Alex that completely prevents weapons from targeting fighters for any reason, but I don't think he has had time as I assume that would be a little intensive to implement.

Faction Mods:

Ask other modders to make extra version of their mods with every ship having more mounts and a completely rebalanced set of weapons is your best bet.

Yeah I agree this is the only way that it would be possible. Anytime I have brought this up in the past, however, I have been declined. Most modders don't want to do that kind of work and don't want me doing it either. I'll eventually make a thread on how to do it and let other modders give their consent or submissions by posting there.

Speaking of faction mods...

I have successfully removed all the vanilla weapon and projectile overrides that would otherwise cause issues with mods like SWP that rely on or add to vanilla files. So that's pretty good news as it was a large part of the work required. (had to change about 1000 ids... even with my IDE's mass search and replace it was a considerable effort)

I still have to handle ship hulls, industries, and fighters before those types of mods won't crash, however. I'll post work updates here as they become available/noteworthy.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2020, 03:30:44 PM
Sup lad its me again, Really strange glitch I keep stumbling into when black market dealing and haven't found a workaround it yet in game.

When the AI heads this way too search me after I sell VAST amounts of goods at 0 traiffs, they are stuck in a 'engage or open coms' without the ability too leave without fighting them which RUINS my relationship or relogging an earlier save. I've had this happen at 2 different ports. Both were Archean order this run so far but this is a strictly allied Archen run or atleast was.

Thanks for the report and sorry for the experience. (I thought I tidied all that up but looks like I was wrong :( ) That might be fixable in a hotfix since it sounds like a rules issue. So I'm clear on the details: it happens only while smuggling with high reputation with the Archean Order faction or were you aligned with another faction? (That's the problem when a faction matches the name of the mod- it can create a little confusion at times haha)

Nvm on the details, I was able to reproduce it. Working on a hotfix for late tonight (have to leave now and won't be home until late). Instead of having to completely redownload, I'll also link instructions on an easy file replacement that should solve the problem without breaking saves. Simply have that fix installed and even if the fleet is currently pursuing you it should be resolvable.

Apologies for the inconvenience.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 09, 2020, 11:42:47 AM
Fixed the smuggling bug. You can:

A) Redownload and clean install the mod.

OR

B) Use this link and download the rules.csv file and replace it in the mod directory ("Archean Order TC v1.3.4e/data/campaign")

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0)

Shouldn't break saves.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 11, 2020, 04:32:40 PM
Any strategic advice for stopping the Archean Order from curb-stomping literally every other faction into the dust?  I've seen campaigns where they are down to two planets, declare war on someone with eight planets and still come out the winner every time.  I've seen them single-handedly fight entire alliances and win.  It seem kinds of weird to me that a bunch of religious zealots could somehow field technology than makes Tri-Tachyon look like the Luddic Path, but there it is.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 11, 2020, 06:54:08 PM
Any strategic advice for stopping the Archean Order from curb-stomping literally every other faction into the dust?  I've seen campaigns where they are down to two planets, declare war on someone with eight planets and still come out the winner every time.  I've seen them single-handedly fight entire alliances and win.

Hmm, that's certainly not intended. You mean the autoresolve battles, correct? Or are they dominating in actual allied battles, etc? I am also assuming Nex is installed since there are planet count differences, war, etc.

Autoresolve should mostly base these battles on FP (though from what I've read, shield strength is a factor on damage taken in autoresolve which might make future player battles easier, etc). Archean Order vessels' FPs are slightly higher than Tri-Tach vessels' iirc, but not enough that they should destroy everything. Well at least I wouldn't think so.

I'll take a look at the Nex settings for the faction and see if there is anything I can try to prevent this, but testing would be problematic.

Quote
It seem kinds of weird to me that a bunch of religious zealots could somehow field technology than makes Tri-Tachyon look like the Luddic Path, but there it is.

There are lore reasons. :-X (Currently not implemented)

Minor nitpick and some faction lore details/inspirations: They technically aren't a religious faction, per se, though some comparisons can definitely be drawn there (Dark Stars, etc). They are military zealots with a pseudo-cult-like loyalty to their leader because he claims to have foreseen the sector's apocalypse through... past events.  :-X

The faction is partly inspired by several fantasy series:

The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson (https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNQWYonfkM1xOODYk6-ZA6CzuC15Dw:1581475261413&q=Gardens+of+the+Moon&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLUz9U3MLKIzzFWAjNNTE3SkrQEHEtLMvKLQvKd8vOz_fNyKhexCrsnFqWk5hUr5KcplGSkKvjm5-ftYGUEAOhJt7VDAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgwLW5_srnAhUlB50JHcwwB1oQxA0wInoECAwQBQ&sxsrf=ACYBGNQWYonfkM1xOODYk6-ZA6CzuC15Dw:1581475261413&biw=1920&bih=969) (Specifically Anomander Rake and the Tiste Andii are big inspirations, here.)

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNQC4HG3USE9ZxFeCz2Kcy7h7n1B7g:1581474715117&q=Wizard%27s+First+Rule&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLUz9U3MIwvzktSAjONjfMMUrT0s5Ot9NMyk0sy8_MSc-JL8zLLUouKU5GEkjMSixKTS1KLrJLy87MfMeZwC7z8cU9YKnnSmpPXGGO5SDVBSI2LzTWvJLOkUkiGi1cK4SwNBiluLgTXikmDiWcRq3B4ZlViUYp6sYJbZlFxiUJQaU4qAEb0_7bOAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6j_a0_MrnAhWMGM0KHUPJB1YQ-BYwJHoECBEQKw&sxsrf=ACYBGNQC4HG3USE9ZxFeCz2Kcy7h7n1B7g:1581474715117&biw=1920&bih=969)

The Black Company series by Glen Cook (https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNQr4n1kZ6oNipAb-y39vf9o3f9Rjw%3A1581475063616&ei=92RDXoGjJYjVtAa_gY6oBg&q=the+black+company+series&oq=The+Black+Com&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0j0i20i263l2j0l7.2098.7449..10513...6.2..0.119.1234.14j2......0....1..gws-wiz.....10..0i71j35i362i39j35i39i70i249j35i39j0i131j0i67j0i273j0i10.AX3PiaSRqbM)

*EDIT* Added another inspiration I had forgotten about.
 
The Pearl Saga by Erik Van Lustbader (https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNRaYNG480dVYal12jPTIUSGgu_C9A%3A1581480444327&ei=_HlDXv-2E5HWtAb8ro2oBg&q=The+pearl+saga&oq=The+pearl+saga&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2j0i22i30l6.47980.52077..54518...5.0..2.293.1467.13j2j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i39j0i67j0i273j0i20i263j0i131i67j0i131.stI9NpgNkxM&ved=0ahUKEwj_pOngkcvnAhURK80KHXxXA2UQ4dUDCAs&uact=5) (Gyrgon Technomages)

And several others, really, but that gives a general overview.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Sidestrafe2462 on February 12, 2020, 04:37:24 PM
Add Boggled's Terraforming Mod to the list of working mods. Tested it, no problems so far
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 12, 2020, 08:26:28 PM
Add Boggled's Terraforming Mod to the list of working mods. Tested it, no problems so far

Added, thanks.

I plan on revamping that part once I'm sure how much compatibility I can get out of the mod merging behavior. I should be able to add a lot more, but I also want to better describe how mods interact with this one- balance-wise- so new players will understand what they are getting into (in case they want a more vanilla experience and don't quite understand what this mod does).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: bazalisk on February 13, 2020, 03:24:42 PM
hi

loving the mod so far.

just wondering though, if anyone else is having issues with CTD complaining about fatal slot ID's in the Mule, Mule_d and sometimes the buffalo2? 
usually referring to a missing WS 005 or some such.

i've cast my eye over the files and although sometimes the weapon slots seem to jump from 1234 then to 7,8,9 ect.  but this seems to be true for other ships too that aren't throwing errors :s

any ideas on how to fix this or what tools i should use to DIY it myself?

thanks for any reply. 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 13, 2020, 10:56:46 PM
hi

loving the mod so far.

just wondering though, if anyone else is having issues with CTD complaining about fatal slot ID's in the Mule, Mule_d and sometimes the buffalo2? 
usually referring to a missing WS 005 or some such.

i've cast my eye over the files and although sometimes the weapon slots seem to jump from 1234 then to 7,8,9 ect.  but this seems to be true for other ships too that aren't throwing errors :s

any ideas on how to fix this or what tools i should use to DIY it myself?

thanks for any reply.

This is either part of the total conversion nature of the mod reflected onto vanilla files through vanilla editing mods that are included in your mod list, or an issue with your operating system based upon the replace array that this mod currently relies upon. It depends upon the mod list, operating system, etc. Either way, I am working to correct issues on both fronts in the next update. :)

I should hopefully be able to do this promptly, but the considerations are substantial, and so I must see what I can do to ensure I don't break things further by making changes that don't preserve the combat balance already present in the mod, whilst also ensuring that the mod being present in a mod list doesn't inadvertently cause unexpected behavior and also gives a fair warning of the balance differentials upon opting-in to the idea of even including additional mods with the TC in the first place, if that makes sense.

*EDIT* Removed redundancy.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: TaylorItaly on February 13, 2020, 11:49:20 PM
I play this mod with Arsenal Expansion and i get this Fatal Error on the medusa_ix.
I had try to solve this myself , but no luck so far....

Funny thing is , after i reload and fly inother direction , i can play a lots of hours before zjat error ecours again....

P.S.: Your mod is awesome !!! 8)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: bazalisk on February 14, 2020, 02:06:28 PM
hi, thanks for the quick reply.

i understand that the issues i'm having is from playing with other mods alongside this conversion mod, and so wouldn't expect you to do anything you would not be already planning to do.  i hope i didn't give that impression here.  i am very much the type of player that slaps ALL the mods into the game till it breaks then spends months cheerfully trying to get them all to play nice as best i can,  this seems to give me as much fun as the game play itself lol.

that being said, i was wondering if there would be a way to temporarily disable the converted vanilla ships purely for compatibility until such time you are ready to implement the changes you wish to make.  (to achieve a sort of like a Archean lite if you will).

thanks again and sorry for asking these questions.   
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 14, 2020, 02:53:56 PM
I play this mod with Arsenal Expansion and i get this Fatal Error on the medusa_ix.
I had try to solve this myself , but no luck so far....

Funny thing is , after i reload and fly inother direction , i can play a lots of hours before zjat error ecours again....

Part of the compatibility patch that's coming will solve this. I suspect its weapon slot related with the vanilla files.

P.S.: Your mod is awesome !!! 8)

Thanks!  ;D

hi, thanks for the quick reply.

i understand that the issues i'm having is from playing with other mods alongside this conversion mod, and so wouldn't expect you to do anything you would not be already planning to do.  i hope i didn't give that impression here.  i am very much the type of player that slaps ALL the mods into the game till it breaks then spends months cheerfully trying to get them all to play nice as best i can,  this seems to give me as much fun as the game play itself lol.

that being said, i was wondering if there would be a way to temporarily disable the converted vanilla ships purely for compatibility until such time you are ready to implement the changes you wish to make.  (to achieve a sort of like a Archean lite if you will).

thanks again and sorry for asking these questions.   

Oh no worries you're fine I wasn't taking it that way. It's honestly my fault for not getting the information out there properly on the main page and for the legacy TC design that I'm reworking- now that merging files is possible.

that being said, i was wondering if there would be a way to temporarily disable the converted vanilla ships purely for compatibility until such time you are ready to implement the changes you wish to make.  (to achieve a sort of like a Archean lite if you will).

That is exactly my goal. ;) There will be a version of the mod that maintains the TC experience and overrides all the vanilla files, messes with station industries, etc- and a "lite" version that will include all the ships, weapons and factions or Archean Order but will not remove vanilla weapons, ships, etc from the codex or campaign. This version ideally should be completely compatible with the entire mod index. That's the target, anyway. In my experience there are always complications that will arise, but so far so good.

You probably won't be able to do this yourself because the work involved in doing that is substantial, but the good news is I'm about halfway finished! (Thank you IntelliJ)

(A side note: The "lite" version will also serve as a placeholder for the eventual task of rebalancing closer to vanilla standards so that this mod's factions can be balanced alongside all the other mod factions. That will obviously take a lot of time, so the pure compatibility placeholder will serve in the meantime. When the balanced version is ready, I'll either remove the lite version and replace it with the balanced pack or keep both and give 3 total options of experience, if there is community interest in that.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: bazalisk on February 14, 2020, 03:18:28 PM
  :D  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 :D

i hope you achieve your plans with this, i am enjoying them greatly so far.

thank you.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 14, 2020, 03:25:25 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 14, 2020, 03:43:56 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 14, 2020, 06:50:52 PM
  :D  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 :D

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. ;)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Sidestrafe2462 on February 15, 2020, 04:08:19 AM
Just ran a few battles.

This mod is pretty damn awesome. Was satisfied with the ship power scale up to cruisers, so I bought a paragon off the open market, kitted it with spinal atronarch beams, brought it to some fights I should have run from.

On paper the atronarch beam is a strike weapon which does great damage with each strike. The statline doesn't prepare you to see a single paragon with two science corp eagles smash and bash their way through the center of one of those huge pirate fleets with like 12 Atlas IIs. It doesn't prepare you to watch frigates disappear in a wave of explosions as you walk the beam across their bows. It doesn't prepare you to see cruisers and sometimes even cap ships go down in a single blast.

God that's epic. Of course the other weapons (I really like obliterators) pull their weight, but the quad beam of purple death is too much for anything, even bases.

Dosent need a nerf or anything. I still die if I get too trigger happy bc overload, this is just me ranting about how EPIC it looks.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 15, 2020, 04:17:00 PM
Just ran a few battles.

This mod is pretty damn awesome. Was satisfied with the ship power scale up to cruisers, so I bought a paragon off the open market, kitted it with spinal atronarch beams, brought it to some fights I should have run from.

On paper the atronarch beam is a strike weapon which does great damage with each strike. The statline doesn't prepare you to see a single paragon with two science corp eagles smash and bash their way through the center of one of those huge pirate fleets with like 12 Atlas IIs. It doesn't prepare you to watch frigates disappear in a wave of explosions as you walk the beam across their bows. It doesn't prepare you to see cruisers and sometimes even cap ships go down in a single blast.

God that's epic. Of course the other weapons (I really like obliterators) pull their weight, but the quad beam of purple death is too much for anything, even bases.

Dosent need a nerf or anything. I still die if I get too trigger happy bc overload, this is just me ranting about how EPIC it looks.

Nice I'm glad you like it. :) Thanks for the detail!

-----------
I wanted to take a tiny break from merging behavior changes to attempt to address the industry issues with Nex when not randomized.

Changes as of right now:

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed orbital station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added Luddic Church colony with fuel production and heavy industry.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: HopeFall on February 15, 2020, 11:58:49 PM
Did you do all those profile pictures yourself? I have to admit, they really, really are nice. While I'm generally not using Archean often except for some unique playthroughs, I've totally spent the time to offload those icons into a personal mod. It's like, literally the best portrait back. It's so much better having such diversity!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 16, 2020, 08:45:36 AM
Did you do all those profile pictures yourself? I have to admit, they really, really are nice. While I'm generally not using Archean often except for some unique playthroughs, I've totally spent the time to offload those icons into a personal mod. It's like, literally the best portrait back. It's so much better having such diversity!

Hey there thanks!

Nope, credit for those is given on the main page.  :)

I may do some portraits eventually for key characters, but the ones currently in the mod are from several portrait packs on the modding forum and a couple other artists/freeware asset sites. The most I did personally was edit backgrounds to better match starsector in a small number of cases.

*EDIT* Oh, actually, forgot I added some purple glow effects and red glow effects for some portrait pack portraits as well- though the originals are still included as stand alone portraits on top of that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 16, 2020, 04:17:02 PM
One thing I have to wonder about: There are literally no ships in this mod that have the ground support package.  There's troops ships... OK, one troop ship, but no ground support - which technically makes it no different than a civilian transport, if you think about it.

Is this intentional and by design or just something you forgot about?  I mention this because while other mods have a plethora of troop ships, adding ship mods to this is always... risky, and their new weapons rarely jive well with the ones from this game.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 16, 2020, 04:38:25 PM
One thing I have to wonder about: There are literally no ships in this mod that have the ground support package.  There's troops ships... OK, one troop ship, but no ground support - which technically makes it no different than a civilian transport, if you think about it.

Is this intentional and by design or just something you forgot about?  I mention this because while other mods have a plethora of troop ships, adding ship mods to this is always... risky, and their new weapons rarely jive well with the ones from this game.

Whoops, not intended, just forgot. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. :) Fixed for the next update.

Would more troop transports be interesting? Its certainly something I would consider if so- though I want to get the technical merging conflicts out of the way so I don't inadvertently cause crashes for users who are not experienced with the modding ecosystem but also want to mod mix. Crashes first, balance later is the general philosophy right now. Well, I should say that is the current goal other than the brief break to fix the economy for Nex and, while I'm at it (in order to avoid having to do it again), adding the previously requested markets/resources for some of the less currently well-off factions like Sci-Corps and Luddic Church.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Sidestrafe2462 on February 17, 2020, 12:43:06 AM
Whoops, not intended, just forgot. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. :) Fixed for the next update.

Would more troop transports be interesting? Its certainly something I would consider if so- though I want to get the technical merging conflicts out of the way so I don't inadvertently cause crashes for users who are not experienced with the modding ecosystem but also want to mod mix. Crashes first, balance later is the general philosophy right now. Well, I should say that is the current goal other than the brief break to fix the economy for Nex and, while I'm at it (in order to avoid having to do it again), adding the previously requested markets/resources for some of the less currently well-off factions like Sci-Corps and Luddic Church.

Something I wonder about is crappy(?) fighters with ground support packages.

Sci-corp is absolutely dominating my save. Can't argue with TriTach's Paragon but bloody hell I love the Epiphanies, and since I liked their ships so much I decided to hell with it and made an alliance. They were friends with the Archean order but my starting world sort of spawned in with the Archean's so I couldn't keep them in. Perhaps our purple friends might have had to do with that scientific might.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Eliteempire on February 17, 2020, 10:30:53 AM
Fixed the smuggling bug. You can:

A) Redownload and clean install the mod.

OR

B) Use this link and download the rules.csv file and replace it in the mod directory ("Archean Order TC v1.3.4e/data/campaign")

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0)

Shouldn't break saves.

Hey sorry for the late reply but thanks for fixing it, and ya it seemed like only them at the time. I'll give it a run with a few new factions tossed into the ring here in abit.

As for the others talking about the order kicking ass over others, mine are currently on the back foot after having three raids/invason's on the capital system shattering them.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 17, 2020, 06:51:53 PM
Something I wonder about is crappy(?) fighters with ground support packages.

Sci-corp is absolutely dominating my save. Can't argue with TriTach's Paragon but bloody hell I love the Epiphanies, and since I liked their ships so much I decided to hell with it and made an alliance. They were friends with the Archean order but my starting world sort of spawned in with the Archean's so I couldn't keep them in. Perhaps our purple friends might have had to do with that scientific might.

Is fighters with ground support package possible? Since it's on the ship as a fighter instead of the ship hull itself I'm not sure it would be recognized during that calculation. As a concept though I wouldn't mind trying it out, though I think I would want to reduce the effect but make it stack with ground support package to avoid the potential risk of making the Valkyrie obsolete.

Regarding faction balance using Nex, I have to be totally honest here:

I don't really know the ins and outs of Nex, so... possibly? I have to assume there is likely some chance involved with faction dynamics anyway, so that could be a factor here.

Hey sorry for the late reply but thanks for fixing it, and ya it seemed like only them at the time. I'll give it a run with a few new factions tossed into the ring here in abit.

As for the others talking about the order kicking ass over others, mine are currently on the back foot after having three raids/invason's on the capital system shattering them.

No problem and if you run into anything else let me know. I appreciate it.  :)

Ah, good, it helps to know it can happen to the Archean Order too. Are you running a random-generated game with Nex or the core worlds playthrough?

-----------------
Generally in this regard, though, an update regarding faction industries and resources for the next release with some transparency for design goals: (Is this helpful or too much detail?)

Since I'm reworking the economy anyway to separate out industries over the market size cap, naturally this is a good time to try and make it as balanced as I can from the perspective of faction market share, market size, and resource access, etc. The first pass was mostly a compatibility placeholder until I better understood the .9 market system. I originally wanted to, at least generally, retain the original resources from .8 markets - which operated differently. I've spent some time tinkering with the market balance in the TC in order to hopefully create fun, balanced, nex campaigns.

A secondary design goal here is to make the player's choice of where to raid/invade more interesting. One way to do this is to isolate out resource types among multiple colonies in order to make some new factions slightly more vulnerable to tactical sabotage of their resource acquisition. Another way: balance resources so that some factions have weaker overall market share in some resource types and stronger share in other types- to create some small trade dependencies in the ecosystem depending upon differing factors and events. (Ideally anyway... disclaimer: hopefully I didn't break things too bad, haha)

Some detail:
Sci-Corps has a couple more markets added for this purpose, and the size of some markets and their resources/industries have been reworked. (They can actually field the Astral in their fleets now, as intended). This also includes some independent markets they interact with.

Luddic Church has had a slight revamp of Meiros and has another military market added with access to fuel production and heavy industry (blasphemy!  :D ) so they can produce more capital power upon the campaign map. This also lets me write some cool lore to justify those resources, so that's a nice bonus!

Archean Order, Adamantine Consortium, and pirates: I didn't add any markets- but revamped market size, resource access, resource quality per market, and the raid-ability of some of their markets to various degrees. (Side note: Ilyss, lore-wise, is a resource treasure trove, so it still has really good resource conditions. The size of the market has been halved for a net loss to compensate, however, so the Archean Order doesn't have too large of an impact to the overall market share.)

These changes are under the assumption that, in Nex, market share matters more to faction dynamics (and I would guess resources do too?) and sticking to market sizes within vanilla faction comparisons will hopefully avoid any unintended imbalances within the 4x layer. Since the Adamantine Consortium is an evil faction, lore wise, I'm not 100% set on where to keep them, power-wise. Iirc, I believe I made them aggressive and tend to make war with everyone in the nex config, so giving them a slight advantage as a tier 3 enemy might be the way to go there. I just don't want them rolling over the whole sector every campaign, either.

These changes will likely take a lot of testing. I want to try and have a stable release (within reason) so I may take some extra time in this case for the sake of limiting the number of times saves are broken by bugs I have to fix down the line with updates I can't hotfix. I'm not sure exactly how long this will take, but I'll post progress updates here as they seem relevant.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Eliteempire on February 17, 2020, 11:37:27 PM
Something I wonder about is crappy(?) fighters with ground support packages.

Sci-corp is absolutely dominating my save. Can't argue with TriTach's Paragon but bloody hell I love the Epiphanies, and since I liked their ships so much I decided to hell with it and made an alliance. They were friends with the Archean order but my starting world sort of spawned in with the Archean's so I couldn't keep them in. Perhaps our purple friends might have had to do with that scientific might.

Is fighters with ground support package possible? Since it's on the ship as a fighter instead of the ship hull itself I'm not sure it would be recognized during that calculation. As a concept though I wouldn't mind trying it out, though I think I would want to reduce the effect but make it stack with ground support package to avoid the potential risk of making the Valkyrie obsolete.

Regarding faction balance using Nex, I have to be totally honest here:

I don't really know the ins and outs of Nex, so... possibly? I have to assume there is likely some chance involved with faction dynamics anyway, so that could be a factor here.

Hey sorry for the late reply but thanks for fixing it, and ya it seemed like only them at the time. I'll give it a run with a few new factions tossed into the ring here in abit.

As for the others talking about the order kicking ass over others, mine are currently on the back foot after having three raids/invason's on the capital system shattering them.

No problem and if you run into anything else let me know. I appreciate it.  :)

Ah, good, it helps to know it can happen to the Archean Order too. Are you running a random-generated game with Nex or the core worlds playthrough?

-----------------
Generally in this regard, though, an update regarding faction industries and resources for the next release with some transparency for design goals: (Is this helpful or too much detail?)

Since I'm reworking the economy anyway to separate out industries over the market size cap, naturally this is a good time to try and make it as balanced as I can from the perspective of faction market share, market size, and resource access, etc. The first pass was mostly a compatibility placeholder until I better understood the .9 market system. I originally wanted to, at least generally, retain the original resources from .8 markets - which operated differently. I've spent some time tinkering with the market balance in the TC in order to hopefully create fun, balanced, nex campaigns.

A secondary design goal here is to make the player's choice of where to raid/invade more interesting. One way to do this is to isolate out resource types among multiple colonies in order to make some new factions slightly more vulnerable to tactical sabotage of their resource acquisition. Another way: balance resources so that some factions have weaker overall market share in some resource types and stronger share in other types- to create some small trade dependencies in the ecosystem depending upon differing factors and events. (Ideally anyway... disclaimer: hopefully I didn't break things too bad, haha)

Some detail:
Sci-Corps has a couple more markets added for this purpose, and the size of some markets and their resources/industries have been reworked. (They can actually field the Astral in their fleets now, as intended). This also includes some independent markets they interact with.

Luddic Church has had a slight revamp of Meiros and has another military market added with access to fuel production and heavy industry (blasphemy!  :D ) so they can produce more capital power upon the campaign map. This also lets me write some cool lore to justify those resources, so that's a nice bonus!

Archean Order, Adamantine Consortium, and pirates: I didn't add any markets- but revamped market size, resource access, resource quality per market, and the raid-ability of some of their markets to various degrees. (Side note: Ilyss, lore-wise, is a resource treasure trove, so it still has really good resource conditions. The size of the market has been halved for a net loss to compensate, however, so the Archean Order doesn't have too large of an impact to the overall market share.)

These changes are under the assumption that, in Nex, market share matters more to faction dynamics (and I would guess resources do too?) and sticking to market sizes within vanilla faction comparisons will hopefully avoid any unintended imbalances within the 4x layer. Since the Adamantine Consortium is an evil faction, lore wise, I'm not 100% set on where to keep them, power-wise. Iirc, I believe I made them aggressive and tend to make war with everyone in the nex config, so giving them a slight advantage as a tier 3 enemy might be the way to go there. I just don't want them rolling over the whole sector every campaign, either.

These changes will likely take a lot of testing. I want to try and have a stable release (within reason) so I may take some extra time in this case for the sake of limiting the number of times saves are broken by bugs I have to fix down the line with updates I can't hotfix. I'm not sure exactly how long this will take, but I'll post progress updates here as they seem relevant.

Any plans with increasing the planets resources then or the rate at which the various factions will colonize then? or the sector size boss?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 18, 2020, 01:08:31 AM
Any plans with increasing the planets resources then or the rate at which the various factions will colonize then? or the sector size boss?

Not especially, sorry! That's outside of the scope for this mod, though a couple of mods on the index are designed to do some things like that. If they aren't already compatible, the compatibility update should likely fix that.

Off the top of my head, check out Grand Sector and Adjusted Sector. Nex may also have settings in it's config file that can increase faction aggression as far as expanding so I'd check there to be sure.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 18, 2020, 02:36:05 AM
In my current AO game I checked out some of the markets on a whim and I was shocked to see you actually stuck to vanilla balance and didn't just stick AI cores, synch cores and pristine nanoforges in every single industry like most of the other mods. I hope that continues.

Incidentally a suggestion: It'd be great if the smaller ballistics, especially the HE ones (autocannons) had FX that was more obvious. They are extremely faint and hard to see against the combat background and that's kind of a problem when you're dealing with shots where you have to decide if you need to raise shields. The kinetics are mostly fine and easier to see and the large mount shots seem better about it too (devastators are very obvious and signal their power very well for example).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 18, 2020, 03:07:24 PM
In my current AO game I checked out some of the markets on a whim and I was shocked to see you actually stuck to vanilla balance and didn't just stick AI cores, synch cores and pristine nanoforges in every single industry like most of the other mods. I hope that continues.

I think iirc I didn't need to add any of those items other than what was already present. Creating more markets to spread out resource acquisition serves the market share purpose without those being necessary. The Luddic Church and Sci-Corps needed heavy industry to allow higher tier vessels according to their faction doctrine, but as far as market share is concerned, the premium add-on items aren't necessary in order for the faction to remain competitive according to vanilla standards.

Incidentally a suggestion: It'd be great if the smaller ballistics, especially the HE ones (autocannons) had FX that was more obvious. They are extremely faint and hard to see against the combat background and that's kind of a problem when you're dealing with shots where you have to decide if you need to raise shields. The kinetics are mostly fine and easier to see and the large mount shots seem better about it too (devastators are very obvious and signal their power very well for example).

Thanks! I especially appreciate those kinds of details. :)

Hmm, do you think it needs a bigger bullet sprite to be more noticeable? (Sound can be a big factor here too, in my experience.) Or do you think the color/glow mechanics are what set the bullet apart in the case of the Devastator? I'm having some indecision there. I really like how the Devastator turned out, though, so I'm leaning towards that kind of effect, but having it be unique is kind of neat in itself, too, so a bigger bullet sprite for smaller HE cannons like the Autocannon (though more noticeable and having a more prevalent sound effect, maybe?) is another possible solution.

As a spectrum of thought:
Standardization of the overall look by damage type is intuitive to the player on the combat level, but can also lead to a homogenized feel to visual effects between various weapons. I kind of go back and forth between the benefits and drawbacks of either design, to be honest.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 19, 2020, 11:41:08 AM
I think a lot can be by length of trail and projectile size. I think the speed of the various shots will do a lot to make the guns feel differently already even if they had similar colours - and a slow shot feels powerful even if it's not a huge fx. Personally I really like at least some damage type standardization, visually - it lets you know if you need to raise or drop shields.

For example, doing a quick check, the assault autocannon and the dual autocannon fill very similar roles (assault, ballistic, HE, no-flux). They even have similar per-shot damage and projectile speeds (if not the same speed) - but one of them is traditional HE orange and one of them is traditional kinetic white. And the orange one (the assault autocannon, I believe) is very hard to spot in a fight. Railgun shots are much, much easier to spot and I think that's because of the long trails (and the kinetic white).

The avalanche cannon is, imo, almost perfect in terms of fx design - it's got the fat projectile and long-ish body that says "strike weapon shot, better do something about this". It's just kinetic white. The fissure cannon is very similar but reads as HE.
Although I'd honestly switch those two around - the fissure cannon FX is slightly larger and "more dangerous" looking, but the avalanche has a lot more per-shot damage. Per-shot damage seems like a really important stat to look at when deciding how big and obvious to make a weapons FX.

Fire rate, sounds, projectile speed and burst size (and magazine size really) do a lot to make weapons distinct, even if their FX is very similar.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 19, 2020, 02:11:23 PM
Thanks for the reply.  :)

I'll implement those suggestions and see how it feels. I'm inclined to agree with your analysis.

Also made a note to improve the avalanche weapon sprite to be slightly more intimidating. It is technically an "upgrade" though that's not quite how the mod works as far as loadout balance is concerned.

Is the yellow-ish projectile of the Mark IX intuitive enough? And the Excaliber/Photon Cannon is blue but HE. That is kind of integral to the Persean League theme, though. I may give that a pass under "high tech" principles. It's different enough from kinetic weapons to feel mostly unique, anyway, I think.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 19, 2020, 03:05:07 PM
Just checked and yeah the MarkIX reads very HE (and is very readable). Not quite as dangerous looking as a devastator imo, but that's perfectly fine considering the per-shot effects of them.
Although in the process I did look at the Excalibur and that thing screams kinetic to me (good FX thickness and poppyness though).

I did notice the more high tech weapons have more exotic harder to parse effects. But at least one thing they're not is easy to overlook. Most of the energy weapons with unqiue projectiles I've run into really pop. Maybe even too much in the case of something like the little dual/single micro repeaters. The fx for those is pretty large and the sound is very loud for what they are.

I'd also argue they're probably too cheap on OP for what they do but that's a different topic entirely.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 19, 2020, 03:48:15 PM
Since the Adamantine Consortium is an evil faction, lore wise, I'm not 100% set on where to keep them, power-wise. Iirc, I believe I made them aggressive and tend to make war with everyone in the nex config, so giving them a slight advantage as a tier 3 enemy might be the way to go there. I just don't want them rolling over the whole sector every campaign, either.

Are you familiar with Boggled's station building mod?  It's current incompatible with AO, but if you wanted to make it play nice you could turn the AC into a group of super-pirates with that mod.  By this I mean instead of planets give them orbital structures spread out among asteroid belts and gas giants on the fringes (map edges) and have them work their inward while everyone else is working their way outward.  This would make them hard to locate for starters, and with their focus on fuel production (i.e. gas giant orbitals) they would have much longer range in Nexerelin than their rivals.  While that doesn't translate to fleet size, it would allow them to launch raids at victims that may not be able to muster together an invasion fleet with that kind of counter-range to put them down.  Thus they would continue to be a pirate menace for a long, long time, raiding and pillaging with impunity until someone is willing to build out in their direction (and have those new colonies survive long enough to become any kind of threat to them.)

And yes, I stole that idea entirely from Distant Worlds.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 19, 2020, 03:57:44 PM
Just checked and yeah the MarkIX reads very HE (and is very readable). Not quite as dangerous looking as a devastator imo, but that's perfectly fine considering the per-shot effects of them.
Although in the process I did look at the Excalibur and that thing screams kinetic to me (good FX thickness and poppyness though).

I did notice the more high tech weapons have more exotic harder to parse effects. But at least one thing they're not is easy to overlook. Most of the energy weapons with unqiue projectiles I've run into really pop. Maybe even too much in the case of something like the little dual/single micro repeaters. The fx for those is pretty large and the sound is very loud for what they are.

I'd also argue they're probably too cheap on OP for what they do but that's a different topic entirely.

Ok that helps. Maybe I can add a thin orange or red shell to the FX to make it resonate better with HE weaponry yet still retain the exotic look of a different tech weapon?

Thanks for the balance feedback regarding pd weaponry. The micro repeaters' rapid fire nature is intended to be better at rockets and swarm style fighters but worse at large missiles, torpedoes and bombers. Is the dps too strong and therefore makes the weapon too catch-all for its OP?

Loudness for the FX is separate and something I can easily accommodate, I think.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 19, 2020, 04:39:04 PM
Since the Adamantine Consortium is an evil faction, lore wise, I'm not 100% set on where to keep them, power-wise. Iirc, I believe I made them aggressive and tend to make war with everyone in the nex config, so giving them a slight advantage as a tier 3 enemy might be the way to go there. I just don't want them rolling over the whole sector every campaign, either.

Are you familiar with Boggled's station building mod?  It's current incompatible with AO, but if you wanted to make it play nice you could turn the AC into a group of super-pirates with that mod.  By this I mean instead of planets give them orbital structures spread out among asteroid belts and gas giants on the fringes (map edges) and have them work their inward while everyone else is working their way outward.  This would make them hard to locate for starters, and with their focus on fuel production (i.e. gas giant orbitals) they would have much longer range in Nexerelin than their rivals.  While that doesn't translate to fleet size, it would allow them to launch raids at victims that may not be able to muster together an invasion fleet with that kind of counter-range to put them down.  Thus they would continue to be a pirate menace for a long, long time, raiding and pillaging with impunity until someone is willing to build out in their direction (and have those new colonies survive long enough to become any kind of threat to them.)

And yes, I stole that idea entirely from Distant Worlds.

Well, I was told that there were no issues from that mod so I added it to the mod compatible list recently. I'm sorry if I was wrong. I did not check personally.
---

The AC already exhibits pirate behavior iirc, so should have a place there. There is some nuance here, though. For one, inspired by games like Fable and Overlord, etc, I want to give players an option to commission themselves with Adamantine Consortium and eventually Pirates (has been on the backlog) whilst also giving them a harder playthrough for being the enemy faction. That can be fun, so I want to retain that feature if possible. In Starcraft, you can still play as the Zerg after all!

Also, there is lore to consider. I have spent quite a bit of time giving some very detailed lore background to the AC. Inspired from the multiple renditions of the Dracula legend (Bram Stoker, Castlevania, Nosferatu, Vampire Hunter D- anime rendition, Fate: Apocrypha- rendition of Vlad Dracul, etc), the Scholomance barons of WOW, the Joker from Batman, zombie apocalypse fiction and the mind control parasite from the Clone Wars, there is a lot I hope to do with the faction as far as story purposes go. Taking away their planetary markets would be counter to that goal.

I am working on mini-shorts regarding the lore I've mentioned, and I hope to post them in the lore section once they are done, but I would expect most of that to not be ready until 1.0 of Starsector as I am very particular on proofreading and reworking things to get the right atmosphere. (Read as I am obsessive compulsive in that regard.  :P )

I'm very close to the Adamantine Consortium short's conclusion in particular, but modding community concerns have greatly overshadowed any progress on that front. The technical must come before fluff in this case.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: TaylorItaly on February 19, 2020, 05:02:09 PM
To the Topic , if the Station Building Mod and AO are compatible :

Yes, they are . I am playing with both and have no problems.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 19, 2020, 07:19:18 PM
On the micro repeaters, I've found they excel at short-term PD better than anything else regardless of target. That's fine, they're magazine based and generate flux, they should be good while ammo lasts. But their sustained damage is also very good - as good as the 5 OP and faction tech pulse laser and they get the benefit of having a burst when needed on top.

Burst for PD is also very good because it lets it deal with fighter waves extremely well as long as they're under critical mass - and when the sustained damage is as good as real PD even when out of charges, it deals just as well with swarms above critical mass. Admittedly they do have that 2.5 second window of vulnerability while they reload that could let a missile sneak through - but I've found in practice it's not nearly as big of a deal as it would seem.

The single barrel version is probably fine for 2 OP (although you get an awful big upgrade vs the 1 OP Pulse Beam), but the double barrel version seems a little good at 3 OP. Especially when compared to the 5 OP, faction tech Pulse Laser. They're also technically common tech (although I've found them to be pretty rare) and I don't know if that factors into the balancing decisions. I do get the feeling faction tech and rare tech is supposed to be a little bit better than the common stuff.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 20, 2020, 11:30:40 AM
You would be correct regarding faction tech vs commonly available tech. The Dual Micro Repeater is a bit in between those, I'd say. I think I made it so that the Trader Guilds and the Sindrian Diktat tend to use it the most.

My initial thoughts:

- Look at the Pulse Beam and see if a slight damage increase is warranted.

- Reduce the sustained dps of the Dual Micro Repeater.

- Reduce FX size of both Micro Repeaters.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: th3boodlebot on February 21, 2020, 01:39:19 PM
is there a way to lower the amount of ships that spawn in fleets?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 21, 2020, 03:17:17 PM
I believe Alex is working on that for the next update, but you can also go to:

Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4f\data\world\factions

The faction files there have a numShips entry that can be from 1 to 5 I think. So you can mess with that and see what effect it has.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 21, 2020, 05:44:43 PM
Taking away their planetary markets would be counter to that goal.

... but the stations mod doesn't take away markets at all.  Orbital stations work just like the vanilla ones - they're basically planets that (usually) lack resources of their own, have a fixed 100% habitability and grow, build & produce stuff just like normal.  All the station mod changes from that is conditional resources for those stations - if they're over asteroids, they get minerals and if over gas giants they get fuel gas.  The only thing orbitals can't do at all is farming (though I'm sure someday someone will make a mod that adds hydroponics as an industry - hint hint).

So yes I can totally see a pirate faction living entirely on orbital stations and raiding everyone else for food, because that's the one thing they can't do for themselves.  Also gives them a good reason for raiding and makes farms into preferred targets - something we've never seen before, to be sure.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 22, 2020, 12:42:33 PM
Taking away their planetary markets would be counter to that goal.

... but the stations mod doesn't take away markets at all.  Orbital stations work just like the vanilla ones - they're basically planets that (usually) lack resources of their own, have a fixed 100% habitability and grow, build & produce stuff just like normal.  All the station mod changes from that is conditional resources for those stations - if they're over asteroids, they get minerals and if over gas giants they get fuel gas.  The only thing orbitals can't do at all is farming (though I'm sure someday someone will make a mod that adds hydroponics as an industry - hint hint).

So yes I can totally see a pirate faction living entirely on orbital stations and raiding everyone else for food, because that's the one thing they can't do for themselves.  Also gives them a good reason for raiding and makes farms into preferred targets - something we've never seen before, to be sure.

Right yeah I'm not saying I wouldn't implement those alongside Mordreath, Isirah, etc, but what I was saying there, was that the specific names (by id on the technical side) and environments of the planets themselves (so they can't be stations or it wouldn't make sense when reading the descriptions) are heavily tied to the lore of the Adamantine Consortium. So what I meant by not removing their planetary markets was that the specific planet types, locations and technical definitions are required both thematically and because the differing text descriptions for docking with these markets relies upon the ids being the same and other varying conditions to change the docking description.

Implementing the AC with the station mod alongside the core world markets would be useful for further supporting random generated Nex campaigns though, so that is something I definitely like about it.

As far as reasons for raiding, the AC raids pretty much all colonies for people more than food (their bosses, at least, are mostly vampires) because people are food to them at best, or an utterly dispensable commodity at worst. Food is actually illegal cargo in their territory because they ruthlessly control its distribution to keep their "servants" demoralized and unable to rebel against the dreadlords (not necessarily vampires, but still incredibly cruel and mostly completely amoral - typically lesser vampiric familiars and so only partially transformed, etc) since the servant population tends to be a lot higher on any given AC world.

In the sector's history, the AC didn't start out that way, so that is part of the fun of telling the story. Stuff like how did it get this bad? Whereas you have examples like the Hegemony, Luddic Church/Path and Persean League in the historical background of the sector's collapse, and their differing reactions to it, I wanted to create something much darker and full of sci-fi horror elements based upon the idea that the great technology of the Domain's past was a tool that could be used for good or evil. What happens if, in one part of the sector, evil wins?

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: th3boodlebot on February 23, 2020, 09:27:16 AM
I believe Alex is working on that for the next update, but you can also go to:

Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4f\data\world\factions

The faction files there have a numShips entry that can be from 1 to 5 I think. So you can mess with that and see what effect it has.

thanks! do you know if there is a setting for this in other factions/ the starsector core files?
i havent looked anywhere yet im replying before i do. thanks again!
as it turns out, theres not much to be done about this, considering the variety in scale of fleets based on the size of the market, among other factors, spawning said fleet.
it really is a moot point though as the upgrade parts for my pc (so that i dont bottleneck my graphics card so heavy, i actually took it off because its a waste of power until i get my new motherboard) will be here the 27th or 28th
still cool to know i can modify this factor some.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 23, 2020, 12:40:32 PM
As far as reasons for raiding, the AC raids pretty much all colonies for people more than food (their bosses, at least, are mostly vampires) because people are food to them at best, or an utterly dispensable commodity at worst.

I assume you mean like The Family from Fallout 3?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 23, 2020, 02:11:20 PM
I believe Alex is working on that for the next update, but you can also go to:

Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4f\data\world\factions

The faction files there have a numShips entry that can be from 1 to 5 I think. So you can mess with that and see what effect it has.

thanks! do you know if there is a setting for this in other factions/ the starsector core files?
i havent looked anywhere yet im replying before i do. thanks again!
as it turns out, theres not much to be done about this, considering the variety in scale of fleets based on the size of the market, among other factors, spawning said fleet.
it really is a moot point though as the upgrade parts for my pc (so that i dont bottleneck my graphics card so heavy, i actually took it off because its a waste of power until i get my new motherboard) will be here the 27th or 28th
still cool to know i can modify this factor some.

No problem! In case you don't already know this, you can also adjust battlesize to be lower and that may help with performance. I believe the minimum is pretty low in this mod, but you can adjust it further if needed by editing the settings file at: Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4e\data\config

As far as reasons for raiding, the AC raids pretty much all colonies for people more than food (their bosses, at least, are mostly vampires) because people are food to them at best, or an utterly dispensable commodity at worst.

I assume you mean like The Family from Fallout 3?

I didn't play much Fallout 3, but I looked it up. From reading about The Family on the Vault wiki, no not quite.

I don't want to spoil too much, so some spoilers ahead for those waiting on the story to be released:

Spoiler
They aren't cannibals masquerading as vampires- they are the very literal definition of a vampire- with all the perks: enhanced strength, night vision, mesmerizing capabilities, and for the strongest of them even shape-shifting. To make matters worse, they carry few of the downsides from vampiric lore. For instance, they don't like the light from a yellow star- but it doesn't kill them- it's just distasteful. They don't need a bed of dirt to sleep in (they don't sleep), don't fear any symbols, etc. They are very, very scary beings that scarcely even age.

Their bite causes a viral infection that decays the body and mind to a frenzied, violent and hunger-ridden state if one does not get the antidote in time. If one is fed upon, and then receives a transfusion of the hosts DNA- usually through blood- over a certain period of time, that person will likely bond that DNA to their own- with the infection acting as a catalyst toward breaking down and remaking the victims DNA using the host's structure as a template. As a result, this person begins to exhibit the same traits as the original host. Typically, this results in a slight weakening of the DNA's integrity, and so the source (Head vampire) is the strongest.

Since Starsector is a mostly realistic-esque sci-fi setting, you may now be wondering with a skeptical look upon your face: How the heck is that possible?? Vampires don't actually exist! You would be correct. They didn't exist before, but their legends did:

(This is not from the short, I just wrote this on the fly- just a quick fun exert from an "old forgotten datfile in the Hegemony's archives")

"...And then humanity created technology that could terraform planets, conquer the stars, and edit DNA to a very precise detail. This technology was mostly used to replace vital organs, cure hereditary diseases, and even decrease aging to allow an individual to live for over a hundred years sporting a modestly youthful appearance.

Still, the enterprising titans controlling the industry soon caught on to the idea that such technology could be marketed for targeted mutation of the human genome for enhancement purposes. This particular feature was reserved for only the most well-connected and wealthy clientele. None alive in the sector today know exactly how the first vampire was created (or they aren't talking about it if they do), but historians have determined that this gene-editing technology had to be the method used. Those who believe the rumors anyway. The denials of the High Hegemon administration continue to mask what really happened- and at the dire peril of the whole sector! Only a few mega-corporations had access to the most advanced editing equipment, but most of them have since died off in the scramble for resources when the gates shut down. There is no way to know which one is responsible. A few scholars have made a noteworthy discovery of a very minor correlation between the first documented cases of vampiric-like deaths at various colonies and the collapse of a Hegemony installation in the Psion system many cycles ago.

The navy claims that a technical failure caused the explosion that vaporized the station, but eyewitness traders at the time reported an anomaly- several Onslaught-class battleships entering Psion with a Prometheus-class fuel tanker days before the incident.

Rumors of increasing instability in that system these days have caused a minor panic and they had to send in the Space Marshal to contain the flood of refugees before they overwhelmed nearby markets. They swear its pirates operating from a hidden base nearby since the navy has been absent so long and the Persean League refuses to intervene there, but I know better. What can I do but document this and retire?"
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: th3boodlebot on February 23, 2020, 03:54:09 PM
I believe Alex is working on that for the next update, but you can also go to:

Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4f\data\world\factions

The faction files there have a numShips entry that can be from 1 to 5 I think. So you can mess with that and see what effect it has.

thanks! do you know if there is a setting for this in other factions/ the starsector core files?
i havent looked anywhere yet im replying before i do. thanks again!
as it turns out, theres not much to be done about this, considering the variety in scale of fleets based on the size of the market, among other factors, spawning said fleet.
it really is a moot point though as the upgrade parts for my pc (so that i dont bottleneck my graphics card so heavy, i actually took it off because its a waste of power until i get my new motherboard) will be here the 27th or 28th
still cool to know i can modify this factor some.

No problem! In case you don't already know this, you can also adjust battlesize to be lower and that may help with performance. I believe the minimum is pretty low in this mod, but you can adjust it further if needed by editing the settings file at: Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4e\data\config

ok good to know there is another option
like i said though im upgrading my motherboard to a one that supports ddr4 with a single 16gig ram stick and ill be running an i3 9100f with a 1050 ti so my problems running starsector should mostly dissolve. might need to get a ssd at some point..... eventually
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 26, 2020, 08:23:54 PM
Mod merging update:

I've managed to make all fighter wings separate from vanilla implementations and they will not interfere with other mods' reliance upon vanilla files in the next update. Now I just need to handle hullmods, ship systems and the ships and linked variant definitions themselves, if possible. I think all of that is obtainable, though.

For the TC version of this mod, there are separate overrides to prevent unnecessary entries from showing up in the codex or markets, but this further allows more things to be available in the Archean Order lite version that is planned.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: TaylorItaly on February 26, 2020, 10:40:13 PM
 ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: NephilimNexus on February 29, 2020, 03:17:33 PM
Still, the enterprising titans controlling the industry soon caught on to the idea that such technology could be marketed for targeted mutation of the human genome for enhancement purposes.

So... they're kind of like the Morthan Solidarity? (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Voyage_of_the_Star_Wolf/_bkIhF7Ca5AC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=voyage+of+the+star+wolf&printsec=frontcover)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 29, 2020, 05:16:53 PM
Still, the enterprising titans controlling the industry soon caught on to the idea that such technology could be marketed for targeted mutation of the human genome for enhancement purposes.

So... they're kind of like the Morthan Solidarity? (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Voyage_of_the_Star_Wolf/_bkIhF7Ca5AC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=voyage+of+the+star+wolf&printsec=frontcover)

Oh that was a cool read! I read the chapter and it is very close-
Spoiler
I would more consider that scenario, actually, as the state of the Domain at the time of it's collapse for those who could afford it. The Adamantine Consortium uses that technology for this purpose (and can survive on toxic planets, etc, as a result) - the origin of the Adamantine Consortium more qualifies as kind of a dark offshoot of that kind of thing gone awry from the experiment's intended results for some strange reason and in a worst-case-scenario kind of way- catalyzed into an extreme horror far beyond what would be considered remotely human. This source became something altogether different than what the stranded colonists caught within the radius of contamination were equipped to deal with- it is somewhat alien in nature yet human-engineered off a previously human consciousness.

Think Code Veronica: Alexander and Alfred/Alexia Ashford (https://www.google.com/search?q=code+veronica+alexander+ashford&oq=Code+Ver&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j35i39j0l6.5951j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) combined with The Cthaeh (https://www.google.com/search?q=A+wise+mans+fear+tree&oq=A+wise+mans+fear+tree&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.28142j1j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) but still in it's infantile state and only recently self-aware. Instead of influence by omniscient understanding of the universe and perfect maliciousness spreading chaos in this case, the being's prodigy-so to speak- comes from viral transmission through a bite. Not-quite-zombie but darn close without intervention- whether to cure (if there is one) or make stronger and more self aware (dreadlords/barons).
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 04, 2020, 10:20:30 PM
I think a lot can be by length of trail and projectile size. I think the speed of the various shots will do a lot to make the guns feel differently already even if they had similar colours - and a slow shot feels powerful even if it's not a huge fx. Personally I really like at least some damage type standardization, visually - it lets you know if you need to raise or drop shields.

For example, doing a quick check, the assault autocannon and the dual autocannon fill very similar roles (assault, ballistic, HE, no-flux). They even have similar per-shot damage and projectile speeds (if not the same speed) - but one of them is traditional HE orange and one of them is traditional kinetic white. And the orange one (the assault autocannon, I believe) is very hard to spot in a fight. Railgun shots are much, much easier to spot and I think that's because of the long trails (and the kinetic white).

The avalanche cannon is, imo, almost perfect in terms of fx design - it's got the fat projectile and long-ish body that says "strike weapon shot, better do something about this". It's just kinetic white. The fissure cannon is very similar but reads as HE.
Although I'd honestly switch those two around - the fissure cannon FX is slightly larger and "more dangerous" looking, but the avalanche has a lot more per-shot damage. Per-shot damage seems like a really important stat to look at when deciding how big and obvious to make a weapons FX.

Fire rate, sounds, projectile speed and burst size (and magazine size really) do a lot to make weapons distinct, even if their FX is very similar.

I took this to heart and reworked the ballistic weapon projectiles to increase combat intuitiveness of the TC. Yellow-orange-red is now the spectrum for assault-hybrid-strike/fire support HE damage (per hit is the modifier of color) and I've also made changes to visibly scale bullet size by damage/tier. I have plans to improve the kinetic ballistic line in this way as well (as far as power intuitiveness not really FX color).

For the more exotic Persean League ballistics... I have no solution as of yet. I am considering either making their bullet FX more exotic and better describe their damage/high tier nature in that way, or make them uniquely energy damage like the Mjolnir of vanilla (and therefore a unique ballistic niche for that faction). Thoughts and opinions if anyone has any would be appreciated.

I've fixed the sound/FX issues with the Micro Repeater line of weapons (Those weapons also now deal less overall sustained damage than before), and the simulations I've ran with faction equality considering the new additions has been positive overall, but there is more testing and possible changes to do, yet, along that front.

I also still need to finish mod compatibility changes for hullmods, ship systems and variants and purge any redundancy there, but I've made some additional progress and removed some unnecessary files to ease the load at game start in the future. General clean up is in effect.

Overall patch notes (not yet ready for release by any means):

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 --- Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.
    -

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed orbital station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added Luddic Church colony with fuel production and heavy industry.
    - Added two additional Sci-Corps colonies to better separate out industries and resources.
-----

Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Reduced sustained DPS of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Revamped ballistic weapon FX under these principles:
   - Yellow-Orange-Red color indication of assault-heavy assault-strike weaponry.
   - Bullet size now scales by tier to facilitate an intuitive learning of combat threats to armor and better teach a player when to raise shields.
-----

Misc
-------------
 - Reduced sound of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Reduced bullet size of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Removed override behavior of the mod on fighter wings, ships, and weapons.
-----
[close]

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on March 05, 2020, 04:03:46 AM
Sounds real good, looking forward to trying that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Space Cowboy on March 05, 2020, 09:38:40 PM
Hi, to start I just want to say that this mod is awesome, I'm having a great time with it so far. I've been wondering if the scaling of npc fleets works differently in this than in the base game? I am currently trying to play as an explorer with a relatively small and efficient fleet in order to get to the far corners of the map and back. I'm running into an issue where every random fleet I encounter, whether it's pirates, prospectors, or major factions seems to have hyper scaled to the point where they have about 5-10 capital ships each on average. Is this intended? I don't remember the scaling happening this quickly in the un-modded game but I could be remembering it incorrectly. I've been trying to get away without using a capital because the fuel/supply cost limits exploring range but it's getting kind of impossible. I'm not complaining, I'd just like to know how the scaling works so that I can play around it. In my opinion though, it would be more immersive if there were more variable npc fleet sizes instead of every fleet becoming huge.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2020, 02:20:41 PM
Sounds real good, looking forward to trying that.

Thanks! Should hopefully be able to release the changes fairly soon depending upon how much time I get to work on it.

Hi, to start I just want to say that this mod is awesome, I'm having a great time with it so far. I've been wondering if the scaling of npc fleets works differently in this than in the base game? I am currently trying to play as an explorer with a relatively small and efficient fleet in order to get to the far corners of the map and back. I'm running into an issue where every random fleet I encounter, whether it's pirates, prospectors, or major factions seems to have hyper scaled to the point where they have about 5-10 capital ships each on average. Is this intended? I don't remember the scaling happening this quickly in the un-modded game but I could be remembering it incorrectly. I've been trying to get away without using a capital because the fuel/supply cost limits exploring range but it's getting kind of impossible. I'm not complaining, I'd just like to know how the scaling works so that I can play around it. In my opinion though, it would be more immersive if there were more variable npc fleet sizes instead of every fleet becoming huge.

Thanks I'm glad you are enjoying it! I don't think I've done anything to make the fleets scale faster than vanilla fleets, but I certainly could be wrong. If I did, it would likely be a misunderstanding of the faction file settings so I'll have to double check there. Iirc, I thought I had set them close to or the same as vanilla as far as number of ships - at least for the factions you are speaking to (salvagers, independent, pirates, etc).

Just so I can rule out any other potential causes: Are you running any other mods alongside the TC?

I know fleet sizes in vanilla are changing in the next update too, so if it ends up not being anything I've inadvertently done then it will be changed eventually anyway. Thanks for the feedback and I'll check on it!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Space Cowboy on March 06, 2020, 10:58:10 PM
Thanks I'm glad you are enjoying it! I don't think I've done anything to make the fleets scale faster than vanilla fleets, but I certainly could be wrong. If I did, it would likely be a misunderstanding of the faction file settings so I'll have to double check there. Iirc, I thought I had set them close to or the same as vanilla as far as number of ships - at least for the factions you are speaking to (salvagers, independent, pirates, etc).

Just so I can rule out any other potential causes: Are you running any other mods alongside the TC?

I know fleet sizes in vanilla are changing in the next update too, so if it ends up not being anything I've inadvertently done then it will be changed eventually anyway. Thanks for the feedback and I'll check on it!

The only other mod I'm running atm is lazylib 2.4e. I'll try turning it off to see if that has any effect. I'm glad to hear that vanilla fleet sizes are getting an adjustment though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2020, 11:47:11 PM
The only other mod I'm running atm is lazylib 2.4e. I'll try turning it off to see if that has any effect. I'm glad to hear that vanilla fleet sizes are getting an adjustment though.

That shouldn't be what's causing this afaik. That is a library of scripts to my knowledge rather than any sort of new feature or faction mod that could possibly edit that behavior. The list of installed mods always helps troubleshoot to give context so thanks for sharing that, though!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Sidestrafe2462 on March 13, 2020, 08:02:51 AM
Just read those last few posts

So happy I'm purging the AC now XD

Oh, the music in the main menu changed. Is that AO or some other mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 13, 2020, 02:12:06 PM
Just read those last few posts

So happy I'm purging the AC now XD

Oh, the music in the main menu changed. Is that AO or some other mod?

 ;D

Regarding music:

Yes it does- though other mods may as well I'm honestly not sure or even how overrides would work there. I think AO would override it because the mod id is alphabetically above most mods.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: LordKiwi on March 20, 2020, 04:10:58 AM
Hi,
Okay first this is a great mod thank you for all the work/time you put in it!
BUT... I have few issues like: it's say on the mod page that Boggled Terraforming is compatible but when I turn on Archean Order, it turn off TB. and if I try to turn on TB again it will turn off AO...
And the second is that it cannot invade planets or spacial stations, I've tried to attack the station first but don't even show me the text line, maybe I do something wrong...
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 20, 2020, 11:03:27 AM
Hi,
Okay first this is a great mod thank you for all the work/time you put in it!
BUT... I have few issues like: it's say on the mod page that Boggled Terraforming is compatible but when I turn on Archean Order, it turn off TB. and if I try to turn on TB again it will turn off AO...
And the second is that it cannot invade planets or spacial stations, I've tried to attack the station first but don't even show me the text line, maybe I do something wrong...

Hi there i'm happy you are enjoying it!  :)

For issue number one: See the instructions on the main page for disabling the TC behavior of the mod- that is why TB is turned off when you enable AO. Also be sure to read the disclaimer there on mod merging and keep in mind that mods change all the time so if something ends up not being compatible let me know. My goal is for the next update is to have full mod compatibility.

Issue number two: I think those features are from Nexerelin (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0) so after you follow the instructions for issue one, install that mod and that should be an option. Unless you are referring to raids or orbital bombardments- that would be a bug if so.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: LordKiwi on March 21, 2020, 04:32:29 AM
Ok, my bad... everything is working very well!
Thanks for the help
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: kurtwulfgang on March 26, 2020, 03:17:41 PM
Would like to point out that Imperium faction mod is not crashing this mod. I'm not seeing them much, but they're in an alliance and seem to be working well enough.

Midway through the game btw, 20 hour playtime, no problem so far.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 26, 2020, 03:59:56 PM
Would like to point out that Imperium faction mod is not crashing this mod. I'm not seeing them much, but they're in an alliance and seem to be working well enough.

Midway through the game btw, 20 hour playtime, no problem so far.

Thanks! Added it to the list real quick. Working on ships systems then hullmods will be more tricky. But the issues with ships should be resolved for the next release according to my tests. The only unknown right now is the potential for seeded hulls to be a problem for the TC experience. I'm inquiring about that. Shouldn't have any more random crashes with any mods ideally, though, if my theory proves true.

A side note: Can anyone confirm any mods that specifically override vanilla variants of anything? Adding additional variants to existing hulls is fine, but does anything rely upon specific vanilla variants for anything? (I'm wondering if I can skip adding a prefix to them since that would be the most time intensive change of the group)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Chaotic-Entropy on March 27, 2020, 11:50:43 AM
Is there any way to cut down the number of portraits in the mod? Some are fairly in keeping and some are completely out of place (I'm looking at you, Eve Online...) and I'd love to be able to clear out some of the chaff but it causes errors.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 27, 2020, 12:40:06 PM
Is there any way to cut down the number of portraits in the mod? Some are fairly in keeping and some are completely out of place (I'm looking at you, Eve Online...) and I'd love to be able to clear out some of the chaff but it causes errors.

Those are handled in the faction files. If you would like to remove some, you can reference the name of the portrait file and comment out or remove the entry in each of the faction files that contains it.

Since portrait tastes are pretty subjective, I may eventually make each of the added portrait packs optional modules for the mod or just have a download option without portrait additions available. I'm not sure yet as doing that kind of thing too much makes maintaining the mod impossible in the long run.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Chaotic-Entropy on March 27, 2020, 01:24:24 PM
Those are handled in the faction files. If you would like to remove some, you can reference the name of the portrait file and comment out or remove the entry in each of the faction files that contains it.

Since portrait tastes are pretty subjective, I may eventually make each of the added portrait packs optional modules for the mod or just have a download option without portrait additions available. I'm not sure yet as doing that kind of thing too much makes maintaining the mod impossible in the long run.

Fair, I will have a fiddle myself, thanks. Also, Neophyte frigates, 6 ion torpedo racks... really? :S
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 27, 2020, 01:43:46 PM
Also, Neophyte frigates, 6 ion torpedo racks... really? :S

Too powerful, or silly looking?- just to clarify the concern, lol. Ion torpedoes feel slightly underwhelming to me as a whole- but this could be the Neophyte's fast missile racks coming into play with a missile that doesn't cost flux (iirc). It could be that specific synergy that is making it too strong. That being said, no immediate solutions come to mind that wouldn't further hurt the missile- and removing missile slots from the Neophyte interferes with its designated role as a top tier missile frigate.

Maybe a reduction in defenses would help this? Or changing one or both of the forward mounts to energy?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Chaotic-Entropy on March 28, 2020, 05:51:09 AM

Too powerful, or silly looking?- just to clarify the concern, lol. Ion torpedoes feel slightly underwhelming to me as a whole- but this could be the Neophyte's fast missile racks coming into play with a missile that doesn't cost flux (iirc). It could be that specific synergy that is making it too strong. That being said, no immediate solutions come to mind that wouldn't further hurt the missile- and removing missile slots from the Neophyte interferes with its designated role as a top tier missile frigate.

Maybe a reduction in defenses would help this? Or changing one or both of the forward mounts to energy?

Seemed a bit overwhelming at first due to that ability synergy, as you say, since it two shotted a few of my ships but they're fairly soft as it is so perhaps it's fine and a more cautious attitude is needed.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 28, 2020, 01:15:16 PM
Seemed a bit overwhelming at first due to that ability synergy, as you say, since it two shotted a few of my ships but they're fairly soft as it is so perhaps it's fine and a more cautious attitude is needed.

Ah ok yeah that makes sense. Strike builds are generally pretty scary. The reaper-spamming Mudskipper MkII still gets me good if I'm not paying attention. In higher numbers those things are even scary to capitals and they're combat-converted personnel carriers of all things, lol.

The neophyte is pretty powerful though, so I'll keep my eye on it vs other strike frigate builds. It could still be tuned too high. The thing about the Mudskipper MkII that makes it mostly balanced is that it lacks shields and doesn't have much armor. It's the epitome of a glass cannon.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on March 31, 2020, 08:06:40 AM
This mod is on another level I like it. I would like to give you some feedback on my first playthrough with this mod plus Nexerelin.

- Bar delivery quest generated for extra faction has no NPC to be handover to.
- Onslaught build in beams is kind of rubbish and the AI doesn't like to raise shield even on low flux.
- Friendly ship collision seems to be in full throttle than vanilla.
- Hivemind orb friendly fire. Usually, missiles will pass over ally ship.
- Phase lance flux cost so much AI don't want to use it.
- Performance issues when fighters fire weapons with a lot of projectiles also small missile tend to fire a lot. I cannot play on 500 CR as my CPU max out on single core (4.3 GHz). Would suggest fighters to use a weapon with lower projectiles count.
- [REDACTED] Radiant class teleport ability cooldown is too quick, slow ships have no chance, so hard to kill, I surround it with 4 capitals and still took a few minutes to kill one.
- Helmmanship + Defensive officer for phase ship is OP and I like it, skate half a map in 2 sec.
- Phase battleship wiggles in front of the enemy ship or ontop until it runs out of flux instead of normally phase through the ship and fire at the engines.
- Mod nerfs supply and fuel drop rate(?), maintenance cost also seems to be reduced a lot but forgot the repair cost, it went through the roof, cost me 1300+ supply to fix my small fleet of 5 capitals after heavily damaged.
- Hunting pirate in the overlap bounties sector is too easy money.
- Hegemony fleet is super OP and plenty, it now owns half of the core world without the player intervention. I feel that XIV ships are too abundant.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 31, 2020, 11:22:29 AM
This mod is on another level I like it. I would like to give you some feedback on my first playthrough with this mod plus Nexerelin.

- Bar delivery quest generated for extra faction has no NPC to be handover to.
- Onslaught build in beams is kind of rubbish and the AI doesn't like to raise shield even on low flux.
- Friendly ship collision seems to be in full throttle than vanilla.
- Hivemind orb friendly fire. Usually, missiles will pass over ally ship.
- Phase lance flux cost so much AI don't want to use it.
- Performance issues when fighters fire weapons with a lot of projectiles also small missile tend to fire a lot. I cannot play on 500 CR as my CPU max out on single core (4.3 GHz). Would suggest fighters to use a weapon with lower projectiles count.
- [REDACTED] Radiant class teleport ability cooldown is too quick, slow ships have no chance, so hard to kill, I surround it with 4 capitals and still took a few minutes to kill one.
- Helmmanship + Defensive officer for phase ship is OP and I like it, skate half a map in 2 sec.
- Phase battleship wiggles in front of the enemy ship or ontop until it runs out of flux instead of normally phase through the ship and fire at the engines.
- Mod nerfs supply and fuel drop rate(?), maintenance cost also seems to be reduced a lot but forgot the repair cost, it went through the roof, cost me 1300+ supply to fix my small fleet of 5 capitals after heavily damaged.
- Hunting pirate in the overlap bounties sector is too easy money.
- Hegemony fleet is super OP and plenty, it now owns half of the core world without the player intervention. I feel that XIV ships are too abundant.
Thanks a lot for all this feedback! I will respond in more detail a bit later after I go through it better. On the first pass over it what stands out:

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- Bar delivery quest generated for extra faction has no NPC to be handover to.
Hmm, that was an older bug that I thought I had resolved. If you could give me the version you are using (I'm assuming the latest version but just wanted to confirm so I'm not chasing something I've already fixed lol) and maybe a screenshot if you run into it again I would really appreciate it! Do you happen to remember what faction/market it was and what you were being asked to deliver?

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- Friendly ship collision seems to be in full throttle than vanilla.
As in ships seem to collide with each other more in the mod than vanilla?

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- Mod nerfs supply and fuel drop rate(?), maintenance cost also seems to be reduced a lot but forgot the repair cost, it went through the roof, cost me 1300+ supply to fix my small fleet of 5 capitals after heavily damaged.
What capitals were you using? That can make a difference when taking combat damage specifically.

EDIT:

Forgot to answer your question about fuel and supply drop rate: it shouldn't to my knowledge be reduced unless something in the economy would cause that. Stuff like global shortages from invasions/raids and that sort of thing. Also, it's important to mention that alongside reduced maintenance upkeep the CR per deployment of ships has been greatly reduced on a global scale. This means that while you can deploy more often at the same cost, the downside is what you are experiencing. The recovery rate has been similarly changed to match or even get further reduced as is the case for capitals. So mechanics that reduce the total CR cap (such as hull damage) have a greater cost associated with them to get back to max CR.

The design goal there is to make sequential fights easier and cost less overall while simultaneously being less punishing to the player in regards to travel and exploration. On the other side of this- it means a close battle that results in damage has a tremendous cost- balancing out the reduction to prevent supplies from being trivial. This information is pretty unclear though- I could do better about that and I plan to when the tactics manual rewrite comes around.

Ok, back to more details:

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- Onslaught build in beams is kind of rubbish and the AI doesn't like to raise shield even on low flux.
Agreed that could use a built-in increase to the range of beams. I made a note about that a while back but haven't gotten to it yet. I think that is why it feels pretty weak compared to putting something like Devastators in those slots. The nice thing is that you don't have to spend the OP on those- so it allows bigger guns and more hullmods considering that hull also has an ordinance point increase and more armor than the standard hull.

What you are probably noticing as far as shields not being raised is the Combat Capacitors coming online (which prevents shields from being raised but allows for some serious dps and increases movement speed). Since onslaughts have very high armor this usually isn't a big deal- but if the AI uses it right before some heavy armor piercing weapons hit it... yeah that can suck when it happens. Not much I can do about that unfortunately without coding a custom system AI like I did for Fast Missile Racks. For that I had a template to go off of so attempting that blind probably wouldn't be worth it.

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- Hivemind orb friendly fire. Usually, missiles will pass over ally ship.
Hmm I wonder if they are timing out and I don't have the flight time set correctly considering the range. I'll take a look.

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- Phase lance flux cost so much AI don't want to use it.
What ships are you using those on? If you are using them on midline vessels with energy weapon slots- I wouldn't recommend it unless you have invested a lot of OP into flux stats and made some critical sacrifices in your build to do so.

That weapon line was mostly designed for use by the Tri-Tachyon, Adamantine Consortium or Sci-Corps lines of high tech ships (Archean Order actually can't make as much use of them on some vessels since their flux stats are generally weaker) and because they are very powerful strike weapons with perfect accuracy and missile/fighter penetration they need a big trade-off.

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- Performance issues when fighters fire weapons with a lot of projectiles also small missile tend to fire a lot. I cannot play on 500 CR as my CPU max out on single core (4.3 GHz). Would suggest fighters to use a weapon with lower projectiles count.

I'll keep this in mind! Thanks a lot for that kind of feedback. Performance management has been a constant challenge considering the design goals of the mod, so I will look into changes that can help. To be fair in that, though, I don't want to get your hopes up too high. There is only so much I can get away with without eliminating key design goals, breaking the AI, or breaking the aesthetics of the mod (which is a big part of the appeal to me).

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- [REDACTED] Radiant class teleport ability cooldown is too quick, slow ships have no chance, so hard to kill, I surround it with 4 capitals and still took a few minutes to kill one.
Fixed for next update. Doubled the cooldown to see how that looks. I want them to be hard- but for the right reasons not annoying ones.  ;D

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- Phase battleship wiggles in front of the enemy ship or ontop until it runs out of flux instead of normally phase through the ship and fire at the engines.
That is vanilla AI. Not much I can do about it, unfortunately. The slow speed of a capital sometimes causes that to happen under AI control, but it even sometimes happens with frigates if the circumstances are right.

I gave the skimmer to that ship specifically to improve the AI's use of it. It makes it a monster in the player's hands so I will eventually make it very difficult to get- most like a quest line to increase the fun and make it reliable to acquire for players that really like flying it.

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- Hunting pirate in the overlap bounties sector is too easy money.
'
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate? Places like Duzak and Tia-Taxet where bounty missions sometimes spawn? Penelope's Star likely doesn't get those as I've added markets there.

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- Hegemony fleet is super OP and plenty, it now owns half of the core world without the player intervention. I feel that XIV ships are too abundant.
From what I've gathered by feedback, that can happen with almost any of the more powerful factions (maybe any of them just in general). That's probably the way Nex goes sometimes (an assumption) but nevertheless there will be some market changes in the next update to spread things out more as far as industries and resources go for the newer factions.

The Hegemony probably won't have much changed in the update though since their industries weren't over max. They were based upon the vanilla implementation and the only thing I did there was make their stations' thematic. I wouldn't think that would effect Nex.

The abundance of XIV ships is by design because I want "at a glance recognition of faction ships" and more differences between factions' tactics and style. Those hulls are powerful (more powerful than the stock hulls in many cases) but not more so than other factions' ships like Tri-Tachyon, Persean League, etc. It shouldn't, ideally, effect Nex campaigns overall balance.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 01, 2020, 12:40:21 AM
I'm on the latest version of the game and mods but NEX seems to be on updating spree at the moment. I also have combat speed mod, active gates mod and resist inspection mod enable.

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Do you happen to remember what faction/market it was and what you were being asked to deliver?
I do remember delivering to Archean Order - Temple of the Dark Stars and some places in Andamantine Consortium.

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As in ships seem to collide with each other more in the mod than vanilla??
Prominently at the start of the battle, my Tyrants and Executor just plow through friendly ships, damaged them and, sometimes, directly kill smaller ships. Maybe modded ship hitbox is off?

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What capitals were you using? That can make a difference when taking combat damage specifically.
I have two Tyrants, two Onslaught XIVs, an Executor, two Nightreavers, two Apogees, and a Harbinger. Also to note, I haven't put points into Repair skill yet. It may be the combat readiness recovery that costs so much. If I bath in a pulsar beam my recovery per day directly jumps to 300+. And from the tooltips, it looks like it's still in vanilla range. Usually in vanilla, If I were to blow up a large pirate fleet, I will turn a profit on supply but now I'm likely to be in a deficit even with 4 salvage ships. When I'm out exploring, I don't want to be fighting anyone anymore (in vanilla I welcome them with open arms, freebies).

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I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate? Places like Duzak and Tia-Taxet where bounty missions sometimes spawn? Penelope's Star likely doesn't get those as I've added markets there.
It's a sector wide pirate bounty. On vanilla, you are supposed to get 1300 credit per ship(frigate?) this has been bumped up to 5300. So, if two factions pose bounty in the same system I can get up to 300000 each(x2). If I'm able to intercept 4-5 fleets or more if there is a permanent base in that sector, then I'm rich.

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The abundance of XIV ships is by design because I want "at a glance recognition of faction ships" and more differences between factions' tactics and style. Those hulls are powerful (more powerful than the stock hulls in many cases) but not more so than other factions' ships like Tri-Tachyon, Persean League, etc. It shouldn't, ideally, effect Nex campaigns overall balance.
I'm not too sure. Its fleets have so many carriers that auto-resolve usually results in their favor. Tri-tac is a goner now, got ganged by everyone and Hegemony also manages to penetrate the Diktat. Diktat is on its last leg, only Sindrian left (so hot, Hegemony don't want to live there). Trader guild all fell under Hegemony. Adamantine Consortium is, actually, neutral with Hegemony. I do feel they should be a bad guy.

The invasion fleets might be too large, everyone trade planet too easily. The home sector of every faction should be a bit stronger. I do feel that orbital stations should be buff a notch. It cannot withstand any fleet at all. But this is only my opinion, you should wait for more feedback from others.

PS. A few fleets of Achean Order actually stuck in their black hole, a nebula would be a safer choice.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 01, 2020, 03:44:20 PM
I'm on the latest version of the game and mods but NEX seems to be on updating spree at the moment. I also have combat speed mod, active gates mod and resist inspection mod enable.

I do remember delivering to Archean Order - Temple of the Dark Stars and some places in Andamantine Consortium.

Thanks I'll investigate! I'm trying to remember what originally caused that in the first place. I'll have to look back and check.

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Prominently at the start of the battle, my Tyrants and Executor just plow through friendly ships, damaged them and, sometimes, directly kill smaller ships. Maybe modded ship hitbox is off?

Sorry for all the questions, but there could be a lot going on here that could cause this: Are you deploying some ships first and then reinforcing immediately? Or just mass deploying? And is travel drive still engaged or does this occur after it's disengaged?

I'll definitely look into it, but the hitboxes shouldn't be the problem there. If they were, the ships wouldn't take damage (assuming the game would even start) and you'd notice when the smaller ships were damaged if hitbox proportions were off.

Well, it could be a speed issue somehow not giving the AI enough time to respond to collision avoidance. Are the smaller ships in front of them especially slow? That can cause problems when a bunch of ships are clustered together, yeah. The Tyrant is pretty fast for a capital. But the Executor? Not so much. I'm not honestly sure why that would happen more otherwise.

A complete shot in the dark, but- judging from the mod list, could it possibly be the combat speed mod? You could try turning that off (if possible) and seeing if you still run into the problem. I don't know the inner workings of that mod. This does happen to me occasionally but it doesn't seem to be a common occurrence unless I'm deploying really fast large ships en mass in front of really slow small ships en mass. It could be my battle size settings though reduces clustered ships at the start. I test on the default for the mod as a control.

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I have two Tyrants, two Onslaught XIVs, an Executor, two Nightreavers, two Apogees, and a Harbinger. Also to note, I haven't put points into Repair skill yet. It may be the combat readiness recovery that costs so much. If I bath in a pulsar beam my recovery per day directly jumps to 300+. And from the tooltips, it looks like it's still in vanilla range. Usually in vanilla, If I were to blow up a large pirate fleet, I will turn a profit on supply but now I'm likely to be in a deficit even with 4 salvage ships. When I'm out exploring, I don't want to be fighting anyone anymore (in vanilla I welcome them with open arms, freebies).

Ah yeah all of those ships are very powerful and therefore very expensive to repair and deploy. Hazards that decrease CR cap should be avoided at all costs. There are so many ways to turn a nice profit in the game that I kind of wanted combat to cause a deficit. There has to be a deficit somewhere, and out of personal preference I wanted lighter costs for just existing.

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It's a sector wide pirate bounty. On vanilla, you are supposed to get 1300 credit per ship(frigate?) this has been bumped up to 5300. So, if two factions pose bounty in the same system I can get up to 300000 each(x2). If I'm able to intercept 4-5 fleets or more if there is a permanent base in that sector, then I'm rich.

Oh ok, noted. I boosted that back in .8 (I think?) when it felt more necessary than it probably does now. It might not need to be as high of a payment. I'll see about reducing it slightly. You can also do this yourself in the mods settings file: mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4f\data\config\settings.json - under: "   "baseSystemBounty":3500,"

You can see a lot of different settings there for campaign payouts that you can play around with. I may reduce it to 3000 or 2800 for the standard download. Undecided until I can test more.

The cost-effectiveness of capitalizing on overlapping bounties will always be very lucrative though. As a concept, that doesn't feel any more or less dynamic a reward than a probe mission that happens to have good salvage opportunities, survey payouts, etc. I remember one salvage run in an especially good spawn that I stumbled across while running a derelict mission that netted me over 500,000 credits in rewards.

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I'm not too sure. Its fleets have so many carriers that auto-resolve usually results in their favor. Tri-tac is a goner now, got ganged by everyone and Hegemony also manages to penetrate the Diktat. Diktat is on its last leg, only Sindrian left (so hot, Hegemony don't want to live there). Trader guild all fell under Hegemony. Adamantine Consortium is, actually, neutral with Hegemony. I do feel they should be a bad guy.

The invasion fleets might be too large, everyone trade planet too easily. The home sector of every faction should be a bit stronger. I do feel that orbital stations should be buff a notch. It cannot withstand any fleet at all. But this is only my opinion, you should wait for more feedback from others.

From what I've gathered by feedback off this version, I think it's pretty variable in Nex and someone always seems to dominate. I've had reports of Archean Order, Sci-Corps and now Hegemony. As far as carriers, that doesn't affect autoresolve unless Nex does something to that. It's based on the fleet points of each ship in the fleet. Hegemony has some high FP ships, but not any higher than Tri-Tachyon, Archean Order, Persean League, Lion's Guard, Adamantine Consortium, etc. The variance of diplomacy events alone must be a factor there because Hegemony and Trader Guilds start with good reputation with each other.

That being said, I'm about to go into testing that stuff and I'll keep all this in mind as I do it in case additional changes need to be made. Hopefully some of the market changes will already shake things up a fair amount.

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PS. A few fleets of Archean Order actually stuck in their black hole, a nebula would be a safer choice.

The final voyage of the phase walker, lol, jk.  I have some lore related stuff planned with Xanathos otherwise I probably would.

But yeah I would not let AI fleets do that if I could, but I don't think I can. I'll look into it eventually. It's not the hugest deal usually. I believe it kills the fleet after a while.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 02, 2020, 06:50:37 AM
I have noticed that when deploying at the start of a fight, sometimes the flagship (it could also happen to other ships, but I can't really see those) spawns in without doing the entry-burn. This isn't just an Archean thing though, it happens with regular modded starsector too (I can't confirm if it also happens in pure vanilla, I haven't played that in ages) - even with a very light mod load (I don't even use more than 1 faction mod if that).

I can see how there'd be more ship bumping when some ships don't do their entry burn and others do.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 02, 2020, 03:34:35 PM
I'm on the latest version of the game and mods but NEX seems to be on updating spree at the moment. I also have combat speed mod, active gates mod and resist inspection mod enable.

I do remember delivering to Archean Order - Temple of the Dark Stars and some places in Andamantine Consortium.

Thanks I'll investigate! I'm trying to remember what originally caused that in the first place. I'll have to look back and check.


Looked into this a fair amount today and can't reproduce it in the current build. Do you remember if it was it from a bar mission or a procurement mission from intel? I assume it was a procurement mission. Those actually don't pop up that often for me, and I almost wonder if I've balanced the economy too well for Nex to the point where these things are rare due the overall stability of each faction.

The ones I did get to spawn all worked fine though, even the one to the Sci-Corps Headquarters. The bar missions all worked flawlessly among new and old factions (there were plenty of those). Just wanted to give you an update. I'll keep looking. Any other information you can provide would be helpful to narrow this down. I know, if my suspicions are correct, that it is likely a rules issue. So the next step will be to cross reference all those rules instances for new factions with core starsector to see if I'm missing something.

I have noticed that when deploying at the start of a fight, sometimes the flagship (it could also happen to other ships, but I can't really see those) spawns in without doing the entry-burn. This isn't just an Archean thing though, it happens with regular modded starsector too (I can't confirm if it also happens in pure vanilla, I haven't played that in ages) - even with a very light mod load (I don't even use more than 1 faction mod if that).

I can see how there'd be more ship bumping when some ships don't do their entry burn and others do.

Yeah that could definitely be it. I'll talk to Alex later and see if he is aware or if there is something I'm doing wrong here. From what you described though, if your flagship is a capital then wouldn't this help prevent that from happening? I have seen this in the mod though. Once I figure out this darn weirdness with procurement missions that keeps cropping up I'll look into it more thoroughly (I am assuming this only tends to happen in the campaign and not so much the simulator since joining fleets is a thing and all that.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 03, 2020, 08:24:56 AM
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Looked into this a fair amount today and can't reproduce it in the current build. Do you remember if it was it from a bar mission or a procurement mission from intel? I assume it was a procurement mission. Those actually don't pop up that often for me, and I almost wonder if I've balanced the economy too well for Nex to the point where these things are rare due the overall stability of each faction.
Yes, after more investigation, I do think that most of the bar quests should work fine as long as it auto accept. The ones that will have a problem are quests that require you to directly hand over to NPC, i.e., smuggle quest that has to be handover with transponder off, procurement quest or, somehow, a quest that didn't get auto accept. The problem is can you create an NPC to accept quests the same as vanilla?

Also, for the ship bumping after comparing to vanilla, I notice a big difference is that you nerf small ships speed by a lot. I install an unstable injector on most of my capital, even one that I did not put in, with entry burn, actually fly faster than smaller ship loitering around at the start. Hence bump fest commence.

On another note, I did get a Paragon to test Phase lance on, with max capacitors, I can only fire 3 shots simultaneously before venting. I think flux/damage ratio does not justify using it, Artronarch beam is much better. The firing delay feels alright.

Thunderbolt MIRV is the new OP sabot.

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Ah yeah all of those ships are very powerful and therefore very expensive to repair and deploy. Hazards that decrease CR cap should be avoided at all costs. There are so many ways to turn a nice profit in the game that I kind of wanted combat to cause a deficit. There has to be a deficit somewhere, and out of personal preference I wanted lighter costs for just existing.
I understand that you would like it to be a bit more challenging. But I insist that those environmental damages cost too much that I prefer to reload than wasting 300 supplies. Everyone will one day have to dip into that corona for a research station + salvage 3 times. Another thing is auto-resolve no longer cost effective to do.

Defense fleet with modded ships will never have d-mod for some reason (no nanoforge).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 03, 2020, 11:23:31 AM
Yes, after more investigation, I do think that most of the bar quests should work fine as long as it auto accept. The ones that will have a problem are quests that require you to directly hand over to NPC, i.e., smuggle quest that has to be handover with transponder off, procurement quest or, somehow, a quest that didn't get auto accept. The problem is can you create an NPC to accept quests the same as vanilla?

I've never seen a bar mission that doesn't auto-complete when docking with the correct market. The procurement missions from intel can go either way- the NPC will contact you when you dock sometimes, but other times you have go to the comm board to talk to the NPC. These can be legitimate or they can be smuggling missions. Thanks for help narrowing it down. I'll focus on those. The ones I got yesterday worked- but it was a far more limited number of tests than the bar missions.

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Also, for the ship bumping after comparing to vanilla, I notice a big difference is that you nerf small ships speed by a lot. I install an unstable injector on most of my capital, even one that I did not put in, with entry burn, actually fly faster than smaller ship loitering around at the start. Hence bump fest commence.

Hmm, ok. I'll look into a slight speed boost to see if it helps. Have to be careful there because frigates shouldn't be fast enough to run down fighters and increasing fighter speed makes them dodge PD more effectively. With the exception of the fastest frigates in vanilla, I didn't think it was that much different, but I haven't looked in a while.

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On another note, I did get a Paragon to test Phase lance on, with max capacitors, I can only fire 3 shots simultaneously before venting. I think flux/damage ratio does not justify using it, Artronarch beam is much better. The firing delay feels alright.

Wait do you mean the Tachyon Lance? I thought you were talking about the Phase Beam. 3 shots simultaneously from a Tachyon Lance will likely one-shot anything below a capital at over double the range of most weapons. With the Paragon's system active it could probably even one shot lighter capitals. That's worth max flux to me.

I'm pretty happy someone likes the Atronarch Beam more, though. I was worried that weapon felt underwhelming to a lot of players since people typically talk about the legendary weapons more.

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Thunderbolt MIRV is the new OP sabot.

That one is interesting, yeah. I've tweaked it a bunch and it seems to be a razor edge of garbage/OP depending upon how well PD can handle it. The real issue comes when it is massed, though. Then it can be overwhelming. I'd rather have that than make an expensive and rarer missile that costs a lot of flux to fire feel underwhelming in small numbers. Still kind of thinking about potential solutions.

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I understand that you would like it to be a bit more challenging. But I insist that those environmental damages cost too much that I prefer to reload than wasting 300 supplies. Everyone will one day have to dip into that corona for a research station + salvage 3 times. Another thing is auto-resolve no longer cost effective to do.

Keep in mind that 300 supplies per day doesn't necessarily equal 300 supplies if it takes less than a day to recover the CR/damage. Probably not the case here but figured I'd mention it just in case because that can be unclear in the tooltip.

The trade off, if I reduce that cost, is that you won't be able to chain battle as much. But yeah corona's are harsh. It does make skills/hullmods that reduce that effect more attractive for capitals as a result though. Would you ever even consider those otherwise? (I know I don't in vanilla). With the hullmod, you can equip the capital specifically for corona missions then unequip it when that isn't a danger.

I'm curious, why would auto-resolve no longer be cost effective from that specifically? It in theory shouldn't effect that at all. (auto-resolve is less effective than combat in vanilla by default)

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Defense fleet with modded ships will never have d-mod for some reason (no nanoforge).

As in, don't give factions nanoforges? Any particular reason? Does it make it impossible for the player to reduce fleet quality for enemy factions through targeted hits to stability or something?

*EDIT* Oh did you mean the faction's ship quality in it's doctrine is too high? What faction is this?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 03, 2020, 10:21:44 PM
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Wait do you mean the Tachyon Lance? I thought you were talking about the Phase Beam. 3 shots simultaneously from a Tachyon Lance will likely one-shot anything below a capital at over double the range of most weapons. With the Paragon's system active it could probably even one shot lighter capitals. That's worth max flux to me.

I'm pretty happy someone likes the Atronarch Beam more, though. I was worried that weapon felt underwhelming to a lot of players since people typically talk about the legendary weapons more.
Ah yes, Tachyon Lance my bad. It's kind of strong, maybe, if my Paragon doesn't try to turn its hull mid beam and slash three ships. Is there a way to not let it turn during firing?
Atronarch is strong OP. I put three on my Tyrant and it just one shot everything and almost one-shot capital. It seems to benefit greatly from phase acceleration, so the cooldown is minimal and can be fired in quick succession.

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The trade off, if I reduce that cost, is that you won't be able to chain battle as much. But yeah corona's are harsh. It does make skills/hullmods that reduce that effect more attractive for capitals as a result though. Would you ever even consider those otherwise? (I know I don't in vanilla). With the hullmod, you can equip the capital specifically for corona missions then unequip it when that isn't a danger.
That would never be in my mind for the first playthrough for sure. I will test it out with two skill points I have left just in case, lol.

As for auto-resolve, it's kind of a chore to do so after main battle, in vanilla, to get rid of all stragglers but if I stop doing it, I notice that I'm able to turn profits a little from a very clean engagement. I only send small ships to do the cleanup afterward.

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As in, don't give factions nanoforges? Any particular reason? Does it make it impossible for the player to reduce fleet quality for enemy factions through targeted hits to stability or something?
Oh, I haven't stated clearly. It's my faction. Defense fleets spawn from my own planet. I'm looking at very clean no d-mod capitals then suddenly a 4 d-mods fuel tanker/trader. Only ships that have been tampered with seem to be affected.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 04, 2020, 12:41:20 PM
Ah yes, Tachyon Lance my bad. It's kind of strong, maybe, if my Paragon doesn't try to turn its hull mid beam and slash three ships. Is there a way to not let it turn during firing?
Atronarch is strong OP. I put three on my Tyrant and it just one shot everything and almost one-shot capital. It seems to benefit greatly from phase acceleration, so the cooldown is minimal and can be fired in quick succession.

Ah right! I'm equally annoyed by that, yeah. The AI doesn't understand how to use long lasting burst beams. It doesn't seem to recognize that moving the beam to a new target is a really bad idea in almost all circumstances because it wastes much of the burst damage when it does. Even if I lock the beam, for instance, the AI will still rotate the ship to distribute shots on the armor and this will still happen. I have reported it, but there aren't any long duration burst beams in vanilla to compare, though (I don't think anyway). Small duration burst beams don't have this problem as much. So, not sure if it will be fixed eventually, but I don't have access to the AI to fix it. It happens with the Atronarch Beam too, but it's less noticeable because the burst is shorter.

The Tyrant in general is pretty OP just by being a phase capital. Any strike weapons you put on it will annihilate things very quickly. Atronarch Beams are the best at this though since in tier they are only a step below Tachyon Lance. Ideally that ship will eventually be very hard to get but something you run from when you see it. The AI isn't up to that task at the moment.

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That would never be in my mind for the first playthrough for sure. I will test it out with two skill points I have left just in case, lol.

If it still feels too painful, increasing the CR lost/gained per deployment/recovery will help. (with the caveat I mentioned early)

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As for auto-resolve, it's kind of a chore to do so after main battle, in vanilla, to get rid of all stragglers but if I stop doing it, I notice that I'm able to turn profits a little from a very clean engagement. I only send small ships to do the cleanup afterward.

The player gets a lot of extra cost effectiveness from playing out the battle and flying well. Personally, I think this is a good thing. I don't want autoresolve to not be an option, of course, but it shouldn't be an equally attractive one as far as efficiency goes. Otherwise, if a player is bad at flying they will be tempted to autoresolve everything rather than continue to learn by participating in the combat. In short, there is an increased cost for convenience.

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Oh, I haven't stated clearly. It's my faction. Defense fleets spawn from my own planet. I'm looking at very clean no d-mod capitals then suddenly a 4 d-mods fuel tanker/trader. Only ships that have been tampered with seem to be affected.

Hmm, ok. I'll investigate to make sure this isn't something I caused in the faction file. To be completely honest I have very little experience with the player faction mechanics currently. I've been testing a lot of other things/creating content and haven't gotten there yet. It's getting close to when I'll look into it to tweak the commodity request system for player owned fleets. The default way it works probably technically is fine, but it could be better. (Such as affecting that colonies monthly income, etc)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 07, 2020, 07:04:31 AM
Do you wish to know how angry Hegemony look like? Its war-weariness went over 86000. What is war-weariness anyway?

(https://i.ibb.co/g9Zp8fP/001.jpg) (https://ibb.co/yPF1CZY)

So you have chosen death... not yet.

There's a bug where retreating ship's fighters were left behind in the ongoing fight. Just chasing last remaining ships to find out there are 200 fighters at the map edge.

Ps. Holy crab, I'm pvping 3 fleets at a time.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 07, 2020, 02:59:47 PM
Do you wish to know how angry Hegemony look like? Its war-weariness went over 86000. What is war-weariness anyway?

War weariness is a Nex thing so I'm not completely sure (sorry I should have more knowledge of this stuff once I get into full testing- I'm about 95% there- just some description work to clean up) . In this case asking on the Nex thread may help. An assumption: It probably relates to how much the faction fights/expands and presumably has a negative side effect as a result. I'm not sure what that would specifically be, though, I'm just going off of other 4X games as an example. It could be more d-mods, it could be less faction resources, or it could just be that the faction attacks less, etc.

As far as Archean Order economy, I'm really close to getting the TC where I want it while doing the resource/industry rework. The consideration here is: as I've discovered, one of the side effects of relatively balanced systems is that market procurement missions become rare. That is a cross cutting concern here so I need some way of handling that. I have some ideas, though, like outlier fringe systems.

That being said, as it turns out I also felt the need to reduce the carrier count in Hegemony fleets and I've removed some of their stations for various reasons. I think I may have even messed with industries a bit. I'm still tinkering with things. Fleet composition for several factions has had some edits.

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There's a bug where retreating ship's fighters were left behind in the ongoing fight. Just chasing last remaining ships to find out there are 200 fighters at the map edge.

Vanilla bug (iirc). Shouldn't impact the battle it just looks a little weird. lol.

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Ps. Holy crab, I'm pvping 3 fleets at a time.

Good thing or bad thing?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 07, 2020, 11:30:27 PM
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Good thing or bad thing?
Good thing that I manage to beat all of them. I'm going over to NEX to complain about how things can be this ridiculous. The moment I beat the crap out of one of their station they immediately sent 5 invasion fleets and I only have 8 planets.

There's a problem with NEX Relief fleet that spawn so fast that the moment I fly in with the goods the shortage already resolves.

Also, a minor complaint on Onslaught reload boost ability that down shield which seems to be very very bad in most situations. Downed shield vs Reaper is a very bad idea. Combine with slow speed and quite short of range weapons it has to get into a brawl quite personal and usually get rekt real fast. I would prefer the ability to generate hard flux instead. Most of the heaviest ballistic weapon can only fire two salvos, so, it pretty much not that useful.

I already scout all sectors on the map and only manage to get 2 Andamatine ship blueprint one frigate and one capital carrier. Never managed to get an Andamantine blueprint package or paragon blueprint. You really want it to be hard to get eh?

Archean Apocalypse cannon firing sounds nice to my ear but reload speed is awful. I would prefer low alpha damage but increase rate of fire instead.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2020, 06:43:50 PM
Also, a minor complaint on Onslaught reload boost ability that down shield which seems to be very very bad in most situations. Downed shield vs Reaper is a very bad idea. Combine with slow speed and quite short of range weapons it has to get into a brawl quite personal and usually get rekt real fast. I would prefer the ability to generate hard flux instead. Most of the heaviest ballistic weapon can only fire two salvos, so, it pretty much not that useful.

I'll look into some fine tuning there. I won't guarantee it will be hard flux rather than lowered shields, but it may prove possible while still being balanced. Is the primary issue here AI control or that you as the pilot feel it is not worth using?

For some explanation: I get that torpedoes in general will get an advantage since even the accelerated PD fire rate of the secondaries often isn't enough to stop all of them when multiple are fired at once, but is it also strike weapons ? I could see that. Just to warn you, though, the shields are poor enough on the ships that typically have that system that if I do make it cost hard flux it may cause a higher percentage of overloads that will actually cause more overall vulnerability (no weapons firing at all under those circumstances). It will also hurt the ability of the ship to use its strike weapons. Those are the general considerations of changes along those lines. Also, the speed increase from the system is supposed to support the AI making use of it so they waste it less in situations that they can't actually close the distance to firing range of the target for the active duration to have any real effect.

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I already scout all sectors on the map and only manage to get 2 Andamatine ship blueprint one frigate and one capital carrier. Never managed to get an Andamantine blueprint package or paragon blueprint. You really want it to be hard to get eh?

Yes. The Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order ships may actually be unboardable (requiring a story point to use at all) in future releases. You will get the blueprint package if you can get commissioned with them though. They will likely require a very hard quest. The capital carrier is technically the most powerful ship the Consortium have (AI-wise at least), though, so congrats on that find!

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Archean Apocalypse cannon firing sounds nice to my ear but reload speed is awful. I would prefer low alpha damage but increase rate of fire instead.

Hmm. I'll try it out. It's kind of a strike/fire support hybrid weapon. Too little armor penetration makes it really weak, but this may be a good reason to buff the ships themselves a bit. I'll definitely consider this feedback.

Thanks for all the dialogue!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 09, 2020, 05:26:09 AM
All vanilla factions in Diplomatic Profile seem to have duplicate traits. If it's applied twice, this might be the reason why hegemony is so aggressive in my game. Modded factions don't have any problem. I have checked with NEX only start and that side worked fine with no duplication.

(https://i.ibb.co/JBJzjjR/04.jpg) (https://ibb.co/JBJzjjR)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 09, 2020, 12:18:30 PM

Also, a minor complaint on Onslaught reload boost ability that down shield which seems to be very very bad in most situations. Downed shield vs Reaper is a very bad idea. Combine with slow speed and quite short of range weapons it has to get into a brawl quite personal and usually get rekt real fast. I would prefer the ability to generate hard flux instead. Most of the heaviest ballistic weapon can only fire two salvos, so, it pretty much not that useful.

I've found that Combat Capacitors are best used with the Assault weapons that generate flux. Those are usually not worth it in my experience (you're better off going with either the 0 flux assaults or proper strike weapons) - but slap all the bonuses of combat capacitors on it, and the benefit of turning off the shields (yes benefit, because that way the AI is forced to use all the flux for offense) and you get a lot of firepower.

If that ship system turns out to be under powered, maybe it should toggle on the low-flux speed boost while active. Lose shields, gain speed and firepower.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 12, 2020, 11:11:16 AM
All vanilla factions in Diplomatic Profile seem to have duplicate traits. If it's applied twice, this might be the reason why hegemony is so aggressive in my game. Modded factions don't have any problem. I have checked with NEX only start and that side worked fine with no duplication.

(https://i.ibb.co/JBJzjjR/04.jpg) (https://ibb.co/JBJzjjR)

Thanks for the picture- I'll look into this. It likely has to either be that the Nex settings in Archean Order are wrong or a Nex bug. Maybe a merging issue? Anyway I'll investigate.

I've found that Combat Capacitors are best used with the Assault weapons that generate flux. Those are usually not worth it in my experience (you're better off going with either the 0 flux assaults or proper strike weapons) - but slap all the bonuses of combat capacitors on it, and the benefit of turning off the shields (yes benefit, because that way the AI is forced to use all the flux for offense) and you get a lot of firepower.

If that ship system turns out to be under powered, maybe it should toggle on the low-flux speed boost while active. Lose shields, gain speed and firepower.

This is generally how I think about that system too. (Well, except heavy assault weapons otherwise being unattractive but thanks for your feedback there) Combat Capacitors already boosts speed- but- yeah toggling the zero flux boost could definitely help the AI. To counter the increased power to the player, I could reduce its regeneration rate per charge, etc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 13, 2020, 12:04:50 AM
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Archean Apocalypse cannon firing sounds nice to my ear but reload speed is awful. I would prefer low alpha damage but increase rate of fire instead.

Hmm. I'll try it out. It's kind of a strike/fire support hybrid weapon. Too little armor penetration makes it really weak, but this may be a good reason to buff the ships themselves a bit. I'll definitely consider this feedback.

Thanks for all the dialogue!

I experimented with this. The reduced recharge rate inevitably makes the weapon even more powerful than intended despite the reduction in armor penetration. The reason: the AI can kite more effectively with it considering its superior range and the continuous harassment from incoming projectiles. The window of opportunity from reduced recharge rate is crucial to making the weapon balanced on Tri-Tachyon vessels with more dissipation and allowing a strike opportunity in the interim even for Archean Vessels that (other than the dreadnought in the new update) have much less dissipation overall to balance their efficient shields. Still a work-in-progress, but those are the design goals of the current metrics.

I'll keep testing.

I've also further reduced the shield capacity of the Revenant- but increased it's armor. It was way too powerful as a light battlecruiser for its deployment cost due to its ability to strike and retreat. Now it has more trade-offs. (Hopefully?)

I've made another pass at deployment costs and stats vs combat viability during battles (This is really hard, and though I've made a rather light pass this time I will try to expand upon it later).

Notes of changes so far:

Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 - Overall Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.
    - Reworked mod economy to be more even in market share and resource spread between factions (in general) while hopefully still nurturing trade opportunities for the player through the simulation environment.

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added remote Luddic Church colony with refining, heavy industry and an additional military base with a large hazard rating.
    - Added two additional Sci-Corps colonies to better separate out industries and resources.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Yama and reduced the station at Nachiketa to an Orbital Station (down from a Battlestation).
    - Added Fuel Production and High Command to Gilead (based in the star fortress instead of the surface from a lore perspective)
    - Added Orbital Works to Tartesseus (again not on the surface- see above).
    - Increased size of Traveler's Triumph Station to 5 and added Heavy Industry.
    - Upgraded Traveler's Triumph Station to a Battlestation (up from an Orbital Station).

 --- Fleet Composition Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced number of dedicated carriers in Hegemony fleets. (partly for vanilla lore adherence and also to create more faction variety in battle tactics between factions)

-----

Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Reduced sustained DPS of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Revamped ballistic weapon FX under these principles:
   - Yellow-Orange-Red color indication of assault-heavy assault-strike weaponry.
   - Bullet size now scales by tier to facilitate an intuitive learning of combat threats to armor and better teach a player when to raise shields.
 - Doubled cooldown of Phase Teleporter.
 - Added weapon slots and increased OP (if necessary) to most civillian ships to help prevent them from being overly vulnerable against fighters and missiles during retreat battles.
 - Added additional weapon slots and increased OP of some pirate and luddic conversion vessels (they are too weak).
 - Added a rear-facing small weapon to the Valkyrie MkII to help give minor protection to its engines against interdiction-class missiles and upgraded its central missile weapon to medium size to better combat fighters.
 - Added a built-in beam range increase to the Onslaught XIV hull to support it's built in foward weapons. (The AI uses them as a cost effective alternative more often now - even when equipping Devastators)
 - Added 3 additional small weapons (rear-facing) to Buffalo MkII and reworked variants for better synergy in attack builds.
 - Reduced per shot damage of Excaliber Cannon and Apocalypse Cannon line of weapons. Increased recharge/fire rate for those as well.
 - Made some ballistic weapons Energy damage instead of High Explosive damage.
 - Increased Revenant, Paragon and Megalith armor.
 - Increased Megalith dissipation.
 - Decreased Revenant max flux and dissipation.
 - Increased armor and hullpoints for:
    - Pirate Atlas and Prometheus conversions
 - Rebalanced high tier vessel deployment costs. (FP cost slightly adjusted in a couple cases but mostly the same from before)
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Updated Salvage Rig and Ox sprites and hullmods. (That slipped through the cracks apparently between my update from .8 and .9)
 - Fixed another rare yet likely possible occurance of the Hegemony Legion not being found while starting a new campaign and causing a crash. (I never encountered a crash, but I caught an outlier in the faction file that used the old id)
 - Fixed the cost of a couple buffalo variants.
 - Fixed some of the buffalo variants weapon mounts. (they were supposed to be ballistic)
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Reduced sound of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Reduced bullet size of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Removed override behavior of the mod on fighter wings, ships, ship systems, and weapons.
 - Reworked the pirate falcon sprite.
 - Removed all non-essential sprites from the graphics folder. (May improve load performance as lots of duplicates from vanilla were kept there as a refence when spriting)
 - Cleaned up a few more descriptions and encounter flavor dialogue. (I try to do this as often as I can but I always find more typos and awkard wording. I'll keep trying to clean this up as I go and as I notice things)
 - Updated descriptions based upon market changes in the campaign.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 13, 2020, 04:57:10 PM
All vanilla factions in Diplomatic Profile seem to have duplicate traits. If it's applied twice, this might be the reason why hegemony is so aggressive in my game. Modded factions don't have any problem. I have checked with NEX only start and that side worked fine with no duplication.

Thanks for the picture- I'll look into this. It likely has to either be that the Nex settings in Archean Order are wrong or a Nex bug. Maybe a merging issue? Anyway I'll investigate.


Ah yeah I think I figured this out after taking another look at the file structure of Nex config. The JSON merging is duplicating the traits for the vanilla factions and probably doing a couple other unintended things. My fault- Sorry I didn't catch that during the initial Nex tests.

It will be fixed for the next release.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 14, 2020, 01:34:52 AM
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Ah yeah I think I figured this out after taking another look at the file structure of Nex config. The JSON merging is duplicating the traits for the vanilla factions and probably doing a couple other unintended things. My fault- Sorry I didn't catch that during the initial Nex tests.
No need to apologise, I'm already grateful enough that you keep updating it.

Remnant Brilliant-class en masse are very tanky and should cost a bit more DP, scarier than a single Radiant.

Remnant Flash Bomber not worths 30 points. Phantom Phase Bomber is pretty OP. All torpedo ships (Cobra and Dagger) have a super short range, almost point blank and a guarantee it will never return from the trip.

Adamantine Consortium is categorised more of a pirate, no one is thinking about capturing their planet, so it can expand freely.

There's a lack of mining weapon options but this should be low in the priority list.

Some bug on Eventide planet under player control, it has 2 star fortresses (one hegemony, one high tech) where one keeps rebuilding and still under Hegemony control even when the planet is no longer. I have shut both down and rebuild a new one instead.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 15, 2020, 02:37:00 AM
No need to apologise, I'm already grateful enough that you keep updating it.

Thanks, I hope to continue doing so for a long while.  :)

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Remnant Brilliant-class en masse are very tanky and should cost a bit more DP, scarier than a single Radiant.

Interesting. I would have thought the Radiant was ridiculous due to its system. Any more details you can provide for this would be helpful in this case so I can better understand. Does tanky mean shields or overall defenses, for instance? You already said it should have more DP (thanks for the specifics there!) but why is it scarier than a teleporting Radiant with capital weaponry? (I assume this is considering the effectiveness as a DP group for the comparison)

I'll try and get a mock-mission going for test purposes and see how the synergy works. I haven't fought Remnants en masse very often and so I need some kind of way to test these considerations before I can reliably make any changes. This may be pushed back to a further update if I'm honest. There is a lot of changes yet to be made first.

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Remnant Flash Bomber not worths 30 points. Phantom Phase Bomber is pretty OP. All torpedo ships (Cobra and Dagger) have a super short range, almost point blank and a guarantee it will never return from the trip.

Thanks this is helpful. (I always ask questions to get a better perspective if you haven't noticed  :P ) Is the engine homing aspect of the Phantom the issue- or is it the phase defense + projectile hitpoints that cause more reliability in the strike?

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Adamantine Consortium is categorised more of a pirate, no one is thinking about capturing their planet, so it can expand freely.

Not really sure what you mean by this. As in the faction stations that periodically spawn and harass (like pirates/luddic path) make the Adamantine Consortium too strong? What are you specifically observing? It could be that setting pirate behavior has an overall effect in Nex, for instance, that I'm unaware of.

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There's a lack of mining weapon options but this should be low in the priority list.

I'll look into that. The sprite and weapon design won't be a problem there. I *think* I understand how to get mining weapons/ships into factions for Nex. It might take some time and certainly won't be in the next update, but it's noted.

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Some bug on Eventide planet under player control, it has 2 star fortresses (one hegemony, one high tech) where one keeps rebuilding and still under Hegemony control even when the planet is no longer. I have shut both down and rebuild a new one instead.

I reached out to Histidine about this. It is something Nex seems to be doing (at least as far as the high tech battlestation- I don't see this in AO without Nex) and I've tried a couple things to override it but they haven't worked. If it turns out that this is intended then I will have to either remove my edits to that entity for the TC or create an alternate version for mod merging specifically with Nex- and another for faction mods. Likely it will be the former solution.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 15, 2020, 07:53:26 AM
Hello, just registered to say thank you for brilliant mod. In my list it is number one, as I absolutelly agree with your combat balance. By the way is there any way to make combat map bigger? Also can't wait for your next update to fix issues with NEX compatibility, when are you going to upload it approximately?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 15, 2020, 04:42:30 PM
Hello, just registered to say thank you for brilliant mod. In my list it is number one, as I absolutelly agree with your combat balance.

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. :)

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By the way is there any way to make combat map bigger?

Might want to see if Adjusted Sector or Grand Sector has any settings for that- but I'm not aware of a way to do it at least.

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Also can't wait for your next update to fix issues with NEX compatibility, when are you going to upload it approximately?

The *target* release is before this weekend- maybe late tomorrow night. The Nex issues that were discovered is prompting me to try and release it sooner rather than later after I finish cleaning those up.

I never found the procurement mission bug, but I have a couple other things I want to try and do to reproduce it. I'm also debating on sneaking in a few additional colonies that will act as procurement mission generators for the new factions when not running Nex. It seems a little too static otherwise.

Removing the hullmod overrides will have to wait until the update after this one as it will take too much time. I may leave variants alone completely unless it really messes with other mods. We will see I guess.  ;D

An aside about that:

If anyone has given feedback that is not currently implemented in the released notes and would like it to be considered for this update, please remind me! I try and stay on top of that but occasionally I get distracted and forget about things. Generally, I will scroll through the last several pages of the thread to see if I missed anything before I release an update, but I likely won't have time to do that in this case.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 15, 2020, 07:13:56 PM
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Might want to see if Adjusted Sector or Grand Sector has any settings for that- but I'm not aware of a way to do it at least.

Sorry, I meant the map while tactical battle. Not the campaign map, but combat. Is it even possible to do it larger?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 15, 2020, 08:42:47 PM
Sorry, I meant the map while tactical battle. Not the campaign map, but combat. Is it even possible to do it larger?

No worries I knew what you meant. I wasn't sure if those mods also included combat map settings rather than strictly campaign ones. As far as it being possible, likely I don't think so, but I've never really messed with that specific thing so I can't say for sure. It somewhat scales with fleet size (I think), but I don't know what file does that- or if it's even available to modders. Alex would be a better person to ask there for viability, but I don't think I would spend time on that as it would likely be complicated. Never say never, but that is my initial feeling at least.


Some bug on Eventide planet under player control, it has 2 star fortresses (one hegemony, one high tech) where one keeps rebuilding and still under Hegemony control even when the planet is no longer. I have shut both down and rebuild a new one instead.

I meant to say earlier: I think I have this fixed up for the next release. The problem would likely also affect Asher and that has been corrected as well. I don't think any of the other edits Nex makes affects the TC afaik. (Thank you to Histidine for providing the info and giving advice on how to solve this!)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 16, 2020, 05:54:37 AM
Quote
Interesting. I would have thought the Radiant was ridiculous due to its system. Any more details you can provide for this would be helpful in this case so I can better understand. Does tanky mean shields or overall defenses, for instance? You already said it should have more DP (thanks for the specifics there!) but why is it scarier than a teleporting Radiant with capital weaponry? (I assume this is considering the effectiveness as a DP group for the comparison)

I'll try and get a mock-mission going for test purposes and see how the synergy works. I haven't fought Remnants en masse very often and so I need some kind of way to test these considerations before I can reliably make any changes. This may be pushed back to a further update if I'm honest. There is a lot of changes yet to be made first.
I fought them every so often in a high danger sector when no one trying to invade my planet. Mostly approaching the end of the combat, AI will deploy all of the remaining Brilliants it has which usually 2 times the numbers of my capital ship if I don't have a fleet size advantage. Its shield flux is very OP when one ship flux is full it can simply teleport back and immediately another ship can replace its position. So, in 2 vs 1 situation, this Brilliant can really shine as its name implied. Consider its superior flux, speed, and fighter capacity about 3 Brilliants should be equal to a Radiant. Or on another hand, if you want players to suffer, you can consider lowering the deployment cost of Radiant instead. I feel that the first half of the battle, where Radiants are present, is considerably easier than the second half, where only Brilliants remain. I don't think you have to low the difficulty in any way. The way it has access to some Archean Order and Andamantine weapon also feels strange a bit.

PS. If you want my save file to test stuff just tell me

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Thanks this is helpful. (I always ask questions to get a better perspective if you haven't noticed  :P ) Is the engine homing aspect of the Phantom the issue- or is it the phase defense + projectile hitpoints that cause more reliability in the strike?
I think. Because the rest of the bomber lines are all crappy that I feel this Phantom is the best option. LOL. It's not good against a capital ship target as the bombs hit the thick back armor while your capital shoot the front and the damage is quite spread out. But everything else below a capital, it's very effective against. Its bomb can effectively bypass any unraised shield target. If you want to nerf it a bit then consider made the bomb hit the front instead so AI can raise shield in time. But first, you should buff the rest of the bombers before that.

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Not really sure what you mean by this. As in the faction stations that periodically spawn and harass (like pirates/luddic path) make the Adamantine Consortium too strong? What are you specifically observing? It could be that setting pirate behavior has an overall effect in Nex, for instance, that I'm unaware of.
It's the aspect of them be able to colonise new planets where Luddic path and Pirate can't. It's NEX related, so, all other factions treat them as a pirate-like faction. There will be no raid or invasion against a pirate entity, hostility will never change so I can use agents to make them permanently hostile to any faction the same as Pirate/LuddP. No one will be interested in attacking them so they can keep all their newly found planets without worry.

You can keep asking more questions as I'm not native English and I don't know what to type.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 16, 2020, 05:22:38 PM
I believe all your strikecraft already use strikecraft specific versions of their weapons with different stats, don't they? Maybe slightly slower projectiles for the fighter version would help letting PD do a little more bit more work?

Oh also, because they tend to fire en-masse when bomber mounted, they can get very loud. You have to mount a lot of phase orb launchers to make them too loud on a ship, but you don't need that many wings of phase bombers to do it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 16, 2020, 06:18:14 PM
Hello again, just noticed a strange thing. In the description of speed there is a notice. While ship is not generated flux it has increased speed of base + 80. So it works well on most of them. But some has a boost around 20, wich is unexpainable and very annoying. Because they are to slow even to reach the battle. Exaples I found are Megalith and Epiphany. First I thought it is some kind of a nerf of Megalith or smth. But when I noticed that destroyer based carier cant outrun considerabely bigger ships even with speed boost hull mods installed. I guess it is a bug.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 16, 2020, 07:09:55 PM
I fought them every so often in a high danger sector when no one trying to invade my planet. Mostly approaching the end of the combat, AI will deploy all of the remaining Brilliants it has which usually 2 times the numbers of my capital ship if I don't have a fleet size advantage. Its shield flux is very OP when one ship flux is full it can simply teleport back and immediately another ship can replace its position. So, in 2 vs 1 situation, this Brilliant can really shine as its name implied. Consider its superior flux, speed, and fighter capacity about 3 Brilliants should be equal to a Radiant. Or on another hand, if you want players to suffer, you can consider lowering the deployment cost of Radiant instead. I feel that the first half of the battle, where Radiants are present, is considerably easier than the second half, where only Brilliants remain. I don't think you have to low the difficulty in any way. The way it has access to some Archean Order and Andamantine weapon also feels strange a bit.

PS. If you want my save file to test stuff just tell me

Buffed the Radiant significantly and increased its deployment cost. I'm ok with them being very strong for now. We will see how it goes.

(Feel free to link the save for testing though! Definitely couldn't hurt to have an example!)

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I think. Because the rest of the bomber lines are all crappy that I feel this Phantom is the best option. LOL. It's not good against a capital ship target as the bombs hit the thick back armor while your capital shoot the front and the damage is quite spread out. But everything else below a capital, it's very effective against. Its bomb can effectively bypass any unraised shield target. If you want to nerf it a bit then consider made the bomb hit the front instead so AI can raise shield in time. But first, you should buff the rest of the bombers before that.

Thanks I've noted this for when doing another bomber balance pass. Others have given feedback too, so I'll do some testing there before the release. Still hoping for late tonight-early morning tomorrow, but we'll see.

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It's the aspect of them be able to colonise new planets where Luddic path and Pirate can't. It's NEX related, so, all other factions treat them as a pirate-like faction. There will be no raid or invasion against a pirate entity, hostility will never change so I can use agents to make them permanently hostile to any faction the same as Pirate/LuddP. No one will be interested in attacking them so they can keep all their newly found planets without worry.

Oh thanks I understand now! I wasn't aware of this being a component of the pirate setting. I'll have to think of something. The immediate thought would be to prevent them from expanding and then severely buff their core systems defenses to be competitive with core factions and make their systems essentially a "no go" zone except for players (like dangerous warning beacon systems. I may even make a beacon for it to intuit to the player that their should be similar comparisons)

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You can keep asking more questions as I'm not native English and I don't know what to type.

Sure will do! No worries!  :) I'll try and think of more after I go over the last few points a second time. I think I missed a couple things that may be easy to implement.

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I believe all your strikecraft already use strikecraft specific versions of their weapons with different stats, don't they? Maybe slightly slower projectiles for the fighter version would help letting PD do a little more bit more work?

Oh also, because they tend to fire en-masse when bomber mounted, they can get very loud. You have to mount a lot of phase orb launchers to make them too loud on a ship, but you don't need that many wings of phase bombers to do it.

Thanks! I'll look along those lines and see. The engine homing ideally makes the bomber unique, so preserving that aspect is a goal- but not enough to not make a change there if it proves necessary for balance. I'm also thinking about tweaks to bombers that make it harder to kill them without interceptors but also allow pd more of an ability to mitigate their strikes for projectile based bombers. It better separates them from energy bombers and gunships- which is neat imo.

This might be difficult but I'll at least do a pass at it before release. Then I might fine tune it even more for the next release, etc, if that makes sense.

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Hello again, just noticed a strange thing. In the description of speed there is a notice. While ship is not generated flux it has increased speed of base + 80. So it works well on most of them. But some has a boost around 20, wich is unexpainable and very annoying. Because they are to slow even to reach the battle. Exaples I found are Megalith and Epiphany. First I thought it is some kind of a nerf of Megalith or smth. But when I noticed that destroyer based carier cant outrun considerabely bigger ships even with speed boost hull mods installed. I guess it is a bug.

Not a bug, it was intended. Though, I can always look at it again. (There is a hullmod on those ships that explains why its reduced iirc.)

The purpose is to reduce the ability of dedicated carriers to kite assault ships (both in the players and the AIs hands) and to force them to be escorted and protected. The benefit the dedicated carriers get in return (also explained in a hullmod) is that they replace strike craft a lot faster than cruisers that just have a few fighter bays. Base replacement rate is very low otherwise.

So now that the purpose is stated, I don't want it to be annoying, though. So, keeping in mind that the purpose of a carrier in this mod is to provide strike craft assaults at long range (and stay away from the main battle and ideally have escorts against fast targets like frigates), what are you trying to do that you feel they are too slow?

For the Megalith in particular, that is already being changed in the next release. It will be faster though the zero flux boost limitation will remain. It is supposed to be a slow moving but nearly impregnable fortress ship that can fire at extreme ranges.

*EDIT*

Oh! Forgot to mention that I think this is why the collisions happen more often - it was talked about a few posts back. So, in that sense, some changes will likely be necessary to that balance system at some point.

Right now, the metric is that a destroyer carrier can be caught at 0 flux boost speeds by a destroyer not at 0 flux boost speeds. So when the carrier doesn't have the boost and the destroyer does, the destroyer is quite a bit faster. I may try to bring the two numbers closer to an equilibrium to prevent that extreme, while hopefully still keeping the same balance mechanic. Carrier kiting is too strong with the zero flux boost, and disabling that boost when strike craft assault a target interferes with battlecarriers to a large degree otherwise.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 16, 2020, 07:15:31 PM
I really like the distinction between line ships and their strong 0-flux boost and dedicated carriers with extremely good fighter bays.

The hybrid Battle-carriers might be a little too strong though. But they're a lot of fun to fly. And have a role, unlike vanilla where they're basically worse than a dedicated ship of either of the other roles.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 16, 2020, 08:15:19 PM
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Not a bug, it was intended. Though, I can always look at it again. (There is a hullmod on those ships that explains why its reduced iirc.)

The purpose is to reduce the ability of dedicated carriers to kite assault ships (both in the players and the AIs hands) and to force them to be escorted and protected. The benefit the dedicated carriers get in return (also explained in a hullmod) is that they replace strike craft a lot faster than cruisers that just have a few fighter bays. Base replacement rate is very low otherwise.

So now that the purpose is stated, I don't want it to be annoying, though. So, keeping in mind that the purpose of a carrier in this mod is to provide strike craft assaults at long range (and stay away from the main battle and ideally have escorts against fast targets like frigates), what are you trying to do that you feel they are too slow?

For the Megalith in particular, that is already being changed in the next release. It will be faster though the zero flux boost limitation will remain. It is supposed to be a slow moving but nearly impregnable fortress ship that can fire at extreme ranges.

*EDIT*

Oh! Forgot to mention that I think this is why the collisions happen more often - it was talked about a few posts back. So, in that sense, some changes will likely be necessary to that balance system at some point.

Right now, the metric is that a destroyer carrier can be caught at 0 flux boost speeds by a destroyer not at 0 flux boost speeds. So when the carrier doesn't have the boost and the destroyer does, the destroyer is quite a bit faster. I may try to bring the two numbers closer to an equilibrium to prevent that extreme, while hopefully still keeping the same balance mechanic. Carrier kiting is too strong with the zero flux boost, and disabling that boost when strike craft assault a target interferes with battlecarriers to a large degree otherwise.

I see, thank you for answer. But this looks strange, for example when reatreating, the Onslaught has far better chance to survive than little fast carier. Because it is faster... Also about protection  - escort comand here in the game works rather strange. As the escorted ship faces the main threat upfront while ecort ships are preventing enemies from flank attacks. None of this options are good for CV, so usually I make a group from them only and send on their own, as the ai uses the max distance in this case. According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical. Also it won't be able to kite multiple enemies, as it usually attack only one target at once. Maybe the solution is to reduce the boost for all ships to that 20 points.

For example we have a destroyer on the one side, running from slightly faster, but weaker destroyer and battleship on the other. So it will never run away as once he was tagged by enemy destroyer, the battleship will finish him.

About how am I trying to use the carriers. I never played this game with direct control of the ship. So I always rely on AI, Playing as a strategy. This boost makes my capital ships, especially battlecruiser ram the enemy, while my carriers are so far away that they never reach the battle in time. If the enemy is strong it is bad because they can't give adequate fire support on time. And as the combat map is not so big the delay with occuping enough territory can result in being cornered. And if the enemy is weak they are also useless as everithing is done before they arrive.

So in general with the speed boost armored close range units are much more efficient than shield users with high range. For example Pillager is outstanding in terms of combat balance. I have tried thousands of Odissey variants in simulations but none of them was as much effective. When we are talking about 1 on 1 it is ok, the long ranged unit has a chance. But in real it loose all advantage in speed and range while having more enemies. So all speed glass cannon designs have bad performance.

And I say again can't say anything about direct controll as I never use it.

Sorry for poor grammar and chaotic thoughts.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 16, 2020, 08:26:35 PM
Also about the speed boost. In early game I usually use little fleet from fast hightech cruisers and battlecruiser for exploration. So I managed to find a pirate horde once - consisting of mainly converted tankers and heavyfreighters + several destroyers. So in my opinion I should have escaped easily as their fast forces are considerably weaker than mine and not able to inflict any heavy damage. But in real it is just need to be tagged once, and all this mass will become faster than you. May be the solution is to implement more engine disruption weapons?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 16, 2020, 10:24:00 PM
Also about the speed boost. In early game I usually use little fleet from fast hightech cruisers and battlecruiser for exploration. So I managed to find a pirate horde once - consisting of mainly converted tankers and heavyfreighters + several destroyers. So in my opinion I should have escaped easily as their fast forces are considerably weaker than mine and not able to inflict any heavy damage. But in real it is just need to be tagged once, and all this mass will become faster than you. May be the solution is to implement more engine disruption weapons?
Usually, these guys put on either unstable injector or safety override which boosts speed massively, more intense than vanilla. I also advise you to put on an unstable injector yourself. Once tab, the ship will rotate to fight back unless you order them direct retreat.

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I have observed another strange thing weather this is intended. The number of fleets in an invasion seems to exceed the initial report prediction. I found that, at the destination of invasion that predict to have 3 fleets, it's turn out to be 7 fleets which more than double the number.

I'm able to loot 100 Spark Fighters from 3 big Remnant fleets I think the drop rate might be a bit silly here. Also, an evident how OP their fighter capacity is.
(https://i.ibb.co/qsDvhQt/022.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qsDvhQt)

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Also, my save file.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=107Yk0T2HYceKBou2cBcUotpMfxMdg94D

Mods
- Archean Order
- Nexerelin + LazyzLib
- Active Gates
- Resist Inspections
- SpeedUp

Quick Description: I have a lot of gates activated for convenience. One directly in Jahannam Where the high danger sector situated, this save will start off here. All my stuff is stored on Surganna planet in Karkara which also has a gate. Trantor, another settlement, also has a gate as well as multiple places in the core sector but not all of them.

You should check out Directorship Headquarters with 7 industries.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 16, 2020, 10:50:20 PM
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Usually, these guys put on either unstable injector or safety override which boosts speed massively, more intense than vanilla. I also advise you to put on an unstable injector yourself. Once tab, the ship will rotate to fight back unless you order them direct retreat.

This mod installed gives from 20/25 boost speed, while no flux gives 80, so it didn't help. Also the direction of the ship does not affect the speed, even they face the enemy the speed they go to the edge of the map stays the same. Usually they rotate facing the enemy because of the weapons installed. The ship without weapon will not rotate.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 16, 2020, 11:41:53 PM
I see, thank you for answer. But this looks strange, for example when reatreating, the Onslaught has far better chance to survive than little fast carier. Because it is faster... Also about protection  - escort comand here in the game works rather strange. As the escorted ship faces the main threat upfront while ecort ships are preventing enemies from flank attacks. None of this options are good for CV, so usually I make a group from them only and send on their own, as the ai uses the max distance in this case. According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical. Also it won't be able to kite multiple enemies, as it usually attack only one target at once. Maybe the solution is to reduce the boost for all ships to that 20 points.

For example we have a destroyer on the one side, running from slightly faster, but weaker destroyer and battleship on the other. So it will never run away as once he was tagged by enemy destroyer, the battleship will finish him.

About how am I trying to use the carriers. I never played this game with direct control of the ship. So I always rely on AI, Playing as a strategy. This boost makes my capital ships, especially battlecruiser ram the enemy, while my carriers are so far away that they never reach the battle in time. If the enemy is strong it is bad because they can't give adequate fire support on time. And as the combat map is not so big the delay with occuping enough territory can result in being cornered. And if the enemy is weak they are also useless as everithing is done before they arrive.

So in general with the speed boost armored close range units are much more efficient than shield users with high range. For example Pillager is outstanding in terms of combat balance. I have tried thousands of Odissey variants in simulations but none of them was as much effective. When we are talking about 1 on 1 it is ok, the long ranged unit has a chance. But in real it loose all advantage in speed and range while having more enemies. So all speed glass cannon designs have bad performance.

And I say again can't say anything about direct controll as I never use it.

Sorry for poor grammar and chaotic thoughts.

I love all the detail! It makes me take another pass at the design balance and that is always useful. Not saying anything is set in stone, but, responding to key points with my overall thoughts:

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None of this options are good for CV, so usually I make a group from them only and send on their own, as the ai uses the max distance in this case. According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical. Also it won't be able to kite multiple enemies, as it usually attack only one target at once. Maybe the solution is to reduce the boost for all ships to that 20 points.

I get what you are saying here, definitely. I think this might be due to coming from vanilla combat where escorting larger ships with smaller carriers is a good idea. Here, it is not recommended due to the speed differential (where escorts are typically supposed to be faster than the escorted ship). Here, carriers as a designation are your force projection using bombers/gunships, or the defense against those bombers/gunships/missiles by using interceptors/fighters. (Hybrids and specialists exist even within those roles)

So, you have to think of them as support ships that need babying either by you or the AI escorts you give them. They aren't escorts themselves unless you need their wings to support your allied ship directly in the moment. In that sense, it is situational, but overall they are the ones that should be escorted.

When mass selecting them and issuing a strike on a target they can effectively deal damage without taking any in return. As far as combat balance is concerned, this is a really big deal. They need to be weak when engaged (unless the ship is a hybrid) to make their strengths not feel overwhelming (remember practically everything has access to strike craft in this mod but dedicated carriers can send wave after wave in some situations)

If you think about vanilla, though- this still applies. If you try and escort a really fast capital with slow destroyers- same thing happens. Here, this is more common because the difference between types is more accentuated so it is easier to do.

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my carriers are so far away that they never reach the battle in time

As in the ships themselves or their wings? The wings should. Maybe I have miscalculated range/speed of the wings if not. The carriers should ideally stay away and let their wings/missiles do their work. Their close range weapons are purely to defend against swarm/interdiction tactics from frigates that are maneuverable enough to catch them when isolated. (That's the idea, anyway)

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For example we have a destroyer on the one side, running from slightly faster,

The slightly faster part is the issue for me. That requirement makes the fastest destroyer arguably the most attractive (unless poorly armed) to accommodate and stop all kiting ships of that hullsize (in principle) rather than promote combat tactics within the hull size through designation variances which create a rock-paper-scissors effect. The actual complexity of the design comes from the fact that rock is so good against scissors that it transcends hull size (in that it can fight +1 hull size up when it counters the designation)

When I say "designation" btw, there is even more nuance there. A bomber carrier is different from a gunship carrier and is different from a missile heavy carrier, etc. And on that note, PD frigates are designed to beat bomber carriers, but not necessarily gunship carriers. It depends. Interceptor carriers beat bomber carriers, but not fighter carriers specializing in anti-interceptor fighters.

That's just a couple examples, but overall:

Range is everything in vanilla, and carriers have much larger range and sustainability than anything else except glass cannon range builds. In this mod, tactics are more important through countering what your enemy is bringing against you. The idea is that the variables are random enough that these tactics can never truly be predicted, but require in the moment evaluation during mid-battle.

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So in general with the speed boost armored close range units are much more efficient than shield users with high range. For example Pillager is outstanding in terms of combat balance. I have tried thousands of Odissey variants in simulations but none of them was as much effective. When we are talking about 1 on 1 it is ok, the long ranged unit has a chance. But in real it loose all advantage in speed and range while having more enemies. So all speed glass cannon designs have bad performance.

Exactly! If armored close range units outnumber shielded long range units, there is an actual fight instead of a kiting to victory scenario where numbers don't even matter. Numbers should always matter here.

(Btw kiting glass cannons are always super OP in the players hands and cause the game to be much easier for skilled pilots. The AI can't compare to a skilled pilot. So in that sense to increase the difficulty while keeping a larger variety of viable ships- this is intended- at least in part)

But!- that being said... remember that escort mentality I was talking about? Try equipping some speedier ships with flux free weapons and defense mods, then have those escort those glass cannons. Suddenly I think you will find that they perform much better when they dart in- unleash hell- then safely retreat behind their escorts.

At the end of the day, imo, part of this comes down to not making this information apparent and available upfront. After this release, I will update the tactics manual with more detail while I fix the inevitable bugs that will crop up.

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Usually, these guys put on either unstable injector or safety override which boosts speed massively, more intense than vanilla. I also advise you to put on an unstable injector yourself. Once tab, the ship will rotate to fight back unless you order them direct retreat.

This mod installed gives from 20/25 boost speed, while no flux gives 80, so it didn't help. Also the direction of the ship does not affect the speed, even they face the enemy the speed they go to the edge of the map stays the same. Usually they rotate facing the enemy because of the weapons installed. The ship without weapon will not rotate.

If unstable injector made the carriers able to kite, it would be a "must have" hullmod for them. It is already very attractive since the reduction in weapon range typically doesn't impact carriers much. If the reduced vulnerability to engines is still a thing (I think it is iirc, but not sure) then that is something that would affect them. Otherwise? The only thing competing with that hullmod would be better strike craft. (At a first glance)

*EDIT*

Forgot this one:

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According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical.

It is definitely logical, I agree. The problem for me, is that then masses of cruiser-sized carriers annihilate battleships because they can infinitely kite without retribution of any kind- even in a fleet scenario. In the mod, if a commander knows what is going on they can actually chase down and kill the carriers piecemeal- or in the best case scenario all at once. Unless, that is, the carriers have escorts to provide a screen to the carriers and delay the assault push long enough for the strikes to weaken the battleship.

The high zero flux boost makes this possible. It allows for assault ships to reinforce an area of the battle map in a short amount of time and fill the gaps of the combat line. In vanilla, it makes it possible for the player to catch most ships depending upon size (since most AI ships use weapons- which in turn costs flux- so AI ships are constantly slowed down - even carriers since they engage fighters which negates the zero flux boost) but here it allows for diverse tactical combinations where assault ships are fast, tanky, and provide pressure. Strike vessels are fast until they strike with huge damage- then vulnerable without escorts. Carriers are slow, typically weak in defense, but can strike or provide anti-strike or assault support (so really all roles) from really, really far away.
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I have observed another strange thing weather this is intended. The number of fleets in an invasion seems to exceed the initial report prediction. I found that, at the destination of invasion that predict to have 3 fleets, it's turn out to be 7 fleets which more than double the number.

I'm able to loot 100 Spark Fighters from 3 big Remnant fleets I think the drop rate might be a bit silly here. Also, an evident how OP their fighter capacity is.

Might be fixed already since I've removed Nex config duplicates. Not 100% sure.

*EDIT*

Re: Spark drop rate: Thanks! That is a little extreme. Due to the strike-craft-heavy nature of the mod, they need access to a large amount of them. But the drop rate should definitely be reduced. I'll try and squeeze that in.

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Also, my save file.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=107Yk0T2HYceKBou2cBcUotpMfxMdg94D

Mods
- Archean Order
- Nexerelin + LazyzLib
- Active Gates
- Resist Inspections
- SpeedUp

Quick Description: I have a lot of gates activated for convenience. One directly in Jahannam Where the high danger sector situated, this save will start off here. All my stuff is stored on Surganna planet in Karkara which also has a gate. Trantor, another settlement, also has a gate as well as multiple places in the core sector but not all of them.

Thanks! Won't be tonight, but I'll take a look to see if I can get additional insight for the release after this one! I appreciate the effort you have taken here!

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You should check out Directorship Headquarters with 7 industries.

Already fixed for the release.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 17, 2020, 12:44:15 AM
Thank you for detailed answer.

If you don't mind I will coment just one part right now.

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Exactly! If armored close range units outnumber shielded long range units, there is an actual fight instead of a kiting to victory scenario where numbers don't even matter. Numbers should always matter here.

(Btw kiting glass cannons are always super OP in the players hands and cause the game to be much easier for skilled pilots. The AI can't compare to a skilled pilot. So in that sense to increase the difficulty while keeping a larger variety of viable ships- this is intended- at least in part)

But!- that being said... remember that escort mentality I was talking about? Try equipping some speedier ships with flux free weapons and defense mods, then have those escort those glass cannons. Suddenly I think you will find that they perform much better when they dart in- unleash hell- then safely retreat behind their escorts.

So if we are talking about large numbers. The maximum number you can have is 30 ships + probably not all of them will perfom in battle. And right now fitting a fast and long range vessel is not vitable at all. There is no need in it. It will occupie a slot of an armored close range/more damage unit, wich will perform better in every situation. Also according to the flux free weapons. There are too many of them wich perform better than flux cost one, with the difference like 100 range or 1 point of ordnance, with comparable dmg/sec, this seems strange a little. Also all energy type flux free has 100% type damage to everything. For example compare small size heavy blaster with heavy pulse. Heavy pulse is better in everything though costs less. Actually for myself I have found no better weapon for small energy. Heavy pulse in every slot + void driver for point defence.What is the point in range if we are talking about mass fight. So as I noticed the most long range cannons either have very little damage like beams, (by the way I have found no use of them) or have a very big flux cost / ordnance cost and really good dmg. The second option is OK, because you can have a ship wich deals massive damage from afar guarded by allies. Usually it generates flux more than he can dissipate. I found a good use of them. But what is the point of so called support ships and weapons? wich have big range / flux cost / and not a big dmg compared to everything. In vanilla game you can use a pack of same vessel to kite enemy pack. Here because we can't kite is there any point in such weapon? I mean if we assume that we have a limit of 30 ships and for example that we also have a limited amount of money (so this 30 won't be all capital) Is there a place for a fast long range ship taking in to consideration it will replace someone.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 17, 2020, 01:19:01 AM
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It is definitely logical, I agree. The problem for me, is that then masses of cruiser-sized carriers annihilate battleships because they can infinitely kite without retribution of any kind- even in a fleet scenario. In the mod, if a commander knows what is going on they can actually chase down and kill the carriers piecemeal- or in the best case scenario all at once. Unless, that is, the carriers have escorts to provide a screen to the carriers and delay the assault push long enough for the strikes to weaken the battleship.


I need to notice if we are talking about kite - player can. But AI can't. The map has borders here. Even the player will have to retreat maybe dealing some losses to the battleships. Is it bad btw? Also I haven't found carriers deal sugnifficant damage espessially to heavy ships. There are too few efficent bombers especcialy low/mid grade. Plenty of good gunships and interceptors -+ yes, they can deal with small ships but with large one it is more like suppressive fire generating flux to the enemy. Torbedo bombers peformance is quite strange, they shoot torpedo from a distance closer than point defence work. And if it is pirate crafts for example sometime they can't even shot their torpedo dying earlier. We have a lot slots to fill with PD. So even if assume that we will remove the bonus of speed there is no way the cruiser/destroyer carrier fitted by you, will destroy the capital ship also fitted by you. It is my experience of course.

What I mean right now I can't see stone paper scissor system. To simplify armored/slow beats fast close range, but loose to long range / medium speed. While the last loose to the second. And if we are talking about fleet composition ideally if every ship has some role and value. So for example a well balanced fleet made by you can beat the same fleet consisting of one type ship also made by you if we assume both fleets have the same value and cost of equipment in total. If it is so it is great.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 17, 2020, 02:04:20 AM
Thank you for detailed answer.

If you don't mind I will coment just one part right now.

I appreciate the dialogue.  :)

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Exactly! If armored close range units outnumber shielded long range units, there is an actual fight instead of a kiting to victory scenario where numbers don't even matter. Numbers should always matter here.

(Btw kiting glass cannons are always super OP in the players hands and cause the game to be much easier for skilled pilots. The AI can't compare to a skilled pilot. So in that sense to increase the difficulty while keeping a larger variety of viable ships- this is intended- at least in part)

But!- that being said... remember that escort mentality I was talking about? Try equipping some speedier ships with flux free weapons and defense mods, then have those escort those glass cannons. Suddenly I think you will find that they perform much better when they dart in- unleash hell- then safely retreat behind their escorts.

So if we are talking about large numbers. The maximum number you can have is 30 ships + probably not all of them will perfom in battle.

I think the fleet size of enemies might change as a minor caveat to this, but large numbers in battles will likely still be desirable and so I appreciate that the player has limited numbers to work with. Definitely a good point.

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And right now fitting a fast and long range vessel is not vitable at all. There is no need in it. It will occupie a slot of an armored close range/more damage unit, wich will perform better in every situation. Also according to the flux free weapons. There are too many of them wich perform better than flux cost one, with the difference like 100 range or 1 point of ordnance, with comparable dmg/sec, this seems strange a little. Also all energy type flux free has 100% type damage to everything. For example compare small size heavy blaster with heavy pulse. Heavy pulse is better in everything though costs less. Actually for myself I have found no better weapon for small energy. Heavy pulse in every slot + void driver for point defence.What is the point in range if we are talking about mass fight. So as I noticed the most long range cannons either have very little damage like beams, (by the way I have found no use of them) or have a very big flux cost / ordnance cost and really good dmg. The second option is OK, because you can have a ship wich deals massive damage from afar guarded by allies. Usually it generates flux more than he can dissipate. I found a good use of them. But what is the point of so called support ships and weapons? wich have big range / flux cost / and not a big dmg compared to everything. In vanilla game you can use a pack of same vessel to kite enemy pack. Here because we can't kite is there any point in such weapon? I mean if we assume that we have a limit of 30 ships and for example that we also have a limited amount of money (so this 30 won't be all capital) Is there a place for a fast long range ship taking in to consideration it will replace someone.

This answer is awesome! I want to get more feedback on specifics, if you don't mind, (I know I ask a lot of questions but in my mind I want to better understand the mindset going in and the specifics of the problem gives me more details/things to work on/adjust) so in this case:

Quote
[long range vessels] will occupie a slot of an armored close range/more damage unit, wich will perform better in every situation.

If you look at the cost effectiveness of combat deployment: screen + support + strike is far more cost efficient than any one of the same categories of units massed because of the synergy between the tactics of each type of unit. So in that sense, if you feel that assault ships are more cost efficient in large numbers, why do you feel this way? This is not intended to be sure, but specifics will help me make changes. Sure, they are faster and deal continuous damage- but they can't spike damage like strike vessels- which don't sacrifice as much health as fire support vessels to do massive damage all at once and have a larger window to retreat behind better defended vessels. The upfront spike can mean the difference between retreating effectively and regaining shields or, well- not. That is kind of a big difference when assault ships trying to close and do the same thing won't deal the damage as quickly- and so can't perform the same role.

Quote
with the difference like 100 range or 1 point of ordnance, with comparable dmg/sec, this seems strange a little.

I'll look at this, thanks! Do you have examples? Are you reading the tooltips correctly to understand the spike damage? It's not always about dmg/sec, for instance. Damage per salvo is important too- due to the above explanation. Blasting all your damage at once is a large benefit.

Quote
For example compare small size heavy blaster with heavy pulse. Heavy pulse is better in everything though costs less.
Quote
What is the point in range if we are talking about mass fight.

Well, Heavy Pulse Cannon seems better at efficiency and has a lot longer range, but Heavy Blaster has better strike damage but shorter range. These two comments seem to contradict one another based upon your description, so could you clarify? I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what you mean, sorry!

Quote
But what is the point of so called support ships and weapons? wich have big range / flux cost / and not a big dmg compared to everything.

Their range is key. If supported, they contribute damage without any risk. Unsupported, they are subpar. Even on a large map with huge numbers, force concentration is limited to ship collision size and weapon range. The fire support ships (especially missiles) can add extra force concentration with smaller spacial considerations. That is the benefit they bring.

Quote
Here because we can't kite is there any point in such weapon? I mean if we assume that we have a limit of 30 ships and for example that we also have a limited amount of money (so this 30 won't be all capital) Is there a place for a fast long range ship taking in to consideration it will replace someone.

I hope so! It is about fleet synergy increasing cost effectiveness though, rather than any one type of vessel feeling too powerful.

I need to notice if we are talking about kite - player can. But AI can't.

Agreed, at least not as well- though some! I want to remove this from being possible in favor of diverse tactics due to fleet synergy. It's not that I want flying a ship personally to be less important rather than reducing the impact of what I consider OP player strategies that are too attractive and provide too much power creep over other options.

Quote
Also I haven't found carriers deal sugnifficant damage espessially to heavy ships. There are too few efficent bombers especcialy low/mid grade. Plenty of good gunships and interceptors -+ yes, they can deal with small ships but with large one it is more like suppressive fire generating flux to the enemy. Torbedo bombers peformance is quite strange, they shoot torpedo from a distance closer than point defence work. And if it is pirate crafts for example sometime they can't even shot their torpedo dying earlier. We have a lot slots to fill with PD. So even if assume that we will remove the bonus of speed there is no way the cruiser/destroyer carrier fitted by you, will destroy the capital ship also fitted by you. It is my experience of course.

Nice details! This will help and I will reference this later. I already have some changes for bombers in the update, but this detail is great.  :)

Quote
What I mean right now I can't see stone paper scissor system.
Quote
To simplify armored/slow beats fast close range, but loose to long range / medium speed. While the last loose to the second.

The first quote makes me want to know why you feel this way.
The second quote sort of indicates a rock-paper-scissors aspect, and so I'm a little confused.

Quote
So for example a well balanced fleet made by you can beat the same fleet consisting of one type ship also made by you if we assume both fleets have the same value and cost of equipment in total. If it is so it is great.

That's the goal at least.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 17, 2020, 03:18:31 AM
Still hoping for late tonight-early morning tomorrow, but we'll see.

Nope. Going to need to look at a few more things. Lots of changes have been made:

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 - Overall Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.
    - Reworked mod economy to be more even in market share and resource spread between factions (in general) while hopefully still nurturing trade opportunities for the player through the simulation environment.
   -NEX Changes
      - Adjusted vanilla factions' starting relationships, diplomacy chance, and max relationships for all new factions.
      - Adjusted some extremes within new factions' starting relations and diplomacy chances. (Trying to stick to lore intentions here, but still learning Nex to a large degree. A first pass.)
      - Added base raiding behavior and increased invasion power of Adamantine Consortium. (should have no allies and needs this to remain a threat to the player/sector is the idea, but feedback welcome)
                - Removed pirate behavior features for Nex with Adamantine Consortium and reduced colonization chance overall. (Still happens occasionally)

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added remote Luddic Church colony with refining, heavy industry and an additional military base with a large hazard rating.
    - Added two additional Sci-Corps colonies to better separate out industries and resources.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Yama and reduced the station at Nachiketa to an Orbital Station (down from a Battlestation).
    - Added Fuel Production and High Command to Gilead (based in the star fortress instead of the surface from a lore perspective)
    - Added Orbital Works to Tartesseus (again not on the surface- see above).
    - Increased size of Traveler's Triumph Station to 5 and added Heavy Industry.
    - Upgraded Traveler's Triumph Station to a Battlestation (up from an Orbital Station).
    - Removed Orbital Station from Salamanca to allow more raiding opportunities there.
    - Changed Kazeron's Military Base to a High Command.
    - Added a standard independent orbital station to Derinkuyu Mining Station to add to its defenses.
    - Removed patrol hq from Yesod and Ilm.
    - Changed ground defenses to heavy batteries on Yesod. Reduced heavy batteries to ground defenses on Mazalot.

 --- Fleet Composition Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced number of dedicated carriers in Hegemony fleets. (partly for vanilla lore adherence and also to create more faction variety in battle tactics between factions)

-----

Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Reduced sustained DPS of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Revamped ballistic weapon FX under these principles:
   - Yellow-Orange-Red color indication of assault-heavy assault-strike weaponry.
   - Bullet size now scales by tier to facilitate an intuitive learning of combat threats to armor and better teach a player when to raise shields.
 - Doubled cooldown of Phase Teleporter.
 - Added weapon slots and increased OP (if necessary) to most civillian ships to help prevent them from being overly vulnerable against fighters and missiles during retreat battles.
 - Added additional weapon slots and increased OP of some pirate and luddic conversion vessels (they are too weak).
 - Added a rear-facing small weapon to the Valkyrie and Valkyrie MkII to help give minor protection to its engines against interdiction-class missiles and upgraded the Valkyrie's central missile weapon size to medium to better combat fighters.
 - Added a built-in beam range increase to the Onslaught XIV hull to support it's built in foward weapons. (The AI uses them as a cost effective alternative more often now - even when equipping Devastators)
 - Added 3 additional small weapons (rear-facing) to Buffalo MkII and reworked variants for better synergy in attack builds.
 - Reduced per shot damage of Excaliber Cannon and Apocalypse Cannon line of weapons. Increased recharge/fire rate for those as well.
 - Made some ballistic weapons Energy damage instead of High Explosive damage.
 - Increased Revenant, Paragon and Megalith armor.
 - Increased Megalith dissipation. (And deployment cost)
 - Decreased Revenant max flux and dissipation.
 - Increased armor and hullpoints for:
    - Pirate Atlas and Prometheus conversions
 - Rebalanced high tier vessel deployment costs. (FP cost slightly adjusted in a couple cases but mostly the same from before)
 - Increased speed of missile projectiles from bombers.
 - Increased attack range for missile projectile bombers.
 - Reduced hitpoints of missile projectiles changed above.
 - Reduced speed of phase orbs from Phantom bombers. Reduced their hit points. Doubled their turn rate.
 - Increased flight time of Hivemind orbs.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Updated Salvage Rig and Ox sprites and hullmods. (That slipped through the cracks apparently between my update from .8 and .9)
 - Fixed another rare yet likely possible occurance of the Hegemony Legion not being found while starting a new campaign and causing a crash. (I never encountered a crash, but I caught an outlier in the faction file that used the old id)
 - Fixed the cost of a couple buffalo variants.
 - Fixed some of the buffalo variants' weapon mounts. (they were supposed to be ballistic)
 - Corrected tech name and font color of the XIV Battlegroup vessels.
 - Added tech type to drones.
 - Removed Light Ion Cannon as a base blueprint in favor of it as a Sci-Corps weapon.
 - Removed duplicate industries and diplomacy traits for vanilla factions when running the TC with Nex.
 - Doubled turn rate of Hivemind Orb and Phase Orb to help prevent timeout from maneuverable targets which may cause friendly fire.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Reduced sound of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Reduced bullet size of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Removed override behavior of the mod on fighter wings, ships, ship systems, and weapons.
 - Reworked the pirate falcon sprite.
 - Removed all non-essential sprites from the graphics folder. (May improve load performance as lots of duplicates from vanilla were kept there as a refence when spriting)
 - Cleaned up a few more descriptions and encounter flavor dialogue. (I try to do this as often as I can but I always find more typos and awkard wording. I'll keep trying to clean this up as I go and as I notice things)
 - Updated descriptions based upon market changes in the campaign.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 17, 2020, 05:40:43 AM
Something to keep in mind: When talking about "fast" ships, that means it needs to have an active speed boost and a loadout that lets it keep the speed boost active. The moment you try to build a long range fast ship and your long range weapons are strike weapons, you're not going to have a fast ship anymore. You can absolutely make a ship like that, and it will absolutely be able to kite (because it's long range weapons will disable the speed boost on the opponent, giving it a massive speed advantage) but you have to be very careful with the weapons you use.

Your heavy pulse vs heavy blaster comparison, for example: The heavy pulse cannon has 0 flux cost, so it's great for builds that want to preserve the speed boost. But it also has much lower per-shot damage, making it extremely bad against armor. And generally armor is an even bigger deal in this than it is in vanilla (and it's already a huge deal in vanilla). It's also got much worse burst damage. Blaster is also much better on an SO ship, due to inherently shorter range and flux cost.

Weapons in AO are a lot more complicated than in base Starsector. Even ship types are - because of the speed boost almost all the ship sizes move at very similar speeds out of combat and it's their role (carrier, line ship, PD frigate), the loadout (0 flux, strike or a mix) and the pressure of being in a fight that's the source of the mobility differences. For example in regular Starsector a smaller ship can flank during an engagement, just because being smaller means it's inherently faster. That doesn't really work here anymore.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 17, 2020, 10:12:17 AM
Now, what an intense discussion we have here. Generally in this mod, if you rule this sky then you rule the battle. A fighter advantage means an almost 50% increase in winning chance. Fighters can tank bullet, harass capital ship into rotating it shield, cause flameout, PD better than you ship, etc. If you were to fight Remnant without any carrier, I would like to say, it's impossible. If you are looking for a bomber now, hint hint Archean Order.

Burst weapons in this mod are very very strong something a flux free weapons can't be compared to. Don't let those nice DPS numbers fool you. You won't be firing it for more than a few seconds. A single burst can end an enemy ship or cap their flux. Keep in mind that the flux you spend on firing weapons, especially ballistic, is much cheaper than taking it. You will always come out profitable from an encounter every time. The time it takes for the enemy to dissipate flux, you are ready for a second round. If you're having full flux from firing a salvo then I advise you to reconsider your loadout mix and match with low flux cost weapon.

If you're having a problem with the slow carrier then utilise battle formations. Put on an unstable injector also help carrier a lot. Set up the formation in the middle of the map or slightly further if your ships are fast enough. A good battle formation means I can beat any fleet in the game without casualty, heck I already did 3 v 1 with Hegemony and fought with 4 Radiants. A battle formation also means you can now position your fire support ship correctly, tanking/close quarter ship at the front, your huge long range glass canon 1 tiles back with room for them to fall back and vent flux. Your carrier in the middle or hybrid with long range missile in wing formation away from the front line. Fighters are an effective solution to push back enemy ships and maintain the formation, harass small ships that try to break in. In this formation configuration, speed doesn't matter much your ship will always have nearby ships for support. It will automatically sink into the formation when taking heavy fire any ship that tries to follow into the formation will be gang upon.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 17, 2020, 02:34:57 PM
Quote
If you're having a problem with the slow carrier then utilise battle formations. Put on an unstable injector also help carrier a lot.

Sorry may be little misunderstanding. My bad.

I don't have this problem in the end game. Also I simply don't use them exept astral. when I have billions of money and can afford a fleet of capital ships. And battles are lasting for a long time, and
Quote
you rule this sky then you rule the battle
Yes everithing works fine in big battles. And the suppression effect the crafts make here is rather valuable. Though the torpedo strike crafts need to have little more impact in my mind.


I have some kind of misunerstanding on the start of the game where you have just bought five ships destroyer or cruiser base and your weapons are old garbage. You have limited money and need to make choice of what ship to buy.  What is the role of a carrier here? what is the place for destroyer base carrier in the game?

What I am tying to say you can replace it with any other ship and it will perfor better in smaller battle. The impact of one single carrier is too low.

And if we are talking about big battles there also no need of them, as the capital carrier costs far more less in comand points comparing to its perfomance.

Also for example have you ever used condor / coverted carrier? It's price is around the same as hammerhead destroyer. I can't imagine the situation where
I will choose condor instead of hammerhead.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 17, 2020, 03:28:25 PM
Though the torpedo strike crafts need to have little more impact in my mind.

As well as a strike sortie range increase (they release torpedoes from farther away to avoid taking ship fire) I reset the damage of the torpedoes and annihilator rockets to their standard amounts for bombers, and I am buffing their defenses a bit. That should help carriers be a little more competitive in the early game since low tier bombers should perform more reliably and, also, require interceptors and fighters to truly counter. Ideally, PD will mitigate the projectiles but not often kill the bombers so it's not useless in that sense.

Quote
I have some kind of misunerstanding on the start of the game where you have just bought five ships destroyer or cruiser base and your weapons are old garbage. You have limited money and need to make choice of what ship to buy.  What is the role of a carrier here? what is the place for destroyer base carrier in the game?

What I am tying to say you can replace it with any other ship and it will perfor better in smaller battle. The impact of one single carrier is too low.

And if we are talking about big battles there also no need of them, as the capital carrier costs far more less in comand points comparing to its perfomance.

Also for example have you ever used condor / coverted carrier? It's price is around the same as hammerhead destroyer. I can't imagine the situation where
I will choose condor instead of hammerhead.

The bomber changes might help make this feel better- hopefully without breaking assault fighters. As far as carrier choice considerations in late game, Astral is definitely a high tier option. One thing to consider here, however, is that you are then concentrating all your strike craft. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes than can limit how many targets you can effectively hit or support (can't forget about supporting smaller ships that get themselves in trouble from large bomber attacks. Command points are a factor though, as you've said, but that might in turn make skills or hullmods that improve the amount of those you get more attractive. I kind of ignore them otherwise.

Definitely something I will think about. How much more cost efficient do you feel capital carriers are than smaller ones? Is it a "no contest" kind of feeling, or just that they are suboptimal?

The condor might be priced a little too high for its value over a hammerhead. Depends upon if its a faction variant or not, though. Are we talking about the standard one in this case?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 17, 2020, 04:21:05 PM
Quote
Are we talking about the standard one in this case?

The designs I can manufacture on shipyard. I have almost all recipes. Usually they are pretty well, and some changes will not influence the cost much. Also all comparison I make is from my own experience of using different ships in my fleet. And testing their effectiveness in similar simulations.

As always I have a little dissapointment that the size matters the same as in vanilla game. So the fleet consits from Megalith or Astrals only will perform better in every situation. The problem here is the deployment cost for each ship. Right now Megalith is cheaper than 2 Odysey class to compare. By the way, is it possible to increase the deployment points for each size hull already deployed?

Also the new ships of Archean and Consortium are way better than other nations. But this is logical and can be explayned by lore, same as remnants good ships. It is ok when we have bad and good ships in the same class, and usually access to that ships differs in early and mid game.

The issue I only really struggled were missing roles for some ammount of ships and the light carriers are number 1 in this list. So basically you don't need them on every stage of the game, as the whole class.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 17, 2020, 11:12:33 PM
The designs I can manufacture on shipyard. I have almost all recipes. Usually they are pretty well, and some changes will not influence the cost much. Also all comparison I make is from my own experience of using different ships in my fleet. And testing their effectiveness in similar simulations.

As always I have a little dissapointment that the size matters the same as in vanilla game. So the fleet consits from Megalith or Astrals only will perform better in every situation. The problem here is the deployment cost for each ship. Right now Megalith is cheaper than 2 Odysey class to compare. By the way, is it possible to increase the deployment points for each size hull already deployed?

Also the new ships of Archean and Consortium are way better than other nations. But this is logical and can be explayned by lore, same as remnants good ships. It is ok when we have bad and good ships in the same class, and usually access to that ships differs in early and mid game.

The issue I only really struggled were missing roles for some ammount of ships and the light carriers are number 1 in this list. So basically you don't need them on every stage of the game, as the whole class.

This will probably take more time than the next update to address, but I wanted to briefly respond to say that it is under consideration- especially the light carrier part! Deployment costs have already changed slightly so for now I want to see how that plays out.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: AffectiveLead on April 18, 2020, 07:17:03 AM
Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 18, 2020, 01:42:24 PM
Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0)

First off, I'm very flattered you have taken the time to do this work and that you and your friends like AO.  :)

As Thaago mentioned on the linked thread, however, Interstellar Imperium is Dark.Revenant's work so I will need his permission to give any feedback there. I know you are doing this for yourself and a couple of friends and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't publicly release anything without the author's permission.

If you are just looking for balance tips, send me a PM. (I think this should be ok since it's personal use, but if for some reason it's not- moderators please let me know!)

As far as the AO balance changes:

Spoiler
improved not so relevant weapons such as
Avalanche Cannon(less flux generation), Iridium Cannon(less flux generation + opportunity to be mediocre Point defense) , Icer Gun(same as Iridium), Gatling Laser (lower dmg, faster charges,lower flux), Sabots(increase hp a little), Heavy Gatling (a little lower dmg but faster sharges ), Obliterators(both) now don't shoot at fighters, Tachyon Lance ( a little lesser flux generation and lesser cooldown(now ai paragons can do something and you have opportunity to use this "ultimate" weapon as weapon not just fun laser)
 change  Atlas mkII - safety overrides mod now not inbuild but installed anyway on all pirates Atlas. This allow you to make  this ship more useful without changing the balance of pirates
[close]

Just a note: You can always feel free to give feedback on this thread for those types of things. You can certainly make changes yourself, don't get me wrong, but reporting them allows me to make changes that will be more accessible to everyone else too (in that they wouldn't have to search for other balance modules). I generally don't mind anyone releasing stuff like this, but reporting it and having it changed here will make bug-fixing easier in the long run. Still, thanks again for the time you have taken and I will take the above feedback into consideration.

*EDIT*

I already made an edit based off your suggestions. I wanted to also give more explanation of the above comment to ensure that you don't think I'm discouraging you and I am really trying to help you and everyone that uses this mod.

To give an example of what I was talking about as far as potentially causing things that can be perceived as bugs without a way for me to easily trace the problem:

In the AO balance tweaks mod, you changed the Obliterator Cannon and Heavy Obliterator Cannon to a strike weapon to prevent it from auto targeting fighters. This makes sense and I agree with the change and have implemented it for the next release. Thanks for the feedback!

However, this negatively effects ~4 variants split between the Justicar and Revenant. How? A strike weapon designation prevents the entire weapon group the weapon is in from being placed on autofire when the ship is under AI control. So for variants (which could have been many more but luckily it was a relatively small impact in this case) that had Obliterators alongside Phase Cannons, for instance, the Phase Cannons would no longer autofire with this change. When those Phase Cannons that otherwise would target fighters never fire in some instances, or when multiple faster ships are targeting the affected vessel and it's Phase Cannons either don't fire or have firing delays (AI doesn't switch strike groups fast enough in some situations when surrounded) some players might think of it as a bug and report it here. If they don't say they've installed those changes from your thread, (you override the changes rather than it being present on a mod list, so even the mod list wouldn't tell me this) then when I check and can't reproduce this in my version it looks like a "ghost in the machine" kind of issue (won't translate well and won't make sense) situation where the mod seems to be doing things of its own mind rather than following the code present for evaluation. I hope that makes sense.

I fixed these variants to not use the Obliterators in mixed weapon groups, so that will be addressed for the change in the next release as well. I'll keep looking through what you posted as I make a few more changes before the update.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: AffectiveLead on April 18, 2020, 11:37:11 PM
Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0)

First off, I'm very flattered you have taken the time to do this work and that you and your friends like AO.  :)

As Thaago mentioned on the linked thread, however, Interstellar Imperium is Dark.Revenant's work so I will need his permission to give any feedback there. I know you are doing this for yourself and a couple of friends and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't publicly release anything without the author's permission.

If you are just looking for balance tips, send me a PM. (I think this should be ok since it's personal use, but if for some reason it's not- moderators please let me know!)

As far as the AO balance changes:

Spoiler
improved not so relevant weapons such as
Avalanche Cannon(less flux generation), Iridium Cannon(less flux generation + opportunity to be mediocre Point defense) , Icer Gun(same as Iridium), Gatling Laser (lower dmg, faster charges,lower flux), Sabots(increase hp a little), Heavy Gatling (a little lower dmg but faster sharges ), Obliterators(both) now don't shoot at fighters, Tachyon Lance ( a little lesser flux generation and lesser cooldown(now ai paragons can do something and you have opportunity to use this "ultimate" weapon as weapon not just fun laser)
 change  Atlas mkII - safety overrides mod now not inbuild but installed anyway on all pirates Atlas. This allow you to make  this ship more useful without changing the balance of pirates
[close]

Just a note: You can always feel free to give feedback on this thread for those types of things. You can certainly make changes yourself, don't get me wrong, but reporting them allows me to make changes that will be more accessible to everyone else too (in that they wouldn't have to search for other balance modules). I generally don't mind anyone releasing stuff like this, but reporting it and having it changed here will make bug-fixing easier in the long run. Still, thanks again for the time you have taken and I will take the above feedback into consideration.

*EDIT*

I already made an edit based off your suggestions. I wanted to also give more explanation of the above comment to ensure that you don't think I'm discouraging you and I am really trying to help you and everyone that uses this mod.

To give an example of what I was talking about as far as potentially causing things that can be perceived as bugs without a way for me to easily trace the problem:

In the AO balance tweaks mod, you changed the Obliterator Cannon and Heavy Obliterator Cannon to a strike weapon to prevent it from auto targeting fighters. This makes sense and I agree with the change and have implemented it for the next release. Thanks for the feedback!

However, this negatively effects ~4 variants split between the Justicar and Revenant. How? A strike weapon designation prevents the entire weapon group the weapon is in from being placed on autofire when the ship is under AI control. So for variants (which could have been many more but luckily it was a relatively small impact in this case) that had Obliterators alongside Phase Cannons, for instance, the Phase Cannons would no longer autofire with this change. When those Phase Cannons that otherwise would target fighters never fire in some instances, or when multiple faster ships are targeting the affected vessel and it's Phase Cannons either don't fire or have firing delays (AI doesn't switch strike groups fast enough in some situations when surrounded) some players might think of it as a bug and report it here. If they don't say they've installed those changes from your thread, (you override the changes rather than it being present on a mod list, so even the mod list wouldn't tell me this) then when I check and can't reproduce this in my version it looks like a "ghost in the machine" kind of issue (won't translate well and won't make sense) situation where the mod seems to be doing things of its own mind rather than following the code present for evaluation. I hope that makes sense.

I fixed these variants to not use the Obliterators in mixed weapon groups, so that will be addressed for the change in the next release as well. I'll keep looking through what you posted as I make a few more changes.

thanks for the answer
I understand that putting everything out without copywriting was not very correct, so I will wait for the author's response.
I will immediately apologize for possible errors in the language and get down to business :)
Let me explain why I did this and why and you yourself decide whether such ideas are balanced or not
At first in one way or another, obliterators shooting at fighters do not succeed either in AA or in an attacking role
and very scary to watch how havy obliterators shoot full clips in 1 fighter right before engages it seems to me that the group of obliterators combined with anything is not showing itself very well, or more specifically to say it has big losses and instability in dealing damage for a strike weapon
I really like your mod  and I wanted to make a "filler" weapon more unique
for example iridiums  that cost less flux and can shoot at rockets become not good PD but only available kinetic PD in kinetic slots
icers with same tweaks become far worse PD because of their turn rate but they are an attacking weapon anyway and now i have opportunity not to add PD on ship's bow but install group of icers if I have other weapons of the appropriate radius that increasing the ability of small ships to attack without being too vulnerable as it be without PD at all.
changes with Avalanche mostly done to have choice in comparison to Photon Cannon but with default flux cost I did not see that someone chose avalanches(but how do they sound!:))
about sabots -  all i want a little increase their speed,but i cant(don't knowing java or programmings stuff at all and thats why recompilation is too hard for 1 tweak) i did not  want change your idea that  they should check enemy PD but in current reality high explosive harpoons or anything else better as artillery rockets on shields dmg rockets  - 4 heavy sabots have a chance to hit 4 medium also sometimes can hit with 1 rocket enemy with 2 PD if you unload full clip.Compare to AA Widows harpoons Shockwaves and ofc Thunderbolt they are never an option.So, I just increased their hp to 125 - a cheap solution
gatlings(small) have a really too high recharge for a small weapon  - i understand that they should be "hit and run"\strike weapon but they can do this only at 1 fullclip charge. I try to make them with same "strike" idea but with faster recharges - fullclip unload still strong but without fullcharges it become sustain armor breaker with lower dps than assault autocanons(they are still much better in this role) this tweak also looks unexpectedly synergistic - gatlings make armor weaker another energy weapon hits a weak point. Heavy Gatlings very cool and strong but still slow to reload - I'm just a little reduced damage to compensate for the increased recharge.In fleets battles neither the ai nor the player has time to charge at least half the clip and as sustain weapon it will be irrelevant.
I think it’s also necessary to touch a little the Artillery Blaster because  it looks cool but its role doesn't fit anywhere - you need a long-range weapon - Phase Cannon, Burst Siege Beam both cheaper on flux with actually more dmg. Yes you have additional 100 range but for what price? Maybe add them more emp dmg?or range? I don't think significantly reducing flux will be good - artillery should be artillery

and at last I would like to talk about our lord and savior Atlas MK2 - i understand that increase O.P. points and make safety override not inbuid but always installed mod  - cheap solution but giving player opportunity to use atlas2  not only as start variants(actually  i dont know people who use it) by simply removing safety overrides(1100 range cap too limited in the choice of ship roles). And also  in the late game, you can repair it and use it on the roles of artillery or support artillery ship.
I hope to read this tongue-tied message was not too difficult and I hope this will help in your work
and again thank you for such a quick response.
Ps if you still need weapons stats I will send them to you in PM or I can write them here.




Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Impedocles on April 19, 2020, 12:01:54 PM
I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range. 

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

As of now, I've got a fleet of 1 dreadcarrier, 1 nightreaver, and 4 AD destroyers.  It can pick its battles due to 10 warp speed and 350 sensor profile, and can beat pretty much any fleet with 2 or fewer battleships (or 1 paragon, those things are tough).  I'm mostly roaming around seeking out system and faction bounties, as even with such a small fleet repairs are very expensive.  Adamantine Order start is extremely hard but once you get rolling it is very fun.  I love that the sensor profile advantages incentivize making pure-phase ships so you can be sneaky.  And I like that you are basically at war with the whole galaxy.  It's like an elite pirate faction.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 19, 2020, 12:54:32 PM
thanks for the answer
I understand that putting everything out without copywriting was not very correct, so I will wait for the author's response.

Much appreciated.  :)

Quote
I will immediately apologize for possible errors in the language and get down to business :)
Let me explain why I did this and why and you yourself decide whether such ideas are balanced or not

Sounds good, let us dig in.

Quote
At first in one way or another, obliterators shooting at fighters do not succeed either in AA or in an attacking role
and very scary to watch how havy obliterators shoot full clips in 1 fighter right before engages it seems to me that the group of obliterators combined with anything is not showing itself very well, or more specifically to say it has big losses and instability in dealing damage for a strike weapon

Yeah 100% agree there and made the change last night. I think I originally thought it would be better against things like bombers, but wasting the charges/flux on interceptors makes it feel a lot worse than it could be.

Quote
I really like your mod  and I wanted to make a "filler" weapon more unique

Thanks. :)

Quote

for example iridiums  that cost less flux and can shoot at rockets become not good PD but only available kinetic PD in kinetic slots
icers with same tweaks become far worse PD because of their turn rate but they are an attacking weapon anyway and now i have opportunity not to add PD on ship's bow but install group of icers if I have other weapons of the appropriate radius that increasing the ability of small ships to attack without being too vulnerable as it be without PD at all.

You are referring to using these with Integrated Point Defense AI, correct? That is supposed to be viable and those weapons are supposed to be good candidates, so I'll experiment with less flux. I think I increased it within the last couple updates because I also increased those weapons range a bit.

Quote
changes with Avalanche mostly done to have choice in comparison to Photon Cannon but with default flux cost I did not see that someone chose avalanches(but how do they sound!:))

Photon Cannon won't be a competitor in role in the next update. Its damage type has been changed to energy. Energy based ballistics are now part of the Persean League's tactical niche. Not saying some flux reduction isn't warranted, though, I'll take a look.

Quote
about sabots -  all i want a little increase their speed,but i cant(don't knowing java or programmings stuff at all and thats why recompilation is too hard for 1 tweak) i did not  want change your idea that  they should check enemy PD but in current reality high explosive harpoons or anything else better as artillery rockets on shields dmg rockets  - 4 heavy sabots have a chance to hit 4 medium also sometimes can hit with 1 rocket enemy with 2 PD if you unload full clip.Compare to AA Widows harpoons Shockwaves and ofc Thunderbolt they are never an option.So, I just increased their hp to 125 - a cheap solution

Like the Thunderbolt, this one is tricky to balance. The difference here is the relatively high armor penetration in comparison to other kinetic missiles. Making it able to get through PD more easily can turn it into a siege missile that can kill everything. I will increase it's speed a bit like you originally wanted and see how it goes. I definitely get the concern that the higher tier missiles might outclass this one and make it obsolete. That's not intended.

Quote
gatlings(small) have a really too high recharge for a small weapon  - i understand that they should be "hit and run"\strike weapon but they can do this only at 1 fullclip charge. I try to make them with same "strike" idea but with faster recharges - fullclip unload still strong but without fullcharges it become sustain armor breaker with lower dps than assault autocanons(they are still much better in this role) this tweak also looks unexpectedly synergistic - gatlings make armor weaker another energy weapon hits a weak point. Heavy Gatlings very cool and strong but still slow to reload - I'm just a little reduced damage to compensate for the increased recharge.In fleets battles neither the ai nor the player has time to charge at least half the clip and as sustain weapon it will be irrelevant.

Fair. I haven't looked at the specifics yet, but this change is very likely to be made.

Quote
I think it’s also necessary to touch a little the Artillery Blaster because  it looks cool but its role doesn't fit anywhere - you need a long-range weapon - Phase Cannon, Burst Siege Beam both cheaper on flux with actually more dmg. Yes you have additional 100 range but for what price? Maybe add them more emp dmg?or range? I don't think significantly reducing flux will be good - artillery should be artillery

I think more range is probably the answer. I generally dislike messing with OP because it requires so many variant edits, but that could potentially be another thing I could do.

Quote
and at last I would like to talk about our lord and savior Atlas MK2 - i understand that increase O.P. points and make safety override not inbuid but always installed mod  - cheap solution but giving player opportunity to use atlas2  not only as start variants(actually  i dont know people who use it) by simply removing safety overrides(1100 range cap too limited in the choice of ship roles). And also  in the late game, you can repair it and use it on the roles of artillery or support artillery ship.

Ah right the range cap. Good point in regards to limiting player use. That being built in is more of a Luddic Path theme anyway. Another very likely change.

Quote
I hope to read this tongue-tied message was not too difficult and I hope this will help in your work
and again thank you for such a quick response.
Ps if you still need weapons stats I will send them to you in PM or I can write them here.

It seems clear and is helpful. I have the stat mod available as a reference and I'll ask if anything needs more clarity. Thanks again for taking the time to write out your thoughts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range.

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

Thanks a lot for the feedback on your playthrough.  :)

Some initial thoughts:

The Adamantine Consortium start is the hardest starting option- since they generally have the best ships of any faction. The AI can sometimes struggle to make effective use of the phase ships, but players can dominate with them. The Malevolent is strong all the way around and competes with the Megalith in power and deployment cost. There are some tweaks to that in the next update. Though these ships are meant to be OP to be scary to the player as an enemy faction, that is because they will not be salvageable/recoverable later. They are more available now mostly for testing purposes so players can get their hands on them. Once I develop a mission to allow players to get the blueprints, they will be made unboardable and the only way to get them will be to play as the Adamantine Consortium or sneak into Brelter in the Mordreath Triangle to buy them- which is not easy with all the dreadfleets and pirates that swarm there and I don't think that market often sells capitals so those will be especially difficult to get unless you get a commission- which will also be difficult. It will hopefully be a really neat way to make use of the upcoming story point system.  :)

Archean Order will probably go the same way. You can kind of think of these factions as on par with Remnants- though Archean Order a bit less so and their ships will be slightly more accessible - well possibly. I haven't fully decided how I am going to go about that faction, yet.

Another thing I am hoping to address (not sure if it will be this update but it was originally planned to be) is the lack of mission availability when playing as the Consortium. I want to add another system for them that will help introduce more procurement opportunities and give access to some less stable markets. Hopefully that will help out the early game money making opportunities. Ideally, I would want to eventually make another mission system specifically when starting as the Consortium. Something that provides combat opportunities similar to pirate bounties since those, as you said, will be hard to do when it alienates your one ally.

Independents are hostile because Adamantine Consortium is notoriously cruel and predatory to their worlds. Most factions don't like the Consortium and some outright seek to wipe them out. Independents are one of the latter category. It certainly is difficult when a merc fleet spawns on top of you though. I think about ways of reducing the chance of that, but I'm not sure how possible it will be.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Impedocles on April 19, 2020, 01:59:41 PM
I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range.

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

Thanks a lot for the feedback on your playthrough.  :)

Some initial thoughts:

The Adamantine Consortium start is the hardest starting option- since they generally have the best ships of any faction. The AI can sometimes struggle to make effective use of the phase ships, but players can dominate with them. The Malevolent is strong all the way around and competes with the Megalith in power and deployment cost. There are some tweaks to that in the next update. Though these ships are meant to be OP to be scary to the player as an enemy faction, that is because they will not be salvageable/recoverable later. They are more available now mostly for testing purposes so players can get their hands on them. Once I develop a mission to allow players to get the blueprints, they will be made unboardable and the only way to get them will be to play as the Adamantine Consortium or sneak into Brelter in the Mordreath Triangle to buy them- which is not easy with all the dreadfleets and pirates that swarm there and I don't think that market often sells capitals so those will be especially difficult to get unless you get a commission- which will also be difficult. It will hopefully be a really neat way to make use of the upcoming story point system.  :)

Archean Order will probably go the same way. You can kind of think of these factions as on par with Remnants- though Archean Order a bit less so and their ships will be slightly more accessible - well possibly. I haven't fully decided how I am going to go about that faction, yet.

Another thing I am hoping to address (not sure if it will be this update but it was originally planned to be) is the lack of mission availability when playing as the Consortium. I want to add another system for them that will help introduce more procurement opportunities and give access to some less stable markets. Hopefully that will help out the early game money making opportunities. Ideally, I would want to eventually make another mission system specifically when starting as the Consortium. Something that provides combat opportunities similar to pirate bounties since those, as you said, will be hard to do when it alienates your one ally.

Independents are hostile because Adamantine Consortium is notoriously cruel and predatory to their worlds. Most factions don't like the Consortium and some outright seek to wipe them out. Independents are one of the latter category. It certainly is difficult when a merc fleet spawns on top of you though. I think about ways of reducing the chance of that, but I'm not sure how possible it will be.

The flavor for the faction is pretty nice.  As far as early income sources, I think that system and faction bounties feel the most appropriate.  But I haven't seen AC place many (or any?) of those.  So I've mostly been making my money off of a long-running Archean - Tri-Tach war, since the Archeans keep a system bounty up most of the time.  It feels right to just be hunting down fleets.  Maybe increasing the rate that the consortium places system/faction bounties against their enemies would help. 

I adapted to the hostile independents by just stopping trying to go to neutral stations, at first.  Now that I have a battleship I can deal with them, but early on it was too dangerous.  Maybe if I'd chosen a different starting fleet that would have been different: a smuggling start with.  As such, the only procurement missions I did succesfully were within Mordreath itself or going to an Archean Order station. 

It's worth noting that I think the agent supership start I used might be one of the more difficult ones for the faction early on.  The other options for starting fleet have better logistics, so could run exploration missions and potentially even get the neutrals to stop hating you.  Starting off as special agent and buying a freighter immediately also would have made things much easier.  Smuggling to the lone independent outpost in Mordreath is also a good income stream.  It honestly might be tuned to a good difficulty given it is supposed to be the very hard option, but more missions that you can do would certainly be nice.  Worst case scenario, since you start with a commission you can just bum around Mordreath until you can afford a fleet to go hunting with.  It takes about $250k to upgrade to a fleet that can take out merchant convoys and snipe small patrol fleets.  You just need a freighter, a couple frigates,  and some better weapons, fighters, and mods.

I could go on about how strong the Malevolent is: it will make a great late- game reward.   I haven't had an opportunity to inspect the other capitals, but it seems to be in a league of its own.  It rapidly snipes enemy escorts, wins every fighter war,  andrapidly cripples enemy capitals. 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 19, 2020, 04:46:17 PM
It's good to hear there's plans for more ship rarity. I think the salvage reduction built-in already helps, but imo it could stand to be even harsher. You still get a lot of Consortium ships just by fighting them even if it's low intensity small fleets. And they're amazingly strong obviously.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 19, 2020, 08:54:01 PM

The flavor for the faction is pretty nice.

Thanks, it was the most fun to write for sure.

Quote
As far as early income sources, I think that system and faction bounties feel the most appropriate.  But I haven't seen AC place many (or any?) of those.  So I've mostly been making my money off of a long-running Archean - Tri-Tach war, since the Archeans keep a system bounty up most of the time.  It feels right to just be hunting down fleets.  Maybe increasing the rate that the consortium places system/faction bounties against their enemies would help. 

I was thinking about a Consortium specific mission to attack certain fleets or raid certain worlds near their systems. There are a couple things that would be cool to do.

As far as System Bounties, is there nothing around Galar or Hikmah? (in Isirah and Zagan, respectively) I would especially think Galar would post a bounty on Sci-Corps but maybe it didn't spawn. Bounties generally spawn (iirc) when commodity fleets are taken out. After I put in a couple extra systems with enemies in between, these should happen more frequently.

Currently at least, faction bounties only occur once a player completes a certain amount of pirate bounties, so that is why you aren't seeing those.

Quote
I adapted to the hostile independents by just stopping trying to go to neutral stations, at first.  Now that I have a battleship I can deal with them, but early on it was too dangerous.  Maybe if I'd chosen a different starting fleet that would have been different: a smuggling start with.  As such, the only procurement missions I did succesfully were within Mordreath itself or going to an Archean Order station. 

I'm glad there are still some procurement missions in Mordreath. Is that independent and pirate mostly, or still some from the Consortium?

Quote
It's worth noting that I think the agent supership start I used might be one of the more difficult ones for the faction early on.  The other options for starting fleet have better logistics, so could run exploration missions and potentially even get the neutrals to stop hating you.  Starting off as special agent and buying a freighter immediately also would have made things much easier.  Smuggling to the lone independent outpost in Mordreath is also a good income stream.  It honestly might be tuned to a good difficulty given it is supposed to be the very hard option, but more missions that you can do would certainly be nice.  Worst case scenario, since you start with a commission you can just bum around Mordreath until you can afford a fleet to go hunting with.  It takes about $250k to upgrade to a fleet that can take out merchant convoys and snipe small patrol fleets.  You just need a freighter, a couple frigates,  and some better weapons, fighters, and mods.

That ship is pretty powerful, but maybe throwing in a Consortium freighter might help with early options.

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I could go on about how strong the Malevolent is: it will make a great late- game reward. I haven't had an opportunity to inspect the other capitals, but it seems to be in a league of its own.  It rapidly snipes enemy escorts, wins every fighter war,  andrapidly cripples enemy capitals.

Ha ha. (In case this was perceived as sarcastic) The Tyrant might give the Malevolent a run for it's money in the player's hands, but otherwise it's only real competition is the Megalith and the Radiant (in the upcoming update the Radiant got a big buff). I think it's a pretty cool ship, overall.
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It's good to hear there's plans for more ship rarity. I think the salvage reduction built-in already helps, but imo it could stand to be even harsher. You still get a lot of Consortium ships just by fighting them even if it's low intensity small fleets. And they're amazingly strong obviously.

Agreed, that's why at one time that built-in reduced the recovery chance by 100%. It doesn't solve derelicts though, and as another player suggested it can be confusing to players why they never seem to be able to recover one. With the new mechanics around remnant accessibility that are being developed in vanilla, it seems like the perfect solution alongside the built in to really prevent these ships from being easy to get. And hopefully end game mechanics will give their usage a little more challenge as well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 20, 2020, 08:25:20 AM
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(In case this was perceived as sarcastic) The Tyrant might give the Malevolent a run for it's money in the player's hands, but otherwise it's only real competition is the Megalith and the Radiant (in the upcoming update the Radiant got a big buff). I think it's a pretty cool ship, overall.

What kind of big buff? I thought it's already the strongest in the game. Not cruel enough, are you? I think remnant unique weapons drop would be nice addition.

Faction ships review time!!

Remnant: Holy crap fleet. Good thing they can't burn. Actually lost against everyone in auto resolve. Radient has sucide tendency to teleport into battle immediately and of course die. When will I be able to capture one, hurry up dev.

Archean Order: Revenant ship is pretty bad, lacking a lot of weapon mounts, also a very serious matter to all energy base ship is that the weapons flux/damage ratio are the most inefficient. It's usually self suicide all the time by firing till no enough flux for shield. Mine got killed by a Legion(XIV) with no crafts, so bad I don't want to recover it. I think Archean needs one more frontline capital ship or repurpose that Revenant. Megalith is pretty bad in AI fleet as it's so slow, the front line are all gone before it arrive. OP Phase bomber.

Adamantine: Overall OPnessly balance. Hivemind Orb is OP, projectile speed wise, can't be countered with PD. Widow is your best Anti-craft support but usually, shoot ship instead. Great fighters loadout. Has the strongest star fortress of all with so many Reapers. AD>High Tech>AO.

Psi-Corp: Why are you even here? Has the weakest fleet of all. Could make do as a minor faction. Apogee is weaker than vanilla. Odyssey is Odyssily weak.

Tri-Tac: Paragon speed is just superb than vanilla, the second best ship after Tyrant. Astral missing one small mount texture. Harbinger is pretty cheap this time. Auto resolve may never be in their favor.

Hegemony: Strongest fleet below Remnant. Devastator + Boltter is great. Onslaught(XIV), apart from the ability and terminator beams, is very strong for 30+5 points (not sure but look like it’s bug at 30 instead of 35). Terminator is actually a very crappy beam. Can't it be thicker to look more imposing? Normal Onslaught might actually be stronger with more ballistic? Legion(XIV) ability is so good, a very strong fire support ship as well. Dominator with Reaper is scary and can fire guns indefinitely with so little flux cost for some ballistic weapons. Eagle and Falcon (all models except AD) are not so great, easy to kill, can't kill anything maybe due to gun arc.

Persean: A little love for midline ship? Executor and Conquest Feel great but a bit squishy. Has good balance weapons. I do feel that there are too many high tech ships and would like to have more midline for Persean, Diktat, and Independence.

Prate/Ludd: Practice targets. Very threatening early game. Pillager is too squishy. I think the smallest fleet is still too large for starters. Can there be an additional smaller size fleet like a picket roaming out of the system like Luddic mini fleet for pirate? It could also be paired with a mini trader fleet for the would be pirate starter.

Overall Frigates: Too slow to survive. Have no meaning endgame. I think frigate should be half as fast as the average bomber/gunship, at least 120-150 in speed without boost. It should be balanced so that even with navrelay it will still be lower than fighter speed. Frigate should be an annoying ship that is hard to kill. I do imagine frigates as the Millenium Falcon fast but cannot shake away TIE fighters but also won't get swarm by it either. Also, peak performance time is not enough.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Impedocles on April 20, 2020, 09:41:18 AM
After more testing,  the consortium start is very doable even with the 1 frigate agent start.   Just worked my way up from that start to getting a doom AD in iron man.  The night reaver start isn't too hard once you buy a freighter,  which only takes a couple months of commission salary.  I haven't tested the doom yet,  but if the harbinger and the stats are any guide I will probably be soloing small fleets with it.   The flux dissipation is higher than a battleship, so phasing between massive damage bursts to reload and dissipate flux is likely an extremely powerful tactic with the mod changes.

If you want to make the consortium fleets extra scary,  I suggest making the default loadouts include insulated engines.   The players wouldn't see them until they are quite close.

Edit: the Doom AD is less OP than I expected from using the harbinger.   The triple plasma cannon harbinger is somewhat uniquely OP.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: jokez80 on April 20, 2020, 05:14:57 PM
I noticed that when I had 2 Apogees in my fleet, whenever I equipped them with any fighters they were waaay too timid and never used any of their guns offensively, only using their fighters to attack which really squanders their amazing flux potential to be more aggressive. Only when I got rid of all fighters they had during refit, then they behaved normally.

I dug into the ship_data.csv in the hulls folder in your mod and noticed that under the hints column, the Apogee was labeled as 'CARRIER, COMBAT'. I'm assuming that this is telling it to act as a combat carrier? In any case, it never moved within range to use its energy weapons.

once I got rid of that tag, my Apogees behaved much better and closed in to attack with all of its weapons. Could this be the reason why Apogees feel a lot weaker in this mod?

Been having a lot of fun with your mod though, having a blast on my second playthrough of the game!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 20, 2020, 08:09:10 PM
What kind of big buff? I thought it's already the strongest in the game. Not cruel enough, are you? I think remnant unique weapons drop would be nice addition.

10,000 more max flux and higher armor (iirc) but doubled the cooldown between teleports.  :D I am a cruel lord indeed. Regarding unique weapon drops: I like this idea! I'll keep this in mind for future updates. This one is already getting massive and with the recent feedback continues to grow.

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Faction ships review time!!

Nice, thanks!  :)

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Remnant: Holy crap fleet. Good thing they can't burn. Actually lost against everyone in auto resolve. Radient has sucide tendency to teleport into battle immediately and of course die. When will I be able to capture one, hurry up dev.

The wait is worth it for the quality that comes with updates, trust me. The suicide tendency might be partially helped by the above buff. A teleport into a bad situation is less likely as the ship is now monstrous in battle. But retreating teleports are less likely too- so a trade off there which mostly benefits player convenience at the expense of additional difficulty when encountering that ship.

I'll take a look at autoresolve, though, that shouldn't be happening so I probably forgot to change the FP values.

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Archean Order: Revenant ship is pretty bad, lacking a lot of weapon mounts, also a very serious matter to all energy base ship is that the weapons flux/damage ratio are the most inefficient. It's usually self suicide all the time by firing till no enough flux for shield. Mine got killed by a Legion(XIV) with no crafts, so bad I don't want to recover it. I think Archean needs one more frontline capital ship or repurpose that Revenant. Megalith is pretty bad in AI fleet as it's so slow, the front line are all gone before it arrive. OP Phase bomber.

Everything mentioned here except the energy weapons flux/damage ratio has had some changes. Notably, the Megalith is no longer a combat carrier to the AI and the speed limiting and replacement increase hullmod has been removed. This will make it get to the battle far more quickly.

Additionally, I'm (right now actually) coding a hullmod to hopefully reduce the cooldown of it's ship system to replace the carrier hullmod. So the Megalith is a special ship that still replaces fighters quickly due to its system- but without the carrier limitations. It will be a true dreadnought indeed and very difficult to take down. It's deployment cost is substantially more as well.

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Adamantine: Overall OPnessly balance. Hivemind Orb is OP, projectile speed wise, can't be countered with PD. Widow is your best Anti-craft support but usually, shoot ship instead. Great fighters loadout. Has the strongest star fortress of all with so many Reapers. AD>High Tech>AO.

Hivemind is meant to be relatively uncounterable and force an engagement by the player. The downside? AI can't determine this and so in the player's hands it's practically an "I win" button in large amounts. It's meant to be really rare as a result. To be fair, most legendary weapons feel that way, though.

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Psi-Corp: Why are you even here? Has the weakest fleet of all. Could make do as a minor faction. Apogee is weaker than vanilla. Odyssey is Odyssily weak.

They are supposed to be a little weak (they are the underdog you root for) but I'll take a look if they are too much so. Other feedback has also been given related to those, so lot's to go on/look at there.

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Tri-Tac: Paragon speed is just superb than vanilla, the second best ship after Tyrant. Astral missing one small mount texture. Harbinger is pretty cheap this time. Auto resolve may never be in their favor.

I'll take a look at the Astral texture thanks for that find! Why is autoresolve not good for them, I wonder? Their FP are just as high as Hegemony ships. I wonder if it is their fleet size... hmm.

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Hegemony: Strongest fleet below Remnant. Devastator + Boltter is great. Onslaught(XIV), apart from the ability and terminator beams, is very strong for 30+5 points (not sure but look like it’s bug at 30 instead of 35). Terminator is actually a very crappy beam. Can't it be thicker to look more imposing? Normal Onslaught might actually be stronger with more ballistic? Legion(XIV) ability is so good, a very strong fire support ship as well. Dominator with Reaper is scary and can fire guns indefinitely with so little flux cost for some ballistic weapons. Eagle and Falcon (all models except AD) are not so great, easy to kill, can't kill anything maybe due to gun arc.

Onslaught(XIV) is 30+9 now (iirc) (nope checked and still 30+5) and it's Terminator Beams are longer ranged now and represent a cost efficient alternative and higher OP opportunities. This really improved the AI's use of them, specifically.

As far as looks and Terminator balance, should do doable. I never thought of the Terminator as bad though. It strikes with such speed it is really easy to sneak shots in while the shields are down. If it's used on shields its bad, though, definitely.

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Persean: A little love for midline ship? Executor and Conquest Feel great but a bit squishy. Has good balance weapons. I do feel that there are too many high tech ships and would like to have more midline for Persean, Diktat, and Independence.

Noted. I have another faction in mind, too, that will mostly use midline ships so that will expand the roster as well.

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Prate/Ludd: Practice targets. Very threatening early game. Pillager is too squishy. I think the smallest fleet is still too large for starters. Can there be an additional smaller size fleet like a picket roaming out of the system like Luddic mini fleet for pirate? It could also be paired with a mini trader fleet for the would be pirate starter.

Pillager is probably squishy on the pirate side since I think it has D-mods. In general, though, it's speed and firepower are it's main attributes so it needs to be a tiny bit squishy. Fleet sizes are being adjusted in the next official update.

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Overall Frigates: Too slow to survive. Have no meaning endgame. I think frigate should be half as fast as the average bomber/gunship, at least 120-150 in speed without boost. It should be balanced so that even with navrelay it will still be lower than fighter speed. Frigate should be an annoying ship that is hard to kill. I do imagine frigates as the Millenium Falcon fast but cannot shake away TIE fighters but also won't get swarm by it either. Also, peak performance time is not enough.

Made some notes here. It will likely also help the collision issue to do this, so I will definitely do something here. Maybe this update, maybe the next. It's a pretty substantial change to make that could break a lot of things easily so I will need to test a lot.
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After more testing,  the consortium start is very doable even with the 1 frigate agent start.   Just worked my way up from that start to getting a doom AD in iron man.  The night reaver start isn't too hard once you buy a freighter,  which only takes a couple months of commission salary.  I haven't tested the doom yet,  but if the harbinger and the stats are any guide I will probably be soloing small fleets with it.   The flux dissipation is higher than a battleship, so phasing between massive damage bursts to reload and dissipate flux is likely an extremely powerful tactic with the mod changes.

If you want to make the consortium fleets extra scary,  I suggest making the default loadouts include insulated engines.   The players wouldn't see them until they are quite close.

Edit: the Doom AD is less OP than I expected from using the harbinger.   The triple plasma cannon harbinger is somewhat uniquely OP.

Thanks for the tests. I'll take a look at the harbinger. Sounds like some reduced dissipation is in order.
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I noticed that when I had 2 Apogees in my fleet, whenever I equipped them with any fighters they were waaay too timid and never used any of their guns offensively, only using their fighters to attack which really squanders their amazing flux potential to be more aggressive. Only when I got rid of all fighters they had during refit, then they behaved normally.

I dug into the ship_data.csv in the hulls folder in your mod and noticed that under the hints column, the Apogee was labeled as 'CARRIER, COMBAT'. I'm assuming that this is telling it to act as a combat carrier? In any case, it never moved within range to use its energy weapons.

once I got rid of that tag, my Apogees behaved much better and closed in to attack with all of its weapons. Could this be the reason why Apogees feel a lot weaker in this mod?

Fixed for the next update, good catch! Forgot I did this because of the large number of bays before I made the carrier changes. Even not considering the AI issues, it isn't really an apt description now.

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Been having a lot of fun with your mod though, having a blast on my second playthrough of the game!

 ;D Glad to hear it!

*EDIT*
I'll take a look at autoresolve, though, that shouldn't be happening so I probably forgot to change the FP values.

Well, no they should be good. Not sure why this would happen to be honest. It appears like they should autoresolve at a higher win rate according to FP stats.

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Additionally, I'm (right now actually) coding a hullmod to hopefully reduce the cooldown of it's ship system to replace the carrier hullmod. So the Megalith is a special ship that still replaces fighters quickly due to its system- but without the carrier limitations. It will be a true dreadnought indeed and very difficult to take down. It's deployment cost is substantially more as well.

Actually I did this in a new ship system for the Megalith that does the same thing. The new built-in hullmod is just to make it raise it's shields faster for AI purposes (I removed the built-in accelerated shields in favor of this- they will stack).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2020, 05:46:36 AM
In my experience early pirates/luddics are pretty hard fights because a lot of the crappy early frigates they like to use come with built-in strikecraft, and it doesn't matter how crappy the strikecraft are if they outnumber you 3:1. It really drives home how important PD and fighter cover is. Don't know if it being that harsh is a good or a bad thing though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Impedocles on April 21, 2020, 12:28:11 PM
I noticed on my last start that the Consortium starting blueprint sells for $800k to the pirates.   Not sure if that's intended,  but it certainly makes starting as them a lot easier.  I've yet to see whether that makes the pirates start building consortium ships.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 21, 2020, 02:07:55 PM
In my experience early pirates/luddics are pretty hard fights because a lot of the crappy early frigates they like to use come with built-in strikecraft, and it doesn't matter how crappy the strikecraft are if they outnumber you 3:1. It really drives home how important PD and fighter cover is. Don't know if it being that harsh is a good or a bad thing though.

Hmm. Well, ideally I want to start teaching those kinds of things early on. One thing that will likely help is the extra weapons on civilian ships. I think part of the difficulty in the early game is that retreating from a fight you can't win is extra difficult because strike craft swarms can take out your freighters and tankers very quickly- or pin them down for larger ships to catch them. So the added weapons will help with that a bit, though retreating is still difficult depending upon your fleet composition. That's one of the reasons (besides flavor) I spent a lot of time on the cease fire/bribery mechanic- to give players a possible way to avoid having to retreat every time they are caught by an enemy they can't fight.

Luddic Path tactically uses a lot less strike craft than pirates (I'm pretty sure) but teaches the player about fast and deadly strike-type builds since most of their ships have safety overrides installed or built in. That's the design goal, anyway.

I am also considering (alongside the general frigate speed boost) increasing the zero flux boost limitation on carriers slightly (30 or 40 instead of the current 20- vs the 80 non-carriers get) so that while they still can't kite they have a better chance of retreating. They will definitely still need escorts/sacrifices to distract the pursuing ships even then, though. One of the reasons I'm hesitant is I don't want light carriers like the Osprey to be able to kite indefinitely- but!- my thought process is that these ships are so lightly armed most of the time that other fighter/interceptor swarms can pin them down to allow destroyers to catch up. Assault frigates can likely catch them anyway but now destroyers probably can't unless they have speed mods or a speed boosting ship system.

Btw, I made the change to Combat Capacitors you suggested and wow does it make ships that have it scary! I like it, though it makes it necessary to buff midline ships practically across the board haha. That could in part be due to the changes to Photon Cannon and Excalibur though. Persean League ships perform better against high tech vessels and a lot worse against Hegemony/Luddic Church heavy armor. I buffed the hitpoints of the Atropos to give them a slightly more reliable anti-armor weapon. (Reapers seem better in every situation anyway) I also buffed the damage/armor penetration of the Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance but reduced those weapons range to compensate.

Not done testing all of this so we will see how it turns out.
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I noticed on my last start that the Consortium starting blueprint sells for $800k to the pirates.   Not sure if that's intended,  but it certainly makes starting as them a lot easier.  I've yet to see whether that makes the pirates start building consortium ships.

They probably will, I'd guess. It's not really intended, but not the worst thing considering getting that blueprint will be very hard otherwise. So if you don't care about your faction using Adamantine Consortium ships and would rather jump start the early game, I'd consider that fair.

It would be cool if I could make that give you a rep hit with the Consortium, though, because lore-wise that would probably be considered an insult to let "lowly pirate scum" use premium dreadships that were granted to you for your service to the barons. Might be too technically complicated to be worth it, but it was an initial thought.
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All in all thanks for the feedback everyone. This update is shaping up to be pretty darn good, I think! It's also probably big enough to be out of "patch" territory and into "minor" update at this point.

Notes at this time: (Still testing so more things -including the above stuff I mentioned- will likely be added)

Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
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 - Overall Campaign Changes:
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    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.
    - Reworked mod economy to be more even in market share and resource spread between factions (in general) while hopefully still nurturing trade opportunities for the player through the simulation environment.
   -NEX Changes
      - Adjusted vanilla factions' starting relationships, diplomacy chance, and max relationships for all new factions.
      - Adjusted some extremes within new factions' starting relations and diplomacy chances. (Trying to stick to lore intentions here, but still learning Nex to a large degree. A first pass.)
      - Added base raiding behavior and increased invasion power of Adamantine Consortium. (should have no allies and needs this to remain a threat to the player/sector is the idea, but feedback welcome)
                - Removed pirate behavior features for Nex with Adamantine Consortium and reduced colonization chance overall. (Still happens occasionally)

 --- Colony Changes:
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    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added remote Luddic Church colony with refining, heavy industry and an additional military base with a large hazard rating.
    - Added two additional Sci-Corps colonies to better separate out industries and resources.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Yama and reduced the station at Nachiketa to an Orbital Station (down from a Battlestation).
    - Added Fuel Production and High Command to Gilead (based in the star fortress instead of the surface from a lore perspective)
    - Added Orbital Works to Tartesseus (again not on the surface- see above).
    - Increased size of Traveler's Triumph Station to 5 and added Heavy Industry.
    - Upgraded Traveler's Triumph Station to a Battlestation (up from an Orbital Station).
    - Removed Orbital Station from Salamanca to allow more raiding opportunities there.
    - Changed Kazeron's Military Base to a High Command.
    - Added a standard independent orbital station to Derinkuyu Mining Station to add to its defenses.
    - Removed patrol hq from Yesod and Ilm.
    - Changed ground defenses to heavy batteries on Yesod. Reduced heavy batteries to ground defenses on Mazalot.

 --- Fleet Composition Changes:
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    - Reduced number of dedicated carriers in Hegemony fleets. (partly for vanilla lore adherence and also to create more faction variety in battle tactics between factions)

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Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Reduced sustained DPS of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Revamped ballistic weapon FX under these principles:
   - Yellow-Orange-Red color indication of assault-heavy assault-strike weaponry.
   - Bullet size now scales by tier to facilitate an intuitive learning of combat threats to armor and better teach a player when to raise shields.
 - Doubled cooldown of Phase Teleporter.
 - Added weapon slots and increased OP (if necessary) to most civillian ships to help prevent them from being overly vulnerable against fighters and missiles during retreat battles.
 - Added additional weapon slots and increased OP of some pirate and luddic conversion vessels (they are too weak).
 - Added a rear-facing small weapon to the Valkyrie and Valkyrie MkII to help give minor protection to its engines against interdiction-class missiles and upgraded the Valkyrie's central missile weapon size to medium to better combat fighters.
 - Added a built-in beam range increase to the Onslaught XIV hull to support it's built in foward weapons. (The AI uses them as a cost effective alternative more often now - even when equipping Devastators)
 - Added 3 additional small weapons (rear-facing) to Buffalo MkII and reworked variants for better synergy in attack builds.
 - Reduced per shot damage of Excaliber Cannon and Apocalypse Cannon line of weapons. Increased recharge/fire rate for those as well.
 - Made some ballistic weapons Energy damage instead of High Explosive damage.
 - Increased Revenant, Paragon and Megalith armor, max flux, and deployment cost.
 - Increased Megalith, and Revenant flux dissipation.
 - Slightly increased Megalith's base speed, removed all carrier limitations and benefits hullmods and replaced the built-in Accelerated Shields with a larger built-in increase to shield speed)
 - Increased armor and hullpoints for:
    - Pirate Atlas and Prometheus conversions
 - Rebalanced high tier vessel deployment costs. (FP cost slightly adjusted in a couple cases but mostly the same from before)
 - Increased speed of missile projectiles from bombers.
 - Increased attack range for missile projectile bombers.
 - Reduced hitpoints of missile projectiles changed above.
 - Reduced speed of phase orbs from Phantom bombers. Reduced their hit points. Doubled their turn rate.
 - Increased flight time of Hivemind orbs.
 - Combat Capacitors now allows the 0-flux speed boost up until 90% flux while active.
 - Buffed bomber defense across the board. Most heavy strike bombers release their payloads from further away.
 - Increased bomber damage.
 - Increased Claw bomber weapon armor penetration and reduced burst duration for more salvo accuracy.
 - Terminator Drones and Goliath Heavy Gunships will no longer target missiles or strike craft with their weapons and will instead focus upon their intended ship targets.
 - Obliterator and Heavy Obliterator no longer target fighters. (AI won't put them on autofire either)
 - Reduced damage and flux cost but increased recharge time for Gatling Laser and Heavy Gatling Laser.
 - Increased Artillery Blaster range by 200.
 - Increased flux cost of Guillotine Cannon to better match the Heavy Fissure Cannon.
 - Reduced flux cost of Avalanche Cannon.
 - Reduced damage and flux cost per strike and reduced cooldown of the Tachyon Lance.
 - Removed built-in Safety Overrides on Atlas MkII. Increased OP. Added a new MIRV variant to pirate fleets.
 - Slightly increased Sabot missile line flight speed and hitpoints.
 - Reduced flux cost of Icer Gun and Iridium Cannon. Added flux per salvo info to Icer Gun.
 - Increased Odyssey max flux and dissipation.
 - Removed Apogee from being considered a combat carrier to the AI. It should act more aggressively with it's primary weapons now.
 - Increased burst damage/dps but reduced range for the Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance.
 - Increased flux per burst/second for the Graviton Lance.
 - Increased hitpoints of the Atropos line of torpedoes.
 - Greatly increased burst damage of Terminator Beam and reduced it's flux cost. Dps remains roughly the same. Considering increasing its ordinance cost.
 - Mining Blaster no longer generates flux (not sure what I was thinking there this weapon was terrible compared to other energy weapons)
 - Increased Hammerhead, Falcon, Eagle, Conquest and Executor max flux, armor, and dissipation.
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Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Updated Salvage Rig and Ox sprites and hullmods. (That slipped through the cracks apparently between my update from .8 and .9)
 - Fixed another rare yet likely possible occurance of the Hegemony Legion not being found while starting a new campaign and causing a crash. (I never encountered a crash, but I caught an outlier in the faction file that used the old id)
 - Fixed the cost of a couple buffalo variants.
 - Fixed some of the buffalo variants' weapon mounts. (they were supposed to be ballistic)
 - Corrected tech name and font color of the XIV Battlegroup vessels.
 - Added tech type to drones.
 - Removed Light Ion Cannon as a base blueprint in favor of it as a Sci-Corps weapon.
 - Removed duplicate industries and diplomacy traits for vanilla factions when running the TC with Nex.
 - Doubled turn rate of Hivemind Orb and Phase Orb to help prevent timeout from maneuverable targets which may cause friendly fire.
 - Decreased flux dissipation of Harbinger and Harbinger (Ad).
 - Increased armor, hull and deployment cost of Harbinger (Ad).
 - Increased price of Harbinger and greatly increased price of Harbinger (Ad).
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Misc
-------------
 - Reduced sound of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Reduced bullet size of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Removed override behavior of the mod on fighter wings, ships, ship systems, and weapons.
 - Reworked the pirate falcon sprite.
 - Removed all non-essential sprites from the graphics folder. (May improve load performance as lots of duplicates from vanilla were kept there as a refence when spriting)
 - Cleaned up a few more descriptions and encounter flavor dialogue. (I try to do this as often as I can but I always find more typos and awkard wording. I'll keep trying to clean this up as I go and as I notice things)
 - Updated descriptions based upon market changes in the campaign.
 - Fixed minor graphical discepancy with the Astral.
 - Increased Terminator Beam fx width.
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[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Impedocles on April 23, 2020, 12:54:23 PM
Fun fact: the toughest ship that a properly fit Harbinger AD can kill in a single burst is a Dominator heavy cruiser.  Phase through the ship to shoot it in the butt, uncloak and press F on it, then land 4 antimatter blaster shot and a reaper torpedo and it is scrap while you are exposed to fire for about 3 seconds.  I'm having a blast terrorizing the shipping lanes with my tiny fleet of frigates and destroyers, though.  So not really complaining.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 23, 2020, 03:44:59 PM
Fun fact: the toughest ship that a properly fit Harbinger AD can kill in a single burst is a Dominator heavy cruiser.  Phase through the ship to shoot it in the butt, uncloak and press F on it, then land 4 antimatter blaster shot and a reaper torpedo and it is scrap while you are exposed to fire for about 3 seconds.  I'm having a blast terrorizing the shipping lanes with my tiny fleet of frigates and destroyers, though.  So not really complaining.

I'm not sure if it's in the notes to be honest since I've been changing things lightning fast (cascading balance changes) but I reduced its dissipation (and the main Harbinger as well) and increased its cost, but the AD version has slightly better armor and flux stats now (as well as higher deployment cost and overall cost).

Not that its a huge nerf by any means, though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 24, 2020, 04:47:43 PM
Hello again!

I've been trying new update for a while, playing with NEX additionally. It seems prety balanced, in economics and politics right now. Or may be it is just a lucky start, as I am trying not to influence the global situation and see how it would develop according to the faction domination.

But some complains. And again to the carriers. I have noticed that too many ships have too much fighter slots that makes them to be better than any carrier according they also can fit better weapons. for example eagle heavy cruiser. It has 4 slots for fighters. I ran simulation with elite version of it against the astral and it beat him 1 time from 5, under control of AI, not to say that under player control it would be 5/5, but let's be fair why it is even supposed to have a chance? Also I need to notice that if you order him to keep a distance from Astral the battle will long forever I guess, as it eliminates the aviation of the astral to the point of 30% rate replacement too quickly. But it is the comparison of a cruiser to the capital ship.

On the same hull level it is again better to fit not a carrier hulls because they sometime have even more slots for fighters, but have better wepons and miss a speed nerf.

Edited: also one note the Pilager class under controll of AI performs little strange to my mind even with simmetrical placement of his guns he is trying to face the enemy under angle and switching sides as if he is an Atlas or Conquest which have broadside weapons.
Edited2: made a closer look on his weaponary, and he has a lot broadside guns wich can't shoot forward, but still it makes no sence as I fit them with PD only.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 24, 2020, 08:28:14 PM
And one more. While I was waiting for your last update I decided to play vanila a little. I haven't played it for may be 2 or 3 years, and when I returned to the game I installed your mod first.

So to the point: in vanila I can play some simple battles almost without issuing an orders, so for example we have a battlecruiser with 2 cruiser cover, and our enemies are 1 pirate cruiser with several freighters. So I usually just make an escort from my cuisers for battlecruiser and watch enemies dying. So what sometimes happens here: my main ship having superiority in range, power and in flux can decide that he needs to retreat. And I don't know how exactly but he is doing that faster than his escort having a lower speed by the way. Thereby I can loose a cruiser in the situation where all the battle can be made by only 1 our ship. Of course it is fixing by simple issuing an attack order, but I really think it should be not necessary to do this. I don't know why it is happening beecause all the officers I have are agressive and reckless, and I don't have flux problems, I can only assume that it reatreats to regroup it's fighters lost on enemy PD, but it is rather stupid. Also I have encountered another problem with AI I haven't met in vanila yet. So you have a frontline, with heavy ship in center and flanks covered, so our battleship fights enemy battleship and everything goes fine, untill the moment some phase frigate appears on our flank. "Oh, it is not a problem I have some cruisers to deal with him" you think. "But wait battleship what are you doing, why are you facing that frigate?? You have enemies in front!!" So even having allies between the flanking enemy and my main ship, sometimes I have a situation when it starts facing it and trying to attack and pursue it, thereby making a mess to formation and bumping allies. How the ship considers what threat is bigger? And why it don't take his allies into this consideration? So roughly saying in vanila formations are much more stable. To the good point, enemies are much more agressive and trying to flank more often compared to vanila.

So it is only my experience, and may be I am doing something wrong, but still wanted to share with you.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Albreo on April 25, 2020, 06:08:55 AM
Quote
Well, no they should be good. Not sure why this would happen to be honest. It appears like they should autoresolve at a higher win rate according to FP stats.
I don't have much chance to observe it but one time I saw 4 Paragons vs 3 moderate size pickets + battle station(not sure which size) and it lost trying to reclaim its rightful planet, that's where I got my first Paragon from. I have revived Tri-tac for a second time and they went all out with Archean Order, orbital bombardment, and whatnot. I thought I would be able to remediate with agents but, nope, it lockout at -100 as in lore. Oh boy. So they went extinct this time for sure with Eochu Bres decivilized.

Quote
Onslaught(XIV) is 30+9 now (iirc) (nope checked and still 30+5) and it's Terminator Beams are longer ranged now and represent a cost efficient alternative and higher OP opportunities. This really improved the AI's use of them, specifically.
Have you rechecked the deployment cost yet? cause in my deployment screen I'm able to deploy Onslaught XIV for only 30 deployment points where it should be 35. But in XIV tooltip actually state that it increases deployment cost by 10%. Wouldn't it be 33 instead?

Another weird thing is that when I raided Adamantine planet, the Hegemony gets angry at me for no reason (already -100 with my faction) and sent an invasion fleet immediately on top of the Adamantine vengeance fleet (they were -100 hostile with each other). I also put AD at -100 with pirate so they duke it out in their system, very fun.

I actually want a character skill that increases the com sniffer counts that can't be detected.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 25, 2020, 12:56:32 PM
I don't have time to reply in detail to the last few posts yet, but I wanted to briefly say I have read them and and will be reviewing the details there. Thanks and keep the reviews/experiences coming!  :)

@Frod
On the escort issues you are having, do you mind specifically letting me know your build on all 3 ships? I want to reproduce this behavior and see if there is anything I can do to improve it. Generally I can't do much with the AI, but if vanilla is acting better then there might be things I can do. At the very least, I can explain why its happening and give advice on how to avoid it. My initial guess is the escorts are slower (which makes escorts generally not act the way you want them to) and in vanilla those same ships might be faster than the battlecruiser.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 25, 2020, 05:25:20 PM
I ran simulation with elite version of it against the astral and it beat him 1 time from 5, under control of AI, not to say that under player control it would be 5/5, but let's be fair why it is even supposed to have a chance?
I'd hope a Cruiser (and the Eagle is one of the best cruisers) beats a lone unprotected carrier. Carriers are support ships.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 30, 2020, 05:47:55 AM
Quote
I'd hope a Cruiser (and the Eagle is one of the best cruisers) beats a lone unprotected carrier. Carriers are support ships.

Sorry for late reply.

True, what you say. But the balance negates the role of CV even if it is support. What is the point to have it, if eagle has 4 slots for fighters.
Roughly saying first I was very happy to see every ship has more slots for aviation. But in fact you don't need special ships that carry it, as the difference in slots for carrier is too little to compensate it's insufficiency in other aspects.
Obviously I like carriers and fighters, and my opinion can be little prejudiced. But what I see now, carriers lost their special role, as any other ship can carry lot of fighters. Also PD impact is much higher cause of additional small slots. And this impacts my gameplay where I want to see ships of the line holding the front and CV's dealing the main damage using aviation. The second one can't influence the battle the way they should. So in general it doesn't really matter how many carriers you have but it only matters how many ships you have to achive air supperiority. In fact it does that you can't choose your play style. Like choosing between artillery firepower and strong PD, or strong air force to inflict massive  damage from greater distance. Because we can have it all in one. That is just my point of view. I like this mod.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Frod on April 30, 2020, 05:56:19 AM
Quote
On the escort issues you are having, do you mind specifically letting me know your build on all 3 ships? I want to reproduce this behavior and see if there is anything I can do to improve it. Generally I can't do much with the AI, but if vanilla is acting better then there might be things I can do. At the very least, I can explain why its happening and give advice on how to avoid it. My initial guess is the escorts are slower (which makes escorts generally not act the way you want them to) and in vanilla those same ships might be faster than the battlecruiser.

The BC is pillager fited with velocity cannons almost like standart fit and cruisers are eagles with beam weaponary. I will check it more precise when I am back to the game, as I don't remeber now. But the fact is that the speed of escort is higher.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 01, 2020, 12:44:55 PM
Took a break for a ~week to avoid burnout.  ;)

I've been reading this thread though and appreciate the feedback here. Some things like escort issues seem like they might be difficult to tackle, but they are on the list!

@Frod on carriers:

The trade off for their low speed and lack of weapons (compared to hybrid/combat ships) is not just more bays, but far more efficient bays (the replacement rate of fighters on carriers is increased by 60% iirc) so in this case the problem probably stems from two things:

1) Even with the hullmod giving a description of this behavior, it must not be communicated very well in combat or it is not effective enough to give carriers a true role. I'd imagine this mostly manifests itself in the early game the most, when fighter options are more limited and light carriers can't really shine as support vessels compared to their combat equivalents.

2) Carriers (as a category) generally have slightly higher deployment costs over combat equivalents. This is because carriers can concentrate firepower better than any other vessel, but it is also there for performance reasons since strike craft take up a lot of system resources.

So, a possible change would be to increase the effect of the hullmod for carriers and further reduce general deployment rates, but there is another thing to consider in the example of the Eagle vs Astral:

The Eagle's ship system actually makes it sort of like a battlecarrier (intended) because it can replace strike craft far more quickly than other cruisers like the Dominator. The Dominator has a couple bays, sure, but it can't replace interceptors all that fast and bombers take so long to replace that the OP that bombers require would likely be better spent on weapons/flux stats that take advantage of the Dominator's ship system. (Burst firepower and speed at the cost of shields.)

Bombers will be better in the next update so that will probably inherently help the CV class as a whole.

The BC is pillager fited with velocity cannons almost like standart fit and cruisers are eagles with beam weaponary. I will check it more precise when I am back to the game, as I don't remeber now. But the fact is that the speed of escort is higher.

Thanks this is helpful to know. Especially that the speed of the escorts is higher. I'll test some things out in the simulator.
---------------------------------

Update: I may release a build today for testing. I am going to put a note in the post that its less tested on balance than usual- though I don't *think* I've introduced any more bugs or anything. I am going camping this weekend (finally getting some fresh air  :) ) and wanted to give everyone something to play for the weekend!

After this update, I will likely release a small update rather quickly after that which will address any balance feedback from the release today and also get to some other things on the list/recent feedback.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 01, 2020, 01:06:27 PM
Here is the test update (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1eqtm9scmydbpcg/AAAbWVZiokpVl23vwt1OkX0ha?dl=0).

****IMPORTANT!****
- It will probably not be fully uploaded for a couple hours, but have to get ready to leave so can't wait for it to complete before posting this. *EDIT* Heading out the door, but I estimate the download to be ready by 6pm central US time.

- It will require a new game and break existing saves most likely. A lot has changed. This is not as balance tested as usual updates, but should be relatively bug free to my knowledge.

- You ABSOLUTELY MUST delete or move the old mod directory and clean install this version. Just overriding the directory will cause a bunch of issues and make the mod load much slower than necessary.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: marianojoey on May 01, 2020, 10:17:49 PM
Hi, I tried for a couple of hours the mod but I found out some things I think aren't working. I got a couple of missions (the "take n items to x colony" kind), and every time the mission is in one of the mod's factions (Adamantine or Archean), I can't complete the mission because reaching the colony does nothing (the colony is shown as the ones in construction, with no market).

Also, trying to play with any of the supported mods is apparently impossible, since the launcher doesn't allow me to select them and Archean at the same time (if I select Archean, say Nex is automatically unselected, and if I select Nex, Archean gets unselected). Any of the mods in the list in the description (all the way back in the main post), present this behavior. :(

Granted, when I tried my first play I didn't edit the mod_info.json, but I just tried again, and even after changing the line for TotalConversion from "true" to "false", the "auto-unselect" keeps happening.  :-\

Anyway, thanks for any help you could give.

I'm running the game with Linux and everything works fine (except what I just posted). :P

Thanks for the mod, hope you finish the dialogues and tutorial soon. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Albreo on May 01, 2020, 11:30:30 PM
Hi, I tried for a couple of hours the mod but I found out some things I think aren't working. I got a couple of missions (the "take n items to x colony" kind), and every time the mission is in one of the mod's factions (Adamantine or Archean), I can't complete the mission because reaching the colony does nothing (the colony is shown as the ones in construction, with no market).

Also, trying to play with any of the supported mods is apparently impossible, since the launcher doesn't allow me to select them and Archean at the same time (if I select Archean, say Nex is automatically unselected, and if I select Nex, Archean gets unselected). Any of the mods in the list in the description (all the way back in the main post), present this behavior. :(

Granted, when I tried my first play I didn't edit the mod_info.json, but I just tried again, and even after changing the line for TotalConversion from "true" to "false", the "auto-unselect" keeps happening.  :-\

Anyway, thanks for any help you could give.

I'm running the game with Linux and everything works fine (except what I just posted). :P

Thanks for the mod, hope you finish the dialogues and tutorial soon. :)

Mission can't be complete is a known issue for some time. If you can elaborate more like what kind of mission you take, from, what planet to hand in, would help the author to track the problem. I think this only happens during the first few hours in the game.

You can play this with other utility mods absolutely, do check out "Directions to Enable Nexerelin" in red just under the download link. Be sure to save after edit. It works fine for me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm almost going to start a new playthrough without Archean. Lol. I will do a quick skim through for your patch. Does anything need to be specifically checked?

Edit: I have uploaded a save file with the above bug of not be able to hand in quests. Seem like if I never land at the destination before, I won't be able to hand in the quest. It sounds like some occasional bug on other mod of not being registered as alive by the game.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nk6hUwRxNPLrps3kuF9Cv-ZtdZJ_2wMB
(have to grab the quest from the planet close by first)

PS. Tri-tac is about to lose once again
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: marianojoey on May 02, 2020, 04:24:03 AM

You can play this with other utility mods absolutely, do check out "Directions to Enable Nexerelin" in red just under the download link. Be sure to save after edit. It works fine for me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the answer, I found the problem, I had two different versions of Archean downloaded (I tried the mod a long time before) and didn't notice the folder (have a lot of mods), so I was making the change in the line for the older version, and the game was picking up the newer version, so no, it wasn't working. :P

That's solved (all the mods are being selected and kept that way), I'll start a new game now and check about the markets and stuff. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 03, 2020, 01:12:58 PM
@Albreo Thanks for helping someone out and thanks for the save file that will likely really help! I'll take a look at it today. Hopefully I can get this fixed or at least narrow down the mod causing it if that ends up being the case.

Thanks for the mod, hope you finish the dialogues and tutorial soon. :)

Thanks! I hope I can go more in depth on that after the next starsector update. I'm waiting for that since the code relating to missions will probably change. The rules dialogue is safe to expand though, so I want to add more dynamic descriptions and fleet encounter dialogue. That is time intensive so there will be plenty to do in the meantime.

I'm almost going to start a new playthrough without Archean. Lol. I will do a quick skim through for your patch. Does anything need to be specifically checked?

PS. Tri-tac is about to lose once again

No worries!  :)

If you do a quick skim then the new colonies that were added would be a good thing to check, or balance changes in general. Capitals were overhauled and the Megalith is much more powerful and costly so test play around that would be useful. But no big deal if you want to try other mods- the point is to have fun!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Digganob on May 04, 2020, 02:29:39 PM
Could you make a version of this mod where you only add the dialogue options? Instead of just murdering everyone I meet as a pirate, I'd like to just threaten them till they give me their stuff. I would download the whole thing, it seems like quite a good mod, but there are many other mods I want to use as well, and the grand majority aren't compatible with yours.

So, I was thinking, for those who just want the dialogue options, is that possible? Is there some way for me to make that change my self?

Also, your new ships and weapons look pretty cool, so in addition to my above questions, could you have a mod that only adds the ships and weapons? That shouldn't interfere with any other mods either I wouldn't think.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2020, 03:14:20 PM
Could you make a version of this mod where you only add the dialogue options? Instead of just murdering everyone I meet as a pirate, I'd like to just threaten them till they give me their stuff. I would download the whole thing, it seems like quite a good mod, but there are many other mods I want to use as well, and the grand majority aren't compatible with yours.

So, I was thinking, for those who just want the dialogue options, is that possible? Is there some way for me to make that change my self?

Also, your new ships and weapons look pretty cool, so in addition to my above questions, could you have a mod that only adds the ships and weapons? That shouldn't interfere with any other mods either I wouldn't think.

Absolutely!  :)

Both of these options will be available very soon. I'm module-izing those very things for stand alone releases and this test update is partly to verify compatibility with more mods and some recently requested balance changes. A lot of work in this update was to separate out the ids from competing with other mods so that I can compile a ship and weapon pack more easily. Consider it groundwork for the above. A lot of this is structural changes to the mod code and should be otherwise unnoticeable- but it was a substantial undertaking that hopefully will allow for easier modulization and better compatibility with the TC as well. As an example from a past request, I think Ship and Weapon Pack (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0) is now compatible with the TC when following the instructions to enable Nex. Most faction mods should be compatible now (unbalanced but compatible) and the only things that won't work well are ones that modify industries. Adding industries is probably ok, but trying to override orbital stations, for instance, won't work well.

The plan: The Archean Order factions' ship and weapon pack versions will remove those obstacles and allow vanilla ships and weapons back into the codex and standard markets. It will start out as just a fork that doesn't add any markets to the economy but lets the ships and weapons be available through blueprint drops. That should preserve the modiverse economy hopefully. You could theoretically feed those blueprints to pirates to fight against them if you wanted to, but a player would be opting in to that imbalance as a result. As it gets more vanilla balanced, I will add a market or two for each faction pack using the Map of the Modiverse (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11422.0) as a guide.

The dialogue options are a little trickier, but very doable. I wanted to wait until I could add other cools things to it and better flesh out the system/dialogue for releasing it stand-alone, but the demand is there so I may as well fork it and update both as I make that system better. It will add a bit of work, but overall I think it will be better for the community to have that option available. I would also like to work on a way to allow other modders to add their own dialogue to that system in their mods, but I'm not 100% sure how to go about that yet. It's definitely something I want to do though.

Balancing the ship and weapon pack will take a lot more time as it will very likely require stand-alone sprite edits as well as massive stat changes to be more in line with vanilla. I will work on it from time to time but still want to actively work on the TC as well. Since I don't think it will break anything, per se, with the way I am planning to structure that pack, I can still release it unbalanced and update it with balance changes as I get to them.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2020, 04:17:33 PM
@Albreo Thanks for helping someone out and thanks for the save file that will likely really help! I'll take a look at it today. Hopefully I can get this fixed or at least narrow down the mod causing it if that ends up being the case.

I took a look here and I can't find Resist Inspections 1.0 - can you link me that mod? It's not on the index and a search on the mod forums doesn't bring it up either. I will need to to use the save file. Thanks for the time!

Nevermind found it! It was in modding.

Update: Ok there was a shipment for transplutonic ore to Sci-Corps Training facility in the save you linked. Upon accepting it I traveled to Kazeron and got the ore. Then went to the facility. If you are expecting a dialogue on docking that won't happen in every case- its random. If you don't get the dialogue, you have to go to the comm directory. There will be an NPC with a yellow "!" in the box. Choose that person and you will get the dialogue to turn in the quest. Screenshots:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/ow8PH4U.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/QlZBKTA.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/xQvwUbx.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/JygXb5e.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/W8wwmQ9.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/kKhdKoO.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/jjUyNv7.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/NCbBUeh.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/8WONWzD.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/AokMx7n.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/2Wv0LkH.png)
[close]

Is this what you were referring to? Everything works on my end with all the mods in your mod list enabled.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Digganob on May 04, 2020, 06:54:59 PM
Could you make a version of this mod where you only add the dialogue options? Instead of just murdering everyone I meet as a pirate, I'd like to just threaten them till they give me their stuff. I would download the whole thing, it seems like quite a good mod, but there are many other mods I want to use as well, and the grand majority aren't compatible with yours.

So, I was thinking, for those who just want the dialogue options, is that possible? Is there some way for me to make that change my self?

Also, your new ships and weapons look pretty cool, so in addition to my above questions, could you have a mod that only adds the ships and weapons? That shouldn't interfere with any other mods either I wouldn't think.

Absolutely!  :)

Both of these options will be available very soon. I'm module-izing those very things for stand alone releases and this test update is partly to verify compatibility with more mods and some recently requested balance changes. A lot of work in this update was to separate out the ids from competing with other mods so that I can compile a ship and weapon pack more easily. Consider it groundwork for the above. A lot of this is structural changes to the mod code and should be otherwise unnoticeable- but it was a substantial undertaking that hopefully will allow for easier modulization and better compatibility with the TC as well. As an example from a past request, I think Ship and Weapon Pack (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0) is now compatible with the TC when following the instructions to enable Nex. Most faction mods should be compatible now (unbalanced but compatible) and the only things that won't work well are ones that modify industries. Adding industries is probably ok, but trying to override orbital stations, for instance, won't work well.

The plan: The Archean Order factions' ship and weapon pack versions will remove those obstacles and allow vanilla ships and weapons back into the codex and standard markets. It will start out as just a fork that doesn't add any markets to the economy but lets the ships and weapons be available through blueprint drops. That should preserve the modiverse economy hopefully. You could theoretically feed those blueprints to pirates to fight against them if you wanted to, but a player would be opting in to that imbalance as a result. As it gets more vanilla balanced, I will add a market or two for each faction pack using the Map of the Modiverse (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11422.0) as a guide.

The dialogue options are a little trickier, but very doable. I wanted to wait until I could add other cools things to it and better flesh out the system/dialogue for releasing it stand-alone, but the demand is there so I may as well fork it and update both as I make that system better. It will add a bit of work, but overall I think it will be better for the community to have that option available. I would also like to work on a way to allow other modders to add their own dialogue to that system in their mods, but I'm not 100% sure how to go about that yet. It's definitely something I want to do though.

Balancing the ship and weapon pack will take a lot more time as it will very likely require stand-alone sprite edits as well as massive stat changes to be more in line with vanilla. I will work on it from time to time but still want to actively work on the TC as well. Since I don't think it will break anything, per se, with the way I am planning to structure that pack, I can still release it unbalanced and update it with balance changes as I get to them.

Thanks for the quick response! Modularization for the mod's different features sounds great, especially for your dialogue options, it's really something unique I haven't seen anyone else do.

You mentioned that other modders might be able to make dialogue for their mods, so does that mean that each faction has different dialogue options/different chances for options' results? If so I'd think you could have some sort of universal set of dialogue options that apply to every faction unless told otherwise, that way a dialogue options standalone mod should work regardless of the faction mods it's paired with.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2020, 07:33:02 PM
Thanks for the quick response! Modularization for the mod's different features sounds great, especially for your dialogue options, it's really something unique I haven't seen anyone else do.

You mentioned that other modders might be able to make dialogue for their mods, so does that mean that each faction has different dialogue options/different chances for options' results? If so I'd think you could have some sort of universal set of dialogue options that apply to every faction unless told otherwise, that way a dialogue options standalone mod should work regardless of the faction mods it's paired with.

I'm not sure how that would work considering the current code. It would have to read a config json most likely and check for jsons under a unique directory in other mods- but my experience doing that sort of thing is zero so it may prove difficult, idk. Just some initial thoughts.

I'll know more once I separate out the jars and get a stand-alone version working.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Albreo on May 04, 2020, 09:01:12 PM
Quote
Update: Ok there was a shipment for transplutonic ore to Sci-Corps Training facility in the save you linked. Upon accepting it I traveled to Kazeron and got the ore. Then went to the facility. If you are expecting a dialogue on docking that won't happen in every case- its random. If you don't get the dialogue, you have to go to the comm directory. There will be an NPC with a yellow "!" in the box. Choose that person and you will get the dialogue to turn in the quest. Screenshots:

Wait what!? but my save was a delivery quest from the planet underneath to the temple of the dark star. lol. Once you are in just accept the bar quest immediately. It should always be bugged.

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If you do a quick skim then the new colonies that were added would be a good thing to check, or balance changes in general. Capitals were overhauled and the Megalith is much more powerful and costly so test play around that would be useful. But no big deal if you want to try other mods- the point is to have fun!

If it's balance thing, yep, Tri-tac is very underpowered. They don't have High Command on their major planet, so, no Paragon for defence. Even on Culann, it's only a military base. Culann falls 5 min into the game from everyone's hatred toward Tri-tac. I think Hybrasil system, maybe, shouldn't have Archean Order there and boost Tri-tac defence in the system with one or more planet and enhance Eochu Bres and Culann with high commands.
Can there also be a ceasefire between Tri-tac and Hegemony for some time like 2-3 cycles or it maybe broke after Tri-tac has a certain number of planets?

I do think that NEX thingy is too aggressive and a bit unsuitable for immersion. If it were me, I would tone down a lot of invasions and more raid instead, an invasion should also triggered a defensive fleet respond.

Is it intended to have Special task forces combine with invading fleet in an invasion? I still observed 1 invasion fleet + 2 Special task forces in an invasion by Hegemony with a prediction force of 1 fleet. Those fleets have the same amount of strength.

Adamantine now fighting with everyone properly but I might miss their pirate base a bit. Oh, they still have a pirate base spawn. Neat.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2020, 09:12:13 PM
Wait what!? but my save was a delivery quest from the planet underneath to the temple of the dark star. lol. Once you are in just accept the bar quest immediately. It should always be bugged.

From the market at the start of the save? Just so I'm clear?

*EDIT* Also, gotcha so this is a bar delivery quest not a procurement mission. Good to know!

*EDIT 2* I think I found the source of this. Once I can verify that fix with the save I'll release the update. Thanks for the information and the save file to reproduce the results! They were instrumental in the potential fix. :)

*EDIT 3*

I likely fixed this up in general, but for the save you will still get:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/m2BeQKn.png)
[close]

-because the spaceport is disrupted from Nex raids or yourself I think:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/D2QGyGV.png)
[close]

I'm not 100% sure yet. I'll test the rules file more tomorrow.

Nvm, it's just a black market mission that is why I am getting that response. I'll try to see if I can sneak in real quick.

*EDIT 4*

Confirmed the fix. I'll upload it soon.

Added the fix to the test download. - Hotfix (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0)

For hotfixing this issue, only override the rules.csv file from this link to: "Archean Order/data/campaign"

Hotfixing should work with the linked save without a new game required.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Yg9sFrb.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/DJuP4y5.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: DatonKallandor on May 05, 2020, 09:24:48 AM
I've been playing (and streaming) a playthrough with the new version and it's been great so far. The new weapon fx helps a lot when it comes to readability. I did get a lot of free capital ships already from just finding them drifting around after NPC fleet battles, but obviously small sample size so I don't know if that's common.

Combat Capacitor ships are properly scary now, it's great. There's (a few?) Luddic Path ships that have it however that also sport built-in SO, which means their combat capacitors are semi redundant (they're already getting the flux-speed-boost from SO, so that part of the combat caps is wasted). Don't know if that's intentional or not.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 05, 2020, 05:29:21 PM
If it's balance thing, yep, Tri-tac is very underpowered. They don't have High Command on their major planet, so, no Paragon for defence. Even on Culann, it's only a military base. Culann falls 5 min into the game from everyone's hatred toward Tri-tac. I think Hybrasil system, maybe, shouldn't have Archean Order there and boost Tri-tac defence in the system with one or more planet and enhance Eochu Bres and Culann with high commands.
Can there also be a ceasefire between Tri-tac and Hegemony for some time like 2-3 cycles or it maybe broke after Tri-tac has a certain number of planets?

I do think that NEX thingy is too aggressive and a bit unsuitable for immersion. If it were me, I would tone down a lot of invasions and more raid instead, an invasion should also triggered a defensive fleet respond.

Is it intended to have Special task forces combine with invading fleet in an invasion? I still observed 1 invasion fleet + 2 Special task forces in an invasion by Hegemony with a prediction force of 1 fleet. Those fleets have the same amount of strength.

Adamantine now fighting with everyone properly but I might miss their pirate base a bit. Oh, they still have a pirate base spawn. Neat.

Agreed. The plan with Tri-Tachyon is to give them a high command system of their own that will also contain another Trader Guilds and Luddic Path market. Maybe one more market on top of that. That will give them a place of power outside of the Eldritch Fortress system and another large market. Then I may sprinkle another one into another system closer to their other markets. That should help with Nex balance in that case. I'll see about possibly reducing the chances of Tri-Tachyon/Hegemony war for a bit. That may be beyond what I can do, though, because:

For Nex aggression, I would ask on the Nex thread if there are settings in the Nex mod to tone that down. I don't remember all the settings but there are a fair amount of them. Specifically, I only control the aggression of my personal factions in the mod. I removed any attempt at editing core factions in this update because the modifiers stack instead of overriding one another.

I've been playing (and streaming) a playthrough with the new version and it's been great so far. The new weapon fx helps a lot when it comes to readability. I did get a lot of free capital ships already from just finding them drifting around after NPC fleet battles, but obviously small sample size so I don't know if that's common.

Combat Capacitor ships are properly scary now, it's great. There's (a few?) Luddic Path ships that have it however that also sport built-in SO, which means their combat capacitors are semi redundant (they're already getting the flux-speed-boost from SO, so that part of the combat caps is wasted). Don't know if that's intentional or not.

Hey great! Glad that helped. I have plans to reduce capital access substantially, but that might have to wait until story points are a thing. As far as Luddic Path- it was an oversight, yes. Any thoughts on systems that would work better? Ironically, though not typically the best system- flare launchers might synergize with their hullmods pretty well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: hollow on May 10, 2020, 02:12:57 PM
I seem to be having an issue with this mod

whenever I select archean order in the mod menu it seems to deselect some of my other mods which are supposed to be compatible with the mod

and it only happens when I select archean order, all the other mods don't do that
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 10, 2020, 03:43:09 PM
I seem to be having an issue with this mod

whenever I select archean order in the mod menu it seems to deselect some of my other mods which are supposed to be compatible with the mod

and it only happens when I select archean order, all the other mods don't do that

See the instructions (and be sure to read the warning too) on the main page for disabling the TC behavior of the mod. Look under "Directions to Enable Nexerelin and Other Non-Utility Mods:"
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Albreo on May 12, 2020, 09:44:29 AM
End game (again)

- I am skeptical with Megalith cost of 50 points. It does have a very high flux buff this patch but it still pretty much a dopped Paragon with double the craft.  46-48 range might be better.
- Can install a converted hangar on Tyrant. Missing phase field mod.
- Those bombers are great again. OP Astral, here I come.
- Tachyon Lance is still super tragic with beam not lock-on to target and instant vent after firing for 0.1ms at long range.
- Hivemind orb still hit my Paragon butt. Maybe it has mine tag so it was able to friendly fire. It should pass over friendly ships as other missiles do. From the description, it should be capable to do that much.
- Executor doesn't have enough OP to deploy both weapons and crafts.
- Ion cannon should not be auto fire at fighters. Its flux cost is so much to be wasted on something that can evade it easily.
- Archean loadout is still prime for suicide. Their ships should all have flux capacity bump up a lot as Megalith so it can fire 1.0 flux/damage weapon properly.
- Pirate fleet size feels optimal this time.
- OMG, thic red Terminator beam makes the damage 3 times higher.
- Medium Thermal and Obliterator cannon have too little different stat-wise where one costs nothing and another cost some flux. Maybe Obliterator should be an explosive instead.
- After taking a look at Remnant Brilliant stat, the flux is quite OP. It's higher than most capital ships.

- Luddic Church's defense stations feel strangely strong. The market size is big, as a result. They have the high ground this playthrough and capture quite a few planets.
- Sindrian would like to purchase some more defense stations of its own. Askonia sector has to be fortified as much as possible.
- Persean league planets in Westernesse are too weak. It's close to Adamantine and took quite a lot of beating to the point of decivilized.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 13, 2020, 04:29:41 PM
- I am skeptical with Megalith cost of 50 points. It does have a very high flux buff this patch but it still pretty much a dopped Paragon with double the craft.  46-48 range might be better.
Still kind of messing around with it, but yeah definitely could change. I was cautious about it being too strong so went on the high end of deployment.

Quote
- Can install a converted hangar on Tyrant. Missing phase field mod.
Whoops! Thanks!

Quote
- Those bombers are great again. OP Astral, here I come.
Good! Glad bombers feel better. I think I made some Astral changes too, so hopefully its not too OP. I guess we will see.

Quote
- Tachyon Lance is still super tragic with beam not lock-on to target and instant vent after firing for 0.1ms at long range.
Yeah this is something I'm hoping to address. I need to write a weapon script to prevent venting during the burst and lock the target. That may be complicated though and I will probably need some help to do it.

Quote
- Hivemind orb still hit my Paragon butt. Maybe it has mine tag so it was able to friendly fire. It should pass over friendly ships as other missiles do. From the description, it should be capable to do that much.
You know what, I think I forgot about this one. Let me double check. It probably has the wrong collision class or what is happening is that it is timing out (not visible with no engine) before it reaches the target and then it becomes friendly fire. Other missiles do this too, but in this case it is probably too high a range for the AI compared to its flight time. I thought I addressed this already, my fault.

Quote
- Executor doesn't have enough OP to deploy both weapons and crafts.
Thanks, noted. What are you trying to equip? All end tier stuff or mid tier?

Quote
- Ion cannon should not be auto fire at fighters. Its flux cost is so much to be wasted on something that can evade it easily.
I'll see if I can change this without breaking the AI too much.

Quote
- Archean loadout is still prime for suicide. Their ships should all have flux capacity bump up a lot as Megalith so it can fire 1.0 flux/damage weapon properly.
This is in the works. It can be done reliably now because these ships will be hard to get later. Before I was trying to make them more balanced in the players hands, but now that isn't quite as necessary.

Quote
- Pirate fleet size feels optimal this time.
Great! Not sure what I did to be honest. I may have messed with the faction file a bit. I don't really remember.

Quote
- OMG, thic red Terminator beam makes the damage 3 times higher.
Haha though it may hit a couple more plates, that isn't because its wider. I increased the damage. It was low for an energy weapon- even a strike one. Its perfect accuracy makes it really good though, so it may get tuned down a bit. It's now more competitive against higher tier strike weapons.

Quote
- Medium Thermal and Obliterator cannon have too little different stat-wise where one costs nothing and another cost some flux. Maybe Obliterator should be an explosive instead.
That would make it a weird comparison to the Photon Cannon/Excalibur Cannon. Also the bullet would have to change. Technically its a heavy assault weapon (so burst damage and still high sustained) and that's why it costs flux, but the best way to make it more unique would be to add an ion cannon effect to it with a smaller amount of emp per hit. That would actually synergize well with the Sci-Corps doctrine and the burst mechanic. Hmm.. I like it more and more as I think about it.

Quote
- After taking a look at Remnant Brilliant stat, the flux is quite OP. It's higher than most capital ships.
Did you look at the Radiant? It's much higher too. This may change, but it is a current experiment with really hard late game enemies.

Quote
- Luddic Church's defense stations feel strangely strong. The market size is big, as a result. They have the high ground this playthrough and capture quite a few planets.
- Sindrian would like to purchase some more defense stations of its own. Askonia sector has to be fortified as much as possible.
- Persean league planets in Westernesse are too weak. It's close to Adamantine and took quite a lot of beating to the point of decivilized.
I'm glad Luddic Church is a competing player now! That was definitely intended in this update. I'm pretty proud of the lore too. I have some plans to expand that later in some cool ways. As far as Askonia is concerned, I'm not 100% sure how to go about that. Stations are already on most planets and the capital has a high command... maybe more military bases? Not sure. I'll look at Westernesse. It's kind of an outlier system that is otherwise largely ignored and the League has lots of worlds in general, so I kind of like the idea of having the Consortium act as an immediate menace there. We'll see.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Albreo on May 13, 2020, 09:22:57 PM
Quote
Thanks, noted. What are you trying to equip? All end tier stuff or mid tier?
Mostly cheap stuff, Spark, Mid-tier weapon, and still unable to fill many slots without compromise flux vent. It doesn't have enough flux to mount energy weapons properly. I might also have to tone down mods as well cus I always use like 8 essential mods.

Quote
Did you look at the Radiant? It's much higher too. This may change, but it is a current experiment with really hard late game enemies.
Radiant is quite easy to kill when it's alone. It's slow and weak against fighters. I can gang it with 2-3 capitals, Tyrant is pretty good at killing it. Brilliant on another hand has strong fighter support and great speed making it hard to 1v1, the ship fighting it can't vent properly as this little pest is super fast and can pursuit aggressively. Lower the speed might reduce its difficulty a bit.

- Sabot secondary projectile range seems to be a little too short. The missile is also a little too slow it never survives close enough to shoot out sabot.

Archean was dead by the way. Not sure why but the trader guild went all out and capture most of their planets while its focus is on Tri-tac lol.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: ho_gar on May 13, 2020, 11:06:41 PM
I tried to download the latest version but the Dropbox link is down. the version for 8. is working fine but the 9. is linking to a 404 on Dropbox.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: DatonKallandor on May 14, 2020, 01:40:55 PM

- Sabot secondary projectile range seems to be a little too short. The missile is also a little too slow it never survives close enough to shoot out sabot.

That's not my experience. Sabots are one of the few missiles that pretty reliably get damage on target even when there's PD present for me.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Albreo on May 14, 2020, 10:12:14 PM
Quote
That's not my experience. Sabots are one of the few missiles that pretty reliably get damage on target even when there's PD present for me.
Just to make it clear, I barely test the rest of the missile apart from large mount/high tech one. If you're talking about experience then I think it might be fine I guess, in the early game where Thunderbolt will be very hard to find but I have tested it quite comprehensively and find that it's much worse than Thunderbolt in every situation. Thunderbolt has a much longer secondary projectile fire range which pretty much bypasses most of the PD. Whereas Sabot, its missile is super fragile, any small bullet that hit it obliterate it entirely. I put it in place of Thunderbolts to test it and the result was disappointing. I also tested it on Apogee for a small ship fight and the result is the same. It's the same on a prolonging fight as well where I place the only 4 capitals in test mode in a row.

PS. more test ship would be nice.

My conclusion is SABOT has to be buff in someway either increase secondary projectile range, buff missile HP, buff missile speed, or reduce its mount size from large to medium. Add EMP might not be suitable.

On another hand, Thunderbolt might need its EMP nerf a bit.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 15, 2020, 02:36:36 PM
Mostly cheap stuff, Spark, Mid-tier weapon, and still unable to fill many slots without compromise flux vent. It doesn't have enough flux to mount energy weapons properly. I might also have to tone down mods as well cus I always use like 8 essential mods.
Hmm, ok. I'll do a comparison to some of the other capitals. More flux or OP shouldn't really break the balance of that ship, anyway.

Quote
Radiant is quite easy to kill when it's alone. It's slow and weak against fighters. I can gang it with 2-3 capitals, Tyrant is pretty good at killing it. Brilliant on another hand has strong fighter support and great speed making it hard to 1v1, the ship fighting it can't vent properly as this little pest is super fast and can pursuit aggressively. Lower the speed might reduce its difficulty a bit.
Are Radiants coming in alone often?? Ugh, sometimes I get really annoyed at how the AI deploys ships. I'll take a look at the Brilliant's speed.

Quote
- Sabot secondary projectile range seems to be a little too short. The missile is also a little too slow it never survives close enough to shoot out sabot.
I tried making it stronger in the past (your exact suggestion actually) and it was too good. It was better than the Thunderbolt because it has higher armor penetration in comparison.

Quote
Archean was dead by the way. Not sure why but the trader guild went all out and capture most of their planets while its focus is on Tri-tac lol.
Trader Guilds, eh? Weird they have the smallest number of colonies. Maybe it was an alliance situation, lol.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried to download the latest version but the Dropbox link is down. the version for 8. is working fine but the 9. is linking to a 404 on Dropbox.
Ah right I'll remove that link it was to an old version. The main download link is the version you should be going for (that old version had some bugs iirc) or the test download link is the newest version of the mod in general if you want to play with the new colonies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's not my experience. Sabots are one of the few missiles that pretty reliably get damage on target even when there's PD present for me.
Just to make it clear, I barely test the rest of the missile apart from large mount/high tech one. If you're talking about experience then I think it might be fine I guess, in the early game where Thunderbolt will be very hard to find but I have tested it quite comprehensively and find that it's much worse than Thunderbolt in every situation. Thunderbolt has a much longer secondary projectile fire range which pretty much bypasses most of the PD. Whereas Sabot, its missile is super fragile, any small bullet that hit it obliterate it entirely. I put it in place of Thunderbolts to test it and the result was disappointing. I also tested it on Apogee for a small ship fight and the result is the same. It's the same on a prolonging fight as well where I place the only 4 capitals in test mode in a row.

PS. more test ship would be nice.

My conclusion is SABOT has to be buff in someway either increase secondary projectile range, buff missile HP, buff missile speed, or reduce its mount size from large to medium. Add EMP might not be suitable.

On another hand, Thunderbolt might need its EMP nerf a bit.
I think I made Thunderbolt more reliable like you describe since it is a rare weapon and I want high tier rare weapons to feel powerful. It is supposed to outclass the Sabot at the cost of more flux/OP. Now, thing is, if there is never a reason to use the Sabot to get that OP or save flux in a build, then the Thunderbolt is probably a little too strong. I want it to be more reliable than the Sabot, but not a guaranteed hit, for instance. And EMP might be too high I think I just slapped on a value there anyway.

Re: Test Ships- that should be fairly easy to add. There is also a random faction battle simulator in the Missions section that has access to a lot of ships- though of course it generates randomly. It's a good way to test out a lot of things quickly though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Removed the old link and updated mod merging information and warnings.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: DrFunTimez69 on May 18, 2020, 10:24:42 AM
Love the mod, great gameplay additions and tweaks, I have no problem with anything in that regard, great job dude. But the portraits? I really want to figure out how to disable them. I'm not really into anime and they all clash with the main style anyhow. Anyway, I'm not good at understanding code, but I can wrap my head around how it works kinda, so I don't know if I'm stupid for trying but I looked in settings.json and mod_info.json but that's not it. If anyone, or the modder, knows how, or if I even can, disable or remove the portraits, please help.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 18, 2020, 01:29:42 PM
Love the mod, great gameplay additions and tweaks, I have no problem with anything in that regard, great job dude. But the portraits? I really want to figure out how to disable them. I'm not really into anime and they all clash with the main style anyhow. Anyway, I'm not good at understanding code, but I can wrap my head around how it works kinda, so I don't know if I'm stupid for trying but I looked in settings.json and mod_info.json but that's not it. If anyone, or the modder, knows how, or if I even can, disable or remove the portraits, please help.

Thanks for the compliment!  :)

Portraits: Look in the faction files (data/world/factions). Portraits are defined there and you can comment them out using # in front of the line. The portrait names those files reference are found in the graphics folder so you can cross reference there to remove the ones you don't like.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: boom-mug on May 20, 2020, 12:56:50 PM
You may put Supply Forging (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17503) on that list and I'd like to talk why Better Colonies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103) seems to crash for players that I believe it's more related to the OrbitalStation.java. Was wondering if you modified OrbitalStation by any chance?

Thanks for the info! I'll add it to the list.

I haven't really had much time to work on this in the last week or two, but I got some free time today so I can take a quick look and see what I can see as far as the crash goes. Do you mean com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation when you say OrbitalStation? I haven't modified that file, no, but I have overridden the orbital station industry entries in the csv file. Does your mod need those for anything?

*EDIT*

This is the error you are getting, right? Looking into this now.

(https://i.imgur.com/l9xUDXU.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/AtfPIiS.png)

*EDIT 3*
I was wrong. I wasn't reading the error correctly. Updated info below.

Seems to be related to this line:
      
Code
com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD newOSL = (com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD)market.getIndustry( "orbitalstation");

in:
Code
\Starsector\mods\Better Colonies\jar\src.zip\src\data\scripts\GDModPlugin.java

So, I'll check to see if this tag is missing from my industries entries(they were correct afaik) markets and update here.
That's great, what was the solution? Just change the OrbitalStation entry into something that your csv is correlating an entry to?

This is what I ran into recently.  Did you happen to find a solution?  Both these mods are great and I wish they would work together.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on May 20, 2020, 03:53:59 PM
This is what I ran into recently.  Did you happen to find a solution?  Both these mods are great and I wish they would work together.

Iirc, I think it ended up being pretty hard to solve. I'll try and work with Techpriest to take another crack at it after I'm done coding Fleet Dialogue.

For the most part, I'm looking at recently requested balance changes in Archean Order until Fleet Dialogue's coding is done- partly because that mod will become a required supporting mod for this one, and I will remove that mod's functionality from this one to save on loading times and give more transparency to those who want to see how each faction responds to the dialogue system (since they will be in spreadsheets instead of hardcoded by the end).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: boom-mug on May 21, 2020, 11:17:25 AM
Iirc, I think it ended up being pretty hard to solve. I'll try and work with Techpriest to take another crack at it after I'm done coding Fleet Dialogue.

For the most part, I'm looking at recently requested balance changes in Archean Order until Fleet Dialogue's coding is done- partly because that mod will become a required supporting mod for this one, and I will remove that mod's functionality from this one to save on loading times and give more transparency to those who want to see how each faction responds to the dialogue system (since they will be in spreadsheets instead of hardcoded by the end).

Thanks, I'm looking for to it!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: hollow on May 26, 2020, 11:42:19 AM
now I know this mod is supposed to be a total conversion mod that wouldn't work well with the normal faction mods but I find the imperium
and the coalition to be really underpowered compared to the rest of the ships

to better illustrate the power gap here ill take the Olympus as an example, normal game the rocket would literally wipe half a capital fleet
but in this mod? not even a scratch to the hull if they aren't hugging the ship when it explodes
not to mention the flux of there ships is really terrible compared to the mod ships which makes them underwhelming to say the least.

is there a way I could edit them cause id like to make them viable for actual use not just as trophies in my hanger?

edit: I really love the mod but I would love to make the extra factions viable
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: DatonKallandor on May 27, 2020, 09:30:53 AM
It's a TC. Unless you manually redo all the stats for other mods they won't ever be balanced for it.

Incidentally, I ran into the Cryosleeper Guardian in AO for the first time...I was really hoping he got the Remnant treatment and got buffed to be a true end-game threat, but he was really wimpy. Is giving him a make-over planned?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Falco on May 28, 2020, 07:17:19 AM
Hi! I'm very new to the game and I was playing this mod, really liked. There is only one thing, don't know if its a bug, but the system where you start in the tutorial in vanilla (galatia) seems to have a problem with supplies. There is 3 factions there, Hegemony, Independent and the (forgot the name) Science one. They are spamming supply request, I was making millions just trough trading. Like they can't receive(?) supplies from other means. 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 28, 2020, 03:47:38 PM
Sorry for the delayed reply, I have been waist deep in code for the last few days. lol  :)

now I know this mod is supposed to be a total conversion mod that wouldn't work well with the normal faction mods but I find the imperium
and the coalition to be really underpowered compared to the rest of the ships

to better illustrate the power gap here ill take the Olympus as an example, normal game the rocket would literally wipe half a capital fleet
but in this mod? not even a scratch to the hull if they aren't hugging the ship when it explodes
not to mention the flux of there ships is really terrible compared to the mod ships which makes them underwhelming to say the least.

is there a way I could edit them cause id like to make them viable for actual use not just as trophies in my hanger?

edit: I really love the mod but I would love to make the extra factions viable

I'll eventually compile a chart about how to go about doing something like that. A couple people have made personal mods that do this sort of thing, but they would need the author's permission to be published.

In general, it is out of my hands. For the factions you would like to see rebalanced, the best bet is to ask on the mod author's thread for them to do this as a stand-alone version. I would be happy to consult with anyone wanting information on how to do that. Trying to change the TC's balance to accommodate everything is more than likely impossible or at the very least outside of my skill.

Incidentally, I ran into the Cryosleeper Guardian in AO for the first time...I was really hoping he got the Remnant treatment and got buffed to be a true end-game threat, but he was really wimpy. Is giving him a make-over planned?


I believe at the time I wasn't aware that it was a limited event kind of thing and thought that it was sometimes a part of higher level derelict fleets - which are kept easy for the most part.

I'll see about making it a lot scarier. It's loadouts are probably fine, but it likely needs higher stats.

Does it have any escorts when you fight it?

Hi! I'm very new to the game and I was playing this mod, really liked. There is only one thing, don't know if its a bug, but the system where you start in the tutorial in vanilla (galatia) seems to have a problem with supplies. There is 3 factions there, Hegemony, Independent and the (forgot the name) Science one. They are spamming supply request, I was making millions just trough trading. Like they can't receive(?) supplies from other means. 

Hi there! That *should* have been fixed in a later update - are you on the latest version? If so, could I have your operating system please? Another thing to look at is the market information for supply and demand at the markets giving those missions. If that is messed up, it's probably the same issue. If not, it could be something completely new I'm unaware of.

A mod list is always useful too so I can rule that out as being the cause.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Falco on May 29, 2020, 04:19:57 AM
I was not in the latest version (1.3.5) I'm sorry. I'm using now and going to do the test.
The mods i'm using is the following:
Lightshow
Trailer moments
Archean Order
Autosave
LazyLib
Leading Pipe
Logistics Notification
MagicLib
Speedup
Upgrade Rotary Weapons
Version Checker
GraphicsLib

My OP is Windows 10.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Falco on May 29, 2020, 04:26:54 AM
I'm installed the newest version and doing the tests. I got this. But how i'm new to the game, I don't know if this is normal. And again, amazing mod. (Don't know how to do the spoiler for images LOL)

(https://i.imgur.com/8G9kNOj.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZZYGLE2.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Mk9hthu.jpg)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 29, 2020, 03:53:09 PM
@Falco

I took a look and yes that seems normal on a new game start. As a guess I'd say it is because for ~ the first 30 days Derinkuyu Mining Station is controlled by pirates and has 0% accessibility. Once it becomes independent it seems like procurement contracts come as often as in any other system (flew around randomly for a month or two).

Still, I'll keep my eye out for this while testing just to make sure. Galatia isn't added to the economy in the same way as the other systems, so I very well could have missed something. (I also made a note to make the stations faction specific for that system. Forgot about that.)

And again, amazing mod.

Thank you! :) Glad you are enjoying it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: DatonKallandor on May 31, 2020, 06:46:12 AM
Does it have any escorts when you fight it?

It does not. It's always a solo fights, so you'd have to pump it up a lot to make it a real threat.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on May 31, 2020, 11:36:21 AM
It does not. It's always a solo fights, so you'd have to pump it up a lot to make it a real threat.

Thanks that's good to know. I should have that addressed in the next update.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: MaysaChan on June 02, 2020, 08:49:18 AM
I test this mod with another 108 mods all run together
List of mods here:
Spoiler
Adjusted Sector
AI Flag tool
Another Portrait Pack
Anvil Industries
Appro Light
Arsenal Expansion
Artefact
Audio Plus
Autosave
Better Colonies
Blackrock Drive Yards
Celestial Mount Circle
Combat Chatter
Combat Analytics
Commissioned Crews
Common Radar
COPS
CWSP
Dassault Mikoyan
Degenerate Portrait Pack
Diable Avionics
Disassemble Reassemble
ED Shipyard
Extratentail Lanestate Union
FDS
Fluff Ship pack
Foundation of Borken
Fuel Siphoning
Galaxy Tigers
Girl Frontline Portrait Pack (another weeb portrait pack )
GKSec
Gladiator Society
GraphicsLib
Grytpype Moriarty
Hiigaran Descendants
HMI
Idoneus Citadel Exiles
Industrial Evolution
Interesting Portraits Pack
Interstellar Imperium
Junk Pirates
Kadur Remnant
Kingdom of Terra
LazyLib
Legacy of Arkgneisis
Lightshow
Logistics Notification
Luddic Enhancement 
MagicLib
Mayasuran Navy
Metelson
Missiles & Sundry
Missing Ships
Nabaal
Neutrino Corp
Nexerelin
Oculian Armada
ORA
Planetary Shield Access Control
Polaris Prime
Pokemon Portrait Pack
Portrait Pack
Practice Targets
Prv Starworks
Pulse Industry
Rebalanced Pilums
Roider Union
Ruthless Sector
Safety Override
Sanguinary Anarchistic Defectors
SCY
SD Advanced Hullmods
Second Wave Options
Shadowy Broker
Shadow Yards
Ship & Weapon Pack
Skilled Up
Speed Up
Starship Legends
Stop Gap Measure
Supply Forging
Sylphon
Tahlan
Terraforming & Station Construction
Thgualsno
Tiandong Heavy Industries
Toggle Weapon Group
Torchship
Trailer Moments
Transfer All Items
Transponder Reminders
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition
Underworld
Unknown Skies
Unofficial New Game Plus
Upgraded Rotary Weapons
Va-11 Hall-A Portrait Pack
[close]

And so far only 2 mods from the list are incompatible with Archean Order and it's "Second Wave Options" & "Better Colonies"

Here is the problem causing by those mods, if enable alongside with Archean Order

if Second Wace Option is enable
- Crash during startup with the message:
https://imgur.com/DFOTLaJ (https://imgur.com/DFOTLaJ)

and here is the log file
Code
[Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Ship hull variant [kite_Interceptor] not found!
java.lang.RuntimeException: Ship hull variant [kite_Interceptor] not found!
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.B.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.B.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.V$Oo.getFPCost(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.V.<init>(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.SpecStore.?O0000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.SpecStore.?O0000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ResourceLoaderState.init(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

For Better Colonies, someone already discusses it but I will post here anyway just in case

If Better Colonies is enable
-Crash during new game world creation right before saving with the message:
https://imgur.com/undefined (https://imgur.com/undefined)

and here is the log file:
Code
[Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ClassCastException: com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation cannot be cast to com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation cannot be cast to com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD
at data.scripts.GDModPlugin.onEnabled(GDModPlugin.java:64)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ModAndPluginData.notifyRunningWithMod(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.dismiss(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.K.dismiss(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.if.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.?00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.O0Oo.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

If I encounter more problem (hopefully not) I will post it here again but so far, I played for 3 hours and I see no bug nor crash at all, which is a big relief.
If anyone finds a solution, please lemme know, Thank you!! ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 02, 2020, 06:54:03 PM
I test this mod with another 108 mods all run together
List of mods here:
Spoiler
Adjusted Sector
AI Flag tool
Another Portrait Pack
Anvil Industries
Appro Light
Arsenal Expansion
Artefact
Audio Plus
Autosave
Better Colonies
Blackrock Drive Yards
Celestial Mount Circle
Combat Chatter
Combat Analytics
Commissioned Crews
Common Radar
COPS
CWSP
Dassault Mikoyan
Degenerate Portrait Pack
Diable Avionics
Disassemble Reassemble
ED Shipyard
Extratentail Lanestate Union
FDS
Fluff Ship pack
Foundation of Borken
Fuel Siphoning
Galaxy Tigers
Girl Frontline Portrait Pack (another weeb portrait pack )
GKSec
Gladiator Society
GraphicsLib
Grytpype Moriarty
Hiigaran Descendants
HMI
Idoneus Citadel Exiles
Industrial Evolution
Interesting Portraits Pack
Interstellar Imperium
Junk Pirates
Kadur Remnant
Kingdom of Terra
LazyLib
Legacy of Arkgneisis
Lightshow
Logistics Notification
Luddic Enhancement 
MagicLib
Mayasuran Navy
Metelson
Missiles & Sundry
Missing Ships
Nabaal
Neutrino Corp
Nexerelin
Oculian Armada
ORA
Planetary Shield Access Control
Polaris Prime
Pokemon Portrait Pack
Portrait Pack
Practice Targets
Prv Starworks
Pulse Industry
Rebalanced Pilums
Roider Union
Ruthless Sector
Safety Override
Sanguinary Anarchistic Defectors
SCY
SD Advanced Hullmods
Second Wave Options
Shadowy Broker
Shadow Yards
Ship & Weapon Pack
Skilled Up
Speed Up
Starship Legends
Stop Gap Measure
Supply Forging
Sylphon
Tahlan
Terraforming & Station Construction
Thgualsno
Tiandong Heavy Industries
Toggle Weapon Group
Torchship
Trailer Moments
Transfer All Items
Transponder Reminders
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition
Underworld
Unknown Skies
Unofficial New Game Plus
Upgraded Rotary Weapons
Va-11 Hall-A Portrait Pack
[close]

And so far only 2 mods from the list are incompatible with Archean Order and it's "Second Wave Options" & "Better Colonies"


Thanks for testing out all the mods! I'm glad that things are working as planned so far. Better Colonies will likely require some sorcery to get working, but Second Wave Options comes as a bit of a surprise. I'll take a look at fixing that tonight especially now that I have highlight parsing and highlight color logic done for Expanded Fleet Dialogue. Those were the goals for this week.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 02, 2020, 07:58:14 PM
Thanks for testing out all the mods! I'm glad that things are working as planned so far. Better Colonies will likely require some sorcery to get working, but Second Wave Options comes as a bit of a surprise. I'll take a look at fixing that tonight especially now that I have highlight parsing and highlight color logic done for Expanded Fleet Dialogue. Those were the goals for this week.

Hmm. I'm not reproducing this error (I have started ~20 new games with both mods enabled), but I took a look at the code for Second Wave Options and my hunch is that it's a path separator issue based upon your operating system in the "replace" section of mod_info.json - (found in the first level of the mod directory). Can I get your operating system for informational purposes?

This is the entry in Second Wave Options:

Code
	"data/variants/kite/kite_Interceptor.variant",

This is the entry in Archean Order:
Code
	"data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Interceptor.variant",

Try changing these to match each other in format and the issue should hopefully go away. Not sure which format your operating system would require though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: MaysaChan on June 03, 2020, 06:17:28 AM
Thanks for testing out all the mods! I'm glad that things are working as planned so far. Better Colonies will likely require some sorcery to get working, but Second Wave Options comes as a bit of a surprise. I'll take a look at fixing that tonight especially now that I have highlight parsing and highlight color logic done for Expanded Fleet Dialogue. Those were the goals for this week.

Hmm. I'm not reproducing this error (I have started ~20 new games with both mods enabled), but I took a look at the code for Second Wave Options and my hunch is that it's a path separator issue based upon your operating system in the "replace" section of mod_info.json - (found in the first level of the mod directory). Can I get your operating system for informational purposes?

This is the entry in Second Wave Options:

Code
	"data/variants/kite/kite_Interceptor.variant",

This is the entry in Archean Order:
Code
	"data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Interceptor.variant",

Try changing these to match each other in format and the issue should hopefully go away. Not sure which format your operating system would require though.
ok actually, I look into Archean Order and found out that my mod_info.json doesn't have "replace" tag lol and now with I fix it by replace old mod_info with default one but now, other mod(s) that used to work, crash during startup with fatal null message
and here is the code
Code
[Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ShipHullSpecLoader.?00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ShipHullSpecLoader.Object(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.SpecStore.?O0000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ResourceLoaderState.init(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I will do a run down test with all mods again and I will post an update here  :'( :-\
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: MaysaChan on June 03, 2020, 09:40:30 AM
UPDATE and it's very BAD NEWS

I test this mod with another 104 mods AGAIN all run together
List of tested mods:
Spoiler
Adjusted Sector
AI Flag tool
Another Portrait Pack
Anvil Industries
Appro Light
Arsenal Expansion
Artefact
Audio Plus
Autosave
Better Colonies
Blackrock Drive Yards
Celestial Mount Circle
Combat Chatter
Combat Analytics
Commissioned Crews
Common Radar
COPS
CWSP
Dassault Mikoyan
Degenerate Portrait Pack
Diable Avionics
Disassemble Reassemble
ED Shipyard
Extratentail Lanestate Union
FDS
Fluff Ship pack
Foundation of Borken
Fuel Siphoning
Galaxy Tigers
Girl Frontline Portrait Pack (another weeb portrait pack )
GKSec
Gladiator Society
GraphicsLib
Grytpype Moriarty
Hiigaran Descendants
HMI
Idoneus Citadel Exiles
Industrial Evolution
Interesting Portraits Pack
Interstellar Imperium
Junk Pirates
Kadur Remnant
Kingdom of Terra
LazyLib
Legacy of Arkgneisis
Lightshow
Logistics Notification
Luddic Enhancement
MagicLib
Mayasuran Navy
Metelson
Missiles & Sundry
Missing Ships
Nabaal
Neutrino Corp
Nexerelin
Oculian Armada
ORA
Planetary Shield Access Control
Polaris Prime
Pokemon Portrait Pack
Portrait Pack
Practice Targets
Prv Starworks
Pulse Industry
Rebalanced Pilums
Roider Union
Ruthless Sector
Safety Override
Sanguinary Anarchistic Defectors
SCY
SD Advanced Hullmods
Second Wave Options
Shadowy Broker
Shadow Yards
Ship & Weapon Pack
Skilled Up
Speed Up
Starship Legends
Stop Gap Measure
Supply Forging
Sylphon
Tahlan
Terraforming & Station Construction
Thgualsno
Toggle Weapon Group
Torchship
Trailer Moments
Transfer All Items
Transponder Reminders
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition
Underworld
Unknown Skies
Unofficial New Game Plus
Upgraded Rotary Weapons
Va-11 Hall-A Portrait Pack
[close]

last time I tested those mods without "Replace" tag in Achean Order "mod_info.json" but this time with default mod_info I test it again and surprisingly and shockingly, there are 6 mods that is incompatible with Achean Order and it's Kadur Remnant, Mayasuran Navy,Ship/Weapon Packs, Underworld, Vayra's Sector & prv Starwork

Kardur Remnant, Mayasuran Navy, Ship/Weapon Packs, Underworld & Varyra's Sector crash during startup and will receive same error message said Fatal: null

here is log code:
Code
 ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ShipHullSpecLoader.?00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ShipHullSpecLoader.Object(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.SpecStore.?O0000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ResourceLoaderState.init(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

while prv Starship will also crash during startup but receive a different error message "Index: 4, Size: 4"

here is the log code
Code
ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 4, Size: 4
java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 4, Size: 4
at java.util.ArrayList.rangeCheck(Unknown Source)
at java.util.ArrayList.get(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ShipHullSpecLoader.?00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ShipHullSpecLoader.Object(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.SpecStore.?O0000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ResourceLoaderState.init(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

At the moment, the only solution I found is to go to mod_info in Archean Order mod folder and delete every "data\\hulls\\[ship name].ship" but I'm sure this is not the right way to solve those problems and it might cause future problems? (I'm not a modder, so I don't really understand how those work). If anyone gets a proper solution, please lemme know. Thank you!!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 03, 2020, 12:22:55 PM
UPDATE and it's very BAD NEWS

I test this mod with another 104 mods AGAIN all run together
List of tested mods:
Spoiler
Adjusted Sector
AI Flag tool
Another Portrait Pack
Anvil Industries
Appro Light
Arsenal Expansion
Artefact
Audio Plus
Autosave
Better Colonies
Blackrock Drive Yards
Celestial Mount Circle
Combat Chatter
Combat Analytics
Commissioned Crews
Common Radar
COPS
CWSP
Dassault Mikoyan
Degenerate Portrait Pack
Diable Avionics
Disassemble Reassemble
ED Shipyard
Extratentail Lanestate Union
FDS
Fluff Ship pack
Foundation of Borken
Fuel Siphoning
Galaxy Tigers
Girl Frontline Portrait Pack (another weeb portrait pack )
GKSec
Gladiator Society
GraphicsLib
Grytpype Moriarty
Hiigaran Descendants
HMI
Idoneus Citadel Exiles
Industrial Evolution
Interesting Portraits Pack
Interstellar Imperium
Junk Pirates
Kadur Remnant
Kingdom of Terra
LazyLib
Legacy of Arkgneisis
Lightshow
Logistics Notification
Luddic Enhancement
MagicLib
Mayasuran Navy
Metelson
Missiles & Sundry
Missing Ships
Nabaal
Neutrino Corp
Nexerelin
Oculian Armada
ORA
Planetary Shield Access Control
Polaris Prime
Pokemon Portrait Pack
Portrait Pack
Practice Targets
Prv Starworks
Pulse Industry
Rebalanced Pilums
Roider Union
Ruthless Sector
Safety Override
Sanguinary Anarchistic Defectors
SCY
SD Advanced Hullmods
Second Wave Options
Shadowy Broker
Shadow Yards
Ship & Weapon Pack
Skilled Up
Speed Up
Starship Legends
Stop Gap Measure
Supply Forging
Sylphon
Tahlan
Terraforming & Station Construction
Thgualsno
Toggle Weapon Group
Torchship
Trailer Moments
Transfer All Items
Transponder Reminders
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition
Underworld
Unknown Skies
Unofficial New Game Plus
Upgraded Rotary Weapons
Va-11 Hall-A Portrait Pack
[close]

last time I tested those mods without "Replace" tag in Achean Order "mod_info.json" but this time with default mod_info I test it again and surprisingly and shockingly, there are 6 mods that is incompatible with Achean Order and it's Kadur Remnant, Mayasuran Navy,Ship/Weapon Packs, Underworld, Vayra's Sector & prv Starwork

Kardur Remnant, Mayasuran Navy, Ship/Weapon Packs, Underworld & Varyra's Sector crash during startup and will receive same error message said Fatal: null

...........

At the moment, the only solution I found is to go to mod_info in Archean Order mod folder and delete every "data\\hulls\\[ship name].ship" but I'm sure this is not the right way to solve those problems and it might cause future problems? (I'm not a modder, so I don't really understand how those work). If anyone gets a proper solution, please lemme know. Thank you!!

Ah ok that makes sense then. You aren't using the new test version if there are ship overrides in the replace section of mod_info. There should only be skin files, economy files, faction files and variants in the newest (and most compatible) version.

Keep in mind that the test update (under the main download) will require you to remove or delete the old mod directory or it will cause problems.

Even with the new version, however, there are a couple of exceptions (notably the (XIV) Legion) that are still overridden with changes. Can't get around that unfortunately. Still, the vast majority of mods should be compatible with the test version and the other skin files are only overridden to remove their blueprint tags iirc.

Should look like this:

Spoiler
"id":"archeus",
   "name":"Archean Order",
   "version":"1.3.5",
     "author":"Morrokain",
   "description":"A complete rebalance of Starsector that focuses on smaller weapons, more fighters and a heavy addition of lore content. Almost all weapons and ships have been reworked to some degree and many added. Tutorials, tooltips, descriptions and hints have been updated to explain new facets of gameplay, or, use the Tactics Manual (.doc in mod folder) as a reference! Enjoy!",
  "gameVersion":"0.9.1a",
   "modPlugin":"data.scripts.ArcheusModPlugin",
   "jars": ["Archean Order TC v0.9.1a.jar"],
  "totalConversion":"true",
  "replace":[
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\aztlan.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\arcadia.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\askonia.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\eos.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\isirah.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\canaan.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\algebbar.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\kumarikandam.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\magec.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\naraka.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\valhalla.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\samarra.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\mayasura.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\thule.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\tyle.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\yma.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\zagan.json",
          "data\\campaign\\econ\\corvus.json",
        "data/characters/skills/helmsmanship.skill",
          "data\\world\\factions\\pirates.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\neutral.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\hegemony.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\independent.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\player.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\sindrian_diktat.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\knights_of_ludd.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\luddic_church.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\luddic_path.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\persean_league.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\tritachyon.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\remnants.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\scavengers.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\lions_guard.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\derelict.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\poor.faction",
          "data\\world\\factions\\sleeper.faction",
   # Required to to avoid this spawning through Misc Theme generator.
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\legion_xiv.skin",
   # Required to remove blueprint tags from the TC version but otherwise untouched.
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\brawler_pather.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\brawler_tritachyon.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\buffalo_hegemony.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\buffalo_luddic_church.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\buffalo_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\buffalo_tritachyon.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\cerberus_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\cerberus_luddic_path",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\dominator_xiv.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\eagle_xiv.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\enforcer_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\enforcer_xiv.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\falcon_p.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\falcon_xiv.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\hound_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\hound_hegemony.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\hound_luddic_church.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\hound_luddic_path.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\kite_hegemony.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\kite_luddic_path.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\kite_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\lasher_pather.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\lasher_luddic_church.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\mudskipper2.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\mule_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\onslaught_xiv.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\afflictor_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\shade_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\wolf_d_pirates.skin",
   "data\\hulls\\skins\\wolf_hegemony.skin",
   "data\\variants\\aurora\\aurora_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\aurora\\aurora_Assault_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\aurora\\aurora_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\aurora\\aurora_Escort.variant",
   "data\\variants\\aurora\\aurora_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\aurora\\aurora_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\brawler\\brawler_pather_Raider.variant",
   "data\\variants\\brawler\\brawler_tritachyon_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo\\buffalo_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo\\buffalo_hegemony_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo\\buffalo_luddic_church_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo\\buffalo_pirates_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo\\buffalo_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo\\buffalo_tritachyon_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\centurion\\centurion_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\centurion\\centurion_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_d_pirates_Shielded.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_d_pirates_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_Hardened.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_luddic_path_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_Shielded.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\cerberus\\cerberus_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\conquest\\conquest_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\conquest\\conquest_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\derelict_mothership_bow_module_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\derelict_mothership_pod_engine_left_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\derelict_mothership_pod_m_left_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\derelict_mothership_pod_m_right_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\derelict_mothership_pod_s_right_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\derelict_mothership_sensor_mast_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\guardian_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\derelict\\rampart_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_AntiCV.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_d_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_Fighter_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_Outdated.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dominator\\dominator_XIV_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\drones\\drone_borer.variant",
   "data\\variants\\drones\\drone_pd.variant",
   "data\\variants\\drones\\drone_pd_midline.variant",
   "data\\variants\\drones\\drone_terminator.variant",
   "data\\variants\\eagle\\eagle_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\eagle\\eagle_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\eagle\\eagle_d_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\eagle\\eagle_xiv_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_d_pirates_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_d_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Escort.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Fighter_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Outdated.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\enforcer\\enforcer_XIV_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\falcon\\falcon_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\falcon\\falcon_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\falcon\\falcon_d_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\falcon\\falcon_p_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\falcon\\falcon_xiv_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\falcon\\falcon_xiv_Escort.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\broadsword_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\claw_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\cobra_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\dagger_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\gladius_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\khopesh_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\longbow_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\mining_drone_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\perdition_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\piranha_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\talon_Interceptor.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\thunder_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\trident_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\warthog_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\wasp_Interceptor.variant",
   "data\\variants\\fighters\\xyphos_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\gryphon\\gryphon_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\gryphon\\gryphon_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hammerhead\\hammerhead_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hammerhead\\hammerhead_d_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hammerhead\\hammerhead_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hammerhead\\hammerhead_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hammerhead\\hammerhead_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hammerhead\\hammerhead_Tutorial.variant",
   "data\\variants\\harbinger\\harbinger_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hermes\\hermes_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hermes\\hermes_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hermes\\hermes_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_d_pirates_Shielded.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_d_pirates_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound_d_pirates_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_hegemony_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_luddic_church_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_luddic_path_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound\\hound_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Interceptor.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_luddic_path_Raider.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_luddic_path_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_pirates_Raider.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Stock.variant",
   "data\\variants\\kite\\kite_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_d_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_luddic_church_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_luddic_path_Raider.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\lasher\\lasher_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\legion\\legion_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\legion\\legion_Escort.variant",
   "data\\variants\\legion\\legion_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\legion\\legion_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\legion\\legion_xiv_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mercury\\mercury_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mercury\\mercury_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mercury\\mercury_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mercury\\mercury_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mercury\\mercury_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mora\\mora_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mora\\mora_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mora\\mora_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mule\\mule_d_pirates_Smuggler.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mule\\mule_d_pirates_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mule\\mule_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mule\\mule_Fighter_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mule\\mule_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mule\\mule_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\onslaught\\onslaught_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\onslaught\\onslaught_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\onslaught\\onslaught_Outdated.variant",
   "data\\variants\\onslaught\\onslaught_xiv_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\paragon\\paragon_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\paragon\\paragon_Escort.variant",
   "data\\variants\\paragon\\paragon_Raider.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\brilliant_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\flash_Bomber.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\fulgent_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\fulgent_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\glimmer_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\glimmer_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\lumen_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\lux_Fighter.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\radiant_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\radiant_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_armour1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_armour2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_armour3_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_hangar1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_hangar1_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_shield1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_shield2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_weapon_platform1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_weapon_platform2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\remnant_weapon_platform3_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\scintilla_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\scintilla_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\remnant\\spark_Interceptor.variant",
   "data\\variants\\scarab\\scarab_Experimental.variant",
   "data\\variants\\scarab\\scarab_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\gargoyle_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\merlon_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_armour1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_armour2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_armour3_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_armour4_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_armour5_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_bastion_pd1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_bastion1_lowtech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_blocker1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_blocker2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_blocker2b_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_blocker2c_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_citadel1_lowtech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_decor_midline1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_decor_midline2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_armour_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_attack_minelayer_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_attack_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_citadel_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_hangar_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_shield_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_hightech_strut_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_large1_lowtech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_large2_lowtech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_midline_bastion_Standard1.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_midline_bastion_Standard2.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_midline_broadside_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_midline_citadel_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\module_midline_support_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\platform1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\ravelin_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\remnant_station2_Damaged.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\remnant_station2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station_derelict_survey_mothership_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station_small_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station1_hightech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station1_midline_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station1_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station2_hightech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station2_midline_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station3_hightech_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station3_midline_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\stations\\station3_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\sunder\\sunder_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\sunder\\sunder_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\sunder\\sunder_d_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\sunder\\sunder_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\tarsus\\tarsus_d_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\tarsus\\tarsus_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\venture\\venture_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\venture\\venture_Outdated.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wayfarer\\wayfarer_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wayfarer\\wayfarer_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_d_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_d_pirates_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_hegemony_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_hegemony_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_hegemony_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\wolf\\wolf_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\afflictor_d_pirates_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\afflictor_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\apogee_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\apogee_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\astral_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\astral_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\astral_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\atlas_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\atlas2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\bastillon_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\berserker_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\brawler_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\brawler_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\brawler_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo2_Fighter_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\buffalo2_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\colossus_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\colossus2_Pather.variant",
   "data\\variants\\colossus3_Pirate.variant",
   "data\\variants\\condor_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\condor_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\condor_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\crig_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\defender_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\doom_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\dram_Light.variant",
   "data\\variants\\doom_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\drover_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\drover_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\gemini_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\gremlin_d_pirates_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\gremlin_luddic_path_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\gremlin_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\heron_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\heron_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hound_d_pirates_Overdriven.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hyperion_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\hyperion_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\medusa_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\medusa_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\medusa_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\medusa_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\monitor_Escort.variant",
   "data\\variants\\monitor_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mudskipper_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mudskipper2_CS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\mudskipper2_Hellbore.variant",
   "data\\variants\\nebula_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\odyssey_Balanced.variant",
   "data\\variants\\omen_PD.variant",
   "data\\variants\\ox_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\phaeton_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\picket_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\prometheus_Super.variant",
   "data\\variants\\prometheus2_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\sentry_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shade_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shade_d_pirates_Assault.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shepherd_Frontier.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shepherd_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shrike_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shrike_p_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\shrike_Support.variant",
   "data\\variants\\starliner_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\tempest_Attack.variant",
   "data\\variants\\tempest_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\valkyrie_Elite.variant",
   "data\\variants\\vigilance_AP.variant",
   "data\\variants\\vigilance_FS.variant",
   "data\\variants\\vigilance_Standard.variant",
   "data\\variants\\vigilance_Starting.variant",
   "data\\variants\\vigilance_Strike.variant",
   "data\\variants\\warden_Defense.variant"]
}

[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: MaysaChan on June 03, 2020, 04:32:57 PM
Ah thank you very much!!!! Now everything work perfectly fine except Tiandong Heavy Industries which said to be incompatible so it is fine AND portrait pack

none of them work anymore :-\

Any solution tho?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 03, 2020, 05:00:22 PM
Ah thank you very much!!!! Now everything work perfectly fine except Tiandong Heavy Industries which said to be incompatible so it is fine AND portrait pack

none of them work anymore :-\

Any solution tho?

Tiandong Heavy Industries does this purposely through a check for me as the mod author in the mod plugin. I think that may change in the next update for that mod, but I'm unsure. It was from back when Archean Order was less compatible and caused issues for faction mods. There was also an embarrassingly long amount of time the mod wasn't flagged as a TC because I forgot to re-add the flag after testing out some feature mods and by the time it was caught I wasn't working on the mod at the time. That *shouldn't* happen anymore but I wouldn't blame MesoTronik if he kept the check in there just in case.

Ah, I forgot that locking vanilla faction files would affect portrait addition mods. Darn it. I'll see about potentially removing that behavior. (I actually can't remember why that was necessary but I think it was for some reason. We'll see.) Several portrait packs have already been merged, however, and they can be found on the main mod page under Credits with a link to the portrait pack mod so that you can see examples. Still, I'd like to allow additions to those if at all possible. I think it had something to do with stations, though, so no promises there, sorry. :(
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: MaysaChan on June 03, 2020, 05:54:02 PM
Ah thank you very much!!!! Now everything work perfectly fine except Tiandong Heavy Industries which said to be incompatible so it is fine AND portrait pack

none of them work anymore :-\

Any solution tho?

Tiandong Heavy Industries does this purposely through a check for me as the mod author in the mod plugin. I think that may change in the next update for that mod, but I'm unsure. It was from back when Archean Order was less compatible and caused issues for faction mods. There was also an embarrassingly long amount of time the mod wasn't flagged as a TC because I forgot to re-add the flag after testing out some feature mods and by the time it was caught I wasn't working on the mod at the time. That *shouldn't* happen anymore but I wouldn't blame MesoTronik if he kept the check in there just in case.

Ah, I forgot that locking vanilla faction files would affect portrait addition mods. Darn it. I'll see about potentially removing that behavior. (I actually can't remember why that was necessary but I think it was for some reason. We'll see.) Several portrait packs have already been merged, however, and they can be found on the main mod page under Credits with a link to the portrait pack mod so that you can see examples. Still, I'd like to allow additions to those if at all possible. I think it had something to do with stations, though, so no promises there, sorry. :(
I see, well, thank you very much once again for keep a track of my dumb problem with compatibility and solved most of my problem ;D Keep up an awesome work with this amazing mod!!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 04, 2020, 04:15:36 PM
I see, well, thank you very much once again for keep a track of my dumb problem with compatibility and solved most of my problem ;D Keep up an awesome work with this amazing mod!!

Thanks! Will do! (Also not dumb at all, compatibility can be super tricky :) )
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Supplius Maximus on June 05, 2020, 04:19:23 AM
Hey, I tried out a game with the test version. It worked pretty well, no visible issues, apart from Prism Freeport having less ships than usual and only having a single blueprint to buy. I didn't play very long, about half an hour to test out the waters and see if the factions worked correctly and everything seemed fine. This was my mod order:

"Another Portrait Pack -ReWork-",
  "anvil_industries",
  "ApproLight",
  "ApproLightPlus",
  "archeus",
  "raccoonarms",
  "NeutrinoDetector",
  "blackrock_driveyards",
  "sd_boardable_unboardables_vanilla",
  "efficientPop",
  "CWSP",
  "CaptainsLog",
  "Celestial Mount Circle",
  "CombatAnalytics",
  "chatter",
  "lw_radar",
  "communist_clouds",
  "COPS",
  "lw_console",
  "istl_dam",
  "diableavionics",
  "DisassembleReassemble",
  "edshipyard",
  "XLU",
  "flagsforfounders",
  "sun_flux_reticle",
  "fortheemperor",
  "foundation",
  "FDS",
  "GKSec",
  "gates_awakened",
  "gladiatorsociety",
  "ZGrand Sector",
  "GMDA",
  "HHE",
  "HMI",
  "hullmod_expansion",
  "hullmod_specialization",
  "nbj_ice",
  "deconomics",
  "interestingportraitspack",
  "Imperium",
  "kadur_remnant",
  "kiprad",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "ArkLeg",
  "logisticsNotifications",
  "LorePortraits",
  "luddenhance",
  "MSV",
  "MagicLib",
  "Mayasuran Navy",
  "metelson_release",
  "missingships",
  "mobile_star_fortress",
  "Neutrino",
  "sun_new_beginnings",
  "nexerelin",
  "ORA",
  "pearson_exotronics",
  "playerflagpack",
  "portrait",
  "SCY",
  "RC_Second_Wave_Options",
  "secretsofthefrontieralt",
  "SEEKER",
  "shabro",
  "shadow_ships",
  "swp",
  "bonomel_skilledup",
  "solsystem",
  "speedUp",
  "StopGapMeasures",
  "Sylphon_RnD",
  "tahlan",
  "Terraforming and Station Construction",
  "mayorate",
  "transfer_all_items",
  "TS_Coalition",
  "underworld",
  "US",
  "ungp",
  "vayrasector",
  "vayrashippack",
  "vesperon",
  "wotani_federation",
  "yrxp",
  "audio_plus",
  "shaderLib",
  "Safety Override mod"

The only mod that gave me problems was Commission Hullmods, since it crashed every time time I docked with a planet. Something about the Commission Hullmod of the Archean faction being missing.

The only real problem I have are the portraits. Is there any way to not have them override vanilla portraits? I have a bunch of portraits that I put in myself and I can't use them with Archean Order.

Anyway, apart from that, everything seems great.


Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 05, 2020, 11:20:18 AM
Hey, I tried out a game with the test version. It worked pretty well, no visible issues, apart from Prism Freeport having less ships than usual and only having a single blueprint to buy. I didn't play very long, about half an hour to test out the waters and see if the factions worked correctly and everything seemed fine.

*snip*

The only mod that gave me problems was Commission Hullmods, since it crashed every time time I docked with a planet. Something about the Commission Hullmod of the Archean faction being missing.

The only real problem I have are the portraits. Is there any way to not have them override vanilla portraits? I have a bunch of portraits that I put in myself and I can't use them with Archean Order.

Anyway, apart from that, everything seems great.
Thanks for testing things out!

Doh! I totally forgot I set that up for the Commissioned Crews and then couldn't think of any good bonuses to give them. So I never actually made the hullmods and moved on to other things meaning to go back to it later, haha. Thanks for reporting it I'll try and get a fix for that out soon! Maybe even today.

I'll also see about the portraits issue, but I think there was a good reason for this. I may be able to get around it though. There were a couple things I didn't think I could get around that it turned out I could using code rather than the default implementation with the game. That one may take some time depending upon how complex the code will be. I'm fairly overcommitted with Fleet Dialogue as it is atm.

The other thing I have to keep in mind is that if another mod adds ships/variants to vanilla factions (unlocking faction files unlocks all aspects of the faction for merging) then it could completely unbalance Nex campaigns (since those won't be TC balanced obviously). In general this wouldn't be a big deal since mod factions as a whole would operate the same way. The difference here is that it wouldn't be obvious to inexperienced players why that would be happening for vanilla factions. It might also make pirate raids significantly harder to stop because they will use higher tier stations than intended. Idk, I'll definitely give this some serious thought and see what I can do about it. I want to open up the mod as much as possible, but I also want to ensure a quality TC experience even when mod mixing.

In the meantime while I attempt to find a solution, you can always add your custom portraits/remove any you don't care for through the mod's faction files manually. Since you've already added your own I assume you know how to do this, but if you don't/need a reminder let me know.

-----**EDIT**-----

Ah yeah I took a look at the faction files and it just can't be done- at least for now. :(

Since I don't override vanilla ships, fighters or weapons anymore, if I don't explicitly remove them from the faction files by overriding them they will merge even in the stand alone TC. This means that a player can get vanilla ships and weapons from raiding and they might even show up in markets. So even assuming a new player understands the risks of mod merging they would still have to put up with a lot of "useless" (from the perspective of TC balance) stuff bloating markets and loot.

If in the future the faction definitions for weapons/fighters/etc get a weight modifier like hulls and stations (so I can thereby set it to 0), then I can prevent vanilla items from spawning in the TC without overriding the entire file. I'll suggest this to Alex and see what he thinks. Maybe there is way I can do this already and I'm just not aware of it.

If not, the best I could likely do would be to modulize the portraits by adding them to dummy factions and then writing code to "merge" the portraits into vanilla factions when the module is present. Then I can take portrait pack requests and add them as players request them. This would also give more customization options for portrait styles. (Again this will likely take some time to set up.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Supplius Maximus on June 05, 2020, 01:02:56 PM
Your modular portrait idea sounds good, but focus on the stuff you find more important. I can handle putting in some portraits. It's mostly a copy/paste job anyway. Anyway, I'll try and do a full game, and see if anything out of the ordinary happens.

Regarding Commissioned Hullmods bonuses, may I make some suggestions?:

Adamantine Consortium: Bonus to raiding, bonus to marine efficacy (if at all possible to code in) or bonus to fleet speed, either in combat or campaign (since they're meant to be hit-and-run spooky slavers as far as I can see).

Archean Order: Bonuses to energy weapons. You could have different versions for either damage, fire rate or range.

Sci-fi Corps: Bonuses for looting ruins and abandoned stations and bonuses to survey planets. Maybe some bonuses for repairing ships.

Trader Guild: MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! GIMME THE MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! Bonuses to selling and buying stuff (if possible to code in), if not feasible, bonuses to looting debris and battles or bonuses to cargo space.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 05, 2020, 05:11:43 PM
Regarding Commissioned Hullmods bonuses, may I make some suggestions?:

Adamantine Consortium: Bonus to raiding, bonus to marine efficacy (if at all possible to code in) or bonus to fleet speed, either in combat or campaign (since they're meant to be hit-and-run spooky slavers as far as I can see).

Archean Order: Bonuses to energy weapons. You could have different versions for either damage, fire rate or range.

Sci-fi Corps: Bonuses for looting ruins and abandoned stations and bonuses to survey planets. Maybe some bonuses for repairing ships.

Trader Guild: MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! GIMME THE MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! Bonuses to selling and buying stuff (if possible to code in), if not feasible, bonuses to looting debris and battles or bonuses to cargo space.

Some good suggestions here. I'll see what's available API wise and try to make cuts based on balance from there and also take into account what's already been done, if possible. I don't want these to be too powerful but still attractive enough to warrant the commission thematically if that makes sense.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 06, 2020, 04:57:45 PM
I gave this some thought and did some research... and well... I'm going to try my best to bring something really cool out of Commissioned Crews features. Details tbd based upon what I can get to work based off my plan. I really want to try and make these thematic and lore-based if possible and mostly unique to other implementations.

The big unknowns are my plans for Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order. Trader Guilds will probably be financial in nature as was suggested, and Sci-Corps I'm trying to throw around ideas in my mind and a lot will depend upon if I can get the planned implementation of the first two to work. It is a little ambitious but it will pay dividends in the flavor department if I can pull it off. :)

Also I've been making some balance changes and want to continue that front for a tiny bit before a release so it will likely be ~ a week, maybe less depending upon how easy/hard things end up being. Just a tiny update on progress.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 12, 2020, 01:59:33 PM
This is taking longer than I thought it would but I have the first (and probably hardest) Commissioned Crews hullmod for Archean Order mostly working. There is still some nuance and flavor to add though. Sorry for the delay. This hullmod may seem really strong and I have more I want to do with it, but this is a flagship-only hullmod. The rest of your fleet won't get it and it will require the player to pilot an Adamantine Consortium vessel. It's not finalized, but here's the tooltip to show what it does:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/zEBFP8R.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: th3boodlebot on June 13, 2020, 01:41:12 PM
This is taking longer than I thought it would but I have the first (and probably hardest) Commissioned Crews hullmod for Archean Order mostly working. There is still some nuance and flavor to add though. Sorry for the delay. This hullmod may seem really strong and I have more I want to do with it, but this is a flagship-only hullmod. The rest of your fleet won't get it and it will require the player to pilot an Adamantine Consortium vessel. It's not finalized, but here's the tooltip to show what it does:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/zEBFP8R.png)
[close]

i know essentially nothin about modding, however, i recall there being ship systems that have an area of effect that changes certain parameters of enemy ships. perhaps something similar that targets ship malfunction chance? is ship malfunction chance tied specifically to combat readiness (with the exception of perhaps emp damage)? maybe a work around would be a constant emp effect around the flagship in the picture. the "mental energy" could be emp and flagged as fragmentation so that the shields and armor could (as far as your idea goes it would make sense for the dense matter in the way to mitigate the effect) mitigate the emp effect. i have no idea what numbers to go with really but i like the idea youre running with and i think it suits the adamantium consortion well
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 13, 2020, 04:18:20 PM
i know essentially nothin about modding, however, i recall there being ship systems that have an area of effect that changes certain parameters of enemy ships. perhaps something similar that targets ship malfunction chance? is ship malfunction chance tied specifically to combat readiness (with the exception of perhaps emp damage)? maybe a work around would be a constant emp effect around the flagship in the picture. the "mental energy" could be emp and flagged as fragmentation so that the shields and armor could (as far as your idea goes it would make sense for the dense matter in the way to mitigate the effect) mitigate the emp effect. i have no idea what numbers to go with really but i like the idea youre running with and i think it suits the adamantium consortion well

Thanks for the suggestion and I'm glad you like the idea. :)

I actually have the behavior working already and I like it. It is essentially an area of effect application of the same behavior that "Ill-Advised Modifications" causes. So there is a base chance for a weapon to malfunction on any enemies within a range of 1500 around the flagship. When something malfunctions there is a chance it will be a critical malfunction- which can be read as crew weeping uncontrollably in a maintenance shaft somewhere or otherwise refusing direct orders to return to battle stations - which means the weapon is permanently disabled.

The things I still have to do are:

1) Make the radius and strength scale a bit- probably by player level and reputation. I like the idea of the player visibly seeing their power grow in that sense. So numbers aren't finalized yet.

2) Code a check in the faction file to allow other modders to either reduce or completely negate the impact of the effect. AI factions can use this to be immune. This also makes sense for hardier factions who wouldn't balk at that sort of thing.

3) Decide if I want to have a custom graphic of some kind and make that happen.

4) Code text popups of effected ships for some flavor. Things like "Nooo! Not like like this! Not like this!!" or "AHHH!" for when the effect is working and things like "Steady men... steady..." OR "I'm not afraid of you, demon!" when it doesn't. Stuff like that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: th3boodlebot on June 14, 2020, 08:17:55 AM
i know essentially nothin about modding, however, i recall there being ship systems that have an area of effect that changes certain parameters of enemy ships. perhaps something similar that targets ship malfunction chance? is ship malfunction chance tied specifically to combat readiness (with the exception of perhaps emp damage)? maybe a work around would be a constant emp effect around the flagship in the picture. the "mental energy" could be emp and flagged as fragmentation so that the shields and armor could (as far as your idea goes it would make sense for the dense matter in the way to mitigate the effect) mitigate the emp effect. i have no idea what numbers to go with really but i like the idea youre running with and i think it suits the adamantium consortion well

Thanks for the suggestion and I'm glad you like the idea. :)

I actually have the behavior working already and I like it. It is essentially an area of effect application of the same behavior that "Ill-Advised Modifications" causes. So there is a base chance for a weapon to malfunction on any enemies within a range of 1500 around the flagship. When something malfunctions there is a chance it will be a critical malfunction- which can be read as crew weeping uncontrollably in a maintenance shaft somewhere or otherwise refusing direct orders to return to battle stations - which means the weapon is permanently disabled.

The things I still have to do are:

1) Make the radius and strength scale a bit- probably by player level and reputation. I like the idea of the player visibly seeing their power grow in that sense. So numbers aren't finalized yet.

2) Code a check in the faction file to allow other modders to either reduce or completely negate the impact of the effect. AI factions can use this to be immune. This also makes sense for hardier factions who wouldn't balk at that sort of thing.

3) Decide if I want to have a custom graphic of some kind and make that happen.

4) Code text popups of effected ships for some flavor. Things like "Nooo! Not like like this! Not like this!!" or "AHHH!" for when the effect is working and things like "Steady men... steady..." OR "I'm not afraid of you, demon!" when it doesn't. Stuff like that.


yea really cool and the messages popping up would be great! also the idea of the player having the ability sounds fun
perhaps something similar could be done with another faction where they are psi warriors or something, like the angel to the consortiums demon
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 14, 2020, 07:00:15 PM
yea really cool and the messages popping up would be great! also the idea of the player having the ability sounds fun
perhaps something similar could be done with another faction where they are psi warriors or something, like the angel to the consortiums demon

Thanks!

The Archean Order (the faction) sort of acts as a counter-part through their "phase walkers", but initially the faction is forced to be reluctant - well not allies but more of a ceasefire accord - with the Adamantine Consortium as a necessity to wage their war on the Tri-Tachyon Corporation. So they aren't Sith but they aren't Jedi either. Rather they are a kind of combination of the two extremes.

It is set up that way to drive the eventual narrative for the mod (a long ways off most likely as writing takes an extremely long amount of time and I also have to implement the events, missions, etc to go alongside it) and it intentionally creates ambiguity for the Archean Order. They believe in a prophecy of doom and act with determination to prevent it from happening. The dire consequences of failure creates hard choices that are a theme of the narrative. There are sub-factions/iconic characters planned within the Archean Order who do act in the way you describe (in that they loathe the Consortium and seek to break the accord) but they aren't really visible at the moment.

That being said, the primary antagonist to the Adamantine Consortium is the Corps of Science and Exploration. They aren't capable of using any special powers, however. They are just brave and battle-hardened people determined to fight against the Consortium's atrocities at all costs and generally seek to improve the sector's standard of living. You can kind of compare them to the rebel alliance or a very weakened version of Starfleet desperately trying to survive in a sector struggling to keep law and order (and also citizen freedoms) intact.

The Corps and the Archean Order don't exactly trust each other, but have enough in common to work together in some situations. I'm hoping this creates a diverse and nuanced backdrop to create a really good story when the time comes.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: th3boodlebot on June 15, 2020, 09:11:39 AM
yea really cool and the messages popping up would be great! also the idea of the player having the ability sounds fun
perhaps something similar could be done with another faction where they are psi warriors or something, like the angel to the consortiums demon

Thanks!

The Archean Order (the faction) sort of acts as a counter-part through their "phase walkers", but initially the faction is forced to be reluctant - well not allies but more of a ceasefire accord - with the Adamantine Consortium as a necessity to wage their war on the Tri-Tachyon Corporation. So they aren't Sith but they aren't Jedi either. Rather they are a kind of combination of the two extremes.

It is set up that way to drive the eventual narrative for the mod (a long ways off most likely as writing takes an extremely long amount of time and I also have to implement the events, missions, etc to go alongside it) and it intentionally creates ambiguity for the Archean Order. They believe in a prophecy of doom and act with determination to prevent it from happening. The dire consequences of failure creates hard choices that are a theme of the narrative. There are sub-factions/iconic characters planned within the Archean Order who do act in the way you describe (in that they loathe the Consortium and seek to break the accord) but they aren't really visible at the moment.

That being said, the primary antagonist to the Adamantine Consortium is the Corps of Science and Exploration. They aren't capable of using any special powers, however. They are just brave and battle-hardened people determined to fight against the Consortium's atrocities at all costs and generally seek to improve the sector's standard of living. You can kind of compare them to the rebel alliance or a very weakened version of Starfleet desperately trying to survive in a sector struggling to keep law and order (and also citizen freedoms) intact.

The Corps and the Archean Order don't exactly trust each other, but have enough in common to work together in some situations. I'm hoping this creates a diverse and nuanced backdrop to create a really good story when the time comes.

i think thats great! well thought out and makes me personally like the archean order much more. interestingly enough i had an idea that the consortium and the order and all the factions could use a mission based system in the bars similar to delivering for the independents. i may be remembering incorrectly but it seems as though delivery contracts only raise independent relation status. it would be neat to have something similar tailored to the other factions. it could be as simple as having delivery contracts that you can find in a bar that would be linguistically representative of the faction they would raise relations with. other neat things like being able to buy commodities from luddic planets in the bar would be interesting, especially if it relates directly to that faction like the luddic ones seem to.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 15, 2020, 01:08:52 PM
i think thats great! well thought out and makes me personally like the archean order much more. interestingly enough i had an idea that the consortium and the order and all the factions could use a mission based system in the bars similar to delivering for the independents. i may be remembering incorrectly but it seems as though delivery contracts only raise independent relation status. it would be neat to have something similar tailored to the other factions. it could be as simple as having delivery contracts that you can find in a bar that would be linguistically representative of the faction they would raise relations with. other neat things like being able to buy commodities from luddic planets in the bar would be interesting, especially if it relates directly to that faction like the luddic ones seem to.

Oh yeah I definitely have plans to do stuff like that in the future! I also want a mission chain to be required to get a commission with Archean Order or Adamantine Consortium - maybe even Sci-Corps. Their tech is too powerful to mostly be available at "Favored" with very little caveats. There are some reasons I'm holding off on that for now, though.

1) The code for that is fairly new and could change. The mod is already a big project and compatibility updates for Vanilla releases take a long time as it is. So the less I have to change the better. The next Starsector release will probably give me confidence of the feature's overall stability - especially if it doesn't change - implying that Alex has tested it out and feels like it is sufficient enough.

2) Time concerns from existing work - (Commissioned Crews and Fleet Dialogue are fairly large endeavors and will take some time - more so on the side of Fleet Dialogue)

3) Other mod compatibility concerns or the desire to plug in to some more optional feature mods.  (Specifically I want to take a look at Starship Legends and Combat Chatter for thematic additions along those lines, if possible. There is also an incompatibility with Better Colonies I'd ideally like to solve.)

4) Finally, there is some more nuance I want to add to the factions if I can. Things like gender-ized post names and more specifically defined portraits/characters based on posts. The last one mostly just applies to the Adamantine Consortium as it looks a little weird seeing a vampire portrait as the lowest rank, for instance.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Elouen on June 16, 2020, 06:55:39 PM
Hi. today i was playing my lvl 15 scientist,  i tried to look at my intel panel and it instantly crashed , pressing the shortcuts did nothing, litteraly.
Do someone know what to do?
Thanks again


i got:
Archean order 1.3.4e
lazylib 2.4f
Magiclib 0.29
Nexerelin 0.9.6d
ZZ graphic lib 1.4.1

here is my starsector log.
https://mega.nz/file/MsRjHCBQ#dN-PpK7wHwJpAQCoekfxsFzlarh8g5bL_Ser36wwTbc
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 16, 2020, 07:22:20 PM
Hi. today i was playing my lvl 15 scientist,  i tried to look at my intel panel and it instantly crashed , pressing the shortcuts did nothing, litteraly.
Do someone know what to do?
Thanks again

First off, thank you for the details that really helps! It looks like an issue with Nex when attempting to sabotage an industry but I'm not sure if I caused it or not as I do add station industries. I'll send this report to Histidine and see any insight can be provided. Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: al00195 on June 17, 2020, 05:15:20 AM
Hi, I have a crash issue when entering in a system.

671549 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS 001] not found on hull [scarab]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS 001] not found on hull [scarab]


edit : I replace in the scarab.ship the id weapons "WS0001" by "WS 001" and it worked.
If it's an error, the file scarab_adamantine.ship have the same "WS0001"
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2020, 09:02:33 AM
Hi, I have a crash issue when entering in a system.

671549 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS 001] not found on hull [scarab]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS 001] not found on hull [scarab]


edit : I replace in the scarab.ship the id weapons "WS0001" by "WS 001" and it worked.
If it's an error, the file scarab_adamantine.ship have the same "WS0001"

What version are you on? Are you using the latest one?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: al00195 on June 17, 2020, 11:47:39 AM

What version are you on? Are you using the latest one?

I've got the same problem with gemini (SW 003 now) in the middle of the space. I play the game since a month so I imagine than I have the last version. Where can I check the version I play ? it's not in the menu or the launch screen.

The thing I don't understand is that .ship and .variant file are in order, my game seem to search weapon slot that not even exist :/
Is there another file that are in charge of weapon except .sihp and .variant file ?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2020, 11:57:36 AM
I've got the same problem with gemini (SW 003 now) in the middle of the space. I play the game since a month so I imagine than I have the last version. Where can I check the version I play ? it's not in the menu or the launch screen.

Ah sounds like you are on 1.3.4e (you can see this in mod_info.JSON in the mod folder) - which until just now was the main download. I wanted to give some time for 1.3.5 to be tested so it was under a Test Download section directly below that. I have removed that now to avoid this confusion since I haven't heard of any critical errors with that version yet.

It will require a new game, but 1.3.5 should solve those issues. That was a major update that allows for most if not all the faction mods to no longer cause crashes (which is what I think is happening here - you are probably running into a faction fleet that has variants of existing vanilla ships that try and map weapons to the modified Archean Order vanilla ships).

------------------------------------------

Cleaned up the main page and added 1.3.5 patch notes. (I've been meaning to do that for a whole but holy cow is it tedious.  :-\ )
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: al00195 on June 17, 2020, 12:10:42 PM
Ah sounds like you are on 1.3.4e (you can see this in mod_info.JSON in the mod folder) - which until just now was the main download. I wanted to give some time for 1.3.5 to be tested so it was under a Test Download section directly below that. I have removed that now to avoid this confusion since I haven't heard of any critical errors with that version yet.

It will require a new game, but 1.3.5 should solve those issues. That was a major update that allows for most if not all the faction mods to no longer cause crashes (which is what I think is happening here - you are probably running into a faction fleet that has variants of existing vanilla ships that try and map weapons to the modified Archean Order vanilla ships).

Yes, I'm in 1.3.4e. Sad to learn I'll need to make a new game ^^'
The weirdest is that I haven't faction mods other than the archean order mod. I've change just one thing. I've add ships to the archean order mod (so .ship, .variant and modifying ship_data) and creating a new bp to have my own fleet design, but all I've done is add something and my ship aren't associated with a faction. I've never touch files of other ship like the gemini or the scarab. so having crash issue about file I didn't touch is weird ^^'
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2020, 12:20:23 PM
Yes, I'm in 1.3.4e. Sad to learn I'll need to make a new game ^^'

Very sorry yeah I know that is frustrating!  Couldn't be helped, unfortunately, since the changes to make faction mods compatible are impossible to make without breaking saves to my knowledge. At least that should be over and done with. The next update will *probably* be save compatible.

Quote
The weirdest is that I haven't faction mods other than the archean order mod. I've change just one thing. I've add ships to the archean order mod (so .ship, .variant and modifying ship_data) and creating a new bp to have my own fleet design, but all I've done is add something and my ship aren't associated with a faction. I've never touch files of other ship like the gemini or the scarab. so having crash issue about file I didn't touch is weird ^^'

Hmm that is weird. :( What is your modlist?

Well, the only other thing I can think of off the top of my head would be an operating system issue with the replace section in mod_info since iirc in 1.3.4e it still overrides .ship files directly. (It no longer does this in 1.3.5)

But... if that were the case there would probably be economy errors as well so... idk. If you run into it again in 1.3.5 definitely let me know. I haven't run into it in the dev version or when I was testing 1.3.5 but I didn't do a full month-long campaign either.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: al00195 on June 17, 2020, 12:29:54 PM
Hmm that is weird. :( What is your modlist?

archean order 1.3.4e
Commissioned Crews 1.9
Console Commands 3.0
Industrial.Evolution 1.7d
LazyLib 2.4f
Logistic notification 1.3
MagicLib 0.29
Nexerelin 0.9.6d
Practice Targets 1.4
Second Wave Options 0.5.3b
SpeedUp 0.6.0
Starship Legends 1.4.1
Unofficial New Game Plus] 0.2.0 (I never used yet)
Upgraded Rotary Weapons 1.41
Version Checker 2.0
ZZ Audio Plus 1.1.1
ZZ GraphicsLib 1.4.1
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2020, 12:39:16 PM
archean order 1.3.4e
Commissioned Crews 1.9
Console Commands 3.0
Industrial.Evolution 1.7d
LazyLib 2.4f
Logistic notification 1.3
MagicLib 0.29
Nexerelin 0.9.6d
Practice Targets 1.4
Second Wave Options 0.5.3b
SpeedUp 0.6.0
Starship Legends 1.4.1
Unofficial New Game Plus] 0.2.0 (I never used yet)
Upgraded Rotary Weapons 1.41
Version Checker 2.0
ZZ Audio Plus 1.1.1
ZZ GraphicsLib 1.4.1

Thanks yeah you're right nothing there to my knowledge should cause that. So strange.  :o

Well hopefully it has already been fixed. I'm extra glad I got that version out of there now.  >:(
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: skeets8 on June 17, 2020, 02:20:25 PM
Hey there,
I was wondering if there was any way that I could change the maximum number of deployment points while using the mod. Whenever I have the mod enabled, it reverts the maximum and minimum back to the default levels of around 200-500, even though I put the options on settings.json to be far higher. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or is there just no way to change the default game settings while using the mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2020, 02:43:27 PM
Hey there,
I was wondering if there was any way that I could change the maximum number of deployment points while using the mod. Whenever I have the mod enabled, it reverts the maximum and minimum back to the default levels of around 200-500, even though I put the options on settings.json to be far higher. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or is there just no way to change the default game settings while using the mod?

Hi there. Those are overridden in the Archean Order settings.JSON for performance reasons for inexperienced users. Editing the deployment values there instead of in the vanilla settings should work.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: skeets8 on June 17, 2020, 03:00:33 PM
Thanks, I really appreciate it!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2020, 03:34:56 PM
Np!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: Barracuda on June 23, 2020, 10:37:06 PM
Has anyone noticed that Buffalo's are kinda hard to come by? At least for me the hegemony ones are non existent even when i used console commands to try and find a market with them.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 23, 2020, 11:35:35 PM
Has anyone noticed that Buffalo's are kinda hard to come by? At least for me the hegemony ones are non existent even when i used console commands to try and find a market with them.

Hmm, let me make sure I actually added that to "known hulls" but I'm pretty sure it should be. I don't adjust its rarity at all though.

*EDIT*

Yeah it's there in the faction file in both blueprint added form and specifically added to known ships and priority ships. I also double checked the rarity modifier and its not lower or anything, so it's probably RNG market spawning related. How big a trend is this out of curiosity?

(Also just to be sure - you are talking about the freighter version and not a mod-added version of the combat-converted freighter, correct?)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: Barracuda on June 23, 2020, 11:55:30 PM
Correct possibly just random luck, I found it in nexerelin's ship buying thing through their agents so no worries
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 1.3.5 - 5/1/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 24, 2020, 07:18:10 PM
Correct possibly just random luck, I found it in nexerelin's ship buying thing through their agents so no worries

Ah good!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so I want to release some "imminent"TM update patch notes for review. Specifically, I want to give those who have given feedback in the last few months a chance to look over the notes and point out anything I may have missed. Specific details in the spoiler at the bottom of this post. Because of certain changes the update will break saves, so I'm trying to cram as much stuff in there as possible as opposed to micro save-breaking updates.

General themes:

1) Increase the effectiveness of the CV designation and further differentiate it from a typical combat ship that has a couple of hangar bays.
Spoiler
I've further increased the refit times for all strike craft by ~25% and increased the bonus reduction to refit times from Carrier Bays by an additional 10% - bringing it to 75% total. From testing, I'm pleased to see that under AI control an Onslaught XIV 1v1 will eventually reduce the replacement rate, corner, and kill an Astral (I can't stress "eventually" enough, hah) that is outfitted for a long range strike role even if no orders are given. Even more pleasing to see, however, is that attack-oriented builds will hold the Onslaught off while replacement rate is restored - though it can't really do much damage to the Onslaught and will eventually lose but the idea here is that you as the player have much, much more time to respond to a cornered Astral with a combat build over one with a strike build when the Astral is controlled by the AI.

A side goal of this is to both encourage the use of all strike craft types on CV builds. So the Astral teleport system has been removed in favor of Fortress Shield. It was just too reliant on bombers, and also too powerful in general with that system. The Epiphany keeps that system. I think it works much better small scale rather than large scale. To address the weapons vs strike craft problem, I am considering adding yet another built-in hullmod that essentially gives CVs free weapons in each weapon mount for the base weapon in their tech class. So only upgrades will actually cost OP. That gives me the ability to balance carrier OP around hullmods and strike craft mostly exclusively. That's a lot of work though so I'm undecided if it will be this update or not and it's not currently in the notes for that reason.

As far as carrier speed is concerned, collisions and not reaching a battle quickly enough are an issue. I've reduced the low-flux boost penalty from 75% to 50% and buffed carrier base speed slightly to address this. This does mean that faster carriers can kite their own hullsize, well, not indefinitely but enough to force severe reduction of the replacement rate and active fighter count before the AI can use its' low-flux boost to close with the carrier. I'm not sure how this will effect player kiting but the hope is that (especially when outnumbered) the low flux speed boost of combat ships will come into play and the carrier will get chased down unless escorts provide a screen - just like how it operates now just not as harsh of a penalty.
[close]

2) Balance updates to combat and the campaign layer for Nex.
Spoiler
I have increased the strength of Sci-Corps and Luddic Path fleets and I have given a pretty large buff to the Aurora to give in-combat Tri-Tachyon fleets a much needed boost. Tangent on balance:

Spoiler
There is currently this weird rock paper scissors mechanic between the three vanilla faction cruisers where Dominator > Eagle > Aurora > Dominator - when under 1v1 with AI. This generally even transcends loadouts which is weird interesting. Obviously loadouts that target smaller ships don't fair as well, I'm talking the primary strike/assault builds. Then to add even more nuance, once you make it a group fight rather than 1v1, that changes even more and the Aurora (post buff, mind you) generally comes out on top. The poor Eagle seems like it doesn't compete in that setting so again I'll keep an eye on it. There are lots of factors to consider - especially the strike craft the Eagle can bring in a supporting role compared to the other too so maybe the balance there is actually pretty good.
[close]

The campaign layer will require some more strongholds for Tri-Tachyon and a High Command somewhere so that is in the works too - alongside some planned defense stations orbiting the Askonia jump points for Nex - though none of this is implemented yet.

I've also taken the time to give some nerfs and buffs to reported outliers like the Apogee, Odyssey, Harbinger, Executor, Brilliant and Pillager. The Pillager should no longer use broadside AI and should perform better under AI control. I am also somewhat reversing the Archean Order vessel nerfs from a couple of updates ago. They are currently too flux inefficient to be much of a threat and making them harder to get is probably the better way to go as far as player power creep is concerned.

Weapon-wise, I have made the Sabot and the Thunderbolt closer in strength to each other and generally changed how anti-fighter missile weapons behave as a whole. They should no longer target ships in most situations and things like the Trapdoor and Proximity Mine will be used more liberally against both strike craft and missiles. The Proximity mine might actually be too good for its OP now so I'm watching that closely. The Ion Cannon line of weapons will no longer typically target strike craft, but the caveat is that now the AI uses them a lot less and rarely empties the full clip. It's a trade off I can't really get around since AI hints tend to do double things - which is honestly quite frustrating. Similarly, the AI is more conservative with anti-fighter missiles now that it won't target ships. It generally waits for a swarm, which could honestly be a good thing. Strike weapons are used against strike craft more often than I would like, but the alternative again prevents the AI from emptying the full missile clip unless the missile-equipped ship is heavily damaged. I'm leaving them as they are for now since, for instance, the Atropos is actually kind of useful against heavy gunships like the Goliath and Trident or similarly shielded strike craft and sometimes it's the only way the AI actually kills an attacking Dagger without its own interceptors or fighters.

Finally, I am looking at the Hivemind both in regards to reducing its inability to be mitigated to a large degree and it's reported tendency to cause friendly fire. I haven't looked too deeply yet there but plan on addressing it for this update.
[close]

3) Frigates and ship speed.
Spoiler
As of the current version, frigates are mostly limited to early - early mid game and only have token use after that as PD escorts or chasing down freighters in pursuit battles. I'm hoping these changes will give them more room later in the game. I have increased their PPT substantially and alongside the reduction in the speed penalties to carriers it should allow frigate-based carriers to avoid collisions with larger ships when burning in and let them retreat more effectively when low on PPT. I've also reduced the rate at which CR decays after PPT runs out to give carriers more of a chance to stay out longer and lessen the CR loss when far from a retreating point.

Frigates could also be cornered or surrounded too easily. I've increased all frigate base speed by ~33% and it may be increased more if needed. Alongside their built-in hull benefits, they should be a lot more viable now even before the Starsector update attempts to address that even further. Gunships are now technically slower than many of the fastest frigates with their speed boost intact. I'm on the fence if it will stay that way as gunships are kinda the anti-smaller ship strike craft while bombers of course are the anti-larger ship strike craft.

Of special note: I've removed the Phase Teleporter from the Hyperion and replaced it with Temporal Shell. I think both the AI and the player can make better use out of that system considering the speed buff and I felt that the Phase Teleporter is a little too binary and definitely too strategically powerful in the player's hands.
[close]

4) Ship accessibility.
Spoiler
This will likely be controversial. :P I'm toying with the idea of finally addressing this in the coming update. Essentially, this will lock away the vast majority of capitals. (Base Legion, Base Onslaught, All Pillagers versions, Conquest, Odyssey, and the capital freighter conversions will be the only readily accessible capitals in markets and recovery of any of the capitals outside of the prior stated list will be impossible unless the player already owns it.) Capitals outside of the list will require rare blueprint/blueprint pack finds to produce them at player colonies in order to lock them in as end game rewards. I also am considering this for especially powerful cruisers or even destroyers like the Harbinger. Power creep from recovery of derelicts is too large right now and I don't want players to be able to jump-start themselves into colony territory as it really scrapes away a lot of content and the feeling of earning it. Similarly, this would also impact access to almost all, if not all, Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order vessels. The plan is that once you have a commission these will be purchase-able, but otherwise the player will need to either complete a difficult quest chain or get a lucky blueprint drop to get them. The work involved in this is substantial, so I'm still debating on whether I want to tackle that now. I'm leaning yes.
[close]

5) Weapon niches and REDACTED:
Spoiler
It has been reported that some weapons feel almost indistinguishable from others and that other niches/roles could be filled in some categories. To go alongside this point, remnants feel a little boring due to a lack of fleet variety compared to other end game factions. So, I plan on adding a couple weapons and maybe even a ship or two to give remnants more unique fleet builds and even a couple of unique weapon drops. That is not complete yet, but it is planned. For derelicts, the Guardian has been significantly buffed to be a powerful solo threat. It is likely more powerful than the Radiant at this point.
[close]

Well, I think that just about covers the current design goals for the next update. Feedback, new suggestions and reminders welcome! :)

Here are the full notes. They are obviously subject to change between now and release as I further flesh things out or finalize what I will and will not include. Feedback between now and then will also be considered.

Notes:
Spoiler
Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 - Overall Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Reworked FP for capital ships to help better balance autoresolve for Nex campaigns.
    - Increased power for Sci-Corps both in combat and in autoresolve. They are now a defensive, speed oriented faction.
    - Luddic Path is much more powerful in combat.
    - Pirates have better conversion ships.
    - Stronger Sci-Corps fleets.

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    -

Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Increased Sabot hp and first stage speed slightly. Also increased range of second stage ignition.
 - (^ I forgot I buffed PD enough in a past update that this is likely warranted. We'll see.)
 - Reduced Thunderbolt emp, reduced second stage flight speed and slightly reduced second stage hitpoints.
 - Added EMP arc effect to Obliterator and Heavy Obliterator cannons to make them a more unique weapon.
 - Ship speed general pass:
 - Increased frigate speed across the board by about 33% - more in some cases.
 - Increased base speed of carriers and reduced penalty to low flux speed boost.
 - (^ The above should help avoid collisions and get carriers into the fight sooner while still limiting their ability to kite.)
 - Increased PPT for frigates and destroyers - also some cruisers.
 - Rebalanced PPT differences among tech and carrier/phase considerations.
 - Reduced the rate at which CR decays after PPT runs out for carriers.
 - (^ The goal here is to prevent situations where a carrier loses too much CR when trying to retreat after PPT runs out.)
 - Reduced Brilliant max speed but changed ship system to Plasmajets.
 - Reduced Radiant deployment cost and increased max hull.
 - Changed Hyperion's system to Temporal Shell.
 - Changed Astral's system to Fortress Shield. (Less emphasis on mass bomber builds.)
 - Changed Executors system to Damper Field and increased OP. (Moves focus to hybrid battlecarrier role and promotes more interceptors.)
 - Changed Legion's system to Combat Compacitors. (Encourages more weapons utilization over simply better strike craft.)
 - Changed Eagle (Ad) system to High Energy Focus.
 - Changed Doom system to Maneuvering Jets.
 - Massive buff to the Guardian. It is now stronger than a Radiant. Changed system to Damper Field for extra durability.
 - Slightly lowered Megalith deployment cost.
 - Large buff to defenses and speed for Odyssey and Apogee.
 - Apogee now has Microburn ship system. (Should be able to kite efficiently.)
 - Odyssey now has plasma burn ship system. (This should allow it to really choose its fights carefully.)
 - Increased Pillager defenses and forward firepower capability substantially.
 - Removed combat carrier tags from all combat carriers.
 - Anti-fighter missile weapons should now prioritize fighters over missiles and not target ships under most circumstances.
 - (^ Unfortunately, they will now fire at incoming missiles. The AI uses them more often in general so there is a tradeoff.)
 - Ion Cannon and Heavy Ion Cannon no longer will target fighters in most scenarios when under AI control.
 - Reduced flux dissipation of all phase ships to prepare for the next Starsector update which improves their AI.
 - Increased Aurora max flux, dissipation and OP. Increased shield efficiency.
 - Increased Justicar and Revenant max flux.
 - Increased many low tech ships max flux.
 - Massive stat boosts to Luddic Path and Pirate conversion vessesls from freighters.
 - Increased Salamander speed slightly.
 - Luddic Path ships often have Damper Field instead of stock ship systems to add defense to their speed.
 - Further increased refit times for all strike craft by ~25%. (Built-in drones exempted from this change.)
 - Increased refit time reduction of Carrier Bays by 10% for a total of a 75% reduction.
 - All Eagle-class cruiser hulls now have Reserve Deployment as their system.
 - Doubled the time it takes to regenerate a charge of Reserve Deployment.
 - Slightly lowered cooldown of Mass Deployment.
 - Reduced flight speed of Hivemind orbs.
 - Moved Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance back to 800 range from 700. Increased flux cost per fire.

Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Fixed crash with Commissioned Crews features.
 - Added maneuvering stats to Havok.
 - Fixed Pillager turret arcs so the AI won't consider it a broadside ship.
 - Fixed AI hints with missile weapons so that the AI hopefully uses them more intelligently.
 - Added Phase built-in Field to Tyrant as intended.
-----

Misc
-------------
 - Added support for Commissioned Crews features.
-----
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 25, 2020, 03:21:54 AM
Changes sound great. A little worried the Pathers maybe get problematic if buffed, but we'll see.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 25, 2020, 06:34:56 AM
Changes sound great. A little worried the Pathers maybe get problematic if buffed, but we'll see.

Thanks!

Regarding Pathers, it's mostly their freighter conversions that got a boost, really, because they were on the weak side compared to their main ships of the line - both in combat and during campaign autoresolve. All conversion freighters - including Pirate ones - got a buff for that reason. I did that, and I replaced all instances of Combat Capacitors (Ammo Feeder) with Damper Field since, as you correctly pointed out a bit ago, that system didn't really synergize with their built-in SO very well and it's power was mostly wasted.

That being said, in my experience even tiny changes like that can break things and that is a powerful system so we'll see how it goes. (As an example, I had to completely rework the sabot projectile because the tiny hitpoint and speed buff made it better than the Thunderbolt because of its armor penetration - but not giving it the buff made it fairly bad in large scale engagements. ::) It was very binary in its reliability and power.)

In any case, one thing that should help is that Pathers are a bit easier to buy off to avoid combat than other factions. I've set it up that even if they don't ask for a tithe you can still engage in a ceasefire/bribe attempt as well. Before the colony stage that should give some options. I'd say overall that the intention is to make them the next step up from Pirates as far as player challenge is concerned. They definitely feel different from Pirates when you fight them, but due to Ill-Advised Modifications I'm not sure that they are actually stronger. This change should *hopefully* address that a bit.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Test update 5/1
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2020, 02:05:23 PM
Ah yeah I took a look at the faction files and it just can't be done- at least for now. :(

Since I don't override vanilla ships, fighters or weapons anymore, if I don't explicitly remove them from the faction files by overriding them they will merge even in the stand alone TC. This means that a player can get vanilla ships and weapons from raiding and they might even show up in markets. So even assuming a new player understands the risks of mod merging they would still have to put up with a lot of "useless" (from the perspective of TC balance) stuff bloating markets and loot.

If in the future the faction definitions for weapons/fighters/etc get a weight modifier like hulls and stations (so I can thereby set it to 0), then I can prevent vanilla items from spawning in the TC without overriding the entire file. I'll suggest this to Alex and see what he thinks. Maybe there is way I can do this already and I'm just not aware of it.

If not, the best I could likely do would be to modulize the portraits by adding them to dummy factions and then writing code to "merge" the portraits into vanilla factions when the module is present. Then I can take portrait pack requests and add them as players request them. This would also give more customization options for portrait styles. (Again this will likely take some time to set up.)

Ahhh! I was digging around the factionAPI and it turns out this isn't true! I think I can set up the mod with a setting in the settings file to enable/disable vanilla ships and weapons in the campaign and thereby no longer need to override any vanilla faction files.

I didn't think there was API to remove known ships/weapons/fighters, etc and there is! Assuming I don't need anything else from those files I can probably trim down the merging as well. This should allow portrait packs once again and give users the option to mod merge faction mods such as Luddic Enhancement and actually allow the mod to add ships to the Luddic Church/other vanilla factions.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: susitsu on June 26, 2020, 10:19:37 PM
Hey there! Ive been using this mod and Nexerelin for about two months now, playing Starsector off on on and Ive really enjoyed it.

I'm not done with it, but I was wondering if there were other mods people use commonly with the Archean Order? Preferably more in line with gameplay changes and not just the addition of factions and ships on top of the ones Ive already got. Although, I'd gladly take any working changes to the Remnants. They can be a little uninteresting.

For now, what I've gathered:

Starship Legends: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15321.0)
Combat Chatter: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10399.0)
Unknown Skies: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0)
Ruthless Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15279.0)
Second Wave Options: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17086.0)
Grand Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16127.0)
Commissioned Crews: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0)
Common Radar: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0)
Fuel Siphoning: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15272.0)
Sundiving: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15584.0)
SpeedUp: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0)
Updated Rotary Weapons: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9446.0)
Automatic Orders: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15128.0)
Hyperdrive: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17157.0)
Player Station Construction: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0)

Ships/Weapons/Hullmods
Tyrador Safeguard Coalition: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5492.0)
Outer Rim Alliance: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11646.0)
Just coming back to the game and I'm so exited to see this post and the updated main post with the list of compatible mods. I'll be messing around with those off and on over the next few days and preparing myself for the deep dive back into hyperspace.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Nex - Fixes 11/18
Post by: Morrokain on June 27, 2020, 09:49:47 AM
Just coming back to the game and I'm so exited to see this post and the updated main post with the list of compatible mods. I'll be messing around with those off and on over the next few days and preparing myself for the deep dive back into hyperspace.

Thanks I hope you have fun! Even more compatibility should be available in the next update too. No idea how long it will take though, it could be a month or two since there is a lot of work left to get everything in there.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 30, 2020, 01:56:05 AM
Astral nerf, ouch. I don't think Fortress Shield is any useful much to Astral. I can't imagine it to go frontline as it's pretty much paper thin, unlike Legion. I would prefer something else, maybe, a temporary boost to crafts speed, temporary remove missile recharge cooldown so it can fire a huge barrage, massive boost to weapon range/damage then overload the ship afterward.

Eagle (AD) nerf. Oh no, my OP zero flux ultimate ship that can face tank capital.

Ship accessibility, ah yes the inevitable. I will let you know that, in my last playthrough, I only got Astral and Onslaught blueprint and nothing else from the entire map. I wonder if a drop rate from a successful raid can be increased somewhat. If you keep NEX agent ability to smuggle a ship then I might be ok with it.

I see that you actually put a lot of my half-ass recommendation in it, I'm honored.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 30, 2020, 05:20:13 AM
Well the Astral isn't a combat carrier, so it's slow. If an enemy decides to engage, then it has to fight, so the fortress shield is probably going to be very useful.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 30, 2020, 04:11:19 PM
Astral nerf, ouch. I don't think Fortress Shield is any useful much to Astral. I can't imagine it to go frontline as it's pretty much paper thin, unlike Legion. I would prefer something else, maybe, a temporary boost to crafts speed, temporary remove missile recharge cooldown so it can fire a huge barrage, massive boost to weapon range/damage then overload the ship afterward.

I'm hesitant to give it something that boosts fighters or long range strikes (or I'd have given it Targeting Feed or Fast Missile Racks) because with as many bays as it has it already practically deletes most ships below heavy cruisers and can keep enough flux up on the Onslaught to prevent it from reliably getting its low flux boost - which means it takes a long while to catch up with it since the Astral almost always has its low flux boost even when using advanced missiles like the Thunderbolt. The Onslaught has to get its replacement down to 30% before it can truly give chase. So because of the reduction in the low flux boost penalty the Astral would be way too good in both the AI and the player's hands with a system like any of those.

Quote
Eagle (AD) nerf. Oh no, my OP zero flux ultimate ship that can face tank capital.

lol it's not really nerfed that much. Temporal boost is certainly good but with 4 bays Reserve Deployment can be pretty useful to spam mass bomber/gunship attacks at a moments notice or conversely defend against them by replenishing interceptors evem at 30% replacement - which happens pretty fast for non-carriers now. The AI doesn't make good use of Temporal Shell in larger ships which was part of the reasoning behind the decision. There is also another change I'm making with Expanded Deck Crew that will further feed into this style. It will no longer be equip-able on ships that already have Carrier Bays (it's currently too mandatory for carriers otherwise) but will be boosted to a 40% reduction in refit time for ships like the eagle that have bays but not Carrier Bays. This will give it some utility options for non-carrier ships while solving some of the binary build dependency that hullmod currently is cursed with.

Quote
Ship accessibility, ah yes the inevitable. I will let you know that, in my last playthrough, I only got Astral and Onslaught blueprint and nothing else from the entire map. I wonder if a drop rate from a successful raid can be increased somewhat. If you keep NEX agent ability to smuggle a ship then I might be ok with it.

No plans on changing any Nex interactions so that should stay there. Blueprint packs will also be more accessible late game most likely. (Also yikes that's some really bad RNG luck there - unless you mean those were the only capitals you found?)

Quote
I see that you actually put a lot of my half-ass recommendation in it, I'm honored.

 :) I always take feedback seriously (well I try at least - things do slip through the cracks from time to time) and they didn't seem that way to me. Most of them made sense and the couple I was uncertain of (like the Sabot) I decided to take an alternate direction since it did feel either too strong or too weak by the smallest changes. The only worry I have now is the spread is a little too wide - but that will help out poor frigates against it a bit so it might turn out to be a good thing. I'll probably wait for the next round of feedback after the update to see.

Well the Astral isn't a combat carrier, so it's slow. If an enemy decides to engage, then it has to fight, so the fortress shield is probably going to be very useful.

Yeah it seems to suit it really well. Like Albreo said it's never going to be a frontline ship, but this gives it enough time to "bite back" at attacking vessels and buy enough time to replace its strike craft or for reinforcing ships to give it a hand. Without it, an Onslaught with Combat Capacitors engaged practically makes it pop like a balloon.

The attack variants can now go toe to toe with a cruiser I'd say, where before it might do only superficial damage before imploding.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: th3boodlebot on July 07, 2020, 07:55:03 PM
hey ive been experimenting with mods that work with archean order and in particular aria and galaxy tigers seem to work fine.
(i havent tried every single one there is) it seems like they all work just fine
in fact the only problem ive hit is certain mods that add hullmods, i can obtain and learn the hullmods but they dont show up when i go to apply them to ships
that is to say in galaxy tigers (they add cool hull mods that cost a lot of op to add a drone bay to any ship that can spare the op) i cant use the drone hullmods
ive noticed a few others that have the same issue
any idea how to fix this?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 07, 2020, 09:13:51 PM
hey ive been experimenting with mods that work with archean order and in particular aria and galaxy tigers seem to work fine.
(i havent tried every single one there is) it seems like they all work just fine
in fact the only problem ive hit is certain mods that add hullmods, i can obtain and learn the hullmods but they dont show up when i go to apply them to ships
that is to say in galaxy tigers (they add cool hull mods that cost a lot of op to add a drone bay to any ship that can spare the op) i cant use the drone hullmods
ive noticed a few others that have the same issue
any idea how to fix this?

That's really weird that mod-added hullmods would show up in markets but be absent from the hullmod list in the refit screen.  :o

Well, I can tell you I don't override the csv file or anything, and if that was what was going on then they wouldn't show up at all... maybe somehow there is a class involved that for some reason isn't loaded or conflicts?? Seems unlikely but that is the best I have off the top of my head. I guess the other thing is that the hullmods could share ids with vanilla mods or my added mods (and thereby be overridden in this version strictly from csv entries- that will change next version btw) but that would be unlikely as well.

I also doubt it's some kind of max limit on hullmods in that screen coming into play considering the number of mods out there. I feel like that would have come up before.

Well, I'll have to see if I can reproduce it with Galaxy Tigers to give me some kind of lead. For reference, are you on the latest version of both mods? The name of the hullmod would help too. Then I can just use console commands to test it and hopefully reproduce it faster that way.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on July 08, 2020, 03:42:05 AM
hey ive been experimenting with mods that work with archean order and in particular aria and galaxy tigers seem to work fine.
(i havent tried every single one there is) it seems like they all work just fine
in fact the only problem ive hit is certain mods that add hullmods, i can obtain and learn the hullmods but they dont show up when i go to apply them to ships
that is to say in galaxy tigers (they add cool hull mods that cost a lot of op to add a drone bay to any ship that can spare the op) i cant use the drone hullmods
ive noticed a few others that have the same issue
any idea how to fix this?

Have you toggled the filter in the refit screen to show the hullmods? New categories acquired during gameplay start toggled off, and most mod hullmods are in their own categories nowadays.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Vocation on July 15, 2020, 06:24:20 PM
Is there a way to capture or board remnant ships? Tried using the mod boardables unboardables and it doesn't seem to work.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 15, 2020, 07:48:16 PM
Is there a way to capture or board remnant ships? Tried using the mod boardables unboardables and it doesn't seem to work.

You can open the ship_data.csv (under: data/hulls) in notepad or a spreadsheet editor and go to the tags column. Just remove UNBOARDABLE and it will allow them to be captured. (Do this in the mod directory not in the vanilla directory.)

All the ships in the mod have a unique ID to prevent them from clashing with other mods implementing variants or changing vanilla ships. That's why Boardable Unboardables doesn't work.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Vocation on July 15, 2020, 09:36:26 PM
I think there is an exploit/bug. You shouldn't be able to intimidate your own faction. You can basically get infinite money this way. Then again you can just use console commands so not sure if dev time is worth fixing this and being a despot tyrant isn't out of the question, but getting around 300k creds each time you ask for it seems a bit much and just they turn hostile they don't even attack you because they can't. Maybe they could deflect and turn into pirates or something, but there would be a lot of abuse in that also.

Maybe you could get bounties placed on you for being evil?

And thanks for your reply.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 15, 2020, 09:56:52 PM
I think there is an exploit/bug. You shouldn't be able to intimidate your own faction. You can basically get infinite money this way. Then again you can just use console commands so not sure if dev time is worth fixing this and being a despot tyrant isn't out of the question, but getting around 300k creds each time you ask for it seems a bit much and just they turn hostile they don't even attack you because they can't. Maybe they could deflect and turn into pirates or something, but there would be a lot of abuse in that also.

Maybe you could get bounties placed on you for being evil?

And thanks for your reply.

Yeah this is because the system was designed before player fleets were a thing. I have intentions on fixing it I just haven't gotten to it. It might be this update since I'm already reworking that system to a large degree (on the backend nothing is actually changing other than it will be a separate and required secondary mod that will also allow a lot of other faction modders to plug into it in various ways.

Speaking to your suggestions, I'd love to implement factions putting bounties on you for doing these things too often. Probably longer down the road, but I definitely like the idea.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: th3boodlebot on July 16, 2020, 09:10:47 AM
hey ive been experimenting with mods that work with archean order and in particular aria and galaxy tigers seem to work fine.
(i havent tried every single one there is) it seems like they all work just fine
in fact the only problem ive hit is certain mods that add hullmods, i can obtain and learn the hullmods but they dont show up when i go to apply them to ships
that is to say in galaxy tigers (they add cool hull mods that cost a lot of op to add a drone bay to any ship that can spare the op) i cant use the drone hullmods
ive noticed a few others that have the same issue
any idea how to fix this?

Have you toggled the filter in the refit screen to show the hullmods? New categories acquired during gameplay start toggled off, and most mod hullmods are in their own categories nowadays.

DOH
that was it lol thanks
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Vocation on July 16, 2020, 12:57:24 PM
Apparently the problem also exist if you have high relations and request for help too. You can get infinite money that way also. I think there should be some debuff that doesn't allow you to request for aid too much. Maybe something like that for intimidation too.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2020, 01:34:49 PM
Apparently the problem also exist if you have high relations and request for help too. You can get infinite money that way also. I think there should be some debuff that doesn't allow you to request for aid too much. Maybe something like that for intimidation too.

Agreed, but it shouldn't be infinite, exactly, as unless there is a bug going on here it should lock you out from re-requesting anything for 30 in game days per fleet. Are you able to spam the dialogue for a single fleet?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: ClosedBoudy on July 16, 2020, 03:24:03 PM
im having problems downloading from the main link are there any alternative links i can use?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Vocation on July 16, 2020, 03:31:36 PM
Apparently the problem also exist if you have high relations and request for help too. You can get infinite money that way also. I think there should be some debuff that doesn't allow you to request for aid too much. Maybe something like that for intimidation too.

Agreed, but it shouldn't be infinite, exactly, as unless there is a bug going on here it should lock you out from re-requesting anything for 30 in game days per fleet. Are you able to spam the dialogue for a single fleet?

Thing is you can just go around begging people for money in a circle that would give more money than really anything else. In my sector I got a lot of allied fleets around to beg money from and with 100 reputation they all give me money. And you can beg and extort money from your faction fleets for around 600k each time. Just doing that for 10 mins gave me over 10 million credits.

Can't do it for a single fleet but if you got like 20 different fleets coming and going in your sector you can just sit around and beg and get more money than whole planets provide.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on July 16, 2020, 04:45:32 PM
I assume you're running Nex? Cause in vanilla there's a lot fewer fleets.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2020, 04:48:46 PM
im having problems downloading from the main link are there any alternative links i can use?

Unfortunately, no. I've heard dropbox can have issues though. I started uploading the last release to Git initially - but the 100 file upload limit is irritating to say the least (there are thousands of files in the mod). I'll see if I can eventually get it all up there and provide a mirror that way. Apologies for the inconvenience! If anyone knows of a site that would work and they have the latest version feel free to link it here (please not anywhere else though  ;) ).

Thing is you can just go around begging people for money in a circle that would give more money than really anything else. In my sector I got a lot of allied fleets around to beg money from and with 100 reputation they all give me money. And you can beg and extort money from your faction fleets for around 600k each time. Just doing that for 10 mins gave me over 10 million credits.

Can't do it for a single fleet but if you got like 20 different fleets coming and going in your sector you can just sit around and beg and get more money than whole planets provide.

Ah gotcha thanks for bringing this to my attention. Sounds like I need to put a cap on it or reduce the overall amount you receive. It scales with fleet size iirc so at the high end it probably gives far too much. On the lowest end I remember it only giving a few hundred credits per fleet.

The other thing I'm tossing around is a global counter that makes it more difficult to be successful the more consecutive times you do it over X amount of days. Still from a lore perspective allies would naturally give aid freely so there will have to be a reason: (maybe something like "our coffers are empty! There is nothing left to give for now!" - that sort of thing.)

Either way, it's definitely something I will address in the future. I also have plans for a good - lawful - neutral - chaotic - evil reputation system for the player that will influence a variety of encounters and lock/unlock commissions and things like that. But the work involved in that is immense so it will likely be a while.

Definitely something I think could benefit starsector. Depending on how receptive the modding community is to it, that one might be another required module mod like Fleet Dialogue will be. And this time, I can start building it that way from the start with Fleet Dialogue as valuable experience- instead of having to rework everything a second time. haha  ;D

DOH
that was it lol thanks

Ah good! I'm glad that was solved!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Razaghal on July 20, 2020, 10:03:31 PM
Hi! First to say, the mod looks really interesting and well done! I wanted to give it a try, but I have an error that pops ups in any of the new markets of the mod.

For example, I get this:

619541 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Hullmod CHM_scicorps not found!
java.lang.RuntimeException: Hullmod CHM_scicorps not found!
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.getAllMods(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember.updateStats(Unknown Source)
   at data.scripts.plugins.CommissionCheck$NexCommissionCheckMarket.reportPlayerOpenedMarket(CommissionCheck.java:64)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.reportPlayerOpenedMarket(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.startEncounterInvolvingPlayerFleet(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I run the recommended mods + Industrial evolution. I tried with deactivating the latter and I still get the same error.

Thanks you for the mod ^^ I hope I can get an answer.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 21, 2020, 02:21:39 AM
Hi! First to say, the mod looks really interesting and well done! I wanted to give it a try, but I have an error that pops ups in any of the new markets of the mod.

For example, I get this:

619541 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Hullmod CHM_scicorps not found!
java.lang.RuntimeException: Hullmod CHM_scicorps not found!
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.getAllMods(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember.updateStats(Unknown Source)
   at data.scripts.plugins.CommissionCheck$NexCommissionCheckMarket.reportPlayerOpenedMarket(CommissionCheck.java:64)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.reportPlayerOpenedMarket(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.startEncounterInvolvingPlayerFleet(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I run the recommended mods + Industrial evolution. I tried with deactivating the latter and I still get the same error.

Thanks you for the mod ^^ I hope I can get an answer.

Sorry about this! It's a known bug from running this mod with Commissioned Crews. It is being fixed for the next release. Deactivating that mod should help until I can get the fix out.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: ClosedBoudy on July 26, 2020, 07:56:13 AM
Is there any way to get the tyrant's blueprint?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: TeSparg on July 26, 2020, 09:24:33 AM
I assume this is where you post bugs, if not please tell me where.
I saw some weapons mounts where misaligned from my point of view this is unintentional.

On the Paragon the middle row of medium synergy mounts.( one points more to the outside then the other )
On the Nightreaver the small frontal small missile slots.( they point to the right )

I wanted to attach some screenshots but they are to big.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 26, 2020, 10:42:08 AM
Is there any way to get the tyrant's blueprint?

Yes, but the drop rate is extremely low. It can possibly not spawn in the sector at all- so the best way to get it would be to raid the Adamantine Consortium's military worlds. I'd say Galar is probably the easiest.

I assume this is where you post bugs, if not please tell me where.
I saw some weapons mounts where misaligned from my point of view this is unintentional.

On the Paragon the middle row of medium synergy mounts.( one points more to the outside then the other )
On the Nightreaver the small frontal small missile slots.( they point to the right )

I wanted to attach some screenshots but they are to big.



Yes this is the place to post bugs, and thanks for the report I'll take a look.  :)

*EDIT*

Yeah I saw what you are talking about. Fixed both of those, thanks!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: ClosedBoudy on July 27, 2020, 12:59:36 AM
are the raiding results always constant or can I just keep loading till i get it,also is it affected by the scavenging skill?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 27, 2020, 06:26:30 PM
are the raiding results always constant or can I just keep loading till i get it,also is it affected by the scavenging skill?

It is not affected by the skill - that only applies to generic salvage of supplies/fuel/metals etc.

Quote from Alex regarding raiding results:

Not really a modding question but someone asked about it on my mod thread:

Is raiding a market to get a blueprint seeded? So that save scumming doesn't give you the same results?
IIRC yes but the seed changes after... some time period. Now that I think about it, actually, it might've also been bugged and not actually seeded; if that's the case this is fixed for the next release.

So either it won't change between saves now or it's bugged and will but only for this version of Starsector. Either way, it would probably be better to spend time doing something else between each attempt or just come back and raid the market again without save scumming.

To my knowledge I know that the Malevolent bp has been found, and that's rarer than the Tyrant (this was after a full sector sweep, however). So it should be possible but likely it will take a lot of time/effort.

Because I get that RNG can be frustrating, I will eventually add quests for these things. I just don't want them to be easy to acquire.

If it gets too crazy to find, you can always give it to yourself with Console Commands.  :P
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: ClosedBoudy on July 28, 2020, 02:26:18 AM
well I thought about giving it to myself plus removing like 500k to give myself abit of a setback but problem is I couldnt find the tyrant Blueprint ID, can you please mention it or at least tell me where it is located?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 28, 2020, 11:33:50 AM
well I thought about giving it to myself plus removing like 500k to give myself abit of a setback but problem is I couldnt find the tyrant Blueprint ID, can you please mention it or at least tell me where it is located?

Ahh, turns out that since it is not an explicitly defined blueprint and instead is created during blueprint salvage you cannot get it using AddItem. So use this command instead:

Code
RunCode Global.getSector().getPlayerFaction().getKnownShips().add("archean_tyrant");

I tested it out and that works just fine.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Gunfire007 on July 30, 2020, 08:46:53 PM
Hey, I'm really enjoying this mod, and i've been trying out the different factions with it. Currently, I'm using the Consortium, and I've been having a game slow-down problem whenever the carrier uses its phase fighter ability or whatever, the one that makes the fighters more resilient to damage. I haven't had lag anywhere else besides this, and I was wondering if there's a way to disable just those effects, the purple/pink tint around the fighters when the ability is active. I'm not 100% sure if the effect itself is the problem, or the ability entirely, regardless, anything helps.

Thanks
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on July 31, 2020, 10:54:17 AM
Hey, I'm really enjoying this mod, and i've been trying out the different factions with it. Currently, I'm using the Consortium, and I've been having a game slow-down problem whenever the carrier uses its phase fighter ability or whatever, the one that makes the fighters more resilient to damage. I haven't had lag anywhere else besides this, and I was wondering if there's a way to disable just those effects, the purple/pink tint around the fighters when the ability is active. I'm not 100% sure if the effect itself is the problem, or the ability entirely, regardless, anything helps.

Thanks

Hmm I'll have to take a look at the code and see if anything stands out. Not sure why it would cause slowdown that drastically other than a lot of the effects being on screen. Out of curiosity, did you encounter slowdown when you deployed a bunch of wings that phase in and out - like the spectre?

It could be something unique to how the system's glow works though. I'll see what I can find out about it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Gunfire007 on July 31, 2020, 09:35:00 PM
Hmm I'll have to take a look at the code and see if anything stands out. Not sure why it would cause slowdown that drastically other than a lot of the effects being on screen. Out of curiosity, did you encounter slowdown when you deployed a bunch of wings that phase in and out - like the spectre?

It could be something unique to how the system's glow works though. I'll see what I can find out about it.

Currently my fighter force consists of majority Banshees and Broadswords, I may have 1 spectre in there somewhere. Even in something like the simulator the moment i activate the ability with the malevolence class, there is a definite performance hit, and the game does slow down. i can have fairly large battle with little to no slowdown, but as soon as that ability goes off, it tanks pretty hard for as long as it's active.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 02, 2020, 12:51:42 AM
Currently my fighter force consists of majority Banshees and Broadswords, I may have 1 spectre in there somewhere. Even in something like the simulator the moment i activate the ability with the malevolence class, there is a definite performance hit, and the game does slow down. i can have fairly large battle with little to no slowdown, but as soon as that ability goes off, it tanks pretty hard for as long as it's active.

Ok, thanks! That helps. I'll try and troubleshoot tomorrow. It must be specific to that system, then. Hopefully looking at the code will tell me more about what could be going wrong or otherwise cause this.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 02, 2020, 02:04:52 PM
Currently my fighter force consists of majority Banshees and Broadswords, I may have 1 spectre in there somewhere. Even in something like the simulator the moment i activate the ability with the malevolence class, there is a definite performance hit, and the game does slow down. i can have fairly large battle with little to no slowdown, but as soon as that ability goes off, it tanks pretty hard for as long as it's active.

Ok, thanks! That helps. I'll try and troubleshoot tomorrow. It must be specific to that system, then. Hopefully looking at the code will tell me more about what could be going wrong or otherwise cause this.

I *think* I understand what is going on, but part of your description differs from what I am seeing when testing this. The script iterates through every combat ship upon activation and deactivation looking for fighters to apply/unapply the effect. It works the same way for the Targeting Feed ship system and I definitely do notice similar performance drops when replacing the Phase Shell system with that one.

That you are experiencing drops in performance for the whole duration is a little weird, though, so maybe there is more to it. I only noticed spikes during activation and deactivation - and it wasn't enough to cause a huge slowdown during a max battle (default battle size settings in the simulator). The lowest it got was 4% cpu remaining and that was deploying 50% of the DP with Herons and Vigilance-class light carriers (who also have Targeting Feed currently and now from this test likely won't in the near future. :) ) and it stayed around 40% using the Phase Shell system and "idled" at 60% during the rest of the battle.

I didn't notice any drops in FPS at all in any of the tests. It was always 60 iirc. *Maybe* one spike to 30 very briefly in the vigilance test but I'm not 100% sure because I was paying more attention to cpu % since that was being affected way more.

In your version, I think the Executor may still have Targeting Feed as its ship system so that could be a test to see if there is something different between the two for you. It could potentially be the visual effect's color blending with the red glow engines of the banshees causing stress to the gpu or something, but my experience with such things is very close to 0.

System specs will matter, of course, but one thing to try would be to update your graphics card drivers in case the issue lies there. Another thing that would help me troubleshoot- are you having drops in cpu or fps? (Putting Starsector in dev mode lets you view this during a battle at the bottom of the screen)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: TeSparg on August 02, 2020, 02:14:31 PM
Got another misaligned pair of weapons on:

On the Onslaught XIV and original the second row of small ballistics slots from the bottom-up.
On the Eagle XIV and original (I also suspect that the Eagle (SCI) has the same problem) the first small hybrid slots from the top-down. (not the medium ones)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 02, 2020, 06:48:04 PM
Got another misaligned pair of weapons on:

On the Onslaught XIV and original the second row of small ballistics slots from the bottom-up.
On the Eagle XIV and original (I also suspect that the Eagle (SCI) has the same problem) the first small hybrid slots from the top-down. (not the medium ones)

Thanks! Fixed on all accounts hopefully - though the Eagle ones were less a clear case than the Onslaught. I *think* I got what you meant though and moved it back a pixel. In that vein I also moved the rear weapons back a pixel to be more center on the mount's central circular portion.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: I_Am_Dean on August 13, 2020, 04:00:32 PM
So when you have AO and Commissioned Crews on, if you choose to spawn in as part of one of the AO factions (in my example the trader guild) the game will crash and say.

java.lang.RuntimeException: Hullmod CHM_trader_guilds not found!

Any fix for that or do you just have to wait until your factions get their own buffs?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 15, 2020, 01:56:29 PM
So when you have AO and Commissioned Crews on, if you choose to spawn in as part of one of the AO factions (in my example the trader guild) the game will crash and say.

java.lang.RuntimeException: Hullmod CHM_trader_guilds not found!

Any fix for that or do you just have to wait until your factions get their own buffs?

Hi I'm back from a small break! Needed to camp for a bit and get away from technology. Ready to get back to it! First, welcome to the forums!  :)

Regarding your concern: Yes this was a notable oversight from the last update that was supposed to build the foundation for some cool things I'm putting into the new update that hasn't come out yet. Since the new update still has some work that needs to be done and this issue has come up several times now (I'm actually trimming some of the update goals to get it out faster because it was more work than anticipated and admittedly I've been experimenting with several concepts which takes time and testing to ensure actual quality) I'll try and get a fix for this into the current version because it's not great to have crashes and I've also been in the mindset that the update wouldn't take this long. Hopefully this fix won't break other things (always my concern with editing existing updates) but I'll try and test a bit to prevent this if I can!

I'll update here when that fix is downloaded-able.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 15, 2020, 03:14:37 PM
You should now be able to re-download this version to prevent the crash for Commissioned Crews (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16677.0) - though note that the hullmods provided for each of the Archean Order mod's factions will only grant 20% additional hull instead of the intended effects in the next coming update. Sorry I didn't do this sooner, I got too distracted with other code in the mod and wanted to stop mini-updating so the time frame to fix was longer than originally intended.

Let me know if anything else goes awry from this and I'll provide further fixes until the next update is live.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 17, 2020, 12:32:06 PM
What role is the Tyrant supposed to fill?

I just reloaded a fleet battle between AC and Tri-Tach 3 times to test balance.  Each time, it was an hour long stalemate.  (I didn't actually run it to completion of all reinforcement waves on the 2nd and 3rd attempt.)  The Tyrants would prance around and eventually one of them would flank the Tri Tach fleet and kill some epiphanies.  They were useless against capitals or even most cruisers because they would jump obscenely far away after sending a single salvo.

Their 4000 armor makes them virtually immune to fighters and most long-ranged guidance missiles--the only kind that could be reasonably expected to hit them outside of player control.  The Tri-Tach Paragon was almost never able to connect with the Tach Lance and they would just immediately phase regardless.  Massed fighters from the Astral were fairly useless between the 4k armor, the phasing, and the jumping.

25+ minutes into 2 of the 3 fights, the AC managed to have reinforcements kill one of the Astral or Paragon after they were at 0 CR for an extended period of time.  None of the Tyrants died.  They all retreated safely after my Revenant chased them.  My Revenant was also unharmed and never seriously threatened because Tyrants would behave like Wolves and jump away almost immediately.

I made some changes to reduce the jump range from 3,500 to 2,000 and the Tyrant's hull by half.  It was still quite durable because of the 4k armor, and would only be killed without retreating when overwhelmed.  They were also able to damage my Revenant's hull some in 1 on 1 because of flux pressure from the increased engagement ratio caused by the reduced jump.

If you really did want a battleship to fill a flanking role, my suggestion would be to greatly reduce their peak CR time.  They currently jump far enough away not to experience decay a fair portion of the time (which is also why my chasing Revenant was able to stay active for so long), so I'd suggest reducing it by at least half.  This would allow them to nom all the Epiphanies, but not draw battles out unnecessarily.

Of course, I've also probably just made Radiants both simultaneously easier to kill and more deadly, but I'd view that as a plus, too.

Sic Semper Tyrannis!  Nerf them or make them great again, but please don't leave them like they are.

On the issue of BPs, I found both Tyrant and Malevolent in my AC game last version.  I can tell you with great certainty that the critical BP isn't a ship hull at all.  It's the Hivemind Orb Launcher BP.  Once you find that beauty, you can probably field a fleet of literally nothing but 30 Apogees and... do anything.  The only other thing you need is a good book.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 17, 2020, 07:42:20 PM
What role is the Tyrant supposed to fill?

The Tyrant is difficult to balance for now, but I do like the idea of reducing the jump range (maybe a separate system for both the Tyrant and Radiant but I'll see if it's necessary) and maybe a bit of CR reduction, but it's supposed to be scary to the player as an endgame threat and many of the attributes are assigned with the AI in mind.

In that respect, it fits the job well in this current release. But the point is for it to be hard to pin down and be able to dish out extremely strong strikes when unphased, not extremely annoying to engage because it can't be caught.

The reason I gave it its system was to improve the AI's use for it, since, as you have seen by all the stalling battles, the AI for phase ships is too timid in this current release of Starsector. From the twitter posts I've seen, this is being addressed in the next release and that will allow me to do more with it. For now, reducing the jump range might at least help the situation.

Quote
On the issue of BPs, I found both Tyrant and Malevolent in my AC game last version.  I can tell you with great certainty that the critical BP isn't a ship hull at all.  It's the Hivemind Orb Launcher BP.  Once you find that beauty, you can probably field a fleet of literally nothing but 30 Apogees and... do anything.  The only other thing you need is a good book.

Yes that weapon is quite strong I definitely agree. Perhaps it's even too strong when massed and maybe it needs higher flux cost per salvo to make it "capital only", but I'm hesitant to make it too weak to PD because that is kind of its niche as a Legendary weapon. It is supposed to be *mostly* uncounterable to smaller ships, whereas something like the Devastator is an upfront anti-capital weapon that frigates can at least try and dodge a bit.

*EDIT* Didn't catch it when replying, but welcome to the forums! And thank you for your feedback. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 18, 2020, 11:44:13 AM
*EDIT* Didn't catch it when replying, but welcome to the forums! And thank you for your feedback. :)

Thanks!  I've actually had this thread on the bookmark bar of my gaming rig for like a year now.  I've just been lurking.  I check in periodically to look for new versions of this or SS.

--

I completely agree that Tyrants should be threatening.  I'm glad to hear that the AI will be getting tweaked soonish because currently it really is suitable for harassment and not much else.  The Tyrants weren't even particularly threatening to Auroras is what really made it frustrating.  They'd fire one salvo.  As soon as something shot at them, they'd phase, their flux would skyrocket, and they'd jump away.  They'd need pretty epic alpha strike potential to threaten cruisers with even half decent shielding.

If it had been a battle between the AC and me rather than the AI, I'd just anchor my fleet into a corner and they would become toothless.

Ideally, I think a good rock-paper-scissors balance for them would see them very dangerous to cruiser and smaller ships / reinforcements, too agile for things like the ubiquitous Tach Lance Paragons (or Megas, etc.) to deal with, too armored for Astrals to deal with effectively, but vulnerable to properly configured battlecruisers or pocket battleships that have just enough speed and durability to chase them and survive.  It would be kind of neat if Tyrants and Radiants defined a late game role for ships like the Revenant, Ody, Conquest, etc.  (The Nightreaver is already pretty OP on a DP basis as far as I'm concerned.)  Of course, I realize there are many considerations when it comes to balance.

Alex's latest blog post makes it sound like he, too, wants to get away from the late game fleet being 15 tach lance Paragons and a train.

--

As far as the Hivemind Orb Launcher, I don't think it really needs to be nerfed.  The BP seems quite rare, and it is legendary, as you say.  There are lots of RNG elements that can make particular playthroughs easier or harder.  Currently, it doesn't seem like BP seeds actually update, so you're not guaranteed to find it in any particular playthrough.  (Maybe by raiding AO?)  Moreover, there will always be gimmicky fleet compositions that players can exploit if they choose.  The way they are now, it's a big deal if I find a launcher much less the BP in early game exploration.  I'd say it's a good thing to have a few items like that that really incentivize exploration.

--

Oh, there is one other thing.  Is it possible to adjust the scolding about running with transponders off?  I feel like the system would work a lot better if there was only a rep loss for your commissioned faction in a contested system if you were within X distance of a friendly planet/station.  They should be perfectly happy about you contributing to the war effort with hit and run tactics, imo.

In particular, I have in mind AO starts where you have a small fleet and are in a system full of hostile Tri Tach.  You lose one of the big advantages of AO fleets if you have to run with transponders on.  Plus, it makes the early game a lot more fun if you can stalk with small fleets.  The way it currently works, I ended up spending nearly as much time dodging small AO patrols as huge Tri Tach fleets.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 19, 2020, 12:43:25 PM
Thanks!  I've actually had this thread on the bookmark bar of my gaming rig for like a year now.  I've just been lurking.  I check in periodically to look for new versions of this or SS.

Oh nice! Hopefully I'll have an update out pretty soon. I was originally planning on this weekend, but it doesn't look like that will happen. Still some work/testing to do. I'm going to preview some of the new functionality a little bit later on today though.

Quote
I completely agree that Tyrants should be threatening.  I'm glad to hear that the AI will be getting tweaked soonish because currently it really is suitable for harassment and not much else.  The Tyrants weren't even particularly threatening to Auroras is what really made it frustrating.  They'd fire one salvo.  As soon as something shot at them, they'd phase, their flux would skyrocket, and they'd jump away.  They'd need pretty epic alpha strike potential to threaten cruisers with even half decent shielding.

If it had been a battle between the AC and me rather than the AI, I'd just anchor my fleet into a corner and they would become toothless.

Ideally, I think a good rock-paper-scissors balance for them would see them very dangerous to cruiser and smaller ships / reinforcements, too agile for things like the ubiquitous Tach Lance Paragons (or Megas, etc.) to deal with, too armored for Astrals to deal with effectively, but vulnerable to properly configured battlecruisers or pocket battleships that have just enough speed and durability to chase them and survive.  It would be kind of neat if Tyrants and Radiants defined a late game role for ships like the Revenant, Ody, Conquest, etc.  (The Nightreaver is already pretty OP on a DP basis as far as I'm concerned.)  Of course, I realize there are many considerations when it comes to balance.

Alex's latest blog post makes it sound like he, too, wants to get away from the late game fleet being 15 tach lance Paragons and a train.

100% agreed. Iirc, the difference between having the jump and not having the jump was the single salvo you talk about. Without that exit strategy this ship only really engages anything when the target is distracted. Otherwise, it moves in until the first counter shot goes off, phases, and backs off.

Thing is, the higher alpha strike potential I give it for the AI, the more broken it is when in the player's hands. And it's already very broken.  :D

The idea of it being sort of countered by pocket battleships and battlecruisers is interesting. I'll probably have to wait for the changes to really do anything, but I'll keep that in mind. The lower jump range might make this possible since those types of vessels typically are pretty fast themselves, and it already will annihilate anything below a cruiser.

Really it could annihilate most cruisers too... but the AI just doesn't lol. In a straight front to front engagement it can still beat an Onslaught, Executor, etc, but it would take significant damage doing so, which is intended. The ideal strategy is to jump behind and attack the vulnerable engines, so if the AI can ever reliably pull that off the Tyrant will become a really intimidating AI ship.

Quote
As far as the Hivemind Orb Launcher, I don't think it really needs to be nerfed.  The BP seems quite rare, and it is legendary, as you say.  There are lots of RNG elements that can make particular playthroughs easier or harder.  Currently, it doesn't seem like BP seeds actually update, so you're not guaranteed to find it in any particular playthrough.  (Maybe by raiding AO?)  Moreover, there will always be gimmicky fleet compositions that players can exploit if they choose.  The way they are now, it's a big deal if I find a launcher much less the BP in early game exploration.  I'd say it's a good thing to have a few items like that that really incentivize exploration.

Correct they don't update and there is a finite amount that can be found so it's possible it won't be obtainable outside of raiding either the AC or the AO.

That is generally my thought process when it comes to Legendary weapons. They should be rare/maybe unobtainable without raiding - depending on RNG - but when you get one you go: "Whoa! This thing packs a punch and looks pretty cool doing it!" I also want that to be a way to distinguish factions a little more in regards to commissions.

Quote
Oh, there is one other thing.  Is it possible to adjust the scolding about running with transponders off?  I feel like the system would work a lot better if there was only a rep loss for your commissioned faction in a contested system if you were within X distance of a friendly planet/station.  They should be perfectly happy about you contributing to the war effort with hit and run tactics, imo.

In particular, I have in mind AO starts where you have a small fleet and are in a system full of hostile Tri Tach.  You lose one of the big advantages of AO fleets if you have to run with transponders on.  Plus, it makes the early game a lot more fun if you can stalk with small fleets.  The way it currently works, I ended up spending nearly as much time dodging small AO patrols as huge Tri Tach fleets.

Hmm, interesting. I *think* that would be possible off the top of my head. I'm always a fan of more nuanced, contextual interactions with NPCs. Obviously these things can take a lot of work to get it to "feel right" and natural to the player, so I doubt I could squeeze it into the coming update. The next one I should be able to, though. This update is already huge, though it's admittedly a lot of "behind the scenes" code changes that will make things a lot easier and more things possible going forward.

It's not to say there aren't exciting things in it, but the bulk of the work is refactoring how things are done to be more extensible and efficient. The player will have a lot of customization options as far as the campaign is concerned too. To give an idea:

This is the W.I.P list of new settings:

Spoiler
   "archeusTCSettings":{
      "checkSettingsOnSaveLoad":false,
      "vanillaOverrides":{
         "overriddenHullmodsCanBeFound":false,
         "fightersInCodex":false,
         "fightersCanBeFound":false,
         "weaponsInCodex":false,
         "weaponsCanBeFound":false,
         "shipsInCodex":false,
         "shipsCanBeFound":false,
         "blueprintsCanBeFound":false,
         "campaignOverrides":{ # Anything within this section will be permanent once a new game is started.
            "weaponsInFactions":false,
            "fightersInFactions":false,
            "shipsInFactions":false, # Determines whether vanilla ship blueprints are obtainable through raiding.
            "shipsSpawnInFleets":false, # Only used if shipsInFactions is true. Factions will spawn vanilla ships if set to true.
            "overriddenHullmodsInFactions":false,
            "marketOverrides":{
               "adjustVanillaStations":true, # TC stations are set in place of vanilla equivalents. See: "*Archean Order Directory*/data/config/ArcheanOrderEcon/systems"
               "adjustVanillaIndustries":true, # Adds or removes industries based upon the TC balance. See: ^      ^
               "adjustVanillaConditions":true, # Adds or removes market conditions based upon the TC balance. See: ^
            },
         },
      },
      "nexerelinOverrides":{
         "preferVanillaStationsNex":false, # Currently unused - hoping to allow customizable Nex behavior regarding stations in the future.
         "removeNexStationAdditions":true, # Removes or replaces stations that Nex adds with TC friendly ones.
      },
      "logOverrideInfo":true, # Adds debugging info to the log on new game starts if enabled. Should be false by default.
   },
[close]

 - and all the market changes in the mod are now, for the most part, customize-able.

For instance, want to add a High Command to a vanilla market? Or give a market better resources? Now you can by adding the id to a spreadsheet. The mod reads a separate spreadsheet for each system to determine how to change the campaign's markets. A market actually has to exist for this to be possible, of course, so you can't add new markets to existing entities or anything.

The cool thing, at least to me, is that a lot of these settings are save-independent. So things like codex entries or whether vanilla ships can be found or recovered, etc, can be changed in the middle of the campaign. I'm planning on having all the settings work this way in the future, but for time reasons some of that has been cut for this update.

Anyway, sorry for the text wall and if you have any more feedback don't hesitate.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 19, 2020, 04:18:06 PM
Having more options to vary playthroughs is good in my opinion.  It helps keep things from getting stale.

I tend to get bored somewhere in the mid-game and restart with some new self-imposed limitations, so these sorts of toggles would be welcome.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: davissonlam on August 20, 2020, 05:25:57 PM
Tried this mod before I did a vanilla run, decided to try vanilla with a bunch of other mods on, and realized this mod is still way better.

The factions are more unique and believable, AO's blackhole system is just amazing and fits the theme so well, tho I sided with Sci-corp cuz they are the only morally good faction in the entire modiverse. Everything about ships and combat just feels fun, balanced and just right. I honestly enjoy combat with AO way, way more than vanilla.

You have done a stellar job making this mod, I'm 50 hours in now and I throughoutly enjoyed all of it. It's damn near a perfect mod.

The one thing I wish could happen is more legendary weapons (or even hulls!) to find and maybe a remnant-like boss minor faction where you can defeat and get those precious legendary stuff. For legendary hulls, you can get rare intels in bars about derelict legendary ships, which will have d-mods on them but also extra beneficial 0 cost mods. For instance intel about a derelict ship named The Behemoth could have a +30% hull but -20% top speed mod on it, which you can recover and restore and get a somewhat unique ship. Or intels about derelict legendary weapons on probes/stations.

Still the mod is the best starsector mod by far imo.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 20, 2020, 08:49:45 PM
Having more options to vary playthroughs is good in my opinion.  It helps keep things from getting stale.

I tend to get bored somewhere in the mid-game and restart with some new self-imposed limitations, so these sorts of toggles would be welcome.

Oh good I'm glad to hear these will be useful! It also will help easily compare values between vanilla and mod versions of weapons, ships, etc.

Tried this mod before I did a vanilla run, decided to try vanilla with a bunch of other mods on, and realized this mod is still way better.

The factions are more unique and believable, AO's blackhole system is just amazing and fits the theme so well, tho I sided with Sci-corp cuz they are the only morally good faction in the entire modiverse. Everything about ships and combat just feels fun, balanced and just right. I honestly enjoy combat with AO way, way more than vanilla.

You have done a stellar job making this mod, I'm 50 hours in now and I throughoutly enjoyed all of it. It's damn near a perfect mod.

The one thing I wish could happen is more legendary weapons (or even hulls!) to find and maybe a remnant-like boss minor faction where you can defeat and get those precious legendary stuff. For legendary hulls, you can get rare intels in bars about derelict legendary ships, which will have d-mods on them but also extra beneficial 0 cost mods. For instance intel about a derelict ship named The Behemoth could have a +30% hull but -20% top speed mod on it, which you can recover and restore and get a somewhat unique ship. Or intels about derelict legendary weapons on probes/stations.

Still the mod is the best starsector mod by far imo.

First, welcome to the forums and thank you very much for the compliment! I appreciate it and I'm glad you are having fun. :)

Regarding your suggestions, things like this are definitely planned. After the coming update, I will address some of those things (especially looking to further stabilize ship acquisition) and focus more upon adding some new content and further development of existing lore/descriptions, etc.

Some weapons may sneak into the coming release too, though likely not legendary ones just yet. Technically if you look at rarity, the Malevolent and the Megalith are legendary hulls, but they don't have that tech description since I wanted to tie that to their respective factions. I've actually gone back and forth between that a couple times in my head. I may change it later to give a little more "oomph" to the feeling of finding those blueprints.

In general, I definitely want to increase the variety of weapons and probably strike craft as well - that will certainly include other legendary ones. As far as hulls, there are several planned ones for existing factions that I haven't gotten around to, and eventually there will be another playable faction with their own tech line of ships/some unique weapons and strike craft, etc.

I also want to implement "legendary challenges" that will reward legendary blueprints at the expense of an extremely difficult task. For technical and feature reasons that may have to wait until the next Starsector update though.

Anyway, thanks again and let me know if you have any balance feedback or bugs to address if they come up in the future.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on August 21, 2020, 12:52:43 AM
Quote
100% agreed. Iirc, the difference between having the jump and not having the jump was the single salvo you talk about. Without that exit strategy this ship only really engages anything when the target is distracted. Otherwise, it moves in until the first counter shot goes off, phases, and backs off.

Thing is, the higher alpha strike potential I give it for the AI, the more broken it is when in the player's hands. And it's already very broken.  :D

The idea of it being sort of countered by pocket battleships and battlecruisers is interesting. I'll probably have to wait for the changes to really do anything, but I'll keep that in mind. The lower jump range might make this possible since those types of vessels typically are pretty fast themselves, and it already will annihilate anything below a cruiser.

Really it could annihilate most cruisers too... but the AI just doesn't lol. In a straight front to front engagement it can still beat an Onslaught, Executor, etc, but it would take significant damage doing so, which is intended. The ideal strategy is to jump behind and attack the vulnerable engines, so if the AI can ever reliably pull that off the Tyrant will become a really intimidating AI ship.

Well, I always let the AI fly my Tyrants. You would need an officer at lest Aggressive with proper skill set (missile/defensive/amour damage reduction) to make it strong. Phasing is actually good with weapons that have long reloading time, burst or generate large amout of soft flux since when phasing you can still vent soft flux and also reload 4 times faster. So, tyrant with proper loadout can almost go 1v1 with Radient. The problem with AI at the moment is that it doesn't know how to phase to the back of the enemy ship. You will see it wiggles on top of another ship a lot, maybe because this ship is far lager than the nomal vanilla phase ship and some parameter is incompatible but phase ship AI is being updated in the next patch. So, that's also good to hear.

I think, if you let AD fleet Tyrant come preinstalled with an Aggressive-Reckless officer with at lest defensive skill it will be more of a simple threat. Reapers on it have to be set to fire all at once. If you think it's not sadistic enough, you can put my loadouts on. A Tyrant with full Thunderbolts can kill Radient easily
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 21, 2020, 01:04:52 PM
Well, I always let the AI fly my Tyrants. You would need an officer at lest Aggressive with proper skill set (missile/defensive/amour damage reduction) to make it strong. Phasing is actually good with weapons that have long reloading time, burst or generate large amout of soft flux since when phasing you can still vent soft flux and also reload 4 times faster. So, tyrant with proper loadout can almost go 1v1 with Radient. The problem with AI at the moment is that it doesn't know how to phase to the back of the enemy ship. You will see it wiggles on top of another ship a lot, maybe because this ship is far lager than the nomal vanilla phase ship and some parameter is incompatible but phase ship AI is being updated in the next patch. So, that's also good to hear.

I think, if you let AD fleet Tyrant come preinstalled with an Aggressive-Reckless officer with at lest defensive skill it will be more of a simple threat. Reapers on it have to be set to fire all at once. If you think it's not sadistic enough, you can put my loadouts on. A Tyrant with full Thunderbolts can kill Radient easily

You are probably right in regards to the Tyrant's size preventing it from maneuvering behind enemy ships as effectively. It wouldn't matter as much if it would armor tank more, but it does its best to avoid all damage if possible. I know from looking at the posted video that armor tanking should be more of a thing in the next update, so that will help immensely even if it still can't phase through ships. Armor tanking will let its burst weaponry shine more and deal more permanent damage to heavily shielded ships.

Feel free to link your loadouts! This will help me in two ways:

1) If the weapons make sense for the AC, I may just put the loadout as an option for them.

2) If the weapons don't make sense for the AC, it gives me an idea of what kind of weapon is optimal for the Tyrant, so I can design new AC weapons with that in mind.

(The Thunderbolt has been nerfed for the next release just fyi. It will still be very good, but not quite so overwhelming when massed.)

Patch notes entry:
 "- Reduced Thunderbolt emp, reduced second stage flight speed and slightly reduced second stage hitpoints."

As far as officers, the AC already prefers reckless or aggressive officers, but I don't think I can reliably force them to be that way for the Tyrant specifically. I could just try and make all AC officers aggressive or reckless with a large chance to focus on defensive skills. That would honestly make sense from a lore perspective.

The side effect of that change would be that ceasefire/aid request dialogues would be even less likely to succeed for AC fleets (officer personality in general matters) - which there is already a pretty low chance of success for them. I suppose if it was too much of a problem I could adjust the base chance on the faction level with the assumption that the officer will be aggressive or reckless.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: davissonlam on August 21, 2020, 06:05:44 PM
Is it possible, coding wise, to put random buffs/debuffs as fixed mods on the same hull/weapon?

What i mean is that when you acquire say a legendary hull like the megalith, you could get the regular megalith if you purchase it, or you could acquire it through some special ways, and that megalith could have say an extra fixed mod on it. Kinda like acquiring a hull with d-mods, but have it be buffs. That way you can have a lot of variations every run, since the extra layer of randomness means every paragon or megalith is unique.

Btw Tyrants are easy to deal with because AC fleets does not have a tanky capital or battlecruiser to occupy players fleet. What happens most of the time is Tyrants ended up tanking everything and it just couldn't deal damage back since it has to keep phase up to survive. Maybe a tanky battlecruiser with emp loadouts to do some cc and free tyrants up to do damage?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 21, 2020, 10:33:55 PM
Is it possible, coding wise, to put random buffs/debuffs as fixed mods on the same hull/weapon?

What i mean is that when you acquire say a legendary hull like the megalith, you could get the regular megalith if you purchase it, or you could acquire it through some special ways, and that megalith could have say an extra fixed mod on it. Kinda like acquiring a hull with d-mods, but have it be buffs. That way you can have a lot of variations every run, since the extra layer of randomness means every paragon or megalith is unique.

To my knowledge, the only real way to do that would be to define a different hull id that includes the built-in hullmods which provide the unique changes. The issue is that it would technically be a separate - yet mostly similar - ship that would then have its own chance to drop as a blueprint. Even with the same drop chance, it dilutes the chances for other drops. So at the very best that sort of thing would have to be applied equally across hulls of said rarity type in order for it to retain the overall drop chance. That would be a considerable amount of work, though that by itself isn't a deal breaker to me.

However, it would be pretty hard to balance and also wouldn't operate in the way I think was implied: So building a "Megalith" wouldn't result in a unique version every time. It would still result in whatever version you found, but the chance of that particular version dropping each playthrough (as a blueprint) would be variable. In that sense, you could of course also find more than one variant of the hull in any one particular playthrough. With that in mind, would it not be frustrating to find 3 minor Megalith variances and 0 Tyrant or Paragon blueprints, for instance?

Now, doing that sort of thing as a unique quest reward after the next Starsector update drops? Absolutely I could see myself doing something like that in the future.

Quote
Btw Tyrants are easy to deal with because AC fleets does not have a tanky capital or battlecruiser to occupy players fleet. What happens most of the time is Tyrants ended up tanking everything and it just couldn't deal damage back since it has to keep phase up to survive. Maybe a tanky battlecruiser with emp loadouts to do some cc and free tyrants up to do damage?

That was primarily what the role of the Nightreaver was supposed to be, but that ship also serves the dual purpose of fielding fighters whereas all phase ships don't. It was meant to fill both gaps, but there is definitely room for a more tanky light battlecruiser that supports the Malevolent and the Tyrant better.

I'll have to start thinking of designs. It will either be forward-firepower concentrated or simply have a lighter "general armament package" but either way it will have a tough shield and be very maneuverable for its class. I may even give it the mine launcher system to let it zone out enemy fleets.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Hexadood on August 22, 2020, 06:50:38 AM
Wow, this mod is impressive as all get-out!
One question though, is it compatible with SkilledUp, or would that cause a problem?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 22, 2020, 01:23:49 PM
Wow, this mod is impressive as all get-out!
One question though, is it compatible with SkilledUp, or would that cause a problem?

Welcome to the forums and thank you! :)

I just tested Skilled Up (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14293.0) with the dev version and yes it appears compatible. If you run into any issue with it after a prolonged game, let me know, but I'm not seeing any crashes and I don't think the code conflicts with anything I'm doing.

I'll go ahead and add it to the compatible list for utility/feature mods.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: davissonlam on August 22, 2020, 03:52:05 PM
I'll have to start thinking of designs. It will either be forward-firepower concentrated or simply have a lighter "general armament package" but either way it will have a tough shield and be very maneuverable for its class. I may even give it the mine launcher system to let it zone out enemy fleets.


Tough shields, mines and close range assault/pd (600 or so) weapon loadout would fit AC theme and fill the gap. It should be less maneuverable than the tyrant but gets a non rechargeable speed boost skill like burn drive or sth so it can get to the thick of the fight quicker than tyrants, but cannot easily get out. Maybe more pds on medium/large turrents instead of stuff like atronach beams to differentiate its role. Just my 2 cents I'm sure I'll love whatever you ended up adding!

Can confirm skilled up is compatible, as well as a dozen mods:
Trailer moments, adjusted sector, combat analytics, combat chatter, common radar, disassemble reassemble, nexerelin, starship legends, supply forging, unknown skies, audio plus, and the usual libs.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: ThisShadeOfGreen on August 22, 2020, 04:33:15 PM
I made an account just to post the fact I love this mod to death. I saw the discussion around the Tyrant and I wanted to give my two cents on it since it's my flagship, by far my favorite ship in the game out of any mod.

If kitted out with weapons that fire in bursts and/or Strike weapons, the Tyrant is almost a war crime that eats anything at or below the level of a Cruiser for breakfast. During my last session I went up against a carrier fleet composed mostly of Cruisers. Teleported right through the frontline fighting and wiped out their entire fighter support before they could react.
After seeing an Adamantium Consortium fleet get their Tyrants blown to pieces by a Hegemony Detachment I decided these things probably need support to function properly in an engagement against other Capital Ships.

After my time with it I recognized three things that make the Tyrant much more effective in combat:

1. There are very high armor/shield ships in my fleet providing supporting fire and more importantly distracting the enemy.
2. I am running the Tyrant with a build that increases armor and flux capacity with low flux cost weapons.
3. I intentionally avoid engaging other Capital Ships directly.

I agree with the suggested changes to AI along with a tanky frontline battleship for the AC, they'd go a long way to increasing their overall effectiveness.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on August 23, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Tyrant Guide Updated

Tyrant guide in decimating everything in the mod. You're required to have basic understanding of phase tech and basic fleet composition. Tyrant is weak against fighters of all sorts, so, you will need to have at least 2-3 carriers capable of support in any given battle. Tyrant can't tank anything, it's not design to hold the ground. You will need additional ships to act as frontline and let loose your Tyrants to do their things. The preferable front line ship is Paragon or zero flux ship. Captain has to be Aggressive or Reckless. Must have skills for captain are Defensive System, Helmsmanship, Power Grid Modulation, and Combat Endurance.

::Loadout::

Spoiler
(https://i.ibb.co/W0vxyf6/005.jpg) (https://ibb.co/W0vxyf6)
1) [Ultimate] set up with mostly zero flux weapons. You can go Optic in this one no problem. Very very very effective against fighters. All weapons should be linked to a single auto fire group. Has total damage higher than a Hightech Star Fotress.

(https://i.ibb.co/8DCrbK4/007.jpg) (https://ibb.co/8DCrbK4)
2) High DPS, shield piercing EMP build. Lack of burst capability but stable. Can support large swat of combat zone with Thunderbolt.

(https://i.ibb.co/C57XHKQ/008.jpg) (https://ibb.co/C57XHKQ)
3) Snipe mode. Quite unreliable in overwhelming battle. Very high burst capability, murder thing very quick.

(https://i.ibb.co/SsXGWk3/006.jpg) (https://ibb.co/SsXGWk3)
4) Shield piercing point-blank rocket pots. Melts armor with Gatling guns afterward.
[close]

::Combat Report::

(https://i.ibb.co/3zyZYBf/002.jpg) (https://ibb.co/3zyZYBf)(https://i.ibb.co/yW5Q3Cn/003.jpg) (https://ibb.co/yW5Q3Cn)(https://i.ibb.co/G0x8cKH/004.jpg) (https://ibb.co/G0x8cKH)

A combined report of 10 Large [REDACTED] fleets at the maximum battle size. Always on Autopilot. No ship lost in combat.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 23, 2020, 10:27:00 PM
We started with a problem whereby one group of factions cannot kill Tyrants, so battles of equal fleets would reproducibly run to unreasonable lengths of time.

Now we are addressing a problem that Tyrants are too easy to kill, so we need to give the AC an even more defensive focus.  The trouble is this is also reproducible.

It seems clear to me that this is a double-sided problem.  Phase ships are hard countered by L Ballistic Anti-Armor weapons--in particular the Devastator Cannon.  (This goes double for giant phase ships with a giant hit box.)

Some factions use them routinely.  Others never.  Trying to balance the Tyrant will prove to be a Sisyphean task.

It's also going to be perilous to attempt because it's quite obvious many players are using the Tyrant and invested in its fate.

The better option might be to let it be the Hyperion of Battleships.  Leave it for the player, and have the AI rarely field it in practice.

The Consortium's problem isn't only the Tyrant, in any event.  The Carriers are similar.  Cobra wings are deadly to smaller ships, but not particular effective at big game hunting given the AC's overall composition.  Currently, the AC lacks either a reliable means to overload large enemies or the shield-piercing EMP needed to render capitals vulnerable to cobra strikes.  The only other viable strategy is to simply flood the zone.

Why don't they use Hivemind Orb Launchers?  It's their Legendary weapon.  Carriers are ideal platforms.  A preponderance of orbs and things like hurricane missiles would go a long way.  These would provide reliable, sustained damage plus open the door to big strikes from cobras and the phase ships.

The Consortium probably does need a new capital ship to replace the Tyrant.  It could be defensive in nature; however, it could alternatively be a glass cannon focused on long-ranged, indirect fire with things like the HMOL.  Maybe the Consortium eschews traditional ships of the line in favor of a philosophy of overwhelm or be overwhelmed.  Battles that are short and brutal.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Hexadood on August 24, 2020, 07:09:44 AM
Hey again! Thanks for welcoming me onto the forums! I'm happy to be here!  :)
I do have another question, it's about the station and terraforming mod! Does it work with Archean Order? Or does it cause any bugs that might detract from the experience?
Thank you again for being so warmly welcoming!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on August 24, 2020, 10:10:59 AM
We started with a problem whereby one group of factions cannot kill Tyrants, so battles of equal fleets would reproducibly run to unreasonable lengths of time.

Now we are addressing a problem that Tyrants are too easy to kill, so we need to give the AC an even more defensive focus.  The trouble is this is also reproducible.

It seems clear to me that this is a double-sided problem.  Phase ships are hard countered by L Ballistic Anti-Armor weapons--in particular the Devastator Cannon.  (This goes double for giant phase ships with a giant hit box.)

Some factions use them routinely.  Others never.  Trying to balance the Tyrant will prove to be a Sisyphean task.

It's also going to be perilous to attempt because it's quite obvious many players are using the Tyrant and invested in its fate.

The better option might be to let it be the Hyperion of Battleships.  Leave it for the player, and have the AI rarely field it in practice.

The Consortium's problem isn't only the Tyrant, in any event.  The Carriers are similar.  Cobra wings are deadly to smaller ships, but not particular effective at big game hunting given the AC's overall composition.  Currently, the AC lacks either a reliable means to overload large enemies or the shield-piercing EMP needed to render capitals vulnerable to cobra strikes.  The only other viable strategy is to simply flood the zone.

Why don't they use Hivemind Orb Launchers?  It's their Legendary weapon.  Carriers are ideal platforms.  A preponderance of orbs and things like hurricane missiles would go a long way.  These would provide reliable, sustained damage plus open the door to big strikes from cobras and the phase ships.

The Consortium probably does need a new capital ship to replace the Tyrant.  It could be defensive in nature; however, it could alternatively be a glass cannon focused on long-ranged, indirect fire with things like the HMOL.  Maybe the Consortium eschews traditional ships of the line in favor of a philosophy of overwhelm or be overwhelmed.  Battles that are short and brutal.

I don't think Tyrant is weak against ballistic at all. The few trouble I find against are fighter>>>homming torp/Tachlance. The rest can be easily evaded by AI. I release four of my test ships above and it can wipe two full-size Hegemony invasion fleets in a single 500DP battle, full autopilot, with minimal damage taken. No amount of ballistic can stop it.

For cobra, it's already OP enough. I even think about asking for some damage nerfed. It, alone, already has ample shield suppressive power when deploying in large numbers. Zero flux weapons can do the deed of piercing a shield. So, it's just a matter of loadout. AD has the best ship line up in the game, albeit lack in variety.

Hivemind orb is bugged at the moment FYI.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 24, 2020, 05:46:41 PM
I don't think Tyrant is weak against ballistic at all. The few trouble I find against are fighter>>>homming torp/Tachlance. The rest can be easily evaded by AI. I release four of my test ships above and it can wipe two full-size Hegemony invasion fleets in a single 500DP battle, full autopilot, with minimal damage taken. No amount of ballistic can stop it.

For cobra, it's already OP enough. I even think about asking for some damage nerfed. It, alone, already has ample shield suppressive power when deploying in large numbers. Zero flux weapons can do the deed of piercing a shield. So, it's just a matter of loadout. AD has the best ship line up in the game, albeit lack in variety.

Hivemind orb is bugged at the moment FYI.

I think we agree on most points, but we're talking about different things.

You're discussing balance with regards to player designed ships.  I'm discussing balance between AI factions--sticking with the hulls and weapons they have available and the fleets they actually field.

I also agree with you that the Consortium probably has the best hulls.  I view that as compensation for the fact that their fleet doesn't gel.

The Cobra is probably a good case and point of where our perspective diverge. 

The AC only field them on the Malevolent and the Nightreaver.  They field these ships in comparatively small numbers, and they're not particular DP efficient platforms for strike craft in the first place.  In the view of the cohesion and competency of the Consortium's Order of Battle, the torpedo bombers are undeniably underwhelming.  It's part of why the Consortium takes all of those amazing hulls and delivers such pedestrian results.  (If anything, it should be factions like the Traders Guild or SciCorps, which don't have elite capitals, in need of our love.)

Compare that with something like the Epiphany, which is a fantastic platform for bombers.  It only cost 11 DP.  It has four wings and a recall device.  If Tri Tachyon started loading all their epiphanies full of Cobras, it would be a very different story.  Much better economy of force.

As a player, can I exploit the cobra to make it OP?  Of course.  Does the Consortium use it well?  No.  Only their stations do, and that's because their stations can do what their fleet cannot: they can deal and receive flux in a sustained and efficient way.

Factions have identities and that's part of the balance equation.  There's no real point in trying to stop the player from putting on spandex and a cape.

If we let the Consortium do whatever they want and act like the player, then we can surely create a superpower.

But whatever, as long as there aren't hour long stalemates.  Tyrants are easy enough for a player to deal with.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 24, 2020, 06:30:36 PM
Oh wow lots of posts to catch up on today!

Tough shields, mines and close range assault/pd (600 or so) weapon loadout would fit AC theme and fill the gap. It should be less maneuverable than the tyrant but gets a non rechargeable speed boost skill like burn drive or sth so it can get to the thick of the fight quicker than tyrants, but cannot easily get out. Maybe more pds on medium/large turrents instead of stuff like atronach beams to differentiate its role. Just my 2 cents I'm sure I'll love whatever you ended up adding!

Some more tactical variations of the Tyrant itself are planned that are designed around anti-fighter/missile. The non-recharging speed boost for the light battlecruiser is an interesting idea.

I think I will try that out and see how the AI handles itself with it. Unlike burn drive, I think I'll allow an active shield while it's engaged to support the defensive nature of the ship.

Quote
Can confirm skilled up is compatible, as well as a dozen mods:
Trailer moments, adjusted sector, combat analytics, combat chatter, common radar, disassemble reassemble, nexerelin, starship legends, supply forging, unknown skies, audio plus, and the usual libs.

Oh nice I'll have to add those later on if they aren't there already. I'm pretty sure some of them are.

I made an account just to post the fact I love this mod to death. I saw the discussion around the Tyrant and I wanted to give my two cents on it since it's my flagship, by far my favorite ship in the game out of any mod.

If kitted out with weapons that fire in bursts and/or Strike weapons, the Tyrant is almost a war crime that eats anything at or below the level of a Cruiser for breakfast. During my last session I went up against a carrier fleet composed mostly of Cruisers. Teleported right through the frontline fighting and wiped out their entire fighter support before they could react.
After seeing an Adamantium Consortium fleet get their Tyrants blown to pieces by a Hegemony Detachment I decided these things probably need support to function properly in an engagement against other Capital Ships.

After my time with it I recognized three things that make the Tyrant much more effective in combat:

1. There are very high armor/shield ships in my fleet providing supporting fire and more importantly distracting the enemy.
2. I am running the Tyrant with a build that increases armor and flux capacity with low flux cost weapons.
3. I intentionally avoid engaging other Capital Ships directly.

I agree with the suggested changes to AI along with a tanky frontline battleship for the AC, they'd go a long way to increasing their overall effectiveness.

First off, welcome to the forums and thank you for the comment!  :)

Thanks for giving your experience with the Tyrant both from a player experience and when under AI control. I have at least 3 additional weapons I want to make and try out with it. These will likely also be used in conjunction with the new ship too.

One of them will be a low flux cost assault weapon - likely with a burst fire element to make it hybrid strike/assault with limited range to offset the low flux cost.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Re Tyrant balance discussion"

@basileus
I agree that the Devastator in particular is very nasty (Legendary weapon after all) against the armor-reliant Tyrant if it gets hit from a couple of salvos that break the armor along a whole swath of its hull. In general though, at least imo, the problem with the Tyrant drawing out battles has more to do with its system mobility preventing any reasonable tactical punishing compared to other ships - rather than its actual combat efficacy. Or I guess, in that sense what I'm saying is it isn't the defensiveness of the Tyrant or the AC that causes this annoying drawback but a combination of AI timidness and massive mobility compared to other capitals that could contest the Tyrant. I think that is part of the reason why fighters are more effective against it. The mobility factor is removed in that instance and so therefore it has to rely on its armor and pd weaponry to have a chance at surviving - which is a good thing. What I would like to see is more situations where that comes into play with enemy AI ships such as in npc faction vs npc faction battles.

What I'm hoping is that by reducing the distance that the Tyrant can flee when surrounded or cornered I can allow it to be punished more easily - both by the player and the admiral AI. Since that change might make the Tyrant more vulnerable under AI control due to its current place in the fleet synergy of the AC (as the line heavy hitter alongside the Eagle (Ad)), the additional fleet composition element will hopefully handle that potential issue without requiring any further additional changes to the Tyrant.

Especially since, as you pointed out, a lot of people like to personally fly the Tyrant, I want the changes to mostly be along the lines of more AI friendly compositions/changes rather than changes to the ship itself, if that makes sense. Reducing the jump range is pretty minimal to the player's overall ability to fly the ship as they can still use the ships strengths to great effect considering they can make better judgement calls on when to attack compared to the AI.

Still, until the next Starsector update I think you are correct that it will be a herculean task to accomplish. I'm hoping its not a futile one, but we will see. I'd prefer to not remove it from the general AC lineup since it is an iconic ship of that faction alongside the Nightreaver and Malevolent. That being said, the battlecruiser will take up a capital slot and have a greater chance to spawn, so that will certainly dilute the appearance of other capitals somewhat.

I'm actually currently debating upon whether to make the new ship a tanky heavy cruiser with moderately high DP instead a light battlecruiser so this does not happen, but the cruiser space is already filled by the Nightreaver, Eagle(Ad) and Doom(Ad) so it's a bit of a tight fit there as well.

As far as the Hivemind, it and the Apocalypse Cannon line are also used by the Archean Order faction. The AC also uses the Tachyon Lance alongside the Tri-Tachyon corporation. I think the Malevolent has a variant that uses both already, but it wouldn't hurt the have the Tyrant sniper variant use them as well that is definitely true. I'll do some experimenting along those suggestions. :)

Just saw your second post:

Interesting comments on the AC carriers/Cobra bomber. I think we are on the same page as far as fleet synergy considerations and maintaining each faction's theme when making adjustments. Albreo's builds provide a good foundation of what roles new weapons should take and how to build the Tyrant for AI

If you don't mind, any suggestions to increase fleet synergy? I know the new ship will be a start and hopefully the new weapons will fill in some gaps as well, but I'm curious as to your thoughts there. I want all factions to have fleet synergy on some level - with hopefully a varying amount of tactics the AI deploys based upon specific variants available in any given battle.

I would also agree that Sci-Corps/Trader Guilds definitely needs more iconic ships and a legendary line of ships and weapons to bring them more on par with other factions. Sci-Corps have had a few changes in the last update and some better autoresolve calculation is hopefully coming in this update.

@Albreo
Thanks for sharing the loadouts! Something similar to those will certainly make it into the stock variants. And as I stated earlier I have a few ideas on new weapons to better take advantage of the Tyrants strengths in respect to the AI. Those will probably replace some of those weapons (especially ones like the Gatling Laser that are more of a Hegemony weapon) but overall I see the general theme of what you are going for and I've got some notes in my head.

One of the new weapons will be a large version of the Smokescreen so that will definitely give mass fighters some pause if you are familiar with that weapon at all. The primary limiting factor of the smaller versions is ammo/regen and the large version won't have that downside as much.

The variety issue will be address eventually. The Archean Order also suffers from this a bit. This is mainly just because the lore of these factions requires mostly unique ships rather than either using stock vanilla ships or reskins of vanilla ships.

(I *think* I've addressed the Hivemind issue, btw, but I'll need to do more testing to be sure.)
-----------------------------------------------------

Hey again! Thanks for welcoming me onto the forums! I'm happy to be here!  :)
I do have another question, it's about the station and terraforming mod! Does it work with Archean Order? Or does it cause any bugs that might detract from the experience?
Thank you again for being so warmly welcoming!

No problem at all I'm happy to do so. :)

I looked at Terraforming and Station Construction (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.0) and everything seems fine from what I can see. The only caveat is that the source code is not available so I'm not sure about the quests. On the surface though, I tested out starting a new game and interacting with a market and no crashes and things seem normal for the market in the dev version. I don't think anything has changed between the current release and the dev version that would effect the mod, so it should be good.

If anyone has been using that for a deeper campaign playthrough and/or completed the quests the mod gives, feel free to chime in!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on August 24, 2020, 09:27:50 PM
I don't think Tyrant is weak against ballistic at all. The few trouble I find against are fighter>>>homming torp/Tachlance. The rest can be easily evaded by AI. I release four of my test ships above and it can wipe two full-size Hegemony invasion fleets in a single 500DP battle, full autopilot, with minimal damage taken. No amount of ballistic can stop it.

For cobra, it's already OP enough. I even think about asking for some damage nerfed. It, alone, already has ample shield suppressive power when deploying in large numbers. Zero flux weapons can do the deed of piercing a shield. So, it's just a matter of loadout. AD has the best ship line up in the game, albeit lack in variety.

Hivemind orb is bugged at the moment FYI.

I think we agree on most points, but we're talking about different things.

You're discussing balance with regards to player designed ships.  I'm discussing balance between AI factions--sticking with the hulls and weapons they have available and the fleets they actually field.

I also agree with you that the Consortium probably has the best hulls.  I view that as compensation for the fact that their fleet doesn't gel.

The Cobra is probably a good case and point of where our perspective diverge. 

The AC only field them on the Malevolent and the Nightreaver.  They field these ships in comparatively small numbers, and they're not particular DP efficient platforms for strike craft in the first place.  In the view of the cohesion and competency of the Consortium's Order of Battle, the torpedo bombers are undeniably underwhelming.  It's part of why the Consortium takes all of those amazing hulls and delivers such pedestrian results.  (If anything, it should be factions like the Traders Guild or SciCorps, which don't have elite capitals, in need of our love.)

Compare that with something like the Epiphany, which is a fantastic platform for bombers.  It only cost 11 DP.  It has four wings and a recall device.  If Tri Tachyon started loading all their epiphanies full of Cobras, it would be a very different story.  Much better economy of force.

As a player, can I exploit the cobra to make it OP?  Of course.  Does the Consortium use it well?  No.  Only their stations do, and that's because their stations can do what their fleet cannot: they can deal and receive flux in a sustained and efficient way.

Factions have identities and that's part of the balance equation.  There's no real point in trying to stop the player from putting on spandex and a cape.

If we let the Consortium do whatever they want and act like the player, then we can surely create a superpower.

But whatever, as long as there aren't hour long stalemates.  Tyrants are easy enough for a player to deal with.

I see what you are talking about. AI fleet loadout is the issue here, to keep up with the lore, and the fleet roster is lacking in many spots. Spewing out new ships is not that easy and we only have one modder doing it, so, he can only do so many things at once. Lol, but I do think new content should be prioritized over minor balancing.

I think we can buff up some small phase ships for Andamantine to be a bit threatening. Those ships firepower are very lacking anyway. I saw other mods have neat abilities, especially in Prv. Maybe, ability to deal EMP damage directly through the shield. Direct system disruption is a bit to OP. And Shattercell should be changed into fragmentation damage, now that I have thought about it. Fragmentation weapons from a few mods are not shabby at all, it can be pushed into some faction main weapon.

Hour-long stalemate is inevitable against a fast ship. Usually, capitals don't have this much speed and any other ship will try to retreat once all capital is wiped out. This happens too to other faction mods. What you can do is use Speed Up and set up an additional button to trigger extreme speed, for me, I have x2 and x4. When trigger both I will have x8, a bit flunky but did the job at cleaning up the battlefield. Or use fighter, you know, all phase ships hate fighter.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on August 25, 2020, 05:18:11 AM
Frag main weapons are a huge balance issue. There's a reason vanilla doesn't have that. There's no counterplay. It breaks the entire combat loop in half.

I think trying to mess with any phase ship right now is pointless, because we know a big AI change is coming and that almost certainly is going to require yet another balance pass over all phase ships anyway.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 25, 2020, 12:45:06 PM
I see what you are talking about. AI fleet loadout is the issue here, to keep up with the lore, and the fleet roster is lacking in many spots. Spewing out new ships is not that easy and we only have one modder doing it, so, he can only do so many things at once. Lol, but I do think new content should be prioritized over minor balancing.

I think we can buff up some small phase ships for Andamantine to be a bit threatening. Those ships firepower are very lacking anyway. I saw other mods have neat abilities, especially in Prv. Maybe, ability to deal EMP damage directly through the shield. Direct system disruption is a bit to OP. And Shattercell should be changed into fragmentation damage, now that I have thought about it. Fragmentation weapons from a few mods are not shabby at all, it can be pushed into some faction main weapon.

Frag main weapons are a huge balance issue. There's a reason vanilla doesn't have that. There's no counterplay. It breaks the entire combat loop in half.

I think trying to mess with any phase ship right now is pointless, because we know a big AI change is coming and that almost certainly is going to require yet another balance pass over all phase ships anyway.

The Shattercell Cannon is better at missile interdiction and pressuring shields then it is in an anti-fighter role. This is partly due to the lack of a dedicated kinetic assault weapon for the AC. Making it fragmentation would increase its effectiveness against fighters at the expense of its ability to act as a shield pressure weapon. With the combination of sprinkling in more Burst PD into loadouts and the large Smokescreen I think the anti-fighter role will be amply covered and so I can preserve the Shattercell's hybrid functionality. If I did make a fragmentation energy pd weapon, it would have to have a bit shorter range. High dps frag weapons make hull seem like it doesn't exist. :P

As far as content development vs balancing and phase ships go, I certainly understand where you both are coming from. I kind of feel bad that the coming update has less actual content than most generally do. Unfortunately, technical debt is a very real thing and I've had a lot of it to catch up on. All I can say is that it will make things a lot easier going forward from the perspective of coding. Not only did I get some invaluable experience with the API while doing it, but it will give me other useful things like a database of vanilla ids and, eventually, all the mod ids will be easily accessible to do things like check the player for X faction's weapons or ships, etc.

For instance, now if I need to remove or add a station to a market literally anywhere in the sector all I need to do is add the system and entity ids to a spreadsheet along with any changes to the market. Before, I would have had to write a new class to make the changes, call it in the plugin, compile a new jar, etc. It is sort of like what Alex is talking about in regards to the quest framework being developed for the next update. A bunch of stuff has been streamlined and made more accessible to a non-technical player who wants to customize their campaign run.

The other consideration, as always, is making the mod more light touch as far as other faction mods go. As a TC this might seem a bit silly to focus on, but for players (and there seems to be many of them) who want to mix in faction mods it ensures that those factions have access to all the vanilla ships/weapons/hullmods/etc that they would expect to. The only category of vanilla that is explicitly overridden now (as in changed and locked from other mods editing) is the vanilla variants. That is the last piece of the puzzle that I will wait until I get a sizable content update out before I address. So all of this work lays the foundation for some cool things that I have planned later. I appreciate all the patience until those things are actualized.

As far as phase ships, the only change I'm making for now is the jump range reduction. If I do other things like new weapons or ships in this update (as opposed to waiting for the next one to do that), that is more intended at content expansion that serves the dual purpose of increasing tactical synergy within both the AC and other factions more than a specific fix for phase ships. That it may help phase ships' performance in some situations is just a nice bonus. I have confidence that the new phase AI will solve a lot of problems and I can address any remaining ones afterwards. The jump range reduction is mostly just to try and prevent AI stalemates as much as possible.

One not-at-all-minor balance change that is being worked on right now is revamping almost all ships OP because I am attempting to address the issue of weaponless mounts - especially on carriers. Essentially, carriers will get a range of free to still pretty cheap weapons for all mount types. Assault ships that have bays on the other hand, will have free interceptors at the expense that those interceptors replace 50% slower and have 50% less effective range. Bombers and gunships will still be fairly expensive and have the same drawbacks as interceptors so assault ships will likely need to downgrade weapons or hullmods to use them. Carriers will now naturally prioritize their OP for gunships and bombers without the need to remove weapons to do so. Replacing a bomber/gunship wing with lower OP cost interceptors lets the carrier upgrade its weapons or add more utility-focused or niche hullmods. This will give dedicated carriers a more specific role and strength compared to assault ships with bays - something I've been trying to better flesh out recently after feedback from about a month or two ago.

*EDIT*

Actually, I have some considerations when thinking about and balancing that feature that I'd love to get some feedback and opinions on:

1) I don't want OP reductions to render build-making choices complete no-brainers. So for instance, if a Burst PD is free for an energy mount, why wouldn't you always install one? That kind of thing. So my thinking is that it should only make a weaker version of each weapon category free and require OP investment to upgrade weapon quality.

2) Tech considerations. My initial thought was to make each tech type have different OP reductions. In that way, a Pulse Laser is free on a high tech ship and a Micro Blaster would be free on a midline ship - but! - a Pulse Laser would require OP investment. My first concern there is that approach would be too complex and cause a lot of player confusion since each ship would seem to have different build rules. Separating out designations already would naturally cause a bit of that when comparing to vanilla. To combat this, I plan on making the hullmods causing the effects hidden and using a dummy hullmod that gives the specific details of the designation all in one hullmod (it should tidy up the hullmod list too). The second concern stems from the first consideration - would that make building high tech builds boring?

So the main theory here is to prioritize OP focus on bays for carriers and prioritize OP focus on weapons for combat ships with a shared investment into hullmods/vents, etc.

Any thoughts or reservations/concerns?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on August 26, 2020, 10:15:16 AM
For your weaponless mounts and PD cost issue. What I do feel during my loadout considerations are:

1) A very expensive PD, I wouldn't consider it at all if a PD will cost more than 15-20 points. Even a 10-15 one, I'm skeptical to put it on, unless absolutely necessary, when normal solution can't keep up with. More PD all around, most of the time, better than a single large slow firing PD.

2) Mount less. When the mounting angle is absolutely awkward, like the one on Tyrant, I concluded that it should be skipped as Tyrant can rotate fast enough to always face first. If there is a cheap PD I might consider putting it there. In other mods, they have some weapons with minor homing ability.

3) Too much dependent on hull mods. Like I do. Probably more of a player playstyle.

4) A lot of times, more weapons are useless since you don't have enough flux to fire anyway. I'm still skeptical with zero flux weapons in this mod as it really makes some weapon the first choice. Maybe, it should only be reserve for PD weapons only.

Possible changes:

1. An actually build in hull mod that increases the effectiveness of PD range and accuracy for certain ships, carriers, etc.

2. Reduce the cost of most PD or what you suggested more cheap PD options. So, the player is tempted to put whatever on the remaining spots. But more PD also means, another time, rebalancing fighter.

3. I have played a few mods with OP reduction and I don't think it that useful, like the one in Rim World Alliance that reduces some energy weapon OP/increase beam weapon OP. It might influence PD choice a bit but by that time I will already have a favorite weapon set up that I don't care how much it cost unless it's a huge discount like -10.

Edit:

4. Now that I woke up. I think, a problem with not enough OP on carrier can be fix a bit with a dedicated hull mod that reduce OP. Someting in line with a "Heavy Hangar" on capital carrier that reduce the cost of Fighter and Bomber by a lot. "Medium Hangar" for all destroyer & up carriers that reduce cost of Fighter and Bomber moderately. Lastly "Light Hangar" for frigate carrier that reduce cost of fighter slightly. All non carrier will make do with only intercepter or face steep OP price. Might also lower intercepter cost a bit as well.


Again, I don't think you should focus on all these minor balance. More weapon variety might fix it. More capital ships might balance it. I'm still lacking in bomber choice, and armor piercing for energy weapon mount, wink wink.

Fragmentation weapon can still make do, just don't make it crazy like everyone else that is cheap to fire and still has DPS in thousand. It's a good shield suppression option to pepper ships with thin armor and force them to hold the shield up.

There is a minor adjustment required for Phantom bomber. The projectile time out too early in some circumstance, espescially on big target like Onslaught, where it has to circle quite a radius. If the ship is not actually facing the bomber direction, on one side, the bombs have to circle further but time out before it reach the target's engine. You may let it be like that, I don't mind much.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 27, 2020, 12:37:36 AM
@Albreo

Thanks for the tip about SpeedUp.  I think that's exactly what I'm looking for.

@Morrokain

I do think lessening the jump range addresses my issues, and agree that it probably won't impact player experience with the ship much at all.  In fact, when I started a new game and rolled AC, I had a) forgotten I had adjusted it and b) didn't go and change it back after this thread reminded me that I had.  I'm not so sure that it doesn't make the ship stronger on balance.

The changes you describe to the OP and ship roles sound like they make sense to me.  FWIW, the only time I ever really felt like I didn't have enough OP was when I was trying to field Flash Bombers.  Having done some faction only gear runs though, it's definitely the case that some of them would benefit from some cheaper strike craft.

My vote for the legendary ship for the SciCorps is the Hyperion.  It synergizes perfectly with their fleet.

I guess for now I'd wait for the phase ship update before making big changes with the AC.  Maybe the AC needs a fighter-bomber.  3 per wing; moderate damage; good durability; and, nearly as fast as the Sentinels screening for it.  Make up for the fact that the AC is going to be deploying comparatively few wings on a DP basis compared to other carrier focused factions, and that the Nightreaver, specifically, just can't field enough Cobras to land torpedoes against big game.  That and slightly more optimized loadouts on the Tyrant might make the difference.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 27, 2020, 04:24:35 PM
Constructing a big reply to explain the new carrier system as I *think* I have it mostly fleshed out and I like it, but I wanted to post this just to double check:

I'm a little confused because I just went to make the range reduction on the Phase Teleporter system (and did) and realized that the Tyrant actually has the Phase Jumper not the Phase Teleporter like the Radiant. So the Tyrant shares the system with the Wolf, for instance.

So, was the issue that the Phase Jumper (range of 800 not 3500) needs to be reduced or otherwise changed to be less abusable to causing AI stalemates? Or is this maybe an older version of the mod at play here? No worries either way I just want to get clarification about if I need to make further changes and make sure I'm understanding what needs to be addressed.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: davissonlam on August 28, 2020, 11:28:40 AM
Just wanna chime in and say that I really love the balance between 0 cost lower dps assault weapons vs high cost *** tons of up front damage strike weapons/ long range siege weapons. Allows you to build your ship around a few big guns like the atronach beam and TL, and the ship won't be comepletely useless when flux is somewhat high or big guns on cooldown. Really gives that epic space battle feel when you get to larger ships, and makes combat different (better) compared to vanilla. 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 29, 2020, 08:03:10 PM
For your weaponless mounts and PD cost issue. What I do feel during my loadout considerations are:
Thanks for sharing!

Quote
1) A very expensive PD, I wouldn't consider it at all if a PD will cost more than 15-20 points. Even a 10-15 one, I'm skeptical to put it on, unless absolutely necessary, when normal solution can't keep up with. More PD all around, most of the time, better than a single large slow firing PD.
Generally this is ok with me. As long as the situation where its "absolutely necessary" does, indeed, occur. Considering the changes I'm throwing around, that will probably occur more often in the next update because I think gunships are getting a buff. Not 100% sure yet. (No they certainly did - though with a caveat ;) )

Quote
2) Mount less. When the mounting angle is absolutely awkward, like the one on Tyrant, I concluded that it should be skipped as Tyrant can rotate fast enough to always face first. If there is a cheap PD I might consider putting it there. In other mods, they have some weapons with minor homing ability.
I noticed that in the builds you linked and I think that is fine. For one, I think the Tyrant is a bit of an outlier there because it can turn so fast compared to other capitals. Those others might need more active mounts at that angle to fend off frigate surrounds and large numbers of fighters trying to suppress their weapon systems. Combat ships as a whole I'm less worried about, in general, because their considerations typically include a closer engagement range than carriers. Carriers, on the other hand, can realistically afford to shirk all weapons to get better bombers. As long as the player's interceptor screen is good enough, strike craft shouldn't be a huge threat. So therefore players are theoretically encouraged to min/max most carriers into bomber builds once the interceptor/anti-strike fighter screen is considered sufficient.

Quote
3) Too much dependent on hull mods. Like I do. Probably more of a player playstyle.
That is one of the reasons I made Expanded Deck Crew a combat-ship-only hullmod. It was too much of a "no-brainer" (imo) and sacked a bunch of carrier OP right off the bat. At least Converted Hangar Bays has a trade off.

Quote
4) A lot of times, more weapons are useless since you don't have enough flux to fire anyway. I'm still skeptical with zero flux weapons in this mod as it really makes some weapon the first choice. Maybe, it should only be reserve for PD weapons only.
Hmm, I kind of disagree here. Which assault weapons would you always consider a first choice? Maybe it's playstyle related, but I tend to load up enough strike weapons to get what I can get away with until I can't be flux efficient anymore.

Explanation:
Spoiler
The burst damage tends to make a pretty big difference, imo. You artificially win the flux war through faster damage per second on a ship-to-ship basis. So the overall efficiency of pure assault builds won't have time to take effect in the long run because the time vs damage ratio favors the strike ship unless the strike ships are outnumbered or outgunned to a large degree. In a fleet scenario, however, the strike ship often has opportunities to hide behind allies and therefore can recoup a lot of lost efficiency. Put those two concepts together and strike weapons are definitely an attractive choice to focus a build around for some melee combatants. Fire support weapons, on the other hand, offer a long range support role at the expense of an additional "efficiency tax" in their higher flux cost. Put all three build categories together and now you have a diverse tactical space navy capable of utilizing the tanky roles to provide distraction while dedicated strike and fire support roles deal the true killing damage. That is the intended concept, at least.
[close]

Conversely in regards to flux free assault weapons, when I'm building a long range strike ship I like having a couple of assault weapons to ward off pursuers. To me, that is invaluable- assuming I can afford to spare the vents to do so! There are some builds where I eschew Expanded Missile Racks, for instance, since I don't have the flux to make a good enough use of it and the assault weapons are more useful overall. It's pretty situational to me.

Quote
Possible changes:

1. An actually build in hull mod that increases the effectiveness of PD range and accuracy for certain ships, carriers, etc.

2. Reduce the cost of most PD or what you suggested more cheap PD options. So, the player is tempted to put whatever on the remaining spots. But more PD also means, another time, rebalancing fighter.

3. I have played a few mods with OP reduction and I don't think it that useful, like the one in Rim World Alliance that reduces some energy weapon OP/increase beam weapon OP. It might influence PD choice a bit but by that time I will already have a favorite weapon set up that I don't care how much it cost unless it's a huge discount like -10.

Edit:

4. Now that I woke up. I think, a problem with not enough OP on carrier can be fix a bit with a dedicated hull mod that reduce OP. Someting in line with a "Heavy Hangar" on capital carrier that reduce the cost of Fighter and Bomber by a lot. "Medium Hangar" for all destroyer & up carriers that reduce cost of Fighter and Bomber moderately. Lastly "Light Hangar" for frigate carrier that reduce cost of fighter slightly. All non carrier will make do with only intercepter or face steep OP price. Might also lower intercepter cost a bit as well.


Again, I don't think you should focus on all these minor balance. More weapon variety might fix it. More capital ships might balance it. I'm still lacking in bomber choice, and armor piercing for energy weapon mount, wink wink.

Fragmentation weapon can still make do, just don't make it crazy like everyone else that is cheap to fire and still has DPS in thousand. It's a good shield suppression option to pepper ships with thin armor and force them to hold the shield up.
I get that this might seem silly to do now and in my head I'm hopefully bringing something special to the table by these changes - but I'm willing to admit I could be wrong. Just to be clear, though, I'm certainly not done adding ships/weapons to fill out roles or provide more options within each role based upon flavor. The strike craft overhaul alone has resulted in a couple of role changes and wing strength modifications (more legendary and ultra rare wings, for instance) as the intended design of carrier vs battlecarrier vs combat ship balance has been given (hopefully) a bit more meaningful depth through the new system. On the surface, it may seem as though it is guiding the player towards shoe-horned builds based upon tech. In reality, I think it will provide more meaningful builds and better in-combat campaign balance in regards to DP efficiency to provide a framework for build-making based upon designation and tech level/rarity. In short, it will try and partially limit the player's ability to abuse both the AI and the random fleet generator. I'll explain further below after I give my response to other recent posts.

The changes you describe to the OP and ship roles sound like they make sense to me.  FWIW, the only time I ever really felt like I didn't have enough OP was when I was trying to field Flash Bombers.  Having done some faction only gear runs though, it's definitely the case that some of them would benefit from some cheaper strike craft.
Thanks! The cheaper strike craft suggestion will sort of be addressed with the update - though in a different way than adding additional low OP craft for several reasons. See details in the system explanation below.

Quote
My vote for the legendary ship for the SciCorps is the Hyperion.  It synergizes perfectly with their fleet.
I *think* the Sci-Corps already knows that ship, but it has been made one of their Legendary ships in the update either way. I am also considering changing its system to Temporal Shell because I feel like both the player and the AI could do more with that than with Phase Teleporter.

Quote
I guess for now I'd wait for the phase ship update before making big changes with the AC.  Maybe the AC needs a fighter-bomber.  3 per wing; moderate damage; good durability; and, nearly as fast as the Sentinels screening for it.  Make up for the fact that the AC is going to be deploying comparatively few wings on a DP basis compared to other carrier focused factions, and that the Nightreaver, specifically, just can't field enough Cobras to land torpedoes against big game.  That and slightly more optimized loadouts on the Tyrant might make the difference.
I'll definitely keep this in mind. The Sentinel, in particular, has been buffed in this update to be more of a fighter-bomber. Since Broadsword (A) wings provide the shield breaking support and both that wing and the Banshee are kind of dual purpose with that role and interceptor duty, it might be ideal to introduce a pure anti-strike interceptor such as the Imp - which has been built in to the Acolyte (A) frigate already. Similarly, I may make the Hellbeast gunship drop and be equip-able. Both of those are kind of up in the air as I nail down the final changes of the fighter system.

Just wanna chime in and say that I really love the balance between 0 cost lower dps assault weapons vs high cost *** tons of up front damage strike weapons/ long range siege weapons. Allows you to build your ship around a few big guns like the atronach beam and TL, and the ship won't be comepletely useless when flux is somewhat high or big guns on cooldown. Really gives that epic space battle feel when you get to larger ships, and makes combat different (better) compared to vanilla. 
Thank you!  :)

That is a primary design goal and I am glad others are having fun with it like I do.


---See post below for new system details---

(I'm keeping this post separate from the reply post solely due to the reply post length diluting the overall information of a massive balance change for other players. These should be posted within seconds of one another - with the second one being edited to display changes or new information. This information is given so that the intent is clear that this is not an attempt to bump the mod thread but rather meant as a way to provide informational clarity and also to get responses to recent posts out faster.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 29, 2020, 08:03:57 PM
Ok, so this is already a very long post, but let me try and explain why I think this new system is conceptually important and why I think it will change the way the mod is played in an overall good way. As far as Albreo's suggestions go, it's an inversion of the 4th point that drives the new system. The 1st point is on the consideration table in some regards. (Specifically, I think this would be destroyer-only hullmod- but other hullmods are planned in order to provide some additional build diversity.)

Here is the system as I have it now: (Spoiler because its a huge post :P )

Spoiler
I'll lay out what's been implemented in the test case.

The current plan based upon initial theory-crafting and the testing so far (subject to change):

1 - Standardize OP cost of strike craft around tech rather than role. (So interceptors cost more OP to be closer to fighters/bombers/gunships)
     - OP Ranges: 4-20 Interceptor -- 6-22 Fighter -- 9-32 Bomber -- 5-30 Gunship

2 - Reduce the range of all non-built-in strike craft by half or more. This makes them more defensive/stick to their combat ships. Carriers have a built-in hullmod which increases strike craft range by 100%.

3 - Carriers have a built-in hullmod which gives OP reductions to weapon mounts based upon hull tech (DP) and mount type. This gives 0 OP options for at least one if not a couple of weapons. Upgrades are only OP differences, so they are generally cheaper in the overall build cost compared to increasing wing quality. Details:
     - Lowtech: Small All: -2 Medium All: -4 Large All: -6
     - Midline: Small Ballistic: -3 Small Rest: -2 Medium All: -4 Large All: -6
     - Hightech: Small Energy: -3 Small Rest: -2 Medium All: -4 Large All: -6

4 - Combat ships replace strike craft 50% slower than carriers since they lack the dedicated carrier bays hullmod, but they have an OP cost reduction which varies by hull type such that:
     - The lowest interceptor for the hull tech type is free to install. (Pirate cruisers get free pirate talons, for example.) Fighters are significantly cheaper as well. Higher OP Bombers and Gunships, on the other hand, will require a significant OP sacrifice to field - but can be further supported with hullmods in order to provide access to effective long range strike craft builds for cruisers, etc, which support/artillery variants will take advantage of.

5 - Bomber and Gunship damage or reliability has been increased in many cases. (This is less likely to affect high end bombers and sometimes OP is leveraged instead of a buff for existing imbalances between wings.) Though often these roles require a carrier to field, they now pack a noticeable punch to their target over what a cruiser can typically field. OP per wing now scales off of tech level and carriers' potential OP to spend scales off of the same metric.

6 - Gunships that do not have dedicated anti-missile/anti-strike roles have had their weapon AI changed to no longer target nearby craft other than their designated target in most cases. This was done both to promote the use of interceptors/specialized anti-strike craft or PD to handle other strike craft threats and also in order to help further prevent situations where an attack wave failed to do critical damage to its intended target because the majority of the tanks' turreted weapons were directed elsewhere during the time of strike.

7 - TODO: Adjust default carrier loadouts to be more specialized into force projection in the case of assault, strike or fire support roles. Support roles should be more focused upon interceptor support for smaller ships like destroyers or frigates or can additionally provide further anti-strike support to localized fleet defenses in the case of mass-wave attacks from coordinated strike craft from concentrated enemy carriers. Alternatively, attack roles can be more combat oriented - though this is likely to be more of a player option than an AI one unless I can work some magic with the AI hints using hullmod code.

Ok, so now that the intended changes are more transparent, why is this important?

I'm going to try and do this Alex-Blog-Style and compare the current system and the proposed new system in detail to flesh out what I feel the problems are with the current one and what I think the new one does to solve them while also bringing new elements of tactics and build strategy into play.

---------Coming soon---------- (I will edit this in as I continue documenting it and providing screenshots)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 29, 2020, 08:22:05 PM
Constructing a big reply to explain the new carrier system as I *think* I have it mostly fleshed out and I like it, but I wanted to post this just to double check:

I'm a little confused because I just went to make the range reduction on the Phase Teleporter system (and did) and realized that the Tyrant actually has the Phase Jumper not the Phase Teleporter like the Radiant. So the Tyrant shares the system with the Wolf, for instance.

So, was the issue that the Phase Jumper (range of 800 not 3500) needs to be reduced or otherwise changed to be less abusable to causing AI stalemates? Or is this maybe an older version of the mod at play here? No worries either way I just want to get clarification about if I need to make further changes and make sure I'm understanding what needs to be addressed.

I wiped the mods and save folder.  They were all clean installs.

I think I put the Phase Teleporter on the Tyrant by mistake after I started experimenting with ways to balance it after the encounter.

I went with another clean install of the mod and added the Console Commands and SpeedUp mods so I could test out balance.

So some observations...

My initial experience between TriTach and the AC was something of a fluke.  I did replicate it again once with the Perseans.  It happens if the other side fields an overwhelming number of carriers.

The strike craft will push the phase ships back and keep them out of range, while the enemy fleet will be unable to catch the Tyrants.  This can cause the fight to stall out and become a war of CR attrition.  The Perseans were able to force a round 2 one time for this reason.  I also watched 3 full wings from Executors pound on a Tyrant for what must have been 2 minutes without getting through the armor.  There had been 3 Nightreavers, but they all reached 0 CR and started their slow retreat from near the Persean spawn point.  The Executors ignored them and flailed harmlessly at the Tyrant, which ended up outliving 2 of them despite being 1 on 3 for a hot minute.  Is this working as intended?

After watching this, I switched the Tyrant's active system to plasma jets.  There seem to be a lot less lulls in the action this way.  Without the phase jumper, Tyrants would generally obliterate hapless Paragons in short order.  (The fabled dual tach lance paragons would shoot once thereby effectively committing seppuku.  They would immediately be fluxed out and blown up by Reaper torpedoes sometimes literally within about 5 seconds of getting on the map.)

The AC utterly wrecks the high tech and midline factions.  They completely curb stomped even the AO.  The AO had lost 7 Revenants before they killed their first capital (Nightreaver).  In the end, the AO losing 12 Revenants and 3 Megaliths in exchange for killing 1 Nightreaver and 1 Malevolent and forcing 1 Tyrant to retreat.  They usually end up camping TT, SC, AO, and PL at their spawn point.  Sometimes most of their losses were the result of 0 CR.

ThisShadeOfGreen's observations about Hegemony were correct.  Hegemony beat the AC in a fair fight.  It's a nearer thing, though.  While Onslaughts murder Tyrants like their name was Brutus, the Hegemony is poorly equipped to deal with Malevolents.  The fight ends up being mostly around the middle of the map.  I presume the results for LC and SD would be similar.

The Redacted are the exception to the above.  Their strike craft pose a threat to the Tyrants, and Radiants with Tach Lances are superior 1 on 1.  Although, I ended up watching 6 Brilliants spawn camp the AC like they were the AO.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 29, 2020, 09:10:02 PM
I like the sound of the carrier changes quite a lot.

I guess it makes most of my research pointless.  Oh well.  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on August 29, 2020, 10:32:31 PM
I wiped the mods and save folder.  They were all clean installs.

I think I put the Phase Teleporter on the Tyrant by mistake after I started experimenting with ways to balance it after the encounter.

I went with another clean install of the mod and added the Console Commands and SpeedUp mods so I could test out balance.

So some observations...
Ah gotcha! I appreciate the time you have taken to test for solutions to the issue you discovered. This helps me immensely! :)

Quote
My initial experience between TriTach and the AC was something of a fluke.  I did replicate it again once with the Perseans.  It happens if the other side fields an overwhelming number of carriers.

The strike craft will push the phase ships back and keep them out of range, while the enemy fleet will be unable to catch the Tyrants.  This can cause the fight to stall out and become a war of CR attrition.  The Perseans were able to force a round 2 one time for this reason.  I also watched 3 full wings from Executors pound on a Tyrant for what must have been 2 minutes without getting through the armor.  There had been 3 Nightreavers, but they all reached 0 CR and started their slow retreat from near the Persean spawn point.  The Executors ignored them and flailed harmlessly at the Tyrant, which ended up outliving 2 of them despite being 1 on 3 for a hot minute.  Is this working as intended?
Certainly not! :-[ 0 CR-decided battles are the worst! The phase AI timidness I can do nothing about until the next update other than officer personality control for phase ship-heavy factions. However, making phase ships slower also makes them sitting ducks when confronted with equal odds or a good escort. They try and phase in - stall in the middle of indecision because shots are still being fired - and because they see no clean damage-free opening - they eventually either retreat at full flux and have to vent (gaining nothing and not solving the core problem in any way) or un-phase and immediately take critical hull damage without high armor. Similarly, without high armor, phase ships as a ship group are very, very vulnerable to strike craft. That being said, I think one issue I can gather from your experience is that there are less armor-breaking wing variants outside of high end wings. I'm hoping that gets addressed a bit through the recent carrier changes.

Quote
After watching this, I switched the Tyrant's active system to plasma jets.  There seem to be a lot less lulls in the action this way.  Without the phase jumper, Tyrants would generally obliterate hapless Paragons in short order.  (The fabled dual tach lance paragons would shoot once thereby effectively committing seppuku.  They would immediately be fluxed out and blown up by Reaper torpedoes sometimes literally within about 5 seconds of getting on the map.)
Hmm, thanks for the input! I'm interested in the idea that Plasma Jets can make the Tyrant less annoying in AI vs AI fights while not being trivial to deal with from the player's perspective. I am assuming the tests are from a larger fleet perspective so I will test there first to assess that system's viability. The concept is certainly sound in that mobility is key. If that will prevent the issue of phase indecision without providing what is essentially damage immunity by jumping... that makes complete sense. I'll see how it works out as its a trivial change to make while I'm already testing things!

Quote
The AC utterly wrecks the high tech and midline factions.  They completely curb stomped even the AO.  The AO had lost 7 Revenants before they killed their first capital (Nightreaver).  In the end, the AO losing 12 Revenants and 3 Megaliths in exchange for killing 1 Nightreaver and 1 Malevolent and forcing 1 Tyrant to retreat.  They usually end up camping TT, SC, AO, and PL at their spawn point.  Sometimes most of their losses were the result of 0 CR.

ThisShadeOfGreen's observations about Hegemony were correct.  Hegemony beat the AC in a fair fight.  It's a nearer thing, though.  While Onslaughts murder Tyrants like their name was Brutus, the Hegemony is poorly equipped to deal with Malevolents.  The fight ends up being mostly around the middle of the map.  I presume the results for LC and SD would be similar.

The Redacted are the exception to the above.  Their strike craft pose a threat to the Tyrants, and Radiants with Tach Lances are superior 1 on 1.  Although, I ended up watching 6 Brilliants spawn camp the AC like they were the AO.
Thanks for your observations on faction balance- this data will help in future updates as I consider faction vs faction strengths and weaknesses. Some things seem like more urgent things to be addressed, such as high tech considerations regarding the AC vs shield-based (it sounds like) factions, and I will try and look at them and assess if any changes should be made before the new update. I think this was based upon the above changes? Or was this experience just the general case outside of that?

I like the sound of the carrier changes quite a lot.

I guess it makes most of my research pointless.  Oh well.  ;D
Not at all, I always appreciate detail when regarding balance assessments. Your current experience (the clean install info is great to know, so thanks) can help me look at how to approach the next update's changes and potentially can help solve any underlying balance issues between factions, and additionally whether or not there is there any way to solve them through the new carrier framework, etc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on August 30, 2020, 05:33:40 PM
I did a few battles with the TriTach and Perseans before making the changes, but most of those results are with the Tyrants set to Plasma Jets.

I don't know that Plasma Jets are ideal, but high tech felt like the right option.  In general, I was just going for something that provided enhanced mobility with a slower cycle time than the phase jumper.

The carrier changes might help the overall balance, but I can't help but feel like the Nightreaver is the ship that will benefit the most... unless it doesn't count as high tech.  Well, OK the Megalith, so it might help balance the AO, and the AO probably should be a little stronger than the vanilla factions.

I think what's happening is this.  You are correct that phase ships need mobility or they are vulnerable; however, that is also true for high tech ships and is doubly true for the way that you tend to build high tech ships.

Your designs tend to favor the glass cannon approach.

This works fine against low tech because they are faster.  Against fast phase ships, its lethal.

Most of their big guns shoot in bursts or DOT beams.  The phase ships will immediately phase.  So the effective flux/damage ratio is probably 6+.  Not only do they get much worse flux efficiency against phase ships, they're also too slow to run away from them and the strike craft.  So what you are afraid will happen to the phase ships happens to the high tech ships.

Their flux bar fills up quickly.  They can't shoot.  They can't run.  They don't even have armor to speak of.  They just die ignominiously.

It seems like most of the ships have 2 aggressive; 1 balanced; and 1 support build.  The lack of defensive builds means that the strike variants have no one to go hide behind after they've filled up their own flux.

I feel like the Aurora / Odysseus / Revenant would all greatly benefit from a dedicated defensive build to serve as the anvil to all those hammers.

The teleporting Hyperion is also nice.  It creates space.  If the Hyperions are each drawing multiple ships away, then the rest of the fleet will naturally start to have the numbers advantage and focused fire needed for your strike doctrine to play out in practice.  You also need to kill quickly because Hyperions cannot be fielded for terribly long (and are prone to getting killed by reinforcements), so you had best start creating space the old fashioned way.  In this way, the role of the Hyperion is that of force multiplier for the rest of the fleet.  It works particularly well for the SciCorps because a) they have lacked a legendary hull; b) they lack a proper battleship to trade blows and need a different stratagem; and, c) the Odysseus is fast enough to both exploit the space that they create and move quickly between isolated battles.  They're pretty much built for the war of maneuver.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on August 31, 2020, 10:06:14 AM
Can't wait to try those Strikecraft/Carrier changes. Has the potential to really feel a lot better than vanilla or current AO (and I'd already call current AO much better than vanilla).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Minitialize on September 02, 2020, 07:16:51 AM
This mod is very interesting... I'd love to use it right now, unfortunately however, my current playthrough revolves around my current choice of mods-- some of which may not complement this one very well (compatibility for one, the other, balance). I guess I'll just have to wait until you manage to flesh out the entire mod according to your to-do list or once I'm finally done with my playthrough. Keep up the good work, you're definitely doing great  ;)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 02, 2020, 08:38:52 PM
I did a few battles with the TriTach and Perseans before making the changes, but most of those results are with the Tyrants set to Plasma Jets.

I don't know that Plasma Jets are ideal, but high tech felt like the right option.  In general, I was just going for something that provided enhanced mobility with a slower cycle time than the phase jumper.

The carrier changes might help the overall balance, but I can't help but feel like the Nightreaver is the ship that will benefit the most... unless it doesn't count as high tech.  Well, OK the Megalith, so it might help balance the AO, and the AO probably should be a little stronger than the vanilla factions.

I think what's happening is this.  You are correct that phase ships need mobility or they are vulnerable; however, that is also true for high tech ships and is doubly true for the way that you tend to build high tech ships.

Your designs tend to favor the glass cannon approach.

This works fine against low tech because they are faster.  Against fast phase ships, its lethal.

Most of their big guns shoot in bursts or DOT beams.  The phase ships will immediately phase.  So the effective flux/damage ratio is probably 6+.  Not only do they get much worse flux efficiency against phase ships, they're also too slow to run away from them and the strike craft.  So what you are afraid will happen to the phase ships happens to the high tech ships.

Their flux bar fills up quickly.  They can't shoot.  They can't run.  They don't even have armor to speak of.  They just die ignominiously.

It seems like most of the ships have 2 aggressive; 1 balanced; and 1 support build.  The lack of defensive builds means that the strike variants have no one to go hide behind after they've filled up their own flux.

I feel like the Aurora / Odysseus / Revenant would all greatly benefit from a dedicated defensive build to serve as the anvil to all those hammers.

I've got a mental note for a few things to add based upon this experience. That will include some defensive builds and probably a couple of new energy weapons to fill in some niches. Thanks again for the analysis.  :)

Quote
The teleporting Hyperion is also nice.  It creates space.  If the Hyperions are each drawing multiple ships away, then the rest of the fleet will naturally start to have the numbers advantage and focused fire needed for your strike doctrine to play out in practice.  You also need to kill quickly because Hyperions cannot be fielded for terribly long (and are prone to getting killed by reinforcements), so you had best start creating space the old fashioned way.  In this way, the role of the Hyperion is that of force multiplier for the rest of the fleet.  It works particularly well for the SciCorps because a) they have lacked a legendary hull; b) they lack a proper battleship to trade blows and need a different stratagem; and, c) the Odysseus is fast enough to both exploit the space that they create and move quickly between isolated battles.  They're pretty much built for the war of maneuver.

I'm planning on giving the Sci-Corps a tanky high-tech battleship at some point to replace or at least compliment the Astral. Less damage potential than the Paragon, but more staying power. In this case, its shields will likely mimic the paragons strength, but comparably it will have fortress shield and higher overall armor. In part this is because the battlecruiser space is already fuller than the battleship space as far as capital ship options go in the TC. (Initial thoughts)

In that vein, I'm also planning on making a dedicated low tech capital carrier and a midline battleship as well.

I'm glad the jump system is good for the Hyperion though. I mostly worry about it suiciding itself using it. (Rather than the player abusing it - I think that is less likely.) It does have powerful shields, but being surrounded by large ships would present a serious problem considering the system's cooldown.

Can't wait to try those Strikecraft/Carrier changes. Has the potential to really feel a lot better than vanilla or current AO (and I'd already call current AO much better than vanilla).

Thanks! Hopefully that will prove true. I'm liking what I'm seeing through testing but testing everything will take some time. So I am trying to balance that (for overall quality) while not letting it take months to get the update finally out of the gate.

This mod is very interesting... I'd love to use it right now, unfortunately however, my current playthrough revolves around my current choice of mods-- some of which may not complement this one very well (compatibility for one, the other, balance). I guess I'll just have to wait until you manage to flesh out the entire mod according to your to-do list or once I'm finally done with my playthrough. Keep up the good work, you're definitely doing great  ;)

Thanks for the words of encouragement! :)

You are correct there are plenty of incompatibilities and balance considerations since this mod is a TC, so finish your playthrough and then revisit when you are ready to start a new campaign. There may even be a lot more content by that time who knows - and more customization features! I'm also trying to reduce incompatibility as much as possible, but balance will take quite a bit of time to address as far as releasing a more vanilla-oriented ship/weapon pack.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Warnoise on September 08, 2020, 08:00:31 AM
Hi, I am really interested in this mod, so I installled, and when i tried to launch a new game i get the below error

Spoiler
278336 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ClassCastException: com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation cannot be cast to com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation cannot be cast to com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD
   at data.scripts.GDModPlugin.onEnabled(GDModPlugin.java:160)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ModAndPluginData.notifyRunningWithMod(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.K.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.if.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.O0Oo.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

The list of mods that i am using:
Archean order 1..5
Better colonies
Combat chatter
Combat Analytics
Dassault Mikoyan 1.18
Diableavionics
GKsec
Graphicslab
LazyLib
Legacy of Arkogenesis
MagicLib
Nexelerin
ORA
tahlan
Tiandong Heavy industries 1.2.1a (disabled due to compatibility issues)
Vayra&s sector
Vayra&s ship pack
YRXP
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 08, 2020, 11:35:58 AM
Hi, I am really interested in this mod, so I installled, and when i tried to launch a new game i get the below error

*snip*

Hi there and sorry for the inconvenience! The mod causing that error is Better Colonies. If you disable it the others should work fine in the sense that there shouldn't be any crashes.

I'm hoping to resolve that problem, if possible, in the next update by no longer overriding the standard stations and replacing them on the campaign map instead. The only problem there is then I can't prevent the non-balanced stations from being build-able and so I have to account for that somehow.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on September 15, 2020, 12:44:10 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3jX3i79SUc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3jX3i79SUc)

End game showcase with random core sector, pirate commission. The commission wide bounty payout should be bumped up a lot for pirate since I can't do normal bounties for they are all friendly. Getting paid 10,000 for an entire fleet is hardly sufficient for the repair cost but high tier weapon drops do sell for a lump sum.

Radiant suicide teleport should be delayed or have 2 charges at the start or instantly deploy shield and Brillant teleport ability should be changed to something else altogether. The teleport ability making it too hard to chase and kill fast Brilliant without OP ship like Tyrant.

Weapons that do require some nerf: Small Phase cannon, it has a characteristic of a long range burst weapon while flux free and I think it the best of all small weapons. So we should nerf it, too useful. Tri-Beam is too damn strong in a large number.

Weapons that would like some love: Tachyon Lance needs a rework, it's a suicide beam. Small Shattercell Cannon, unreliable performance in dealing with crafts also expensive. Three pulse cannons' green small bullet does not look threatening enough despite 250 damage each and might as well turn one into a proper burst weapon. Eclipse Cannon's flux cost should compromise between flux free phase cannon and Apocalypse Cannon at around 0.7-0.8 flux/damage, other weapons in the medium energy are way better option. Mining blaster is utterly OP expensive for its performance given. Terminator beam should be downgraded to medium mount. It's in no way a good large weapon and buffing it wouldn't look good on Onslaught XIV.

Energy weapon lacks more variety for large projectile weapons at the moment, maybe in a form of new remnant weapon. Apocalypse Cannon has to always fire in alternative mode to save AI from suicide.

Fighters that would like some love: most of the midline craft should have a small shield added. In a large fight, crafts with no shield just become potatoes. Less bullet for all projectile fighter my CPU can't handle it. There seem to be certain crafts that cause a lot of lag probably projectile or missile one. Wasp and Spectre are super potatoes, expensive potatoes. With new range reduction, it may be useful once more. I would hope for interceptor to only protect their own ship some what. Flash bomber is quite strong but at 30 OP no one can field it properly. Trident and Claw bomber are just bad. Goliath is great at tanking but DPS is underwhelming.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on September 15, 2020, 01:19:42 PM
Fighters that would like some love: most of the midline craft should have a small shield added. In a large fight, crafts with no shield just become potatoes. Less bullet for all projectile fighter my CPU can't handle it. There seem to be certain crafts that cause a lot of lag probably projectile or missile one. Wasp and Spectre are super potatoes, expensive potatoes. With new range reduction, it may be useful once more. I would hope for interceptor to only protect their own ship some what. Flash bomber is quite strong but at 30 OP no one can field it properly. Trident and Claw bomber are just bad. Goliath is great at tanking but DPS is underwhelming.

I completely agree that some of the midline strikecraft need modest frontal shields.  I tried playing Persean, and I just hemorrhaged crew, even with recovery shuttles and all the skills.  It's a real problem since their fleet lineup is built around carriers.  I was going to say this in a post, but felt like I'd yammered on too much already.  They also lack a proper torpedo bomber, which makes the frailty an even bigger problem.

Also, some of the gunships/bombers are too slow, imo.  I have some fast capital ships intended to kill carriers and hunt things like the aforementioned Brilliants.  The trouble is the AI is beyond stupid, and my capital ships will run away from strikecraft and try to shoot them with long range capital weaponry.  So instead of following my eliminate order and going towards the carrier, they flee way away from the battle.  Helmsmanship 3 + Coordinated Maneuvers can make capital ships quite speedy.

E.G., (60 + 80) * 1.25 = 175.  Lots of the gunships and some of the bombers have speeds in the 170-190 range.  Even aggressive pilots with eliminate orders on the carrier will fly backwards and try to kill the gunships/bombers with, for instance, Atronarch beams.  If I don't make my ships this fast, then Radiants, Brilliants, and Tyrants become all kinds of annoying in exchange.  Since you're rebalancing strikecraft anyway, if even the slowest ones were over 210 in speed, it wouldn't be so bad.  They'd be able to close into PD range and die.

The Trident is pretty bad for something that's used so commonly.

The locust should also probably be looked at.  The active is great, but everything else about it is dreadful.  I get that you wouldn't want people deploying a bunch of them.  Raising the OP cost sufficiently could prevent people from mass deploying them instead of interceptors, while allowing it to be viable to field 1 on some ships.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 15, 2020, 04:38:52 PM
@Albreo

Wow thank you for the video! I just watched a bit under half of it and it is very enlightening on endgame battles, etc!  ;D (I'll finish the rest of it later tonight)

Note: I see that you are using the combat speed up mod, and just be aware that it can make the AI a little wonky since things are going so fast and the AI can't take opportunity of certain windows (like shield flickering) as easily when that is active (per Alex iirc). I know that it would be pretty impossible to show all the content you did without it, but just keep that in mind as far as combat results since the game is not really meant to go that fast. For instance, I think some of those battles might have been a bit tougher otherwise - and I think I can visually see certain ships survive longer during some points where the battle seems to be going at a more normal pace. You have a lot of endgame experience though, so if you have played a lot without it on and that is not the case in your opinion let me know.

Re: General feedback from basileus and Albreo:

Thanks! (And always feel free to post what you think I truly don't mind even if I don't always agree with the opinion)

I'll start with the fighter rework suggestions.

I agree that gunships need to be faster and I've made some of them faster already. Thanks for the number I'll try and adjust a few on the slow side and scale the rest up even more.

(And I agree that the AI currently is really, really bad at handling fighters because it bases everything on a niche case that is specific only to vanilla. I've brought this point up to Alex a couple of times on the suggestion board, and iirc he thinks its necessary for ships to be defensive like this. Though I disagree, one point that could have been agreed upon is the aggressiveness of ships given an eliminate command. Since that command is player opted in, he might be more willing to look at that. I guess we will have to wait and see with the next update.)

A lot of the specific suggestions regarding wings have, coincidentally, mostly been looked at. Changes as I remember them:

 - Non-interceptor midline and low tech wings have a significantly more armor and a tiny bit more hull than before in some cases. Gunships, for instance, have like 4X more armor. So they will be tankier, but I'm hesitant to give them shields because A) thats more of a high tech thing and B) overloading the shields prevents the wing from doing its job and can actually make the wing worse unless the shield is very tough. If that doesn't help reduce crew consumption at endgame then I will look into further changes but it might be worth it to wait and see how it plays out.

 - Anti-wing heavy fighters should perform their role a bit better since I buffed their primary weapons so its not quite as much about the anti-fighter missiles. I'm not quite done testing there.

 - The Wasp has been given proximity mines and is now likely going to be a serious threat to other strike craft. Its OP has increased. I may buff the Spectre's defenses a bit and see how that works out. In small scale battles they are really good, but the Spark's shield probably gives it an edge. Their damage is probably fine they likely just die too easily in large battles when lots of projectiles are flying around and its harder to dodge even with phasing.

 - The locus has been changed to an EMP bomber instead of a defensive wing. It is now a Legendary wing. Its PD Burst Beam now acts as a light deterrent to interceptors. I may give it some missiles, but its EMP is surprisingly good at locking down and dealing fairly significant damage when there are a lot of them. Combine them with kinetic strike craft and you have a great utility bomber from what I have seen.

 - I agree with the dps of the Trident and the Goliath. I think making their pulse cannon weapons focus more on ships will help make this feel better, but I may change those weapons' firing patterns to make them more burst-oriented since they have to reload their rockets. I may add a second rocket battery to each of them as well. I haven't tested it enough yet to know for sure if its needed.

 - I added ~8 or so more wings - including the first Legendary wing - the Apocrypha - which is unattached to a faction and can't be found in markets. It has to be found as a Legendary blueprint or, eventually, salvaged from a boss bounty that uses them - which would be an endgame thing. Players are likely to not even see one in a play-through so finding the blueprint should be special.

 - The problem with reducing bullet count with strike craft is they become a lot less accurate and it seriously effects interceptors ability to do their job. I noticed your battle size is pretty high, so reducing it would probably help your CPU.

Weapons:

 - I'll take a look at the suggestions and I have a few ideas for the variety issues with energy weapons. I'm not sure if new weapons will make it into the update or not, but they are on my mind and it could happen.

 - I really do disagree with the analysis of the Terminator Beam. I think it's a great weapon because of the beam speed. The player, specifically, can really abuse shield flickering and sneak in some heavy armor damage. The real issue with the weapon is that the AI isn't always efficient with it. The Burst Siege Beam has the same issue, actually. It's good when it hits its intended defense type.

 - Tachyon Lance already has some changes. Hopefully it will make the AI a bit better with it. From the video, part of the issue it's bad is the jump from the Radiant putting it immediately under fire since the Radiant is trying to attack the enemy ship's engines. Since I'm changing that up already, that might help too on the primary ship that uses it. I honestly think the weapon is pretty good on a Malevolent or - in the next update - the Executor since that ship's flux stats have been buffed and it will likely have some more OP.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on September 16, 2020, 08:09:00 AM
Yeah the speedup mod screws up the game. Not only the AI, but you also get projectiles jumping over shields or their targets. Missiles and strikecraft skipping through PD, shots through shields or deeper into armor messing with the damage distribution. Basically, don't use it if you want a legit fight.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on September 16, 2020, 08:47:39 AM
Yeah the speedup mod screws up the game. Not only the AI, but you also get projectiles jumping over shields or their targets. Missiles and strikecraft skipping through PD, shots through shields or deeper into armor messing with the damage distribution. Basically, don't use it if you want a legit fight.

It is indeed but it's more of a double edge increasing risk on both sides (even some of my ships got torped all over the hull). I wouldn't consider it as cheating unless someone really intended to exploit from that. At x2, it's barely noticeable but more than that, if the CPU can't keep up, some missile will even stop functioning. But as I already know the outcome of the battle at heart, I wouldn't care much. For a usual fair fight, I will have to slow down to micro a bit.

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Note: I see that you are using the combat speed up mod, and just be aware that it can make the AI a little wonky since things are going so fast and the AI can't take opportunity of certain windows (like shield flickering) as easily when that is active (per Alex iirc). I know that it would be pretty impossible to show all the content you did without it, but just keep that in mind as far as combat results since the game is not really meant to go that fast. For instance, I think some of those battles might have been a bit tougher otherwise - and I think I can visually see certain ships survive longer during some points where the battle seems to be going at a more normal pace. You have a lot of endgame experience though, so if you have played a lot without it on and that is not the case in your opinion let me know.

I did intermittently secretly crank the speed up to x8 sometime when there's nothing to worry about. Lol, sorry. The video was only intended to report the problem of Radiant teleport suicide. Other than that, it was just me having some fun. If you are interested in a long tough fight, I might be able to arrange some. All my ship was designed to be able to 1v1 standard Paragon at leisure, even my Onslaught can do it with almost no damage no captain. The Tyrants were designed to be able to solo 5+ capitals at once cosider how fast and cheating it is. If you look at the battle report that I sometimes showed, a single Tyrant can contribute up to 33%, that's 1/3 of the battle, not consider that I have 4 of the same copies, so, what I show is more subtle but I did post one on my Tyrant build. And to answer your question, I usually paly with x2 in a tough battle and that won't mess with the combat much.

Oh and I play with max 500 DP. Lower than that and I won't get out numbered much and can even cheese some hard battle. But only with 500DP in this mod that has the lag though. In other moded games, it wasn't even this laggy.

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I agree that gunships need to be faster and I've made some of them faster already. Thanks for the number I'll try and adjust a few on the slow side and scale the rest up even more.

I saw some gunship, actually Trident, that slow and has very slow acceleration. It can't stop in time and has to fly through a capital ship without being able to fire at it.

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I added ~8 or so more wings - including the first Legendary wing - the Apocrypha - which is unattached to a faction and can't be found in markets. It has to be found as a Legendary blueprint or, eventually, salvaged from a boss bounty that uses them - which would be an endgame thing. Players are likely to not even see one in a play-through so finding the blueprint should be special.

Do make it very cheaty for the hardship it worth.

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Tachyon Lance already has some changes. Hopefully it will make the AI a bit better with it. From the video, part of the issue it's bad is the jump from the Radiant putting it immediately under fire since the Radiant is trying to attack the enemy ship's engines. Since I'm changing that up already, that might help too on the primary ship that uses it. I honestly think the weapon is pretty good on a Malevolent or - in the next update - the Executor since that ship's flux stats have been buffed and it will likely have some more OP.

I actually put one on my Malevolent. One is the most the capital ship should use. Two, it starts to not look so good on flux. And no, the Radiant jump was not contributed much by the Tachlance. It's just pure 1v3, 1v5. It can not keep up, in any situation, from ganging without proper small ships support and can't get itself out either as teleport is on cooldown.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on September 16, 2020, 02:24:20 PM
All those changes sound great!  Boosting armor over adding shields makes sense.

Are you adding boss bounty mechanics or is that an integration with Vayra's Sector?  I haven't used that mod yet.

The Tyrants were designed to be able to solo 5+ capitals at once cosider how fast and cheating it is. If you look at the battle report that I sometimes showed, a single Tyrant can contribute up to 33%, that's 1/3 of the battle

Oh and I play with max 500 DP. Lower than that and I won't get out numbered much and can even cheese some hard battle. But only with 500DP in this mod that has the lag though. In other moded games, it wasn't even this laggy.
Do you think the Tyrant's DP cost should be raised?  That's one approach to balancing it without nerfing it as a player ship.

With a smaller battle size, you can use a proportionally smaller fleet and still get outnumbered.

Re: Tach Lance

In my experience, the dual TL Paragon almost never gets to fire them more than once, and sometimes doesn't even fire them once.

Aside from the super carriers, there is one ship that can use one and not necessarily be made worse: The Odysseus.  It has so few M/L hardpoints and some of them are at poor angles. 

Ion Beam in the front L.  TL in the other.  Thunderbolts on the lateral Ms.  Some Longbow wings.  There you go, a sniper.  Be careful not to give it auxiliary weapons that will encourage the pilot to enter CQB.

The fact that the Odysseus costs more DP than either the Revenant or Conquest would make it dubious to deploy if there weren't other reasons to have one or two in your fleet.

I tested this build out.  It's OK.  Although, I used Concentrated + Frontal Shield cheese to help with the flux.  I do that with almost every high tech ship with a frontal shield.  Why would you not abuse that?

Other than Typhoon Atropos and Squalls, I've started to avoid using missiles entirely, except by way of Dagger bombers.  Still, if you put anything other than PD or Thunderbolts/Widows in those lateral Ms, they'll almost never get used.  If you're making a sniper, no need to go crazy on PD.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 17, 2020, 02:54:37 PM
@Albreo

Oh yeah its still a fun video to watch and there are plenty of things I can get from it that's definitely true, I was only pointing out that I can't consider it a controlled test for all purposes. The Radiant jump system seems to be a detriment in the worst case scenario and simply annoying to the player (rather than a unique challenge) in the best case scenario... I'm learning that jump systems as they operate currently are unfortunately not very viable on ships that aren't rare frigates. (So really just the Hyperion.)

Something will be done to make the Remnant battleship more fearsome and less gimicky. I'm just not sure what yet. I may build a completely new system if it comes to that. I also really ought to add a Remnant super carrier to mix up Ordo fleet compositions a bit so they are less predictable on the strategic level.

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I usually paly with x2 in a tough battle and that won't mess with the combat much.

Even that will affect things like shield flickering and ability of the AI to respond to overloads, etc, but to a lesser degree so it might not necessarily be as obvious. It's not a bad thing, it's just a consideration to be made.

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Oh and I play with max 500 DP. Lower than that and I won't get out numbered much and can even cheese some hard battle. But only with 500DP in this mod that has the lag though. In other moded games, it wasn't even this laggy.

Not surprising, unfortunately. The design of the mod means that inherently less ships can be on screen because they have more weapons/fighters and so a lot more calculations are being done at any given frame. I am even considering removing some of the fighter-based systems because they impact performance more profoundly as battles scale, but I haven't really settled on a decision or alternative there yet or even whether its truly necessary. I'm hoping that limiting them to larger ships will be enough.

One thing I think will help, though, is the new way DP will be calculated in the next Starsector update. I think it might make battle size scale a little better than it currently does.

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I saw some gunship, actually Trident, that slow and has very slow acceleration. It can't stop in time and has to fly through a capital ship without being able to fire at it.

Do make (the Apocrypha) very cheaty for the hardship it worth.

Agreed and its the perfect time to try and make gunships like the Trident feel a little better to use when making a comparison to projectile/torpedo bombers. Still working the out all the details there.

Re: Apocrypha - trust me, it will be worth it to find any "lost" Legendary things. I don't want to spoil it so I won't give any specific details of lore or loadout, but I will say you have to sacrifice most of the Atral's OP to even equip all hangars with them (I don't think converted hangars is even possible but can't remember if I verified it) but doing so can sometimes kill an un-officered stock conquest in a single attack run.

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I actually put (Tachyon Lance) on my Malevolent. One is the most the capital ship should use. Two, it starts to not look so good on flux. And no, the Radiant jump was not contributed much by the Tachlance. It's just pure 1v3, 1v5. It can not keep up, in any situation, from ganging without proper small ships support and can't get itself out either as teleport is on cooldown.

Just for clarity I was only speaking to the Tachyon Lance performance not the Radiant performance. It didn't matter what weapons the Radiant had, it was surrounded by Tyrants and this is pre-defense buff! :D So yeah definitely considering other systems. I honestly kind of like the idea of a combination of Micro Burner and High Energy Focus to create a unique battle charge without the typical weakness of something like Burn Drive.

@basileus

I'm not sure how I'm going to implement boss bounties yet. I know there is a separate boss bounty mod as well, and I'm also not sure what else Vayra's Sector does. So I could go with either of those or make my own system. There are lots of considerations there and I haven't mapped them all out yet.

Tachyon Lance: As long as firing once is impactful, that's not so bad. The question is, how often is it impactful? I'm guessing probably not as much I want it to be. Hmm, maybe I'll make some damage/cooldown/flux tradeoffs and maybe give it a little more OP to balance the idea that it can be used more often.

Odyssey: Interesting that might make for another unique boss encounter. As for the missile slots, I've seen it use Harpoons and Sabots fairly liberally as well - though it often waits for an active overload in the case of Harpoons. Another good one would be Hunter LRMs but they are a pretty lackluster missile option when not concentrated. They are decent at pressuring frigates though. I have made some changes to that ship btw. Both that and the Apogee got some significant buffs iirc but I'd have to check the notes.

Concentrated + Front Shield: Yeah I really should make those exclusive from one another. It's pretty abuse-able.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on September 18, 2020, 09:52:06 PM
Another video with NO SPEED UP this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJbEFU1Qh2I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJbEFU1Qh2I)

Do you think the Tyrant's DP cost should be raised?  That's one approach to balancing it without nerfing it as a player ship.

With a smaller battle size, you can use a proportionally smaller fleet and still get outnumbered.

Tyrant DP... maybe it should? I'm not too sure as this ship can have a very very wide performance range depending on the user customization. It can be an utter crap run away from everything to a berserk ship that disregards your command. It can be dealt with easily with fighters swarm often time. I think someone did complain about how frustrating it is. As it will be a lot harder to find in the future patch, it might as well stay a bit special. The normal loadout performance of Tyrant apart form this exception Zero flux build should be more in line with Paragon, that's 40 against 38 DP, alas with no better test ship than Tachlance Paragon I can't say much but Tyrant is stronger in 1v1 (even Onslaught is stronger than that Paragon with correct mods lol). If consider nerfing it, I would go for its zero flux speed boost and Armored weapon mount for that massive 20% armor boost.

For battle size, yes, it will be proportional but you actually get a lot more breathing room for your ships. The enemy reinforcement will come in trickle, so you can deal with the front in a more manageable manner. But in a massive battle situation, the instant the ship is down, ships at the back that piled up can immediately replace its position and you will have no time to vent flux but be pushed back. The number of fighter and bomber that can engage you double or triple. Also, as the ship pile will be very dense, the risk is increased immensely as you can be gang without notice if you have low battle awareness.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: The PG 13 Priest on September 19, 2020, 02:16:46 AM
Is there an estimated time as to when the next update might take place?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 19, 2020, 04:46:54 PM
@Albreo

Ah thanks again for the video! I will do my best to learn from it and make any necessary changes - especially since its hard for me to test late game officer scenarios I really appreciate the demonstration of how those battles look.

You also make a good point regarding battle size considerations in the current format. I kind of wish the admiral AI did more wave-like deployments and retreated vessels after a mid-map skirmish is considered "lost" in order to lure the player into the reinforcement wave. Thing is, it might be hard to get that to feel right or not be abusable just like the current reinforcement pattern. It also might be hard to programmatically determine when a battle is "lost" to the AI in a relative-to-space way rather than a DP ratio way (which I assume the current admiral AI uses to determine when the AI ships full retreat).

The thing I was referring to with the upcoming objective changes was that the enemy ratio of DP will better favor them if they have a larger fleet. So in that sense, the AI can better utilize a numbers advantage from the onset of the battle without necessarily needing a large battle size to make the player feel the pressure. The breathing room factor will remain - but consider that small faster wolfpacks will also be encouraged in the new system over pure capital engagements. When putting those two changes together - there is likely to be less realistic breathing room without punishment if that makes sense. That's where I'm basing my assumption, anyway. I'll have to wait and see how it plays out in the end. The theory seems sound but who knows.


Is there an estimated time as to when the next update might take place?

At this point it's hard to say. Conceptually the new system is in place, but finishing the important details of each build and getting the balance to feel a bit better takes exponentially more time than the programming side of things. Work-wise if I put my axe to the grindstone - probably a week. Realistically though? Much harder to say with any real confidence. There are currently 982 variants in the mod. Minus the station modules and a few other ones that don't consider OP, the vast majority of them are going to require changes. I could just slap on vents or hullmods to fix them all quickly, but that seems like a wasted opportunity to make them more meaningful. It's not that they are bad now, per se, but they could be better in some areas - especially carriers. Then, of course, I'll need to add new variants for suggested balance issues and the new wings.

Generally, I balance weapons through stat changes other than OP because changing OP usually means changing a bunch of variants. Since I have to do it anyway for the carrier changes, it's a good time be careful about considering OP.

As an example, when thinking about a single carrier bay, how much of an OP gap does there need to be between wing tiers to make the increased effectiveness of the wing feel like a consideration of the build rather than an easy choice assuming the wing is available? That's one I'm still wrestling with, actually, and the only way to "find out" is going to be to make and test builds along tier lines with multiple carriers and feel it out until it feels right. Math can only get you so far with this sort of thing.

In fact, if anyone has opinions based upon your current experiences to that point, I'm all ears!

*EDIT* Oh hey welcome to the forums!  Didn't catch that this was your first post at first. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on September 19, 2020, 09:40:41 PM
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Ah thanks again for the video! I will do my best to learn from it and make any necessary changes - especially since its hard for me to test late game officer scenarios I really appreciate the demonstration of how those battles look.

I'm glad to help. If there're any paticular factions you want to see, you can request.

For all the AI change, I would wait for Alex to complete what he wants to implement to negate Capital only fleet. I do disagree with the new skill point system somewhat as there're fewer options and a bit force into only a small pool of initial skill. And the story point, I already imagine myself abusing it already lol.

I can probably help with some variant adjustment if you want but I don't know what factions can and can't use which weapons. Also have zero coding skill.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on September 20, 2020, 02:20:01 PM
Registered a forum account just to say thank you for all the time you've put in this mod, between this and Nex's mod you have tripled the content to an already great game.  Also glad you're still adding content and keeping it up to date, thank you!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on September 21, 2020, 12:35:37 PM
Generally, I balance weapons through stat changes other than OP because changing OP usually means changing a bunch of variants. Since I have to do it anyway for the carrier changes, it's a good time be careful about considering OP.

As an example, when thinking about a single carrier bay, how much of an OP gap does there need to be between wing tiers to make the increased effectiveness of the wing feel like a consideration of the build rather than an easy choice assuming the wing is available? That's one I'm still wrestling with, actually, and the only way to "find out" is going to be to make and test builds along tier lines with multiple carriers and feel it out until it feels right. Math can only get you so far with this sort of thing.

In fact, if anyone has opinions based upon your current experiences to that point, I'm all ears!

I feel like pure carriers should always use the best wings available.

So the question mostly seems pertinent to battlecarriers.  I'm not really sure.  The calculus is already pretty complex as far as what I do with them.

I did have a thought that might add for some build considerations, though.  A system that could make non-carriers into pseudo-carriers:

Converted Manufactory
Requires: M or L Missile/Universal hardpoint
Mutually Exclusive: Carrier Bays
Cost: 4-7 per rank (depending upon OP gap between wing tiers; should be cheaper with a bigger gap)
Increases missile replenishment time by +50%; decreases fighter replacement time by 50%. (Maybe 40/40 instead?)

That would provide the option to turn certain ships into battlecarriers of sorts, and they would likely be strong candidates to upgrade strikecraft tiers on these specific builds.

A few observations after finishing my Sci-Corps game:

Ogleth is not considered habitable despite being Tundra and having farmland.  Is this deliberate?

The Directorship Training Facility description uses the word "ambiquitous," which appears to be a portmanteau of ambiguous/ambitious and ubiquitous; however, ambitious or ubiquitous would seem to be the exact opposite of the contextual meaning.

The ion torpedo would be better off as a dumbfire missile than a tracking torpedo with very high speed and very low turn rate.

Sci-corps lacked proper interceptors.  The Liberator isn't particularly great in either the interceptor or heavy fighter role.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 22, 2020, 06:41:57 PM
Sorry been busy the last couple days. I read posts but didn't have time to respond to things properly.

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Ah thanks again for the video! I will do my best to learn from it and make any necessary changes - especially since its hard for me to test late game officer scenarios I really appreciate the demonstration of how those battles look.

I'm glad to help. If there're any paticular factions you want to see, you can request.

For all the AI change, I would wait for Alex to complete what he wants to implement to negate Capital only fleet. I do disagree with the new skill point system somewhat as there're fewer options and a bit force into only a small pool of initial skill. And the story point, I already imagine myself abusing it already lol.

I can probably help with some variant adjustment if you want but I don't know what factions can and can't use which weapons. Also have zero coding skill.
Thanks for the offer I appreciate it! It would be tough only because the necessary hullmods aren't available in the current version so making builds with the new constraints in mind is impossible. As far as faction weapons restrictions - I need to make a list or something because it currently resides in my head only haha. :P

We'll have to wait and see how Story Points and the new skill system plays out. I too worry about the abusability of Story Points but I think that can be solved in future balance patches by increasing rarity of the resource if it comes to that. Skills I'm thinking will be good as long as balance is carefully considered. I'm hoping it creates more playstyle opportunity.

Registered a forum account just to say thank you for all the time you've put in this mod, between this and Nex's mod you have tripled the content to an already great game.  Also glad you're still adding content and keeping it up to date, thank you!
Welcome to the forums and thank you very much for the kind words. :)

Hopefully I'll be able to add content well into the future - even if updates take longer sometimes over others. Got to avoid burnout but overall I really enjoy working on this.

@basileus
First off, thanks for the suggestions from your Sci-Corps playthrough. It is very helpful to have perspective of a faction-based playthrough to know which holes to fill and better achieve faction balance. I'll have to think of an interceptor option to give them as the Liberator is less an anti-strike craft wing and more of a shield breaker wing. They got a legendary fighter (Arcangel) in the update so far, but that is too rare and also fits more of a heavy fighter shield breaker/suppression wing than an anti-strike craft wing. I might make a Corps variant of the Sidewinder heavy interceptor to give to them. I'd probably replace its Micro Blaster with a Light Ion Cannon in that variant though to keep it thematic and further move it into more of an air-superiority role at the expense of a little more OP. Maybe add an additional wing member? - though I'd have to see about performance.

Regarding the description I'll change it to "obscure" as I believe that fits the intent of the context. Same thing with Ogleth I'll take a look. I might just need to add the condition. Good catch!

There are some things I'm thinking of along the lines of the converted manufactory idea. Not quite so complex, but more that stacking a couple of hullmods on a cruiser/capital could make it into more of a battlecarrier but it of course requires an OP tax from the mods. Not sure how useful it will be, but I'd like to at least have the option there.

Wing quality: Based upon tests in a 1v1 scenario - wing quality considerations matter. As an example:

Spoiler
---Astral Corps Strike Supercarrier Version 3---
Strike Capabilities: Kintetic - HE - Minor Supression
Replacement Strength: Average
Interceptor Defense: Average
Flares: No
Wing OP: 240
Weapon OP: 128
Flux Stats OP: 82
Hullmod OP: 40
Overall Combat Rating: Good
Test Scenario: Stock Elite Conquest - Result All Lost -  minor enemy damage

vs

---Astral Corps Strike Supercarrier Version 2---
Strike Capabilities: Kintetic - HE - Supression
Replacement Strength: Average
Interceptor Defense: Moderate
Flares: No
Wing OP: 285
Weapon OP: 128
Flux Stats OP: 37
Hullmod OP: 40
Overall Combat Rating: Average
Test Scenario: Stock Elite Conquest - Result All Lost
[close]

The one with less OP in wings and more OP in flux stats can survive to reinforcement much better. That's why it was able to cause damage to the enemy capital compared to the wing optimal one.

Now, in a fleet scenario that kind of breaks down though. You have escorts to provide the defense - so there you are probably right. At least fringe cases exist though, and even still the next updates changes to frigates might make this kind of build more attractive.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on September 23, 2020, 12:37:40 PM
Thanks for the offer I appreciate it! It would be tough only because the necessary hullmods aren't available in the current version so making builds with the new constraints in mind is impossible. As far as faction weapons restrictions - I need to make a list or something because it currently resides in my head only haha. :P

Well, you did mention technical debt awhile back, so I could hazard a guess as to your vocation.  Now that Windows has bash, I could clone a Git repo.  I don't know that I want to go down the rabbit hole of setting up Windows development environment and trying to remember Java, but I could edit CSV files.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on September 23, 2020, 01:27:55 PM
Well, you did mention technical debt awhile back, so I could hazard a guess as to your vocation.  Now that Windows has bash, I could clone a Git repo.  I don't know that I want to go down the rabbit hole of setting up Windows development environment and trying to remember Java, but I could edit CSV files.

Ha guilty. :)

Unfortunately, I was a complete novice when I first started modding and never put the project on Git since I didn't know much about it at the time. I learned a lot of Git functionality and version control at my last job and it's pretty awesome.

When I tried to upload the project after user reports of Dropbox downloading issues, I was shocked at the 100 file upload limit and how long it takes to upload those files in a batch. There is over 4000 files in the project so it's going to take forever to get the project up there lol. After that, though, it won't be so bad (I don't think) to continue editing things especially if I can set up pushing changes to the Git repository directly from my IDE. I have an older community edition of IntelliJ from 2017 so I don't know if I have access to those features or not (I know some microservice things are unavailable in the community edition).

As far as a secondary hosting platform, I plan to use Patreon as well as Dropbox for the next update.

If you are comfortable adding built-in hullmods to ship files, what I could do is host:

1) The new jar which now contains the hullmod code and the hullmod csv
2) The ship data/wing data csv's and the new wing ship/variant files (so you have my current OP/range changes to wings)
3) The new wing sprites
4) The weapon files/weapon data csv for the new fighter-class weapons

This way, you could add the built in hullmod for weapon OP reduction on a carrier you want to test, then add/override the other files to have access to the carrier changes. If you put Starsector in dev mode, you can edit variants from the start screen and play around with making builds and testing out balance. This would also include the currently implemented balance changes for weapons/ships

If anyone is interested in this, I'll host them and people can give feedback as they play around with things. Obviously I'll be making changes in the meantime too, but it would be a bit of a preview of sorts.


Arg, just realized even that wouldn't work because so many things have changed on the technical level. If I gave out the new jar then it would be looking for other files that don't currently exist in the mod - like settings data and related spreadsheets.

Sigh, I should probably just power through build making and the remaining items for the update then do a secondary balance patch later after people have tested it. The main concern is OP gaps like I was speaking about before, and I *think* that feels pretty good right now. The rest of balancing could probably be done through stat/weapon changes to the wings themselves. Hmm, I'll think about that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: The PG 13 Priest on October 10, 2020, 06:43:26 AM
@Albreo

Ah thanks again for the video! I will do my best to learn from it and make any necessary changes - especially since its hard for me to test late game officer scenarios I really appreciate the demonstration of how those battles look.

You also make a good point regarding battle size considerations in the current format. I kind of wish the admiral AI did more wave-like deployments and retreated vessels after a mid-map skirmish is considered "lost" in order to lure the player into the reinforcement wave. Thing is, it might be hard to get that to feel right or not be abusable just like the current reinforcement pattern. It also might be hard to programmatically determine when a battle is "lost" to the AI in a relative-to-space way rather than a DP ratio way (which I assume the current admiral AI uses to determine when the AI ships full retreat).

The thing I was referring to with the upcoming objective changes was that the enemy ratio of DP will better favor them if they have a larger fleet. So in that sense, the AI can better utilize a numbers advantage from the onset of the battle without necessarily needing a large battle size to make the player feel the pressure. The breathing room factor will remain - but consider that small faster wolfpacks will also be encouraged in the new system over pure capital engagements. When putting those two changes together - there is likely to be less realistic breathing room without punishment if that makes sense. That's where I'm basing my assumption, anyway. I'll have to wait and see how it plays out in the end. The theory seems sound but who knows.


Is there an estimated time as to when the next update might take place?

At this point it's hard to say. Conceptually the new system is in place, but finishing the important details of each build and getting the balance to feel a bit better takes exponentially more time than the programming side of things. Work-wise if I put my axe to the grindstone - probably a week. Realistically though? Much harder to say with any real confidence. There are currently 982 variants in the mod. Minus the station modules and a few other ones that don't consider OP, the vast majority of them are going to require changes. I could just slap on vents or hullmods to fix them all quickly, but that seems like a wasted opportunity to make them more meaningful. It's not that they are bad now, per se, but they could be better in some areas - especially carriers. Then, of course, I'll need to add new variants for suggested balance issues and the new wings.

Generally, I balance weapons through stat changes other than OP because changing OP usually means changing a bunch of variants. Since I have to do it anyway for the carrier changes, it's a good time be careful about considering OP.

As an example, when thinking about a single carrier bay, how much of an OP gap does there need to be between wing tiers to make the increased effectiveness of the wing feel like a consideration of the build rather than an easy choice assuming the wing is available? That's one I'm still wrestling with, actually, and the only way to "find out" is going to be to make and test builds along tier lines with multiple carriers and feel it out until it feels right. Math can only get you so far with this sort of thing.

In fact, if anyone has opinions based upon your current experiences to that point, I'm all ears!

*EDIT* Oh hey welcome to the forums!  Didn't catch that this was your first post at first. :)


I just want to say that you and to let you know that i and many others greatly appreciate your hard work and look forward to what you put out in the future. I love the mod and have a lot of fun playing with the mod and trying out new or old builds.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: The PG 13 Priest on October 10, 2020, 06:47:21 AM
@Albreo

Wow thank you for the video! I just watched a bit under half of it and it is very enlightening on endgame battles, etc!  ;D (I'll finish the rest of it later tonight)

Note: I see that you are using the combat speed up mod, and just be aware that it can make the AI a little wonky since things are going so fast and the AI can't take opportunity of certain windows (like shield flickering) as easily when that is active (per Alex iirc). I know that it would be pretty impossible to show all the content you did without it, but just keep that in mind as far as combat results since the game is not really meant to go that fast. For instance, I think some of those battles might have been a bit tougher otherwise - and I think I can visually see certain ships survive longer during some points where the battle seems to be going at a more normal pace. You have a lot of endgame experience though, so if you have played a lot without it on and that is not the case in your opinion let me know.

Re: General feedback from basileus and Albreo:

Thanks! (And always feel free to post what you think I truly don't mind even if I don't always agree with the opinion)

I'll start with the fighter rework suggestions.

I agree that gunships need to be faster and I've made some of them faster already. Thanks for the number I'll try and adjust a few on the slow side and scale the rest up even more.

(And I agree that the AI currently is really, really bad at handling fighters because it bases everything on a niche case that is specific only to vanilla. I've brought this point up to Alex a couple of times on the suggestion board, and iirc he thinks its necessary for ships to be defensive like this. Though I disagree, one point that could have been agreed upon is the aggressiveness of ships given an eliminate command. Since that command is player opted in, he might be more willing to look at that. I guess we will have to wait and see with the next update.)

A lot of the specific suggestions regarding wings have, coincidentally, mostly been looked at. Changes as I remember them:

 - Non-interceptor midline and low tech wings have a significantly more armor and a tiny bit more hull than before in some cases. Gunships, for instance, have like 4X more armor. So they will be tankier, but I'm hesitant to give them shields because A) thats more of a high tech thing and B) overloading the shields prevents the wing from doing its job and can actually make the wing worse unless the shield is very tough. If that doesn't help reduce crew consumption at endgame then I will look into further changes but it might be worth it to wait and see how it plays out.

 - Anti-wing heavy fighters should perform their role a bit better since I buffed their primary weapons so its not quite as much about the anti-fighter missiles. I'm not quite done testing there.

 - The Wasp has been given proximity mines and is now likely going to be a serious threat to other strike craft. Its OP has increased. I may buff the Spectre's defenses a bit and see how that works out. In small scale battles they are really good, but the Spark's shield probably gives it an edge. Their damage is probably fine they likely just die too easily in large battles when lots of projectiles are flying around and its harder to dodge even with phasing.

 - The locus has been changed to an EMP bomber instead of a defensive wing. It is now a Legendary wing. Its PD Burst Beam now acts as a light deterrent to interceptors. I may give it some missiles, but its EMP is surprisingly good at locking down and dealing fairly significant damage when there are a lot of them. Combine them with kinetic strike craft and you have a great utility bomber from what I have seen.

 - I agree with the dps of the Trident and the Goliath. I think making their pulse cannon weapons focus more on ships will help make this feel better, but I may change those weapons' firing patterns to make them more burst-oriented since they have to reload their rockets. I may add a second rocket battery to each of them as well. I haven't tested it enough yet to know for sure if its needed.

 - I added ~8 or so more wings - including the first Legendary wing - the Apocrypha - which is unattached to a faction and can't be found in markets. It has to be found as a Legendary blueprint or, eventually, salvaged from a boss bounty that uses them - which would be an endgame thing. Players are likely to not even see one in a play-through so finding the blueprint should be special.

 - The problem with reducing bullet count with strike craft is they become a lot less accurate and it seriously effects interceptors ability to do their job. I noticed your battle size is pretty high, so reducing it would probably help your CPU.

Weapons:

 - I'll take a look at the suggestions and I have a few ideas for the variety issues with energy weapons. I'm not sure if new weapons will make it into the update or not, but they are on my mind and it could happen.

 - I really do disagree with the analysis of the Terminator Beam. I think it's a great weapon because of the beam speed. The player, specifically, can really abuse shield flickering and sneak in some heavy armor damage. The real issue with the weapon is that the AI isn't always efficient with it. The Burst Siege Beam has the same issue, actually. It's good when it hits its intended defense type.

 - Tachyon Lance already has some changes. Hopefully it will make the AI a bit better with it. From the video, part of the issue it's bad is the jump from the Radiant putting it immediately under fire since the Radiant is trying to attack the enemy ship's engines. Since I'm changing that up already, that might help too on the primary ship that uses it. I honestly think the weapon is pretty good on a Malevolent or - in the next update - the Executor since that ship's flux stats have been buffed and it will likely have some more OP.

I just want to say that your mod is really fun and has given me at least like a couple hundred hours of fun so far. I am excited to see what you put out in the future.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 10, 2020, 05:20:24 PM
@The PG 13 Priest

Thanks I'm glad you are having a lot of fun! Still working on variant adjustments but getting closer to an update day by day!  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 12, 2020, 04:31:10 PM
Well, after applying the bonuses the OP of a lot of stock variants are, much to my surprise, typically within 5-10% of what it was before. That is promising I must be doing something right here! After optimizing (the best I can anyway) several builds for the Onslaught (XIV), Executor, and Paragon and running ~ 50 or so tests in a 1v1 unskilled AI duel scenario - no one capital always wins and more often than not the winner has under 50% hull. 4 times between the Onslaught (XIV) and Executor and 2 times between the Executor and Paragon they killed each other simultaneously with their final salvos haha. That was funny to watch. The only matchup that needs a bit of work is the Executor vs Onslaught (XIV). The Onslaught can win, but there were too many times that the Executor had over 60% hull after the fight and I want it to be a bit lower so the fight is closer. I'm doing this to create a baseline for high armor/high shields/midline battlecarrier comparisons to create a spectrum for balancing the rest of the builds. Not every variant is equal to the others, either, with some being dedicated anti-armor (the Strike Executor practically deletes and Onslaught but is garbage against a Paragon) so experiences in the campaign will still vary and depend upon fleet composition elements.

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Anyway, now down to business.

I'm adding a few new weapons alongside the new wings in order to fill in a few more roles (mostly for energy weapons) but I also wanted to add some Remnant-only weapons - including a legendary. I wanted to post this so that if anyone has any requests on the theme/functionality of these weapons they can post their ideas here. :)

If not, I'll come up with them myself no worries. (I'm also obviously going to be adding even more once I get access to these new effects (https://fractalsoftworks.com/2020/04/11/gif-roundup/). I'm very excited to delve more deeply into those at a later date!)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on October 13, 2020, 02:23:23 AM
That's ok I guess. I wouldn't want the stock variants to be the best possible loadout. That would take the fun out of players to experiment with mix & match themself. And don't forget to include all of them as test ships, I'm lacking target practice.

Anyway, now down to business.

I'm adding a few new weapons alongside the new wings in order to fill in a few more roles (mostly for energy weapons) but I also wanted to add some Remnant-only weapons - including a legendary. I wanted to post this so that if anyone has any requests on the theme/functionality of these weapons they can post their ideas here. :)

If not, I'll come up with them myself no worries. (I'm also obviously going to be adding even more once I get access to these new effects (https://fractalsoftworks.com/2020/04/11/gif-roundup/). I'm very excited to delve more deeply into those at a later date!)

Here are some options.

From other mods
- Projectile weapon with soft homing capability.
- Beam weapon with secondary delay explosion.
- Weapon effectiveness scales with flux levels.

- Large long range anti-matter projectile weapon.
- Slow moving projectile with a huge hitbox.
- Tractor beam weapon.

Crazy stuff
- One-hit-kill beam weapon with super long wind up time and visible tracer during charge up, anchoring the ship, fixed mount build in weapon, pierce through ships, infinite range, non dropable. Obviously requires a new ship.
- Nanite swarm missile launcher. Generate cloud of persistent EMP aoe damage at hit location.
- Phase bomb teleporter in missile mount.
- Weapon that can damage phasing ship.
- Jamming crystal shard missile that rips fighter recovery rate.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 13, 2020, 02:41:08 PM
I don't think it would even be possible to optimize all the stock variants - there are just too many and the number is growing lol. And part of the reason I'm adding more is to more explicitly demonstrate roles such as Strike, Assault, Fire Support, etc to the player. In that sense, there are definitely some variants that are worse than others and will likely be worse than player builds. That is intentional in order to create variance (I personally roleplay it as officer/commander ability variance). That is on top of the variance that comes with any particular fight between two otherwise equally matched variants. If the Elite Executor or the Strike Paragon overloads, for instance, the battle is pretty much over for the one who did.

I've also learned that I need to be very, very careful about some hullmod synergies. I made Front Shield Emitter unequip-able with Concentrated Shield Emitter OR Stabilized Shields and I made Concentrated Shield Emitter unequip-able with Front Shield Emitter OR Hardened Shields. This was after I stacked the later combo on a flux-free Paragon and it became an unstoppable deity of death on the battlefield...

In general flux free assault weapons are a mod feature, but I'm starting to come around to the idea that large weapons either need to generate some flux or have significant damage/range drawbacks to not make capital ships too strong. It doesn't seem to be as big an issue on ships smaller than capitals though maybe I just haven't tested it enough. However I noticed that simply replacing the Onslaught's Devastator for a Mark IX made it perform considerably better because it could always fire an armor breaking weapon alongside its railguns.

Both the Mark IX and the Razor Tri-Beam have had a healthy whack with the nerf bat as a result. I am also adding minor flux costs to longer ranged assault weapons like the Excaliber Cannon and Photon Cannon line of weapons like I did with the Railgun line of weapons.

Finally, to further solidify the idea of designations as a balancing mechanism, I've been tossing around the idea of giving destroyers the same benefits that frigates get against missiles, fighters and the same speed mechanics. I felt that this really gave frigates new life in the later stages of the game and I think it could help destroyers too. In that same vein of thinking, I will probably reduce the 0-flux speed boost of capitals to 40 down from 80. Why? To prevent non-flux builds from maintaining the speed to chase down and eliminate targets far too quickly. The 0-flux Paragon took down three Eagles without its flux getting above the threshold to loose its boost because the Eagles could not leverage their positioning to pressure the unshielded portion that is supposed to be the weakness of Concentrated Shield Emitter.
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Those weapons sound really cool! They certainly sound unique and interesting, but they also probably come with a fair amount of custom script work that I'm probably not quite ready to dedicate the time to learning right now - well, at least for this update.

I'm going to have to keep things relatively simple right now due to time constraints. So, for example, I can't remember if it was you or basileus who commented on the lack of a true armor breaking energy weapon. That is one of the gaps that I intend to tackle. The Phase Beam/Atronarch Beam/Terminator Beam already do this very well due to duration changes and a dps buff to the Terminator Beam specifically, but I'd like to make a projectile-based weapon an option as well.

Another gap would be the Fire Support role for energy weapons. There currently are such weapons when combining beams with Advanced Optics, but it would be nice to have more lower tier projectile siege weapons outside of the Apocalypse Cannon - which is rare and expensive.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on October 13, 2020, 08:44:14 PM
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I've also learned that I need to be very, very careful about some hullmod synergies. I made Front Shield Emitter unequip-able with Concentrated Shield Emitter OR Stabilized Shields and I made Concentrated Shield Emitter unequip-able with Front Shield Emitter OR Hardened Shields. This was after I stacked the later combo on a flux-free Paragon and it became an unstoppable deity of death on the battlefield...

Yes, that combo waited so long to be nerfed.

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In general flux free assault weapons are a mod feature, but I'm starting to come around to the idea that large weapons either need to generate some flux or have significant damage/range drawbacks to not make capital ships too strong. It doesn't seem to be as big an issue on ships smaller than capitals though maybe I just haven't tested it enough. However I noticed that simply replacing the Onslaught's Devastator for a Mark IX made it perform considerably better because it could always fire an armor breaking weapon alongside its railguns.
Both the Mark IX and the Razor Tri-Beam have had a healthy whack with the nerf bat as a result. I am also adding minor flux costs to longer ranged assault weapons like the Excaliber Cannon and Photon Cannon line of weapons like I did with the Railgun line of weapons.

Yep, flux free is always superior. That's why I'm very skeptical about it. I wouldn't mind flux free large weapons but their DPS can't be on par with the one that generates flux.

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Finally, to further solidify the idea of designations as a balancing mechanism, I've been tossing around the idea of giving destroyers the same benefits that frigates get against missiles, fighters and the same speed mechanics. I felt that this really gave frigates new life in the later stages of the game and I think it could help destroyers too. In that same vein of thinking, I will probably reduce the 0-flux speed boost of capitals to 40 down from 80. Why? To prevent non-flux builds from maintaining the speed to chase down and eliminate targets far too quickly. The 0-flux Paragon took down three Eagles without its flux getting above the threshold to loose its boost because the Eagles could not leverage their positioning to pressure the unshielded portion that is supposed to be the weakness of Concentrated Shield Emitter.

I also want you to nerf the Helmsmanship zero flux speed boost threshold to 25% from 34%

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I'm going to have to keep things relatively simple right now due to time constraints. So, for example, I can't remember if it was you or basileus who commented on the lack of a true armor breaking energy weapon. That is one of the gaps that I intend to tackle. The Phase Beam/Atronarch Beam/Terminator Beam already do this very well due to duration changes and a dps buff to the Terminator Beam specifically, but I'd like to make a projectile-based weapon an option as well.

That's me, I guess, but I want one for medium mount slot more. Also for the Terminator Beam, can it be tweak some how for AI to not waste it on the shield when the only large weapon it has is Terminator Beam. I don't think the Onslaught waste it too much, only occasionally. Mostly it was used as it intends purpose.

The beam point defense weapons also defeat the fighter buff this mod provides a bit, not sure how can it be deal with. It's already expensive to field in.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 14, 2020, 01:20:49 AM
Has armor any purpose in this mod?

Armor values are at the same reach as normal damage values of single hits. Doesn't this make armor completely useless?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 14, 2020, 02:10:22 AM
I also want you to nerf the Helmsmanship zero flux speed boost threshold to 25% from 34%

That's me, I guess, but I want one for medium mount slot more. Also for the Terminator Beam, can it be tweak some how for AI to not waste it on the shield when the only large weapon it has is Terminator Beam. I don't think the Onslaught waste it too much, only occasionally. Mostly it was used as it intends purpose.

The beam point defense weapons also defeat the fighter buff this mod provides a bit, not sure how can it be deal with. It's already expensive to field in.

I am making some medium weapons too, yes.

Re: Terminator Beam AI
It recharges faster now so hopefully that will help make wasted shots less painful. Custom AI for it would be significantly more complex. It's not that I have ruled that option out as much as it would be kind of far down the list compared to other easier things. I'll keep it in mind for the future though. The Onslaught definitely makes good use of it overall. It snipes through moments of shield drops against the Paragon with ruthless efficiency that makes the fight actually tilt in its favor more times than not. Definitely an opportunistic kind of weapon. The AI isn't perfect with it, but it's honestly not bad either imo.

Re: Helmsmanship
I'll look into whether or not I can use the Skill API to differentiate between hull sizes. It is that high so that it gives a bonus to frigates (and soon destroyers) since they already have that boost. The reduction of the 0-flux boost for capitals should help make this skill at least a little less must-have.

It may be invalidated by the eventual skill update though.

Re: Burst PD Beam line of weapons
True, but they are not great against mass missiles in comparison to other PD so that is kind of their drawback alongside high OP costs. They don't really delete fighters more than interceptors do though - especially with the coming update. To help impact the brief engagement time interceptors typically have to perform their role, most now have, err how to put it? - Burst impacting weapons like homing missiles, mines, or (ironically) burst beam pd to take out large numbers of opposing craft quickly alongside any lucky primary weapon hits. The Wasp mine in particular really makes that wing shine over prior updates. I came to this conclusion because Broadsword and Hydra wings seemed to really outpace more OP expensive wings in dealing with strike craft during the fly-by.

Armor values are at the same reach as normal damage values of single hits. Doesn't this make armor completely useless?

Not in my experience, at least if I'm understanding the question correctly. Funnily enough, I'm actually having trouble balancing the Onslaught because of its high armor value atm (adding 500 made it beat every capital I'm testing with by 100% extra efficiency)- granted that's an extreme. It's more that armor breaking weapons are more necessary for high armor vessels but their impact is stronger - especially in the case of strike weapons. Hull/weapon size also has starker comparisons there - so even a heavily armor ship taking a hit from a weapon size higher than it can typically field will be felt a little more. If anything, armor is more important in that sense from what I can tell. One thing that makes this possible is the 5% minimum value. This means that even armor stripped ships with high base armor take a lot less damage from small hit weapons like kinetic weapons or fighter weapons.

Armor is a little useless for high tech vessels that rely on their shields - at least in comparison. Once a Paragon's shields go down... it's bad news for the Paragon if it can't retreat. If you are fielding a lot of those, I'd answer that it isn't useless but definitely shouldn't be relied upon for any length of time.

If you have any changes in mind, can you give examples or comparisons vs vanilla that gave you this impression? I'm certainly open to ideas. Changing armor values is relatively easy - and armor damage mitigation scales on the value comparisons as you say - so only one value would actually have to be changed to make an impact.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 14, 2020, 02:18:54 AM
Not in my experience, at least if I'm understanding the question correctly. Funnily enough, I'm actually having trouble balancing the Onslaught because of its high armor value atm (adding 500 made it beat every capital I'm testing with by 100% extra efficiency)- granted that's an extreme. It's more that armor breaking weapons are more necessary for high armor vessels but their impact is stronger - especially in the case of strike weapons. Hull/weapon size also has starker comparisons there - so even a heavily armor ship taking a hit from a weapon size higher than it can typically field will be felt a little more. If anything, armor is more important in that sense from what I can tell. One thing that makes this possible is the 5% minimum value. This means that even armor stripped ships with high base armor take a lot less damage from small hit weapons like kinetic weapons or fighter weapons.

Armor is a little useless for high tech vessels that rely on their shields - at least in comparison. Once a Paragon's shields go down... it's bad news for the Paragon if it can't retreat. If you are fielding a lot of those, I'd answer that it isn't useless but definitely shouldn't be relied upon for any length of time.

If you have any changes in mind, can you give examples or comparisons vs vanilla that gave you this impression? I'm certainly open to ideas. Changing armor values is relatively easy - and armor damage mitigation scales on the value comparisons as you say - so only one value would actually have to be changed to make an impact.

What do you mean with 100% effiency? If my ship has 300 amor and I put another 300 amor on it via modul, halve the amor is gone after 3 hits from a small weapon ( 200 damage a hit) a random frigate fires.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 14, 2020, 02:46:27 AM
What do you mean with 100% effiency? If my ship has 300 amor and I put another 300 amor on it via modul, halve the amor is gone after 3 hits from a small weapon ( 200 damage a hit) a random frigate fires.

I was speaking with regards to the Onslaught (XIV) effectiveness at combat with, say, a Paragon with anti-armor strike beams. Onslaught (XIV) has 4500 base armor. The 500 armor made a noticeable difference probably because of the 5% minimum against numerous small weapons going up enough to mitigate a lot of damage in a close range cap vs cap fight.

To your experience though, did this happen to you in game while fighting a high tech ship with Pulse Cannons with a Hound or something? If so, that's not advisable without additional support to either joint attack or, if a shield is available on the escorts, a hit and run trade off kind of attack. high Tech ships cost more to deploy, but their weapons and defense are, for the most part, better than lower tech ships. So a one-on-one low tech vs high tech is going to be harder to win.

Or are you looking at the numbers, specifically? (Either way is completely fine, I'm just trying to get a better grasp of your opinion.)

I'm also not necessarily against a global frigate/destroyer armor buff, honestly - at least for armor reliant hulls. Cruisers maybe too but they seem ok in that department from what I've seen. I just have to be careful to not make a more difficult time for high tech ships at those sizes by making armor too good. It might not be as much of an issue after the beam changes/new weapons though since more anti-armor options will exist for energy weapon reliant ships. That probably is what fueled some of the lower armor values in the first place. If Pulse Cannons can't deal with armor well, then there was little that the High Tech frigate had to deal with ships like the Lasher effectively when considering its increased DP.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on October 14, 2020, 04:16:52 AM
What do you mean with 100% effiency? If my ship has 300 amor and I put another 300 amor on it via modul, halve the amor is gone after 3 hits from a small weapon ( 200 damage a hit) a random frigate fires.

Yeah that's not quite how armor works. First of all that damage would need to be a damage type that does full damage to armor. Then it'll get spread around the armor cells and many parts of the target will retain full or near full armor. And then there's the 5% rule on top of that, so any extra armor is going to significantly cut into the damage of weapons that deal damage in smaller packets, regardless of damage type, forever even if the armor is fully stripped.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 14, 2020, 05:43:08 AM
I really like the mod. The idea of smaller weapons and more wings makes nice and cinematic combats.
I think the new factions are a bit too high tech-heavy with both the anime vampire lords and the tech-priests being mega tri tachyon.
Playing with nexrelin these 2 factions also dominate everybody else. So I think they are a bit too strong.

A suggestion. Make wing replacement cost flux. Replacing high tech wings should cost huge amounts of flux, low tech less.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 14, 2020, 07:01:21 AM
I really like the mod. The idea of smaller weapons and more wings makes nice and cinematic combats.
I think the new factions are a bit too high tech-heavy with both the anime vampire lords and the tech-priests being mega tri tachyon.
Playing with nexrelin these 2 factions also dominate everybody else. So I think they are a bit too strong.

Lol anime vampire lords. That tickled me. ;D

Not all of their portraits are anime but yeah I would say free-use portraits of vampires aren't exactly flourishing haha. Honestly I love anime and don't mind anime portraits, but I get that it's not exactly the intended immersion Starsector is going for. I do have plans for optional portrait packs in the future to better cater to different tastes in that regard. But, you know, priorities.

As far as the high tech nature of the Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order breaking Nex, that is a fair point if true. It was definitely not intended and not something I anticipated when designing the factions. The factions were designed from a lore perspective and not a 4X perspective since that didn't exist when I started modding. That being said, I think it would be accurate to say that Nex has some amount of randomness to how events/invasions go based upon prior feedback. Unless you are speaking from the perspective of multiple campaign run-throughs where these factions dominated every time, it could just be coincidence. To play devil's advocate, I could simply have the settings wrong - though I remember spending a fair amount of time considering each faction when setting up the Nex config and I've done a second pass since then. The only other possible consideration I can think of is that higher FP fleets have an innate advantage in Nex (and vanilla but not as noticeable) - which, while understandable, limits the design space in a way that Tri-Tachyon-esque factions are just going to be strong. That seems unlikely though since the FP difference between a Megalith Dreadnought and a Paragon in the current dev build is a measly 2 FP (33 to 31 respectively). So, if the fleets are built with the same number of ships in mind irregardless of each ship having a FP or two greater... well not much I can do about that. If the lore is that their ships are tech-wise better (but realistically in combat through DP they can deploy less of them and so not really) but the campaign layer does not reflect this, my hands are tied. I'm not sure if this is the case and I would assume "numShips" would handle this situation in the faction config, but I'm no expert there and I haven't deep dived that aspect in any way. (Details for reference: Archean Order is 3, Adamantine Consortium is 1 and Tri-Tachyon is 5)

To clarify lore related stuff:
The Adamantine Consortium is an insidious "boss faction" that I also wanted to be playable in order to create more replay-ability and challenge and provide a unique experience from roleplaying an evil faction (story-wise it gets more complicated than that but no spoilers! From the perspective of 4X/Nex that is the best way to put it). The Archean Order acts as a counter-balance/antagonist of the Tri-Tachyon corporation that from a design perspective just adds flavor and additional options to the high tech arsenal and additional player choice/replay-ability each playthrough.

Still working out the details there and there is a lot to do as far as limiting accessibility, etc, etc.

Trader Guilds, while certainly not as fleshed out since they were the last faction I conceptualized years ago, are actually more mid-tech with higher tier weapons/wings. They aren't really high tech at all, but they suffer from less colonies than they need - which is something I'm hoping to address very soon.

Sci-Corps are a high tech underdog with a somewhat romanticized moral compass that acts as the grounding force to the other warring factions, so once again a fair point into the high tech nature of the mod's new factions. They have actually had a buff to autoresolve and in-combat strength which should make them more of a presence when running the mod with Nex assuming my assumptions hold true.

When looking at the playable vanilla faction roster that participates in Nex, how many of them are high tech? My count is 1, maybe 2 when you consider Lion's Guard. So in that sense, I am more evening the scales for player options for each tech level than I am intending to create high tech factions to dominate the sector, if that makes sense.

Quote
A suggestion. Make wing replacement cost flux. Replacing high tech wings should cost huge amounts of flux, low tech less.

I am trying to address this disparity through OP in the next update rather than flux generation because I'm not sure I can do that with the API. So high tech wings are far more OP costly to equip and typically only high tech carriers can equip them comfortably. This will make the high/low tech carriers truer to their DP in regards to combat performance with the added intent of making weapons more relevant on these vessels.

For an example, it will be impossible for a light carrier like the Osprey to equip a wing like the Wasp or Spectre even should it completely shirk all weapons and hullmods. It will mostly be limited to low tech and pirate wings. An Anchorage carrier might be able to equip one, but only at the cost of any weapon upgrades, hullmods, or additional wings that aren't starter tier. I'm hoping that evens things out a bit.

Anyway sorry for the wall post, and thank you for trying out the mod and giving feedback! I always appreciate it and I will try and keep this in mind as I continue attempting to balance things. My only request is to remember that I am one person and so true balanced quality will take time and multiple passes considering the scope of this mod. I rely on anyone playing it to help me understand all the nuances that I cannot realistically account for without actually stopping development to play the campaign a bunch of times to endgame.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 14, 2020, 08:07:07 AM

Lol anime vampire lords. That tickled me. ;D

Not all of their portraits are anime but yeah I would say free-use portraits of vampires aren't exactly flourishing haha. Honestly I love anime and don't mind anime portraits, but I get that it's not exactly the intended immersion Starsector is going for. I do have plans for optional portrait packs in the future to better cater to different tastes in that regard. But, you know, priorities.

As far as the high tech nature of the Adamantine Consortium and Archean Order breaking Nex, that is a fair point if true. It was definitely not intended and not something I anticipated when designing the factions. The factions were designed from a lore perspective and not a 4X perspective since that didn't exist when I started modding. That being said, I think it would be accurate to say that Nex has some amount of randomness to how events/invasions go based upon prior feedback. Unless you are speaking from the perspective of multiple campaign run-throughs where these factions dominated every time, it could just be coincidence. To play devil's advocate, I could simply have the settings wrong - though I remember spending a fair amount of time considering each faction when setting up the Nex config and I've done a second pass since then. The only other possible consideration I can think of is that higher FP fleets have an innate advantage in Nex (and vanilla but not as noticeable) - which, while understandable, limits the design space in a way that Tri-Tachyon-esque factions are just going to be strong. That seems unlikely though since the FP difference between a Megalith Dreadnought and a Paragon in the current dev build is a measly 2 FP (33 to 31 respectively). So, if the fleets are built with the same number of ships in mind irregardless of each ship having a FP or two greater... well not much I can do about that. If the lore is that their ships are tech-wise better (but realistically in combat through DP they can deploy less of them and so not really) but the campaign layer does not reflect this, my hands are tied. I'm not sure if this is the case and I would assume "numShips" would handle this situation in the faction config, but I'm no expert there and I haven't deep dived that aspect in any way. (Details for reference: Archean Order is 3, Adamantine Consortium is 1 and Tri-Tachyon is 5)

To clarify lore related stuff:
The Adamantine Consortium is an insidious "boss faction" that I also wanted to be playable in order to create more replay-ability and challenge and provide a unique experience from roleplaying an evil faction (story-wise it gets more complicated than that but no spoilers! From the perspective of 4X/Nex that is the best way to put it). The Archean Order acts as a counter-balance/antagonist of the Tri-Tachyon corporation that from a design perspective just adds flavor and additional options to the high tech arsenal and additional player choice/replay-ability each playthrough.

Still working out the details there and there is a lot to do as far as limiting accessibility, etc, etc.

Trader Guilds, while certainly not as fleshed out since they were the last faction I conceptualized years ago, are actually more mid-tech with higher tier weapons/wings. They aren't really high tech at all, but they suffer from less colonies than they need - which is something I'm hoping to address very soon.

Sci-Corps are a high tech underdog with a somewhat romanticized moral compass that acts as the grounding force to the other warring factions, so once again a fair point into the high tech nature of the mod's new factions. They have actually had a buff to autoresolve and in-combat strength which should make them more of a presence when running the mod with Nex assuming my assumptions hold true.

When looking at the playable vanilla faction roster that participates in Nex, how many of them are high tech? My count is 1, maybe 2 when you consider Lion's Guard. So in that sense, I am more evening the scales for player options for each tech level than I am intending to create high tech factions to dominate the sector, if that makes sense.

Quote
A suggestion. Make wing replacement cost flux. Replacing high tech wings should cost huge amounts of flux, low tech less.

I am trying to address this disparity through OP in the next update rather than flux generation because I'm not sure I can do that with the API. So high tech wings are far more OP costly to equip and typically only high tech carriers can equip them comfortably. This will make the high/low tech carriers truer to their DP in regards to combat performance with the added intent of making weapons more relevant on these vessels.

For an example, it will be impossible for a light carrier like the Osprey to equip a wing like the Wasp or Spectre even should it completely shirk all weapons and hullmods. It will mostly be limited to low tech and pirate wings. An Anchorage carrier might be able to equip one, but only at the cost of any weapon upgrades, hullmods, or additional wings that aren't starter tier. I'm hoping that evens things out a bit.

Anyway sorry for the wall post, and thank you for trying out the mod and giving feedback! I always appreciate it and I will try and keep this in mind as I continue attempting to balance things. My only request is to remember that I am one person and so true balanced quality will take time and multiple passes considering the scope of this mod. I rely on anyone playing it to help me understand all the nuances that I cannot realistically account for without actually stopping development to play the campaign a bunch of times to endgame.

If everybody is high tech, then nobody is. The lore of starsector is post apocalypse. With technology being forgoten. If the majority of the sector are mega advanced high tech cults, it feel wrong to the story of starsector.

The trade factions fits perfectly into the game and I really like their adddition.

I wish the mod was available without the vampires/priests and all the high tech stuff flying around (nano bot missles and stealth void driver fighters).


Your mod making the combat more cinematic like in star wars is an amazing thing i really do enjoy.  ;)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 14, 2020, 09:23:52 AM
If everybody is high tech, then nobody is. The lore of starsector is post apocalypse. With technology being forgoten. If the majority of the sector are mega advanced high tech cults, it feel wrong to the story of starsector.

The trade factions fits perfectly into the game and I really like their adddition.

I wish the mod was available without the vampires/priests and all the high tech stuff flying around (nano bot missles and stealth void driver fighters).


Your mod making the combat more cinematic like in star wars is an amazing thing i really do enjoy.  ;)

Ah ok, I mean, that's completely fair and I get where you are coming from, but I think our interpretations of lore differ a bit and this is probably due to me having a framework of narrative (mostly in my mind and not released) that is technically difficult to implement atm while also simultaneously designing and refining the said combat system you enjoy.

Brief details:
Spoiler
I've discussed it in past posts but to be brief it essentially boils down to the idea of "technology gone awry/horror elements" (think Black Mirror)/"Contact outside of what is known within the Sector"/"Endearing attempts at bettering the human condition and reversing the collapse"/"predatory survival-ism" with an apocalyptic collapse as the backdrop of the narrative - so essentially it has the same theme of Starsector while adding additional narrative with those elements. The Sector is running low on resources and little is known about the Domain which represented the past mastery over technology that allowed self-sufficiency of said resources. In that sense, I agree that most of technology and knowledge of it is lost in Starsector's setting. There really isn't a defined threshold of what that constitutes though. What I mean is, though "stealth void driver fighters" in this case would certainly be rare, they wouldn't necessarily not exist and be used - they just wouldn't be commonly known about within the Core just like REDACTED aren't commonly known about. That is why, for instance, the Archean Order system is a single system in a place most civilians wouldn't go to and their outposts are off the beaten path. (Trade kind of breaks this, I know, but it is a necessary thing for the colony game. *shrug*)

So, from my perspective of current lore, the themes here:

 1) Midline tech is a middle ground between a transition from an earlier tech level to a more advanced one and the more advanced you get the more difficult said tech is to acquire and the less is known about it or the more carefully it is hoarded by influential factions.

 2) Lots of mystery regarding secret experiments and poorly understood technology causing mass conflict and eerie anomalies.

 3) A balance of power between factions that are generally hostile to one another either through cold war or raised suspicion of power aspirations.
[close]

But anyway, I don't think the majority of the sector is mega advanced high tech cults in this mod. That really only describes one faction of the 4 accurately, and even then it doesn't really describe it in a way that is true to the intended lore. That is far too generalizing considering the addition of more high tech factions doesn't mean a 1:1 increase in high tech colonies or campaign presence.

In the mod, most areas of the campaign are still low tech and the ones that aren't are designed to be more secretive locations. If trade fleets are breaking the immersive side to this, I might be able to accommodate that a bit - but not 100% sure of all the details when messing with faction trade fleet variants.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on October 14, 2020, 03:03:05 PM
If everybody is high tech, then nobody is. The lore of starsector is post apocalypse. With technology being forgoten. If the majority of the sector are mega advanced high tech cults, it feel wrong to the story of starsector.

The trade factions fits perfectly into the game and I really like their adddition.

I wish the mod was available without the vampires/priests and all the high tech stuff flying around (nano bot missles and stealth void driver fighters).


Your mod making the combat more cinematic like in star wars is an amazing thing i really do enjoy.  ;)

I mean, it is a Total Conversion. That's the nice thing about TCs - they don't have to stick to the base game.

Other mods are far more egregious in that regard. Every other planet has an alpha core and never-before-seen 5th dimension supertech and they're supposed to slot into standard Starsector seamlessly.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 16, 2020, 05:50:39 AM
I think that missiles are underpowered. They have less strike damage and less sustained damage compared to normal weapons.

I also think that the Wings Spectre&Phantom Phase is overpowered.
Nothing can be compared to it. They are easily obtained and are by far the best choices on any ship. Archean order stuff seems to be ultra-strong.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on October 16, 2020, 09:31:23 AM
I think that missiles are underpowered. They have less strike damage and less sustained damage compared to normal weapons.

I also think that the Wings Spectre&Phantom Phase is overpowered.
Nothing can be compared to it. They are easily obtained and are by far the best choices on any ship. Archean order stuff seems to be ultra-strong.

Missiles are pretty dam strong in this mod, I'm not joking. You also have an unlimited number of it which in vanilla you don't.

Sustain damage means nothing if you can't face hugging the enemy ship, only a zero flux weapon can do that. The purpose of missiles is to fill in what your weapon can't do enough. For example, you equip your ship with full ballistic cannons then have an explosive missile to pair with it or Thunderbolt missile pair with energy weapon because energy didn't do a good enough job hitting shield or Shock Storm which can blow out shield in one go and pair it with Explosive main weapons. Don't expect much for a small missile to kill things, those can only deal with frigate but from a medium mount and up its pack a punch. You also have ultimate frigate deleter as a form of Hivemind Orb launcher which is best for all-round support.

The fighter and bomber will be changing in the next patch.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 16, 2020, 10:55:49 AM
I think that missiles are underpowered. They have less strike damage and less sustained damage compared to normal weapons.

I also think that the Wings Spectre&Phantom Phase is overpowered.
Nothing can be compared to it. They are easily obtained and are by far the best choices on any ship. Archean order stuff seems to be ultra-strong.

Missiles are pretty dam strong in this mod, I'm not joking. You also have an unlimited number of it which in vanilla you don't.

Sustain damage means nothing if you can't face hugging the enemy ship, only a zero flux weapon can do that. The purpose of missiles is to fill in what your weapon can't do enough. For example, you equip your ship with full ballistic cannons then have an explosive missile to pair with it or Thunderbolt missile pair with energy weapon because energy didn't do a good enough job hitting shield or Shock Storm which can blow out shield in one go and pair it with Explosive main weapons. Don't expect much for a small missile to kill things, those can only deal with frigate but from a medium mount and up its pack a punch. You also have ultimate frigate deleter as a form of Hivemind Orb launcher which is best for all-round support.

The fighter and bomber will be changing in the next patch.

Missles are simply to weak to have any impact on shields/hull. Hivemind Orb launc is indeed super strong. But It isnt a regular/normal weapon.
The average sabotage/reaper seems to have no purpose. I would rather invest into more guns/vents.
All shield/amor/hull values are much bigger than in vanilla. But missile damage is the same.

So if missiles have no strike potential and no supression potential, for what purpose do you use them exactly? (outside of  Hivemind Orb)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 16, 2020, 12:44:36 PM
Missles are simply to weak to have any impact on shields/hull. Hivemind Orb launc is indeed super strong. But It isnt a regular/normal weapon.
The average sabotage/reaper seems to have no purpose. I would rather invest into more guns/vents.
All shield/amor/hull values are much bigger than in vanilla. But missile damage is the same.

So if missiles have no strike potential and no supression potential, for what purpose do you use them exactly? (outside of  Hivemind Orb)

Sabot has longer range than most guns, but lacks the suppression of the Thunderbolt. It is more of a long range support weapon for things like artillery or it synergizes well at supporting other assault ships with consistent anti-armor fire. It's a great carrier missile for this reason.

Reapers break a serious amount of armor, even on the Onslaught. However, all missiles are pretty stoppable by PD, and don't generally perform well against the damage types they aren't designed for. That is by design. But looking at values, the hit penetration of a reaper is quite a bit higher than any gun of its size - so it is technically a better strike weapon with the downside that it is harder to actually hit with. It also doesn't generate flux like strike guns do. So there is kind of a trade off there.

As Albreo already mentioned, Thunderbolts and Shockstorms are very strong anti-shield weapons that suppress weapons and engines should the shields be down. Thunderbolts actually are getting a small nerf in the next update because with their range they become too catch-all. If you are just looking to break shields, Heavy Rapiers are also pretty good if you have a consistent armor breaking weapon firing so the AI keeps their shield up.

The reason missiles don't have the same strike potential in comparison to vanilla is because they regenerate. Vanilla treats missiles as an flux-free "ace up the sleeve" - kind of a very limited but very powerful weapon. In this mod, they are more of a "standard" weapon and had to be adjusted accordingly.

Hope that helps!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on October 17, 2020, 11:01:47 AM
Missles are simply to weak to have any impact on shields/hull. Hivemind Orb launc is indeed super strong. But It isnt a regular/normal weapon.
The average sabotage/reaper seems to have no purpose. I would rather invest into more guns/vents.
All shield/amor/hull values are much bigger than in vanilla. But missile damage is the same.

So if missiles have no strike potential and no supression potential, for what purpose do you use them exactly? (outside of  Hivemind Orb)

If you think missiles don't have an impact you're probably firing them into functioning PD. PD actually does it's job in AO, so you either need to keep it busy with other targets, overwhelm it with massed missile strikes (that'll still lose 80% of their volley) or wait until damage/emp has disabled the PD and then launch your volleys. There's real strategy to missile use (except for Hive Orbs, but those legendary end-game weapons).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Sinful on October 17, 2020, 02:47:36 PM
Not noticing any tankers in the markets or other fleets is this intended?
Edit: turns out it was Second Wave Options screwing with the ability for tankers to exist in markets and fleets >.>
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 17, 2020, 10:17:22 PM
Not noticing any tankers in the markets or other fleets is this intended?
Edit: turns out it was Second Wave Options screwing with the ability for tankers to exist in markets and fleets >.>

Ah ok yeah that isn't intended as far as AO is concerned but glad you got it figured out. :)

If anything else seems off, let me know. Also welcome to the forums!

----------------------------------------------------------

New Excaliber Cannon sprite: (Bullet size is larger and more noticeable too and armor penetration has been increased as a result of flux costs added to fire since it has long range.)

*EDIT* Whoops the image showed the new sprite but not the new stats. Fixed.

(https://i.imgur.com/EAlFyxW.png)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Echonian on October 22, 2020, 04:31:50 PM
Hello,

I have recently started playing Starsector, and have quite enjoyed it. After playing for a while in the base game, I decided I would go ahead and start adding various mods.

I am making this post for a couple of reasons, first: I am having some trouble with the mod.

Before I get into that, here is my current mod list:

Archean Order TC v1.3.5
Combat Chatter
Common Radar
Fuel Siphoning
Grand Sector v0.2.2
LazyLib
Nexelerin
SkilledUp
SpeedUp
Starship Legends
Supply Forging
Terraforming and Station Construction
Unknown Skies
Version Checker

All of the mods have seemed to work quite well together, though I did have to modify a couple of mod-specific settings to get a couple of them to behave.

With that out of the way, the issue is with my in-game reputation. I was attacked by the Adamantine Consortium - who bombarded my main food-producing colony and made the entire colony entirely inoperable for more than a year. In retaliation, I did the same to two of their own worlds. Most factions did not care about this, since they were hated by everyone, but the "Independent" faction took issue. Well, also the Church, but they aren't an issue in the same way.

Because the Independent faction then immediately started attacking my colonies.

Completely without the game informing me, random mercenary squads and even scavengers managed to take out 4-5 of my orbital stations - with me only learning about this by manually flying around my colonies or checking the colony management screen.

Is this intended behavior under your mod?

It could potentially be due to one of the other mods I have installed, but it seems really weird. I'm okay with a faction hating me - the Luddic Church launched multiple invasions on me due to them hating my saturation bombing of the Adamantine Order worlds - but those invasions I could counter because the game announced them and announced when they were or were not successful.

The independent fleets however vastly outnumber the invasions from other sources, even if they are weaker individually, and crucially they seem to attack entirely without warning and far more viciously than I ever had to worry about with pirates or the pathers.

Do you have any recommendations for fixing this on my end? I am likely not going to play my current save for all that much longer, but I don't want to have to scrap it over this.

Because as it stands, having my stations constantly get destroyed by untraceable fleets is weird. It also makes little sense that every single mercenary and smuggler across the world would become hostile to me the moment I decided to retaliate in kind against a particular foe.

With that question and complaint out of the way, I really do like what you have done with the mod. I have praise for the mods other than yours that I should probably express to the individual mod makers, but the changes to combat and added content in particular from your mod were the most useful things to my enjoyment of the game so far.

Oh, also, the Adamantine Consortium Battleships are slightly annoying to chase down. They seem to rarely actually fight in battles I have had against them, and instead just run away at the first sign of any danger - wasting all of their flux to phase past minor attacks, then teleporting away so I have to chase them down for ages. I wonder if there's a way to tweak this - is it possible to give a cooldown to their "phase" ability of perhaps 3-4 seconds so they actually end up fighting rather than spending all of their flux to hide? I don't want to make them weaker - I haven't had any problems actually fighting them - but most of my battles against the Adamantine Consortium end up with me spending just as long chasing those things down without them being any threat as I spent actually winning the battle.

Rambling aside, I really have enjoyed the mod, and am glad I found it. I am fairly new to the game but have been pretty addicted over the last couple of weeks, and am looking forward to where the game and mods like yours continue in the future. Modding has always been of great interest to me, but I have never managed to find the patience to do it myself beyond a minor level, so I do appreciate the work you have put in here.

Thanks.

Edit: Yeah, I just had to fight off two weak Scavenger fleets that suicidally flew into my station in a row, while waiting for an invasion from the Luddic Church, and this was after they wiped out four of my stations in a row in my nearby system. It's really insane how many people are willing to commit suicide against me. I am doing everything I can to increase my relation with the Independent faction, but since I lose -3 or so reputation every time I defeat one of their suicidal fleets, I may need to resort to custom commands or something to fix the relationship (though I don't know how).

Edit 2: Okay, now after fighting those two fleets off, two "more" fleets of Scavengers are repeatedly attacking the same station over and over again. When I go to fight them, the game says "Your forces let them off without incident," the game literally won't let me destroy them! They then fly away and wait for me to leave the area, then immediately attack again. This seems incredibly broken behavior-wise, and it's really weird to see in action.

Edit 3: I saw the message "Your forces let them off without incident" effectively against the Luddic Church forces as well that invaded my system, so that seems to be a larger issue. I wonder if this is due to the game (or some mod) making it so you can only have so many battles within a certain span of time - but that wouldn't make much sense to me when Combat Readiness already deals with that issue.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on October 22, 2020, 10:41:34 PM
Quote
Completely without the game informing me, random mercenary squads and even scavengers managed to take out 4-5 of my orbital stations - with me only learning about this by manually flying around my colonies or checking the colony management screen.

Is this intended behavior under your mod?

It could potentially be due to one of the other mods I have installed, but it seems really weird. I'm okay with a faction hating me - the Luddic Church launched multiple invasions on me due to them hating my saturation bombing of the Adamantine Order worlds - but those invasions I could counter because the game announced them and announced when they were or were not successful.

The independent fleets however vastly outnumber the invasions from other sources, even if they are weaker individually, and crucially they seem to attack entirely without warning and far more viciously than I ever had to worry about with pirates or the pathers.

Do you have any recommendations for fixing this on my end? I am likely not going to play my current save for all that much longer, but I don't want to have to scrap it over this.

Lol, that's funny, do you know where they are spawning from? If they spawn from your planet then that's a problem with maybe the new Nex update. And for the second point, there won't be any warning because these are roaming fleets that randomly spawn and patrol around any planet that isn't hostile to Independent. Like free patrols but you still need some high command for it to spawn a really big fleet but usually these "big fleet" contains no capital ship, never. It also sometimes go on to attack some pirate or any enemy force but they don't usually raid planet, I think.

Quote
Oh, also, the Adamantine Consortium Battleships are slightly annoying to chase down. They seem to rarely actually fight in battles I have had against them, and instead just run away at the first sign of any danger - wasting all of their flux to phase past minor attacks, then teleporting away so I have to chase them down for ages. I wonder if there's a way to tweak this - is it possible to give a cooldown to their "phase" ability of perhaps 3-4 seconds so they actually end up fighting rather than spending all of their flux to hide? I don't want to make them weaker - I haven't had any problems actually fighting them - but most of my battles against the Adamantine Consortium end up with me spending just as long chasing those things down without them being any threat as I spent actually winning the battle.

This is normal Phase ship AI behavior at the moment. It was not designed for a big phase ship. In Vanilla, The biggest one is Doom that barely has any weapons hence avoidance behavior. In the next Starsector update, there will be an improvement to this aspect. You can still bypass this somewhat with a captain with Aggressive and Ruthless Behavior.

Quote
Edit 2: Okay, now after fighting those two fleets off, two "more" fleets of Scavengers are repeatedly attacking the same station over and over again. When I go to fight them, the game says "Your forces let them off without incident," the game literally won't let me destroy them! They then fly away and wait for me to leave the area, then immediately attack again. This seems incredibly broken behavior-wise, and it's really weird to see in action.

Edit 3: I saw the message "Your forces let them off without incident" effectively against the Luddic Church forces as well that invaded my system, so that seems to be a larger issue. I wonder if this is due to the game (or some mod) making it so you can only have so many battles within a certain span of time - but that wouldn't make much sense to me when Combat Readiness already deals with that issue.

This "Your forces let them off without incident" is also another normal behavior because you're trying to assist your orbital station in combat and the enemy is scare of your big fleet and trying to run. Since you are an assisting force, your orbital station gets to decide what to do and they will always let them go. If you don't want them to run away and still want the orbital station assistance, you have to run your ship at them after this massage end and be the one to initiate the combat. You will have the orbital station in combat as well as it's still in the vicinity.

And for the recommendation in what to do with all these messes, you have a few options
1) Make amend with the Independent by doing their quest. Transport quest always counts for Independent no matter who you're transporting for. Use prisoner spam. Use agent.
2) Build multiple High Commands in one system. The recommended number is 3. Orbital station with no support is just a chunk of steel.
3) Choose a proper system that's easy to defend. I saw you have Terraforming mod install, so, pretty much any system that has at least 8 rich planets with at least one stable orbit slot is fine. You can then spam multiple High commands in it and no one can mess with you ever again.

In my last playthrough, I ally with pirate and hostile to all but still find no trouble ruining everyone's day. Hence if there's something crazy happening, it's not this mod fault.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Echonian on October 23, 2020, 11:42:33 AM
Lol, that's funny, do you know where they are spawning from? If they spawn from your planet then that's a problem with maybe the new Nex update. And for the second point, there won't be any warning because these are roaming fleets that randomly spawn and patrol around any planet that isn't hostile to Independent. Like free patrols but you still need some high command for it to spawn a really big fleet but usually these "big fleet" contains no capital ship, never. It also sometimes go on to attack some pirate or any enemy force but they don't usually raid planet, I think.

No, I am unsure where they are spawning from. But there were tons of independents in my home system - which has about 6 colonized planets of fairly high development at this point in the game - before they became hostile to me. There are so many of them, and while I'm okay with the variety and number of them being due to my system probably being one of the main hubs in the game by this point (two of the planets in particular are highly productive and developed), it's an issue when endless fleets keep attacking my star stations. Weak fleets that are easily destroyed, but which are impossible for me to deal with when they keep attacking without warning and I can only be in one place at a time.

They endlessly focus on my star stations. I only found out they were doing so because I had to save scum when I went to defend against a Luddic Church invasion - a proper invasion - yet the station that they were attacking was apparently already destroyed by random independents (the game of course did not tell me this), so they instantly were able to conquer it without me being able to intervene. I then checked and no less than 4 stations in that same system were knocked out by independents. I then went on a rampage and hunted down about 10 independent fleets nearby, but they were endless, and not being able to auto-resolve those battles made it tedious.

This is normal Phase ship AI behavior at the moment. It was not designed for a big phase ship. In Vanilla, The biggest one is Doom that barely has any weapons hence avoidance behavior. In the next Starsector update, there will be an improvement to this aspect. You can still bypass this somewhat with a captain with Aggressive and Ruthless Behavior.


In that case I will just take it in stride. I realize the behavior is as intended, but as you said - it doesn't work as well on a large ship. Since it using that ability constantly makes it impossible for it to have the flux necessary to actually fight back, and the double teleport away makes it tedious rather than fun to chase it down. If I were using the ships in my own fleet of course they would be more enjoyable I reckon, or piloting it myself, but as part of an AI fleet they seem a bit weird in their current state.

This "Your forces let them off without incident" is also another normal behavior because you're trying to assist your orbital station in combat and the enemy is scare of your big fleet and trying to run. Since you are an assisting force, your orbital station gets to decide what to do and they will always let them go. If you don't want them to run away and still want the orbital station assistance, you have to run your ship at them after this massage end and be the one to initiate the combat. You will have the orbital station in combat as well as it's still in the vicinity.

And for the recommendation in what to do with all these messes, you have a few options
1) Make amend with the Independent by doing their quest. Transport quest always counts for Independent no matter who you're transporting for. Use prisoner spam. Use agent.
2) Build multiple High Commands in one system. The recommended number is 3. Orbital station with no support is just a chunk of steel.
3) Choose a proper system that's easy to defend. I saw you have Terraforming mod install, so, pretty much any system that has at least 8 rich planets with at least one stable orbit slot is fine. You can then spam multiple High commands in it and no one can mess with you ever again.

In my last playthrough, I ally with pirate and hostile to all but still find no trouble ruining everyone's day. Hence if there's something crazy happening, it's not this mod fault.

Good to know I can still initiate combat by chasing them down afterwards, though it is odd that the station is letting them go rather than letting me decide when it is my own station. It would be nice if the game were modified to allow me to chase down enemies in the case of assisting a station, because obviously a station shouldn't be deciding whether to "chase down" an enemy (since they can't, logically speaking, chase anyone at all).

I have been using an agent for the Independent forces, but my reputation goes down far too quickly with the -3 from every single one I have to defeat (1 at least per day if I'm patrolling my home system) in order to defend my starbases. Honestly it's just really weird that my reputation goes down with the independent faction in the first place, let alone by so much - when they are independent. I wonder if there's a way to mod the game to make the Independent faction have less influential changes in reputation, because it is really weird that random mercenaries, smugglers, salvagers, etc - all would hate me increasingly more every time I dare to defend my own station against some other unaffiliated group of independent ships.

I'm in the process of finally getting proper High Commands built in my home system right now actually. Since upgrading from Patrol HQ to the next level requires an industry slot however, and given the limited number of those, it has taken me a very long time to have the free room. I'm hoping that will help a bit.

Ultimately I might just have to use a console command or such though to reset their reputation, because I'm not looking forward to having to patrol my home system for the next few in-game months doing dozens of battles against weak fleets.

Thank you for the advice.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Echonian on October 23, 2020, 11:53:52 AM
Since my previous post was answered more or less, I had another question.

Is there a particular balancing philosophy behind specific weapons, ships, or other aspects of this game which could be shared so that I might be able to potentially rebalance some faction packs to work properly with this mod?

I realize adding new factions officially might be too much work, but I'm considering the idea of doing the testing and implementation myself for one or two custom factions at least. Since I really love the custom factions in this mod as well as the combat changes, finding a way to make it work with other faction mods would be great (even if the lore might seem a bit odd).

I might not end up actually doing this, but it is something I have been looking into, so if it's even a possibility any relevant balancing information would be appreciated.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 23, 2020, 04:37:35 PM
@Albreo
Thank you for answering Echonian's questions! I appreciate it.  :)

@Echonian
First, welcome to Starsector and the forums and thanks for trying out the mod! I'm glad you are (mostly) having a good time with it. I'll add two things to Albreo's response:

1) Alongside the coming AI changes in the next Starsector update, the next Archean Order update will remove the jump ability from the Tyrant in place of a speed boosting system that is more punishable. If it makes the Tyrant weaker in the AI's hands until the official update, so be it. I'd rather that than a tedious battle every time. It might not weaken the AI with it though as one additional thing I've done is create some flux free builds. It might make the AI more willing to engage before its flux gets too high. We'll see I guess, I can't really afford the time to deep dive test its performance.

2) Sat-bombing a colony of any faction will make any faction that cares about atrocities (defined in the faction file under: "caresAboutAtrocities":true,) hostile or lose a lot of rep. Even though the independents hate the AC, from a lore perspective bombing not only kills dreadlords and barons but also the slaves that work in their colonies. That will make the independents angry at you for the collateral damage caused. I'm surprised that it didn't make the Sci-Corps mad at you too to be honest - but maybe distance matters? Either way, it's not something I directly manage in the mod. It relies on vanilla settings and mechanics there. Nex could also affect rep in different ways than vanilla, but I'm not really sure. Trying to change existing rep impacts would require way too much hackery though. It would make the mod incompatible with a lot of other mods.

FWIW that experience sounds highly annoying. From what I remember, I thought independent fleets wouldn't spawn from faction colonies that are hostile to independents and vice versa. I'm not sure if this directly applies to player colonies though - there could be something special going on I'm not aware of. If you have the save still, you could try setting that value to "false" for independents and then sat bomb the AC again and see if the same result occurs. I think it is still overridden in the current release, but I don't override a lot of faction content in the next update since its technically redundant unless I'm making changes.

For Console Commands:

SetRelation independent neutral (or w.e relation you want them at) should do the trick.


Since my previous post was answered more or less, I had another question.

Is there a particular balancing philosophy behind specific weapons, ships, or other aspects of this game which could be shared so that I might be able to potentially rebalance some faction packs to work properly with this mod?

I realize adding new factions officially might be too much work, but I'm considering the idea of doing the testing and implementation myself for one or two custom factions at least. Since I really love the custom factions in this mod as well as the combat changes, finding a way to make it work with other faction mods would be great (even if the lore might seem a bit odd).

I might not end up actually doing this, but it is something I have been looking into, so if it's even a possibility any relevant balancing information would be appreciated.

There is a set of balance sliders I use, yes. A *short* summary:

Spoiler
1) Weapon counts:

Frigates: 4-6 small weapons or 3-4 small weapons and one medium weapon, etc. If a hangar bay exists, 1-3 weapons. The more weapons, the less defense or higher the DP as a counter-balance. A built in wing is generally smaller and replaces slower than standard module wings, and either costs more DP or takes the place of a weapon or two.

Destroyers: Same number of small weapons but also typically 3-4 medium weapons. Slightly greater defenses and lower combat speed than frigates. Less maneuverability. Slightly higher DP. Destroyer carriers get 2-3 hangar bays (Epiphany now has 3 for the next update). Same number of small weapons but 0-1 medium weapons. The presence of a medium weapon should remove a hangar bay or have very high DP.

Cruisers: 8-12 small weapons and 4-6 medium weapons and 0-2 large weapons. Same stat differences that differentiate frigates from destroyers but by a larger margin comparatively. Carrier cruisers usually have 4-6 hangar bays and only 6-10 small weapons and ~2-3 medium weapons. Combat cruiser still have 2-4 bays, but can't use them as efficiently as carriers (will discuss details further down)

Capitals:  15-30 small weapons -- 8-12 medium -- 3-6 large (variance depends on DP/defense/role). Much higher defensive stats for capitals and low speed. Like cruisers, non-carrier capitals have 2-4 inefficient hangar bays while carrier capitals have as many as 10 efficient hangar bays. 10 is the max because with the hullmod bringing the total to 12 that is the most the UI can reasonably handle in the refit screen.

Weapon layout guidelines: Weapon arcs and position are such that at least 2 small weapons can be used for PD at most directions for a frigate or destroyer and 3-4 can be used for a cruiser. Capitals have the most overlapping arcs, but keep in mind that you can't overlap too many arcs for both aesthetic reasons and because that is oftentimes wasted ordinance when considering lots of small targets. At least 3 large weapons and 4 medium weapons should generally be able to focus fire on one target in the case of capitals.

Sprite size guidelines: Each weapon size is one size smaller relative to vanilla. So vanilla medium is AO large, vanilla small is AO medium, etc. From there, sprite size generally scales with OP cost or possibly the range of the weapon. Fighters are a lot smaller than vanilla, but typically have similar wing sizes. They replace slower and have less standard range than vanilla wings since carriers will buff these values with hullmods.

Weapon flux cost guidelines: Short range, low armor penetration and fast firing weapons don't usually cost flux. These are considered assault weapons. PD weapons also don't cost flux. Heavy assault weapons, such as the Railgun or Dual Railgun, fire with 0.2 - 0.4 flux efficiency considering they are longer range than the standard assault weapon. Strike weapons deal a lot of damage very quickly, but fire with 0.4 - 0.8 efficiency or have a lot lower sustained dps. The higher the armor penetration for an assault weapon, the lower range or DPS it probably needs to have. Fire support (or very long ranged) weapons have greater than 1.0 firing efficiency and lower sustained dps in most cases. Missiles are different. Many strike missiles don't cost flux but have very low sustained dps and can be heavily mitigated by PD (see Atropos) and long range missiles are also heavily mitigated by PD but have better efficiency to fire (~0.5 - 0.8) compared to non-missile fire support weapons.

Designation details: (these are done using built-in hullmods -- more of these will be added in the next update)

Frigates: +100% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 35% of max flux not considering skills.

Destroyers: +50% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 20% of max flux not considering skills.

Cruisers: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +20% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Capitals: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +30% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- half the 0-flux speed boost -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Carriers (any size): Same designation benefits as warships but also -- half the 0-flux speed boost unless a capital which already has that -- 50% replacement rate bonus -- 100% range bonus for effective wing range -- OP discounts to weapons depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Phew! That's a start anyway! Obviously these are just guidelines that I go by, and exceptions of all kinds exist in order to create unique ships. At the end of the day, playtesting is important both 1v1 and fleet simulations. I hope this helps give an idea of how to approach a rebalanced faction mod or creation of additional custom ones.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Echonian on October 25, 2020, 12:30:52 PM
Thank you for the detailed reply, that answers everything I needed.

As far as the independent fleets are concerned - they became less of an issue after a bit of time had passed. I suspect that the independent fleets initially attacking me were largely "already" in my area or nearby at the time that my relation with them became poor, but once I cleared out enough of them and my colony defenses were working they became less of an issue. Or perhaps - since the Independents are rarely hostile to anyone - there was less of a risk of their fleets being destroyed, so they were too numerous until they threw themselves to their deaths upon my forces? I'm unsure, especially since I don't know how the spawning works exactly, but it seems to have resolved itself. Though I may want to look into this more in the future.

It makes sense from a lore perspective that they would dislike my saturation bombing. What confused me more was that the Adamantine Consortium had done the exact same saturation bombing to one of my colonies, and (at least with my mods) that should have made the independents hostile to them. Which in turn should have made them not care as much about my saturation bombing, as everyone else who hated the Adamantine Consortium "overlooked" the issue (which was pretty much everyone). Might be a Nex related issue.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 25, 2020, 02:45:45 PM
Thank you for the detailed reply, that answers everything I needed.

As far as the independent fleets are concerned - they became less of an issue after a bit of time had passed. I suspect that the independent fleets initially attacking me were largely "already" in my area or nearby at the time that my relation with them became poor, but once I cleared out enough of them and my colony defenses were working they became less of an issue. Or perhaps - since the Independents are rarely hostile to anyone - there was less of a risk of their fleets being destroyed, so they were too numerous until they threw themselves to their deaths upon my forces? I'm unsure, especially since I don't know how the spawning works exactly, but it seems to have resolved itself. Though I may want to look into this more in the future.

It makes sense from a lore perspective that they would dislike my saturation bombing. What confused me more was that the Adamantine Consortium had done the exact same saturation bombing to one of my colonies, and (at least with my mods) that should have made the independents hostile to them. Which in turn should have made them not care as much about my saturation bombing, as everyone else who hated the Adamantine Consortium "overlooked" the issue (which was pretty much everyone). Might be a Nex related issue.

Np! For exact stat comparisons, the spreadsheets are labeled pretty clearly by hulls size and weapon size/type. I'd probably wait until the next AO update to start modifying any other factions though. For one, you'll have access to the new designation hullmods that will be included. For another, the file/override structure of the mod has been greatly improved upon and it will be easier to decipher stats and such. I'm working hard on this today. I had taken a small break after making a bunch of new weapons (and I still have two more to make) to give more Legendary options and fill in some niches.

As for the independents thing, I'm glad the spawning seemed to hold true. I may have changed this is the update version so maybe this isn't accurate to the currently released version?, but I checked the Nex faction config and independents have a starting relationship of "Vengeful" with the Adamantine Consortium, and a 0.01 chance of a positive diplomacy event. Even then, the max relationship should be "Inhospitable" so it's weird that they weren't hostile to each other.

Adamantine Consortium, too, has a starting relationship of "Vengeful" with Independents and should be locked out of Diplomacy altogether.

So, maybe something else is coming into play or I have the wrong values for the exerelinFactionConfig files?? I'm not really sure. I'll have to ask Histidine for some advice for better control of the faction config. It should be really rare for those two factions to be at peace. Hmm.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on October 25, 2020, 03:50:56 PM
Nexerelin also has a "random faction relations" toggle because it wasn't hard enough to troubleshoot already.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 25, 2020, 10:55:41 PM
Nexerelin also has a "random faction relations" toggle

Ahh, that makes more sense, ok thank you for the info I did not know that! I'll keep that in mind. I assume it defaults to false, but if not, I'll look into maybe a soft override option for not-random-generated campaigns in order to help preserve the lore mechanics of the standard core starts. Probably not this update since my plate is full there, but the information itself is very helpful.

If no override option exists, oh well *shrug*. Custom start options from the perspective of a 4x design make sense, but it does help to explain why some experience reports seem to defy the intended lore mechanics from the Nex config. Honestly, I need to take a break and play a full campaign with Nex at some point to better understand all the mechanics there. Same for modern vanilla, really. I'm not sure I fully fleshed out a campaign since ~0.7-0.8 - though some of that was purposeful to not spoil anything for myself and then get a fresh new experience. Also - time spent not modding - obviously. It's a delicate balance alongside RL lol.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on October 26, 2020, 06:58:06 AM
Random relations are off by default; however, Nex does alter the vanilla faction relations to make the game more "interesting" by default, iirc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on October 26, 2020, 05:23:20 PM
Ah ok I looked in the Nex faction config for Nex itself and found:     "noRandomizeRelations":true,

 - so that should be the soft override I'm looking for.

Random relations are off by default; however, Nex does alter the vanilla faction relations to make the game more "interesting" by default, iirc.

Thanks! I checked the independent file in Nex and it shouldn't interfere with the Archean Order Nex config itself. It could be possible that another mod is doing something by implementing their own independent faction Nex config, but even then it shouldn't affect the Adamantine Consortium Nex config sooo... I honestly don't know.

The soft override for random faction relationships was easy enough to add that I will include it in the next AO update. That way users will have to disable it within the AO mod as well - which at the very least should prevent this from happening on accident.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: hollow on November 02, 2020, 06:26:06 AM
Hello there!

First of all great mod, I've been playing it more than the original game for quite a while now.
I feel like this mod makes the ships and weapons feel quite powerful while the overhaul to the wings is also really amazing.

My question at the moment is if there are any faction mods that are compatible with AO (other than interstellar imperium)
and if there is any way to balance out the faction ships to be able to keep up with AO ships
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 02, 2020, 03:29:58 PM
Hello there!

First of all great mod, I've been playing it more than the original game for quite a while now.
I feel like this mod makes the ships and weapons feel quite powerful while the overhaul to the wings is also really amazing.

My question at the moment is if there are any faction mods that are compatible with AO (other than interstellar imperium)
and if there is any way to balance out the faction ships to be able to keep up with AO ships

Thanks!  :)

In the current update, I'd say most faction mods that make their own ships/weapons and don't use vanilla ids should be compatible. In the next release, I have removed the override behavior of most of the vanilla stuff (variants I think are the only exception for now) so that should open up the mod to most if not all faction mods to be crash free.

As for balance, here is a brief summary of how I design the mod's balance (brought down from an earlier post for convenience):

Spoiler
1) Weapon counts:

Frigates: 4-6 small weapons or 3-4 small weapons and one medium weapon, etc. If a hangar bay exists, 1-3 weapons. The more weapons, the less defense or higher the DP as a counter-balance. A built in wing is generally smaller and replaces slower than standard module wings, and either costs more DP or takes the place of a weapon or two.

Destroyers: Same number of small weapons but also typically 3-4 medium weapons. Slightly greater defenses and lower combat speed than frigates. Less maneuverability. Slightly higher DP. Destroyer carriers get 2-3 hangar bays (Epiphany now has 3 for the next update). Same number of small weapons but 0-1 medium weapons. The presence of a medium weapon should remove a hangar bay or have very high DP.

Cruisers: 8-12 small weapons and 4-6 medium weapons and 0-2 large weapons. Same stat differences that differentiate frigates from destroyers but by a larger margin comparatively. Carrier cruisers usually have 4-6 hangar bays and only 6-10 small weapons and ~2-3 medium weapons. Combat cruiser still have 2-4 bays, but can't use them as efficiently as carriers (will discuss details further down)

Capitals:  15-30 small weapons -- 8-12 medium -- 3-6 large (variance depends on DP/defense/role). Much higher defensive stats for capitals and low speed. Like cruisers, non-carrier capitals have 2-4 inefficient hangar bays while carrier capitals have as many as 10 efficient hangar bays. 10 is the max because with the hullmod bringing the total to 12 that is the most the UI can reasonably handle in the refit screen.

Weapon layout guidelines: Weapon arcs and position are such that at least 2 small weapons can be used for PD at most directions for a frigate or destroyer and 3-4 can be used for a cruiser. Capitals have the most overlapping arcs, but keep in mind that you can't overlap too many arcs for both aesthetic reasons and because that is oftentimes wasted ordinance when considering lots of small targets. At least 3 large weapons and 4 medium weapons should generally be able to focus fire on one target in the case of capitals.

Sprite size guidelines: Each weapon size is one size smaller relative to vanilla. So vanilla medium is AO large, vanilla small is AO medium, etc. From there, sprite size generally scales with OP cost or possibly the range of the weapon. Fighters are a lot smaller than vanilla, but typically have similar wing sizes. They replace slower and have less standard range than vanilla wings since carriers will buff these values with hullmods.

Weapon flux cost guidelines: Short range, low armor penetration and fast firing weapons don't usually cost flux. These are considered assault weapons. PD weapons also don't cost flux. Heavy assault weapons, such as the Railgun or Dual Railgun, fire with 0.2 - 0.4 flux efficiency considering they are longer range than the standard assault weapon. Strike weapons deal a lot of damage very quickly, but fire with 0.4 - 0.8 efficiency or have a lot lower sustained dps. The higher the armor penetration for an assault weapon, the lower range or DPS it probably needs to have. Fire support (or very long ranged) weapons have greater than 1.0 firing efficiency and lower sustained dps in most cases. Missiles are different. Many strike missiles don't cost flux but have very low sustained dps and can be heavily mitigated by PD (see Atropos) and long range missiles are also heavily mitigated by PD but have better efficiency to fire (~0.5 - 0.8) compared to non-missile fire support weapons.

Designation details: (these are done using built-in hullmods -- more of these will be added in the next update)

Frigates: +100% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 35% of max flux not considering skills.

Destroyers: +50% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 20% of max flux not considering skills.

Cruisers: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +20% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Capitals: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +30% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- half the 0-flux speed boost -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Carriers (any size): Same designation benefits as warships but also -- half the 0-flux speed boost unless a capital which already has that -- 50% replacement rate bonus -- 100% range bonus for effective wing range -- OP discounts to weapons depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Phew! That's a start anyway! Obviously these are just guidelines that I go by, and exceptions of all kinds exist in order to create unique ships. At the end of the day, playtesting is important both 1v1 and fleet simulations. I hope this helps give an idea of how to approach a rebalanced faction mod or creation of additional custom ones.
[close]

Keep in mind these are more like guidelines and to get a real sense of the scale that I tend to shoot for would require study of the data spreadsheets for things like weapons and hulls, etc. Another thing that is going to prove difficult without sprite edits will be hullsize scaling. The addition of more small weapons as a part of the aesthetics of the mod and a defining difference between hull sizes makes balancing against standard vanilla balance very tricky. Even if I mathed out the percentage of dps for 1 AO small weapon to 1 vanilla small weapon on the entire spectrum of damage range, for instance, that would work maybe for frigates and destroyers but not cruisers or capitals, if that makes sense. If I balanced around capitals, then frigates would feel off. It is kind of like fitting the square block into the circle hole unless the mod follows the same weapon scheme for hulls (described above).

TLDR: Balancing other factions will require a certain amount of modding ability that will vary from mod to mod. (For anyone who doesn't already know: Please do not publish any rebalances without the mod author's permission - but personal use is fine. :) )

After I release the next update I may formally make a post in modding and add more detail to it over time. That would get a more comprehensive guide going, but for now the update is enough work as it is - way more than I anticipated, actually. Variant overhauls are brutally tedious lol. Full disclosure: RL stuff has gotten more demanding of my attention lately as well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: hollow on November 03, 2020, 10:26:32 AM
In terms of how modded ships and weapons look and feel the only way I see if it's made into its own separate mod if the mod author really wants his ships to be able to go toe to toe with AO's ships.
hopefully, someone makes a ship or faction mod that fits this mods theme and design

another question, how do you dictate how much flux and hull the ships have? since I want to modify the mod ships flux and hull to be at least comparable to that of AO without making them op
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 04, 2020, 04:23:30 PM
In terms of how modded ships and weapons look and feel the only way I see if it's made into its own separate mod if the mod author really wants his ships to be able to go toe to toe with AO's ships.
hopefully, someone makes a ship or faction mod that fits this mods theme and design

another question, how do you dictate how much flux and hull the ships have? since I want to modify the mod ships flux and hull to be at least comparable to that of AO without making them op

I can give you a rough guide to the considerations there, but the best thing to do would be to use the spreadsheet. Here, I can link you the most current one (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hus46izuk8ex5hj/AAAu1Pru1jZIM900HzM8ZfTsa?dl=0) from the pending update since I think it is the most balanced. (This won't work with the existing mod, so DONT OVERRIDE your existing one. This is for reference only.)

In general, hull depends upon the size of the sprite but also the DP of the ship. The ratio of increase between each hullsize is such that the difference between frigate and destroyer is relatively large, but the difference between destroyer and cruiser is relatively small in comparison. Capitals have a very large amount of hull.

Armor and flux stats are, for obvious reasons, a lot trickier. You'll see that heavily armored ships tend to have all flux stats nerfed in comparison (this is actually a bit different than vanillla which uses shield efficiency as a separate balancing tool for ship uniqueness - though it still tends to scale "up" in terms of shield effectiveness as tech gets newer). What I mean by all flux stats is that they have stacking downsides of worse dissipation, worse shield efficiency, and lower max flux all at the same time. Their armor is significantly better though and their ship systems often take advantage of that for a burst of speed and sometimes increased offense potential - depending upon the ship.

Just like vanilla, midline ships are a balance between the two principles. Their ship systems are generally either mobility or defense-oriented and they tend to be able to field more fighters either defensively or offensively. For the midline capital, it stands out among other capitals because it has a significant built-in range increase - similar to the vanilla Paragon's design (the Paragon is a speedy damage powerhouse).

High tech ships have the best shield efficiency and flux stats in all cases. They also have virtually no armor and high DP costs. If a ship has built-in wings and isn't a cruiser or higher, it gets a spike in DP cost as well.

Conversions, civilian ships, and combat freighters all have their respective stats reduced slightly. At least most of the time.

Numbers are in the spreadsheet for benchmarks. For instance, you can see that the range of shield efficiency between low-high tech is 1.25-0.6 but most ships fall into the 1.15-0.85 range with a couple of outliers in the extreme sections of the spectrum.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 19, 2020, 04:02:56 AM
Any progress regarding the mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 19, 2020, 09:09:15 PM
^ Yes quite a bit.

I've tackled some major exploitative thorns in my side as far as hullmods and ship balance are concerned. I also added 8 more weapons including 2 new Legendary weapons - both used by REDACTED and Sci-Corps. I'm still thinking about potential Legendary weapons for the Trader Guilds but may end up skipping it until I can come up with a good idea or some other niche to be filled.

A big thing I've been trying to do is run lots of simulations to find build strengths/weaknesses and ensure that DP effectiveness hasn't been completely compromised through the new weapons and all the balance changes. That has led to a pretty hefty amount of changes as I add what I will optimistically call "better optimized" builds that represent more concise fleet roles. This hasn't been needed everywhere, but some places desperately required more build variety - especially more defense oriented high tech ships that don't overflux themselves. Those should hopefully better compliment things like strike beam and missile fire support builds for factions like Tri-Tachyon and Sci-Corps. As a whole, that is still a work in progress as I continue to go through the variants.

PD feels like it is in a really good spot at the moment. Specifically, I am currently working on strength comparisons between some of the strike craft wings that I would call outliers. Since I already added a bunch of new wings, it is a good time to make sure they are balanced as expected too. Full disclosure: I am going back and forth between whether I want to increase the replacement rate/reduce replacement time of anti-strike craft fighters and interceptors for the benefit of carriers. The anti-ship builds seem quite a bit more effective than anti-fighter builds in their respective roles so far, but I just started testing this out today so it is still early and changes may not actually be needed. It could have been because the Heron system is tuned too high or the bombers being tested are too strong. I am going to start testing with the Mora to get a more precise control.

Finally, other than final cleanup, I will probably still spend a few days making a couple of REDACTED encounters more interesting - but I don't want to spoil anything there. That has been on the list for a bit but the carrier changes and build making have had full priority. Once I feel confident that I have a good balance foundation (at least) considering the major carrier changes I will stop testing all together and focus on final details. I'm sorry if it feels like I have said that 1000 times now lol. It is true every time I say it though. :)

TLDR: Still working on it a lot, but not yet done.

Here is part of the change notes that is relevant to some of the recent changes: (Full notes is a giant wall of text at this point.)

Spoiler
- New Weapons:
-------------
    - Capital Pulse Cannon (Large Energy Assault Weapon - flux free)
    - Graviton Driver (Medium Energy Anti-Shield Fire Support Weapon)
    - Dual Graviton Driver (Large Energy Anti-Shield Fire Support Weapon)
    - Terrabane Cannon (Medium Energy Anti-Armor Assault Weapon)
    - Dual Terrabane Cannon (Large Energy Anti-Armor Assault Weapon)
    - Ragnarok Beam (Legendary Large Energy Anti-Shield Strike Weapon)
    - Cloudburst SRM Launcher (Legendary Missile Anti-Armor Strike Weapon)
    - Dual Artillery Blaster (Medium Energy Fire Support Weapon)
-----
Weapon/Ship/Hullmod Changes:
------------------------
 - Greatly increased duration of High Energy Focus. Tripled cooldown and reduced charge regen rate.
 - Reduced Tachyon Lance range (slightly) and flux cost. Increased turn rate.
 - Added missile passthrough to most projectile strike and fire support weapons and some larger assault projectile weapons.
 - Cutlass Laser now has missile passthrough, making it a more unique and powerful medium sized PD weapon.
 - Increased effectiveness of PD Cannon, Flak Cannon, and Dual Flack Cannon against strike craft and high hitpoint missiles. Reduced effectiveness vs back to back missile volleys. Details below.
 - Increased Nova Cannon range but reduced dps - added proximity fuse against fighters and increased fuse radius.
 - Increased PD Cannon hit damage/dps but reduced fire rate.
 - Reworked Scythe Cannon to fire three times per salvo instead of four - but fires salvos less often with more time inbetween shots for each individual salvo. Increased hit damage/dps.
 - Increased range, dps and hit damage of Assault Cannon line of weapons and added a small flux cost - now a Heavy Assault option outside of late game ballistics like the Railgun.
 - In keeping with flux mechanics themes and balance trends, I have added flux costs to assault weapons with high dps or range - that scale in cost severity depending upon the stat severity.
 - Increased most low tech, midline and combat freighter ships' armor below the cruiser class. Especially increased utility civilian ship's armor.
 - Reduced flux cost ratio of Ballista Gun, Fissure Cannon, Avalanche Cannon and Dual Avalanche Cannon.
 - Increased dps to ~100ps and slightly increased range of Mass Driver to 750. Increased range and dps of Heavy Mass Driver as well.
 - Flux efficiency of Gatling Laser now at higher than 0.5, range slightly increased to 700. Slightly less accurate.
 - Increased Burst Siege Beam range to 1200 now that adding Advanced Optics makes it extremely flux inefficient.
 - Flux costs for firing beams when equipping Advanced Optics increased to ~120% more up from ~60% more originally.
 - Increased damage, armor penetration and turn rate of Assault Beam.
 - Graviton Beam, Graviton Lance, Assault Beam and Razor Tri-beam are all now PD weapons with assault range. The AI should prioritize ships over missiles for these weapons.
 - ^ These were too powerful with Advanced Optics. The PD change reduces the range bonus from that hullmod down to 200 instead of 500 and allows me to keep flux costs low.
 - Increased dps and hit strength of Phase Beam, Twin Tactical Beam, and Atronarch Beam. Flux costs increased as well.
 - All strike beams now become inefficient when combined with Advanced Optics to offset their range, accuracy and armor penetration.
 - Removed ability to stack multiple defensive hullmods in some situations: Concentrated Shields will no longer stack with Hardened Shields, Extended Shields or Front Shield Emitter.
 - ^ Front Shield Emitter will no longer stack with Stabilized Shields and its benefit to shield upkeep has been slightly reduced.
 - Changed Armored Weapon Mounts armor bonus to a flat increase by hullsize (50/100/120/200) instead of a percent modifier. - Doubled benefit to weapon hitpoints.
 - Changed Luddic Conversion built-in hullmod's armor bonus to a flat amount (100/200/300/500) instead of a percent modifier. - Halved flux stats penalties.
 - Changed Luddic Conversion built-in hullmod's speed bonus to a flat amount (20/20/15/10) instead of a percent modifier.
 - Removed Fourteenth Battlegroup hullmod's effects entirely. Stat differentiation is now handled by a separate ship file for each individual (XIV) ship.
 - ^ The last several points are because percent modifiers are too strong for some ships. Scaling flat increases are much easier to balance.
 - Added additional weapon to the Lasher to give it a forward PD option while preserving anti-ship weapon slots needed to make it competitive.
 - Adjusted Lasher weapon arcs to give better PD coverage and side assault options.
 - Stat balance pass for Paragon, Onslaught, Executor, Wolf, Lasher and Centurion.
 - Switched out Burn Drive for Combat Capacitors for the Lasher.
 - Reworked of most if not all gunships. Main Points:
   - Increased health/armor - should be noticeably more durable against ship PD weaponry over other types of strike craft.
   - Removed most cases of flares and reserved them as a last resort for tricky balance situations such as the Claw and Hercules.
   - Replaced many missile weapons with ballistic or energy weapons. This is for the AI so that most gunships stay on target unless designed as a strike gunship.
 - Reduced Thunder bomber's kinetic payload by 50% and added an Assault Autocannon.
 - Increased damage of fighter-based Tactical Beam and substantially reduced replacement time of the Claw bomber.
[close]

And some pics:

Lasher with additional weapon slot - also highlights some of the hullmod changes and gives some stats:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/sJaS9bK.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/D02t2E5.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/cydDJeH.png)
[close]

A couple of the new weapons (stats not final):
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/CDgNPeH.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/QzbPOv6.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/l0oJdkh.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/EMsHayL.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/sFT9aWX.png)
[close]

New look and stats for the Scythe Cannon:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Flc41xI.png)
[close]

EDIT: Ah what the heck, I wasn't going to spoil it, but, here is one of the Legendary weapons: (View at your own discretion ;) )
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/RPqO0nl.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/JKRFUez.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 21, 2020, 02:37:30 AM
Good to hear it's coming along nicely.

Even though I'm the one making requests for anti-shield/anti-armor energy weapons. Please please make sure it's not going overboard than its ballistic counterpart. There was this heated discussion in Alex's 0.9.5 patch note on the same matter and various people also make good agreements and arguments about it. I also don't want it to outshine the energy damage type.

Quote
- Flux costs for firing beams when equipping Advanced Optics increased to ~120% more up from ~60% more originally.
RIP advance optic. Are you sure this's a good choice? I already can't use it in any build but zero flux. It's just not flux friendly.

Quote
- Graviton Beam, Graviton Lance, Assault Beam and Razor Tri-beam are all now PD weapons with assault range. The AI should prioritize ships over missiles for these weapons.
 - ^ These were too powerful with Advanced Optics. The PD change reduces the range bonus from that hullmod down to 200 instead of 500 and allows me to keep flux costs low.
That did counter my zero flux build but still RIP advance optic. If we... Increase the range benefit by scaling with the flux ratio of the weapon instead will it work? Like 1.2*500 for Tachlance, 0.4*500 for Graviton beam, flux free can eat dirt.

Quote
- Changed Armored Weapon Mounts armor bonus to a flat increase by hullsize (50/100/120/200) instead of a percent modifier. - Doubled benefit to weapon hitpoints.
RIP armored weapon mounts as well. Double weapon hitpoint might actually be good enough to consider it if cheap.

Quote
EDIT: Ah what the heck, I wasn't going to spoil it, but, here is one of the Legendary weapons: (View at your own discretion ;) )
Uh Ho, nice thic beam.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on November 21, 2020, 05:46:19 AM
RIP advance optic. Are you sure this's a good choice? I already can't use it in any build but zero flux. It's just not flux friendly.

Quote
- Graviton Beam, Graviton Lance, Assault Beam and Razor Tri-beam are all now PD weapons with assault range. The AI should prioritize ships over missiles for these weapons.
 - ^ These were too powerful with Advanced Optics. The PD change reduces the range bonus from that hullmod down to 200 instead of 500 and allows me to keep flux costs low.
That did counter my zero flux build but still RIP advance optic. If we... Increase the range benefit by scaling with the flux ratio of the weapon instead will it work? Like 1.2*500 for Tachlance, 0.4*500 for Graviton beam, flux free can eat dirt.

And leave the penalty at +60%?  I doubt I'd ever use it like that.

What about changing the nature of the penalty entirely?  It's going to be pretty hard to balance while the penalty is to flux cost, since beam weapons vary so much on that.  What if it added 500 to range, but increased recharge/reload time by +10-15%?  So the range boost comes with a minor/modest DPS penalty instead.  Basically, you use it to prioritize first strike over sustained DPS.

edit: or 500 for strike, 350 for assault, 200 for PD beams or whatever makes sense, or maybe it doesn't apply to PD beams at all?  IDK.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 21, 2020, 08:52:37 PM
Good to hear it's coming along nicely.

Even though I'm the one making requests for anti-shield/anti-armor energy weapons. Please please make sure it's not going overboard than its ballistic counterpart. There was this heated discussion in Alex's 0.9.5 patch note on the same matter and various people also make good agreements and arguments about it. I also don't want it to outshine the energy damage type.

Thanks! And as far as weapons go, I *think* I caught some if not all of that discussion in the patch notes thread. In this case, it's partly about different design goals. A lot more ships have combination weapon mounts like synergy and composite, etc in the mod. This is especially true for midline ships. So ship balance is *less* reliant on weapon type - though not completely un-reliant if that makes sense.

That being said, I feel like each weapon type is still fairly unique in terms of both playstyle choice and functionality. For instance, most short range missiles are now flux free, but they are also heavily if not completely mitigated, while short range ballistics are flux free but almost always specialized. Flux free energy weapons, on the other hand, deal higher dps than ballistics (about 1/3 more over the ballistic equivalent) and have a faster projectile that is harder to dodge, but have less range. Less range is fine though, because most ships that would use them have speed advantages. In that way it's similar to vanilla design. Energy damage weapons seem to favor the energy weapon type if only because of the higher dps. The Heavy Photon Cannon has 100 less range, 20% less armor penetration, and a lack of burst damage over the Eclipse Cannon in return for less OP and double the flux efficiency. On paper the Heavy Photon Cannon has slightly higher dps, but the burst damage element of the Eclipse Cannon (especially when considering exp magazines) realistically causes the weapon to perform better in comparison from what I've seen. For any easy guestimate if the burst dps is 669 and the sustained is 200 I'd put the actual dps at around 300-350 -ish in most situations. That is compared to the 229ps of the Heavy Photon Cannon.

The new weapons are more intended to fill non-existent niches rather than overlap with ballistic counterparts. The Terrabane Cannon is not really competitive with ballistics because at 0.4 flux efficiency it generates significantly higher flux than the flux-free Heavy Dual Autocannon for only a very tiny bit of extra range and higher overall armor penetration. Dps is the same between the two and the Terrabane has worse accuracy. If it were a universal or synergy mount, I'd more often than not take the ballistic weapon for most builds so I could utilize my flux elsewhere. The Graviton Driver is slightly less clear cut and I'm keeping an eye on it. It has more dps but half the armor penetration and less burst damage compared to its closest competitor: the Hypervelocity Driver. It is a lot more efficient but has less range and a higher OP cost. The main reason for it is that energy weapons completely lacked an anti-shield projectile weapon at the medium and large levels. Since there were less fire support weapons as well - other than beams with adv optics of course - it seemed to make sense to go that route. From tests, I think the Hypervelocity Driver is better at its role, but I will say I'm less confident of that than I am with the Terrabane Cannon and its competitor.


Re: Armored Weapon Mounts

Yeah it was amazingly good with larger heavily armored ships like the Onslaught and Legion. (It stacked with the percentage bonus of the faction hullmods to net even more armor on those!) And it was complete garbage for small low armor ships like the Wolf. Now it should have a place in more builds. The extra 100% additional health to weapons is a sort of consolation prize to heavy armor ships (who have a lot more armor on the small end now). Its cost is the same as it was, so it is very cheap compared to something like Heavy Armor or even Automated Repair Unit - which would serve a similar purpose without the armor bonus.


Re: Advanced Optics

Hmm, ok let's discuss some details and see if that changes opinions. I'm definitely open to suggestions, but beams are super tricky both because of their accuracy and soft flux generation causing a two-pronged balance conundrum.

Pics for easy stat comparisons:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/TvefXKu.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/IuQ3srj.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KBV4PlN.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/oMKzJDH.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/G3h11hH.png)
[close]

A bunch of pics of in-action effectiveness and flux build up on a midline light cruiser:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/CttyQGg.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/0hPm5Lr.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/UUOSmcZ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/7ICkOrO.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/s4sxNwe.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KDHwUze.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/dKM1p2F.png)

For reference this is the Phase Beam and the first pic is the first hit on armor:
(https://i.imgur.com/SKjisjO.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/SyMgvtI.png)

And the flux efficiency for the assault-oriented beams that become Heavy Assault with the hullmod giving them 200 additional range:

(https://i.imgur.com/e0fgB7A.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/A3tOLDD.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/4zKqxT3.png)
[close]

And finally, a battle between a Strike Paragon and Elite Onslaught - one using basic strike beams and one using adv optics:
Spoiler
Battle 1:

(https://i.imgur.com/AtBdPUP.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Rqmh2hF.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/zAj3CZ9.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/jEOmjhP.png)


Battle 2 with an adv optics build:

(https://i.imgur.com/c1JmCQV.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/6g97aZY.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/npmAYvN.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/8K2hmAI.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/zy9AfRO.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/IceWTrH.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/cCpmJSv.png)
[close]

Ok, so right off the bat you can see the dps difference between the beam and the artillery as well as the much poorer flux efficiency of the artillery compared to the pre-adv optics beam. This is because the unmodified beam is a strike weapon. The Enforcer has 1700 armor and the beam does a good job of penetrating through despite the very high armor rating for a destroyer. When adding adv optics, however, the beam now has 1300 or 1500 range depending on the beam - but! - becomes as flux inefficient as the artillery. That is the intended design goal.

When you combine those stats with the fact that the beam is crazy accurate and doesn't do something like max the Aegis' flux meter even with that kind of range on it, I think it skews to the beam's favor despite the nerf to adv optics. This is especially true when fighting off fast and maneuverable ships like frigates. Sure, the artillery is a little more damaging to the armor itself overall (when it hits) and the extra OP saved from not needing the hullmod helps overall flux efficiency for the build, but I wouldn't call the beam combo bad by any means. (It does help that most beam-using ships will have good flux stats and typically a larger OP pool to begin with.) Part of the reason for that is the accuracy as I stated, and part of the reason is the higher dps since the beam starts as a strike weapon.

Now for assault beams like the Graviton Beam, they get the added benefit of being surprisingly competent PD weapons and assault weapons to start off. Their flux efficiency is very high but there is a small flux cost considering their dual role and effectiveness. Add adv optics to the build and once again the role changes - from assault to heavy assault in this case. Since the PD role is maintained, I think it is a pretty interesting concept to have a very long range PD weapon that passes through (and almost always destroys) any missiles in its path but is still an effective heavy assault damage dealer. The downside of its very good performance is the now higher flux generation that makes the weapon similar to any other heavy assault weapon (like the Railgun). Since flux costs are a larger part of the equation, it is unlikely that the build can support a bunch of strike or fire support weapons alongside it without serious flux stats. However, that also gives missiles like the Reaper, Atropos or Heavy Annihilator a chance to shine since none of those weapons cost flux yet remain viable strike weapons. (Keep in mind not all stats are final as testing is still occurring.)

As far as the suggestions for alternative balancing mechanisms, technically I don't think I can distinguish between assault and other kinds of weapons because it is not in the MutableShipStatsAPI so it has to be between PD and non-PD beams. I've tried damage reduction before and it doesn't seem to work out very well. From what I remember, it mostly slows down the battle if the opposing ship is low tech because it loses armor penetration but keeps the shield up enough to allow a lot of kiting. I'm not completely sure if there is an API for recharge time - which might be better than pure damage - but I have a hunch that if there was I would have used it before switching to flux costs.

That is the thought process behind the changes at least and testing is promising so far as the pic demonstration kind of shows. Granted that battles have a fair amount of random variance and that's why I have to track trends, but the two builds were very close in performance and the "Fire Support" adv optics build actually was a bit worse off as intended. Now keeping the two large side-facing weapons as Atronarch Beams? That would likely cause the Paragon to lose to the Onslaught as that would be more of a "Dedicated Fire Support" build... but watch out smaller ships!  :D

Any thoughts/concerns now that the details are laid out? Hopefully that explains the reasoning at the very least.


*EDIT*
Well, I have tested a few weapons out extensively tonight since it came up. For now, I am going to remove any flux costs from the Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance. I'm not convinced all PD Assault Beams need zero-flux yet, but the particular weapons I am changing are kind of weird because they are balanced around kinetic soft flux. This is fine when firing at a hullsize lower than a cruiser since the dps of either weapon usually outpaces dissipation and has a visible impact to the flux battle. Armor penetration is limited enough that it doesn't feel more powerful than something like a Twin Tactical Beam when you consider the different weapon roles. Where it really gets sour is when facing high tech ships at the capital level with a large dissipation value. It seems to do very little in comparison to hard flux options (part of the reason I created the Graviton Driver in the first place) or even just zero-flux or projectile assault weapons. For this reason, the added flux is hurtful enough in that scenario to make it completely unviable - and advanced optics hurts rather than helps because firing at missiles can build flux up too fast in exchange for very little noticeable impact to the overall ship-ship flux battle.

For that reason, I am going with zero-flux and hoping that the OP investment for advanced optics will be enough to make 200 additional range on either weapon a consideration rather than a no-brainer. If that feels too strong at the small ship level considering the weapons' zero-flux perfect accuracy with fairly high dps for the weapon class, I may go with basileus' suggestion and remove all benefit to PD weapons while simultaneously removing all of their flux costs across the board. Or I'll reduce the range bonus to 100 instead of 200, etc, if that feels better.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 22, 2020, 04:57:13 AM
What I intend to compare for is not the balance between an Advance Optic beam and a long-range ballistic but an un-optic beam. The logic behind how I decide not to use it is the survivability of the ship and overall DPS. Because beams weapon is soft flux the need for constant suppression is a must. If the flux cost goes too high and can't be fire continuously, the suppression ability is practically voided. It may be ok to reduce the number of beam weapons to lower flux cost with alternative energy weapons but by that time the Advance Optic might not be worth it anymore just to apply to a couple of weapons where targeting core can buff all weapons at once. And for survivability, it will be like Archean Order ships that kill themselves by wasting all the flux on the enermy efficient shield.

This problem does not apply to zero flux and cheap flux Graviton beam. But when the weapon is an Artronarch beam (which has short-range and would benefit most from Advance Optic), Tachlance, or phase beam that has a high cost to fire, it's very crippling to use Advance Optic with it. Do try to test with 4x Artronarch Paragon I think it will just kill itself from the flux cost. Also, do test with outnumbered fights as well I think that the con will be quite obvious as it can't fire weapons in retaliation in quick succession and will be gang to death more often than un-optic build.

Also to note, I tend to play with max deployment so the situation I'm in may be different from others.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on November 22, 2020, 07:28:45 AM
FWIW, I agree with everything Albreo just said, and my MO was to fly around with a combat fleet of ~140DP for everything except REDACTED stations.  Despite our different playstyles, we have similar views about the ideal way to build ships.

1-on-1 testing is useful, but also has its limitations.  In a fleet setting, your frontline capitals will tend to be constantly harassed by strike craft and faster smaller vessels.  Part of why I was able to deal with the old Tach Lance ships so effectively is that they needed so much of their flux pool to fire that I could usually make sure they only ever got between 0-1 shots off.  With a +120% penalty, the Artronarch beam may end up in the same boat.  If the other side has a numerical advantage and can keep even mild pressure up, then it will only fire a few times.

Basically, it's a mod that works if you're committed to fielding superior numbers and overwhelming the enemy as quickly as possible with an alpha strike doctrine--or if there were a viable and faster tank to hide behind.  There's nothing wrong with that.

With the nerfs to super flux-efficiency, maybe alpha strike will become the new meta.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 22, 2020, 07:33:57 PM
^ Ok I'll make sure I test some fleet scenarios to make sure its not overboard. Ideally you would want a tanky escort to let the long ranged beam strike without punishment, but there isn't a build available to the AI in the current release. So the next update will have at least one if not a couple. Also with more weapons requiring some flux to fire, soft flux pressure is a little more meaningful on the average build. Still, like I said it is tricky so yeah I'm definitely still testing.

Do you two feel the same way about ballistic fire support weapons? Or do they feel better because of the hard flux? Have either of you experimented with artillery builds? I know the artillery onslaught doesn't particularly feel weak to surrounds or pressure, but that could be its large amount of weapons and its armor. High tech ships are in a lot more trouble if they are overfluxed and under a lot of pressure compared to low tech armored ships. So maybe that is also a factor that make beam weapons feel weaker?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 23, 2020, 08:49:45 AM
By no means beam weapons are weak, that pinpoint accuracy is OP enough to kill even the most heavily armored ship by drilling through a small section of armor. I think the entire problem is the penalty to flux cost. It's just too severe/critical to trade for. It's not worth the risk to lose ship IMO.

As for another question, no, I didn't test the fire support build because I think the flux cost to fire is not worth it. There's a catch though. I think if you can make all fire support weapons able to go through the friendly ship (I hope the AI will be able to handle it) and have a range of around 1500 it might become very useful. You know, "fire support" suppose to come from the rear. Without having to deploy the shield, those flux cost might not be so bad anymore.

As for the Advance Optic, we can slowly think it through. I think a large penalty to flux cost is a no go. It can still be there..., and less intense, in combination with other debuffs of choice. From what I understand, you want Advance Optic to be able to transform the normal beams into the fire support beams with similar flux cost to ballistic counterpart and similar range. But the beam is slightly different from ballistic as it, has no specialization, has no opportunistic window to fire like an explosive when the shield is down which makes the damage x 200% still lower than 1.0 flux ratio, and is fine.

I think the mod will not work as intended for every weapon and the easy way would be to craft a new entire line of support energy weapons.

Zzz
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on November 23, 2020, 10:24:46 AM
Honestly, it might be worth thinking about ditching the whole "beams only do soft flux" mechanic altogether for AO. It causes nothing but balance headaches and doesn't really make anything better.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 23, 2020, 04:40:38 PM
By no means beam weapons are weak, that pinpoint accuracy is OP enough to kill even the most heavily armored ship by drilling through a small section of armor. I think the entire problem is the penalty to flux cost. It's just too severe/critical to trade for. It's not worth the risk to lose ship IMO.

As for another question, no, I didn't test the fire support build because I think the flux cost to fire is not worth it. There's a catch though. I think if you can make all fire support weapons able to go through the friendly ship (I hope the AI will be able to handle it) and have a range of around 1500 it might become very useful. You know, "fire support" suppose to come from the rear. Without having to deploy the shield, those flux cost might not be so bad anymore.

As for the Advance Optic, we can slowly think it through. I think a large penalty to flux cost is a no go. It can still be there..., and less intense, in combination with other debuffs of choice. From what I understand, you want Advance Optic to be able to transform the normal beams into the fire support beams with similar flux cost to ballistic counterpart and similar range. But the beam is slightly different from ballistic as it, has no specialization, has no opportunistic window to fire like an explosive when the shield is down which makes the damage x 200% still lower than 1.0 flux ratio, and is fine.

I think the mod will not work as intended for every weapon and the easy way would be to craft a new entire line of support energy weapons.

I wonder if I can actually make the artillery projectile pass through allied targets... hmm, I'm not sure if there is a way to do that or not (at least without complicated scripting anyway), but it is certainly an interesting idea! It would align fire support weapons more with carriers in the ability to support nearby allies regardless of the situation instead of requiring a window through the battle line to fire through.

And good point regarding the specialization improving the damage to be efficient assuming a hit on the armor. Efficiency isn't everything though - I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure OP to damage ratio favors the beam in pretty much every case. Survivability is important, however, so I can understand why the added stress to shields might make advanced optics not worth it if the player loses the ship. What I'll probably do is set up a mission scenario and see how easy it is for advanced optics builds to overflux and die. And I'll probably test ballistic FS too while I'm at it.

As far as new line of support energy weapons, I added a medium version of the Artillery Blaster and the Graviton Driver line is another support one as well. Since those are all projectile weapons, they are different than beam support weapons entirely. One thing I am considering is a medium version of the Ion Beam as another option. Not 100% sure it is needed though.

Honestly, it might be worth thinking about ditching the whole "beams only do soft flux" mechanic altogether for AO. It causes nothing but balance headaches and doesn't really make anything better.

I agree. It is a matter of the dev time taken to script that behavior. Anyone remember what mod does that? I know I asked a long while back but I never got around to checking out how complicated it would be or whether the code to do that is open source.

If that turns out to not be an option, I also wonder if CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR would be something to consider after the next official update? Though it was designed for use with missiles, maybe it would also make the beam fire mostly at unstripped armor and not get wasted on the shield? Players of course could manually fire it as often as they want for the full dps, but it would certainly help the AI use the weapon more as it was intended. Assuming it works as I think it will, I'm definitely adding that to the Terminator Beam.

-----------------------------------------------------------
*EDIT*

I wonder if I can actually make the artillery projectile pass through allied targets... hmm, I'm not sure if there is a way to do that or not (at least without complicated scripting anyway), but it is certainly an interesting idea! It would align fire support weapons more with carriers in the ability to support nearby allies regardless of the situation instead of requiring a window through the battle line to fire through.

I confirmed that this is possible! If I change the projectile collision class to MISSILE_NO_FF the projectile it will pass through allies. I thought maybe this would make PD hit it but it looks like it doesn't so I'll ask on the modding thread whether this will cause any unintended side effects. If not, I think I will go ahead and make this change. I'm not sure if the AI will understand the behavior though. I'll have to test using a mission and see.

It might be a little weird or confusing for a new player since that breaks the norms of other weapons, but probably nothing that can't be solved by adding the fact to the description and ancillary data in the weapon stat card.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on November 23, 2020, 07:15:30 PM
Quote
One thing I am considering is a medium version of the Ion Beam as another option. Not 100% sure it is needed though.

FWIW, there have been times when I wished that option existed.  I wouldn't say that it's needed, but it opens up some interesting options around Fire Support / Control.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 23, 2020, 07:35:23 PM
FWIW, there have been times when I wished that option existed.  I wouldn't say that it's needed, but it opens up some interesting options around Fire Support / Control.

Oh ok cool well maybe I'll spend some time on that tonight then.  :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I made the change for ballistic fire support to pass through allies and increased the range by 200 or more across the board. Flux inefficiency remains the same. I also ran a simulation with two artillery onslaughts and a bunch of supporting frigates against lots of slow cruisers. The AI definitely understands that the weapons pass through allies and it will will use them even when an allied screen is in front of them. Allies still try and keep out of firing range LOS for other weapons and the AI also understands that it has weapons that won't pass through allies. I am both surprised and impressed at how well that worked out.

In short, thank you for that suggestion Albreo I think it is a very good change for building that kind of ship role!

I have a potential idea to do the same thing for beams only when advanced optics is equipped. (Ah darn I forgot there aren't instances of WeaponSpecAPI so any changes would be global. Can't do it that way. Maybe I'll just let strike and FS beams do this as a special case?) I may also increase the range bonus for adv optics. Would that make using strike beams more attractive with that hullmod? Even when only a couple of strike beams are present? The hullmod already increases range for beams higher than anything would get from Integrated Targeting Unit, but a little more couldn't hurt considering the multiple downsides compared to 0 downsides from ITU.

*EDIT*
Annnd I got no friendly fire to work for beams (thanks SafariJohn!) and it was way easier to do than I thought it would be. Adding that to the strike and fire support beams.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on November 24, 2020, 06:23:13 AM
I agree. It is a matter of the dev time taken to script that behavior. Anyone remember what mod does that? I know I asked a long while back but I never got around to checking out how complicated it would be or whether the code to do that is open source.
0.95 has (unless it gets removed between now and release) a player skill that gives all beams x% hard flux - that would mean there's going to be easy code support for that. Maybe wait until then?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 24, 2020, 07:09:32 AM
Man, that was quick work right there. This might absolutely be the only time to shine for Timid captains all over the sector!!

I also propose another idea to go along with it, even though I don't want to delay the mod any longer. You know that carrier tag ships are really good at rear hugging a capital and that would be an ideal position for a fire-support team. I wonder if it is possible to make a Hull-mod that can override a ship tag to act as a pseudo carrier.

Now that I try to visualize it, the game complexity will really go up a notch. All tanky frontline ships may also need buffs to withstand this new barrage and the nerf to shield stacking may be somewhat detrimental now.

As for Advance Optic, I would put it on hold for the moment as it doesn't feel right. Any change right now would go over my head since I have no clue nor good judgment anymore from your across the board change. So, just put whatever you feel ok as a place holder.

You make it sound so good. I'm itching to test right now lol.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on November 24, 2020, 07:49:06 AM
All tanky frontline ships may also need buffs to withstand this new barrage and the nerf to shield stacking may be somewhat detrimental now.

I'd say wait and see.  The game was previously a little too easy after the early mid-game.  It would be better if there were scenarios where the player felt compelled to either retreat or accept attrition.  Before I was able to do things like engage 3-4 Nex invasion fleets simultaneously with only about 200 total DP of combat ships and win flawless victories.  I suppose there's probably a very delicate balance between challenging and punishing, though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on November 24, 2020, 09:07:00 AM
I think the very high flux cost and inefficiency (and low fire rate) of the really long range artillery fire support weapons is going to keep them from being overpowered even with ally pass-through. It's not like you can stack a ton of them on one ship - it'd be able to fire a fraction of the guns, once, and then be forced to vent.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 24, 2020, 05:56:13 PM
0.95 has (unless it gets removed between now and release) a player skill that gives all beams x% hard flux - that would mean there's going to be easy code support for that. Maybe wait until then?

Oh right! I honestly had forgotten about that. Yeah I'll wait until I can look under the hood to see how the skill does it then. It will make my life a lot easier and make me feel better about skipping that change for this update.  ;D

Man, that was quick work right there. This might absolutely be the only time to shine for Timid captains all over the sector!!

I also propose another idea to go along with it, even though I don't want to delay the mod any longer. You know that carrier tag ships are really good at rear hugging a capital and that would be an ideal position for a fire-support team. I wonder if it is possible to make a Hull-mod that can override a ship tag to act as a pseudo carrier.

Now that I try to visualize it, the game complexity will really go up a notch. All tanky frontline ships may also need buffs to withstand this new barrage and the nerf to shield stacking may be somewhat detrimental now.

As for Advance Optic, I would put it on hold for the moment as it doesn't feel right. Any change right now would go over my head since I have no clue nor good judgment anymore from your across the board change. So, just put whatever you feel ok as a place holder.

You make it sound so good. I'm itching to test right now lol.

Yeah I could definitely see a use case for Timid officers in that role. With proper escorts I imagine they would stay just within fire support weapon range!

As far as the carrier AI idea, it unfortunately isn't possible for the same reason I can't make a hullmod change weapon AI hints. The object that contains AI related hints is global. So individual variants reference that object to create the ship, but don't have unique copies of their own that can be independently changed. The only way to get around that would be to use a skin file since that technically creates a separate HullSpecAPI of its own. In layman's terms, changing the AI for the Enforcer means all Enforcers will be affected, not just the variant with the hullmod. Theoretically, I could try and duplicate the HullSpecAPI (assuming it has the necessary exposed API hooks) and set that as the variant's reference until it is removed, but I'm not sure those kind of changes can be made in the refit screen without unintended consequences. Essentially, it would probably be more trouble than it's worth. Who knows, maybe after this update I'll give it a shot. If I can get it to work it would allow some semblance of formation so that would be pretty cool.

All tanky frontline ships may also need buffs to withstand this new barrage and the nerf to shield stacking may be somewhat detrimental now.

I'd say wait and see.  The game was previously a little too easy after the early mid-game.  It would be better if there were scenarios where the player felt compelled to either retreat or accept attrition.  Before I was able to do things like engage 3-4 Nex invasion fleets simultaneously with only about 200 total DP of combat ships and win flawless victories.  I suppose there's probably a very delicate balance between challenging and punishing, though.

I think the very high flux cost and inefficiency (and low fire rate) of the really long range artillery fire support weapons is going to keep them from being overpowered even with ally pass-through. It's not like you can stack a ton of them on one ship - it'd be able to fire a fraction of the guns, once, and then be forced to vent.

Yeah it seems like they aren't overpowered by the change. If the fire support ship comes under attack it can't really do much. Escorts are pretty essential. I haven't fully tested ballistics yet though, so the assumption in a large scale fleet battle could prove false.

As far as beams? First of all, I reduced the flux cost penalty of Advanced Optics to 100%, reduced the turn rate penalty to 20% down from 40% and increased the range bonus to 650.

I may end up reversing some of that. I ran a test of 110 DP Tri-Tachyon forces against 111 109 DP Hegemony forces. Here are the builds and number of variants used for each fleet:

2 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/MeIa4fO.png)
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2 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/N6QTnk6.png)
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1 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/UaHCJwf.png)
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VS

1 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/sbVWQf3.png)
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1 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/e57IvUF.png)
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1 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/H5InoC5.png)
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(https://i.imgur.com/5XZyfRi.png)
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1 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/5VUsZno.png)
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I did ten simulations of this scenario. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of the Tri-Tachyon. I think the opposing Hegemony fleet won a single time. A couple other times the Tri-Tachyon ships were severely damaged at the end, but several times there was practically no damage taken.

The Paragon is actually pretty beefy even with Advanced Optics and full strike beam primary battery. It certainly runs its flux meter up quickly but hits very far away - through allies - and hits very hard.

It is hard to say what is imbalanced here. It could be the Paragon or the Aurora. It also might scale differently if I doubled the DP of the simulation since the lower DP of the Hegemony ships might make a larger difference. As far as the Paragon goes, I feel pretty confident that its not OP considering I have run a lot of 1v1 simulations against the Onslaught and the Executor and it loses just as much as it wins in every variant but the Elite Tachyon Lance variant - that one is a tough nut to crack.

I'll run the simulations using a non-beam Paragon and maybe two non-beam auroras and see if that makes a noticeable difference.

*EDIT*

Just ran the simulation 10 more times but changed 3 variants for the Tri-Tachyon:

New Paragon variant:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/PQSNXnH.png)
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2 of:
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(https://i.imgur.com/9b3ielr.png)
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 -instead of 2 of:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/MeIa4fO.png)
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The first point of difference is the Paragon role. It was a long range beam striker that could overflux before. This time it is a tanky close-to-0 flux build designed to hold a battle line. For the Aurora, it went from a strike beam role with kinetic missiles to a torpedo strike role with heavy assault energy weapons that provide a suppression element.

The results of the new test are pretty interesting. The face-value results are actually very similar. The Tri-Tachyons lost only a single time, and had a couple of times where their fleet barely took any hull damage (mostly lucky overloads followed by an Atropos salvo... ouch.) and the Paragon does most of the heavy lifting against the Onslaught. However, their are a couple key differences  as well. For one, the way the Paragon benefits the overall fleet composition is starkly different. Whereas before as the beam variant it did the most noticeable damage over time, this time it provides the rock around which the rest of the fleet operates. The shields are tough enough to tank while returning fire against the Onslaught for far longer. It is not enough that the Paragon always wins a one-on-one confrontation, but what it *does* do is buy time. The Auroras, on the other hand, perform roughly the same strike role as before and try and take down the Dominators so that the Paragon can finish off the Onslaught in a 2 vs 1 scenario.

Here is the interesting part for me: as a trend this fleet took a lot more damage than the beam fleet with the fire support capital. The Hegemony fleet almost got a second win at one point, but a twist of fate that let the last Atropos of a salvo sneak by the PD turned the tide in the Tri-Tachyon fleet's favor. The Paragon and remaining Aurora had less than 25% hull remaining and were at 90% max flux when the battle ended. If I could save the last few moments and repeat them I think it would be a toss up between the two. Another important thing I noticed was that the Tri-Tachyon fleet took more losses - though the Paragon only died once.

Finally, the tank Paragon could take 2-3 Dominators simultaneously as long as their attack vectors were spread along its concentrated shield arc. It couldn't dish out the return damage like the beam Paragon could, but it definitely could defend multi-pronged attacks in a noticeably better way.

Unrelated side note: I've given most medium and large PD weapons ally pass-through as well. That way cruisers and capitals can use those weapons to support nearby ships even if, say, a frigate is sidled up alongside their firing arc. I'm hoping that will make them a little more attractive as an options rather than just defaulting to the flux-free assault weapon most of the time.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 24, 2020, 09:29:03 PM
I%u2019m outside right now and won%u2019t be able to write a proper reply but I would slap a frontal shield on that Onslaught. It shield/flux is too horrendous. Weapon group settings is sometime quite important to do manually.

Titan ship from Imperium mod can switch variant with auto fit.

It would be better if you could post a video clip as well so I can make a better analysis.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 24, 2020, 11:19:46 PM
I%u2019m outside right now and won%u2019t be able to write a proper reply but I would slap a frontal shield on that Onslaught. It shield/flux is too horrendous. Weapon group settings is sometime quite important to do manually.

Titan ship from Imperium mod can switch variant with auto fit.

It would be better if you could post a video clip as well so I can make a better analysis.

I'll use this loadout for future tests:

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(https://i.imgur.com/zk7X0ZZ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/goaPTeT.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/3YB6PqV.png)
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I also put the last 4 points into dissipation for the Elite Dominator. I hadn't quite optimized those variants after the changes, but they were close enough. But may as well get them "update ready" while testing.

I'll see about posting a video of a few test runs later tonight. I'll keep the camera focus on the capital fight and occasionally dart over and check the cruiser fights and tactical map.
-------------------------------------------------
EDIT 1

Battle 1 Defense Paragon:

- Note: I'm not the best video-maker lol, and this was made for analytical purposes rather than cinematic ones - so if I seem to pull away from cool points in the battle I'm sorry! Also, if you were following the last few posts, I quite by accident selected a new Dominator variant for the first test. That will be used in the following tests for a control. I posted pics of the build below the video for reference.

Spoiler
https://youtu.be/7tzu-dcNQ0Y (https://youtu.be/7tzu-dcNQ0Y)
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New Dominator assault variant:

1 of:
 
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/rlt29Oh.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/BS11Ua0.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/CahttZ1.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/rGrzj3h.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/3yWNa2w.png)
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 - instead of 1 of:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/5XZyfRi.png)
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My analysis:

Spoiler
It's about what I expected, but you can see how the Paragon defense variant holds the line but deals little damage for a capital ship. The new Onslaught build actually performed worse than in past tests - probably due to the subtraction of the Heavy Railguns preventing it from building hard flux as quickly. It did, however, have improvement in its torpedo defense, conversely, due to the medium PD weapons. That may have prevented a few of the strike Aurora Atropos volleys from doing more damage.

You can also see how devastating an overload is when facing strike missiles in general. The strike Aurora performs better than the balanced one - though the Twin Tactical Beams still contribute to some damage. However, the Support (Dual Artillery equipped as shown in the zoom-in) Dominator contributes to a lot too. It kills an Aurora solo through its ability to punish the retreat after using the Tri-Railguns to get max flux to the point where it can't tank additional Dual Artillery shots.
[close]


Battle 1 Beam Paragon:

- Note: At one point I accidently hit un-autopilot and quickly reapply it so sorry for that. It may have caused a little extra damage to the Paragon but I don't think it would have changed the overall result.

Spoiler
https://youtu.be/9ENeRUNZh9M (https://youtu.be/9ENeRUNZh9M)
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My analysis:

Spoiler
I definitely see a difference in the role between the capital variants. The beam Paragon is a lot better at supporting the battle line through sheer damage. It can support a nearby ally very well in comparison to the defense Paragon. That being said, it is obviously weaker to direct assault by the Onslaught. This is especially obvious at the end - where the Onslaught can chase at low flux and continue to overwhelm the hard flux of the Paragon that can't get away. The additional efficiency of flux management helps make that possible over the old variant.

Unfortunately, this also shows the poor capability of the AI to operate burst-beams. You can see many times where the beams don't do full damage. This can be due to the AI thinking the beam is in range and it is not - and therefore barely missing the armor/hull, or this can be from the beam striking on target for the first second or two, and then randomly sweeping off-target for the remainder of the burst. I honestly have no idea why this happens. Did it affect the final outcome? I don't really think so. It may have made it closer, but the final portion where the Paragon couldn't retreat was pretty key. Had it been able to vent and renew the beam strikes, at the very least the Dominator would probably have been destroyed.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 25, 2020, 02:27:46 AM
Can't watch the video. You have to set it to unlist and not private.

My old build but I have to watch the video first to see if ballistics are enough.

(https://i.ibb.co/G22ZRT3/133.png) (https://ibb.co/G22ZRT3)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on November 25, 2020, 03:55:48 AM
Supposedly the "fires weapon thinking it's in range but it's not" issue that especially affects beams is fixed for the next version, as is the AI triggering a burst weapon and immediately sweeping the mount away from the target.

Frankly a lot of exact combat balancing is probably not worth doing right now, because there are so many AI changes and fixes in the next version it'll throw any balance established with the current version out of whack anyway. At least that's the impression I'm getting from the various teasers and patch notes Alex has put out.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 25, 2020, 04:03:45 AM
Can't watch the video. You have to set it to unlist and not private.

My old build but I have to watch the video first to see if ballistics are enough.

(https://i.ibb.co/G22ZRT3/133.png) (https://ibb.co/G22ZRT3)

Fixed sorry! (Let me know if otherwise.)

Supposedly the "fires weapon thinking it's in range but it's not" issue that especially affects beams is fixed for the next version, as is the AI triggering a burst weapon and immediately sweeping the mount away from the target.

That would be really helpful if so!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on November 25, 2020, 04:09:36 AM
I'm getting the impression the next version might have a significant bump in lethality just from the AI changes alone - it sounds like it'll get flux-on-target a lot better. Less wasted shots (the "main gun fires at random fighter despite enemy ship being directly ahead" is also supposed to be fixed I think) should lead to more consistent kills when the opportunity comes around.

On the topic of PD pass-through: I think is very good but has to be very carefully balanced. Overlapping PD could have the potential to be very oppressive. Maybe reserve PD pass-through for a new category of PD? "Long-Range PD" or something? That would be a good place for flux-using PD too perhaps. Bigger opportunity cost (flux buildup) but big upside (fleet support).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on November 25, 2020, 07:23:36 AM
Morro, do you think you could do a preview release of the mod?  Not in the OP but just in a new post, so that Daton, Albreo, and I can help give some balance feedback?

Quote
On the topic of PD pass-through: I think is very good but has to be very carefully balanced. Overlapping PD could have the potential to be very oppressive. Maybe reserve PD pass-through for a new category of PD? "Long-Range PD" or something? That would be a good place for flux-using PD too perhaps. Bigger opportunity cost (flux buildup) but big upside (fleet support).

That makes a degree of sense.

Hey, this gives me a thought that might also be pertinent to the "can't do that with beam weapons / AO debate."  Since you can make hull mods mutually exclusive, is it possible to make it so that certain weapons can only be equipped if a particular (potentially/probably built-in) hullmod is present?

That way the fleet support PD could be restricted to specific hulls given a mod that signifies them as having that role, without making major capitals OP.  Advanced Optics could instead become a built in hullmod that allows only certain hulls to equip the new super fire support beams (and have no penalties or bonuses at all).  In other words, it could be used by ships like the Apogee and Astral without making the Paragon or Tyrant Opie OP.

On the one hand, I get that it's nice to have the most options possible for every ship, but on the other hand there is currently a tendency to just load up on a bunch of your favorite capital and smash all the things.   Having roles more clearly defined by hulls (the way carriers are), could help promote more diverse fleets.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on November 25, 2020, 08:36:17 AM
I think strictly defining the role of hulls like that might cut out too much of the fun of building ships.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 25, 2020, 08:46:17 AM
Battle 1 Defense Paragon: Nah, that looks fine to me your Onslaught just lack explosive weapons. Wasted Terminator beam on a shield you fool!! Do group all ballistics together in 1 auto fire. If it can't sustain, switch to a lower flux weapon. Aurora has a speed advantage so it can retreat from Dominator easily. Maybe Aurora DP should be increased as well?
Battle 1 Beam Paragon: It's the wrong video!!

Onslaught revision 1:
(https://i.ibb.co/nsKHT1s/134.jpg) (https://ibb.co/nsKHT1s)(https://i.ibb.co/FWpRQZ9/135.jpg) (https://ibb.co/FWpRQZ9)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: UserNameViolation on November 25, 2020, 11:31:57 AM
Hello! Is there any drawbacks using you mod with nexerelin? like any missing content or incompatibilities? i mean this  "totalConversion":"false", option
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 25, 2020, 04:21:01 PM
Frankly a lot of exact combat balancing is probably not worth doing right now, because there are so many AI changes and fixes in the next version it'll throw any balance established with the current version out of whack anyway. At least that's the impression I'm getting from the various teasers and patch notes Alex has put out.

I missed this in my last response. You are probably right. That is one reason why I'm not spending a huge amount of time on it. This is more just to be a pulse check that nothing is extremely broken from all the changes. Despite that, there will inevitably be stuff I miss lol.

I'm getting the impression the next version might have a significant bump in lethality just from the AI changes alone - it sounds like it'll get flux-on-target a lot better. Less wasted shots (the "main gun fires at random fighter despite enemy ship being directly ahead" is also supposed to be fixed I think) should lead to more consistent kills when the opportunity comes around.

On the topic of PD pass-through: I think is very good but has to be very carefully balanced. Overlapping PD could have the potential to be very oppressive. Maybe reserve PD pass-through for a new category of PD? "Long-Range PD" or something? That would be a good place for flux-using PD too perhaps. Bigger opportunity cost (flux buildup) but big upside (fleet support).

Alex told me a while back that a lot of edge stuff like that had been addressed and I'm really excited to see the new official release. There is a ton of modder QOL stuff there too.

As far as PD pass-through for new PD support weapons, I may do that. It would be interesting to see how that would shake up build-making. As for current PD pass-through, the weapons that got it are small in number and IIRC none of the small weapons have it. It was mostly just a way to give a small way to incentivize a large PD over just a bunch of small PD. If I see it making too large of an impact I'll change it. The ranges in question are small enough that I don't think it will though, but I have been wrong about that sort of thing in the past.

Morro, do you think you could do a preview release of the mod?  Not in the OP but just in a new post, so that Daton, Albreo, and I can help give some balance feedback?

Maybe. At the very least, I would have to finish the stat card changes for weapons with pass-through so that is obvious and won't obscure anything balance related. A lot of variants are still not at intended OP too, but that's not the hugest deal I guess.

Hey, this gives me a thought that might also be pertinent to the "can't do that with beam weapons / AO debate."  Since you can make hull mods mutually exclusive, is it possible to make it so that certain weapons can only be equipped if a particular (potentially/probably built-in) hullmod is present?

That way the fleet support PD could be restricted to specific hulls given a mod that signifies them as having that role, without making major capitals OP.  Advanced Optics could instead become a built in hullmod that allows only certain hulls to equip the new super fire support beams (and have no penalties or bonuses at all).  In other words, it could be used by ships like the Apogee and Astral without making the Paragon or Tyrant Opie OP.

On the one hand, I get that it's nice to have the most options possible for every ship, but on the other hand there is currently a tendency to just load up on a bunch of your favorite capital and smash all the things.   Having roles more clearly defined by hulls (the way carriers are), could help promote more diverse fleets.

I kind of agree with DatonKallandor here. It would be a useful balance lever, certainly, but I like the idea that you can take any ship and make it any role but with other considerations such as base stats, defense type, energy mount type, etc. I already kind of do this with the Onslaught (XIV) through the built-in Terminator Beams that have way more range than they normally would. So if I were to do something like that again it would probably be along the same lines.

There is also the secondary consideration that as a Dev it feels less satisfying to work on cool weapons to only have them be equip-able by a relatively few number of ships.

Battle 1 Defense Paragon: Nah, that looks fine to me your Onslaught just lack explosive weapons. Wasted Terminator beam on a shield you fool!! Do group all ballistics together in 1 auto fire. If it can't sustain, switch to a lower flux weapon. Aurora has a speed advantage so it can retreat from Dominator easily. Maybe Aurora DP should be increased as well?

Just curious, why do you think it is better to have all the ballistics in one auto fire group? The reason I ask, is that flux generation is a factor there. If you have the large railguns in a separate group, the AI can toggle them on autofire while at high flux while only toggling off the main group of mediums, etc. Separate groups allow the AI to be more efficient and eek out more damage under pressure than it otherwise would be able to. In your build, however, I can see you prioritize way more flux dissipation than weapon flux generation. So maybe that is why you run into that problem less.

I also think explosive weapons are a little overrated against high tech ships like these. The railguns penetrate the armor fairly quickly and it has the Terminator Beam (yeah when that hits shields it is indeed a bummer!) and the two forward firing flux free autocannons to punch through the minimal armor. Especially in the case of the Defense Paragon, kinetic damage is essential.

Regardless though, a controlled test means you can't change the variant between tests or you aren't really learning the trend. Nothing wrong with adding that build to the Hegemony lineup though!  ;) I'll try and remember to do that later tonight when I do some more work on the mod.

Battle 1 Beam Paragon: It's the wrong video!!

Doh! Argg I am awful at posting videos it always takes like 5 tries to get everything going. It *should* be fixed now.

Hello! Is there any drawbacks using you mod with nexerelin? like any missing content or incompatibilities? i mean this  "totalConversion":"false", option

Hi! Not that I am aware of. It might make the campaign harder because of invasion fleets, but afaik there isn't any bugs or any missing content when running this mod with Nex. The only thing Nex does that effects this mod is cut out the custom dialogue of the new factions for station commanders so that the Nex options can be added. So very minor and not impacting gameplay at all.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok 2 more test videos. I'm not going to analyze these just yet but I wanted to get them up here.

Battle 2 Defense Paragon:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/7J5UTk_f6e4 (https://youtu.be/7J5UTk_f6e4)
[close]

Battle 2 Beam Paragon:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/c1cW8rhk-hE (https://youtu.be/c1cW8rhk-hE)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 25, 2020, 09:09:15 PM
Quote
Just curious, why do you think it is better to have all the ballistics in one auto fire group? The reason I ask, is that flux generation is a factor there. If you have the large railguns in a separate group, the AI can toggle them on autofire while at high flux while only toggling off the main group of mediums, etc. Separate groups allow the AI to be more efficient and eek out more damage under pressure than it otherwise would be able to. In your build, however, I can see you prioritize way more flux dissipation than weapon flux generation. So maybe that is why you run into that problem less.

I also think explosive weapons are a little overrated against high tech ships like these. The railguns penetrate the armor fairly quickly and it has the Terminator Beam (yeah when that hits shields it is indeed a bummer!) and the two forward firing flux free autocannons to punch through the minimal armor. Especially in the case of the Defense Paragon, kinetic damage is essential.

Let me explain my criteria to decide if it's Ok to put everything in one group first.
- All high flux weapons should be separate out of this group due to inefficiency to sustain.
- Weapons have to be at a similar range or cost no flux.
- High alpha long reload should be separate out so as not to waste on a good opportunity.
- Flux/sec for that group should not go over 1500 for capital or much higher than the vent rate. Lower the better.

Here're the pros and cons that I can think of in grouping everything together.
+ Highest burst potential possible. Effective in brief meet n' greet. Don't have to waste time switching between multiple groups.
+ Mix weapons give a good continuous suppression advantage. Mix small explosive weapons in the group, deny them no chance to lower shields.
+ AI tends to not change group when it can still fire. This gives an advantage to the next one.
+ Unlikely to waste explosive shot due to not having anything to fire, AI picks next group with highest DPS even though it's ineffective/inefficient flux wise over small weapons.
+ AI can still fully take advantage when a shield is down.
+ Can act as PD.

- Cannot sustain when under heavy fire but can still retaliate somewhat because of auto fire.
- Cannot focus fire on a specific target. Anything in range will receive a fair share.
- AI will still fire short-range weapons forward even if it's will never reach the target hence wasted flux. Next Alex's patch might fix this.
- Only work with turrets and not hardpoints.

But I would prefer stock variants to use Alex auto setting. This will be kind of a high end optimize and I prefer others to experiment with it themself.

As for your new videos, I think Dominators could use a Resistance Flux Conduit for a better active vent.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 27, 2020, 02:29:11 PM
^ Oh ok that makes sense. I'd agree that is a pretty accurate pros and cons list. For me at least, the cons outweigh the pros but it a close enough thing that I think it is likely playstyle related. The ability to return fire efficiently under high flux pressure is more important to me that the meet and greet benefits of having 0-flux weapons in the same group as flux-using weapons - well... I should say I feel that way most of the time as it really depends upon the build. Mixed damage types in one group is fairly important as you say, however this specific build doesn't have any 0-flux kinetic weapons and that is what I base the decision on whether or not I include them in the 0-flux group. The "will fire when not in range" part also bugs me, but not only could that be fixed in the next release but it impacts the grand scheme of things very little. I think when the AI turns off flux-free weapons because it turns the autofire off is the most damaging to the overall battle performance. That being said, it all depends upon how often that would actually be a factor. As far as meet and greet burst damage, that should be improved in the next release without weapons being in a single group as well because it will waste shots on fighters less - particularly in the last couple of seconds before a battle starts.

But I would prefer stock variants to use Alex auto setting. This will be kind of a high end optimize and I prefer others to experiment with it themself.

I will likely never make stock variants autofit as the default mod behavior. Autofit tends to sometimes create really weird builds in this mod even at the frigate level. Don't get me wrong sometimes it works very well, but the times it doesn't could heavily impact faction balance in a live battle scenario that isn't being autoresolved. Similarly, the goal isn't to optimize all the variants but rather optimize *some* of them or otherwise include builds that provide unique challenges or concerns to the player for each faction. It is one of the reasons I widened the gap between the gunship and the bomber roles - so that both can't be hard countered in quite the same way but can be soft countered by a balanced fleet in either case. It is a difficult thing to do but that is the goal.

But! Coming back to autofit, it won't in the next update but likely in the following one I'm going to have a settings option to enable autofit at the player's choice. It will be set to off by default. I will probably have a setting for each hullsize.

As for your new videos, I think Dominators could use a Resistance Flux Conduit for a better active vent.

Hmm ok I'll try it out a couple of times and see if it performs better.

*EDIT* (Made each Dominator variant have Resistant Flux Conduits instead of either flux caps or Expanded Magazines/Missile Racks)

Battle 3 Defense Paragon:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/z13T6u0nGX0 (https://youtu.be/z13T6u0nGX0)
[close]

Battle 3 Beam Paragon:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/SW08O9Exu7A (https://youtu.be/SW08O9Exu7A)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on November 27, 2020, 08:40:11 PM
Battle 3: Those look kind of Ok to me apart from Onslaught's slightly low performance. I think you could experiment with some unsymmetrical loadout on Dominators such as ballistic on the left and explosive on the right. The one with dual Devastators didn't perform well.

Capital Pulse projectiles also look unassuming to me. I think you should add some glow effect to it. Anything that hit hard should be more noticeable. Some FS weapons can also have a bullet trail effect to make it obvious which ship is dangerous.

Re autofit: Eh, I mean the auto setting for weapon groups not the actual autofit of weapons. I believe the manually crafted loadouts will fit in with the lore better anyway.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on November 28, 2020, 12:29:44 AM
Battle 3: Those look kind of Ok to me apart from Onslaught's slightly low performance. I think you could experiment with some unsymmetrical loadout on Dominators such as ballistic on the left and explosive on the right. The one with dual Devastators didn't perform well.

Good analysis and yes this is intended. :)

For clarification: The deck is slightly stacked in Tri-Tachyon's favor in this test simulation because the original goal was to test the difference between strike beam builds, projectile strike builds and, at the capital level, fire support beam builds vs low-flux defense builds within the energy weapon type range.

In order to adequately do that considering the test parameters, I was using a standard Assault Onslaught that emphasized kinetic over explosive (since that generally matters more for energy weapon ships) and a "balanced" cruiser set that included two ships that were good vs kinetics (Dominator Support and Dominator Assault - Heavy Iridium Guns) with two that were more anti-armor oriented (Dominator Assault - Mark IXs and Dominator Elite - Devastators) in order to see how each category of the opposing end dealt with beams vs projectile energy weapons and HE torpedoes.

Originally, I was using a more kinetic heavy Onslaught variant, one less kinetic Dominator (Heavy Iridium Guns), and one more anti-armor Dominator (Mark IXs). You then suggested better flux management for the Onslaught. I thought that was reasonable since it would matter for the defense Paragon more - both in terms of better PD and a better punishing timeframe before the AI retreats. Therefore, I replaced the rear Heavy Railguns with better torpedo defense (Heavy Vulcan PD Cannons) since that benefited the armor-reliant fleet overall. I agree with both of those suggested changes as a better test example FWIW. What you are describing in the Dominator Elite's performance should be relatively consistent unless it is a 2v1 in the Dominator's favor. Then the strike potential can speed up the encounter drastically under the right circumstances - a.ka. overload - overfluxed, etc. Evens so, a kinetic assault variant should be more reliable in the case of a 1v1 vs a heavily shielded ship and it's not like it would perform all that worse in a 2v1 scenario in comparison. The speed up of any engagement does come into play in a spread out battle because it can provide better reinforcement time to more evenly contested fights - which sometimes creates a rapid snowball-effect to the overall battle.

Re: the Onslaught - while I think builds like this are certainly viable and possibly optimal for a generalist kind of approach, this was meant to be a kinetic-heavy counter to the Paragon to test the performance difference between a defensive build and a FS build. Also, from a fleet standpoint: when you have a greater swath of firing arcs for "line-based" confrontation in larger ships - it is important to not cause the AI to twist and turn too much. It lowers accuracy and gets harder for the AI to deal with in the case that one essential side is armor-stripped. For these reasons, I have found it is better to have mostly "equal dps" on either side of the 0-90 degree firing arcs from either side of the center rather than try an right/left-side-preferred build. It doesn't help that doing this also reduces the ability of the Terminator Beams to get their dps in. What these restrictions essentially mean is that it is necessary to, for the most part, mirror the damage capabilities along the side mounts. The large mounts can be an exception if they are strike weapons - depending upon the weapon.

TLDR: It was never about the opposing fleet being equal (though it should be fairly close and some random is involved) but rather it was designed to test the performance difference between builds with different roles and weapon types while under specific parameters for each test.

Capital Pulse projectiles also look unassuming to me. I think you should add some glow effect to it. Anything that hit hard should be more noticeable. Some FS weapons can also have a bullet trail effect to make it obvious which ship is dangerous.

Noted. I also want a unique sound effect for the Ragnarok Beam. So some polish is still pending most likely.

Re autofit: Eh, I mean the auto setting for weapon groups not the actual autofit of weapons. I believe the manually crafted loadouts will fit in with the lore better anyway.

Ah gotcha. My current method is to set each variant in the JSON files themselves (using the in-game editor as a reference for data points) and then test the AI's performance at utilizing all the weapon groups efficiently. It takes a bit more time but I think this will be better at both understanding how to build variants overall and to be honest: it helps me practice using/troubleshooting JSON syntax. :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 02, 2020, 10:45:19 AM
FWIW, you could probably field 5 Pillagers for the same cost as those fleets, and at least under the old balance I know a Pillager build where 3 could be enough to deal with the high tech fleets and 3 or 4 could handle the low tech fleet.

Different fleets play to different strengths.  The way that you've set those skirmishes up should play to the strengths of high tech.  If high tech is losing in that short of skirmish scenario, it doesn't bode well for them strategically unless they maintain a significant advantage in the carrier space.

High tech needs speed and space to thrive.  They want to spread the battle out into a number of isolated engagements, move in an unload doing some lasting damage while only taking flux damage, then disengage to reset.  Sending them up against even numbers of Dominators and an Onslaught should be perfect for them.

If Low Tech is going the slow and ponderous route, then they need to deploy combined arms: they need support from missiles / artillery / gunships to sustain flux pressure.  It's like advancing infantry behind a creeping artillery barrage.  Their slow-arse Onslaughts need to push the high tech back to the edge of the map.

The other alternative is to take away the biggest advantage of high tech--mobility.  The Pillager's burn drive allows them to adopt the Nelson doctrine and "engage the enemy more closely."  You have a 22 DP battlecruiser that can delete 17 DP Auroras--or at least it could under the old balance--and go toe to toe with Paragons, as long as it survived the Paragon's initial alpha.

But your skirmishes, imo, should favor high tech unless macro balance has been seriously reworked.

My Pillager build was roughly:
The rest is mostly PD and some interceptors to keep the torpedoes away.

Now this build may not be as effective without the captain skill for improved target leading, I'm not sure.  But it's effectively a zero flux build with tolerable shield efficiency, burn drive, heavy armor, good range, and very good sustained DPS.  It's more than twice as good as a Dominator and costs only 150% more... and frankly, it's enhanced mobility makes it better than an Onslaught as far as I'm concerned.  The Pillager will jet around the map almost always shooting at something. 

In skirmishes, as opposed to fleet engagements, the Onslaught will spend most of its time wishing there was something in range for it to shoot, and when it finally does get in range of something, it will use its built-ins at the edge of the shield box.  That's the real problem I have with powerful weapons with long CDs.  The AI is dumb and aims for the edge of shield boxes rather than center of mass.  That means that 20-25% the time they fail to damage armor/hull, even if they are "on target" in these sorts of isolated duels.  I did fly around with a pair of salvaged Onslaughts in my Luddic Path playthrough, but I only brought them in for major fleet engagements.  Usually 2-3 Pillagers did all of the heavy lifting.  Since I was playing Pather, I felt obliged to use Pather Eagles as meat shields... instead of just more Pillagers.  Plus, I had a very limited supply of Heretical Persean weapons.  I had to pay the iron price for them, after all.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 02, 2020, 05:11:36 PM
Once I finish up this work on the REDACTED stuff I will likely release a test version of the new balance as an early Christmas present. ;)

The variants will be off of course as I think I'm only about 1/3 of the way done with them, but from what I can tell they won't be super imbalanced or anything and may even provide a reference for the changes over the old one since the unadjusted ones will be the same stock variant as before. Just be a little skeptical when you see a bunch of gunships or bombers on a non-carrier cruiser. Those builds aren't very viable - unless a lot of other things are sacrificed to the point that one of the questions I'm asking is: "Is it ever worth it to use them at all?"

Even if the answer is no, that might be ok as long as they are really useful on a carrier. I'm hoping carriers like the Condor seem like an equal option when compared to something like an Enforcer now. Obviously 1v1's are almost always in the Enforcer's favor, but from a fleet standpoint I'm hoping a well-defended Condor makes its presence felt. I have to be honest, though, I tested more large-scale than small-scale so far.

Re: Your analysis/Pillager

I actually lowered the low-tech cruisers' DP by 1 - putting them at 16 instead of 17. The idea behind this is large scale battles will allow an additional destroyer or even an additional cruiser at the highest end of standard DP limits. So eventually low tech gets a small to moderate 2v1 advantage in one engagement that can snowball into a win. I tested this concept out extensively using the Wolf and the Lasher. It seems sound and what's more is that it is not always predictable. Either side can win, but the tactics differentiation is more clear cut. Trend-wise: the higher the DP the more likely the victory since these ships tend to be a lot more expensive to even purchase in the first place.

From the tests I've done so far, I think high tech should mostly be ok now that the new weapons allow for some additional key roles. It is really hard to tune them so that they are beatable in a skirmish but not wet noodles in a full-scale battle because they get boxed in too easily. I'm hoping I'm at least closer in that regard.

Carrier-wise, high-tech definitely has a decisive advantage now. For stock variants they always did, but even for the player the extra OP is a big deal. The performance difference and OP costs between low and high tier is more noticeable - though I'm still smoothing out the edges and I'm sure there are still some imbalances.

The Pillager is one of my favorites both in look and design. It is a serious cruiser-killer but will struggle against a battleship or battlecarrier. Just like the Conquest, its speed can give it an edge over other capitals - including carriers - since its PD is still numerous and large options are available. I will say, however, that the build you listed will perform slightly worse this update. For one, Photon Cannons and the Excalibur went from 0-flux to ~0.4 efficiency. So the Pillager can't keep the low-flux boost up nearly as often. All capitals also had their low-flux boost cut down to 40 instead of the standard 80. Smaller ships didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against a very flux-efficient build with it at 80 lol.

The decision to lower battlecruiser DP was a bit of a knee jerk reaction. I think I tweaked the numbers a while back, but I'm not finalized on whether or not to raise it a little more. I don't want it to be the obvious choice over the Dominator or Onslaught - though I don't think it necessarily is now.

I 100% agree that the AI can be frustrating specifically in the case of beams. It seems to operate better with projectile weapons. I spoke with Alex to see if anything can be done but it looks like that particular issue is really difficult to fix without causing the AI to suicide too much. On the brighter side, that is one of the reasons why beams are demonstrably more effective than projectile weapons when they do hit. They also take advantage of the AI by sneaking past the shields far easier than most projectiles - well, outside of something like the Gatling Laser anyway. To give an example, I tested the Terminator Beam using a Guardian build and it killed ships far faster than a Mark IX or even a Heavy Fissure Cannon or Punisher. Where they fail is when they hit shields, and that is why I will eventually have them cause hard flux.

EDIT: P.S *Spoilers*
Spoiler
I'm not done, but the Guardian can now solo 100 DP worth of ships - tested with all Hegemony variants including the Assault Onslaught. It will definitely not be a pushover in the next update. Similarly, I'm making the Mothership battle more difficult/interesting.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 03, 2020, 07:42:28 AM
Quote
Once I finish up this work on the REDACTED stuff I will likely release a test version of the new balance as an early Christmas present. ;)

Yay!

Well, everything sounds well thought out, as usual.  I look forward to testing it.  Sounds like my old tricks are done for.  The Pillager was my ace in the hole after I brought the nerf hammer to bear on my stacking defensive mods for ~0.4 shield flux efficiency. ;D

I had already seen the screen shot you posted of the new Excalibur.  Honestly, I think adding some flux to that line was probably a necessary thing.  It and the Tri-beam could be pretty OP in player hands.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 09, 2020, 03:23:02 PM
Here you go! I also posted this on the Modder Corner thread on the discord, so feel free to discuss there too. Keep in mind I'm still learning how to navigate and do stuff there.  ;)

Balance test update:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=1

Note: Highly unpolished at this time as testing is still occurring.

Known issues:
 - incomplete support for Commissioned Crews mod. Only one effect working and the graphic is a placeholder.
 - variants over or under OP limits for the hull.
 - hull designation hullmods need consolidation for easier clarity of what each designation does.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 09, 2020, 05:38:59 PM
^ A bug was found and reported on the Discord. It is now fixed for the download, but if you downloaded the beta prior to this message you can fix it by going to data/variants/derelict and deleting:

archean_derelict_mothership_dronebay_leftD_Sentry and archean_derelict_mothership_dronebay_leftD_Picket

Sorry for the inconvenience!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on December 10, 2020, 02:18:11 PM
Got 2 hours-ish of run in, and so far it seems to work very well. The initial meeting between two decent sized fleets is brutal on account of the strikecraft waves meeting, but it levels off quickly when they start to get whittled down and replacement slows. Fire support weapons work properly for the first time because of the passthrough, and it's great.

Haven't managed to test a full-on PD ship build with the new pass-through PD, but looking at some of it, I suspect the range might be too short for the pass-through to matter. But even if that's the case, nothing changes and it's just the same (decently balanced) PD situation AO had before that change.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 10, 2020, 08:00:40 PM
Whoa, new stuff!! I didn't come back for two days and miss the update. Does anything have to be lookup specifically?

At least, I don't play Cyberpunk. So, I'm free.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 10, 2020, 10:09:41 PM
Got 2 hours-ish of run in, and so far it seems to work very well. The initial meeting between two decent sized fleets is brutal on account of the strikecraft waves meeting, but it levels off quickly when they start to get whittled down and replacement slows. Fire support weapons work properly for the first time because of the passthrough, and it's great.

Haven't managed to test a full-on PD ship build with the new pass-through PD, but looking at some of it, I suspect the range might be too short for the pass-through to matter. But even if that's the case, nothing changes and it's just the same (decently balanced) PD situation AO had before that change.

I'm glad the pass-through helps fire support weapons in a fleet setting. It was tough to not have them also dominate the 1v1 game and therefore be the primary role at first. So they had to be really inefficient. That solved 1v1 but made them look weak in a large fight when comparing them to other builds.

As for PD-passthrough builds, that's how I'm thinking it will work too. The pass-through was more to protect frigates when equipping PD weapons in medium and large slots on destroyers or cruisers. It basically matters only in a fairly niche situation where your allies are very clumped up. Normally that's not a good place to be but it can happen. When it does, it makes the larger PD weapons shine a little more and feel a little more valuable. If that ends up not feeling like enough, increasing the range is an option to make them even stronger. It does make that slider go to "broken" more easily though so hopefully that won't end up biting me later. I'm kind of feeling it out and seeing what can be done with the concept now that it exists. The new ways to build stat cards really make it easier to do this sort of thing and not have the concept obscured from newer players until they see it in action.

Also, thank you for giving the test update a try! I'm glad it has been enjoyable thus far.


Whoa, new stuff!! I didn't come back for two days and miss the update. Does anything have to be lookup specifically?

At least, I don't play Cyberpunk. So, I'm free.

Thanks for testing it out as well. :) I'm not used to test updates but it gets the information cycle going a lot faster since I can get additional info while I'm also testing/polishing.

Fire support weapon builds, and carriers (especially smaller carriers) are the main things that I'm curious about. Some secondary considerations would be strike craft OP-to-performance analysis in a fleet setting, and the new REDACTED encounter difficulty (spoilers in the spoiler). I think some other campaign stuff has changed but it was minor overall in comparison iirc. Some Nex balance was attempted through a FP rework and a couple other things but that's hard to test without a long campaign.

Finally, I've also changed the stats on a lot of weapons, so if something stands out let me know. Same goes for new things. Some I've tested more than others, but all received at least one or two passes iirc. The descriptions for some weapons are in serious need of a rewrite but that is far down on the list atm.

REDACTED content I was referring to:
Spoiler
Derelict Mothership battle and Guardian battle.
[close]

What I currently think along the above mentioned carrier mechanics:
 - Carriers should stand out more because they can more easily equip gunships and bombers due to weapon discounts and even free small weapons. Warships have more limited options without direct combat sacrifice - though they can field low OP craft in those roles at about the same cost most of the time.
 - Strike craft in each role should scale better by OP costs. Upgrading is more expensive, and similarly more effective in combat. Large fleet testing has been more limited as I've been focusing on individual variants - both for a little optimization especially with all the weapon changes and as a control to test wing effectiveness.

Some questions I still have:
 - Are medium and large weapons attractive on carrier builds even though they aren't free?
 - Is the upgraded wing tier always the better option with the OP pool? Do some hullmods or weapon upgrades at least give the build a nearly equivalent effectiveness overall?
 - Considering their discount to equip on warships, are interceptor and fighter carrier builds still viable - even if less priority? (This will help me determine whether or not to reduce replacement time for wings in those roles since that scales to help carriers more.)
 - Is the Heron's ship system too strong now considering the increased bomber and gunship effectiveness?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I received some advice on the discord and I've changed the falcon's look and even added an additional medium missile slot. This isn't in the test update since I just did this today. Overall I think it is an improvement on the design and quality. I try and update ship graphic quality now and again though it's too time consuming to do everything at once at this point.

Pics:
Spoiler
Standard version:
(https://i.imgur.com/qCPT4Dz.png)
Hegemony version:
(https://i.imgur.com/iMohmw1.png)
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Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 11, 2020, 01:03:46 AM
Ok, I'm going to build a fleet around fire support carriers this time.

Got a delivery quest to the temple of the dark stars again but I can't make the delivery as usual.
Edit: Oh I manage to get in with a cheat. It simply not possible to evade 10 patrols at a time.

I thought Tyrant no longer drop but I still got one?

I usually don't use Falcon as it is less capable than Eagle. Especially the lack of weapon mounts.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 11, 2020, 03:27:15 AM
Ok, I'm going to build a fleet around fire support carriers this time.

Thanks that's definitely something I'd like to test.

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Got a delivery quest to the temple of the dark stars again but I can't make the delivery as usual.
Edit: Oh I manage to get in with a cheat. It simply not possible to evade 10 patrols at a time.

Have you tried the trick where you turn off your transponder to lure the patrols away and then sneak with your fleet into the market? I've heard that works pretty well - though with the number of patrols that could be impossible I've never tried.

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I thought Tyrant no longer drop but I still got one?

I am going to do that once I can use quest missions to let it be obtainable. Otherwise it won't be sold in markets either. Story points are another possible avenue. Did I say I was making that happen this update? I may have, but my impression was that I was waiting until I had quests/some alternative in place - which requires the next Starsector update. I very well could have said otherwise though. I did debate it for a while since it is an extremely good player ship.

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I usually don't use Falcon as it is less capable than Eagle. Especially the lack of weapon mounts.

It's a good skirmisher due to its system and it's a superb destroyer-killer for early-mid game, but the extra missile mount didn't change the overall balance between things much so it was probably warranted. Large weapons are pretty good, however, so a fleet setting may say differently if it can strike with double the amount of torpedoes. I'll need to test more. I really like the new look though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on December 11, 2020, 05:34:46 AM
An extra mount is appreciated on the Falcon, but I gotta say I much preferred the look of the old one. Especially the front left hangar bay. Having it just end at the same angle in mid-space as the hull looks odd to me. The recessed one that had some extra hull after the bay ended looked much better to me.

I also liked the asymetrical second bay placement a lot visually, but obviously that takes away the mount option. But it helped make the Falcon visually distinct from the Eagle and that was cool.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 11, 2020, 01:21:03 PM
@DatonKallandor

Oh hey I'm glad I'm not the only one who appreciated the distinctness of the right bay. :)

The bays were one of the things that people on the discord were saying looked bad. That and the sprite's blending and shading made the ship look flat and blurry. While I liked the placement of the right bay, I agree that it didn't look that great. You could tell what it was but it was a little awkward visually.

The advice I received about the left bay was that the hull at the edge made it look too small for Starsector. Therefore, bringing it out to the edge and having it encompass a greater swath of the of the ship's side would help.

So I spent a few hours trying to improve it and that was the final result. I did save the original though and the weapons and bays haven't changed from the original implementation (well the right one moved to join the left but the number is the same) other than the addition of the medium weapon. I could very easily revert it back to the old style. I ran a couple sim tests to see how it looks/plays and I like it but I also liked the other one too.

To be completely honest, while I understand and appreciate super detailed sprite work and all the time that goes into it, I sometimes think people go overboard with its importance when the sprite looked good enough to begin with. It's probably a matter of individual tastes though. I grew up with low pixel count games so I am likely less picky about details like that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 12, 2020, 01:58:44 AM
This's going to be a short diary:

Fire support Legion is super dope this patch. Dual Artillery needs some damage nerf. There's a problem with AI not raising shield or lowering shield prematurely when long-range massive bullets heading their way which look like an inevitable thing.

Squall needs its range extended somewhat to fill the missing mid role of anti shield support. There're plenty of medium-range explosive missiles but only some short range anti shields and one ultra long range Thunderbolt available.

New midline bombers did not survive one bombing run. I think all torp & missile base bombers should have their weapon range longer than a small PD weapon that way the only way to counter it is to use an interceptor or larger PD. If it's possible, I would wish to have evasion stat build in too all craft that way it won't all get wiped by hail of non-PD bullets.

Paragon speed might be of concern as it can kite with Tachlance. Tachlance this patch is pretty good, though, it's still no match to zero flux weapon. Not that I got one to play with yet. Gotta farm some REDACTED.

Archean's fleet failing repeatedly in auto resolve due to a lower number of capitals. Culann fell again. This roaming Hegemony fleet thing is a bit too OP.

Just remembered that Terraforming mod spawns a new Guardian ship every time so I can shoot at it in unlimited number.
Spoiler
(https://i.ibb.co/4RsQsJY/000.jpg) (https://ibb.co/60vdvN1)
Pretty tanky but otherwise weak to swarm tactic would need some scripted ability like entering permanent buff state when hull below 20% or detonate hard flux and damage itself and knockback any ship around it.
[close]

There's something fishy about the Persean diplomatic trait. I haven't done anything yet and I'm already at vengeful.
Spoiler
(https://i.ibb.co/0y5ByYp/133.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qY60YmL)
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Heron, Epiphany, and other small carriers are too good DP wise IMO. I would cut one craft slot out for each one of them. I'm putting Flash on Herons. Don't stop me. :D
It's not scary until I have to fight Trader guild + Persean alliance invasion with 30+ Herons.

FS weapons work flawlessly, I like it but some would need flux cost up or lower fire rate since these ships don't have to care about flux anymore with active vent. I'm not too keen on Beam weapons friendly pass. Beam accuracy makes it quite OP. Tooltip on Pass through could be color coded for easy identification.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on December 12, 2020, 04:32:58 AM
The advice I received about the left bay was that the hull at the edge made it look too small for Starsector. Therefore, bringing it out to the edge and having it encompass a greater swath of the of the ship's side would help.

Strikecraft are still smaller in AO than vanilla (visually I mean) aren't they? That combined with the increased number of mounts and smaller large weapons makes AO ships look bigger anyway. Regular Starsector scale doesn't really apply, imo.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 12, 2020, 08:00:13 PM
Re: Albreo
Spoiler
Fire support Legion is super dope this patch. Dual Artillery needs some damage nerf. There's a problem with AI not raising shield or lowering shield prematurely when long-range massive bullets heading their way which look like an inevitable thing.

Unfortunately yeah probably not going to be fixed (AI dropping shields), but do you mean hit damage or dps should be reduced for Dual Artillery? I have noticed its pretty darn strong. Similarly, Support Dominators are really scary even with the inefficiency. They are the only variant that can reliably beat the Persean League Eagle variants. Somehow those have become really, really strong. They consistently beat the Aurora and Dominator (XIV) builds in the latest tests. I'm trying to decide if it's build related or a problem with the Eagle's stats. I've been tossing around an armor reduction but it could also be the strength of the Photon Cannon in this update.

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Squall needs its range extended somewhat to fill the missing mid role of anti shield support. There're plenty of medium-range explosive missiles but only some short range anti shields and one ultra long range Thunderbolt available.

What about Sabots? That is supposed to be the mid range anti-shield missile. Is it bad this update after the changes?

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New midline bombers did not survive one bombing run. I think all torp & missile base bombers should have their weapon range longer than a small PD weapon that way the only way to counter it is to use an interceptor or larger PD. If it's possible, I would wish to have evasion stat build in too all craft that way it won't all get wiped by hail of non-PD bullets.

The evasion thing isn't possible without heavy scripting iirc. I looked into that a while back when I was first developing the mod. Nothing in vanilla supports fighter passthrough (without damage). I will see about the range part but I thought that was already true in pretty much every case. If it's not firing it might be due to overload for the high tech bombers or in the case of the Thunder - because the weapon has a cooldown and more missiles stored than in the initial burst. I'll explain why: 

My thoughts regarding midline bombers are that the Thunder is stronger than the Hoplon since it fires more missiles and the nature of its strike run can get damage across the ship in unshielded places for non-360 shielded ships. Its assault weapon can also fire behind it allowing it to hit engines after its run (assuming it survives). The Hoplon has anti-interceptor defense though. And it deals far more damage when unmitigated.

My tests with midline bombers was using the Heron and Mora. Are you testing using Legion? What are you fighting that they don't survive a run? Another capital? Or do they not generally survive a large-scale fleet battle well? From my perspective, they seemed to perform ok but not as good as high tech. That is important since the OP differences are a little larger, but I could increase their defenses and simultaneously increase the damage multiplier that anti-strike craft wings have against other strike craft. That way, interceptors still do their job against them.

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Paragon speed might be of concern as it can kite with Tachlance. Tachlance this patch is pretty good, though, it's still no match to zero flux weapon. Not that I got one to play with yet. Gotta farm some REDACTED.

Thanks I like where TL is at too. It feels better than it did before with a longer cooldown and heavier flux costs. Especially since beam inconsistency looks like it's here to stay. That might be one case where I delve into a custom AI, but that would be very, very far down the line since there is a lot of work to do first. That's even assuming I could fix it without breaking other things - which is frankly a long shot.

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Archean's fleet failing repeatedly in auto resolve due to a lower number of capitals. Culann fell again. This roaming Hegemony fleet thing is a bit too OP.

Ok I'll increase their capital counts and hope the FP adjustments are enough to ensure they don't start dominating the sector. So Heg killed Tri-Tachyon this time? I'm a little confused as to what you mean. Like Culann was captured by Hegemony or it lost it's station fairly quickly?

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Just remembered that Terraforming mod spawns a new Guardian ship every time so I can shoot at it in unlimited number.
Spoiler
(https://i.ibb.co/4RsQsJY/000.jpg) (https://ibb.co/60vdvN1)
Pretty tanky but otherwise weak to swarm tactic would need some scripted ability like entering permanent buff state when hull below 20% or detonate hard flux and damage itself and knockback any ship around it.
[close]

That's one of the reasons I introduced the autofactories pumping out drones. To buy it time to reposition/kill off its target and vent when outnumbered. It falls apart when capitals join the battle, but at least now you likely need a capital to handle that fight. If it could beat the fleet you fielded it would probably be too good imo. And for those who play with smaller max fleet sizes, it could make the fight impossible if I balanced around high max DP and 2v1 or 3v1 capitals. When I tested it out it beat a bunch of Hegemony cruisers and almost killed an Onslaught in a 2v1 capital scenario.

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There's something fishy about the Persean diplomatic trait. I haven't done anything yet and I'm already at vengenceful.
(https://i.ibb.co/qY60YmL/133.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qY60YmL)

Weird. What start did you pick in Nex? Or was it a Nex start? I'll double check the files but I don't *think* I did anything to cause this.
[close]

Strikecraft are still smaller in AO than vanilla (visually I mean) aren't they? That combined with the increased number of mounts and smaller large weapons makes AO ships look bigger anyway. Regular Starsector scale doesn't really apply, imo.

Yes and that is one of the reasons I didn't mind the look. You know, I didn't even consider that Discord sprite feedback probably is without ever even playing the mod and understanding the differences between standard Starsector and the TC. To be fair, I like how the colors blend better in the new sprite especially around the side turret mounts. I really like the new lighting of the hangar glow too.

I might experiment with moving the bay further inward again and see how it looks. Then maybe I can split the bays off and implement them on the other side in a new way in order to accentuate the asymmetry and keep it different-ish from the Eagle. The only caveat is that it requires editing like 4 sprites with all the skin files so I don't want to spend too much time on it. I think it is worth another pass though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 12, 2020, 10:11:32 PM
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but do you mean hit damage or dps should be reduced for Dual Artillery?
I think both. Cus you just downgraded it from the large mount.

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What about Sabots? That is supposed to be the mid range anti-shield missile. Is it bad this update after the changes?
Consider that only less than half reach the target and practically none reach the target in a large fight. It's not that great. Did you increase its missile HP yet?

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I will see about the range part but I thought that was already true in pretty much every case. If it's not firing it might be due to overload for the high tech bombers or in the case of the Thunder - because the weapon has a cooldown and more missiles stored than in the initial burst. I'll explain why:
Think it mostly from the craft turn radius. It has to make a U-turn inside a capital ship. gruesome.

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Like Culann was captured by Hegemony or it lost it's station fairly quickly?
Hegemony just went straight to Culann first thing. Rarely anything survive the Hegemony invasion. One part is due to the roaming Hegemony fleet joining the fray. Another part is due to their capital ship count in the fleet probably. I think another defense platform in Hybrasil and Askonia might help a bit.

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That's one of the reasons I introduced the autofactories pumping out drones. To buy it time to reposition/kill off its target and vent when outnumbered. It falls apart when capitals join the battle, but at least now you likely need a capital to handle that fight. If it could beat the fleet you fielded it would probably be too good imo. And for those who play with smaller max fleet sizes, it could make the fight impossible if I balanced around high max DP and 2v1 or 3v1 capitals. When I tested it out it beat a bunch of Hegemony cruisers and almost killed an Onslaught in a 2v1 capital scenario.
If it could get a team of crappy Domain ships that will really help spread out the damage. But the fight might become too intense for other players.

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Weird. What start did you pick in Nex? Or was it a Nex start? I'll double check the files but I don't *think* I did anything to cause this.
I started with no faction and not ally with anyone particularly. And I don't remember hitting any of their fleets. The moment I set up my faction, it just keeps reducing from events. But look at the picture on the trait column there is -7.5. I wonder what causes it? I also don't have freeport and have only 2 colonies at the moment.

If you already read it, just skip.
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Heron, Epiphany, and other small carriers are too good DP wise IMO. I would cut one craft slot out for each one of them. I'm putting Flash on Herons. Don't stop me. :D
It's not scary until I have to fight Trader guild + Persean alliance invasion with 30+ Herons.

FS weapons work flawlessly, I like it but some would need flux cost up or lower fire rate since these ships don't have to care about flux anymore with active vent. I'm not too keen on Beam weapons friendly pass. Beam accuracy makes it quite OP. Tooltip on Pass through could be color coded for easy identification.

I forgot what I'm about to say. lol

There's some vanilla weapons mix into the weapon blueprint roster?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 13, 2020, 03:51:56 PM
Re: Albreo

Spoiler
I think both. Cus you just downgraded it from the large mount.

Huh? The large version is the Punisher Artillery System. I think it has always been a medium weapon. I'll reduce its damage though. It does seem very good.

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Consider that only less than half reach the target and practically none reach the target in a large fight. It's not that great. Did you increase its missile HP yet?

Point taken. I did iirc, but the extra damage/spread on high-end ballistic PD weapons probably evened it back out into unreliable. I'll have to increase it some more.

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Think it mostly from the craft turn radius. It has to make a U-turn inside a capital ship. gruesome.

Interesting. I'll increase it and see if it makes a difference in how the strike run performs.

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Hegemony just went straight to Culann first thing. Rarely anything survive the Hegemony invasion. One part is due to the roaming Hegemony fleet joining the fray. Another part is due to their capital ship count in the fleet probably. I think another defense platform in Hybrasil and Askonia might help a bit.

Hmm, ok. I also had plans for another nearby system. I just haven't gotten to it yet.

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If it could get a team of crappy Domain ships that will really help spread out the damage. But the fight might become too intense for other players.

An actual support fleet would require overriding the encounter itself which would cause incompatibilities with other mods. I thought about having large drones come from the bays but there are collision complications and visually it is a bit of a stretch.

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I started with no faction and not ally with anyone particularly. And I don't remember hitting any of their fleets. The moment I set up my faction, it just keeps reducing from events. But look at the picture on the trait column there is -7.5. I wonder what causes it? I also don't have freeport and have only 2 colonies at the moment.

If you go under data/config/exerelinFactionConfig/persean.JSON you can see everything the mod adds. It looks like it just adds diplomacy config for the mod's new factions it doesn't do anything to effect the player from what I can see. Do you have the latest version of Nex? Or are you somehow taking a large percentage of the market share away from the Persean League for some commodity? I have heard that can cause them to become hostile towards your colonies.

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Heron, Epiphany, and other small carriers are too good DP wise IMO. I would cut one craft slot out for each one of them. I'm putting Flash on Herons. Don't stop me. :D
It's not scary until I have to fight Trader guild + Persean alliance invasion with 30+ Herons.

They should be effective, definitely, but consider that a cornered carrier is almost certainly a dead carrier. From that perspective I think they are pretty DP efficient if they are scary to confront overall.

What you are talking about sounds like large-scale spam which requires dedicated hard counters like PD focused ships and interceptor carriers. Though I'm not 100% certain if this actually is true, the goal was to make them feel good small scale too. During early game when a player is trying out different designations, I want smaller carriers to have an impact even if there are only a couple of them. I don't want the player to have to wait until late game to realize their potential through spamming. Spamming is a specific strategy some factions utilize. However, once it is hard countered the carriers should be sitting ducks.

Flash on Herons... I feel sorry for your opponents lol. But as far as my opinion? Go for it! Midline should be able to support some high end wings. Each carrier should be able to technically support one tech up from their tech with a bit of sacrifice to other parts of the build.

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FS weapons work flawlessly, I like it but some would need flux cost up or lower fire rate since these ships don't have to care about flux anymore with active vent. I'm not too keen on Beam weapons friendly pass. Beam accuracy makes it quite OP. Tooltip on Pass through could be color coded for easy identification.

I'll keep it in mind but glad they are working overall. Beams are just tricky. They are either OP or underwhelming it seems. I'm going to leave them how they are for the time being, but I will address them again after the next official update when I can have them cause hard flux. That should put them in a much better spot and allow me to reduce their damage without making them worthless against high tech ships.

FWIW the accuracy part sort of helps explain why it can have pass-through to begin with.

The tooltip is part of the weapon spreadsheet. Afaik I can't color code it. It just uses the standard highlight color. Unless there are other parameters I am unaware of.

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There's some vanilla weapons mix into the weapon blueprint roster?

For the player you mean? I might not have accounted for that all the way. I should have removed all the base_bp tags but maybe some are being added before that occurs?

Some questions:
Did you do a clean install of the mod? (Deleting or moving the old folder out of mods and replacing it with the test folder.) If you didn't override or replace the settings file then the logic won't pick up the config values it needs to remove the vanilla files from the campaign layer.

Also are they showing up in markets or are you just finding them as blueprints? And are they in the codex? They shouldn't be.

If you did a clean install and haven't messed with settings, go to settings and make sure "logOverrideInfo":true is set at the bottom of the TC settings section, start a new game, and then link the log file. That might help me find out what is going on.

[close]

I might experiment with moving the bay further inward again and see how it looks. Then maybe I can split the bays off and implement them on the other side in a new way in order to accentuate the asymmetry and keep it different-ish from the Eagle. The only caveat is that it requires editing like 4 sprites with all the skin files so I don't want to spend too much time on it. I think it is worth another pass though.

Ok I spent a couple of hours playing around with this last night. This is a blend of the two styles. How does it compare?

(https://i.imgur.com/Na62mmw.png)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 13, 2020, 04:32:09 PM
I think both. Cus you just downgraded it from the large mount.

Oh! Nvm I see now. I didn't catch that. I haven't gotten to the bombers yet, but here is a hotfix for ballistic artillery and sabot. Archean ships *should* also have more capitals in their fleets. The download link is already updated, but for added convenience the files can be downloaded and replaced using this hotfix so a full download isn't required:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0

Let me know if I need to explain where these files are located!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 13, 2020, 08:03:12 PM
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If you go under data/config/exerelinFactionConfig/persean.JSON you can see everything the mod adds. It looks like it just adds diplomacy config for the mod's new factions it doesn't do anything to effect the player from what I can see. Do you have the latest version of Nex? Or are you somehow taking a large percentage of the market share away from the Persean League for some commodity? I have heard that can cause them to become hostile towards your colonies.
Hmm, this might be pure bad luck, we will see. They're reeling in pain right now plus surrender.

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What you are talking about sounds like large-scale spam which requires dedicated hard counters like PD focused ships and interceptor carriers. Though I'm not 100% certain if this actually is true, the goal was to make them feel good small scale too. During early game when a player is trying out different designations, I want smaller carriers to have an impact even if there are only a couple of them. I don't want the player to have to wait until late game to realize their potential through spamming. Spamming is a specific strategy some factions utilize. However, once it is hard countered the carriers should be sitting ducks.

Flash on Herons... I feel sorry for your opponents lol. But as far as my opinion? Go for it! Midline should be able to support some high end wings. Each carrier should be able to technically support one tech up from their tech with a bit of sacrifice to other parts of the build.
I think the change is pretty good. More craft on the field at a given time. Not sure about other thoughts, cus I'm playing main carrier fleet so I can spam back as a counter.
And I got Legendary blueprints left and right, It's time to release the Kraken.

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The tooltip is part of the weapon spreadsheet. Afaik I can't color code it. It just uses the standard highlight color. Unless there are other parameters I am unaware of.
I remembered other mods have some in red and green. Approlight has red for flame damage.

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For the player you mean? I might not have accounted for that all the way. I should have removed all the base_bp tags but maybe some are being added before that occurs?

Some questions:
Did you do a clean install of the mod? (Deleting or moving the old folder out of mods and replacing it with the test folder.) If you didn't override or replace the settings file then the logic won't pick up the config values it needs to remove the vanilla files from the campaign layer.

Also are they showing up in markets or are you just finding them as blueprints? And are they in the codex? They shouldn't be.

If you did a clean install and haven't messed with settings, go to settings and make sure "logOverrideInfo":true is set at the bottom of the TC settings section, start a new game, and then link the log file. That might help me find out what is going on.
Yes, I deleted the entire Archean folder as usual. The weapons show up in markets as well as blueprints but there's no drop as no one is using them.
I did turn off Total conversion though if that matters. I need to use Combat Analytic.

Log file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13RzTt_YJtPdrz0y3GH2vJO9TBsOqkD_Y/view?usp=sharing
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 13, 2020, 08:56:15 PM
I think the change is pretty good. More craft on the field at a given time. Not sure about other thoughts, cus I'm playing main carrier fleet so I can spam back as a counter.
And I got Legendary blueprints left and right, It's time to release the Kraken.

Nice find!

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I remembered other mods have some in red and green. Approlight has red for flame damage.

Ok I'll look into it. I know you can highlight your own text color using code, so they may have gone that route. If so, that would be down on the priority list as the current highlight at least stands out over plain text. It would certainly be a nice QOL improvement in the long term though.

If not and it is relatively simple, what would be a good highlight color in your opinion? Green maybe?

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Yes, I deleted the entire Archean folder as usual. The weapons show up in markets as well as blueprints but there's no drop as no one is using them.
I did turn off Total conversion though if that matters. I need to use Combat Analytic.

Log file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13RzTt_YJtPdrz0y3GH2vJO9TBsOqkD_Y/view?usp=sharing

Here is the relevant part of the log:
Spoiler
76207 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: pirates - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, insulatedengine, fluxbreakers, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_frontshield, archeus_heavyarmor]
76207 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: remnant - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, pointdefenseai, nav_relay, recovery_shuttles, fluxbreakers, solar_shielding, surveying_equipment, archeus_advancedoptics, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_hardenedshieldemitter, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_adaptiveshields, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76207 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: scavengers - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, nav_relay, recovery_shuttles, fluxbreakers, surveying_equipment, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_hardenedshieldemitter, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_adaptiveshields, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76207 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: lions_guard - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, pointdefenseai, nav_relay, recovery_shuttles, fluxbreakers, solar_shielding, surveying_equipment, archeus_advancedoptics, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_hardenedshieldemitter, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_adaptiveshields, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76207 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: independent - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, nav_relay, recovery_shuttles, fluxbreakers, surveying_equipment, hiressensors, efficiency_overhaul, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_hardenedshieldemitter, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_adaptiveshields, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: luddic_church - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, insulatedengine, nav_relay, recovery_shuttles, fluxbreakers, surveying_equipment, efficiency_overhaul, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_operations_center]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: sindrian_diktat - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, pointdefenseai, nav_relay, recovery_shuttles, fluxbreakers, solar_shielding, surveying_equipment, hiressensors, efficiency_overhaul, archeus_advancedoptics, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_hardenedshieldemitter, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_adaptiveshields, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: knights_of_ludd - []
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: hegemony - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, insulatedengine, nav_relay, fluxbreakers, surveying_equipment, efficiency_overhaul, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: derelict - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, pointdefenseai, nav_relay, fluxbreakers, solar_shielding, surveying_equipment, archeus_advancedoptics, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_autorepair, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_heavyarmor, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: luddic_path - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, insulatedengine, fluxbreakers, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_armoredweapons, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_converted_hangar, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_frontshield, archeus_heavyarmor]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known hullmods for: tritachyon - [archeus_fluxdistributor, hardened_subsystems, militarized_subsystems, expanded_cargo_holds, reinforcedhull, archeus_safetyoverrides, additional_berthing, auxiliary_fuel_tanks, auxiliarythrusters, blast_doors, archeus_fluxcoil, archeus_unstable_injector, advancedshieldemitter, eccm, ecm, insulatedengine, pointdefenseai, nav_relay, fluxbreakers, hiressensors, efficiency_overhaul, archeus_advancedoptics, archeus_turretgyros, archeus_augmentedengines, archeus_expanded_deck_crew, archeus_magazines, archeus_missleracks, archeus_extendedshieldemitter, archeus_frontemitter, archeus_frontshield, archeus_hardenedshieldemitter, archeus_targetingunit, archeus_adaptiveshields, archeus_operations_center, archeus_stabilizedshieldemitter, archeus_beamdefenseai]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: pirates - [archean_marauder_pirates_wing, archean_talon_pirates_wing, archean_broadsword_pirates_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_mauler_pirates_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_barbarian_pirates_wing, archean_piranha_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: pirates - [archean_marauder_pirates_wing, archean_talon_pirates_wing, archean_broadsword_pirates_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_mauler_pirates_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_barbarian_pirates_wing, archean_piranha_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: remnant - [archean_lux_wing, archean_flash_wing, archean_spark_wing]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: remnant - []
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: scavengers - [archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_liberator_wing, archean_broadsword_wing, archean_paradigm_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_longbow_wing, archean_dagger_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_retribution_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_claw_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_sabertooth_wing, archean_xyphos_wing, archean_thunder_wing, archean_hydra_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_trident_wing, archean_hercules_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_gladius_wing, archean_talon_tritachyon_wing, archean_renegade_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_hoplon_wing, archean_piranha_wing]
76208 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: scavengers - [archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_liberator_wing, archean_broadsword_wing, archean_paradigm_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_longbow_wing, archean_dagger_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_retribution_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_claw_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_sabertooth_wing, archean_xyphos_wing, archean_thunder_wing, archean_hydra_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_trident_wing, archean_hercules_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_gladius_wing, archean_talon_tritachyon_wing, archean_renegade_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_hoplon_wing, archean_piranha_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: lions_guard - [archean_fang_wing, archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_sabertooth_wing, archean_thunder_wing, archean_hydra_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_hercules_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_gladius_wing, archean_talon_tritachyon_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_hoplon_wing, archean_piranha_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: lions_guard - [archean_fang_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_sabertooth_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_hoplon_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: independent - [archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_piranha_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_hoplon_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: independent - [archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_piranha_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_hoplon_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: luddic_church - [archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_talon_luddic_wing, archean_warrior_luddic_wing, archean_perdition_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_walrus_luddic_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_vanguard_luddic_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_warthog_luddic_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: luddic_church - [archean_talon_luddic_wing, archean_warrior_luddic_wing, archean_perdition_wing, archean_walrus_luddic_wing, archean_vanguard_luddic_wing, archean_warthog_luddic_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: sindrian_diktat - [archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_hoplon_wing, archean_piranha_wing, archean_hydra_wing, archean_cyclops_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: sindrian_diktat - [archean_talon_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_hydra_wing, archean_cyclops_wing, archean_hoplon_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: knights_of_ludd - []
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: knights_of_ludd - []
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: hegemony - [archean_warthog_hegemony_wing, archean_warrior_wing, archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_interdictor_drone_wing, archean_talon_hegemony_wing, archean_mauler_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_walrus_wing, archean_hellcat_wing, archean_vanguard_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_brute_wing, archean_retribution_hegemony_wing, archean_pd_drone_heavy_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_vanguard_hegemony_wing, archean_piranha_wing, archean_arcangel_hegemony_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: hegemony - [archean_talon_hegemony_wing, archean_vanguard_hegemony_wing, archean_warthog_hegemony_wing, archean_bulwark_wing, archean_arcangel_hegemony_wing, archean_retribution_hegemony_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: derelict - []
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: derelict - []
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: luddic_path - [archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_talon_luddic_wing, archean_warrior_luddic_wing, archean_perdition_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_walrus_luddic_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_vanguard_luddic_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_talon_wing, archean_warthog_luddic_wing]
76209 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: luddic_path - [archean_talon_luddic_wing, archean_warrior_luddic_wing, archean_perdition_wing, archean_walrus_luddic_wing, archean_vanguard_luddic_wing, archean_warthog_luddic_wing]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Currently known fighters for: tritachyon - [archean_gauntlet_wing, archean_liberator_wing, archean_paradigm_wing, archean_longbow_wing, archean_dagger_wing, archean_marauder_wing, archean_retribution_wing, archean_goliath_wing, archean_claw_wing, archean_mining_drone_wing, archean_xyphos_wing, archean_wasp_wing, archean_barbarian_wing, archean_warthog_wing, archean_trident_wing, archean_talon_tritachyon_wing, archean_renegade_wing, archean_talon_wing]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current priority fighters for: tritachyon - [archean_longbow_wing, archean_dagger_wing, archean_goliath_wing, archean_claw_wing, archean_xyphos_wing, archean_wasp_wing, archean_trident_wing, archean_talon_tritachyon_wing]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: pirates - [archean_annihilatorpod, archean_trebuchet, archean_heavyneedler, archean_javelin, archean_shredder, archean_dualflak, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_sabot, archean_hveldriver, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_chaingun, archean_bola, archean_scythecannon, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_railgun, archean_lightac, archean_iridiumgun, archean_harpoon_single, archean_lightag, archean_heatseeker, archean_miningblaster, archean_guillotine, archean_basicblaster, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_basilisk, archean_stinger, archean_minelauncher, archean_avalanche, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_gauss, archean_arbalest, archean_hellbore, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_icergun, archean_microlaser, archean_basicdualblaster, archean_artilleryblaster, archean_hammer, archean_clusterbomb, archean_rapier, archean_typhoon, archean_mark9, archean_gatlinglaser]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: remnant - [archean_annihilatorpod, archean_vulcan2, archean_trebuchet, archean_irpulse, archean_gatlinglaser, archean_pulselaser, archean_javelin, archean_hvyterrabane, archean_shredder, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_cloudburst, archean_hvyfissure, archean_sabot, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_bola, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_dual_artilleryblaster, archean_lightac, archean_iridiumgun, archean_harpoon_single, archean_lightag, archean_icergun, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_miningblaster, archean_basicblaster, archean_hvyioncannon, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_stinger, archean_terrabane, archean_minelauncher, archean_cutlass, archean_microlaser, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_artilleryblaster, archean_mark9, archean_razor, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_basicdualblaster, archean_vulcan, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_hvygatlinglaser, archean_lightneedler, archean_railgun, archean_dualflak, archean_heavymauler, archean_hveldriver, archean_heavyneedler, archean_gauss, archean_mjolnir, archean_multineedler, archean_sabotpod, archean_phasecl, archean_cyclone, archean_hurricane, archean_squall, archean_locust, archean_pdburst, archean_amblaster, archean_phasebeam, archean_heavyblaster, archean_heavyburst, archean_ionpulser, archean_ionbeam, archean_plasma, archean_paladin_pdlaser, archean_tachyonlance, archean_gravitondriver]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: scavengers - [archean_gravitonbeam, archean_gravitonlance, archean_gravitondriver, archean_phasebeam, archean_vulcan2, archean_irpulse, archean_heavyneedler, archean_hvyshatterstorm, archean_phalanxcannon, archean_pulsecannonlr, archean_gatlinglaser, archean_pulselaser, archean_hvyterrabane, archean_multineedler, archean_shredder, archean_dualflak, archean_terminatorbeam, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hephag, archean_hvyfissure, archean_ionbeam, archean_hveldriver, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_chaingun, archean_bola, archean_scythecannon, archean_heavymg, archean_dualrailgun, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_paladin_pdlaser, archean_dual_artilleryblaster, archean_railgun, archean_lightac, archean_iridiumgun, archean_lightag, archean_icergun, archean_avalanche_dual, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_dualartillery, archean_miningblaster, archean_hvy_pulsecannon, archean_guillotine, archean_basicblaster, archean_heavymauler, archean_hvyioncannon, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyblaster, archean_lightdualmg, archean_heavyac, archean_twintac, archean_burstpulser, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_basilisk, archean_amblaster, archean_terrabane, archean_minelauncher, archean_avalanche, archean_cutlass, archean_microlaser, archean_ionpulser, archean_siegebeam, archean_salamanderpod, archean_shatterstorm, archean_flak, archean_hil, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_hvyrailgun, archean_lightdualac, archean_autopulse, archean_ballista, archean_artilleryblaster, archean_mark9, archean_razor, archean_pulser, archean_gauss, archean_heavyburst, archean_arbalest, archean_basicdualblaster, archean_pdburst, archean_iridiumgun_hvy, archean_hellbore, archean_vulcan, archean_lightneedler, archean_taclaser, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_hvygatlinglaser]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: lions_guard - [archean_gravitonbeam, archean_clusterbomb, archean_annihilatorpod, archean_gravitonlance, archean_vulcan2, archean_trebuchet, archean_irpulse, archean_heavyneedler, archean_phalanxcannon, archean_fury, archean_gatlinglaser, archean_sabotpod, archean_rapier, archean_pulselaser, archean_javelin, archean_hvyterrabane, archean_multineedler, archean_shredder, archean_dualflak, archean_hailstone, archean_terminatorbeam, archean_shockwave, archean_typhoon, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hephag, archean_hvyfissure, archean_sabot, archean_hveldriver, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_chaingun, archean_bola, archean_scythecannon, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_dualrailgun, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_dual_artilleryblaster, archean_railgun, archean_lightac, archean_atropos_single, archean_iridiumgun, archean_harpoon_single, archean_lightag, archean_locust, archean_icergun, archean_avalanche_dual, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_harpoon, archean_dualartillery, archean_miningblaster, archean_guillotine, archean_basicblaster, archean_heavymauler, archean_hvyioncannon, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_lightdualmg, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_basilisk, archean_stinger, archean_terrabane, archean_minelauncher, archean_avalanche, archean_cutlass, archean_microlaser, archean_iontorp, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_twinshockwave, archean_pdlaser, archean_hvyrailgun, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_artilleryblaster, archean_mark9, archean_razor, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_gauss, archean_arbalest, archean_basicdualblaster, archean_iridiumgun_hvy, archean_hellbore, archean_vulcan, archean_lightneedler, archean_vespid, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_maelstrom, archean_hvygatlinglaser]
76210 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: independent - [archean_annihilatorpod, archean_vulcan2, archean_trebuchet, archean_heavyneedler, archean_javelin, archean_multineedler, archean_shredder, archean_dualflak, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hvyfissure, archean_sabot, archean_hveldriver, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_chaingun, archean_bola, archean_scythecannon, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_dualrailgun, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_railgun, archean_lightac, archean_iridiumgun, archean_harpoon_single, archean_lightag, archean_avalanche_dual, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_dualartillery, archean_miningblaster, archean_guillotine, archean_basicblaster, archean_heavymauler, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_basilisk, archean_stinger, archean_minelauncher, archean_avalanche, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_hvyrailgun, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_mark9, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_gauss, archean_arbalest, archean_hellbore, archean_vulcan, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_hailstone, archean_locust, archean_fury, archean_sabotpod, archean_hurricane, archean_clusterbomb, archean_cutlass, archean_artilleryblaster, archean_dual_artilleryblaster]
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: luddic_church - [archean_annihilatorpod, archean_vulcan2, archean_trebuchet, archean_hammer, archean_fury, archean_javelin, archean_shredder, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hvyfissure, archean_sabot, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_bola, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_trapdoor, archean_lightac, archean_harpoon_single, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_miningblaster, archean_basicblaster, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_stinger, archean_minelauncher, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_mark9, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_arbalest, archean_hellbore, archean_vulcan, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb]
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: sindrian_diktat - [archean_annihilatorpod, archean_vulcan2, archean_trebuchet, archean_heavyneedler, archean_javelin, archean_multineedler, archean_shredder, archean_dualflak, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hvyfissure, archean_sabot, archean_hveldriver, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_chaingun, archean_bola, archean_scythecannon, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_dualrailgun, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_railgun, archean_lightac, archean_iridiumgun, archean_harpoon_single, archean_lightag, archean_avalanche_dual, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_dualartillery, archean_miningblaster, archean_guillotine, archean_basicblaster, archean_heavymauler, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_basilisk, archean_stinger, archean_minelauncher, archean_avalanche, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_hvyrailgun, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_mark9, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_gauss, archean_arbalest, archean_hellbore, archean_vulcan, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_lightneedler, archean_sabotpod, archean_cyclone, archean_hurricane, archean_squall, archean_locust]
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: knights_of_ludd - []
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: hegemony - [archean_clusterbomb, archean_annihilatorpod, archean_vulcan2, archean_trebuchet, archean_heavyneedler, archean_fury, archean_sabotpod, archean_rapier, archean_javelin, archean_multineedler, archean_shredder, archean_dualflak, archean_hailstone, archean_shockwave, archean_typhoon, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hvyfissure, archean_sabot, archean_hveldriver, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_chaingun, archean_bola, archean_scythecannon, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_dualrailgun, archean_trapdoor, archean_fissure_cannon, archean_railgun, archean_lightac, archean_atropos_single, archean_iridiumgun, archean_harpoon_single, archean_lightag, archean_locust, archean_avalanche_dual, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_harpoon, archean_dualartillery, archean_miningblaster, archean_guillotine, archean_basicblaster, archean_heavymauler, archean_reaper, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_basilisk, archean_stinger, archean_minelauncher, archean_avalanche, archean_iontorp, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_pilum, archean_hvycutlass, archean_twinshockwave, archean_pdlaser, archean_hvyrailgun, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_mark9, archean_swarmer, archean_pulser, archean_gauss, archean_arbalest, archean_hellbore, archean_vulcan, archean_vespid, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_maelstrom, archean_gatlinglaser, archean_hvygatlinglaser, archean_terminatorbeam, archean_cyclone, archean_devastator]
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: derelict - [archean_lightmg, archean_lightac, archean_lightdualac, archean_lightag, archean_shredder, archean_heavymortar, archean_flak, archean_arbalest, archean_dualflak, archean_chaingun, archean_heavyac, archean_mark9, archean_hellbore, archean_hammer, archean_swarmer, archean_annihilator, archean_heatseeker, archean_sabot, archean_sabot_single, archean_sabotpod, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilatorpod, archean_pilum, archean_hurricane, archean_locust, archean_hammerrack, archean_mininglaser, archean_pdlaser, archean_irpulse, archean_miningblaster]
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: luddic_path - [archean_annihilatorpod, archean_vulcan2, archean_hammer, archean_fury, archean_javelin, archean_shredder, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_hvyfissure, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_bola, archean_heavymg, archean_hammerrack, archean_trapdoor, archean_lightac, archean_heatseeker, archean_heavymortar, archean_miningblaster, archean_basicblaster, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyac, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_lightmortar, archean_minelauncher, archean_salamanderpod, archean_annihilator, archean_flak, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_lightdualac, archean_ballista, archean_mark9, archean_pulser, archean_arbalest, archean_vulcan, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb]
76211 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known weapons for: tritachyon - [archean_gravitonbeam, archean_smokescreenpod, archean_shockstorm, archean_gravitonlance, archean_gravitondriver, archean_phasebeam, archean_irpulse, archean_hvyshatterstorm, archean_pulsecannonlr, archean_gatlinglaser, archean_shockstormpod, archean_pulselaser, archean_hvyterrabane, archean_shredder, archean_terminatorbeam, archean_hunterkiller, archean_lightmg, archean_mininglaser, archean_ionbeam, archean_firestorm, archean_autocannon, archean_bola, archean_phasecl, archean_heavymg, archean_widow, archean_trapdoor, archean_paladin_pdlaser, archean_dual_artilleryblaster, archean_lightac, archean_icergun, archean_hurricane, archean_heatseeker, archean_thunderbolt, archean_thunderboltpod, archean_miningblaster, archean_squall, archean_harpoonpod, archean_hvy_pulsecannon, archean_basicblaster, archean_hvyioncannon, archean_sabot_single, archean_heavyblaster, archean_lightdualmg, archean_twintac, archean_burstpulser, archean_heavyvulcan, archean_basilisk, archean_amblaster, archean_terrabane, archean_minelauncher, archean_cutlass, archean_microlaser, archean_ionpulser, archean_siegebeam, archean_salamanderpod, archean_shatterstorm, archean_flak, archean_hil, archean_hvycutlass, archean_pdlaser, archean_smokescreen, archean_trishockwave, archean_autopulse, archean_artilleryblaster, archean_atropos, archean_widow_hvy, archean_razor, archean_pulser, archean_heavyburst, archean_basicdualblaster, archean_pdburst, archean_lightneedler, archean_taclaser, archean_lightassaultbeam, archean_fragbomb, archean_hvygatlinglaser, archean_plasma, archean_tachyonlance]
76212 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: pirates - [archean_afflictor_d_pirates, archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_shepherd_pirates, archean_mudskipper2, archean_mudskipper, archean_nebula, archean_wayfarer_d_pirates, archean_shrike_pirates, archean_shade_d_pirates, archean_venture, archean_buffalo_pirates, archean_mule_d_pirates, archean_mora_d_pirates, archean_gremlin_d_pirates, archean_osprey, archean_hound_d_pirates, archean_buffalo, archean_wolf_d_pirates, archean_condor, archean_kite_pirates, archean_colossus3, archean_bull_pirates, archean_atlas2, archean_mule, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_anchorage_pirates, archean_cerberus_d_pirates, archean_venture_d_pirates, archean_osprey_pirates, archean_shepherd, archean_falcon_d_pirates, archean_condor_d_pirates, archean_monitor_d_pirates, archean_buffalo2, archean_buffalo2_pirates, archean_enforcer_d_pirates, archean_dominator_d_pirates, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_falcon_p, archean_atlas_mk2_pirates]
76212 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: remnant - [archean_glimmer, archean_scintilla, archean_fulgent, archean_brilliant, archean_remnant_station2, remnant_station2, archean_radiant, archean_lumen]
76212 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: scavengers - [archean_aurora, archean_cerberus, archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_colossus, archean_gryphon, archean_wolverine, archean_rhino, archean_heron, archean_mudskipper, archean_nebula, archean_shrike, archean_starliner, archean_crucible, archean_odyssey, archean_valkyrie_mk2, archean_venture, archean_monitor, archean_wolf, archean_hammerhead, archean_falcon, archean_osprey, archean_enforcer, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_atlas_mk2, archean_hermes, archean_drover, archean_medusa, archean_tarsus, archean_conquest, archean_epiphany, archean_mule, archean_sunder, archean_mora, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_crig, archean_templar, archean_vigilance, archean_lancer, archean_apogee, archean_shepherd, archean_centurion, archean_brawler, archean_mercury, archean_lasher, archean_wayfarer, archean_buffalo2, archean_ox, archean_eagle, archean_havok, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_dominator, kite_original, archean_atlas, archean_doom, archean_afflictor, archean_prometheus, archean_omen, archean_shade, archean_tempest, archean_onslaught, archean_valkyrie, archean_harbinger]
76213 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: lions_guard - [archean_cerberus, archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_colossus, archean_gryphon, archean_wolverine, archean_rhino, archean_heron, archean_mudskipper, archean_nebula, archean_starliner, archean_crucible, archean_valkyrie_mk2, archean_venture, archean_monitor, archean_hammerhead, archean_falcon, archean_osprey, archean_enforcer, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_atlas_mk2, archean_hermes, archean_drover, archean_tarsus, archean_conquest, archean_mule, archean_sunder, archean_mora, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_crig, archean_vigilance, archean_lancer, archean_shepherd, archean_centurion, archean_brawler, archean_lasher, archean_wayfarer, archean_buffalo2, archean_ox, archean_eagle, archean_havok, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_dominator, kite_original, archean_atlas, archean_prometheus, archean_legion, archean_onslaught, archean_valkyrie]
76213 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: independent - [archean_aurora, archean_cerberus, archean_gremlin, archean_mule_d, archean_anchorage, archean_colossus, archean_gryphon, archean_wolverine, archean_rhino, archean_lasher_d, archean_heron, archean_mudskipper, archean_hermes_d, archean_nebula, archean_shrike, archean_starliner, archean_dominator_d, archean_wolf_d, archean_crucible, archean_tarsus_d, archean_odyssey, archean_mercury_d, archean_valkyrie_mk2, archean_venture, archean_hammerhead_d, archean_monitor, archean_wolf, archean_hammerhead, archean_falcon, archean_eagle_d, archean_osprey, archean_enforcer, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_atlas_mk2, archean_sunder_d, archean_hermes, archean_drover, archean_medusa, archean_tarsus, archean_conquest, archean_epiphany, archean_mule, archean_kite_d, archean_sunder, archean_hound_d, archean_mora, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_crig, archean_templar, archean_vigilance, archean_falcon_d, archean_lancer, archean_apogee, archean_shepherd, archean_centurion, archean_brawler, archean_mercury, archean_lasher, archean_wayfarer, archean_buffalo2, archean_ox, archean_cerberus_d, archean_eagle, archean_havok, archean_enforcer_d, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_dominator, kite_original]
76214 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: luddic_church - [archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_gemini_luddic_church, archean_lasher_luddic_church, archean_buffalo2_luddic_church, archean_hammerhead_luddic_church, archean_mudskipper, archean_nebula, archean_enforcer_luddic_church, archean_wolverine_luddic_church, archean_venture, archean_mora_luddic_church, archean_condor_luddic_church, archean_osprey, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_mule_luddic_church, archean_mule, archean_hound_luddic_church, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_dominator_luddic_church, archean_lancer_luddic_church, archean_rhino_luddic_church, archean_atlas_mk2_luddic_church, archean_shepherd, archean_buffalo2, archean_buffalo_luddic_church, archean_osprey_luddic_church, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_legion_luddic_church]
76215 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: sindrian_diktat - [archean_cerberus, archean_gremlin, archean_mule_d, archean_anchorage, archean_colossus, archean_gryphon, archean_rhino, archean_lasher_d, archean_mudskipper, archean_hermes_d, archean_nebula, archean_starliner, archean_dominator_d, archean_wolf_d, archean_crucible, archean_tarsus_d, archean_mercury_d, archean_valkyrie_mk2, archean_venture, archean_hammerhead_d, archean_monitor, archean_hammerhead, archean_falcon, archean_eagle_d, archean_osprey, archean_enforcer, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_atlas_mk2, archean_sunder_d, archean_hermes, archean_drover, archean_tarsus, archean_mule, archean_kite_d, archean_hound_d, archean_mora, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_crig, archean_vigilance, archean_falcon_d, archean_lancer, archean_shepherd, archean_brawler, archean_lasher, archean_wayfarer, archean_buffalo2, archean_ox, archean_cerberus_d, archean_enforcer_d, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_dominator, kite_original, archean_atlas, archean_prometheus, archean_conquest, archean_legion, archean_onslaught, archean_valkyrie]
76215 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: knights_of_ludd - []
76215 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: hegemony - [archean_mora_hegemony, archean_cerberus, archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_colossus, archean_falcon_xiv, archean_rhino, archean_mudskipper, archean_nebula, archean_condor_hegemony, archean_legion_xiv, archean_crucible, archean_venture, archean_rhino_hegemony, archean_hound_hegemony, archean_monitor, archean_eagle_xiv, archean_osprey, archean_enforcer, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_atlas_mk2, archean_hermes, archean_buffalo_hegemony, archean_onslaught_xiv, archean_gemini, archean_mule, archean_mora, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_crig, archean_shepherd, archean_enforcer_xiv, archean_lasher, archean_buffalo2, archean_ox, archean_kite_hegemony, archean_dominator_xiv, archean_brawler_hegemony, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_wolf_hegemony, archean_centurion_hegemony, archean_dominator, archean_atlas, archean_prometheus, archean_valkyrie]
76215 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: derelict - [station_derelict_survey_mothership, archean_bastillon, archean_warden, archean_sentry, archean_defender, archean_picket, archean_station_derelict_survey_mothership, archean_guardian, archean_berserker, archean_rampart]
76215 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: luddic_path - [archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_crucible_pather, archean_eagle_pather, archean_condor_pather, archean_mudskipper, archean_lasher_pather, archean_nebula, archean_venture, archean_hammerhead_pather, archean_osprey, archean_gremlin_luddic_path, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_colossus2, archean_hound_luddic_path, archean_anchorage_pather, archean_mule, archean_prometheus2, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_rhino_pather, archean_buffalo2_pather, archean_monitor_pather, archean_shepherd, archean_buffalo2, archean_buffalo_luddic_church, archean_brawler_pather, archean_cerberus_luddic_path, archean_enforcer_pather, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, archean_kite_luddic_path, archean_mora_pather]
76216 [Thread-4] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: tritachyon - [archean_aurora, archean_gremlin, archean_anchorage, archean_buffalo_tritachyon, archean_mudskipper, archean_nebula, archean_shrike, archean_odyssey, archean_venture, archean_tempest, archean_wolf, archean_osprey, archean_buffalo, archean_condor, archean_medusa, archean_epiphany, archean_mule, archean_phaeton, archean_dram, archean_templar, archean_scarab, archean_apogee, archean_shepherd, archean_mercury, archean_buffalo2, archean_hound, archean_kite, archean_bull, kite_original, archean_astral, archean_atlas, archean_doom, archean_afflictor, archean_prometheus, archean_hyperion, archean_brawler_tritachyon, archean_omen, archean_shade, archean_paragon, archean_harbinger]
[close]

I didn't check every nook and cranny but it seems that the override logic is working as far as removing them from factions. I was told that removing them would prevent them from showing up in markets and "no_drop" would prevent them from dropping as blueprints. Those are separate settings iirc. The TC toggle shouldn't affect anything I don't think.

Well, the next step would be to link the save file and the settings file. That way I can dig into the campaign status more and get a mod list to see if another mod is adding these back in or overriding them, etc. I'll also look at the related code and double check that I'm adding/removing the appropriate tags.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 14, 2020, 02:16:49 AM
Just coming back

Fresh save: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14YFE-OBlsyXxceeTnkmhbYBn5Jsc4obh?usp=sharing

Do tell if it's the wrong files.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 14, 2020, 03:45:25 PM
The settings file is from starsector core. I need the one from the mod. (I'm just double checking the settings for the TC overrides.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 14, 2020, 10:11:36 PM
Alright, I replaced the file. you can use the same link.

Doom with a proper loadout and captain can solo Paragon no problem in open space. Its speed might be too fast.

Kraken's Proximity mine is too strong. The damage should be reduced a lot. I'm also confused about Kraken and Kraken (L). Look like I got the Ludic blueprint.
Goliath is still not worth 30 OP. I would either reduce the OP to around 25 or make it comes in a pair with increase OP.

I'm still a little uncomfortable with Executor OP. A very tight fit with no vents. I think around 460-480 base should be better.
On another hand, I feel Paragon has too much OP.

Obliterator is too damn strong, nerf pls. Capital pulse is not desirable somehow, a bit too weak.

Megalith doesn't have a dedicated carrier bay?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 15, 2020, 05:15:11 PM
I can't apply Militarized Subsystems to the Mercury Shuttle.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 15, 2020, 06:24:24 PM
All of the below mentioned changes should be in the download and hotfix link. I will re-provide both below. For those who are downloading the test version for the first time you don't need to worry about the hotfix. Everything is already included. The hotfix is just for convenience for those who already downloaded it and dont want to wait for another download time each time a change is made and requires knowing where the files are located in the mod.

Test Update Link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=1 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=1)

Hotfix Update Link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fm5br77z9dr0fyk/AAAsk6ehuJBC6hZyTSZr7Ql1a?dl=1)

Alright, I replaced the file. you can use the same link.
Ah I found it. There is a typo in the file that determines which factions are overridden. "persean_league" should be "persean"

In the save file you linked the Hegemony also knows vanilla weapons even though that ID is fine - so I assuming some kind of trading happened or something. Just to be sure I made the correction and started a new game. I checked the Persean League and Hegemony's known weapons and they looked correct. Assuming nothing modifies it afterward it should be fixed.

This makes me want to work on the logic that will update the campaign based upon the settings every time a save is loaded (can be disabled for faster loading). For now, if you go to "data/config/ArcheanOrderEcon/ids" and open vanillaFactionIds in notepad you can correct the id. I have updated the download and will provide the file for replacement in the hotfix link for an alternative.

Thanks for the help!

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Doom with a proper loadout and captain can solo Paragon no problem in open space. Its speed might be too fast.
Not seeing that with my builds but the officer probably makes a large difference. I decreased the speed to 70.

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Kraken's Proximity mine is too strong. The damage should be reduced a lot. I'm also confused about Kraken and Kraken (L). Look like I got the Ludic blueprint.
Reduced its damage by a lot. And I should have fixed a bug where it would cause friendly fire during an extremely brief fade out time that would trigger a FF explosion if an allied fighter was on top of it at that exact moment.

Krakken: Yup there are two variants. One is used by the Lions Guard and I think there may be a Trader Guilds variant too but I may not have added that yet. The Luddic variant is used by both Luddic factions (or at least will be as I go through variants). They each have different weapons though iirc the Luddic variant you have is better against strike craft counters and the standard variant is slightly higher damage per strike.

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Goliath is still not worth 30 OP. I would either reduce the OP to around 25 or make it comes in a pair with increase OP.
I increased the defenses of all gunships even further. I may need to increase the multiplier to strike craft so interceptors have more impact as a result, but I haven't decided yet.

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I'm still a little uncomfortable with Executor OP. A very tight fit with no vents. I think around 460-480 base should be better.
On another hand, I feel Paragon has too much OP.
Increased it to 480 but didn't modify stock variants yet.

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Obliterator is too damn strong, nerf pls. Capital pulse is not desirable somehow, a bit too weak.
I am assuming you are speaking about the large version? The medium seems relatively balanced. Reworked the large one a bit. Reduced the 6 shots per burst to 3 though capacity and clip amount is the same. I also increased the time for a clip to regenerate by 20%. For the Capital Pulse Cannon, I changed its burst from 4 to 2 and lowered the cooldown between bursts. This will mostly have an impact in that its less likely to be on a burst cooldown at the point of initial contact after firing at nearby strike craft. I also increased its armor penetration substantially and slightly increased its dps.

New Stat Cards:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/X2jlwB6.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/XauLaY4.png)
[close]

As a side note on weapon balance, I further increased the first stage hitpoints of the Sabot line of weapons and increased the first stage missile speed. It should be noticeably more reliable at getting hits - though some medium/large PD can still snipe it before it activates the second stage. Especially the Graviton Beam.

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Megalith doesn't have a dedicated carrier bay?
I thought that might be too powerful considering its stats. It does, however, have a much better version of Reserve Deployment that has more charges and a faster recharge rate. I am hoping that is enough to make it feel like a carrier.


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I can't apply Militarized Subsystems to the Mercury Shuttle.

Thanks I'll take a look at it. Not sure if its the code or the shuttle itself atm. If its a ship issue I'm not sure if I can hotfix it if it needs a hullmod. If its a code issue I probably can though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 16, 2020, 06:50:09 AM
It's not just the shuttle.  I can't use militarized subsystems anymore.  Maybe it's looking for the vanilla civilian grade hull rather than the AO version.

I like the changes overall, but I am moving and haven't had a chance to play much.

In my opinion, virtually all PD and Fire Support weapons should be soft flux and virtually all assault and strike weapons should be hard flux.

I also think that PD is too effective.  I'd recommend either shortening ranges or, better yet, making most PD weapons magazine-based, so that they continue at their current effectiveness for a time but can be overwhelmed.  (It might also make expanded magazines useful.)  If things become too lethal, then improve the effectiveness of interceptors.  It's the same as making PD weapons magazine based--PD capabilities can be degraded with enough sustained fire.  This will increase the lethality of fights, but I think that's a good thing.  They take too long, imo.  It's too easy for a player to keep all their ships alive once they have all the blueprints.

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Doom with a proper loadout and captain can solo Paragon no problem in open space. Its speed might be too fast.
Is this a problem?  I think it's a good thing if it's viable to use smaller ships with level 20 pilots, as opposed to forcing us to run all capital fleets in the late game.  Also, balancing around a fully optimized loadout and level 20 pilot might have undesirable consequences for general gameplay.  Does it seem too powerful without the pilot?

SciCorps fleet doctrine needs to be adjusted to field more carriers now that the Odysseus is a carrier--or they need another capital.  All they field is Apogees and small ships.

There are two versions of the Dagger bomber currently enabled in the mod.  Actually, there appear to be multiple versions of a number of strikecraft.

Ogleth is still missing the Habitable modifier.

I'll also second Albreo that the Squall probably needs an extended range.  Since it's a capital class engine interdiction system, it would make sense that it has a medium range (1800-2500).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 16, 2020, 09:12:34 AM
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Is this a problem?  I think it's a good thing if it's viable to use smaller ships with level 20 pilots, as opposed to forcing us to run all capital fleets in the late game.  Also, balancing around a fully optimized loadout and level 20 pilot might have undesirable consequences for general gameplay.  Does it seem too powerful without the pilot?

You should test it out. I myself only skim through it and won't be able to deliver a concrete verdict. From the brief test out with no pilot, usually phase ship AI is crappy with no pilot but it can still manage to solo at least 30 OP Onslaught while running away from fighter which should be a phase ship nemesis. I also used this missile build to kill the new Guardian ship with another capital. It looks like it's too slippery to me but well gotta sleep.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 16, 2020, 09:14:55 AM
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Is this a problem?  I think it's a good thing if it's viable to use smaller ships with level 20 pilots, as opposed to forcing us to run all capital fleets in the late game.  Also, balancing around a fully optimized loadout and level 20 pilot might have undesirable consequences for general gameplay.  Does it seem too powerful without the pilot?

You should test it out. I myself only skim through it and won't be able to deliver a concrete verdict. From the brief test out with no pilot, usually phase ship AI is crappy with no pilot but it can still manage to solo at least 30 OP Onslaught while running away from fighter which should be a phase ship nemesis. I also used this missile build to kill the new Guardian ship with another capital. It looks like it's too slippery to me but well gotta sleep.

I won't have time to do too much testing until next year, but I'll try to get some level 6 and level 12 pilots and not promote them past that.  That seems to be what the AI typically uses.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 16, 2020, 08:44:18 PM
It's not just the shuttle.  I can't use militarized subsystems anymore.  Maybe it's looking for the vanilla civilian grade hull rather than the AO version.
Ah yeah probably I'll add my own version to fix it. Likely tomorrow if I get a chance. I also still need to look at midline bombers.

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I like the changes overall, but I am moving and haven't had a chance to play much.
Good to hear the changes seem good so far! Hope the move goes smoothly!

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In my opinion, virtually all PD and Fire Support weapons should be soft flux and virtually all assault and strike weapons should be hard flux.

I also think that PD is too effective.  I'd recommend either shortening ranges or, better yet, making most PD weapons magazine-based, so that they continue at their current effectiveness for a time but can be overwhelmed.  (It might also make expanded magazines useful.)  If things become too lethal, then improve the effectiveness of interceptors.  It's the same as making PD weapons magazine based--PD capabilities can be degraded with enough sustained fire.  This will increase the lethality of fights, but I think that's a good thing.  They take too long, imo.  It's too easy for a player to keep all their ships alive once they have all the blueprints.
The magazine idea is neat. Artificially creating a window for missiles would probably be a good thing and I could have much larger magazines on things like the Machine Gun to allow for another balancing mechanism. I already tried to do this to a small degree by increasing higher tier PD's time between firing and therefore allowing lower tier to better counter consistent missile spam over something like the PD Cannon. Soft flux might be too difficult considering shielded strike craft not to mention there isn't a vanilla mechanic that does that and so it would be difficult to implement.

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SciCorps fleet doctrine needs to be adjusted to field more carriers now that the Odysseus is a carrier--or they need another capital.  All they field is Apogees and small ships.
Making a note - though just to make sure are you talking about their military bases or smaller colonies? They have a lot of Patrol HQs which don't field capitals. There should definitely be capitals at places like the Directorship Headquarters. The Odyssey is technically considered a capital warship on the code side of things so it shouldn't be treated as a carrier in fleet generation even though it has the dedicated carrier bays hullmod.

They need another capital just in general though, I agree. The Astral is actually somewhat of a placeholder though I will use it as their rare capital carrier. I plan on making another kind of capital ship on top of that.
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There are two versions of the Dagger bomber currently enabled in the mod.  Actually, there appear to be multiple versions of a number of strikecraft.
Have you hotfixed the issue Albreo mentioned earlier with vanilla weapons showing up in markets? (Requires a new game.) If not, that should *probably* fix it unless I'm missing something else. There was an issue with the Persean League's override because there was a spreadsheet typo in the faction id and it was being skipped.

If that doesn't fix it, a linked save + AO mod settings file would be most helpful in order to troubleshoot.

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Ogleth is still missing the Habitable modifier.
Fixed along with adding that to Xolydunne as well. Added those changes to the download though hotfixing isn't worth it since it requires a new game anyway.

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I'll also second Albreo that the Squall probably needs an extended range.  Since it's a capital class engine interdiction system, it would make sense that it has a medium range (1800-2500).
I'm ok with that, but wouldn't it then need a damage reduction? It is a very effective large missile right now. Imo it beats Heavy Thunderbolt and the large Atropos in effectiveness. The only two things that probably outshine it are the Hivemind and the Heavy Widow Launcher.

In a 1v1 the ship equipped with Squalls often wins even if the rest of the build is poor. I get that it is mitigated more in a fleet scenario, but in something like a close quarters 5 v 5 cruiser/capital battle it still hits fairly often from what I've seen.

That being said, if you guys think it needs medium range without a damage nerf then *shrug* fine by me.

(*EDIT* Not being sarcastic here just in case that was the impression at all. I really do think I could be overestimating the missile's survivability but recent tests have made it seem good in a medium-DP/capital scenario for sure. I will also add the caveat that the primary power of the weapon is engine interdiction and a tiny pinch of AI abuse since it's a kinetic missile so damage could actually be mostly irrelevant. Engine knockout is a serious liability during an even battle.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 17, 2020, 01:40:25 AM
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Have you hotfixed the issue Albreo mentioned earlier with vanilla weapons showing up in markets? (Requires a new game.) If not, that should *probably* fix it unless I'm missing something else. There was an issue with the Persean League's override because there was a spreadsheet typo in the faction id and it was being skipped.

If that doesn't fix it, a linked save + AO mod settings file would be most helpful in order to troubleshoot.
Yep, it doesn't show up in markets. Should be fixed this time.

Eh! I never know Odyssey has a salvage gantry. What a must have ship. But I don't understand why Odyssey AI wants to kiss enemy ships. It just floats right in front of tach lance smash shield to shield but it doesn't have weapons that require that close of a distance.

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I'm ok with that, but wouldn't it then need a damage reduction? It is a very effective large missile right now. Imo it beats Heavy Thunderbolt and the large Atropos in effectiveness. The only two things that probably outshine it are the Hivemind and the Heavy Widow Launcher.

In a 1v1 the ship equipped with Squalls often wins even if the rest of the build is poor. I get that it is mitigated more in a fleet scenario, but in something like a close quarters 5 v 5 cruiser/capital battle it still hits fairly often from what I've seen.

That being said, if you guys think it needs medium range without a damage nerf then *shrug* fine by me.
Damage reduction? I mean it's pretty weak right now with an 862 burst and 100 sustain. It's only useful as fire support to mess with the enemy engines. Its chance to arc might be too high consider the amount it spews out each time which can knock an entire ship out even though it shouldn't. And from the look of it, missile speed might also be too fast as it hits 90-100% of a time due to PD can't keep track of it.

For sabot, I can't think of any better way to buff it. Its stat is impressive if it hit but it usually doesn't. lol

Found the Mother ship. It spawned small drones? The drones didn't do much but fun to shoot at. There should be some... suicide drone in the mix. Like blow up real big when using the ability, do a little blink, sound effect, and boom.

I would like more ships for the simulation test though. It would benefit balancing in the long term. At least all of the capital.

https://youtu.be/7fNi34lhFWw
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 17, 2020, 08:06:02 AM
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Artificially creating a window for missiles would probably be a good thing and I could have much larger magazines on things like the Machine Gun to allow for another balancing mechanism.

Yeah, that way certain ships cannot have endless area point defense spam, in particular.  Maybe the Shattercell is an exception.

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Making a note - though just to make sure are you talking about their military bases or smaller colonies? They have a lot of Patrol HQs which don't field capitals. There should definitely be capitals at places like the Directorship Headquarters.

I did start to see a few, but even at the HQ some detachments had no capitals.  That said, the Apogee is actually a competent cruiser now, which I'm happy about because I like exploration, and your Squall/3xAtropos build is quite good.

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(Requires a new game.)

Oops!  OK. :)

--

WRT Missile ranges:

I noticed there is a Large Salamander now (or has it always been there?) @2,400, so I suppose that I'd only advocate for bumping Squall up to 1,800.  I've never thought of it as a DPS weapon.  I'd agree with Albreo that either the EMP damage or speed might need a slight reduction.  I probably wouldn't do both, at least to start.  The only ships that it really does a lot of damage to would be frigates, and the missile don't turn tight enough to connect with them.

I'd agree with the analysis of the Sabot, but it does give me an idea: Are there any fighters left with active flares?  Maybe if there were fast heavy fighters and/or maybe a light gunship that specialized in flare spam.  They wouldn't do a lot of damage on their own, but would open the door for other strike craft / missiles.  Sort of a Wild Weasel role.

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Eh! I never know Odyssey has a salvage gantry. What a must have ship.

It's one of the new changes.  It's definitely something that you'll want 1 of in your fleets now.  Although, I'm skeptical you'll find it worth fielding at 28 DP.  Its DPS profile is modestly worse than the 22 DP Revenant (fewer hardpoints/worse fields of fire/worse net dissipation/worse shield efficiency), and much worse than the Legion or Onslaught.  Its cost probably needs to fall or it needs a full conversion to Battlecarrier.

Also, should the Renegade fighter-bomber count as a fighter for the purposes of the new hull mods?  Currently, I don't find them to be worthwhile, but if I could field them cheaply on the Ody or Revenant, I might.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 17, 2020, 09:54:32 AM
When your building these variants, do you test them with the pilot personalities that the faction favors?

For instance, SciCorps favors cautious pilots and that becomes a problem with some of their builds.

The Squall/Atropos variant for the Apogee works very well because the ranges are nearly identical.  Some of the other variants are a little more problematic.

The Exploration variant is fine without a pilot; however, with a cautious pilot it struggles because the pilot will try to keep at 3,500 and do nothing but fire harpoons.  That variant would benefit from something like a Heavy Shockstorm/Rapier replacing the Atropos up front and Typhoon Atropos in the Large.  Ditching the Liberators for Retributions. 

Meanwhile, the Long range variant probably needs to have all of its M/L as some combination of Thunderbolts / Hurricanes.

And if you wanted to do a MRM variant, then all the ranges should cluster between 2.5-3k. etc.

Anyway for any faction that defaults to cautious pilots, it's probably worth looking at the variants carefully to make sure that there are enough M/L weapons near the max engagement range of the variant.  Otherwise, the addition of a pilot risks making the ship perform worse instead of better.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 17, 2020, 10:50:28 PM
Thanks for the continued feedback! Keep it coming when anything comes up I am following it and will report changes as I make them. I spent time posting on the new blog post thread so I don't have time to respond in detail yet, but I will soon.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 19, 2020, 08:21:26 AM
Is it possible for you to change the 1st rank of Fighter Doctrine so that it reduces the crew requirement of all strike craft by 1?  There are all those LPs, and I'm unwilling to use 80% of them as things stand.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on December 20, 2020, 11:06:16 AM
I don't think I've ever seen crew requirement being a limiting factor for any strikecraft.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 20, 2020, 12:05:14 PM
I don't think I've ever seen crew requirement being a limiting factor for any strikecraft.

Try playing the Perseans using only their stuff.

High tech and low tech are easy to play.  High tech you can play carriers, you can brawl with elite shields, go phase ships, or you can play long range hit-and-run.  Low tech you double down on armor and dakka dakka.  (Low tech has more L slots and hull mods to reduce heavy ballistic costs.)  Midline sucks.  There's no reason to choose it to go defensive, so it has to play offense as the best defense.  The most obvious option is to play a carrier fleet, and try strikecraft and missile spam.

The trouble is that its strikecraft and missiles are pound-for-pound worse than high tech, and the strikecraft typically have +1 crew to their high tech equivalents.

So not only are you at a strategic disadvantage to begin with, you also pay two additional taxes:  You have to buy lots of replacement crew, and you have to pay the upkeep to haul a lot of extra crew around with you or it can become a legitimate operational limitation.  To play midline, you pay more to use worse stuff.  With the Excalibur cannon nerf, I don't see that they have anything going for them.

Can anyone name any role that the midline excels at?  The Executor is an OK ship, but unless you use a mod that raises the officer level cap, you kind of have to choose between making it a ship of the line or a carrier.  As far as I'm concerned, you'd be infinitely better off with either a Paragon, an Astral, or two Pillagers for roughly the same DP.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on December 20, 2020, 05:22:52 PM
Even if all of that were true, changing the skills would be a terrible solution, because it would affect all ships, not just the ones supposedly underpowered.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 20, 2020, 09:51:37 PM
Albreo:
Spoiler
Eh! I never know Odyssey has a salvage gantry. What a must have ship. But I don't understand why Odyssey AI wants to kiss enemy ships. It just floats right in front of tach lance smash shield to shield but it doesn't have weapons that require that close of a distance.

Yeah I wanted it to be unique and exploration themed. I *think* having capital level maintenance and crew requirements still gives the Salvage Rig a place in fleets, but to be honest I didn't look that closely.

As for the AI was it a reckless officer? I've seen them do that sort of thing. If you have a lot of PD Burst beams on it that can also tempt the AI to get within those ranges since that weapon's dps is pretty high.

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Damage reduction? I mean it's pretty weak right now with an 862 burst and 100 sustain. It's only useful as fire support to mess with the enemy engines. Its chance to arc might be too high consider the amount it spews out each time which can knock an entire ship out even though it shouldn't. And from the look of it, missile speed might also be too fast as it hits 90-100% of a time due to PD can't keep track of it.

For sabot, I can't think of any better way to buff it. Its stat is impressive if it hit but it usually doesn't. lol

The Squall has 1800 range in the DL now. Disabling most of the ship is intended as an additional perk. I'll possibly reduce its speed a bit later on after I test it a bit more.

I adjusted the Sabot to fire the second stage missiles at a farther out distance and narrowed the spread a bit. From there I'll look at second stage hitpoints to see if an increase is needed. Aoe pd hitting all or most of the second stage missiles at one time is a big part of the reason it doesn't get through as easily I think. It will probably get to the point where high tech PD can't mitigate it much, but their shields are stronger so it might work out.

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Found the Mother ship. It spawned small drones? The drones didn't do much but fun to shoot at. There should be some... suicide drone in the mix. Like blow up real big when using the ability, do a little blink, sound effect, and boom.

Yeah it's more flavor than challenge and fits the description of the encounter well. Since it is supposed to be a beginner-level fight I think making it even harder might be going too far, but at least its a bit harder from the past version where if CR wasn't a thing you could deploy a single combat frigate on autopilot and go eat dinner and the fight would be won eventually.

Your idea is cool though. It reminds me of a game probably nobody on this forum has played or remembers called Armada for the Sega Dreamcast. There was an enemy that did that sort of thing and man did it often catch me off guard.

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I would like more ships for the simulation test though. It would benefit balancing in the long term. At least all of the capital.

Ok I'll work on that some more. I agree that sometimes I want to test a wider array of variants just in general. I also need to add a Luddic Church fleet and a Adamantine Consortium fleet iirc.
[close]

basileus:
Spoiler
Yeah, that way certain ships cannot have endless area point defense spam, in particular.  Maybe the Shattercell is an exception.

Makes sense. The Shattercell is kind of like the upgraded and more OP expensive version of the Machine Gun. The magazine feature in general is something I'll probably look into tonight.

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I did start to see a few, but even at the HQ some detachments had no capitals.  That said, the Apogee is actually a competent cruiser now, which I'm happy about because I like exploration, and your Squall/3xAtropos build is quite good.

It is possible that the lack of an Orbital Works + nanoforge affects the fleet size/num of capitals despite having High Command. Sci-Corps HQ only has Heavy Industry. You could also be seeing patrols from Lexicus near the station as part of their patrol route. I don't want to just arbitrarily give them an Orbital Works + forge because it effects the sector economy, but you could try and adjust the doctrine settings in the faction file to see if a larger value for shipSize makes a difference.

Also, if you want to test an Orbital Works instead of Heavy Industry you can do so be going to the econ settings under data/config/ArcheanOrderEcon/systems. You will see spreadsheets for most if not all core systems. In the spreadsheet there is a a column to remove and a column to add industries as well as planetary conditions and stations. You can add a row for Sci-Corps HQ and make any changes you want then start a new game.

You'll have to know the ids for these, but for what you would use for this change:
entity id: scicorps_headquarters
removed industries: heavyindustry
added industries: orbitalworks

The code that manages this doesn't currently accept the addition of special items, but I'll probably do that eventually. If you make these changes just remember you made them. ;) They are there for players to customize non-random core games. At some point they may not even require a new game to take effect, but I haven't coded the logic for that yet since it requires building maps for most of the mod ids and that's time consuming.

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WRT Missile ranges:

I noticed there is a Large Salamander now (or has it always been there?) @2,400, so I suppose that I'd only advocate for bumping Squall up to 1,800.  I've never thought of it as a DPS weapon.  I'd agree with Albreo that either the EMP damage or speed might need a slight reduction.  I probably wouldn't do both, at least to start.  The only ships that it really does a lot of damage to would be frigates, and the missile don't turn tight enough to connect with them.

The large Salamander has always been there, but I'm sure it is often overlooked for a large missile slot considering other options that exist. I put the Squall range at 1800 for now. I'm thinking about the speed reduction. It is very reliable but its requirement to swirl around a ship means the tipping point to unreliability is incredibly thin and I'd rather it be too reliable over unreliable considering the tier and rarity of the weapon.

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I'd agree with the analysis of the Sabot, but it does give me an idea: Are there any fighters left with active flares?  Maybe if there were fast heavy fighters and/or maybe a light gunship that specialized in flare spam.  They wouldn't do a lot of damage on their own, but would open the door for other strike craft / missiles.  Sort of a Wild Weasel role.

Currently only the Claw, Hercules and Krakken have flares and that's mostly just to balance those particular designs to be more attractive when comparing them against shielded strike craft. A Wild Weasel sort of role is interesting though. Maybe a midline fighter armed with a single Micro Repeater or something could work. Once upon a time several other wings had flares, but I find that they are too strong to add to wings that also cause a decent amount of damage.

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It's one of the new changes.  It's definitely something that you'll want 1 of in your fleets now.  Although, I'm skeptical you'll find it worth fielding at 28 DP.  Its DPS profile is modestly worse than the 22 DP Revenant (fewer hardpoints/worse fields of fire/worse net dissipation/worse shield efficiency), and much worse than the Legion or Onslaught.  Its cost probably needs to fall or it needs a full conversion to Battlecarrier.

Making the Odyssey more of a speedy light battlecarrier is an option. Maybe add a bay or two and increase max OP? It already has carrier-grade bays. Fields of fire is something I will look at as fixing that is relatively easy to correct. I'd rather balance it up to its cost then reduce the cost just in general. That being said, it will probably continue to be slightly worse than a Legion or an Onslaught since it has utility on top of its combat performance.

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Also, should the Renegade fighter-bomber count as a fighter for the purposes of the new hull mods?  Currently, I don't find them to be worthwhile, but if I could field them cheaply on the Ody or Revenant, I might.

Afaik I think it would change the way the AI uses them if I do that. I'll have to ask to be sure. If so, the biggest downside is they would use their Ion Torpedoes on passing strike craft if I make them a fighter instead of a bomber. I'll see if I can get that to work. Otherwise I'll probably just buff their torpedo a bit or give them more of them, etc.

When your building these variants, do you test them with the pilot personalities that the faction favors?

...

Anyway for any faction that defaults to cautious pilots, it's probably worth looking at the variants carefully to make sure that there are enough M/L weapons near the max engagement range of the variant.  Otherwise, the addition of a pilot risks making the ship perform worse instead of better.

I don't typically no - though I probably should. I did change and update the Apogee variants from your suggestions. I'll try and keep that in mind as I go through variants.
[close]

Re: Crew Requirements and Midline
Spoiler
DatonKallandor is correct that skills don't really solve tech issues because they are universally applied. I also think that - while midline probably needs work in some areas - that tech isn't bad overall. The Excalibur nerf is likely disappointing yet necessary. I think it is still legendary caliber performance-wise. The Executor needed more OP, but the rest of its stats are really good and it has a built in 100 range weapon increase before the percentage increase from the targeting core is applied. It can kite and kill an Onslaught (XIV) using Excalibur Cannons alone if they are put in their own weapon group so it can manage flux levels and maintain the zero boost more easily. The buffs to the Graviton Beam are pretty substantial as well. The Eagle variants beat the other cruisers' stock variants reliably right now. The Heron's Targeting Feed system is really, really good when building bomber/gunship builds, etc. I think the Persean League has plenty for the player to use effectively, but they don't have as many unique things - which is something I will address in the future.

All that being said, I think midline by design is more difficult to specialize using builds and this can cause the illusion of weakness against specialist builds. Adding more armor or better flux stats/shields helps as far as defense is concerned, but you probably can't do both types at once and the midline ship relies on both. So defensive builds won't feel as good as they do at high/low tech equivalents even though they technically are either equally effective or more effective for their OP. (Example: Hardened Shields has a larger benefit since the base shield efficiency value is higher than a high tech ship's base value.)

Offensively, midline has the most diverse weapon loadouts available. They can equip all types of weapons and can even have weapon combinations that other tech levels can't. They also have a lot of combat capable carriers or carrier-like warships. That is really cool imo, but it also is a bit of a trap when making a build and requires balance considerations that aren't necessary on the other tech levels. Energy weapons are typically either less range or more flux heavy in order to gain additional damage. Either downside hurts midline ships more than it does high tech ships. Ballistic weapons deal less damage, but low tech ships are defensive and can leverage their armor to stay in the flux war longer. Since midline ships have the same or less weapon mounts on average, this means they can't stay in the flux war as long as low tech can and also can't kite/vent as easily as high tech can. They can do both enough to be versatile, however. A midline at high flux isn't as vulnerable as a high tech ship in the same situation. An armor stripped midline isn't as limited on its flux war duration like an armor stripped low tech ship would be either. However, a midline ship can get to either of those statuses faster in some circumstances.

Midline wings are in the same spot. Their middle-of-the-road stats make them less attractive compared to high or low end options simply because of the nature of being in the middle when many have a specialist mindset. They have crew requirements but cost more OP. They deal more damage than low tech but not as much as high tech - which also have shields and less crew requirements. So I completely understand why you'd want high tech wings if you have the OP, and otherwise want to be as cheap on the combat build as possible.

If they do end up being less competitive (not seeing that atm as I've said) I think I would approach the problem through higher OP pools over the other techs and possibly more built-in range bonuses to give midline "their own thing" like I did with the Executor. Midline wings are still being tested and I will keep this feedback in mind. I think longer range attack runs like Albreo suggested will make them feel better as you will probably take less losses - which will lighten the crew burden a bit.

Now, all of that being said, I actually did increase the crew loss reduction of Fighter Doctrine to 50% from 15% but not because of midline balance. I did it because:

A) I wanted to refresh myself on skill code and structure since it's all going to change (most likely) in the next update anyway and having a refresher will save time in the long run.
B) I do want to experiment with reducing crew losses from strike craft a bit since so many additional wings are active on the field in this mod. Doing it through a skill is easier to test/reverse than doing it by changing every spreadsheet cell. If this makes carrier officers seem way better than warship officers I will reverse the change.

I haven't added this to the DL yet though. I'm deciding if I'm ok with the override or if I want to set up a settings toggle for skills just like I did with weapons, ships, etc.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 21, 2020, 12:16:24 AM
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Can anyone name any role that the midline excels at?  The Executor is an OK ship, but unless you use a mod that raises the officer level cap, you kind of have to choose between making it a ship of the line or a carrier.  As far as I'm concerned, you'd be infinitely better off with either a Paragon, an Astral, or two Pillagers for roughly the same DP.

The midline is a pretty jack of all trade for me. Most of the crafts are better than low tech. Most ships have very good speed and more responsive for players that like to micro. It mostly mounts Balistic and Energy weapon which, at the right combination, is superior to pure Energy. Lack of armor and not so good shield probably its only downside. It still lacks more capitals though. I would wish for Sindrian to get one of their own and Trader to get a huge capital trade ship.

As for midline ships, Heron is super dope right now. Eagle is great all around (I should have one less craft slot). Conquest is still not that great but it's cheap to deploy more (It could get up to 4 craft slots from the look of the huge bay hangars it has)

I did request some OP buff. The Executor is a solid ship now thanks to more vents available.
This's my random setup. Can kill a Paragon in seconds. Can 1 v 3 (2 Onslaughts & Conquest) no problem.
(https://i.ibb.co/sy7GsrM/453.jpg) (https://ibb.co/sy7GsrM)

@Morrokain
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As for the AI was it a reckless officer? I've seen them do that sort of thing. If you have a lot of PD Burst beams on it that can also tempt the AI to get within those ranges since that weapon's dps is pretty high.
No, no officer. I think the speed boost ability makes it tends to go forward? Not too sure but really needs to micro a lot for this ship. As for the other spec, I think it's a pretty OK ship my setup with no pilot can kill an Onslaught with a bit of a close call due to the crazy behavior of face tanking ballistics.

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I adjusted the Sabot to fire the second stage missiles at a farther out distance and narrowed the spread a bit. From there I'll look at second stage hitpoints to see if an increase is needed. Aoe pd hitting all or most of the second stage missiles at one time is a big part of the reason it doesn't get through as easily I think. It will probably get to the point where high tech PD can't mitigate it much, but their shields are stronger so it might work out.
I was thinking if it doesn't really work out, how about make it a close quarter missile with 800 range, short gun, with very fast missile speed.

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Your idea is cool though. It reminds me of a game probably nobody on this forum has played or remembers called Armada for the Sega Dreamcast. There was an enemy that did that sort of thing and man did it often catch me off guard.
I never had a Dreamcast lol. Only a Famicom.

Other stuff
- AI doesn't do a good job side scraping in Conquest due to some forward facing weapon take priority. I think if the large mounts are on both sides like the original, it would work better.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 21, 2020, 06:43:53 PM
Thanks, Albreo.  I haven't had any luck with Kraken BPs or finding enough of them in markets to test it out.  Do you use them on the Herons as well?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 21, 2020, 07:56:23 PM
I'm testing out some PD updates using magazines and getting ready to update the DL later tonight.

basileus, I tested out Militarized Subsystems and that should be corrected for this update. Also, taking Fighter Doctrine and using Recovery Shuttles or officered carriers will now grant a significant reduction to crew losses. 95% with Recovery Shuttles or 65% with an officer. I'm not sure if I will keep it this high indefinitely because it makes the skill too valuable most likely, but it depends upon what the alternating branch is, etc, with the new skill system when that is released. At that time I will see about override settings since the implementation for that could change.

The Thunder and Hoplon should feel better than before. Their attack run range has been increased enough that more tend to survive a run. Testing was done using Executor vs Paragon so it was tested at the capital level. This will also affect other wings that use Swarmers or Rapiers, but it doesn't seem like it breaks anything - at least so far.

Speaking of the Executor, I have to be honest the OP buff seems to make it too strong. It was consistently beating Paragons before that. It doesn't beat a Megalith so its not broken or anything, but I would ideally like the Paragon/Executor/Onslaught (XIV) triangle of balance to be fairly close so I can use it as a baseline for balancing the rest of the capitals.

Since build making is important for fun outside of the consideration of balance, and I get that, does anyone have any suggestions to bring it back down to its DP level without reverting the OP? Personally, I was thinking less armor and changing the Advanced Targeting Core to a Dedicated Targeting Core would help. It has 2 DP less than a Paragon, so the fight should be close but the Paragon should have a slight advantage.

Albreo:
Spoiler
The midline is a pretty jack of all trade for me. Most of the crafts are better than low tech. Most ships have very good speed and more responsive for players that like to micro. It mostly mounts Balistic and Energy weapon which, at the right combination, is superior to pure Energy. Lack of armor and not so good shield probably its only downside. It still lacks more capitals though. I would wish for Sindrian to get one of their own and Trader to get a huge capital trade ship.

I definitely want to do that at some point alongside the aforementioned Sci-Corps capital. Midline battleship for LG and probably a midline dedicated carrier for Trader Guilds with a larger than average cargo bay. Then maybe even a dedicated lowtech missile carrier for the Diktat/Independents to round out the lineup. Obviously drawing/designing those will take plenty of time hah.

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As for midline ships, Heron is super dope right now. Eagle is great all around (I should have one less craft slot). Conquest is still not that great but it's cheap to deploy more (It could get up to 4 craft slots from the look of the huge bay hangars it has)

Honestly, I gave it 4 simply because it makes it seem more like a Star Destroyer. :P I suppose it's weird that the Conquest only has 2 when comparing. Same thing with the Pillager.

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No, no officer. I think the speed boost ability makes it tends to go forward? Not too sure but really needs to micro a lot for this ship. As for the other spec, I think it's a pretty OK ship my setup with no pilot can kill an Onslaught with a bit of a close call due to the crazy behavior of face tanking ballistics.

Hmm ok well as far as the speed boost AI that should be improved in the next Starsector release, but I'll see if the arc corrections help as well.

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I was thinking if it doesn't really work out, how about make it a close quarter missile with 800 range, short gun, with very fast missile speed.

It's an option but that's kind of stepping on the Heavy Rapiers toes a bit.

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I never had a Dreamcast lol. Only a Famicom.

Nice, NES was a fantastic system! One of these days I am going to get ROMs for a lot of the old games I used to play when I was a child. Some of the more obscure IPs that never made it to 3D and faded are still a lot of fun.

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- AI doesn't do a good job side scraping in Conquest due to some forward facing weapon take priority. I think if the large mounts are on both sides like the original, it would work better.

They would be better for dps but not for AI. It makes the AI constantly turn back and forth which really messes with accuracy even for beams. You can build it into a "one side" broadside ship like vanilla does, but aesthetically I'm really not a fan of that.

Just in general I haven't really done much with the Conquest. It's probably worth another pass with all the weapon changes. Since it has only a small amount of surface space for additional weapon mounts, I'll probably adjust its speed and flux stats as a start.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 21, 2020, 09:12:57 PM
Thanks, Albreo.  I haven't had any luck with Kraken BPs or finding enough of them in markets to test it out.  Do you use them on the Herons as well?

I got the blueprint Ludic version of Kraken which maybe farmable from the Ludic fleet. It was nerfed once already. The first time, it can saturate Paragon shield in one go. Now, it still pretty good, super tanky, and will mostly survive PD no problem. Its mine can still wipe a screen of fighter effectively. But I don't have enough normal version to test it out, might consider using the console to get it.

As for Heron, I put Flash on it, totally destroy things. I think anything will be good on the Heron, especially gunship and some heavy craft. I did test most of the craft, probably going to make a tier list later to sort things out. I would recommend Trident, Cyclops, Warthog(H), Hercules, and somehow my favorite Piranha bomber.

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They would be better for dps but not for AI. It makes the AI constantly turn back and forth which really messes with accuracy even for beams. You can build it into a "one side" broadside ship like vanilla does, but aesthetically I'm really not a fan of that.

Just in general I haven't really done much with the Conquest. It's probably worth another pass with all the weapon changes. Since it has only a small amount of surface space for additional weapon mounts, I'll probably adjust its speed and flux stats as a start.

Yep, I did put all weapons on one side in the original and it works out pretty good. I was going to fit fire support with all ballistic on one side and explosive on another and let the ship rotate to switch weapon but it doesn't work out so well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 22, 2020, 04:49:25 PM
Thoughts of the day:

Still working on things. I think I have magazine PD feeling good. It lets missiles through a bit but doesn't seem to impact strike craft defense - which is the goal. It also gives the Machine Gun, Electron Cannon, Micro Repeater, Pulse Laser and Shattercell Cannon unique niches in their respective weapon categories since those have a smaller window of reloading. The Pulse Laser is pretty general purpose, but the others will be great for rockets and finishing off low hp strike craft yet be less effective against high hitpoint missiles or well-defended strike craft. The ballistic aoe pd will be good at condensed clusters of any missile and great at dealing critical damage to strike craft. However, there will be roughly a 6-8 second window where they will have to reload and provide no defense at all. For smaller ships, this means complimenting the two has a larger impact. For larger ships, layering the pd lines can deal with missiles in small doses and provide a decent alpha strike against incoming strike craft waves. Just be sure to have something online when torpedo bombers release their payloads.

I've only implemented magazines in the ballistics weapon category at this point. I may leave it at that as a way of balancing the PD Cannon, Scythe Cannon, and Nova Cannon's AOE and high hit damage as they are primarily anti-strike craft weapons and need this to keep their role now that strike craft have higher armor. The energy PD weapons seem less efficient than ballistic PD, and the Burst PD and Micro Repeater weapons already have a magazine mechanic. They seem really good at missile interdiction and strike craft while active and then they become less effective after a couple of bursts. This creates windows for weapons like the Hunter or Hailstone, for example, to hit reliably during large salvos. The Burst PD Beam in particular is good at dealing with torpedoes, but is a lot worse at dealing with rockets or guided missile swarms so I think that is ok. It is decent at dealing with strike craft but not overwhelmingly so. Any of the consistent firing energy weapons should complement it well.

As another brief balance pass, I also tested the Astral using almost every strike craft wing from the Trident down to the Gauntlet in the bomber/gunship category against an Aegis cruiser to gauge relative effectiveness. The Aegis' system sometimes better separates out overwhelming strikes rather than just gauging how quickly the cruiser dies. I also did this after the pd changes to test their effectiveness against large swarms of all strike craft since the Astral has the most bays possible on a ship. For specifics: I believe I left 3 bays as a permanent interceptor/fighter screen for a test control. They contained two Retribution wings and a Liberator wing I think.

I like what I'm seeing in general but more adjustments can certainly be made I'd imagine. The lowest OP Gauntlet still killed the cruiser (capital vs cruiser should generally go this way after all) but the higher OP that was invested the faster this happened. The Thunder *might* be too strong since it isn't a legendary like the Krakken yet deals similar damage it seems, but it also takes more losses over the Hoplon or Krakken, so idk I could be wrong. Either way the next bomber/gunship up, the Paradigm, doesn't kill the Aegis all that much faster considering the OP investment to equip it.

I'll try and get the DL updated tonight if I can get everything done. Sorry for the delay!

I got the blueprint Ludic version of Kraken which maybe farmable from the Ludic fleet. It was nerfed once already. The first time, it can saturate Paragon shield in one go. Now, it still pretty good, super tanky, and will mostly survive PD no problem. Its mine can still wipe a screen of fighter effectively. But I don't have enough normal version to test it out, might consider using the console to get it.

I'm not sure it's farmable yet other than through raiding. I can't remember if I added it to any variants at this point. The normal version replaces short range mines with long range kinetic missiles. Less interceptor defense, more shield damage. It hopefully is comparable in effectiveness.

I'm pretty sure both versions are sold in markets though not 100% on that. They would be pretty rare though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Raio_Verusia on December 23, 2020, 05:55:31 AM
I've recently started playing AO again after a long hiatus and this time I decided to give some of the mods on the "Shouldn't break balance" list a shot along side it. I don't know if it's a mod conflict or, some other issue, but I've started seeing non (AO) tagged weapons popping up in my game for purchase, such as the Tachyon Lance and Gauss Cannon. They are not usable but they take up shop space.

I have no idea what could be causing it as nothing touches weapons from what I can see, other than Rotary and that is just art?

Modlist Attached.



[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 23, 2020, 08:54:06 PM
I've recently started playing AO again after a long hiatus and this time I decided to give some of the mods on the "Shouldn't break balance" list a shot along side it. I don't know if it's a mod conflict or, some other issue, but I've started seeing non (AO) tagged weapons popping up in my game for purchase, such as the Tachyon Lance and Gauss Cannon. They are not usable but they take up shop space.

I have no idea what could be causing it as nothing touches weapons from what I can see, other than Rotary and that is just art?

Modlist Attached.

Thanks for the report and welcome to the forums!  :)

Sorry about seeing non-TC weapons. I doubt it's any of those mods doing it unless they are adding them back to factions' known list of weapons or something like that. This should be fixed in the next release of the mod (there is a highly unpolished version for test purposes available in the thread) and I have set up settings to toggle that sort of thing on and off for some campaign customization.

I hadn't fully fleshed out the override part of the code for 1.3.5 so I probably missed something.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 24, 2020, 03:14:43 PM
Ok, DL is updating but it will be a few hours.

I didn't get to the falcon sprite changes so that will look weird.

Test Update:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=1 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)

Taking a small break but I will still check here for any feedback. Happy holidays everyone and be safe!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 24, 2020, 09:21:10 PM
Happy Holidays, Morro!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 26, 2020, 09:45:02 PM
Happy Holidays and stay safe.

I have the crafts sheet for you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BWd5Q_UxVQDnEGi3oHAsiBPTF0GVZG_W92BQYGIqEQU/edit?usp=sharing
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: basileus on December 27, 2020, 07:30:39 AM
I'm still finding some vanilla items in the stores in the latest beta.  The thing that caught my eye this time was the vanilla Heavy Annihilator Pod.  I can't be sure if there is an issue with your override script or there are just a few IDs missing from your database.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 27, 2020, 10:23:42 PM
I'm still finding some vanilla items in the stores in the latest beta.  The thing that caught my eye this time was the vanilla Heavy Annihilator Pod.  I can't be sure if there is an issue with your override script or there are just a few IDs missing from your database.

Is there an (AO) tag at the end of the weapon name?

If it's totally vanilla then you should read this post first: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13183.msg303948#msg303948

The change will only take effect on the new games though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 28, 2020, 01:43:31 PM
Thanks for the well wishes!

I'm looking into the reported issues with TC weapons today. There is one thing I can try and add to the logic itself, and I'll double check the ids.

Also, thanks for strike craft ranking sheet and comments. I think the evaluation system is neat and it's generally how I think about balancing each wing. I haven't look into it too deeply yet, but one thing that stands out is the rating comparison between the Walrus and Walrus (L). How does the anti-ship damage rating differ between the two? They have the exact same weapon set.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 28, 2020, 07:57:43 PM
Also, thanks for strike craft ranking sheet and comments. I think the evaluation system is neat and it's generally how I think about balancing each wing. I haven't look into it too deeply yet, but one thing that stands out is the rating comparison between the Walrus and Walrus (L). How does the anti-ship damage rating differ between the two? They have the exact same weapon set.

I don't know lol. I might adjust the normal version and forgot about the Ludic score. Fixed.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 29, 2020, 12:05:08 AM
That happens to me all of the time, heh. I am especially bad at updating notes after multiple rounds of balancing where I make a bunch of changes all at once. Updating the notes each time I make a minor change becomes very tedious.

------------------------------------------

I'm still finding some vanilla items in the stores in the latest beta.  The thing that caught my eye this time was the vanilla Heavy Annihilator Pod.  I can't be sure if there is an issue with your override script or there are just a few IDs missing from your database.
I verified that the id you mentioned is in the id database, so it must be a script issue or some other factor.

I have made some improvements to the override script by adding all of the "this shouldn't appear anywhere in the campaign" tags that I am aware of and fixing a minor bug where the rare_bp tag wasn't being properly removed for some weapons.

Since weapons are the primary item reported, I have also set up additional logging to help determine whether or not these tags are applied correctly to the weapons upon the application's initial start up. This data will be in the logs with the assumption that the correct setting is applied. (It's intended to eventually default as set to false - otherwise it floods the logs with too much info while mod merging. For now, it's set to true in the DL iirc.)

The new logging is how I found out that some weapons were still being included as a rare blueprint even though they technically should still be considered a "system" and not spawn in markets. They also had the no_drop tag. Just checking off the boxes there. They seem to be applied as intended at a glance, but a deep dive may be necessary. I may have to take time to include all the mods and troubleshoot with a longer campaign to be sure. It may take some time.

As a side perk, I have tried to make any typos in the economy spreadsheets for the TC cause a CTD with some info on the id and I am intending to include a path to the individual spreadsheet in the future. This will help the QOL both for myself and for any other modders or users wanting to use these customization options when mod merging. It should also reduce potential nullpointers in any unforeseen edge cases.

*EDT* I've found that the beta test id has messed with the overall override functionality since it is hardcoded to the original mod id. I have updated the id to match the beta version. Sorry I missed it!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on December 30, 2020, 07:37:36 PM
Quote
*EDT* I've found that the beta test id has messed with the overall override functionality since it is hardcoded to the original mod id. I have updated the id to match the beta version. Sorry I missed it!
Is this related to missing faction icons from the blueprint packages? If not, I'm going to report that.

I got the previous version hull-mods from raids. 10% armor armored mount, ETC. I raided Persean only a few times.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on December 30, 2020, 09:38:20 PM
Is this related to missing faction icons from the blueprint packages? If not, I'm going to report that.

I got the previous version hull-mods from raids. 10% armor armored mount, ETC. I raided Persean only a few times.

Probably not. Thanks for reporting it. I'll look into it.

Hullmods:

Thanks. Can you do me a favor and use console commands to see what hullmods the Persean League knows? If there is both one with (AO) and a vanilla one let me know. Then, if you could start a new game on that version and do the same thing right at the start? That would be very helpful in determining if it is something that is happening at the start of the game or something that is happening as the campaign progresses. The more I rule things out the easier it will be to find the bug if it is something really obscure or, for instance, a case that's hardcoded in vanilla like the Legion (XIV) in the theme generator.

Related to this, I'm currently working on a toggle-able "market scrubber" version of the code that will remove overridden vanilla items from non-faction-mod markets directly when a save is loaded. It will make the save take a lot longer to load, most likely, and shouldn't be left on each time, but it will help keep vanilla markets as intended when I miss things or when a campaign is started without overrides but then the player wants to use them, etc.

*EDIT*

I think I figured it out. The override logic removes the "base_bp" tag at application loadup (I confirmed that works by checking the logs), but it looks like that is being applied after the player faction and trader guilds already have added any "base_bp" blueprints added to their known lists. That's why they show up in markets on occassion.

The vanilla factions also probably have this occur, but unlike the above two they have their known lists edited later when a campaign is started or when a save is loaded and so I didn't notice. The logic to remove overridden weapons upon save load is done. I'll go ahead and update the DL with that work so current games can probably be fixed - at least as far as weapons go. I still need to do the other components.

Before I do that, I'll also add some additional logic to adjust known items within the player and mod factions to prevent this from being a factor in future market updates within the campaign rig.

*EDIT2*

Ok I confirmed the fix on those factions for ships and weapons (new game shouldn't be required now). The DL for the test version should have those changes and I've set the market adjustments setting to default to update markets each time a save is loaded just in case. If there are issues loading a save or it is taking a long time to load for some reason, you can disable the every-save update just by setting "checkSettingsOnSaveLoad":true, to "checkSettingsOnSaveLoad":false, in the settings file for the mod. ("data/config")

There are more nuanced settings for performance from there. I've placed comments to help explain. I still need to handle hullmods and updating more things in markets besides just weapons.

Beta Download (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on January 01, 2021, 08:12:58 PM
Quote
Thanks. Can you do me a favor and use console commands to see what hullmods the Persean League knows? If there is both one with (AO) and a vanilla one let me know. Then, if you could start a new game on that version and do the same thing right at the start? That would be very helpful in determining if it is something that is happening at the start of the game or something that is happening as the campaign progresses. The more I rule things out the easier it will be to find the bug if it is something really obscure or, for instance, a case that's hardcoded in vanilla like the Legion (XIV) in the theme generator.

Related to this, I'm currently working on a toggle-able "market scrubber" version of the code that will remove overridden vanilla items from non-faction-mod markets directly when a save is loaded. It will make the save take a lot longer to load, most likely, and shouldn't be left on each time, but it will help keep vanilla markets as intended when I miss things or when a campaign is started without overrides but then the player wants to use them, etc.

A new game on the latest version seems to be fine. No more old hull mods. Only my save from the start of the beta have hull mods overlap problem.

Faction icons on BP packs are still missing though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 01, 2021, 09:58:53 PM
A new game on the latest version seems to be fine. No more old hull mods. Only my save from the start of the beta have hull mods overlap problem.

Faction icons on BP packs are still missing though.

Good to know!

I'm almost done with the logic for these things to be corrected mid-campaign - at least on the override side. Adding overrides back in will still take some time though. The BP packs icons should be fixed next update. I forgot that the ids had to match with ids in the settings file when I changed them. That links them to their icon.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Neiker45 on January 02, 2021, 10:50:55 PM
Hey this mod is fantastic on its own but I wanted to know how to disable the changes you made to the vanilla ships while retaining the other features on this mod.

This is mainly because I use Nexerelin also and wanted to mine with the shepherd but you took out the universal slot and made it rockets. (Cannot even use the mining drones as you gave them machineguns). This does not let me have an immersive mining experience with both mods together.

I have tried to delete some references where you change those items but they have only landed me on crashes so I wanted to contact you since the game is not the same without these mods.

You the MVP for making this mod and I would doubly appreciate it if you could find a solution for this.  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: JotaLima on January 03, 2021, 06:14:05 AM
Hey mate,
i was poking arround the files after i read ur comment and if you change the values to the corrected "Weapon ids" and "ship ids" of Archean Order ships and weapons u can make it work.

Basically u need to find the ships that were modified/swaped by the new ships and weapons of the archean Order and add the ids and power to files mentioned below.

Location: Nexerelin\data\config\exerelin
The files are:
mining_ships.csv
mining_weapons.csv

To hide ships from the list just add this to mining_ships.csv
archean_mining_drone,0,TRUE
archean_drone_borer,0,TRUE
archean_shepherd,0,TRUE
archean_crig,0,TRUE
archean_mule,0,TRUE
archean_colossus,0,TRUE
archean_colossus2,0,TRUE
archean_colossus3,0,TRUE
archean_venture,0,TRUE


Add this guns to the mining_weapons.csv
archean_miningblaster,10,
archean_mininglaser,3,
archean_hammer,1.5,
archean_hammerrack,20,
archean_hammer_single,0.75,
archean_pdlaser,1.5,

You can mine with all ships you just need one of those guns on them
If want more guns just add them to the list.

This is the way i did it until they solve the problem use it at ur own risk :D

P.S: im really bad at english so im really sorry for any incovinience 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 03, 2021, 03:44:48 PM
Welcome to the forums both of you!

@JotaLima
Thanks for helping out with Neiker45's question. I need to take a look at that and get it into the DL. I probably intended to do that at one point and completely forgot. Sorry about that.

@Neiker45
Thanks for the compliment. :) Does JotaLima's response answer your question? I'll have the test download updated to have this in it so edits aren't needed. Hopefully at some point tonight.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Neiker45 on January 03, 2021, 04:25:22 PM
Hey mate,
i was poking arround the files after i read ur comment and if you change the values to the corrected "Weapon ids" and "ship ids" of Archean Order ships and weapons u can make it work.


You really are a real one. I just tried editing those and it now works nicely together with Nexerelin. :D

@Neiker45
Thanks for the compliment. :) Does JotaLima's response answer your question? I'll have the test download updated to have this in it so edits aren't needed. Hopefully at some point tonight.

I appreciate you looking out for it so quickly.  ;D
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 03, 2021, 07:52:49 PM
I appreciate you looking out for it so quickly.  ;D

Np :)

--------------------

Ok DL updated. The icon issues with some blueprints should be fixed. Not sure if that will fix existing blueprints in storage/inventory though.

The override logic will actively remove overridden hullmods and fighter wings upon save load now. I'm not sure about ships because I've been having trouble finding one even when they are technically able to spawn. Faction file settings might mean they are fairly rare compared to AO ships but they should at least be available in raids.

Mining ship/weapon config for Nex has also been added.

Finally, it might be overkill but I added two fighter-class assault cannons to the Hellcat wing. Its role over something like the Hercules is that it is much less tanky but deals significant damage and stays on target like a gunship. That distinguishes it from something like the Vanguard (H) which launches missiles and fires its light railgun but then returns to rearm.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Ekibana on January 03, 2021, 10:25:25 PM
Hey there.
Sorry to bother you with stupid questions, but I've read the 1st post and then the manual and before I dive into the mod itself I want to clarify:
Apart from the combat being completely reworked, is there some major changes to the campaign and end-game? Or is it good old "farm a starting capital, build a colony, defend it and get swarmed with inspections"?
I'm asking because, in vanilla, you can't "win" as of right now, but in Nexerelin you theoretically can. Is this more of a vanilla or something else in terms of global gameplay? Maybe there is some kind of end-game invasion like crisis in Stellaris?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 04, 2021, 12:20:19 AM
Hey there.
Sorry to bother you with stupid questions, but I've read the 1st post and then the manual and before I dive into the mod itself I want to clarify:
Apart from the combat being completely reworked, is there some major changes to the campaign and end-game? Or is it good old "farm a starting capital, build a colony, defend it and get swarmed with inspections"?
I'm asking because, in vanilla, you can't "win" as of right now, but in Nexerelin you theoretically can. Is this more of a vanilla or something else in terms of global gameplay? Maybe there is some kind of end-game invasion like crisis in Stellaris?
Hey there no bother at all! The manual needs an update as scale has changed and designations/hull sizes have also been changed to be a bit more specialized/balanced compared to the earlier versions.

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with Stellaris other than it's a 4X space game. The most recent 4X games I've played are Endless Space and Sins of a Solar Empire.

There are campaign changes in the mod in the sense that there are new factions, systems, planets, markets, ships, weapons, fighter wings, etc. Some vanilla markets have been modified as well.

As far as 4X gameplay, Nex would still be required for a win condition since this mod is more balanced around vanilla as a control for both testing and general balance outside of the combat changes. There are also planned story features but I'm waiting on future updates to make quest implementation easier and also to know the general story that is currently planned. That story takes precedence so I don't conflict with planned vanilla features in my own narrative - which was basically extrapolation from my sense of the setting Starsector originally released and was later fleshed out with more detail in future updates. I try to base anything I fan-write around that and that's a WIP - though in the past I've listed my own inspirations and influences.

To be fair, I've added a few resource conditions, industries and stations here and there in an attempt to think about the 4X condition of Nex in the overall campaign rig. I wouldn't say I've specialized in the 4X format or anything, but I've tried to emphasize faction uniqueness through either unique hulls or wings or weapons, etc, and give commissions more flavor. I've also attempted to balance colony resources to make the 4X situation at least somewhat balanced for the TC - though I've also tried to maintain certain areas of vulnerability to better reward knowledge of general campaign mechanics as well so it's a balance there.

As far as endgame enemies are concerned, I had an endgame threat in mind if I ever get to it, but the art alone would take a long time and Alex/David are already working on end-game things - so at the very least I would want to see those first.

As far as player colony mechanics, I haven't even touched those yet other than lightly adjusting vanilla markets. So if you are getting a lot of expeditions in a vanilla campaign you probably would with this mod too. The same game mechanics would apply there.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Ekibana on January 04, 2021, 05:37:07 PM
Hey there.
Sorry to bother you with stupid questions, but I've read the 1st post and then the manual and before I dive into the mod itself I want to clarify:
Apart from the combat being completely reworked, is there some major changes to the campaign and end-game? Or is it good old "farm a starting capital, build a colony, defend it and get swarmed with inspections"?
I'm asking because, in vanilla, you can't "win" as of right now, but in Nexerelin you theoretically can. Is this more of a vanilla or something else in terms of global gameplay? Maybe there is some kind of end-game invasion like crisis in Stellaris?
Hey there no bother at all! The manual needs an update as scale has changed and designations/hull sizes have also been changed to be a bit more specialized/balanced compared to the earlier versions.

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with Stellaris other than it's a 4X space game. The most recent 4X games I've played are Endless Space and Sins of a Solar Empire.

There are campaign changes in the mod in the sense that there are new factions, systems, planets, markets, ships, weapons, fighter wings, etc. Some vanilla markets have been modified as well.

As far as 4X gameplay, Nex would still be required for a win condition since this mod is more balanced around vanilla as a control for both testing and general balance outside of the combat changes. There are also planned story features but I'm waiting on future updates to make quest implementation easier and also to know the general story that is currently planned. That story takes precedence so I don't conflict with planned vanilla features in my own narrative - which was basically extrapolation from my sense of the setting Starsector originally released and was later fleshed out with more detail in future updates. I try to base anything I fan-write around that and that's a WIP - though in the past I've listed my own inspirations and influences.

To be fair, I've added a few resource conditions, industries and stations here and there in an attempt to think about the 4X condition of Nex in the overall campaign rig. I wouldn't say I've specialized in the 4X format or anything, but I've tried to emphasize faction uniqueness through either unique hulls or wings or weapons, etc, and give commissions more flavor. I've also attempted to balance colony resources to make the 4X situation at least somewhat balanced for the TC - though I've also tried to maintain certain areas of vulnerability to better reward knowledge of general campaign mechanics as well so it's a balance there.

As far as endgame enemies are concerned, I had an endgame threat in mind if I ever get to it, but the art alone would take a long time and Alex/David are already working on end-game things - so at the very least I would want to see those first.

As far as player colony mechanics, I haven't even touched those yet other than lightly adjusting vanilla markets. So if you are getting a lot of expeditions in a vanilla campaign you probably would with this mod too. The same game mechanics would apply there.

Thanks for a detailed answer! Much appreciated.
Somehow it slipped from me that I can use your mod with Nex (since they both are listed in mega-categories as "total conversion" or sort of).
If I am to combine your mod with Nex what would you recommend as a "balanced" and "adjusted" faction mods to go with your new rules of combat?
I'm trying to spice up my next playthrough but not to the extent of turning it into an anime  ;D
Anyway, just wanted to say that your mod is looking great and it takes serious effort to re-think and re-invent combat mechanics so much. I've played it for an hour just to try and the combat feels so different that I have to learn it again. That's awesome!

Edit: in Stellaris, there is this thing called Crisis. Basically, you play the game normally, explore, expand and conquer, until a certain date. Then one of several possible Crises happens and the galaxy is being invaded by the outer force, with overpowered ships. Ideally, it forces every single nation to unite into one big confederation to defeat or everyone dies, but that hugely depends on what player already achieved and built, and what difficulty setting you had for the campaign (you can handle it alone).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 06, 2021, 09:30:28 PM
Thanks for a detailed answer! Much appreciated.
Somehow it slipped from me that I can use your mod with Nex (since they both are listed in mega-categories as "total conversion" or sort of).
If I am to combine your mod with Nex what would you recommend as a "balanced" and "adjusted" faction mods to go with your new rules of combat?
I'm trying to spice up my next playthrough but not to the extent of turning it into an anime  ;D
Anyway, just wanted to say that your mod is looking great and it takes serious effort to re-think and re-invent combat mechanics so much. I've played it for an hour just to try and the combat feels so different that I have to learn it again. That's awesome!

Edit: in Stellaris, there is this thing called Crisis. Basically, you play the game normally, explore, expand and conquer, until a certain date. Then one of several possible Crises happens and the galaxy is being invaded by the outer force, with overpowered ships. Ideally, it forces every single nation to unite into one big confederation to defeat or everyone dies, but that hugely depends on what player already achieved and built, and what difficulty setting you had for the campaign (you can handle it alone).

Sorry it took me so long to respond to this! I haven't been on here much other than brief checks to read new posts.

I've heard that Interstellar Imperium works well, though I haven't confirmed it. Just in general, I'd say most if not all faction mods probably don't currently accommodate the combat balance in this mod. The changes are just too numerous for other mods to inadvertently have designed their own ships or weapons around them and the work to add another version with balance around this one would be significant. That's one of the unfortunate side effects of changing combat mechanics. I am actively working to make things easier for any modders up for the challenge though. That's one of the reasons I made the override logic and stopped directly overriding files in the first place. (Mostly... still a WIP)

Re: Stellaris/Crisis

Ah ok! The endgame threat in mind is something along those lines - though details will obviously depend upon what Alex does. I know Alex was considering some kind of timer like that at one point, but I'm not sure if that is still on the table and we probably won't know until after the next update.

I think something like that would be interesting and I like that it keeps adding additional layers of challenge to the campaign. It really depends upon how easy it ends up being to implement. Multiple threats randomly chosen would probably be a little difficult but I'll have to wait and see what the API gives me to determine how much overall effort that would be.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DisposableAccountName on January 07, 2021, 09:27:20 AM
Just quickly made an account here to post this, but I think you might have accidentally neglected to add some files to the latest Beta download. "data\config\ArcheanOrderEcon\ids" only has .csv files with the 'vanilla' prefix, and will fatal error at the end of booting without creating another set with the 'totalConversion' prefix. It does load to the title screen if I do so, but I suspect that the information contained within would be incorrect and screw with some stuff in-game.

Either that or they're meant to be generated dynamically and something is screwy on my end.

To note: Completely fresh install, Archean Order Beta 1.4.0 as the only mod, freshly extracted in its entirety from the latest dropbox upload. (Which doesn't have those files even in the web so it's not a faulty download on my end, though I still tried twice to check.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2021, 12:57:49 PM
Just quickly made an account here to post this, but I think you might have accidentally neglected to add some files to the latest Beta download. "data\config\ArcheanOrderEcon\ids" only has .csv files with the 'vanilla' prefix, and will fatal error at the end of booting without creating another set with the 'totalConversion' prefix. It does load to the title screen if I do so, but I suspect that the information contained within would be incorrect and screw with some stuff in-game.

Either that or they're meant to be generated dynamically and something is screwy on my end.

To note: Completely fresh install, Archean Order Beta 1.4.0 as the only mod, freshly extracted in its entirety from the latest dropbox upload. (Which doesn't have those files even in the web so it's not a faulty download on my end, though I still tried twice to check.)

Ah thanks for pointing this out! I checked and yes those files were missing. I either forgot to upload them or something happened while I was uploading (i.e I lost internet for a minute or two) and they were skipped.

Assuming those were the only ones, it should be good now. Just to be sure I'm going to re-download and start a new game.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0

*EDIT* Seems all good on my end at least.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DisposableAccountName on January 07, 2021, 01:43:24 PM
Another random side note, but is it supposed to be possible for a planet to have both the abundant AND sparse traits for ore types?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2021, 03:42:58 PM
Another random side note, but is it supposed to be possible for a planet to have both the abundant AND sparse traits for ore types?

Ah nope that's probably a bug with the resource overrides. What planet or planets did you see this ocurring? That will help me determine if it's a typo or the logic has a bug.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DisposableAccountName on January 07, 2021, 04:08:00 PM
The planet you initially spawn next to with the default start. (Hegemony controlled.)
Though, I'm using mods other than AO. (Industrial Evolution touches planet stuff though I'm not sure if that includes resource nodes.)

Actually wait let me just check since the start seems to be partially randomized. Maybe just location.

Alright, planet is called Eventide.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2021, 04:31:53 PM
Hmm well it's not a bad id from what I can tell but the weird thing is that it's not in vanilla but is in the beta yet I don't actually touch resources on Eventide according the spreadsheet. I do add resources (the ones that shouldn't be on Eventide) on Tigra City which is the line above in the spreadsheet.

I'm going to have to take a look at the logic. Something isn't working there but I'll see what the logs say first. Let me know if you see any other weirdness like that.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DisposableAccountName on January 07, 2021, 04:42:14 PM
Just to note again and make sure you're aware: That isn't with only AO active. I'm reasonably certain the only mod in my list other than AO that might be involved is Industrial Evolution, but for clarity's sake the full list is below.

Spoiler
AO
Audio Plus
Automatic Orders
Cari UI
Combat Chatter
Combat Analytics
Commissioned Crews
Common Radar
Dynamic Tariffs - (Note here, the tariff in the port was 13% which seems kinda low? May be a conflict, since tariffs are meant to be way higher iirc.)
Fuel Siphoning
GraphicsLib
Hyperdrive
Industrial Evolution
LazyLib
New Beginnings
Nexelerin
Ruthless Sector
Second Wave
SpeedUp
Starship Legends
Supply Forging
Unknown Skies
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2021, 05:09:29 PM
Ah ok I corrected it. I wasn't clearing my lists so it was applying unintended changes if the cell was empty instead of ignoring the logic as intended. I can't correct it mid-save - or rather the work to do that would be enough to not make it worth it. I corrected the DL link for any subsequence new games though. Sorry if this affects the campaign economy for the current game. I'm not sure how widespread of an issue it ended up being.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DisposableAccountName on January 07, 2021, 05:14:24 PM
It's fine. I suppose I got lucky catching this, considering it was literally the planet I spawned next to. It cost me like, 2 minutes. ;P
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 07, 2021, 11:47:24 PM
It's fine. I suppose I got lucky catching this, considering it was literally the planet I spawned next to. It cost me like, 2 minutes. ;P

Tbh, it could have also been pretty obvious in other places potentially lol. I never checked a lot of the market conditions before releasing the beta. I checked a couple of markets to verify that the override settings logic worked for each category but I didn't check everything so there could be more bugs I haven't found yet based upon similar logic errors I didn't catch. I'm glad it didn't affect your save much though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DisposableAccountName on January 08, 2021, 08:43:02 PM
Yeah. Unfortunately I'm not quite certain about what things are supposed to be exclusive traits. Generally speaking is it the case that there shouldn't ever be something both positive and negative affect the same planetary condition? For instance, Thin Atmosphere and Habitable like the place I just found? Or are some of those intended to be able to show up at the same time?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 08, 2021, 09:19:14 PM
Yeah. Unfortunately I'm not quite certain about what things are supposed to be exclusive traits. Generally speaking is it the case that there shouldn't ever be something both positive and negative affect the same planetary condition? For instance, Thin Atmosphere and Habitable like the place I just found? Or are some of those intended to be able to show up at the same time?

That's probably intended depending upon the lore of the world. But if it shouldn't be then I'm open to suggestions (I'm not exactly sure myself except for the more obvious ones). I probably put both because I wanted to convey a sense of "habitable but not very pleasant" or something like that. I don't add or remove either of those conditions in the override logic to my knowledge so I don't think it's that off hand. Hazard rating conditions are a little easier to stack at least from a game standpoint.

Iirc I mostly did a lot of the conditions based upon lore. Gameplay/economy considerations were generally based around mining-specific resource nodes, industries, and defensive structures. I'd welcome any education in that particular category since I haven't thoroughly tested market economy other than my campaign tests as a whole.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 14, 2021, 09:35:57 PM
Alright, so another strike craft pass to build upon the new balance concepts post-rework. I've been using Albreo's balance tier list as a reference as well as my own testing experience after recent changes. I also wanted to extrapolate the role of fighters into something more concrete. Should likely be compatible with current saves.

DL: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)

As a reminder of the general thought process of strike craft roles and their relation to carriers and warships:

Spoiler
1) Carriers can more easily equip gunships and bombers which deal a lot more damage to ships than interceptors.

2) Warships get OP cost reductions to interceptors and fighters.

3) Interceptors are crucial to supporting ships - especially smaller ones - against massed gunships in particular. They also help a fair amount against bombers both by taking them out and by providing additional PD.

4) Fighters are the oddball role in that they can do a little bit of everything depending upon the wing. I wanted to flesh this out a bit more.
[close]

Note: A secondary goal of these changes was to ensure that while combat performance of lower OP wings is necessarily worse as a concept, that doesn't mean that using low OP wings is unattractive overall.

The changes are not documented in detail in order to save time, but here is a summary:

Spoiler
1) Fighters have been given additional weaponry in most cases. (The Hellcat was a test bed for this.) Though their overall role still changes from wing to wing, in general they either do their specialized role better or they can perform multiple roles in some cases. (Broadsword comes to mind.)

2) Interceptors replace much faster than other strike craft depending upon their relative tier. They are the go-to anti-strike craft defense for warships and carriers alike. PD is a separate consideration for each.

3) Low OP wings like the Warrior or Brute that only deal one damage type and have less weapons replace faster. So in addition to the OP discount they can at least keep the carrier or warship's replacement rate up even though their combat performance is worse.

4) Strike craft weapons deal 250% damage against other strike craft. (So base damage x 2.5 - Up from 200% in the prior download.)
[close]

The idea here is that fighters have less defense and are easier to destroy than gunships, but they perform more competitively against them at the expense of lower average replacement rate for the ship. So due to their OP discount they are pointedly favored on warships as a way to give those vessels a clear choice between interceptors or fighters - which generally means less OP for the build while still allowing the build to be viable unlike the addition of most gunships or bombers.

Carriers, on the other hand, are generally going to equip gunships over fighters unless they are going for an interceptor build to guard other ships. Then fighters become an option again as a source of damage when the interceptors aren't needed to guard anything. Fighters tend to have anti-strike craft weapons as well as assault/strike weapons so they complement interceptors well without changing the AI's use of the interceptors.

I'm patching this in to the DL, so if I miss a file or something and it causes a crash please let me know. I'll verify on my end sometime later tonight.

*EDIT* Found an obscure bug that I fixed while testing today. I'll update the DL overnight

Thoughts after testing for a while today:
I also made some additional tweaks to a few wings. I increased replacement time for the Hercules - which ended up being too low. I also reduced replacement time for the Paradigm since it was outperformed by the Trident for the same DP. The Claw and Renegade feel like they are in a good spot at the moment especially since the Renegade gets the warship discount to OP now. The Broadsword (A) heavy fighter was too good with additional Shockstorm rockets so I increased its OP from 24 to 28. It might even need to be 30. Finally from what I remember, I gave a Burst PD Laser to the Spark, decreased defense for the Cyclops and Hellcat, and increased the Cyclops wing size to 3 from 2.

Outside of the Krakken, the midline line of wings seems really solid overall. The Krakken probably needs further testing but its a Legendary so it can afford to be a bit broken for now.

Lowtech feels much better even if its still likely not optimal. Reducing replacement times for the lowtech tanks gunships really helped give them a niche and I may play around with that further before considering wing balance "finalized" for this update. Lowtech bombers feel better because they are less likely to die from ship fire since they release their payloads from farther away. This also has the side effect of letting frigates and destroyers dodge torpedoes which seems better than forcing losses and damage on both sides.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on January 15, 2021, 10:49:02 PM
Spoiler
520273 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS0001] not found on hull [spark]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS0001] not found on hull [spark]
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleetMemberView.renderWeapons(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.A.new.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.A.new.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.refit.B.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.refit.O0oO.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.D.I.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.K.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.refit.FighterPickerDialog.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.O0oO.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.o0oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.Objectsuper.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

The game crashed on me when just scrolling through the refit screen. This is the old save since BETA started.

The new sabot is quite silly though. I think the old one feels better, anyway, low priority stuff. Obliterator needs another nerf hammer also, DPS's still too good.

Concentrated Shield is no longer appealing when it can't be used with Extended Shield. It's not viable to use in a real situation with many strike crafts around.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 16, 2021, 12:16:33 PM
Spoiler
520273 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS0001] not found on hull [spark]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Slot id [WS0001] not found on hull [spark]
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleetMemberView.renderWeapons(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.A.new.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.A.new.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.refit.B.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.refit.O0oO.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.D.I.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.K.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.refit.FighterPickerDialog.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.O0oO.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.o0oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.Objectsuper.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.renderImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.render(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

The game crashed on me when just scrolling through the refit screen. This is the old save since BETA started.

The new sabot is quite silly though. I think the old one feels better, anyway, low priority stuff. Obliterator needs another nerf hammer also, DPS's still too good.

Concentrated Shield is no longer appealing when it can't be used with Extended Shield. It's not viable to use in a real situation with many strike crafts around.

The crash should go away with a full delete and redownload of the mod directory (hopefully) or did you just do that? The problem was that it was overriding the vanilla variants of REDACTED wings as well as using the mod variants so it would crash when scrolling through the wing list in the variants refit screen. I should have removed all of that last night. I won't be able to double check myself until later today.

For the Sabot, do you mean the version where it had higher armor penetration and was a single projectile?

For Concentrated Shields that is honestly an intended downside because it makes shields so much better. Have you tried defending with a lot of interceptors to relieve some of the strike craft pressure?

Keep in mind:
 - The carrier needs to only have interceptors or fighters equipped - no bombers or gunships unless it is a PD gunship (which is considered an interceptor to the AI).
 - Assign an escort order to your flagship with Concentrated Shields to have the interceptors directly support it - though it will do it automatically under AI control as long as it doesn't have any bombers.

If that doesn't help much I'll consider reducing its arc reduction. Combining the two hullmods is too much of a mandatory OP sink imo because its so good to have 360 shields with 20% extra hp and increased damage efficiency.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on January 16, 2021, 08:49:25 PM
I always delete everything and do a clean install of the mod so yeah. If you want the save file I can upload it.

Quote
For the Sabot, do you mean the version where it had higher armor penetration and was a single projectile?
Not the vanilla, the one before beta, it looks more believable. This new one has a secondary projectile range very far. it's kind of ridiculous. Your Sabot is more of a short gun so it shouldn't go that far. I would go with buffing missile speed, HP, or changing patterns would fit with the theme more. Or making secondary projectiles invincible or prematurely detonate secondary projectile when destroy but dealing only half damage. Can it fly in engine interdiction pattern but detonate when it's only on a quarter of the route?

Quote
For Concentrated Shields that is honestly an intended downside because it makes shields so much better. Have you tried defending with a lot of interceptors to relieve some of the strike craft pressure?
It's not enough to counter from my PoV. Usually, the craft AI tends to group up together into a massive blob. So, 30+ crafts can only help one ship at a time instead of spreading out. That's why I was thinking that some interceptor and PD drone ranges should be reduced to only cover their own ship only or ships next to it. It's useless to sent interceptors to attack enemy ships anyway so that role can be left to fighters.

All of my interceptors are on the battleships and all of my carriers were filled with fighters, gunships, and bombers to the brim lol.

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If that doesn't help much I'll consider reducing its arc reduction. Combining the two hullmods is too much of a mandatory OP sink imo because its so good to have 360 shields with 20% extra hp and increased damage efficiency.
I wouldn't want 360 that would be too much but 180 isn't cut out (it's only useful on 360 shield ship like Paragon anyway). I would prefer around 220-250 degrees of the shield arc after the Extended Shield apply. The OP sink is kind of justify since apart from shield damage reduction I also get massive flux capacity. This is almost equal to dumping 60 points into it for Paragon. And I kind of profit some instead of using normal Hardened Shield + 60 Flux capacity.

Or if you think it OK as it is, I'm fine with that. It still dominates in 1v1 situation anyway.

Accelerate Shield stack on Magelith is also kind of OP but it didn't bother me too much.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 17, 2021, 03:28:38 PM
I always delete everything and do a clean install of the mod so yeah. If you want the save file I can upload it.
Ah ok I found it I had to click on the Brilliant to reproduce it. Turns out the variant file I edited accidently pointed to the original hull instead of the mod hull. Should be fixed. I also increased the OP cost of the Lux fighter since it has an extra anti-ship weapon alongside seriously good anti-strike craft capability. It's at 30 OP now and the Brilliant variants have been adjusted.

Quote
Not the vanilla, the one before beta, it looks more believable. This new one has a secondary projectile range very far. it's kind of ridiculous. Your Sabot is more of a short gun so it shouldn't go that far. I would go with buffing missile speed, HP, or changing patterns would fit with the theme more. Or making secondary projectiles invincible or prematurely detonate secondary projectile when destroy but dealing only half damage. Can it fly in engine interdiction pattern but detonate when it's only on a quarter of the route?
The fancy flying would require scripting and I don't want to go down that route considering other priorities like variants and fleshing out Commissioned Crews support. I'll see about attempting to balance it back to short range detonation. I think you are correct in that it will likely just have to be invincible at the second stage or the missile will never hit. The PD balance will have to come from how durable the first stage missile is.

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It's not enough to counter from my PoV. Usually, the craft AI tends to group up together into a massive blob. So, 30+ crafts can only help one ship at a time instead of spreading out. That's why I was thinking that some interceptor and PD drone ranges should be reduced to only cover their own ship only or ships next to it. It's useless to sent interceptors to attack enemy ships anyway so that role can be left to fighters.

All of my interceptors are on the battleships and all of my carriers were filled with fighters, gunships, and bombers to the brim lol.
I did reduce the range of some drones for this reason. That should help the general AI for some builds. As far as other interceptors, I'd try a full interceptor/fighter carrier or two and assign escort orders to protect specific ships. It's some additional battle micro certainly but the mod is partly about tactics like this. Based upon your description of the fleet, I'd say that only having interceptors on warships might not be enough for large swarms of strike craft. At least when concentrated shields is in play.

If even that sort of tactic is insufficient, then I'll lighten the arc reduction penalty a bit.

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I wouldn't want 360 that would be too much but 180 isn't cut out (it's only useful on 360 shield ship like Paragon anyway). I would prefer around 220-250 degrees of the shield arc after the Extended Shield apply. The OP sink is kind of justify since apart from shield damage reduction I also get massive flux capacity. This is almost equal to dumping 60 points into it for Paragon. And I kind of profit some instead of using normal Hardened Shield + 60 Flux capacity.

Or if you think it OK as it is, I'm fine with that. It still dominates in 1v1 situation anyway.

Accelerate Shield stack on Magelith is also kind of OP but it didn't bother me too much.
I agree that the OP sink would be justified for the benefit that wasn't my issue though. It's that the two would be too good of an option and so builds would revolve around the OP sink which to me doesn't feel good. I like that the current way the build works forces a trade off. You trade strike craft and frigate defense for capital defense in a 1v1 situation.

The Paragon definitely becomes more vulnerable due to its low armor and so it's a pretty serious consideration on whether to take the hullmod. Hardened Shields, on the other hand, gives increased defense without a trade off - but far less increased defense.

I think the two different options are more interesting this way. If I changed it to a 220 or 250 arc there might not be a significant enough downside. I'll need to test how interceptor carriers perform.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 20, 2021, 08:12:26 PM
Beta Update:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)

Brief Summary:
 - Weapon balance pass focusing mostly on missiles. They have had a buff to their regeneration rate/sustained dps in many cases with a few reworks here and there.
 - Fixed Obliterator damage. (Not really sure what happened there - probably a typo. Either way definitely not intended. :P)
 - Reworked Squall - It can fire less often but damage has increased considerably. Can now cause overloads to ships with omni shields or front 360 shields.
 - The Fury Rocket System is much, much more scary than it was before. It abused the AI too much in the previous version. Now it has a long cd and costs a lot of flux but has immense burst damage and decent armor penetration for a kinetic rocket.
 - Tripled Harpoon missile hp. For reference, PD still negates many of them but they survive fighter/interceptor swarms a bit more easily.
 - Reworked Sabot - still reliable but triggers the second stage missile at a closer distance. Second stage missile amount increased and is invulnerable to weapons fire.
 - Improved the AIs use of Conquest stock variants.
 - Increased Shattercell and Heavy Shattercell dps and hit strength. Still not very good against armored strike craft, but better against shielded strike craft and slightly larger AO radius against missiles.
 - Added most of the capital variants to the Dev Mode simulation ship list.
 - Cleaned up strike craft hullmods. Most effects are now merged into the Fighter-class Systems hullmod. Strike Craft can no longer have their weapons or engines disabled and are immune to EMP.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on January 26, 2021, 09:19:22 AM
A question, where do I find those simulation’s capital ships to test against?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 26, 2021, 12:45:32 PM
A question, where do I find those simulation’s capital ships to test against?

Have to put the game in dev mode. Go to the core starsector settings and set dev mode to true. It should be near the top. To make it easier I'll see about making a non dev mode version later. I think it should be fairly easy to do.

*EDIT* It shouldn't require dev mode now. I added a copy of the sim opponent list to show up under the non-dev setting. I may just keep it this way so people who just want to test the mod out have easier access to stuff.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Velerian Mengsk on January 28, 2021, 03:28:03 AM
Nice mod. Too bad that can't support other mods that i use. And Fighter wings too op. Slow moving capital ships can't get close before losing it's half HP. Uses much more ram(but can be dealt with no cost it's too great)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2021, 12:53:38 PM
Nice mod. Too bad that can't support other mods that i use. And Fighter wings too op. Slow moving capital ships can't get close before losing it's half HP. Uses much more ram(but can be dealt with no cost it's too great)

Hi thanks! What mods are you referring to and how does this mod not support them? - just so I have that info.

Also are you playing the OP link version or the beta version? Fighters are different in strength between the two versions so that will better help me understand the feedback.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on January 31, 2021, 06:25:52 PM
Someone reported via PM that a CTD can occur deep into a game caused by a flaw in the hullmod removal logic that occurs when a save is loaded. I've corrected that in the beta DL for anyone who has run into it. The fix shouldn't break existing saves.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 01, 2021, 02:18:38 AM
I like this new Sabot. It hits more, often 60% of the time, and it's useless against armor due to more projectile and low damage per bullet which suits its role pretty well. Often fast frigate and destroyer that strafe can evade it pretty easily. Might consider low second stage projectile speed a bit more if you think fast frigate should be immune to it.

I haven't had time to test anything substantial but I noticed that Spectre receives a massive damage buff and it becomes OP at the moment. A full stack of 10 can one shot almost any capital which is a bit crazy. And what more, I can usually buy Spectre directly from the black market associated with AO. You should limit the buying option to military commission only.

I think Flash bomber is a little too fragile and might need some buff. On another hand, I think some armor oriented craft is too tough to shoot down with normal PD. Might need some explosive anti-craft missile to counter it. I believe Vespid can be changed to this role as at the moment smokescreen is superior to it in every way.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 01, 2021, 03:42:03 PM
Ah I'm glad the Sabot finally feels good!  :)

That one was very tricky to balance.

I don't remember buffing the Spectre but I may have. I'll have to take a look. I honestly thought maybe I made the Wasp too strong with its prox mine in comparison since they have similar OP costs. I believe I did recently buff the Banshee too because Shattercell Cannons aren't great against armor.

I plan to do something about ship availability. It might have to wait until the next Starsector update so I can see how the contacts system is going to work, etc.

I like the Vespid idea. In general, I don't want PD/ship based weapons to be too effective against strike craft so that dedicated carriers will have a role.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 01, 2021, 06:23:17 PM
Oh no, not Spectre, the Phantom bomber. The name is too similar lol.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 01, 2021, 06:53:13 PM
Oh no, not Spectre, the Phantom bomber. The name is too similar lol.

Ah ok, yes I did buff that. I'll have to test it some more. I didn't really test it much after the redesign.

I wonder if less projectile hp on each individual phase orbs would be the way to go or if that would just make it too easy to abuse overloads? I want to distinguish it from the piranha in some way (obviously the phase helps) and have it be worth the OP cost to install. The earlier version's damage seemed weaker compared to torpedo bombers so I probably just tuned it too high.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 02, 2021, 09:12:20 PM
I wonder if less projectile hp on each individual phase orbs would be the way to go or if that would just make it too easy to abuse overloads? I want to distinguish it from the piranha in some way (obviously the phase helps) and have it be worth the OP cost to install. The earlier version's damage seemed weaker compared to torpedo bombers so I probably just tuned it too high.

The earlier version could only scratch the enemy lol.

The bomb HP is not that critical, to begin with. I would say, the amount of bombs is too overwhelming for PD to intercept when deploying en masse. One craft can shoot out 5 orbs. If I fully loaded 10 slots Astral with it that would be 100 orbs which are just downright horrible for the enemy. This dense bomb screen can help protect the crafts from damage as well which makes it harder for interceptors to kill them. I would suggest either reduce the damage or cut down on the amount of bomb per craft to 3 or 4 and adjust its damage accordingly might help. The craft survivability is pretty OK, not too strong.

Have you made changes to the Cobra yet? Because it's pretty crappy right now lol. Its torp HP is severely low.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 03, 2021, 04:57:19 PM
I've been working a Expanded Fleet Dialogue for a couple of days for a change of pace - mainly to help avoid burn out.

I will address both the Phantom and the Cobra either later tonight or at some point tomorrow. I'll probably reduce the orb count to 3 and possibly buff damage a bit - or reduce it to 4 and keep the damage the same.

Just for my reference, does the Cobra die much? I know I increased the range at which it fires the torp. Increasing its hp is probably ok, but I don't necessarily want to make it always hit because reapers are very, very strong when they connect with armor instead of shields - even for high armor low tech ships that don't have 360 shields. So PD needs to be somewhat effective at least.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 03, 2021, 09:03:50 PM
It did die a lot due to slow speed. The turn radius is also quite wide for a ship this slow. Unless I supplement with some decoy fighter/interceptor, more than half will be gone against a capital ship. I don’t mind the loss that much (kamikaze bomber lol) but I do mind its inability to even hit something. Even with fighters combine, in my case I used 4 Nightmares + 8 Cobras, the hit rate of torps is as low as 10%. I was like T^T when it pops from a few Electron gun’s bullets.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 04, 2021, 01:29:31 PM
Ah ok noted!

Should have some changes ready later today.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Radicaljack on February 05, 2021, 08:56:28 AM
Is it usual for the Archean Order to get crushed so often by the Trade Guilds? Their tech is excellent but I frequently see them getting ground up by Midline fleets. Excited to see what changes are around, enjoying the rebalancing so far.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on February 05, 2021, 11:14:21 AM
I just wanted to say that this is probably the best mod currently available for Starsector.
I've been around since the early versions of this game and I've always found that most Mods fail to address a lot of the core issues with the game.

Focusing heavily on fighters/bombers/gunships is something that was really needed. I've always disliked how these crafts functioned in the base game and this mod addresses exactly that.
In fact, 10 years ago I wrote a thread complaining about Fighters/Bombers and their base function in Starsector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=418.msg3518#msg3518

My only gripe is that this mod fails to address the complete technological domination of some ships and strike crafts. While it's fine for the early game, later game essentially results in the same meta-builds and the same use of fighters/gunships/bombers over and over again. This essentially makes 90% of the crafts that this mod makes effort to improve essentially.... useless and just junk waiting for the player to obliterate.

This is something that vanilla Starsector suffers from where-as meta-builds become so prominent (very quickly) that a lot of other features, weapons, ships and crafts become useless almost an hour into gameplay. Likewise this mod suffers the same issue of vanilla where large ships can be insta-destroyed quite quickly in mid-late game by single barrages from various ships or strike crafts.

Further-more, in my opinion.... this mod could distinguish itself further by expanding on it's improvements to strike-craft by applying this gameplay directly to larger ships.
Battleships & Carriers should be a main component of EVERY fleet and the main "Command Ship". These ships should all have significant boost in health/hull to withstand barrages and be able to deploy and maintain large  (even larger) craft wings. These ships would essentially functions are mobile "bases" on the battlefield and almost function as semi-quasi battle-stations.


I do want to reiterate that this is my -favorite- mod and the only one I really use that adds ships and changes content. I genuinely don't believe I'd play Starsector without this mod as the changes to strike craft are so good and so signifanct to the over-all gameplay. However as I stated before, I believe this formula should be taken further to greatly expand this Mod into a more distinctive area of more HARDY big ships and stronger emphasize of carrier/mobile battleships.

Thanks for your work.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 05, 2021, 05:41:03 PM
Sorry for the delay in changes, I had a tricky thing I wanted to solve first that ended up taking more time than I expected. I have it working (mostly) now though. I might take a break tonight but I might not too. I'm still undecided. I have the changes I want to do in mind and they would be fast but I want to test a bit first so that the testing burden is a little less on the users and a little more on me. ;)

Is it usual for the Archean Order to get crushed so often by the Trade Guilds? Their tech is excellent but I frequently see them getting ground up by Midline fleets. Excited to see what changes are around, enjoying the rebalancing so far.

Welcome to the forums!

Is this during autoresolve battles between npc fleets or in a live combat battle of which you are taking part? Tech doesn't help as much in autoresolve since FP values are closer. The size of the fleet matters more there - as does the number of capitals, generally.

(Also glad you are enjoying the beta!)

I just wanted to say that this is probably the best mod currently available for Starsector.
I've been around since the early versions of this game and I've always found that most Mods fail to address a lot of the core issues with the game.

Focusing heavily on fighters/bombers/gunships is something that was really needed. I've always disliked how these crafts functioned in the base game and this mod addresses exactly that.
In fact, 10 years ago I wrote a thread complaining about Fighters/Bombers and their base function in Starsector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=418.msg3518#msg3518

My only gripe is that this mod fails to address the complete technological domination of some ships and strike crafts. While it's fine for the early game, later game essentially results in the same meta-builds and the same use of fighters/gunships/bombers over and over again. This essentially makes 90% of the crafts that this mod makes effort to improve essentially.... useless and just junk waiting for the player to obliterate.

This is something that vanilla Starsector suffers from where-as meta-builds become so prominent (very quickly) that a lot of other features, weapons, ships and crafts become useless almost an hour into gameplay. Likewise this mod suffers the same issue of vanilla where large ships can be insta-destroyed quite quickly in mid-late game by single barrages from various ships or strike crafts.

Further-more, in my opinion.... this mod could distinguish itself further by expanding on it's improvements to strike-craft by applying this gameplay directly to larger ships.
Battleships & Carriers should be a main component of EVERY fleet and the main "Command Ship". These ships should all have significant boost in health/hull to withstand barrages and be able to deploy and maintain large  (even larger) craft wings. These ships would essentially functions are mobile "bases" on the battlefield and almost function as semi-quasi battle-stations.


I do want to reiterate that this is my -favorite- mod and the only one I really use that adds ships and changes content. I genuinely don't believe I'd play Starsector without this mod as the changes to strike craft are so good and so signifanct to the over-all gameplay. However as I stated before, I believe this formula should be taken further to greatly expand this Mod into a more distinctive area of more HARDY big ships and stronger emphasize of carrier/mobile battleships.

Thanks for your work.

I appreciate the very generous compliment and the time you have taken to provide feedback! I'm not sure that this is the best mod out there (in my mind), but it definitely provides something different and, hopefully, interesting as well. Anyway, I really appreciate it. :)

To quickly address the main points:

strike craft/roles: Yes this is a core tenant of the mod's overall design goals. I'm glad it seems to work well. Final balance between craft as far as roles go isn't there yet, but I think it's better than it was before. As I design other things I will continue to try and get closer to where it feels "just right" though that will of course be subjective.

Tech meta: I am aware of this (at least to a certain degree) and I agree that more work could be done here. Finding legendary craft/ships/weapons is very fun imo, but the stronger such things are the more likely it will be that a player is going to focus on them to the exclusion of all the other toys in the toolbox. The same goes for the OP - to - effectiveness ratio of higher tech stuff. I want spending more OP on something to have a noticeable impact, but that also runs the risk of obsoleting low OP stuff pretty quickly.

Any detailed thoughts analysis on that topic are welcome - I am certainly open to specific feedback and, perhaps more importantly, why it feels one way or the other and any potential solutions to the perceived problem on an item-to-item basis. In the beta, for instance, I've hopefully already addressed the bombers vs everything else conundrum that carrier building can potentially suffer from. Another goal was to address smaller hullsize carriers and make them feel more worthwhile without making them too strong against warships. On that note, carrier spam effectiveness should have been reduced a bit due to larger AOE radius PD and higher PD hit strength. On the large scale end of the battle size, however, having a lot of interceptors is still going to be necessary.

I also think that when I address item rarity/accessibility in the future this will help a lot too. Though, ideally, I'd like most things to at least have a niche use in certain builds or something along those lines.

Capitals as bases/command ships: This is something that is also a design goal of the mod, but there are two things stopping it from being easy to do right now. The first is that capitals are relatively easy to acquire and fairly prevalent in most fleets in large numbers. So they therefore become the only desirable hullsize to use under those conditions considering the player's ship cap. I want to have destroyers and frigates still provide utility and have a place in the player's fleet rather than simply being an early game throw-away ship if that makes sense. The next Starsector update is looking to tone down npc fleets a bit, and then changes along those lines will be easier to do.

The second and harder to solve issue is battle slowdown and CR. Having capitals as bullet sponges can significantly slow down battles if over-tuned. And, smaller ships can run out of CR before being able to soften them up enough - which goes back to the player ship cap issue. Once again, though, the next update might make these issues easier to work around.

To summarize, I want to do this but I have to be careful about how I go about balancing it from the large-scale design perspective. (I hope that makes sense - it does in my mind anyway :P )
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 06, 2021, 06:29:39 AM
Quote
Sorry for the delay in changes, I had a tricky thing I wanted to solve first that ended up taking more time than I expected. I have it working (mostly) now though. I might take a break tonight but I might not too. I'm still undecided. I have the changes I want to do in mind and they would be fast but I want to test a bit first so that the testing burden is a little less on the users and a little more on me.

No hurry. I myself almost got burnout as well. I'm only focusing on the specific issue of craft balance and some nerf require to not let any weapon become a no brainer choice. I rarely play now a day, going to wait for a new major update to hit.

Quote
My only gripe is that this mod fails to address the complete technological domination of some ships and strike crafts. While it's fine for the early game, later game essentially results in the same meta-builds and the same use of fighters/gunships/bombers over and over again. This essentially makes 90% of the crafts that this mod makes effort to improve essentially.... useless and just junk waiting for the player to obliterate.

You should try the beta. There's a lot of major overhauls for the craft which make most of Low, Mid, and High tiers viable in many situations. High tech tier crafts will be weak against low tier ship due to heavily shield investment while still strong against high tech ships. Midline has very good fighters and well rounded bombers with the addition of new Legendaries. Whereas Low tech crafts got armor boost and usable end game.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 06, 2021, 07:37:07 PM
---New Beta Update (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)---

Changes:

-- Balance pass on ship speed. In general, increased speed of destroyers and some cruisers. Reduced Paragon speed. Increased Conquest and Revenant speed and increased Conquest maneuverability.

-- Decided to keep Executor OP where it is but reduced max flux by 5000 to compensate.

-- Reduced orb count of the Phantom bomber to 3 - down from 8. Damage remains the same. Reduced Dagger Atropos torpedo damage to 1500 - down from 1800.

-- Increased Dagger and Cobra torpedo hp substantially. Increased Cobra turn rate and increased shield strength to 1800 from 1200.

-- Reduced Apocrypha Antimatter Blaster charge count to 2. Reduced damage down to 2000 from 2500.

-- Doubled missile weapons of all Vanguard variants.

-- Stinger and Vespid missiles now deal High Explosive damage. Reduced damage to 200 from 250. Buffed Swarmer damage to 400 from200 but halved recharge rate to keep it competitive in comparison.

-- Increased low tech capital dissipation rate by a small amount.

-- Reduced Heron and Mora speed slightly and reduced Targeting Feed (AO) ship system's benefit to strike craft damage to 25% - down from 50%. (Mora should be more competitive now.)

No hurry. I myself almost got burnout as well. I'm only focusing on the specific issue of craft balance and some nerf require to not let any weapon become a no brainer choice. I rarely play now a day, going to wait for a new major update to hit.

I definitely understand. Thank you for all the feedback you have given as you test the beta. I really appreciate it.  :)

I will probably prioritize fixing variants for a bit. I think most balance outliers have been addressed (hopefully) but I'll still check here daily for any continued feedback.

After I get a lot of the variants out of the way, I might build a mission (outside the campaign) to test interceptor carrier builds more thoroughly.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: megabot on February 07, 2021, 02:20:24 PM
so I don't know if I've got smooth brain or need glasses but i seem to remember there having been a massive FAQ part before...but i cannot find it, so I am gonna try to comment in hopes of there not having been one: is this mod balanced with Industrial Evolution? if not, is there a plan to maybe make it?

also i hope i see replies if there will be some because i still don't know how to propperly use this site, i think
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: megabot on February 07, 2021, 02:27:17 PM
also another thing, if disabling the total overhaul to make it compatible with nexerelin, what exactly gets disabled if I might ask? I don't really want to miss out on the features of this mod
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 07, 2021, 07:51:00 PM
so I don't know if I've got smooth brain or need glasses but i seem to remember there having been a massive FAQ part before...but i cannot find it, so I am gonna try to comment in hopes of there not having been one: is this mod balanced with Industrial Evolution? if not, is there a plan to maybe make it?

also i hope i see replies if there will be some because i still don't know how to propperly use this site, i think

Hi! There is a manual on the main page that is download-able but its pretty out of date by now. I need to update it when this update is finalized.

I haven't had a FAQ though you are correct. Currently, you can use Industrial Evolution as far as I know but I'm not really sure if it is balanced around it or not. I know some mods implement content alongside that mod (though I don't know exactly what) and I would love to do so in the future too. I have a lot of stuff to do yet in the beta, so I can see about stuff like that when the bulk of the work is done.

(Also I should probably make a FAQ.)

also another thing, if disabling the total overhaul to make it compatible with nexerelin, what exactly gets disabled if I might ask? I don't really want to miss out on the features of this mod

Disabling the TC settings to make it selectable alongside Nex doesn't impact the TC experience except that for what Nex adds so no worries there.

Furthermore, in the beta (not on the main page but linked in the thread) there are customization options in the settings file (data/config/settings.json) that allow you to fine-tune your TC experience. Hope that helps!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on February 07, 2021, 08:48:12 PM
Sorry for the delay in changes, I had a tricky thing I wanted to solve first that ended up taking more time than I expected. I have it working (mostly) now though. I might take a break tonight but I might not too. I'm still undecided. I have the changes I want to do in mind and they would be fast but I want to test a bit first so that the testing burden is a little less on the users and a little more on me. ;)

Is it usual for the Archean Order to get crushed so often by the Trade Guilds? Their tech is excellent but I frequently see them getting ground up by Midline fleets. Excited to see what changes are around, enjoying the rebalancing so far.

Welcome to the forums!

Is this during autoresolve battles between npc fleets or in a live combat battle of which you are taking part? Tech doesn't help as much in autoresolve since FP values are closer. The size of the fleet matters more there - as does the number of capitals, generally.

(Also glad you are enjoying the beta!)

I just wanted to say that this is probably the best mod currently available for Starsector.
I've been around since the early versions of this game and I've always found that most Mods fail to address a lot of the core issues with the game.

Focusing heavily on fighters/bombers/gunships is something that was really needed. I've always disliked how these crafts functioned in the base game and this mod addresses exactly that.
In fact, 10 years ago I wrote a thread complaining about Fighters/Bombers and their base function in Starsector: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=418.msg3518#msg3518

My only gripe is that this mod fails to address the complete technological domination of some ships and strike crafts. While it's fine for the early game, later game essentially results in the same meta-builds and the same use of fighters/gunships/bombers over and over again. This essentially makes 90% of the crafts that this mod makes effort to improve essentially.... useless and just junk waiting for the player to obliterate.

This is something that vanilla Starsector suffers from where-as meta-builds become so prominent (very quickly) that a lot of other features, weapons, ships and crafts become useless almost an hour into gameplay. Likewise this mod suffers the same issue of vanilla where large ships can be insta-destroyed quite quickly in mid-late game by single barrages from various ships or strike crafts.

Further-more, in my opinion.... this mod could distinguish itself further by expanding on it's improvements to strike-craft by applying this gameplay directly to larger ships.
Battleships & Carriers should be a main component of EVERY fleet and the main "Command Ship". These ships should all have significant boost in health/hull to withstand barrages and be able to deploy and maintain large  (even larger) craft wings. These ships would essentially functions are mobile "bases" on the battlefield and almost function as semi-quasi battle-stations.


I do want to reiterate that this is my -favorite- mod and the only one I really use that adds ships and changes content. I genuinely don't believe I'd play Starsector without this mod as the changes to strike craft are so good and so signifanct to the over-all gameplay. However as I stated before, I believe this formula should be taken further to greatly expand this Mod into a more distinctive area of more HARDY big ships and stronger emphasize of carrier/mobile battleships.

Thanks for your work.

I appreciate the very generous compliment and the time you have taken to provide feedback! I'm not sure that this is the best mod out there (in my mind), but it definitely provides something different and, hopefully, interesting as well. Anyway, I really appreciate it. :)

To quickly address the main points:

strike craft/roles: Yes this is a core tenant of the mod's overall design goals. I'm glad it seems to work well. Final balance between craft as far as roles go isn't there yet, but I think it's better than it was before. As I design other things I will continue to try and get closer to where it feels "just right" though that will of course be subjective.

Tech meta: I am aware of this (at least to a certain degree) and I agree that more work could be done here. Finding legendary craft/ships/weapons is very fun imo, but the stronger such things are the more likely it will be that a player is going to focus on them to the exclusion of all the other toys in the toolbox. The same goes for the OP - to - effectiveness ratio of higher tech stuff. I want spending more OP on something to have a noticeable impact, but that also runs the risk of obsoleting low OP stuff pretty quickly.

Any detailed thoughts analysis on that topic are welcome - I am certainly open to specific feedback and, perhaps more importantly, why it feels one way or the other and any potential solutions to the perceived problem on an item-to-item basis. In the beta, for instance, I've hopefully already addressed the bombers vs everything else conundrum that carrier building can potentially suffer from. Another goal was to address smaller hullsize carriers and make them feel more worthwhile without making them too strong against warships. On that note, carrier spam effectiveness should have been reduced a bit due to larger AOE radius PD and higher PD hit strength. On the large scale end of the battle size, however, having a lot of interceptors is still going to be necessary.

I also think that when I address item rarity/accessibility in the future this will help a lot too. Though, ideally, I'd like most things to at least have a niche use in certain builds or something along those lines.

Capitals as bases/command ships: This is something that is also a design goal of the mod, but there are two things stopping it from being easy to do right now. The first is that capitals are relatively easy to acquire and fairly prevalent in most fleets in large numbers. So they therefore become the only desirable hullsize to use under those conditions considering the player's ship cap. I want to have destroyers and frigates still provide utility and have a place in the player's fleet rather than simply being an early game throw-away ship if that makes sense. The next Starsector update is looking to tone down npc fleets a bit, and then changes along those lines will be easier to do.

The second and harder to solve issue is battle slowdown and CR. Having capitals as bullet sponges can significantly slow down battles if over-tuned. And, smaller ships can run out of CR before being able to soften them up enough - which goes back to the player ship cap issue. Once again, though, the next update might make these issues easier to work around.

To summarize, I want to do this but I have to be careful about how I go about balancing it from the large-scale design perspective. (I hope that makes sense - it does in my mind anyway :P )

In my opinion the focus on Strike Craft would go better with larger ships being straight up mobile battle stations and able to absorb much more damage with destroyers etc being far more expendable and plentiful. I agree that battleships/large carriers are quite easy to obtain currently and often advantageous to have numerous. I'd love to see everyone fleet limited to one "Battleship" which would enable you to significantly BUFF them making them the focus on the battles.

This would obviously require the game to shift heavily from vanilla Starsector, making battles longers and severely decreasing CR to allow for this.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: megabot on February 08, 2021, 06:32:52 AM
Hope that helps!

it does, thank you!
industrial revolution mainly might interact with this mod trough letting you set up a shop that sells/stockpiles (rare) weapons for sale, a way to strenghten fleet defences of weaker planets in a system if there are stronger ones present(anywhere) and a way to make the colony raid other colonies (of your enemies) automatically to aquire resources and blueprints. I'm mainly asking due to the total conversion aspect and the fact that there even is a specific selection of mods to be "balanced"(as balanced as they are on their own) or compatible with
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2021, 02:51:54 PM
In my opinion the focus on Strike Craft would go better with larger ships being straight up mobile battle stations and able to absorb much more damage with destroyers etc being far more expendable and plentiful. I agree that battleships/large carriers are quite easy to obtain currently and often advantageous to have numerous. I'd love to see everyone fleet limited to one "Battleship" which would enable you to significantly BUFF them making them the focus on the battles.

This would obviously require the game to shift heavily from vanilla Starsector, making battles longers and severely decreasing CR to allow for this.

That would definitely be interesting and at some point I might try it out. It probably would have to be after 1.0 since I'd likely have to provide my own fleet generators and completely rework the battle creation context to do something like that. And that's assuming I could somehow communicate that through the UI in the deployment screen - which might not be accessible.

Basically, it would be an extremely ambitious undertaking and probably take a long time to balance out assuming it's even possible. I like the idea and it's definitely not a "never going to happen" kind of situation but the work involved makes it more unlikely than likely to happen, unfortunately.

That being said, I'll see how the next update looks with the changes to fleet generation. That might make something along these lines easier to do.

it does, thank you!
industrial revolution mainly might interact with this mod trough letting you set up a shop that sells/stockpiles (rare) weapons for sale, a way to strenghten fleet defences of weaker planets in a system if there are stronger ones present(anywhere) and a way to make the colony raid other colonies (of your enemies) automatically to aquire resources and blueprints. I'm mainly asking due to the total conversion aspect and the fact that there even is a specific selection of mods to be "balanced"(as balanced as they are on their own) or compatible with

Thank you for explaining! That definitely sounds interesting and I'll have to check out what opt-in options are available. I think the mod will probably work like Nex and add its features without affecting the TC balance. While I add new locations/markets, etc, I don't really do much to the campaign other than the fleet dialogue and a couple of unique things at certain markets. So mods implementing colony or economy features probably won't cause anything to break.

The list on the main page isn't exhaustive by any means. Iirc I added that as people playing the mod confirmed there weren't any conflicts while using them. The only feature mod that causes a crash I believe is Better Colonies because I add custom orbital stations that are unable to have the Better Colonies station script applied to them. But I think that's it as far as I know.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 10, 2021, 09:43:56 PM
The Cobra hit rate has increased to around 20-30%, slightly better. For now, I would leave it like that until someone complains more about it.

The new Obliterator doesn't feel right. The DPS output is in line but its reload speed is a lot worse. The gap between each salvo is huge and I like the old one more. I think faster firing and less damage per bullet will be better.

Tyrant's boost ability is often wasted by AI and doesn't look that significant. If its duration is longer and a bit more potent would be nice.

Can you make REDACTED fleets larger for all security rating? It's too easy at the moment after the teleporter removed. I still like the old teleporter on Radiant. It makes the ship survive long but it has to be fine tuned first to not suicide.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 11, 2021, 04:15:23 PM
The Cobra hit rate has increased to around 20-30%, slightly better. For now, I would leave it like that until someone complains more about it.
Ah good. I think I buffed the torp hp a tiny bit more but I think the changes are not in the DL yet. I did another strike craft pass and I really like where they are at in general. the only thing I still need to do is test full interceptor carriers but with the fighter changes I'm pretty confident they should be an attractive option alongside bomber/gunship carriers.

Quote
The new Obliterator doesn't feel right. The DPS output is in line but its reload speed is a lot worse. The gap between each salvo is huge and I like the old one more. I think faster firing and less damage per bullet will be better.
Yeah I agree. Unfortunately reducing the cd creates an AI issue. The AI manually fires strike weapons (which the Obliterator is because it would waste too many shots on strike craft otherwise) and low cooldowns mean the AI is very inefficient. What about a burst? Like 2 or three pulses per fire or something? That would make it more similar to the Heavy Obliterator Cannon.

Quote
Tyrant's boost ability is often wasted by AI and doesn't look that significant. If its duration is longer and a bit more potent would be nice.
Plasma Jets does seem a little underwhelming compared to Burn Drive despite that system removing shields. I'm not sure I can do much about the AI wasting it, but I think a buff to the ship system might be ok.

Quote
Can you make REDACTED fleets larger for all security rating? It's too easy at the moment after the teleporter removed. I still like the old teleporter on Radiant. It makes the ship survive long but it has to be fine tuned first to not suicide.
I'm honestly not sure if I can or not. Does increasing: "numShips":1, to something like "numShips":4, - in the faction file do anything?

Re: Teleporter.
I think it has Plasma Jets so maybe the buff will help? Is it still too fragile due to surrounds without the Teleport?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 11, 2021, 09:17:45 PM
Quote
Yeah I agree. Unfortunately reducing the cd creates an AI issue. The AI manually fires strike weapons (which the Obliterator is because it would waste too many shots on strike craft otherwise) and low cooldowns mean the AI is very inefficient. What about a burst? Like 2 or three pulses per fire or something? That would make it more similar to the Heavy Obliterator Cannon.

A bigger burst size might be better. From what I saw, it couldn't empty the clip no matter what for both Medium and Heavy Obliterator. The damage is still insane though albeit slower, can overload Executor in one salvo from my full Obliterator Paragon. Because it's cheap to fire I would cut the damage out some more. I say the heavy Obliterator goes down to 1000-1200 per bullet and maybe increases the burst size to 6 with a slightly longer delay (not sure how it's going to look lol). Medium Obliterator's damage down to 500-600 and burst size increases to 4 and fire in an alternative pattern like Heavy.

(https://i.ibb.co/1msXCRg/987897564.png) (https://ibb.co/1msXCRg)

Quote
Re: Teleporter.
I think it has Plasma Jets so maybe the buff will help? Is it still too fragile due to surrounds without the Teleport?

It's not that fragile but once it succumbs to mistake it has zero chance of recovery. Players will surely take the opportunity to gang it if it coming straight with no support.

(https://i.ibb.co/qBh7g8f/45646321.png) (https://ibb.co/qBh7g8f)

Now, that you buff strike crafts maybe a bit too much. Tyrant speed nerf might be unjustified. Really can't escape from the fighter swarm.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on February 15, 2021, 09:48:03 AM
Just a personal observation, but flash bombers and bombers in general that require a momentum release seem severely weak.
It's much more beneficial to use heavy fighters that use a combo of EMP/Sustained damage than it is for the brief heavy damage infliction.

I'm late game now and I've essentially eliminated all my bomber wings as they under-performed compared to my heavy fighters.
In my opinion, the weapon mount disabling is far more vital than having bombers.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 16, 2021, 08:52:47 AM
Just a personal observation, but flash bombers and bombers in general that require a momentum release seem severely weak.
It's much more beneficial to use heavy fighters that use a combo of EMP/Sustained damage than it is for the brief heavy damage infliction.

I'm late game now and I've essentially eliminated all my bomber wings as they under-performed compared to my heavy fighters.
In my opinion, the weapon mount disabling is far more vital than having bombers.

Flash Bomber in this mod actually has guns and not bombs like in vanilla. Its DPS is also one of the highest of all crafts as well but it's fragile... for now. As for bombers in general, you should never use them alone or against a shield. Try to deploy it in combination with the main ballistic front-line ships and it did wonders for me against any enemy capital ships. For example, I put low-tech bombers on my Executer with main ballistic and energy.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on February 16, 2021, 09:14:42 AM
Just a personal observation, but flash bombers and bombers in general that require a momentum release seem severely weak.
It's much more beneficial to use heavy fighters that use a combo of EMP/Sustained damage than it is for the brief heavy damage infliction.

I'm late game now and I've essentially eliminated all my bomber wings as they under-performed compared to my heavy fighters.
In my opinion, the weapon mount disabling is far more vital than having bombers.

Flash Bomber in this mod actually has guns and not bombs like in vanilla. Its DPS is also one of the highest of all crafts as well but it's fragile... for now. As for bombers in general, you should never use them alone or against a shield. Try to deploy it in combination with the main ballistic front-line ships and it did wonders for me against any enemy capital ships. For example, I put low-tech bombers on my Executer with main ballistic and energy.

Wait, Flash bombers aren't the ones dropping the little purple bombs off?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Sidestrafe2462 on February 17, 2021, 12:30:53 AM
Do no ships have Ground Support Packages anymore? Just picked up a couple of Valkyries, they serve as little more than expensive crew transports right now.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 17, 2021, 02:25:19 AM
Wait, Flash bombers aren't the ones dropping the little purple bombs off?

No, those are from the Phantom bomber and it is a pretty strong Legendary class. Its damage is being balanced right now. If you think it's too weak you should test it some more and leave your opinion for Morrokain.

Do no ships have Ground Support Packages anymore? Just picked up a couple of Valkyries, they serve as little more than expensive crew transports right now.

No, sadly it has been removed. For me, it's not that important anyway since this mod's ships have bigger bunk than vanilla and far larger storage capacity. So, you can always carry 2000 heavy armaments with you anytime and those are enough to have invasion sucess rate of 70%+ after bombardment.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 17, 2021, 12:58:12 PM
Sorry for my absence lately. I've been reading but not replying to save some time as I do some things. (Once again, thank you Albreo for answering questions.  :) )

1) Balance feedback - I appreciate it! Please state whether the perspective is from the Beta or the last official mod update on the OP. I am going to assume its the Beta, but if I'm wrong I may make unnecessary changes that I already have addressed because I am assuming the wrong context for the feedback. (Re: Phantom - I think there are some changes to strike craft not in the Beta DL yet. I'll try to get those in at some point today along with a few other things. From testing, it is better than torpedo bombers at this point - at least when used in large numbers such as when using the Astral.)

2) The Valkyrie still doesn't have Ground Support Package?? I could have sworn I fixed that. *Checks* Argh, nope it's not there! I added it and it will be in the DL when I update. Sorry about that. This isn't the first time it was reported and I must have forgot to actually make the change. Either that or I removed it later for some reason though I don't remember what that was. I probably just forgot.

3) I buffed the duration of Plasma Jets to help the Tyrant and Odyssey. It probably won't prevent them from being vulnerable to strike craft, however, so interceptor escorts from allied carriers is still advised. Reminder for those unaware: The allied carrier must be built with all interceptors (Anti-Strike Craft gunships count as interceptors to the AI) and non-strike fighters for the AI to defend allied ships. Escort orders are advised as well. If this is insufficient, I'll first look at buffing the speed boost of Plasma Jets, and if that doesn't do it then I will consider giving the Tyrant the mine system from vanilla. The Odyssey at least has 360 shields so that probably helps a lot in comparison.

4) Bombers vs Fighters - Good point, Darrow, the ability of fighters and interceptors to suppress weapon systems and engines is a powerful tool. Bombers are more about creating and exploiting vulnerabilities. Albreo pretty much sums it up. If the bomber squadron hits with little to no mitigation, then the damage to the ship is usually pretty severe. That isn't the standard experience, however, because that would make carriers too strong considering their range. If you are having trouble with AI carriers, that is very understandable because I am realizing that they have to be built pretty carefully. I need to get this information in the manual at some point, but the AI behavior of the carrier seems to change based upon the type of craft it has equipped. I've noticed that bombers, gunships, and fighters that use missiles and require reloading do not fit as well with craft that stay on target when equipped on the same carrier. The AI won't use regroup as much as it needs to in order to keep its replacement rate up. Similarly, strike craft without reloading requirements go best with other craft that don't, but the AI carrier will tend to keep engage on and trickle in reinforcements instead of building an attack wave. From what I can gather, both types of strike craft have uses depending upon the situation. Bombers and strike gunships are damage spiking craft that are often mitigated by PD but tend to stay alive longer and keep the carriers replacement rate up for a longer period of time assuming they are protected. It is different depending upon the particular wing, however, as some strike gunships and bombers also use projectiles which aren't mitigatable. Gunships and fighters that stay on target are powerful initially and then as they are destroyed it is harder for the carrier to replace them most of the time because the carrier keeps engage on and trickles replacements in which is a lot easier for the target ship to manage. Combining the two types using two separate carriers assigned to the same target will likely yield some pretty potent results - especially if flares are involved in the assault group carrier.

TLDR: Essentially, there is a trade off of reliable effectiveness vs survivability between the two. Combining to two types of builds on separate carriers and assigning them to the same target should be more effective. Combat ships can replace assault group carriers and perform the same role. At least in theory and from my testing. In practice, it may likely be harder to tell sometimes. Opinions certainly welcome and the more details the better.

5) Radiant difficulty: Heh heh, be careful what you wish for... something in the works for this. :-X
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 18, 2021, 04:41:05 PM
Almost done with the new Radiant ship system. It can fight just about any 3 capitals 3v1 and either survive or deal severe damage/kill one or two of them depending upon the loadout. This system also makes it very effective against cruiser/destroyer surrounds or generally any overwhelming force. Its still killable don't get me wrong - but far, far, less so without the drawback of teleport kiting or drawing out the battle in unfun ways - like having to chase it down. Fighting a Radiant should now almost guarantee losses, however, no matter how many ships or even capitals you bring. (Evil Laugh)

(The base stats haven't changed at all - and obviously I can tone down the system or the base stats from here. Also, because players will eventually be able to own/pilot a Radiant, I have a solution to prevent it from being stupidly OP in the player's hands while not affecting the difficulty of REDACTED encounters.)

I've created a custom AI for this, so the Radiant won't waste charges of the system unless it is in a situation that would cause a lot of hull damage, overload or death. (Ideally - still getting the wrinkles out.) It also has its AI personality set to Reckless with the system active. So it shouldn't use it to kite but rather to do damage/defend.

Unfortunately I am having a bit of wrist pain at the moment so I need to take a break. When it feels better I will resume coding the AI and release the DL update for the Beta when its ready and I've tested a lot of the edge cases. (Though I'm sure someone will find more I've missed.  ;D )
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 20, 2021, 05:30:52 PM
Another Beta Update (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0) including the new REDACTED ship system.

Summary:
1) Another small balance pass on strike craft.

2) Added support for Embassies for Industrial Evolution (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18011.0).

3) New REDACTED ship system with custom AI. High end REDACTED encounters should now be extremely difficult. Taking losses is very likely even when fielding multiple capitals.

4) Rework of the Obliterator Cannon medium weapon. Should look/feel better to fire and still be balanced.

5) *Edit* Bugfix: Added in Ground Support Package to the Valkyrie. (No redownload needed I just forgot to mention it in the original post.)


Some details on the AI for the system:
 - The AI should reserve charges of the system until the ship is in a serious situation, such as taking significant or consistent damage, or when flux is high and nearby threats are dangerous.
 - While the system is active, the AI should be extremely aggressive and should not vent flux nor lower shields.
 - The current drawback I have seen is that sometimes when the system is on cooldown or out of charges and the ship has high flux it can vent even when surrounded by enemies. (Prevents the system from activating when it otherwise could come off cooldown.)
 - The AI calculations shouldn't impact performance - or at least they should impact it very little.
 - The more the ship's hull is reduced, the more likely the ship will activate the system from damage or flux build up.
 - There should ideally be few ways for players to abuse the AI and cause the system to activate early and waste charges without dealing serious damage to the ship.
 - At very low hull (under 25%), the system should proc from any damage if there are charges available and the system is not on cooldown.
 - *EDIT* (Testing as the player in dev mode.) Note that while under player control the system will cause a high chance of critical malfunctions when activated for the entire active duration. This is in preparation for the next update that will allow the player to pilot REDACTED ships through story points.

I have no doubt that there will be some nerfs necessary later on, but for now the system is tuned to be very difficult to overcome unless the charges run out. Both REDACTED capitals have this system.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Flying Dice on February 21, 2021, 05:49:43 AM
Somehow I managed to make it seven years without making an account here, but now that I finally got around to it, I wanted to thank you for making this mod. It's done a lot of things that I've wanted for Starfarer/Starsector for ages, even more so than Nexerelin. So thanks!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 21, 2021, 06:24:30 AM
Omg, Flux vent ability. Not that unmanageable but make it have like 3 lives more. My only complaint is that it is unnoticeable when the skill is activated. Maybe you should make the shield glow red when it's activated like Fortress Shield. And would you be interested in MagicLib for some added SFX enhancement?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 21, 2021, 03:12:31 PM
Somehow I managed to make it seven years without making an account here, but now that I finally got around to it, I wanted to thank you for making this mod. It's done a lot of things that I've wanted for Starfarer/Starsector for ages, even more so than Nexerelin. So thanks!

Welcome to the forums! :)

Thanks for the compliment and I'm glad you are enjoying the mod. At some point I'm also going to release a couple of the TC's features as stand alone mods that can be run alongside non-TC faction mods. Fleet Dialogue is complex and work-intensive so it will be a bit, but the REDACTED features will be easier to do so I will release a mini-mod for those likely first. And, of course, I am still actively developing the Beta - so lots of things to look forward to in the future!

Omg, Flux vent ability. Not that unmanageable but make it have like 3 lives more. My only complaint is that it is unnoticeable when the skill is activated. Maybe you should make the shield glow red when it's activated like Fortress Shield. And would you be interested in MagicLib for some added SFX enhancement?

 ;D I'm glad you like it. I agree on noticeability though. It actually has a pretty noticeable activation sound effect but despite high volume it is often covered up by the combat sounds of heavy weapons. I'm looking to try and make that more noticeable to start.

I should probably do the shield glow too though, and as far as MagicLib I'm definitely open to doing that but I've never used it before so I need to learn it. I was thinking of some kind of arcing lightning kind of effect at the point of activation - kind of similar to the Omen's system but more sporadic and with less emp damage so its more flavor than function if that makes sense.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Nytrix on February 23, 2021, 04:15:46 AM
Hello!

I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely love this mod. I basically play the game only with your mod + any "maybe" compatible mods.
I would love for this mode to be more compatible with faction mods , but that's just wishful thinking  :). The critical advantage is that your weapons are reloaded. There is no limited missile ammo, or I didn't see one so far, which is something I adore in this mod. I do not understand that in Vanilla we have these huuuge ships flying in space... yet they come with 40 missiles... ugh.

Also trying out the beta version now with industrial evolution. So far so good.
Keep up the awesome work you do. Cheers
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 23, 2021, 01:10:52 PM
Hello!

I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely love this mod. I basically play the game only with your mod + any "maybe" compatible mods.
I would love for this mode to be more compatible with faction mods , but that's just wishful thinking  :). The critical advantage is that your weapons are reloaded. There is no limited missile ammo, or I didn't see one so far, which is something I adore in this mod. I do not understand that in Vanilla we have these huuuge ships flying in space... yet they come with 40 missiles... ugh.

Also trying out the beta version now with industrial evolution. So far so good.
Keep up the awesome work you do. Cheers

Thanks! Welcome to the forums!  :)

Only strike craft missiles have limited ammo iirc. All ship missiles should regenerate eventually. For regenerating missiles (at least vanilla missiles) alongside faction mods outside of the TC, I'd recommend DatonKallandor's Missiles and Sundry mod (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14921.30).

Unfortunately, faction mods will always inherently be impossible to balance around considering this is a total conversion that makes a ton of combat changes. They balance around vanilla combat and this mod changes too many aspects of that for it to be an easy thing to do. When a TC capital has 20+ small weapons and the average vanilla capital has less than ten it becomes very difficult to somehow make those both work when combined. And that's before you even get into things like strike craft changes, designation specializations, different speed mechanics, etc. This mod is more of an alternative meta/rebalance mod that provides some additional variety to Starsector's mod pool.

What I will do, however, is port some of the campaign features of this mod into separate mini-mods designed to be used with vanilla/faction mods. Expanded Fleet Dialogue is already in progress, and last night I ported most of the unique REDACTED features into a separate mod that I will likely be releasing pretty soon. I want to test the custom AI more to make sure I'm not missing anything important and to make sure it runs as efficiently as possible first, but last nights tests were very promising. (I *think* I solved the vent when surrounded issue.)

But combat related things? That is up to individual faction modders and whether they want to make separate versions based around the TC combat - which of course I would gladly help with any questions.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Nytrix on February 24, 2021, 03:31:02 AM

Thanks! Welcome to the forums!  :)

Only strike craft missiles have limited ammo iirc. All ship missiles should regenerate eventually. For regenerating missiles (at least vanilla missiles) alongside faction mods outside of the TC, I'd recommend DatonKallandor's Missiles and Sundry mod (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14921.30).

Unfortunately, faction mods will always inherently be impossible to balance around considering this is a total conversion that makes a ton of combat changes. They balance around vanilla combat and this mod changes too many aspects of that for it to be an easy thing to do. When a TC capital has 20+ small weapons and the average vanilla capital has less than ten it becomes very difficult to somehow make those both work when combined. And that's before you even get into things like strike craft changes, designation specializations, different speed mechanics, etc. This mod is more of an alternative meta/rebalance mod that provides some additional variety to Starsector's mod pool.

What I will do, however, is port some of the campaign features of this mod into separate mini-mods designed to be used with vanilla/faction mods. Expanded Fleet Dialogue is already in progress, and last night I ported most of the unique REDACTED features into a separate mod that I will likely be releasing pretty soon. I want to test the custom AI more to make sure I'm not missing anything important and to make sure it runs as efficiently as possible first, but last nights tests were very promising. (I *think* I solved the vent when surrounded issue.)

But combat related things? That is up to individual faction modders and whether they want to make separate versions based around the TC combat - which of course I would gladly help with any questions.

Thanks for pointers. In the future I hope other modders who like your mod will include version for Archean Order. As I said just wishful thinking about this mod being playable with faction mods, I know it's impossible. 
Now I'm looking forward for new versions of this mode, I also really like that you are doing compatibility patches with mods that could be usable, like recently industrial evolution and of course it was great idea to do Nexerelin compatibility, that mode is must have I think.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: shpooky on February 24, 2021, 05:12:21 PM
 so is it that higher tech means better ships/weapons now? instead of different doctrine like in the original?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on February 24, 2021, 09:30:42 PM
so is it that higher tech means better ships/weapons now? instead of different doctrine like in the original?

I would say no. This mod power level is being balanced around DP. A ship that costs more point to be deployed tends to be better than ships that cost less. This mod's factions also mostly incline to high-tech so you will likely see more high-tech ships than others. Apart from pirate's junks, most low-tech and midline can deal with high-tech ships no problem, with a correct loadout. As for weapons, your typical vanilla ballistics are buff up a lot and can shred Paragon's shield with ease.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 24, 2021, 11:01:40 PM
Thanks for pointers. In the future I hope other modders who like your mod will include version for Archean Order. As I said just wishful thinking about this mod being playable with faction mods, I know it's impossible. 
Now I'm looking forward for new versions of this mode, I also really like that you are doing compatibility patches with mods that could be usable, like recently industrial evolution and of course it was great idea to do Nexerelin compatibility, that mode is must have I think.

Anytime. And I definitely will continue to integrate custom features of other mods as I am able to/learn about them.

so is it that higher tech means better ships/weapons now? instead of different doctrine like in the original?

Not generally no. High tech ships do tend to have higher DP because they are faster and therefore they can kite and trade off damage on powerful shields too effectively in larger numbers compared to low tech ships. Low tech ships can field higher numbers and their ship systems tend to compliment their heavy armor - though additional ships can matter less or more depending upon your battle size setting. One thing I want to possibly address later is better Combat Capacitors AI now that I've made a custom AI.

From the last released update to the beta iirc there was actually a buff to the lower OP weaponry especially in the case of ballistics. Low tech weaponry tends to have lower OP and low tech ships usually have few energy mounts. So they benefited the most from the changes as a general category. Midline weaponry was redesigned in some areas to be more versatile and the midline ships were generally buffed either in stats or specialized hullmods. (The exception being the Heron because it was OP due to the strike craft buff.)

I specifically spent a lot of time testing the Onslaught, Executor, and Paragon to make sure that they were fairly even. Though there have been changes since then, they all tended to win as much as lose 1v1 and in a fleet v fleet setting with a set number of allied ships of the same tech level. The ship variant really matters though. Some loadouts are really bad against other loadouts, for instance. And even in the fairly even loadouts scenario there is a lot of randomness there too such as whether the ship overloaded at any point or things like that.

That's a basic summary of the design goal. And all of that said, it is still a large WIP. That's why its a beta. ;D At this point, I haven't even looked at more than probably 35% of the variants in the mod. There are a whole lot of them and testing each one a few times takes a lot of time. That's not even including the additional code work and description changes, etc, so I tend to go back and forth between working on different things.

This mod power level is being balanced around DP. A ship that costs more point to be deployed tends to be better than ships that cost less. This mod's factions also mostly incline to high-tech so you will likely see more high-tech ships than others. Apart from pirate's junks, most low-tech and midline can deal with high-tech ships no problem, with a correct loadout. As for weapons, your typical vanilla ballistics are buff up a lot and can shred Paragon's shield with ease.

That is the design intention when balancing, correct. Pirates are meant to be easier but low tech factions like the Hegemony, Sindrian Diktat or Trader Guilds (who also use midline) are not meant to be less difficult than high tech factions for the player. It is more that they offer different challenges.

There is a fair amount of random involved too from the perspective of the NPC factions - from fleet generation to loadout effectiveness to officer skills, etc.

As far as the overall campaign conditions while playing with Nex it certainly isn't fine-tuned or anything though. I set initial values that seemed to make sense and I think maybe looked over it once or twice after that for a couple of reported things.

For now, I am focusing on the variants and how the AI will use them to make the player's in-combat experience better before worrying about macro campaign balance concerns.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: shpooky on February 25, 2021, 05:26:55 PM
Morrokain do you have a discord?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: shpooky on February 25, 2021, 06:19:36 PM
also why is it that tri tachyon is ok with transponders being off in some sectors and not in other sectors ? is that your mod or base game?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 25, 2021, 07:14:11 PM
Morrokain do you have a discord?

Yes though I haven't been on discord in a while. The discord name is Morrokain there just like the forum name here.

also why is it that tri tachyon is ok with transponders being off in some sectors and not in other sectors ? is that your mod or base game?

Base game afaik. If its not, its probably a bug. It could be that patrols from a free port don't care about the transponder? I have a vague memory of something like that when I made one of the mod factions have a free port but I could definitely be wrong. I don't think I added any free ports to Tri Tachyon colonies though, just mod faction colonies.

Anyway, I can investigate it if you'd like. A screenshot or more information on where this is happening/not happening would help narrow it down.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Flying Dice on February 26, 2021, 06:58:39 AM
Mm, the main issue with midline/low-tech ships in AO is the same as in vanilla: the AI is dumb enough to keep using inefficient partial shields instead of dedicating their whole flux budget to offense and relying on damage spreading across their thick armor. The inevitable result there is that any savvy player can spike their flux by deliberately shooting shields, leaving them in a situation where they either get a long overload, a long vent, or can't use most of their really dangerous weapons (which is especially bad against high tech because a lot of the best kinetic weapons cost flux to fire).

That's not to say high tech is better for AI since it has a similar problem there exacerbated by the fact that high tech ships don't have high armor and hull to fall back on. I usually build my combat fleets around a doctrine of keeping ships alive; I use predominantly midline/XIV Battlegroup cruisers and caps, stack them with Heavy Armor + Reinforced Bulkheads + Hardened Shields where possible, load them mostly with 0-flux weapons, and rely on my own flagship to deal killing blows.

The bottom line is that most ship power in any variant of Starsector stems from two things: player intelligence in ship design and flux management. If you're decent at both you can win any DP-equivalent fight handily and kill fleets of almost any size with any capital so long as you have a beefy escort.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 26, 2021, 12:15:16 PM
Mm, the main issue with midline/low-tech ships in AO is the same as in vanilla: the AI is dumb enough to keep using inefficient partial shields instead of dedicating their whole flux budget to offense and relying on damage spreading across their thick armor. The inevitable result there is that any savvy player can spike their flux by deliberately shooting shields, leaving them in a situation where they either get a long overload, a long vent, or can't use most of their really dangerous weapons (which is especially bad against high tech because a lot of the best kinetic weapons cost flux to fire).

That's not to say high tech is better for AI since it has a similar problem there exacerbated by the fact that high tech ships don't have high armor and hull to fall back on. I usually build my combat fleets around a doctrine of keeping ships alive; I use predominantly midline/XIV Battlegroup cruisers and caps, stack them with Heavy Armor + Reinforced Bulkheads + Hardened Shields where possible, load them mostly with 0-flux weapons, and rely on my own flagship to deal killing blows.

The bottom line is that most ship power in any variant of Starsector stems from two things: player intelligence in ship design and flux management. If you're decent at both you can win any DP-equivalent fight handily and kill fleets of almost any size with any capital so long as you have a beefy escort.

Thanks for the details and in general I agree about the AI limitations. The biggest flaw in high tech AI is that it will drop shields to avoid building hard flux and armor tank shots it really shouldn't. Or it will vent when surrounded and at half hard flux. A low tech ship can usually survive that while a high tech ship gets shredded. That's why I built in a nearby threat assessment check in the Flux Converter AI to prevent the ship from venting when nearby enemies can swoop in and finish the ship off when it could have used a charge of the system and survived.

For low tech, one of the big issues I see is that ships with Combat Capacitors use charges of the system to flee and vent rather than to armor tank with added dps. The speed boost component is only supposed to be used to close the distance or chase down the enemy ship if its faster. I may take the time to set the AI to aggressive while the system is active - unless the hull is fairly low and therefore it is likely that the armor is stripped. I'm still thinking about what would be optimal behavior for the general use case of the system. I may also buff the system's effects by lowering the cost to fire flux generating weapons and possibly increasing weapon mount repair times. That should reduce situations where a charge of the system is wasted at least.

AI midline ships are probably the hardest for the player to abuse since either of the above scenarios are less punishing to them, but that's not to say that they aren't able to be abused at all.

Kinetic weapons: The Velocity Cannon is a pretty decent 0-flux kinetic ballistic, imo. It has less range than the Tri-Railgun but it deals decent damage considering it has no cost to fire. Railguns were once flux-free and they were too powerful because of their range. It was too easy for low tech ships to kite. I'm not as sure about the Mass Driver and Heavy Mass Driver. I don't think they are bad all around, but I'm not sure if it would ever be desirable to equip them over railguns, long range drivers or iridium weapons. For low tech ships, missiles have some decent low/0-flux kinetic options as well. The Heavy Rapier launcher received a fairly decent buff in the beta iirc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: shpooky on February 27, 2021, 07:40:56 PM
so with tri-tachyon they dont care when you have transponder off in valhalla, mayasura, and magec they only care about transponders in Hybrasil
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 28, 2021, 11:54:36 AM
so with tri-tachyon they dont care when you have transponder off in valhalla, mayasura, and magec they only care about transponders in Hybrasil

Looking at the vanilla code, yeah the Tri Tachyon colonies in all of those places are free ports. Culann in Hybrasil is not a free port, so patrols from this colony will care about the transponder. Eochu Bres is a free port so patrols from there won't care but I don't think there is an easy way to tell which colony a patrol in that system is from.

If you'd like to change this in the beta, I can probably set up logic to add or remove the free port setting in the economy config.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on February 28, 2021, 09:57:14 PM
1. Fighters
1.1. Flash Bomber is overpowered by a lot, for example similar by mechanics Trident Heavy Gunship can't be even compared with Flash Bomber, Flash Bomber have many times more dmg and other stats are about the same, Flash Bombers spam can kill almost anything in this game even in "Full Assault!" mode. My main damage is coming from my Astral carriers equiped with Flash Bombers, only Remnants can pose a danger to me and only becouse of teleport abbility and poor fleet AI (my ships can't just keep shield active all of the time even when they are not in need of regenating flux for weapons, if I had like "force shields always active" command even remnants will pose no thread at all), normal factions are just a joke, for the most part I dont even need any ships to protect my Astrals, sometimes I need like 1-2 paragons against verry large fleet or some air support ships equiped with Spark Heavy Interceptor, only enemy Fighters can pose any danger.
With Flash Bombers there is a thing, the more you have of them the more tanky they will be, so when you have 3-5 Astrals fully uquiped only with Flash Bombers any Point Defence+enemy Interceptors can't deal with them anymore, in rare cases when it does I can just chose all of my Astrals and order them to take capital ships 1 by 1 or order them to attack carryers and leave enemy withoult Interceptors.
1.2. Spark Heavy Interceptor is OP, it cost only 8 Ordance and its the best Inteceptor in the game.
1.3. All Fighters are verry poor balanced, I can't even highlight anything, they all placed in random order in regards to Ordance Points. But mb its a thing, donno
here is the sceenshot of Astral, I have 6 them, all completelly the same (donno why that much, I don't really need 6 but wutever): https://imgur.com/sApXZFs

2. Razor Tri-Beam is OP. Here is screenshot of my Paragon, its verry tanky and still have decent dmg. Here is screenshot: https://imgur.com/5cOzXtz

P.S. Don't ask me why I have Efficiency Overhaul in endgame, prob becouse I feel no thread from AI and they don't deserve builds withoult Efficiency Overhaul.

You can copy this Astral and Paragon design + use good lvl 20 officers and you will get fleet that kills anything except Remnants (becouse of poor AI) in "Full Assault!" mode. For anything except Remnants you will just press "Full Assault!", press Caps Lock and go watch Youtube. Im not really an expert but Im assuming it's OP

sry for poor English, did my best to get my point and make a lot of mistakes in process, hopefully I succeeded in 1st part.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on February 28, 2021, 11:09:38 PM
@Inflow

Thanks for the feedback: (Your links host illicit content in their ads and redirects (which is a virus risk) and so probably shouldn't be used on the forum.)

Based upon the details, it seems that you might be playing the last released version? If so, then hopefully some of your concerns have been addressed in the beta. For instance, the beta Spark is 24 OP to install. Flash bombers have also had changes.

Beta download. (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on February 28, 2021, 11:48:18 PM
Yes, Im playing latest released version

Also I changed the pics hosting, ty for tip
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on March 01, 2021, 04:34:30 AM
I think if you have 6 Astrals, you've won the game anyway, no matter what you put on them.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 01, 2021, 07:32:40 AM
for me its sounds more like "don't play the game, you won anyway". Buying 6 Astrals is easy, about 5-10 hours and you have 6 of them + a lot of spare credits. Its super easy to get tons of credits wia bountyes.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 01, 2021, 11:53:19 AM
for me its sounds more like "don't play the game, you won anyway". Buying 6 Astrals is easy, about 5-10 hours and you have 6 of them + a lot of spare credits. Its super easy to get tons of credits wia bountyes.

There should be some changes to late game fleets in the next Starsector update as well as the addition of a bit of endgame content. That should help a bit just by itself.

I do increase the bounty payouts. If you go to mod's data\config\settings.JSON you will see this settings block:

   "baseSystemBounty":3500,
   "basePersonBounty":75000,
   "personBountyPerLevel":50000,
   "minPersonBounties":4,
   "maxPersonBounties":7,
   
   "pirateBaseBounty1":200000,
   "pirateBaseBounty2":300000,
   "pirateBaseBounty3":450000,
   "pirateBaseBounty4":600000,
   "pirateBaseBounty5":1000000,
   "pirateBaseMinMonthsForNextTier":9,
   
   "minPirateBases":1,
   "maxPirateBases":2,
   
   "minLPBases":1,
   "maxLPBases":2,

 - so you can change those values to give you a larger challenge - at least when completing bounties. Also feel free to suggest changes to the default values that you think would feel better. They are tuned for a new player so they are set to be fairly easy.

As far as fighter balance/Astral, the beta already has a lot of changes. One of the things that makes the Astral very powerful in the last released version is its bomber teleport ship system - which was changed to fortress shields. So its system is defensive rather than offensive in the beta. While any high OP bomber is still going to be dangerous - especially when massed - the beta includes buffs to interceptors and pd as well.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 02, 2021, 08:57:28 AM
Fighters as Trident Heavy Gunship are almost useless when bots have about 20-30% Fighters of those type (Im not talking about Remnants), the thing about Fighters as Trident Heavy Gunship are that you must have A LOT of them, like 70-90% of your Fighters fleet, when you do, they will overrun any defences like Point Defence and Interceptors combined. So for that matter it would be nice to make different fleets, for example bombers fleet wich will only include bombers+interceptors (with no fighters) and another fleet with only Fighters+interceptors fleet (with no bombers, so they will try to overrun PD and interceptors). This can force player to search different fleet combinations against each enemy.

I don't know if its possible but it would be nice to force AI to use better equip in lategame, some fighters bots using in lategame are just trash and they only wasting slots, its not even fun, bots using some interceptors that weak, that they can't even take 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor with 5-10 of them. Many ships are not even a meat that can be thrown into the enemy and win you some time, many ships are just wasting fleet capacity and preventing good ships to form a line or even came close. It would be nice to remove complitely useless ships from pool in a lategame and make some ships that usefull meat/victim, ships that will be verry aggresive and will not fall back no matter what and drag as much fire on them as they can, this will make game more fun and versatile. Mb making some faction like that would be nice, Hegemony for example with their armor.

Or mb making some elite squads with only best weapon and unique gameplay. for example: only Fighters+some interceptors and some tanky ships / only bombers+some interceptors and some tanky ships / some crazy junkyes with only fast ships, high dmg close range weapon, super agressive and only interceptors (low number, just to defend themself) / only big ships with high range weapon and carryers at their back / fleet with big ships which will try to rum your ships super agressively (no retreat) and a lot of high range missile carriers at back (pirate), since pirats aren't really having the best of best weapons and ships that fleet won't destroy player fleet but chances of losing 1-2 big ships will be decent. The reasoning of those "super aggresive" is that AI mostly aren't capable of using hit and run tactic, for the most part they are just stoping their allyes and saving player fleet from taking damage.

About PD. Laser PD are many times better then projectyles, so its must be nerfed. You can compare cheapest PD Laser (1 Ordnance point) against for example 3-5 Ordnance points projectile PD, projectile PD don't stand a chance.

About Astral and bomber. I never really needed teleport, for me it was like a bug when Astral using teleport for no reason, when Astral have only Fighters and none Bombers. Flash Bomber (the name is false, its a Fighter type) spam is much more dangerous then bombers spam, have more damage, dmg is more reliable and they increase survive ability of your fleet, enemy ships will waste time to fight them, enemy interceptors will fight them and never will get close to your fleet and also they deal some dmg to enemy fighters and bombers, its just all around better then bombers, more dmg+increase tankyness of fleet+keep enemyes a far.

Donno wich of those accorded to default values though
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on March 03, 2021, 08:59:52 AM
Sadly, no one has control over fleet wide loadout so the best Morrokain could do is to balance the craft on one ship as a mix of multiple types. Also, Astral's Teleport ability has already been removed in the BETA.

What you experienced right now is the release version which is from last year and very outdated. Half of your concern has probably been fixed already in the BETA version. Major overhaul in regard to the entire craft roster has been implemented and I would implore you to try out the BETA version.

@Inflow
Beta download. (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 03, 2021, 04:10:33 PM
Sadly, no one has control over fleet wide loadout so the best Morrokain could do is to balance the craft on one ship as a mix of multiple types. Also, Astral's Teleport ability has already been removed in the BETA.

What you experienced right now is the release version which is from last year and very outdated. Half of your concern has probably been fixed already in the BETA version. Major overhaul in regard to the entire craft roster has been implemented and I would implore you to try out the BETA version.

[/quote]

Mb I will, donno. The thing is Im already kinda completed my current playthrough and donno if I would want to start new playthough, mb in 1-2 weeks I will want to, atm not rly.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 04, 2021, 07:49:38 PM
Installed BETA 1.4.0

Same poor balance in PD, Beam vs Projectiles. Pulse Beam (1 Ordance Point Beam) are much better PD then for example both Pulse Laser (5 Ordance Points Projectile) and Void Driver (6 Ordance Points Projectile). As I understand Beam PD must be better vs fast moving ships, when Projectile PD must be better vs slow tanky ships and slow big missiles but it's not the case. Even when I tested it against slow and tanky Fighters, Projectiles performs much worst, effectivness against Missiles I won't even try to compare. Beam weapon is just overkill when Projectiles PD its just a waste of space (ordance points).
What I mean by overkill is that my Paragon (all Paragon fighters slots are EMPTY for this test) equiped with 9 Pusle Beams (1 Ordance Point "trash") at his back (not even at front, only at the back) can for the most part beat my 2 Astrals. The same Paragon against same 2 Astrals dies pretty fast even when equiped even with 14 Pusle Lasers (5 Ordance) and Void Drivers (6 Ordance).
Small Burst PD Laser (7 Ordance Points Beam) can't be even be compared to any small projectiles PD, 2 Burst PD Laser performs the same as about 7-10 small Projectile PD againts fighters. If we will talk about rockets vs 2 Burst PD Laser, they can't be compared at all, Projectile PD is just a joke. Later I will compare Missiles attack vs 2 Heavy Burst PD Laser at Paragon vs fully equiped front of the ship with only Projectile PD, 4 medium and the rest is small, I think 2 Heavy Burst PD Lasers have some chances of wining or performing at about the same level.
So its again not about you need to increase PD damage, its more about verry poor balance, Beam PD must be nerfed, Projectile PD dps must be increased.
Somehow you need to work around Projectile PD miss a lot, mb there is a way to increase their accuracy (something like Leading Pip). If there isn't, then mb you need to just increase their dps by a factor of 2-4 (testing is needed, also there can be a new problem after this, that projectile PD is dealing to much damage to normal ships, atm I can't give proper advise becouse don't know what you can do and what can't, like for example is it possible to add -ship damage modifier to PD?) and reducing beam PD damage to about 0.7-0.8 of current.

There is much more things wrong with Fighters overall but Im not ready atm to talk about them. What I can say right now is that Pirates have verry weak fighters, I understand that they aren't having best of the best equipment but 250-350 HP interceptors and fighters? Are they really that bad? With that stats, their fighter/gunship type fighters are useless for pirats, they instadie vs some Pulse Beams (1 Ordance Point Beam) or 1-2 Burst PD Laser (7 Ordance Points Beam) and are just a waste of space, would be nice increase HP for Interceptors to 450-550, keep shields at same 0. Also there is same problem with Beam vs Projectiles, Pirate Inteceptors have Projectile weapon, so they just can't do anything against decent Interceptor with beam weapon. If I been a pirate and had bad technologies, projectile weapon that can't hit small targets, probably I'd try to make some weird Interceptor with mines on board and some Kamikaze drones, they will act almost like a missiles, you can get rid of useless fighters and make gameplay even more versatile and interesting by adding mines Interceptors and Kamikaze.

Graviton Lance OP
1. Damage is insane, especially with +200% shield damage
2. Its beam weapon (much better PD then projectile) and attacks both ships and Fighters, so when ship is attacked by a enemy Fighters it can defend it verry well, when you to attack enemy ships it's one of the best Large Energy Weapon in the game
3. 0-Flux cost to fire weapon, why?) Even with 200-400 Flux cost it would be a decent choise.
Some 300 dps 0-Flux 900 range Beam weapon would be pretty balanced Large Energy Weapon and 400 dps 0-Flux 900 range projectile (you already added) would become nice, player will have to chose projectile weapon with more damage vs big ships or more accurate beam wapon, wich is better vs small ships and fighters. Atm player have totally broken OP 0-Flux choise (Graviton Lance) and wrong useless 0-Flux choise (Capital Pusle Canon). 0-Flux gives A LOT of surviveabillity + beam weapon itself also does (kill fighters MUCH better then Projectile), its OP when you can use Graviton Lance and have both survivability and insane damage capable of shreading enemy capital ships.

Conclusion: balance got worst in some parts, you increased overall PD damage when it wasn't the problem, the problem was:
1. Insane damage of Fighters (seems like its fixed, but I need more time to say this with confidence)
2. Projectile PD performance, not overall PD, you increased Pulse Beam damage and made it even worst. And it wasn't a slight difference, as I already stated, beam PD performs about 2-10 times better (1 Ordance Points beam PD is 2-3 times better then 5-6 Ordance projectile, when 7 Ordance beam PD 5-10 times better then 5-6 Ordance Projectile)
3. Overall to much damage on Beam weapon. Beam weapon must have worst damage/flux ratio then projectile since Beam have high accuracy, accuracy its already VERRY good adventage by itself

Its not all but probably it's enough for now. Tell me if you need my observations and advices and most important, would you use any of those?)
Also if you want, I can try to change some values on weapon/fighters, then you and couple testers can try it out and tell if like new balance or not. But to do that I would need some help, I newer worked with any mods for Starsector, I think it won't be hard since all I want to do its just to change values > test > change > test > and so on xD
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Flying Dice on March 05, 2021, 09:25:36 AM
Thanks for the details and in general I agree about the AI limitations. The biggest flaw in high tech AI is that it will drop shields to avoid building hard flux and armor tank shots it really shouldn't. Or it will vent when surrounded and at half hard flux. A low tech ship can usually survive that while a high tech ship gets shredded. That's why I built in a nearby threat assessment check in the Flux Converter AI to prevent the ship from venting when nearby enemies can swoop in and finish the ship off when it could have used a charge of the system and survived.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. I've at times considered whether there needs to be two separate combat AI routines specifically tailored for high-tech and everything else to help mitigate issues like this and low-tech ships using their *** low-efficiency shields to tank harassing fire.

Kinetic weapons: The Velocity Cannon is a pretty decent 0-flux kinetic ballistic, imo. It has less range than the Tri-Railgun but it deals decent damage considering it has no cost to fire. Railguns were once flux-free and they were too powerful because of their range. It was too easy for low tech ships to kite. I'm not as sure about the Mass Driver and Heavy Mass Driver. I don't think they are bad all around, but I'm not sure if it would ever be desirable to equip them over railguns, long range drivers or iridium weapons. For low tech ships, missiles have some decent low/0-flux kinetic options as well. The Heavy Rapier launcher received a fairly decent buff in the beta iirc.

Oh yeah, 0-flux railguns were way too good for what they were. Long-range free harass with AO flux dissipation/shield mechanics is way too effective. FWIW I never use Mass Driver variants, just don't feel like I can justify being a cheapskate with them when I can go railgun-heavy in med/large slots and fill the smalls with ACs and PD.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on March 05, 2021, 04:05:12 PM
The difference between Pulse Beams and Pulse Lasers is that Lasers make decent anti-frigate weapons on account of not being beams (because beams can't build hard flux) and having higher range and dps. The OP difference does seem too big though.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 05, 2021, 05:48:11 PM
The difference between Pulse Beams and Pulse Lasers is that Lasers make decent anti-frigate weapons on account of not being beams (because beams can't build hard flux) and having higher range and dps. The OP difference does seem too big though.
In epic (but useless) simulations bot vs bot, projectile PD can work becouse as you already said its better vs frigats. In player vs bot simulation, after recieving 2-3 Astrals with right Fighters the game is mostly done and main problem of the bots its not Frigats of the player, its Fighters.
Its not like we can say to a bot "hey, player using only capital/cruiser ships, stop using that anti-frigate PD and start using only Beam PD, wich is much better vs Fighters", bot will use that useless projectile pd at any stages of the game and though will lose. So yes, the balance is here, the balance that fights against windmills. The sad part is that as I understand we can't separate this fight against windmills and proper lategame equip, also factions like pirates or hegemony (no slots for energy PD) are just bad in lategame, not unique (as they must be), the are just bad ... or as you said they "make decent anti-frigate weapons", again ... balance that fights against windmills
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 05, 2021, 08:39:37 PM
Beta Update (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=0)

 - Some weapon balance updates.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Installed BETA 1.4.0

*snip*
Spoiler
Thank you for trying the beta and giving specific feedback. :) I'm sorry that your experience was not more positive, but I'll attempt to address the details and I'll try to hit the main points in this response:

Beam vs Projectile PD:
When you are speaking about projectile PD I am assuming this is limited to energy weapons so correct me if that is not the case. I ran some "extensive" (always a bigger rabbit hole here) controlled tests using a Paragon for the last few hours. This resulted in a few adjustments:

 - For one, I agree that the Burst PD Laser was a bit too good. The main reason I believe this was the case is that the beam can penetrate multiple missiles and strike craft - which increases its overall effectiveness according to battle size scale. I increased the time between pulses and made its peak damage occur faster. This will hopefully make it more on par with the Pulse Laser as far as its anti-strike craft capability while still retaining its role as a high tier anti-torpedo PD weapon. The OP difference between those two weapons should now be a more difficult choice depending upon the types of strike craft the player is up against. They should combine together well.

 -The Void Driver was purposely underwhelming. The caveat to this weapon being powerful is that its long range makes it more viable as an assault weapon so I have to be careful, but I increased hit damage and the rate of charge regeneration and I'll see how that feels. With its range, it should definitely be better than the Pulse Laser even though the burst/sustained dps fluctuates to higher or lower than that weapon by comparison. The Shattercell Cannon is better at light missile interdiction, but its OP has been increased to 8 as well. The Pulse Laser feels like really good as a staple to compare other weapons and so it has not had any changes made to it.

 - The Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater were ok, but not as good as the PD Pulse Beam for their OP considering that they also cost flux to fire. The flux cost is there in order to keep them feeling different from the Pulse Laser, so I increased their burst dps and hit damage a bit and decreased the time it takes for a clip to regen. The dual barrel version should now be a budget alternative to the Pulse Laser with the downside of a flux cost and the upside of faster strike craft kills - at least initially. The single barrel version is now the lowest OP (at 2) budget energy PD weapon. It shouldn't be very good against anything but smaller low hp missiles and low armor/health strike craft.

 - And then there was the Pulse Beam - which has been nerfed heavily in the sense that its role has been further amplified. It should be terrible vs anything not a missile or light interceptor/fighter and its OP has tentatively been increased to 3 though I went back and forth on whether 2 OP would be more prudent. It can eventually wear down armored strike craft, but not well enough to surpass other PD options. For missiles, however, it is pointedly better than Pulse Lasers and Micro Repeaters at dealing with torpedoes and heavy missiles. The other smaller energy PD weapons should continue to fill the light missile/rocket niches.

Hopefully that addresses PD weapons a bit. Iirc I don't think much changed too drastically with the exception of perhaps the Pulse Beam. Especially with Advanced Optics, PD beams should still be semi-viable anti-frigate weapons - just not as good as projectile weapons.

Pirate Strike Craft:
This is intentional in order to make early game encounters a bit easier for new players. Veteran players will probably smash pirates. Pirate wings are more there for "when there is no other option" or when you want to run a 0 OP investment into strike craft wings when using a carrier for some reason. They can also be combined with expensive wings on carriers that otherwise couldn't equip them. And it makes the "pirate stuff only" challenge run pretty challenging. That's the thought process behind them being very weak.

That being said, I will try to remember to take a look at a couple of comparisons and see if low OP interceptors/fighters could use some fine tuning. The mine idea is intriguing and could give the Talon some more teeth as an interceptor. I'll think about it.

Graviton Lance:
The reason the DPS is so high is because it is meant as an anti-shield assault/pd weapon and it builds soft flux when it hits. Once I can change it to build hard flux in the next Starsector update, I will address it again and lower the dps. I agree that it is a very good anti-strike craft/missile weapon right now.

The reason it does not cost flux to fire is because the AI does not handle that well when put in with zero flux weapons. Like above, I can adjust this more when I have 7 weapon groups to work with in the next update. Autofire AI has also just been generally improved from what I hear.

Additional Feedback:
I do not mind additional feedback whether negative or positive (though keep it polite please) so feel free to continue when you are ready. However, keep in mind that detailed responses take time and usually require addition testing so it may not be given the same day and may take several days if that makes sense.

Anyway, thanks for the time you took to flesh out your thoughts.
[close]

I've at times considered whether there needs to be two separate combat AI routines specifically tailored for high-tech and everything else to help mitigate issues like this and low-tech ships using their *** low-efficiency shields to tank harassing fire.
Possible, but it would take a huge amount of effort and could prove to be unstable in future updates. I may do some small things here and there but it would be better to wait until at least 1.0 before assessing the merit of an endeavor of that magnitude.

Quote
Oh yeah, 0-flux railguns were way too good for what they were. Long-range free harass with AO flux dissipation/shield mechanics is way too effective. FWIW I never use Mass Driver variants, just don't feel like I can justify being a cheapskate with them when I can go railgun-heavy in med/large slots and fill the smalls with ACs and PD.
I buffed Mass Drivers though I haven't tested them yet. They weren't terrible before but I think this change makes the choice between those weapons and Railguns more interesting.

The difference between Pulse Beams and Pulse Lasers is that Lasers make decent anti-frigate weapons on account of not being beams (because beams can't build hard flux) and having higher range and dps. The OP difference does seem too big though.
Hopefully this should still hold true.

So yes, the balance is here, the balance that fights against windmills. The sad part is that as I understand we can't separate this fight against windmills and proper lategame equip, also factions like pirates or hegemony (no slots for energy PD) are just bad in lategame, not unique (as they must be), the are just bad ... or as you said they "make decent anti-frigate weapons", again ... balance that fights against windmills
I disagree that energy PD is needed late game. I don't think using Hegemony ships is bad either to be honest. Ballistic PD is pretty good from what I've seen in tests. It's not that more testing isn't needed of course.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 05, 2021, 09:50:20 PM
Quote
I disagree that energy PD is needed late game. I don't think using Hegemony ships is bad either to be honest. Ballistic PD is pretty good from what I've seen in tests. It's not that more testing isn't needed of course.
Retested it just now, ballistic PD is awful. Ship equiped with 9 different small Ballistic PD can't handle with 2 Talon Intercetor Wings (verry weak wings), enemy ship reconstruct them faster then they are killed, and I will remind its 9 small ballistic PD vs only 2 Talon Intercetor Wings, imagine how it will look when it will be something decent as Retrebution Heavy Interceptor, even 20 small ballictic PD can't handle 2 Retrebution Heavy Interceptor (wich is far from best fighters).
2 Pulse Beam performs about the same as 9 small ballistic PD, 3 Pulse Beam performs better then 9 ballistic and 4 Pulse Beams kills all Talon Intercetor Wings pretty fast and are MUCH better then 9 ballistic PD. Also 2 Burst PD Laser better then 9 small ballistic PD, both vs missiles and fighters, its just better overall.
I really don't know how you tested but Ballistic PD its just useless, its not my opinion, its what you can see in tests. Its not Im trying to offend you, just test small ballistic PD vs Pulse Beam or Burst PD Laser. The problem with all Projectile PD (ballistic or energy, don't matter) is here and its huge.

Quote
Thank you for trying the beta and giving specific feedback. https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif I'm sorry that your experience was not more positive, but I'll attempt to address the details and I'll try to hit the main points in this response:
My experience was mostly positive, Im used to weak lategame in every game I play. For the most part I like this game and yours mod. Its just I want it to be better and so here I am xD saying what I don't like for that reason.

Quote
Hopefully that addresses PD weapons a bit. Iirc I don't think much changed too drastically with the exception of perhaps the Pulse Beam. Especially with Advanced Optics, PD beams should still be semi-viable anti-frigate weapons - just not as good as projectile weapons.
If as you said Pulse Lasers don't meat any changes then probably it wont be balanced again and Burst PD Laser would be much better choise. Wich it is right now
What I tested: Paragon+Officer 20 lvl equiped with 24 Pulse Lasers vs Astral (Astral will always have 100% same equip) with 4 Tident, 4 wisp, 2 talon (so its both big and small ships, as AI like to use) hardly beat those 10 fighters. Same Paragon with 24 Pulse Beams shreads that same fighters from Astral and more then that, it can hold fighters and rocket fire from 2 Astrals, when Paragon with 24 Pulse Lasers will die super fast vs 2 Astrals. Paragon equiped with 24 Burst PD Laser hardly noticed 1 Astral, holds 2 Astrals pretty easy and can hold 3 Astrals almost the same as 24 Pulse Lasers vs 1 Astral. As I understand what you made right now with Burst PD Laser won't stop it from being OP. And as I already wrote, there is global problem with beam vs projectile PD (any projectile PD, ballistic and energy).
And if you will just nerf all Beam PD and leave all other PD as is, it will be horable decision, 24 Pulse Lasers PD+Officer should not stragle vs 1 Astral with 4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon (wich is the case right now)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 06, 2021, 12:46:58 AM
Quote
Retested it just now, ballistic PD is awful. Ship equiped with 9 different small Ballistic PD
What I tested was just normal PD, not Area PD. Tested with Area PD and it performs WAY better. As I understand normal ballistic PD must be better vs small amount of targets ... 2 Talon Intercetor Wings probably was to much for it. Jokes aside normal ballistic PD (not area) is just useless compared to Area PD or Beam PD, same about Vulkan PD, Heavy Vulkan PD, etc, all non-area Projectile PD (ballistic and energy) are trash compared to Beam PD or Area PD.

test #***: Hegemony Capital ship Onslaugh fully equiped with PD only (20 small PD - Electron Cannon, 5 medium PD - Vulkan PD Canon, 3 heavy PD - Heavy Vulkan PD System) can't beat that noob fighters wing from Astral (4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon) and its not even close to wiping that wing, hi kills ~10 fighters before dying, considering fighters replacement rate we can say that hi is not killing them at all.
Fully equiped with projectile not area PD ... even now you can't see that balance in PD weapon is horable? One PD is being super effective, almost overkill and another one is compete trash.

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2021, 09:14:47 PM
@Inflow:

No worries I'm not insulted or anything and I really do appreciate the feedback. :)

Ok, now on to feedback details. Here is a video of some of my most recent tests:

Spoiler
https://youtu.be/vIqEBfl_KM0 (https://youtu.be/vIqEBfl_KM0)
[close]

So the first thing I would like to ask to further clarify the feedback - What is your overall expectation of PD weaponry? When you say:

Quote
Hegemony Capital ship Onslaugh fully equiped with PD only (20 small PD - Electron Cannon, 5 medium PD - Vulkan PD Canon, 3 heavy PD - Heavy Vulkan PD System) can't beat that noob fighters wing from Astral (4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon) and its not even close to wiping that wing, -hi- kills ~10 fighters before dying, considering fighters replacement rate we can say that -hi- is not killing them at all.
Fully equiped with projectile not area PD ... even now you can't see that balance in PD weapon is horable? One PD is being super effective, almost overkill and another one is compete trash.

 - (I'm not sure what "hi" marked above in bold means. Is this a weapon or the ship itself?)  - and:

Quote
Same Paragon with 24 Pulse Beams shreads that same fighters from Astral and more then that, it can hold fighters and rocket fire from 2 Astrals, when Paragon with 24 Pulse Lasers will die super fast vs 2 Astrals. Paragon equiped with 24 Burst PD Laser hardly noticed 1 Astral, holds 2 Astrals pretty easy and can hold 3 Astrals almost the same as 24 Pulse Lasers vs 1 Astral.

 - My tests do not seem to support these statements. Are you possibly remembering past updates or have you redownloaded after the changes from yesterday? (I know you alluded to this since you say "retest" but just making sure because I'm genuinely a little confused by the feedback.) I'm not trying to give the impression that I'm dismissing your experience don't get me wrong, I'm just having a difficult time reproducing what you are describing. Any more details of the circumstances (for instance, the presence of Advanced Optics on the build you are trying) and videos or screenshots would be helpful.

Details from the tests:
Spoiler
I tested quite a few times over the past two days and the video only shows a portion of them from today. From what I am seeing, Beam PD (at least small PD) is worse in your test case than the Pulse Laser. Both times the Paragon tried to vent and was killed and prior tests were similar. A mix of Pulse Laser and Burst PD Laser was as effective, if not more so, than pure Pulse Laser. Pure Burst PD Laser was, as I already said, noticeably worse in a 1v1 scenario... let alone able to take on 3 Astrals at once comfortably. I didn't show the Pulse Beam, but it is a lot worse than the Burst PD Beam (which fires a lot faster in the beginning when it has max charges, they have the exact same damage per hit, and Burst PD Laser is almost double the base dps of the Pulse Beam without charges, and 4x the base dps for a brief duration when it does have charges) and so I didn't think it was really necessary since the video is already almost 20 minutes long.

Non area ballistic PD was also just fine at handling the Astral from your test scenario and at least seemed about as effective as the Paragon equivalent (though more weapons were equipped on the Onslaught overall, to be fair). Otherwise, as you can see, I made these builds bereft of any other factor - no vents, no caps, no hullmods of any kind and no interceptors in the fighter bays. I removed everything first and only added the weapons from the specifically reported test cases with the assumption that at least some non-PD weapons were included in the overall build. However, for some added wiggle room in the test, the OP for the build was at about half of the maximum before skills. In most scenarios, the capital made it relatively close to the Astral and reduced the Astral to 30% replacement rate despite this limitation. I will say that ballistic area PD might be better or at least faster at killing the wings, so that is something I will look at. Consider, however, that:

- Non-area ballistic PD fires a lot faster which can pick off low hp targets such as rockets and damage fighters more easily than slower firing area PD.
- Non-area ballistic is generally cheaper to install.
- Having a couple of non-area ballistic PD installed can be the difference between a torpedo surviving an area PD blast and still hitting its target vs getting destroyed before it reaches its target through the continued PD coverage provided by the non-area PD.

You are correct that two Astrals will handily destroy a Paragon or Onslaught (XIV) and that is intended since the DP difference is huge in that scenario. Equipping interceptors and having a couple supporting carriers with interceptors or escorting PD frigates should make a pretty big difference there if the correct escort orders are given.

I wouldn't think that adding a lv 20 officer and further building the vessel would have made it worse somehow. Its not to say it couldn't, but its very unlikely to me that it would end up happening that way.

In general, PD weapon types are designed to be mixed rather than relying on one specific weapon for everything. It's not that you can't in some cases but the general theory is that its more effective if you mix and match for different roles.

As far as ballistic vs energy PD, I'm not seeing one as better than the other during these tests. At least, not overall. The Machine Gun should be roughly as effective as the Micro Repeater for the same OP. (I haven't specifically tested this though.) One weapon might, say, be better at large missiles or armored fighters over another one for the same OP or something like that. In the end it should roughly balance out. Low tech ships armor tank more, but that is part of the original theme in the first place and the end result of either tech seems similar. I don't like how the AI currently uses Combat Capacitors and I have some ideas for that but I haven't started on it yet.
[close]

Just generally, if you want warship PD to instantaneously wipe out large swaths of incoming strike craft then I'd counterpoint that changes like that would just make carriers a lot worse than warships unless massed - which the AI doesn't do. That's not really a design goal for the mod. FWIW, however, I think a lot of what you are describing comes back to general vanilla AI issues at dealing with carriers. The AI doesn't close the distance very well and even with the replacement rate at 30% the carrier replaces wings fast enough to cause the AI to backpedal at times or not use its weapons on the carrier when it gets within a range that it could close the distance easily. (To be fair, some of this might be because of less than max OP making the ship act under civilian ship AI during my tests - which was more about PD weaponry strength comparisons as the test control.) Iirc replacement rates match or exceed vanilla values, but carriers reduce this time through a built-in hullmod and I'm not completely sure how much this affects the ability of the carrier to replace wing members in practice. I may experiment a little in that area to get a better sense of how to attribute the bonus/malus between the two combat roles.

Anyway, if the main issue here is less that PD can't reduce the replacement rate but rather that the ship can't easily get to and destroy the Astral 1v1 then I empathize but the player can compensate or, for AI ships, aggressive officers and eliminate commands will of course help to make AI allies more aggressive towards the carrier as well. In a fleet battle I don't think this kind of thing is as much of a problem since you can use faster allies to pin down the carrier for your battleship to close the distance. That's a bit off topic from PD though.

I hope this helps explain where I am coming from. I'm obviously unable to test everything and testing takes time so any counterpoints are welcome.

(For those who have given me a bunch of video in the past, an extra thank you. It has helped give me ideas though I haven't gone through even half of it yet. I've also been spreading my time pretty thin lately as it is.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 07, 2021, 12:54:39 AM
Quote
Ok, now on to feedback details. Here is a video of some of my most recent tests:
In this video PD is verry different from what I see in 1.4.0, so probably I need a new build in order to continue with our conversation or its another reason, Im confussed

Quote
So the first thing I would like to ask to further clarify the feedback - What is your overall expectation of PD weaponry? When you say:
By "hi" I mean this ship with this PD, mostly PD. Change of the hull won't help, any hull would die becouse this PD can't handle fighters replacement rate

My overall expectation that capital ship fully equiped with PD just can't lose to carriers+long range missile fire from Astral, one Astral should posses no thread at all. Its like attacking army fully equiped with only Anti Aircraft weapon with Aircrafts only and end up wining. When we talk about Astral and carriers overall, we must understand that their HUGE adventage is that carriers can attack ANYWHERE at the battlefield, not just 1 carrier, ALL of them, its even bigger adventage then accuracy. They can send their wings to support attack of allyed capital ship and its should be their role, SUPPORT, not main attack power (wich they are right now, they have about the same damage as Paragon, and its just ridiculous, again, it should be nerfed by a LOT). Carryers can easy send all of their wings to focus 1 enemy ship all at once, as I already said its HUGE adventage, when warship capital ship for obvious reason can't do that and for some reason Astral have +/- same damage as Paragon.
More then that, carriers should NOT be stronger 1vs1 capital ship, and Im not talking about some crazy full-PD surreal Capital Ships builds, Im talking about normal Capital Ship build. I see carrier role as an attack support (almost like cavalry, more about that below), 2 warships must beat 2 carriers in head to head combat. On the other hand 2 warships+2 carriers should be stronger then 4 warships for example. And the more ships you have (the harder it's to hold the line) the better carrier should perform.

As I already said but and I will repeat 3rd time xD carriers can attack ONE enemy ship with ALL fighter wings and its just insane advantage. For excample cavalry was verry dangerous in the middle age but cavalry was used in head to head combat mostly only in movies, in games (and in real life) you should attack from the back ONLY, when enemy is busy fighting your infantry. I see about the same role for Carriers, they should not be superpower that have insane speed, insane damage, good surviveability, can rip most capital ships 1vs1, all at once. Your capital ship attacking enemy capital ship? support it with 2-3 capital class carriers and kill asap. Or at least focus 1 warship capital ship with 3 capital ship carriers. This is the role see for the Carriers, atm they can rip everything by themself.
Also if continue to compare them with cavalry, cavalry need A LOT of resources, to train, to maintain in peace time and in military campaign, its INSANE how much food they need, food vagons to maintain that cavalry, when army was going to war and had like 10k infantry and 1k cavalry most amount of food (weight) was for the horses, not for humans. Why am I saying all of this?) If we have that insane carrier that build replacement so fast, that eat parts as fast as pigs at eating competition, why then they are so cheap to maintain and cost so few Deployment Points? They must be much weaker or have insane cost if left in current state, or PD effectivness should be increased by a lot. Regardless of what pass you chose they must be nerfed in one way or another.

Quote
- My tests do not seem to support these statements. Are you possibly remembering past updates or have you redownloaded after the changes from yesterday? (I know you alluded to this since you say "retest" but just making sure because I'm genuinely a little confused by the feedback.) I'm not trying to give the impression that I'm dismissing your experience don't get me wrong, I'm just having a difficult time reproducing what you are describing. Any more details of the circumstances (for instance, the presence of Advanced Optics on the build you are trying) and videos or screenshots would be helpful.
The version was 1.4.0.0 BETA, I didn't redownloaded it since installed on march 4. I will make a video a little bit later but tell me if it's won't needed becouse of 3 day old version of the game. What I see in your video is completely different though, its like watching another mod. Where should I redownload it?
Atm Im confussed, mb its about version of the game. So Probably I end up here, can't comment other things atm, firstly I need to understand why am I having completely diffent expirience (will make a video, later though, atm have time only for comment)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: hollow on March 07, 2021, 02:19:42 AM
Hi there!
I noticed that the astral carrier doesn't use its recall ability when piloted by an ai.
its not a big problem but I just thought I might as well point it out.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 07, 2021, 02:35:03 AM
 So here is video:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/Gj4r6OfKSJ4
[close]
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What I tested: Paragon+Officer 20 lvl equiped with 24 Pulse Lasers vs Astral (Astral will always have 100% same equip) with 4 Tident, 4 wisp, 2 talon (so its both big and small ships, as AI like to use) hardly beat those 10 fighters. Same Paragon with 24 Pulse Beams shreads that same fighters from Astral and more then that, it can hold fighters and rocket fire from 2 Astrals, when Paragon with 24 Pulse Lasers will die super fast vs 2 Astrals. Paragon equiped with 24 Burst PD Laser hardly noticed 1 Astral, holds 2 Astrals pretty easy and can hold 3 Astrals almost the same as 24 Pulse Lasers vs 1 Astral. As I understand what you made right now with Burst PD Laser won't stop it from being OP. And as I already wrote, there is global problem with beam vs projectile PD (any projectile PD, ballistic and energy).
You can see hull mods Im using at the begining of the video, I didn't even tested w/o Advenced Optics becouse most of the builds of Paragon include AO and the most effective builds all does, so its not like I will install AO to make my PD more effective, its part of the build and its making Paragon more effective vs enemy ships, if you can force AI to use it, mb you should force them to use it. More then that, all hullmods and Flux capacity/vents are from my normal build, I didn't changed capacity to some surreal and didn't added armor as you can see, just normal hullmods and flux.
You seen on the video as paragon with Burst PD Lasers died vs 3 Astrals but it was only becouse EMP, 2nd try, no emp, holds 3 Astral easy. Officer rank 20 with Advanced Countermeassures.

2nd super short test:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/KjtfEMupk5E
[close]
Paragon with no officer, fully equiped with surreal amount of PD Pulse Lasers died vs 1 Astral with noob fighter wing, nothing to watch here.

So here what I see, just as I told, trash Pulse Laser, trash projectile PD overall, OP Pulse Beam/Burst PD Laser and somehow working but still weak Area PD. Now, why we have so huge gap in what we experience?

Version 1.4.0.0. BETA

here is video for:
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Hegemony Capital ship Onslaugh fully equiped with PD only (20 small PD - Electron Cannon, 5 medium PD - Vulkan PD Canon, 3 heavy PD - Heavy Vulkan PD System) can't beat that noob fighters wing from Astral (4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon) and its not even close to wiping that wing, hi kills ~10 fighters before dying, considering fighters replacement rate we can say that -hi- is not killing them at all.
 
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/lD19TtWOa7E
[close]
That's again demonstration of poor balance. What I seen in your video was Onslaugh with PD + not PD weapon, so it can be demostration of how good some not PD weapon vs fighters and so its probably demostration of even more problems then I thought, when not PD weapon performs much better vs fighters then ballistic projectile not area PD (Im talking about Ballistic projectile not area PD becouse they have worst balance and ARE in fact almost useless).

here is another short video with Onslaugh, another hullmods this time, fully equiped with same Electron Cannon, Vulkan PD Canon and Heavy Vulkan PD System. Surreal ship 60/60 flux, no wide shield this time (won't vent so much), almost fully made to fight fighters and still can't do anything becouse of useless PD:
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/mfqBDD4CUcs
[close]

disclaimer: by using word OP I mean that its overpower in current meta compared to similar. The problem as I see it much deeper and must be watched only as overall Fighters vs PD problem, for detailed answer read "My overall expectation" above.

About pirates, their role and 250-350 HP Fighters with 0 OP cost. We must understand that AI will use those trash Fighters anyway, even in decent fleet, even when its MUCH better to use some 8-12OP fighter and hi have capacity for it, becouse of that I was talking about 500 hp for them. With that amount of HP, that 0 OP trash fighters, mostly useless, can be capable of at least something, at taking some hits (not much compared to decent fighters, dat won't cahnge much though) and helping normal fighters to live longer. And if we are talking about some players not capable to fight pirates - watch 3rd video. No matter how many trash PD you will put at your ship, it won't help you if its just badly balanced useless PD. Normal player won't use Area PD in early game (wich is better then not area ballistic), its just simple logic, you don't fight big fleet? - you don't need area PD. But in fact logic don't work here and you do need area pd, becouse ballistic projectile not area PD for the most part is broken trash.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 07, 2021, 05:18:48 AM
Why you didn't told me this from the start, so much time waste on both sides, yours and mine)) Or you also didn't know about "SpeedUp!" mod problems? All those HUGE projectile weapon problems I was describing was accorded to "SpeedUp!" mod. SpeedUp x5 = decrease accuracy of any projectile weapon dramatically, to the point ... check in 3rd and 4th video, dat's just horrable xD
Withoult this mod probably Im out from this game till better times xD

what I wrote about "My overall expectation" is still mostly legit, though its harded to make good balance now when projectile weapon + SpeedUp! = horrable accuracy. Or mb this bad accuracy is becouse of huge amount of projectilles and making all those projectile PD fire much less projectiles would solve this problem completely.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 07, 2021, 12:48:55 PM
Hi there!
I noticed that the astral carrier doesn't use its recall ability when piloted by an ai.
its not a big problem but I just thought I might as well point it out.

Hi! I'm not 100% sure what causes the AI to use that system except that I know the equipped strike craft must have limited ammo. So if you have a lot of craft that use guns equipped I don't think the AI will use it though I could be wrong.

The Recall ability has been replaced with Fortress Shield in the Beta because Recall was a little too powerful with wings like the Dagger or Cobra on a capital carrier.

Why you didn't told me this from the start, so much time waste on both sides, yours and mine)) Or you also didn't know about "SpeedUp!" mod problems? All those HUGE projectile weapon problems I was describing was accorded to "SpeedUp!" mod. SpeedUp x5 = decrease accuracy of any projectile weapon dramatically, to the point ... check in 3rd and 4th video, dat's just horrable xD
Withoult this mod probably Im out from this game till better times xD

what I wrote about "My overall expectation" is still mostly legit, though its harded to make good balance now when projectile weapon + SpeedUp! = horrable accuracy. Or mb this bad accuracy is becouse of huge amount of projectilles and making all those projectile PD fire much less projectiles would solve this problem completely.

Ahh ok that makes a lot more sense. Yeah the SpeedUp mod is not really something that will work if you want a balanced experience due to the issues you already mentioned. You might be able to get away with 2X but 5X essentially makes projectiles miss far more often than they will hit. That will be the case in vanilla as well, but as you said the number of projectiles from more weapons per ship, etc, likely will exacerbate the issue in this mod. There isn't really much I can do about it because reducing the number of projectiles - while better for performance all around - not only has balance implications (such as a larger impact to armor per shot, reduced overall accuracy from turn rate balance, and poorer missile interdiction) but also changes the cinematic flavor to a large degree. There are a lot of moving pieces to manage.

I will post something on the main page about this. I wasn't aware that this mod was running or I would have mentioned that in the first place.

As far as your overall expectation, I think I understand it a bit better now. Yes carriers can project attack power at a very large range and so having all carriers target one ship is a very effective way to ensure that the ship is destroyed. I still haven't fully tested interceptor effectiveness, but interceptors from both carriers and warships are essential alongside PD and other weapons to counter this strategy. Carriers lose horribly in a direct melee with warships, and they are not very effective at low replacement rate. Well, I should say they shouldn't be very effective. I've seen some situations where they appear to replace things too quickly even at 30% which I've made a note about.

Right now, warships have the base stats for wing replacement, and carrier get a boost of 60% to that stat. Base replacement stats are generally long and should be really long for some bombers, but the boost seems to be too powerful. What I may do, then, is change the base stats to reflect carriers intended replacement rate, and then change warships to take longer to replace wings off the base carrier stats. This should solve the problem of carriers replacing things too quickly and getting replacement rate back up faster than I intended. Warship wings are meant to be pretty limited so that carriers have a role.

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About pirates, their role and 250-350 HP Fighters with 0 OP cost. We must understand that AI will use those trash Fighters anyway, even in decent fleet, even when its MUCH better to use some 8-12OP fighter and hi have capacity for it, becouse of that I was talking about 500 hp for them.

Do you mean non-pirate fleets using pirate wings? They shouldn't do that unless you have changed the setting allowing AI autofit. The default setting for the mod does not allow autofit and relies on custom variants that only equip pirate wings on pirate fleets. Another mod could also be causing this behavior of course.

As far as 500hp, I will consider it since the wings don't have the same kind of firepower as wings that cost large amounts of OP. I'm assuming you are referring to wings like the Talon and Mauler pirate versions?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 07, 2021, 07:20:10 PM
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Do you mean non-pirate fleets using pirate wings? They shouldn't do that unless you have changed the setting allowing AI autofit. The default setting for the mod does not allow autofit and relies on custom variants that only equip pirate wings on pirate fleets. Another mod could also be causing this behavior of course.

As far as 500hp, I will consider it since the wings don't have the same kind of firepower as wings that cost large amounts of OP. I'm assuming you are referring to wings like the Talon and Mauler pirate versions?
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Astral with 4 Tident, 4 wisp, 2 talon
I didn't changed any setting you mentioned. And probably said it all wrong, sry
For example Talon Interceptor 7 Ordance Points Wing (wich I thought are pirate wing but apparently as you said its not) and another low HP wings that are widely used by Hegemony for example, I mean overall problem with weak low price Fighters, sry for miscommunication. Also there is Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor 12 Ordance Points, 300 HP, 3 Fighters in wing, Gladius Adv. Interceptor 13 OP, 300 HP, 300 HP, 4 Fighters in wing, Brute Assault Gunship 10 OP, 500 HP, 3 Fighters and many more wings that are much weaker then for example Retribution (H) Strike Fighter 14 OP, 250 HP, 500 SHIELD?, 3 Fighters and if compare those 12, 13 and 10 OP wings to a Retrebution heavy Interceptor 21 OP or Spark Heavy Interceptor 24 OP ... 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor wing are better then 4 Talon (H) Interceptor wings. Its not how its should work, if you played almost any strategy game you'll see that when you train 3 melee tanky units that cost 100 gold and then train 1 melee tanky unit for 300 gold you won't recieve even x3 times more effective unit, more then that those 3 100 gold units will have MORE HP combined and MORE damage combined then 1 300 gold unit. You can see this in almost any strategy game, dat's done to bring balance into the game, cheap low HP units must have more damage combined and more HP combined then 1 unit of the same class that cost the same as those cheap units. Why then there is 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor (24 OP) that rips 4 Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP)? or Retrebution heavy Interceptor (21 OP) wich for some reason are similar to Spark Heavy Interceptor and MANY times stronger then Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP), Gladius Adv. Interceptor (13 OP), Sidewinder Heavy Fighter (19 OP), Fang Heavy Inteceptor (12 OP)?
When I seen those Talon stats in battle vs Hegemony, I never even checked OP, sry. I just checked stats fast, was not happy, closed fast, seen how useless they are vs my interceptors (instadie) and always thought that they are 0 OP trash ... more then that I thought they are not even worth to be 0 OP meat and they are just wasting fighter slots but if they are cost 7-13 OP, then its way worst. But in legit test, when we talk about for example player vs 60+ enemy ships for example, ALL of those good Player ships (also big carrier) will 100% have an officer, on the other hand, when you fighting against huge enemy fleets with 60+ ships for obvious reason most of their ships won't have an officer, especially most of theyr carrier. So for that matter in real combat our ship will 100% have an officer (3 perks for Fighters from officer+player Fighters fleet perk) 6 Spark Interceptor Wings (24 OP) can rip 30-50 Talon (H) Interceptor wings? gg
Even if you will increase HP of those bad fighters by a factor of 2, they still will be weaker for the most part then they should be. But its something at least.

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I will post something on the main page about this. I wasn't aware that this mod was running or I would have mentioned that in the first place.
Im not sure that those projectile missing a lot is the case, or the only case. I rewatched 4th video at 0.25 speed and I can't see projectile from the ship, so mb at this game speed ship just don't shoot at full fire rate. One thing can be said with certainty, those projectile PD weapon don't deliever damage becouse of some issues caused by "SpeedUp!" mod. And there is new question raised by this issue: are those issues linked to "SpeedUp!" mod only? or those issues will pop up also when player with weak PC will experience extreme lagging in big battles?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on March 07, 2021, 11:58:38 PM
My save file corrupted. I will see you again on the next major update Morrokain.

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Why then there is 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor (24 OP) that rips 4 Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP)? or Retrebution heavy Interceptor (21 OP) wich for some reason are similar to Spark Heavy Interceptor and MANY times stronger then Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP), Gladius Adv. Interceptor (13 OP), Sidewinder Heavy Fighter (19 OP), Fang Heavy Inteceptor (12 OP)?

Balancing is not as simple as that. You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic, ability to diverge enemy PD for a sneak attack, replacement rate that can churn out more craft continuously. I have tested every craft available in the mod and there are some Low and Mid crafts that can grip onto Paragon better than Spark could. The Paragon can not lower its shield and you gain one more flux advantage. But I agree that Spark is a strong end game option and some nerf are due to be hand down whether to reduce replacement rate, lower DPS, or increase OP to 28-30. I would suggest the latter as it going to discourage a lot of players from using it.

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Im not sure that those projectile missing a lot is the case, or the only case. I rewatched 4th video at 0.25 speed and I can't see projectile from the ship, so mb at this game speed ship just don't shoot at full fire rate. One thing can be said with certainty, those projectile PD weapon don't deliever damage becouse of some issues caused by "SpeedUp!" mod. And there is new question raised by this issue: are those issues linked to "SpeedUp!" mod only? or those issues will pop up also when player with weak PC will experience extreme lagging in big battles?

There is a clear warning written in the speed_up.ini state that more than x2 and you're running it at your own risk. The frame skipping will mess with the AI's ability to respond to the target and threat. This affects many parts of the game such as PD not firing, homing missile tracking stops functioning, bullet/missile passes through shield, phase ship performs worse, Etc.

Low-end PC will have no trouble playing at normal speed. This game only utilizes a single core and CPU clock speed has been flattened out at 3.5-4 GHz for a few years now.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 08, 2021, 01:01:56 AM
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Balancing is not as simple as that. You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic, ability to diverge enemy PD for a sneak attack, replacement rate that can churn out more craft continuously.
Some things are really simple, like for example when you have 250 HP interceptors and they are all dead. They can't/ don't have ability to: "block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic, ability to diverge enemy PD for a sneak attack, replacement rate that can churn out more craft continuously" xD I didn't talked about anything rather then simple thing becouse for the start there is basic things that aren't balanced and so must be addressed 1st, for me it's simply have no sense to talk about some deeper stuff when basic balance is broken.

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I have tested every craft available in the mod and there are some Low and Mid crafts that can grip onto Paragon better than Spark could. The Paragon can not lower its shield and you gain one more flux advantage. But I agree that Spark is a strong end game option and some nerf are due to be hand down whether to reduce replacement rate, lower DPS, or increase OP to 28-30. I would suggest the latter as it going to discourage a lot of players from using it.
Mb there is some that will fit better, mb the isn't, don't really matter, it wasn't the point, I wasn't talking about this. The point was that balance is broken and there is some fighters that are MUCH better then another, the gap is to huge.

As you said: "You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic", in good balance ofc you need to include those, you must chose fighters that will fight enemy fighters, some that fights incoming projectilles/big missiles/torpedo and mb even 1 wing that will have a lot of HP/Shield, good replacement rate, have low damage but close range weapon and act as a tank and its how balance should look like, atm what you are saying is just pure imagination and are in fact irrelevant till basic things isn't working and there are OP Fighters wich are 4-6 times stronger then 2 times cheaper fighters of the same class, its just obviously bad math.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on March 08, 2021, 08:28:53 AM
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As you said: "You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic", in good balance ofc you need to include those, you must chose fighters that will fight enemy fighters, some that fights incoming projectilles/big missiles/torpedo and mb even 1 wing that will have a lot of HP/Shield, good replacement rate, have low damage but close range weapon and act as a tank and its how balance should look like, atm what you are saying is just pure imagination and are in fact irrelevant till basic things isn't working and there are OP Fighters wich are 4-6 times stronger then 2 times cheaper fighters of the same class, its just obviously bad math.

I would like to point out that all combat ships with hangar bay have some form of Interceptor and Fighter cost reduction. So, what you are saying that Spark (24) outperforms some Talon H (12) by many times. In fact, it will cost 14 OP to deploy a Spark and only cost 2 OP to deploy a Talon H that's 7 times in OP cost difference on some Eagle starter ship. Most of the Pirate crafts that you said were crappy cost 0 OP to deploy. Only on the carrier where you have to pay the full price. And don't question me why it is so, it's Morrokain's decision.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 08, 2021, 11:07:30 AM
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I would like to point out that all combat ships with hangar bay have some form of Interceptor and Fighter cost reduction. So, what you are saying that Spark (24) outperforms some Talon H (12) by many times. In fact, it will cost 14 OP to deploy a Spark and only cost 2 OP to deploy a Talon H that's 7 times in OP cost difference on some Eagle starter ship. Most of the Pirate crafts that you said were crappy cost 0 OP to deploy. Only on the carrier where you have to pay the full price. And don't question me why it is so, it's Morrokain's decision.
In BETA 1.4.0.0 Spark cost 9 OP with cost reduction and Talon cost 0. So yes, it make now, if that's the case then talon can be even 7-10 times worst and its balanced. ty for pointing it out.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 08, 2021, 02:50:50 PM
My save file corrupted. I will see you again on the next major update Morrokain.

Thanks for all the feedback! (I hope this wasn't because of an update. I would have thought that the recent updates would be save compatible but I could be wrong.)

And don't question me why it is so, it's Morrokain's decision.

Its mostly just a way to limit bombers and gunships on combat ships to give carriers a valid role. This was based on earlier feedback that carriers felt relatively unattractive compared to warships before these changes since both could equip wings. Now, I can reduce the max OP on most combat ships now that interceptors/fighters are cheaper and aren't as large a part of the variant. On carriers, the intent (not implemented) is to use their max OP and weapon discount as a balance level. So it will be more difficult to use high OP wings on smaller carriers unless their DP would otherwise allow it. I may also limit larger carriers like the Legion but details have yet to be completely determined and I've taken a break from going through the variants for the moment.

It's definitely a WIP sort of thing and likely won't be perfect by any means, but I think that it's better than prior versions at least. We'll just have to see.

@Inflow:
A couple of points about interceptor strength:

1: If these tests were done with the same SpeedUp setting then unfortunately it can't be taken as balance evidence for the already stated reasons. As you have already seen, anything with beams are going to have a very significant advantage under those conditions. Beams are found on most high OP interceptors.
2: You may be correct even so. However, to be honest I am less concerned about interceptor balance overall because the current mechanics treat interceptors in the same way as any other craft that attacks a ship. They only target other craft very, very briefly unless the wings are under an escort order. (Interceptor carrier specialty for the most part since combat ships have less range for their wings.) For this reason, as long as interceptors are sort of doing their job then there is not really a point in balancing between them too heavily until that is not the case. The appeal of cheap wings is mainly the cheapness. For Talon (H), for instance, the minor OP cost compared to a basic Talon or Mauler is due to the fact that the Talon (H) or Talon (L) weapons are also useful on shields whereas the former two are fairly useless at anything other than disabling weapons/engines when not fighting other strike craft.

If you disagree, that's very fair as you have likely spent more time looking at this than me. So far I've mostly been balancing bombers and gunships and those should feel good at this point. I've looked at fighters a bit too, but interceptors are more set as a baseline for improving interdiction as OP increases and I've admittedly been very liberal with adding Burst PD Lasers to a lot of the high OP wings.

Anyway, what would be your recommended changes to any wings in question? Be as specific as possible and I'll consider it. Is the target goal to make these wings more competitive with things like the Spark specifically as far as anti-strike craft interdiction?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Inflow on March 09, 2021, 01:10:36 AM
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Anyway, what would be your recommended changes to any wings in question? Be as specific as possible and I'll consider it. Is the target goal to make these wings more competitive with things like the Spark specifically as far as anti-strike craft interdiction?
All I was saying after the fact I understand how SpeedUp! works was my new tests withoult SpeedUp! mod
Example (No SpeedUp! mod, Battle Size set to 500): I fight against Hegemony task force with 1 Onslaugh, 10 Legion and the rest is mostly cruiser class. All of my avaible combat ships are: 2 Paragon, 3 Astral, 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers. I intentionally didn't build big fleet so enemy can deploy more ships then me in combat, cruisers mostly used in sittuations when I need more interceptors and destroyers are to chase the enemy after the fight, they mostly don't fight. In this battle I deployed 2 Paragon and 3 Astral (didn't deployed cruisers with additional interceptors becouse as I thought Hegemony have mostly useless fighters that don't pose any thread and was right, fighter wings from 10 Legion and some carrier cruisers was useless in attack). Enemy PD+interceptors was huge in number but in fact was a joke in combat, 3 Astrals with 20 Flash Bomber (fighter/gunship type, not bomber) and 10 Trident overrun interceptors+PD.
So by that said the goal is that low-grade interceptors of main factions perfom at level that will be at least in some way similar to how Spark perform, they not must be verry similar to Spark and though really strong but 20 Flash Bombers and 10 Trident should not easelly overrun PD+interceptors combined from way bigger fleet like they are nothing. OR mb they should pose some or even significant thread, by one way or another, mb by increasing strenght of individual ships and especially fighters (more about this below) or by lesser increase of individual strenght and by more capital ships (more capital ships, more interceptors, though they will take it by swarm) in strongest fleet/fleets that will protect core systems. In perfect scenario as I see it, I would force players to use "follow me" command more often, for that to happend you need to increase power of core systems significantly, atm this fleet with 2 paragon, 3 astral, 2cruisers and 3 destroyers can attack almost any strongest system of any faction, as I can see this fleet must be not capable doing something like this alone, but its up to you.

disclaimer: it's not the best tactic now when SpeedUp! mod turned off and their PD+Interceptors are in fact much more affective now when SpeedUp! turned off, but not effective enough. Its a demonstration of how bad those fighters are, intercepceptors with taht huge amount Legion Capatil Ships+Cruiser ship wasn't been able to defend. Gunship/fighters was even worst, when interceptors can at least do something, gunship/fighters was almost anytime instakilled by paragon and most of them can do only couple shots or even none.

how I see this can be solved:
1. Fighters problem. Effectivness of low-end fighters should be increased heavily, there should not be interceptors with 250-350 HP and 0 shields (I'm not talking about pirates, only about major factions), HP of those 250-350 HP Inteceptors should be increased 2 times, not sure about the damage though, mb it's enough, whenever they need more damage or not must be tested only with new HP stats. Also something must be done with gunship/fighter/bomber since they don't pose any thread at all in some factions (for example Hegemony), for example increasing HP by factor of 1.5-2 and armor by 1.5-3 to fighter/gunship that don't have any shields and a little bit less then that to bombers, also not sure about the damage, must be tested only after the fact they will met increased HP, in current meta they are incredebally squishy and for the most part can't even get close, even when Player with not big fleet fights vs 10 Legion Capital Ships + 1 Onslaugh + cruisers with fighter wings.
2. PD weapon and weapon that can act as PD problem. This 2nd problem is linked to gunship/fighter/bomber class fighters so if those PD+aka PD weapons will be nerfed, then there will be less upgrades needed of those gunship/fighter/bomber. Capital ship with energy slot can install: Graviton Lance (0-Flux), Razor Tri-Beam (89-Flux), Graviton Beam (0-Flux), those 0-Flux and 89-Flux are super effective as an anti-fighters and torpedo defence and at the same time they are also verry effective weapon vs ships and allows you to put some high flux weapon, Atronach Beam or Apocalypse Aannon for example. On the other side there is 0-Flux Vulkan Heavy PD System wich for some reason much worst vs ships then Graviton Lance or Graviton Beam. As I see Vulkan Heavy PD System, you probably need to increase its effectivness vs ships a little bit, didn't tested it much tough, can't say for sure. Graviton Lance and Graviton Beam should be nerfed and must be similar to Vulkan Heavy PD System, I remember that you can't do anything anything about 0-Flux becouse of limited amount of weapon groups, but you can increase their attack rate and decrease damage, by doing so they will be left at almost same effectivness as PD (more effective vs rockets/swarm of weak fighters, less vs fighters as Trident, Nightmare Heavy Fighter and similar) and less effective vs ships. Also Graviton Lance and Graviton Beam +200% shield and -50% armor damage is questionable, almost all fighters have almost no armor, only Shield and Hull, if that -50% armor don't decrease the damage output on hull, then those +200% shield and -50% armor its almost like x2 damage vs fighters? It's hard to tell exact stats of the weapon as I see it becouse if you will remove this +200% shield damage less nerfing would be needed + its need to be tested, if you would show me how to change those parameters, I can try to change some, tell you exact numbers and you test if you would like those or not, I just can't be 100% specific atm.
3. Weak defending strength of core systems problem. as I already said (I will summarize, hopefully dat make sense in English): by making less big fleets in core systems and making those big fleets stronger (so Player won't kite so much), also by increasing individual strenght of Ships, especially wia making low-end fighters stronger, also by nerfing some OP weapon, not last and not least by giving those elite squads defending core systems more and better officer (good officers make a lot of sense when we talk about core systems of main factions). Dat's the main for now.

Short test. Paragon with 2 Graviton Beam and 2 Graviton Lance vs Paragon with 1840 Flux Dissipation. With that amount of damage and +200% Shield damage it's irrelevant that those weapon don't build Hard Flux, even Paragon shields can't hold, any other ships shield will be evaporated almost instantly + ship attacked by Graviton Lances+Graviton Beams can fire back only with low flux or 0-Flux weapon, becouse of amount of soft flux generated by the hits from Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance. Conclusion: Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance are OP.
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/RefV7oNq1BY
[close]

Razor Tri-Beam (89-Flux) for me seems like pretty much balanced weapon atm, though should have a slight increase in Flux cost, something ~110-120 Flux should be enough probably, again, I can't say for sure when I just can't test this.

disclaimer #2 (yes, I love them so much, don't ask why xD): I don't really know how to give particullar numbers about of those fighters/weapon/ships changes as I see them. For example I already pointed out early on a problem of Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance being OP (watch video) and you told me that they are not, that they are just verry good choise but not OP. If I would tell you exact numbers for those weapons/fighters/ships then:
1. it will be just a waste of my and yours time, I will write why below
2. for the most part you won't use those
3. if you would use first thing and don't use second, then even that first thing can not work becouse they should be done all at once, fighters/weapon/ships
4. as I already told, I can give you my full vision only if you will show how can I change those values myself, though I will change them and then you can test them
5. even if I will try to tell you all, dat will take A LOT of time to discuss all of those, like for example most of the balancing Hegemony fighters can be done in couple days, after that balancing of other factions will be faster. But at the same time talking about that balance can take months
6. becouse of those reasons above, atm all I can give you its just some small simple things, I just can't see how I can give you my full vision in current format. Its not like I don't like testing, I like it more then actually playing, in some games its the main sense of why Im still playing those games. Its just not really affective in regards to your and my time what we are doing right now, would be much faster if you would allow me to actually help you. If you won't like what I done - dat's not a problem at all, I understand that you have your vision in regards to your mod so its completely ok.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 09, 2021, 02:58:30 PM
Nice details and thanks for the video. It gives me more context to work off of.

Your installed mods/character skills are definitely causing a fair amount of power creep from what I can see. That may be part of the reason things are seeming pretty easy. To be fair, the Hegemony variants could be an issue there too and I haven't gone through most of them yet. At the current build from prior changes, the Legion has about 50 OP to spend still from pre-carrier changes. That doesn't mean that it will stay that way obviously but that kind of shows you how this particular update is changing a lot of things and so it will take a fair amount of effort to balance everything.

But, aside from that, I'd be curious to see that exact same build/conditions and switch out the Graviton Lance/Beams for Obliterator Cannons (they have roughly the same OP cost) in the exact same spots. I did a controlled test with myself piloting (to save time from defensive AI retreating mostly) in order to do a strength comparison and here are the results:

Spoiler
https://youtu.be/2s8zcEFy_8A (https://youtu.be/2s8zcEFy_8A)
[close]

My analysis:

Initial Disclaimer: The stock Beam Paragon featured in this test has a natural disadvantage against the Graviton Lance Paragon because its Atronarch Beams and Phase Beams generate a significant amount of soft flux since it also equips Advanced Optics. The Paragon being tested only really feels those strike beams if its shield is down considering its maxed dissipation. Also, while the Graviton Lance Paragon benefits from Advanced Optics, the Obliterator Cannon Paragon could technically be more optimal if I added Expanded Magazines.

But right, I can definitely see the benefits of the Graviton Lance right away. It pierces fighters and missiles and damages both, its perfectly accurate, it deals decent damage to armor despite its intended role as an anti-shield assault beam, and it can build soft flux despite the Paragon's massive dissipation. I messed up and overloaded but I think the battle would have been close-ish had I not made that mistake.

However, when replacing the beams with Obliterator Cannons (only 2 total OP more) the performance is roughly the same. The downsides being that you can see fighters blocking projectiles and the flux cost can sometimes prevent firing when shields are near max. The upsides being hard flux that doesn't dissipate when the enemy Paragon's shields are near max and the emp arcs when the weapons hit armor disabling more weapons.

(Side note: It's not in the video, but I used 2 Heavy Shattercell Cannons and 2 Graviton Drivers - 8 OP more than Graviton Beams - in the same test conditions and could take out the enemy Paragon without taking hull damage. Player vs AI is just not a fair fight. :) )

So I think my initial statement roughly holds true: the Graviton Lance isn't really OP depending upon how you define that, but it is very strong considering its dual purpose nature. It's meant to be an assault weapon with a PD secondary role. I will say that it is extremely good in the PD part of the role. So, in that sense, a damage reduction might be ok and I'll try it out. The side effect that chaage will likely have is that the Persean League fleets will be a bit weaker against Tri-Tachyon. The Graviton Beam/Lance is their primary anti-shield weapon.

That being said, just in general the current state of the Graviton Lance isn't where I want it to be eventually. I want it to cause hard flux and then I would increase the time between firing to 5 seconds from 3.5 - putting the dps at 460 instead of 620. That is about where a large 0-flux energy weapon should be damage-wise. If I do that before I make it cause hard flux, then it becomes a very poor weapon to use against the Paragon compared to something like the Heavy Obliterator at the same OP cost. Really, all beams are - which is why I want to make them all build hard flux. Or, at least most of them.

As far as the Razor Tri-Beam, I am currently in the middle of fleshing out its role more. I think I am removing the flux cost, increasing the dps/hit damage by 10%, but lowering its range to 700 from 800. I want to see how that feels because right now if feels like a worse Graviton Lance that costs flux for 2 less OP.

Re: Testing different values yourself.
For weapons, you can open weapons.csv in a spreadsheet editor and play around with values. Most columns are named in a way that is intuitive though I know English isn't your first language.

Look under data\weapons in the mod directory.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: gacsean on March 19, 2021, 02:37:50 PM
It says that skilled up, starship legends, unknown skies, commissioned crews, and hyperdrive should work with this mod but when I click it in mods it automatically unselects them. Does this mean it has to wait for those mods to update or does the mod creator control if mods can be use or not with his mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 19, 2021, 09:01:08 PM
It says that skilled up, starship legends, unknown skies, commissioned crews, and hyperdrive should work with this mod but when I click it in mods it automatically unselects them. Does this mean it has to wait for those mods to update or does the mod creator control if mods can be use or not with his mod?

Any mod that is set as a "Total Conversion" (which basically means any mod that changes a lot of things in ways that will cause incompatibilities with other mods - which this mod does) in the mod_info.JSON file will auto deselect any mods not marked as "Utility" mods - for example LazyLib.

There are directions on the main page under "Directions to Enable Nexerelin and Other Non-Utility Mods:" which explains how to change this setting to allow other mods to be enabled.

The reason this is there is to help reduce false bug reports for other modders due to overrides in this mod, and so I would ask that you read the warning under the directions carefully. I am actively working to reduce incompatibility to the degree that it's possible, campaign feature mods typically won't cause any balance issues/bugs, etc, but to be on the safe side I keep the TC setting active as the default so players are incentivized to know more/ask about compatibility.

Hope that helps!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on March 29, 2021, 08:58:36 AM
So any good take-aways or plans with the new patch?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 29, 2021, 12:27:42 PM
So any good take-aways or plans with the new patch?

Yes work has been going rather smoothly for the most part thanks for asking. :)

The code was very easy to get running for the patch and so far everything seems fine in that regard. However, there is a bug that will have to be hotfixed for phase fighters before anything can be released. Or I guess I could just remove the phase part and balance them some other way if it came to it.

I have over 90% of the variants done and I've been rebalancing beam weapons since they now cause hard flux. (Yaay!! And, wow they need to cause a lot less damage when hard flux is possible, heh.) I also need to go back through (ugh) and improve some variants now that I have 7 weapon groups to work with. Autofire AI has been noticeably improved.

Speaking of beams, does anyone have any suggestions for what High Scatter Amplifier should do? I was thinking that maybe it could give PD beams a small AOE component like the Paladin? It needs to do something different since assault and strike beams already cause hard flux.

Theoretically Better Balanced:
I added a promising new hullmod for PD support roles that should make them stand out more. It should create an attractive build option for player anti-fighter/anti-missile ships. It will hopefully also help NPC fleets combat spam slightly better than before.

I think carrier mechanics will feel a lot better than the last Beta release. I was misunderstanding how the API was operating and I made pure carriers able to replace things too quickly even at low replacement rates. That has been corrected and warship bays are slightly less punishing overall as well.

New Stuff:
Besides the patch additions, I've added a couple more weapons to balance out a few build niches for ballistics - which have also had a deep dive balance pass. One weapon is the Assault Chaingun so its not really new, per se, but it has been added back into the mod for some SO build fun.

The Fury has been balanced around the mod but I need to test builds and address the Champion. I also plan on balancing the Breach missile weapons and, of course, the new Endgame Threats. The Endgame enemies are a little tricky so I'm still considering how best to approach balancing them for the mod. The distinct art style will take a bit to get the hang of when reducing weapon sizes. (Let's be honest I'll probably butcher it but oh well haha.)

Other than that, I have a note to check out some new weapon tags to see how they could improve AI performance in a few cases.

All in all, I'd say I'm ~75% done with everything I want to do for 1.4.0.0 and the only thing I am really dreading is updating/writing the descriptions to account for all the changes. Well, that, and I really, really need to update the Tactics Manual and consolidate the designation hullmods into one highlighted hullmod that stands out.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on March 29, 2021, 10:59:22 PM
What!! 0.9.5 is out while I'm away playing Magic Legend lol. Seems like there's a lot of bugs to be squish. I will wait a few more days then. If I remember correctly, there's a new ship with the same name as the one in the mod?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on March 30, 2021, 12:13:31 PM
What!! 0.9.5 is out while I'm away playing Magic Legend lol. Seems like there's a lot of bugs to be squish. I will wait a few more days then. If I remember correctly, there's a new ship with the same name as the one in the mod?

I haven't verified it yet but I think the phase fighter fix is already in the latest hotfix so that's good news.

I'm currently trying my hand at a pretty crazy combat hack to lock the Tachyon Lance (and the ship firing it) in place in order to both prevent the AI from switching targets mid fire and prevent TL kiting just in general. I'm not going to do this with all beams I don't think. It might be too performance intensive even if I can get it to work in the first place.

Advanced Optics also has some extra downsides too. One to prevent kiting and one to keep the support role from being optimal assuming the OP is available.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: kari97 on April 04, 2021, 10:57:08 AM
Hi, wouldn't want to rush you or anything but can you estimate when the mod would be up to date with the new version? I am really looking forward to playing with it!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on April 04, 2021, 11:34:16 AM
Hi, wouldn't want to rush you or anything but can you estimate when the mod would be up to date with the new version? I am really looking forward to playing with it!

Ditto,

I can't play Vanilla Starsector anymore, just the changes to the fighters/bombers are too huge for me to go back.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 04, 2021, 04:33:09 PM
Hi, wouldn't want to rush you or anything but can you estimate when the mod would be up to date with the new version? I am really looking forward to playing with it!

Ditto,

I can't play Vanilla Starsector anymore, just the changes to the fighters/bombers are too huge for me to go back.

Thanks I'm glad people are looking forward to it, and @kari97: Welcome to the forums!  :)

To answer, I'm not completely sure I can give an accurate estimate so... when it's ready but hopefully fairly soon? I'll be better about periodic progress reports on what I'm doing/how close I think the update is to completion. I haven't gotten to the point where I am testing the new campaign changes with the mod yet so that is also an unknown right now. I know I will likely have to update the rules on officer recruitment at the very least and I'm sure some skills will have to be changed for the mod's balance. Hopefully nothing I've added interferes with the story or anything but it seems unlikely that it would.

And I'll try and increase my efforts to work harder on it. I will admit the tedium of all the changes and the difficulty of balancing the mod had gotten to me a bit and I slowed down for a while - well that and on and off elbow/wrist pain. Darn it I hate getting older! :P

That being said, I am excited about the new Starsector update and rest assured I am still working on the mod quite a bit. Thank you for everyone's patience and I'm sorry this has been taking forever.

If I remember correctly, there's a new ship with the same name as the one in the mod?

Whoops forgot to address this. Yes there are two I think. The Phantom and Revenant. I'm going to have to think of other names for the mod's capital ship and bomber I suppose.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Flying Dice on April 04, 2021, 06:17:52 PM
Not to worry, since I suspect most of us are also waiting for Nexerelin to update. :V
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Radicaljack on April 04, 2021, 08:33:00 PM
You could release an update in half a year and it'd be fine, no one here is owed anything, with an exception being you and any other mod maker for doing such great stuff for an already fantastic game. Take your time, when you have a beta I'm eager to test it, gonna have to see what I can get up to with the new game in AC.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on April 05, 2021, 12:01:26 AM
Yes, rest assured there are a lot of us looking forward to your progress, and I'm very sorry to hear about your wrists.  Perhaps try a different chair/table, to change the angle that you use with the mouse?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 06, 2021, 03:54:27 PM
Thanks for the understanding everyone. :)

@capshades

I'm seeing a doctor tomorrow and I will mention it. I've tried lowering/raising the angle but I think I also need to get an elbow and wrist cushion and I definitely need to ice it more when I have pain. Unfortunately, it may be early athritis and I'm just going to have to deal with it/change my diet (nooo lol).
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Radicaljack on April 06, 2021, 08:15:51 PM
The cushion may help a ton especially if you are gonna develop arthritis, but there's lots of ways to help deal with that. Good luck and hope you get some relief!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Timid on April 11, 2021, 01:16:17 AM
In case of a version of 0.95 Archean Order being available, all my mods and future mods will support and make compatibility patches if necessary. Better Colonies as of now no longer needs any changes nor a compatibility patch since what conflicted with Archean Order no longer exist.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2021, 03:49:32 PM
The cushion may help a ton especially if you are gonna develop arthritis, but there's lots of ways to help deal with that. Good luck and hope you get some relief!

Thanks and yeah it definitely seems to help. Much less or even no pain after long periods at the computer with a cushion for my elbow and wrist.

In case of a version of 0.95 Archean Order being available, all my mods and future mods will support and make compatibility patches if necessary. Better Colonies as of now no longer needs any changes nor a compatibility patch since what conflicted with Archean Order no longer exist.

Oh nice! I'll run a test with it and let you know once I get to campaign testing - which should be happening soon. I just finished up all the variants and added additional ones for some of the capital ships. So now it's mostly a matter of clean up and implementing the new stuff from 0.95a.

There is also a bug with the Tachyon Lance changes that I need to track down. It has only happened a couple of times out of a lot of tests so its been a bit difficult to pinpoint what exactly is causing it. (That's what I get for trying to be fancy with custom combat engine hashmaps required by everyframe scripts running on separate frame intervals. I'll figure out a way to maintain the data stability I said... It won't be as hard as I think I said... :P)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 16, 2021, 07:29:08 PM
Well, I've finished the obligatory station balance pass after the weapon adjustments and increased the amount of strike craft they field as a whole. They will probably be harder than the last version.

I went through some of the energy weapons and missiles and buffed some low tech ships' dissipation a bit. Beams should definitely feel a little different.

That's probably all the balancing I'm going to do for this update. From here, I will just be working on descriptions and 0.95a integration.

Descriptions will probably take a bit, but it shouldn't be too terribly long (hopefully) before the update is ready now. Balancing is generally the toughest/most time consuming part.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Radicaljack on April 16, 2021, 09:47:21 PM
Cannot wait to see what AE brings to the table in the next release, should be a fun time to test it all out and cannot wait to hear the great music and find BP's of all the great stuff again.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on April 16, 2021, 11:02:45 PM
I'm impressed with the new story mission. A pretty good multi-prong approach even though there still some plot holes here and there. You would have to beef up that unique phase ship if you which to integrate it into your mod though. It's crappy.

The new raiding mechanic is great but still needs improvement. Especially, the reserved force that does nothing and unlimited supply you can get from raiding pirate base over and over.

The new contract mission is kind of a mess with contacts all over the place. Low paying wages discourage me. Sometimes your contact went missing and it's kind of a waste of time to check in on them every now and then. If Alex could make it so that we could check all available priority contact quests on the fly...

Do you plan on messing with the skill tree? I think a few will need a necessary balance pass, especially fighter buff. +100% damage to fighters would be utterly broken. Carrier Group would need a minimum value of 15-20% if you exceed it. Weapon Drills is useless, my fleet only has a 3% buff now. And if my fleet is not this big (not even max yet), then I have no chance of completing any end-game content anyway. Gunnery Implant's ECM might have to go. Coordinated Maneuvers and Wolfpack Tactics shouldn't require an officer to take effect. Automated Ships also need limitations removed so that I can have fun with them hehe.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 17, 2021, 04:51:29 PM
Cannot wait to see what AE brings to the table in the next release, should be a fun time to test it all out and cannot wait to hear the great music and find BP's of all the great stuff again.

Thanks! :)

I'm impressed with the new story mission. A pretty good multi-prong approach even though there still some plot holes here and there. You would have to beef up that unique phase ship if you which to integrate it into your mod though. It's crappy.

The new raiding mechanic is great but still needs improvement. Especially, the reserved force that does nothing and unlimited supply you can get from raiding pirate base over and over.

The new contract mission is kind of a mess with contacts all over the place. Low paying wages discourage me. Sometimes your contact went missing and it's kind of a waste of time to check in on them every now and then. If Alex could make it so that we could check all available priority contact quests on the fly...

Do you plan on messing with the skill tree? I think a few will need a necessary balance pass, especially fighter buff. +100% damage to fighters would be utterly broken. Carrier Group would need a minimum value of 15-20% if you exceed it. Weapon Drills is useless, my fleet only has a 3% buff now. And if my fleet is not this big (not even max yet), then I have no chance of completing any end-game content anyway. Gunnery Implant's ECM might have to go. Coordinated Maneuvers and Wolfpack Tactics shouldn't require an officer to take effect. Automated Ships also need limitations removed so that I can have fun with them hehe.

Yes skills is definitely one of the things I am going to look at as part of the 0.95 integration. As a whole I'll likely reduce their effectiveness since endgame content is already designed to be difficult and the officer numbers in NPC fleets might make it too difficult otherwise.

I haven't gone too far yet in the story on my vanilla run but I'm looking forward testing more out and thinking about if I need to make adjustments for the mod, etc.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 20, 2021, 02:24:25 PM
How many total fighter bays are in the average late game fleet for the player in this mod?

I ask because Carrier Group is one of the main skills that will need to be adjusted since the mod obviously adds a lot more bays to most ships.

I'm tentatively setting the threshold to 20 bays for the maximum bonus (so capital carrier + two cruiser carriers - or 7-10 destroyer carriers, etc), but the bonus has been reduced to 30% down from 50%.

Thoughts? Should it be higher to account for warship bays?

(And yes I will override the Automated DP threshold for that skill as well so in addition feel free to suggest a number for that one too.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Mysticunicycle on April 20, 2021, 02:43:35 PM
I'm impressed with the new story mission. A pretty good multi-prong approach even though there still some plot holes here and there. You would have to beef up that unique phase ship if you which to integrate it into your mod though. It's crappy.

The new raiding mechanic is great but still needs improvement. Especially, the reserved force that does nothing and unlimited supply you can get from raiding pirate base over and over.

The new contract mission is kind of a mess with contacts all over the place. Low paying wages discourage me. Sometimes your contact went missing and it's kind of a waste of time to check in on them every now and then. If Alex could make it so that we could check all available priority contact quests on the fly...

Do you plan on messing with the skill tree? I think a few will need a necessary balance pass, especially fighter buff. +100% damage to fighters would be utterly broken. Carrier Group would need a minimum value of 15-20% if you exceed it. Weapon Drills is useless, my fleet only has a 3% buff now. And if my fleet is not this big (not even max yet), then I have no chance of completing any end-game content anyway. Gunnery Implant's ECM might have to go. Coordinated Maneuvers and Wolfpack Tactics shouldn't require an officer to take effect. Automated Ships also need limitations removed so that I can have fun with them hehe.

Just chiming in about how useless skills are. I only have a fleet of 23 ships, and that includes logistics. I have 2% damage bonus from Weapon Drills. I'm pretty endgame, and every fleet I go up against takes the 180/120 split of deployment points. If I filled my fleet spots with Paragons to balance the deployment points, I think I'd get decimal values from Weapon Drills.

I would love to play this conversion when it updates, with skills that are less useless than vanilla :].
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 20, 2021, 03:15:00 PM
Just chiming in about how useless skills are. I only have a fleet of 23 ships, and that includes logistics. I have 2% damage bonus from Weapon Drills. I'm pretty endgame, and every fleet I go up against takes the 180/120 split of deployment points. If I filled my fleet spots with Paragons to balance the deployment points, I think I'd get decimal values from Weapon Drills.

I would love to play this conversion when it updates, with skills that are less useless than vanilla :].

If I am understanding what you mean by fill your fleet with Paragons, I think the DP ratio is more effected by officers now based upon what I have read rather than hullsize. The idea of the 0.95 update was to reduce the effectiveness of capital stacking and emphasize merc officers in late game fleets. At least from what I have gathered.

As far as Weapon Drills (and really any scaling skill just in general), that will be something to address. What is your total DP? When it says "Maximum at 90 or less total combat ship recovery cost for fleet." does that mean the total DP actually deployed in the battle? Or total DP of the fleet period regardless of what you actually deploy?

I'm a little confused as to how the scaling currently works since I haven't tested campaign stuff and just now got to skills.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on April 20, 2021, 03:31:14 PM
How many total fighter bays are in the average late game fleet for the player in this mod?

I ask because Carrier Group is one of the main skills that will need to be adjusted since the mod obviously adds a lot more bays to most ships.

I'm tentatively setting the threshold to 20 bays for the maximum bonus (so capital carrier + two cruiser carriers - or 7-10 destroyer carriers, etc), but the bonus has been reduced to 30% down from 50%.

Thoughts? Should it be higher to account for warship bays?

(And yes I will override the Automated DP threshold for that skill as well so in addition feel free to suggest a number for that one too.)

I typically have two fleets, one with the hightech battelship (forgot the name) and 8 apogees, no other carriers.

Other fleet depends on parent faction, but typically 5-6 battleships and only 1-2 carriers.  I don't typically go for light/medium carriers in late game.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 20, 2021, 03:57:17 PM
I typically have two fleets, one with the hightech battelship (forgot the name) and 8 apogees, no other carriers.

Other fleet depends on parent faction, but typically 5-6 battleships and only 1-2 carriers.  I don't typically go for light/medium carriers in late game.

What I should probably do is only make actual carrier bays count for the threshold and ignore warship bays altogether for the threshold calculation. Your fleet description sounds like it would greatly surpass the threshold and drop the bonus to very little unless running a destroyer/frigate fleet.

So if I leave it at, say 25, and ignore warship bays, then that would account for 2 capital carriers with Converted Hangar installed or roughly 4-5 cruiser carriers at the full bonus. You could also fill in your fleet with half of the fleet consisting of light carriers and probably not surpass the threshold. Or of course you could use something like 1 Astral, 2 Heron, 1 Condor and 1 Vigilance for 25 total carrier bays.

Of course, warships wouldn't actually get the bonus either. I'll look into how hard that would be to do. I'll probably have to play around with the numbers to see what feels the best.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on April 20, 2021, 09:43:07 PM
As far as Weapon Drills (and really any scaling skill just in general), that will be something to address. What is your total DP? When it says "Maximum at 90 or less total combat ship recovery cost for fleet." does that mean the total DP actually deployed in the battle? Or total DP of the fleet period regardless of what you actually deploy?

I'm a little confused as to how the scaling currently works since I haven't tested campaign stuff and just now got to skills.

From the look of it, the entire fleet was count as one, deployed or not.


As I can't load my save anymore I'm not certain. But usually, I have 2 capital carriers and 2-4 cruiser carriers in my fleet plus an Executor or two. Not all of them will be deployed though, they were built to counter specific scenarios. Such as 2 capitals combination, 1 cap + 2 cruises, or 4 cruises. In total, I would have at least 80 craft bays for the end game fleet.

the best possible solution that I prefer would be to taking into account all bays, including combat ships, but only counts the ships that have been currently deployed, and it has to be able to adjust on the fly like those ECM and NAV rating value.

Also, some of the civilian ships in your mod have hangars that I only use for mining. It would be an absolutely horrible idea if it were to calculate the vanilla way.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2021, 04:21:21 AM
25 bays and only counting carriers would be way too strong. If you can make it only count "real" bays, leaving it at the default deck count would be more than enough. Remember it's not a hard cutoff, and the bonuses are intentionally huge to start out with because they'll scale down.

Similarily with the bonuses that require an officer-piloted ship. If you made those global, they would be unbelievably broken. If you make skills weaker, they just feel like crap to pick because they don't have proper impact.

A few sanity checks like excluding warship bays should really be all that's needed to make AO work with the new skill system. It doesn't need a big overhaul and certainly not one without a *lot* of prior playtesting and tons of design thought put into it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 21, 2021, 03:05:57 PM
From the look of it, the entire fleet was count as one, deployed or not.

Ok thanks that's what I thought too but wanted to be sure.

Quote
As I can't load my save anymore I'm not certain. But usually, I have 2 capital carriers and 2-4 cruiser carriers in my fleet plus an Executor or two. Not all of them will be deployed though, they were built to counter specific scenarios. Such as 2 capitals combination, 1 cap + 2 cruises, or 4 cruises. In total, I would have at least 80 craft bays for the end game fleet.

the best possible solution that I prefer would be to taking into account all bays, including combat ships, but only counts the ships that have been currently deployed, and it has to be able to adjust on the fly like those ECM and NAV rating value.

Also, some of the civilian ships in your mod have hangars that I only use for mining. It would be an absolutely horrible idea if it were to calculate the vanilla way.

Yeah if left alone I feel like that would completely invalidate the skill from even being an option unless specifically running a destroyer/frigate only fleet. The dynamic adjusting is a neat idea, but it depends upon how difficult it would be to implement considering how skills and threshold tracking works under the hood.

25 bays and only counting carriers would be way too strong. If you can make it only count "real" bays, leaving it at the default deck count would be more than enough. Remember it's not a hard cutoff, and the bonuses are intentionally huge to start out with because they'll scale down.

Similarily with the bonuses that require an officer-piloted ship. If you made those global, they would be unbelievably broken. If you make skills weaker, they just feel like crap to pick because they don't have proper impact.

A few sanity checks like excluding warship bays should really be all that's needed to make AO work with the new skill system. It doesn't need a big overhaul and certainly not one without a *lot* of prior playtesting and tons of design thought put into it.

While 25 might be overkill, I'm not sure I agree that 6 would feel good - hard cut off or not. I could be wrong, however, I will have to actually look at how the scaling works to know for sure what a good value would be. If it scales down exponentially then 6 is a non-starter. If it scales linearly, then it depends upon how much bonus is lost per additional bay. I don't want two capital carriers and a cruiser carrier or two (that's anywhere from 20 - 30 bays depending upon hull mods) to completely negate the bonus. My initial thought would be roughly that a capital carrier plus 2-3 cruiser carriers would be about 60-70% of the bonus whereas 2 capital carriers and 2 cruiser carriers would get roughly 30-40% of the bonus. Something along those lines, but I'd like to know your thoughts. It kind of depends on the systems design intentions. Is the max bonus meant to buff smaller fleets, for instance? Or encourage mostly warships alongside a primary carrier unit? (One capital or two cruisers being the vanilla standard.) The max ships per fleet is fairly high so it feels weird to me that 1-2/22 or 1-2/27 (can't remember if that was increased to 30 or not) would be the target number of carriers when trying to maintain the max bonus.

I agree that I have no intention of making officer required skills global or anything. I'm more just looking to adjust thresholds where it makes sense for the mod. Some skills might not need adjustments at all, but even the default battle size is different in the mod - and so I doubt the carrier skills will be the only ones needing some love.

(Also any adjustment to how the skill system works is sort of an "overhaul" due to how the code works. This is a case where these values are not easily modified like, say, the armor bonus from heavy armor is. Its not something as involved as the overrides manager and TC settings or anything, but it also isn't necessary trivial depending upon how often the static variables/methods are relied upon.)

Anyway, I'm all ears on disagreements/suggestions or other thoughts about this before I really dive in. Most of you probably know the current skill system as far as how it operates in the campaign much better than I do.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 21, 2021, 11:45:17 PM
I did a bit of analysis and some campaign tests.

I looked at the scaling and with a 6 fighter bay threshold: 6 bays = +50% Replacement (Full Bonus), 12 bays = +25% Replacement (Half Bonus), 25 bays = +12% Replacement (Quarter Bonus), 60 bays = +5% Replacement (Mostly Negated Bonus), 100 bays = +3% Replacement (Mostly Negated Bonus)

Changing it to 25 as the threshold: 25 bays = +50% Replacement (Full Bonus), 50 bays = +25% Replacement (Half Bonus), 100 bays = +12.5% Replacement (Quarter Bonus), 250 bays = +5% Replacement (Mostly Negated Bonus), 500 bays = +2.5% Replacement (Mostly Negated Bonus)

So taking into account only carrier bays I'd hazard an early threshold estimate of around 15 as a good starting point for tests. I'd probably start slowly scaling up from there to either 18 or 20 depending upon what feels best.

Breakdown with a 15 bay threshold with the Astral as an example: (No hullmods included)

+50% at 15 bays (1 Astral and 1 Mora)
+30% at 25 bays (2 Astrals and 1 Mora or 1 Astral, 2 Herons and a Drover or Epiphany)
+15% at 50 bays (5 Astrals or 2 Astrals and 5 Herons)
+7.5% at 100 bays (10 Astrals or 4 Astrals and 5 Legions)
+ 3% at 300 bays (30 Astrals, but why?)

The other thing to consider is that other mod updates unrelated to skills have made carrier defense ships like PD support variants better able to combat massed strike craft or otherwise support nearby allied ships. Combining that with free (from the perspective of skills) interceptors for low OP on warships might make carriers feel less valuable from a player standpoint.

Minor Details: Warships now replace fighters more slowly even at 100% replacement rate. Carriers now replace fighters at normal replacement rates (from stat card) and replace them a lot more slowly at low replacement rates.

Either way, it is going to require some playtesting once the code is in place.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on April 23, 2021, 07:07:30 AM
The way it is now kind of discourage player to have back up ships. I usually have double of what I need and it's kind of important, when combined with NEX, to combat multiple invasion fleets in quick suscession. But anyway, it's low priority stuff.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on April 23, 2021, 01:37:22 PM
The way it is now kind of discourage player to have back up ships. I usually have double of what I need and it's kind of important, when combined with NEX, to combat multiple invasion fleets in quick suscession. But anyway, it's low priority stuff.

Once the code foundation is there then it will be really easy to adjust values as needed if it turns out it doesn't feel good. I may even just make it a setting.

But that's almost done and then its on to the new ships/endgame stuff and then probably release! I think I'll wait until the next release after this one to clean up the designation descriptions and stuff since that will take a lot of time. That way the new stuff and balance work I've done can have some playtesting while I clean house.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Radicaljack on April 23, 2021, 06:05:47 PM
I'm sure anyone eager for this to come out will have plenty of (hopefully) positive and meaningful feedback to give you on it, like you said the numbers are easy to change, it's the code that seems a bit intense to figure out for me. Will be interesting to see how the AO and AC fair in this new environment. The RC 14 did a lot of good steps on fixing issues the game had, I do think Archean Order will do well in .95, and like I said people will be sure to find the things that are really out of place fast, even in the base game those things all kinda stood out to people right away.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on April 25, 2021, 03:40:15 PM
Yeah I stopped playing because of some of the standout issues, it seems R14 really fixed a bunch.  Looking forward to the mod
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on May 01, 2021, 05:37:14 PM
I'd also be happy to help beta test the update, if you are in need of such help...
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 03, 2021, 04:24:21 PM
Re: Beta Testing:

Let me finish up my plan for skills first and then I'll probably release a beta version for some testing while I work on descriptions, etc.

The code for that is done anyway. (Well it might need another brief once-over juuust in case I missed a method I need to override since there was quite a few that required it.)

I'll repost my analysis from the general discussion thread (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21198.0) to give an idea of what I will likely try out: (I'm not going to rework everything - but I may move some stuff around and see what the general reception is.)

Spoiler
Initial Analysis:

Aptitude Side-by-Side Skill Comparisons:
Spoiler
Combat:
- Impact Mitigation seems weaker than Ranged Specialization due to how important it is to build more flux on your opponent and the strength of range in the game.

Leadership:
- Coordinated Maneuvers seems weaker than Wolfpack Tactics on paper unless you are not using frigates at all. Even then, the destroyer perk of Wolfpack Tactics seems pretty good early game. Part of this assumption lies in the feedback about being outnumbered late game though. Wouldn't that sort of negate the bonus?

Technology:
- Energy Weapon Mastery only seems worth it for the elite version, and I'm curious to see if the AI takes advantage of it without an aggressive or reckless officer.
- Fighter Uplink seems fairly unattractive compared to Electronic Warfare. Excluding carriers on Electronic Warfare might give it a role for carrier-heavy fleets though. I'd argue the threshold for vanilla should probably be 8 instead of 6 for fighter bays. That would make it and Carrier Group more viable late game skills, imo, compared to EW or Crew Training - which both seem essential in comparison upon an initial analysis.
- Automated Ships probably needs a slightly higher DP limit for the threshold compared to an extra built-in slot from Special Modifications. (Depends on SP availability. It's harder to analyze without testing late game SP acquisition rates since that is such a new feature.) This opinion stems more from a sense of novelty and flavor than it does from the perspective of which is better to min/max.

Industry:
- Damage Control and Reliability Engineering are a bit of a strange trade-off because one primarily effects campaign level and one primarily effects combat.
- Same thing with Field Repairs and Derelict Contingent.
[close]

Aptitude vs Aptitude Comparisons:
Spoiler
Combat
- The obvious powerful player flagship choice. The highest investment of points (10) wastes a point due to competing flagship bonuses between phase ships and shielded ships. This makes it less viable to completely invest in above 7 points. Potential solution: Phase Mastery and Flux Regulation switch places. (I'll explain more about why later.)
- Tier 5 bonuses, while nice, are nowhere near as attractive as Technology tier 5 bonuses because Combat affects a single (though powerful) ship in a modest way and Technology affects the whole fleet in a pretty substantial way with the caveat that a large investment of story points is required to reap the full benefits.
- Low level bonuses are probably the most attractive small-scale investment option for those wanting some flagship boosts if they don't need a specific tier 5/tier 4 skill in one of their other attribute skill lines.

Leadership
- The specialization attribute. Essentially, pick an aspect of your fleet composition that you want to boost. With the options being carriers, smaller ships, combat auxiliary civilian ships.
- Then there are random colony bonuses and the very valuable officer boosts. Leadership probably has the worst tier 5 options of all the attributes. They seem more important for administrators than players and should probably be replaced with large compositional bonuses for each composition. Each skill needs to effect each composition of the earlier compositional choices or full investment is unlikely - but the specific bonuses themselves should compete in value. Example: Plus 5% OP on all compositional choices vs + 5% Range (weapon and fighter) on all compositional choices. Alternatively move the tier 5 bonuses to tier 2 and slide the other bonuses up a tier.
- The officer boosts are the real meat of the attribute - with ship compositional bonuses mostly being an afterthought to get to these skills.
- Crew Training is too strong of a competitor for Carrier Group as is - Potential Solution: swap Crew Training with Fighter Uplink and rename them if necessary. A compositional bonus vs a fleetwide bonus is probably impossible to balance.
- Same with tier 1 bonuses - fleetwide vs compositional bonuses should probably be avoided.

Technology
- The best attribute because of the tier 5 bonuses. Also likely the most interesting from a flavor/novelty standpoint because of Automated Ships.
- Already discussed that phase ship bonuses should directly compete. The player chooses between a big flagship bonus or a smaller fleetwide bonus. It might be worth it to make these the tier 5 bonuses so players don't feel forced into phase ships just to get Automated Ships or Special Modifications. That would also lessen the overall point burden created by moving the officer bonuses up a tier through lowering the tier to get Special Modifications or Automated Ships. The rest of the attribute is compositional specialization and full investment into the attribute simply means using both phase ships and automated ships.
- Above changes means that Technology consistently starts with a campaign QOL bonus, then gets a ship bonus, then a fleet bonus, etc. It seems more consistent when considering target goals of investing into an attribute and how much to fully invest.

Industry
- Mostly campaign benefits comprised of colony, exploration and fleet maintenance bonuses.
- While thematically interesting and great for a player struggling with campaign level challenges, it is the only attribute that mostly lacks combat benefits. This sort of puts it in an odd place.
- Needs some kind of campaign level pressure (at all points of the game) in order to functionally compete with the other attributes.
[close]

Outside of the specific changes I suggested, the major take-away I have when analyzing the current system and the feedback on all sides is that the old system let players cherry pick bonuses to either salve a campaign annoyance or help with a challenging thing at the campaign level and then once that condition (unique to the individual) is met, focus on the combat bonuses of choice and composition.

Now, the attributes require more investment and it is much harder to cherry pick bonuses of either campaign or combat. I think that is leading to all the vague playstyle complaints. Players were choosing X skill at Y time because X's bonus made sense at that time in the game while planning an overall compositional build - which was likely more flexible than the current system because, again, cherry picking was more possible.

So, conceptually, I think the new system is A) easier to balance overall B) better as far as replay-ability is concerned and C) thematically more interesting as far as specialization.

It lost complexity in build-making, however, and that is also a factor.

Some broad suggestions to possibly help the system feel more versatile:

1) Somewhat streamline bonus types at tiers with perhaps Combat being the exception. For instance, if each attribute is a unique playstyle, then have a similar bonus type at each tier - campaign level boost, flagship boost, fleetwide boost, compositional boost are what I consider "types". Weigh types based upon player desirability if possible. Big combat boosts should be higher tier but roughly equally powerful across the same tier in each attribute. Players should then be able to choose a maximum of 3 per highest tier in 2-3 attributes.
2) I'd weight campaign QOL as tier 1, fleetwide bonus at tier 2, flagship bonus at tier 3, major feature bonus at tier 4, large compositional bonus at tier 5.
3) Finally, separate out bonus themes by attribute. Example: Industry is armor combat bonuses while Technology is flux bonuses and balance between the two. Or: Leadership is carrier compositional bonuses while Combat is smaller ships, Technology is phase ships and Industry is auxiliary civilians and D-modded ships. All compositional bonuses are effectively optional and fairly powerful. That way compositions wouldn't feel as forced to get the more powerful combat benefits.

That would probably be a good middle ground between the new system and the old system and still retain the balancing benefits of the new system. A player gets 3 of each type but can sacrifice compositional or feature/theme combat-oriented boosts for more campaign QOL or fleetwide/flagship combat bonuses.

Anyway I spent enough time on this already. Just trying to think outside of the box when looking at polishing the new skill system.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on May 04, 2021, 02:10:35 AM
Lol, that thread is full of rage and disappointment. Unless you require a second opinion, I will wait for your Beta first before thinking about it in detail.

The only skill I would like to point out is the Energy Weapon Mastery for Officer which is too specific for energy weapon. Something like missile Specialisation can still be used by most ship but Energy weapon only is really restrictive to high-tech ship. All other officer skills seem to work fine universally apart from that but I also didn't find a single officer with Phase ship skill and only 3 with fighter skill, super rare.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2021, 02:21:44 PM
Lol a lot of threads seem that way due to the skill changes. There is generally something in every update that has a mixed reception - looks like its skills this time around. :P (You should have seen the CR update. It was madness haha.)

Anyway, I definitely will do something with Energy Weapon Mastery. It doesn't really seem like it would work for the mod as it currently is. And I still have to find a use for the hullmod it unlocks.

For now:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/pMOZJdk.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/QMdTcBy.png)
[close]

I've changed up the carrier skills quite a bit. They now have elite versions and are tier 5 of Leadership. The colony skills have been moved down to tier 2 so they are more accessible. In general my thought process is that campaign level bonuses < combat level bonuses.

I also put Coordinated Maneuvers in direct competition with Electronic Warfare. I'm not done with ideas for Technology or Industry as a whole though. I will probably move the phase ship bonuses to tier 4 and 5 Tech with the flagship bonus competing with Automated Ships at tier 5.

Special Modifications might be moved to Industry as a tier 4 or 5 option. Damage Control will probably be improved and moved to tier 4 Combat to replace Phase Mastery as the competition for Shield Modulation.

Basic concepts at play here:
1) Move specialization bonuses to tier 5 options for the most part. They should be strong bonuses that will noticeably impact a playstyle and give incentive to max or loop around the tree.
2) Provide more elite skill options outside of Combat. Some will effect the flagship. I believe this gives a sense of variety when competing with powerful fleet bonuses or flavor options like Automated Ships. It means you don't necessarily have to go Combat to have a boosted flagship.
3) Attempt to make the choice of aptitude tree and the respective tier 5 bonuses a more difficult decision in regards to direct impact on combat and playstyle.

(Ahem... ok so I'm reworking it quite a bit after all I guess. One thing led to another and it just sort of happened...)

That's where my mind is going with skill changes and obviously any feedback or shouts of "you crazy man you are breaking everything!" are welcome. XD
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Hellya on May 04, 2021, 03:37:10 PM
Your crazy man, you will ruin everything....

Honestly, what you are thinking seems to me like it will fix some of my favorite faction mods that I no longer play because skills and changes have murdered there ship line up. Carrier heavy factions are not fun to play, factions where most ships have one or two fighter bays are not fun, armor tank factions are not fun; I am really only down to P9 and hopefully BlackRock.

Anyway, o would like to see where your mod  can fix some of the less viable vanilla doctrine and mod doctrine.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on May 04, 2021, 05:08:30 PM
Concerning the Gunnery Implants vs Energy Weapon Mastery debate, perhaps try changing it to a ballistic weapons boost vs an energy weapons boost?  I'm not sure where everyone is on the "one or the other" type of gameplay mechanic, but I do like being shepherded towards choosing a specific faction or at least technology level of ship design to stick with, it helps with the RPG elements of the game in my opinion.

I really don't like the range limitations on the vanilla EWM skill, that alone makes it substantially less attractive to me than gunnery mastery.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: danando123 on May 04, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
Hey! im new, those feature mods, do i need to download them also, or are they included in this?? thanks :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: danando123 on May 04, 2021, 05:47:42 PM
Hey! im new, those feature mods, do i need to download them also, or are they included in this?? thanks :)

how do i enable on 0.9.5a The mod says error mod requires different version of the game.

New to SS, hoping this will get a 0.95 update :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on May 04, 2021, 06:19:34 PM
Hey! im new, those feature mods, do i need to download them also, or are they included in this?? thanks :)

The feature mods are "potentially" compatible mods made by other people, you have to download and install them separately, and they may not work with this one, or may not be updated.

0.95a just came out recently, so some of them (and this mod) are not yet updated. 
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: danando123 on May 04, 2021, 07:06:22 PM
Hey! im new, those feature mods, do i need to download them also, or are they included in this?? thanks :)

The feature mods are "potentially" compatible mods made by other people, you have to download and install them separately, and they may not work with this one, or may not be updated.

0.95a just came out recently, so some of them (and this mod) are not yet updated.

Ahhh new update recently on vanilla, gotcha :D ill have to wait then :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2021, 08:15:00 PM
@danando123

Welcome to the forums and sorry about the wait! Hopefully I'll at least have a beta out fairly soon. (Though my "soon" is probably a Blizzard-esque meme at this point.) :)

Re: Gunnery Implants vs Energy Weapon Mastery

I've already adjusted the range to be more in line with the energy weapons in the mod. I'm not sure 10% less flux is strong enough for an elite skill considering the flux-free weapons in this mod, so I may also increase fire rate by something like 10%. Or maybe just flipping the bonuses so that the more interesting bonus is the elite version of the skill. I'm still thinking about how to approach it. I don't want to add too much power creep to skills.

As far as Gunnery Implants directly relating to ballistic weaponry, on the one hand I like that it would be the obvious choice to reduce speedy high tech ships chance of infinite kiting/venting for ballistic flagships. The double edged sword there is that it would make the choice of skill obvious and not really a choice - which is kind of against the point of the skill system. It would also probably leave a sour taste in the mouth for someone wanting to loop around and max the tree for both tier 5 skills since one skill would likely be a waste either way.

What I'm more likely to do is give a bonus to ballistics within EWP and rename it Weapon Systems Mastery or something. I just need to think of a unique mechanic for it.

Anyway, o would like to see where your mod  can fix some of the less viable vanilla doctrine and mod doctrine.

We'll see how it turns out in the end and if there is a demand for it I can release it as a standalone skill mod that can work alongside faction mods outside of the TC combat too. I don't *think* that would interfere in the majority of faction mods features - though I'm not 100% sure.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: danando123 on May 04, 2021, 08:37:14 PM
@Morrokain thank you :) the game is hard -.- only started playing and hear the mods are immense.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on May 05, 2021, 08:56:34 AM
Concerning the Gunnery Implants vs Energy Weapon Mastery debate, perhaps try changing it to a ballistic weapons boost vs an energy weapons boost?  I'm not sure where everyone is on the "one or the other" type of gameplay mechanic, but I do like being shepherded towards choosing a specific faction or at least technology level of ship design to stick with, it helps with the RPG elements of the game in my opinion.

I really don't like the range limitations on the vanilla EWM skill, that alone makes it substantially less attractive to me than gunnery mastery.

That wouldn't work out well due to the skills being chosen randomly by Officer. If you are playing a High tech fleet and you got a 7 skills Officer with ballistic skill instead, that would be a shame. That's why I'm thinking, a universal modifier would fit better.

@Morrokain

Those additional Elite skills for flagship don't look half bad and would definitely work in my favor as I'm kind of a guy who goes all out for a support build. (in 0.9.1 I can still put some leftover points in combat but not this time around) The least important ship usually becomes my flagship and all the top tiers go to my capable Officers other than myself lol. I'm drifting in my command center, Tempest.

Quote
The colony skills have been moved down to tier 2 so they are more accessible. In general my thought process is that campaign level bonuses < combat level bonuses.
I must be at almost Max level to think about setting up a colony but it might be able to save me some skill point as I'm currently required to have additional admins for 6 colonies. No AI Allow.

That makes me think that the Elite skill for Automated ship should be an unlimited cap off REDACTED ships, so you are basically one with the REDACTED, flip all diplomatic relation to permanent hostile but REDACTED, even Tri-tach will hate you for taking their priced possession. And also allow REDACTED to expand as a faction with you supplying them with more metal, lol, 3rd sector war.

Quote
1) Move specialization bonuses to tier 5 options for the most part. They should be strong bonuses that will noticeably impact a playstyle and give incentive to max or loop around the tree.
I'm currently don't see the point of doing a loop as the total skill point is too low and too many garbage skills are in the way to T5. The skill in all 3 trees apart from combat is equally important and it's impossible to complete a certain tree individually. Unless the level cap is raised to 20 then I will think about completing at least one skill set.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 05, 2021, 11:49:52 PM
This is what I'm going with as far as Energy Weapon Mastery:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/ldvZhgy.png)
[close]

(You can also see how I've rearranged skills in general if you know the icons.)

Obviously this is a W.IP and things are subject to change.

That makes me think that the Elite skill for Automated ship should be an unlimited cap off REDACTED ships, so you are basically one with the REDACTED, flip all diplomatic relation to permanent hostile but REDACTED, even Tri-tach will hate you for taking their priced possession. And also allow REDACTED to expand as a faction with you supplying them with more metal, lol, 3rd sector war.

This would be a great setting for Nex campaigns and I'll think about doing that as a mod setting set that defaults off. It would likely break the story portion of the campaign too much to be set as a default for vanilla campaigns though. Remind me after this current update I'm working on and I'll consider implementing something like that.

For now, I'm probably increasing the threshold for Automated Ships. I feel comfortable doing this because the downsides of using the Radiant are likely enough to warrant it. Using the powerful ship system has serious consequences when player-controlled and the AI will use it. Since players can't directly control the ship themselves that prevents micro from circumventing that limitation. Ergo, increasing the threshold should be ok.

Quote
Quote
1) Move specialization bonuses to tier 5 options for the most part. They should be strong bonuses that will noticeably impact a playstyle and give incentive to max or loop around the tree.
I'm currently don't see the point of doing a loop as the total skill point is too low and too many garbage skills are in the way to T5. The skill in all 3 trees apart from combat is equally important and it's impossible to complete a certain tree individually. Unless the level cap is raised to 20 then I will think about completing at least one skill set.

This didn't end up happening for the moment. As you may be able to see from the above picture I went a different direction and instead implemented a dual specialization route within each attribute tree - at least to a point. I also made it possible to avoid any permanent skills while maxing one side of any tree (and therefore allowing easier looping or early specializing). I'm hoping this will end up being interesting.

In general I have several ideas I want to try out for a variety of skills.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on May 06, 2021, 11:11:39 AM
Changes seem fine, but be careful with the big straight damage bonuses and indirect damage bonuses like the rate of fire one. There's a lot of ways to get bonus damage in the skill trees now and they could potentially stack up to be *really* unbalancing.

I'd also be wary of rate of fire boosts without an equal flux discount because it makes judging the vents/caps balancing much harder in the design phase. In fact, for AO, I'd cut all flux cost discounts that aren't ship system based altogether, just so the "a salvo costs x flux" tooltips stay accurate (and stay a viable balancing lever).

You could go for a full skill overhaul for AO and I would be down for it too. For example you could - if possible - move all the non-combat economy skills to their own skill line which is fully unlocked by default but to get the bonuses you have to elite the skills. Effectively turning story points into a full non-combat currency while skill points are a combat currency.

It's a Total Conversion, there's no need to stick closely to the existing skill design.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 07, 2021, 02:32:01 AM
Changes seem fine, but be careful with the big straight damage bonuses and indirect damage bonuses like the rate of fire one. There's a lot of ways to get bonus damage in the skill trees now and they could potentially stack up to be *really* unbalancing.

I'd also be wary of rate of fire boosts without an equal flux discount because it makes judging the vents/caps balancing much harder in the design phase. In fact, for AO, I'd cut all flux cost discounts that aren't ship system based altogether, just so the "a salvo costs x flux" tooltips stay accurate (and stay a viable balancing lever).

Good points and I've been keeping this kind of thing in mind as I test. So far I've only tested small-scale with frigates. I've focused on flagship damage with skill builds and this flagship:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Mu0BS9k.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/hRI9W7j.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/oWjBann.png)
[close]

 - I feel like these mostly represent flagship and officer builds with damage in mind (in early and lategame alike) and the flagship itself has both energy and ballistic weapons from Weapon Schematics Mastery. I've tested against most frigates and destroyers with various variants. I focused on direct damage bonuses and in the lategame max level build the 100% CR that also increases damage alongside other stats.

What I've found so far is that the first build (representing a mid game flagship/officer build) makes it a lot easier to deal with ships that have slightly higher DP - either at the same hullsize or one above.

The max flagship/officer build essentially allows the ship to punch one hullsize above an unofficered hull (or about double DP) from what I've seen. I've only tested small scale so far though.

Quote
You could go for a full skill overhaul for AO and I would be down for it too. For example you could - if possible - move all the non-combat economy skills to their own skill line which is fully unlocked by default but to get the bonuses you have to elite the skills. Effectively turning story points into a full non-combat currency while skill points are a combat currency.

It's a Total Conversion, there's no need to stick closely to the existing skill design.

I like this idea in general and I think it would likely solve some of the skill complaints as a whole. I'm not sure that it's possible though or at the very least it's more than I want to get into at the moment. Changing the values and thresholds is already a fair amount of work.

I may extrapolate on this later though after the first implementation. For now, I want to see what the initial pass feels like.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: BreenBB on May 14, 2021, 01:08:02 AM
About Automated Skills, how about make Guardian also capturable unlike vanilla? It kinda OP, although I liked it, I personally make it capturable, but again, this skill have only one benefit, Radiant, rest of remnant ships might be useful, but they don't overshadow human ships, and derelict drones are just useless, and in vanilla it shared position with more useful skill which can make whole fleet more powerful, and again, your mod have your own balance, you can just tone down it a bit for player use :)

About skill tree, on one of your screenshot you selected multiple skills in Combat line, interesting, do you remove mutually exclusive skills and now its possible to choose both skills in same position? If yes then I like it, I liked skill system in 0.9.1a more where it had no mutually exclusive skills.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on May 14, 2021, 03:41:49 PM
You can select both skills in vanilla too - once you get to the last skill you can go through the same line again picking the other options.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Radicaljack on May 14, 2021, 09:00:18 PM
That's probably the part of it I find the worst to be honest.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 15, 2021, 11:40:22 AM
About Automated Skills, how about make Guardian also capturable unlike vanilla? It kinda OP, although I liked it, I personally make it capturable, but again, this skill have only one benefit, Radiant, rest of remnant ships might be useful, but they don't overshadow human ships, and derelict drones are just useless, and in vanilla it shared position with more useful skill which can make whole fleet more powerful, and again, your mod have your own balance, you can just tone down it a bit for player use :)

About skill tree, on one of your screenshot you selected multiple skills in Combat line, interesting, do you remove mutually exclusive skills and now its possible to choose both skills in same position? If yes then I like it, I liked skill system in 0.9.1a more where it had no mutually exclusive skills.

Currently Automated Ships competes with Phase Mastery at Tech tier 5. So both are powerful bonuses but if the player isn't flying a phase ship as their flagship then Automated Ships is the obvious choice. I'm throwing around the idea of giving a secondary effect to Phase Mastery unrelated to phase ships to make it a bit more of a meaningful choice.

The Guardian is probably too powerful for a player ship. In this mod it spawns a large number of derelict drones over time, has even more powerful stats than the Radiant, and has the same ship system.

Maybe as a setting that defaults to off - but I'm not 100% sure how to approach doing that as I'm a little unfamiliar with how the code works there.

You can select both skills in vanilla too - once you get to the last skill you can go through the same line again picking the other options.

Yeah this is what you're seeing, BreenBB. I just wrapped around Combat in the screenshot to get the most flagship boosts possible.

Btw DatonKallandor I tested cruisers a bit with a max player skills and unlike frigates it doesn't quite double the DP effectiveness. It's more like 50-60% additional effectiveness - which I find sort of interesting actually.

The Apogee with a decent loadout can take on any battlecruiser and can give an Onslaught a run for its money - but still can't take on higher DP capitals. (This is under player control where I kite away when Combat Capacitors is active or otherwise the Apogee probably won't win. Side note: Combat Capacitors now additionally reduces armor damage taken and increases armor mitigation while active. The AI won't suicide with it as much now.)

That's probably the part of it I find the worst to be honest.

I'm not certain as I haven't gone all the way down the code rabbit hole for skills, but I think that part is hard coded since it involves the UI.

Are you a fan of the branching tree system that others have been taking about in suggestions? Something more like Pre-Mists of Pandaria World of Warcraft? Diablo II would be another example.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 18, 2021, 04:29:13 PM
Progress Update:

I found a good use for High Scatter Amplifier in the mod. It now increases beam armor penetration significantly at the cost of beams generating a bit more flux per fire. The new hullmod is still unlocked by tacking Weapon Schematics Mastery. I've added the hullmod to a bunch of the npc variants to help level out some builds that were previously very weak to heavily armored ships.

It's definitely a powerful hullmod, but after playtesting with a variety of builds it doesn't seem terribly OP or a must-have for beam builds. The additional flux per fire can really hurt builds using Phase Beams, for instance, if the target ship is able to tank the beams on shields. And while Phase Beams are already fairly effective armor breakers, installing the hullmod and scoring a hit on a target with its shields down melts the armor almost immediately on most ships.

If it proves to be too powerful after beta testers get their hands on it, I will increase the flux cost penalty and that should do the trick.

Pics for demonstration:

Hullmod Description
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/z8OfNck.png)
[close]

Normal hit on armor without the hullmod
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/n7hCuoP.png)
[close]

Boosted hit on armor with the hullmod installed
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Alqvxfs.png)
[close]

Side sweep hit on armor with the hullmod installed
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/2KCQe1W.png)
[close]



I've also tested the carrier skills small scale and I'm very pleased with the overall results. Specializing heavily in carrier skills noticeably increases the performance per strike no matter if the carrier is using bombers, gunships, fighters or interceptors. And small-scale carrier groups with full fleet bonuses replenish their craft very quickly and hit very hard if they also have a carrier officer.

The good news for players is that afaik officers cannot take fleet bonuses like Tactical Formations (correct me if I'm wrong on this and npc fleets can do this) so it's going to provide a boost that only the player can take advantage of. It should make the playstyle pretty unique I think.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on May 19, 2021, 01:36:03 AM
The hullmod description could use better phrasing like "Beam weapons that generate hard flux (highlight text) deal 50% additional/extra damage to armor" and we should already understand most of it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: BreenBB on May 19, 2021, 03:59:48 AM
The Guardian is probably too powerful for a player ship. In this mod it spawns a large number of derelict drones over time, has even more powerful stats than the Radiant, and has the same ship system.

I just personally not fan off things in games when NPCs have stuff what player can't have for some reasons, take for example first Half-Life and Half-Life 2, in first game player have access even for alien organic weapons, while in HL2 arsenal is both very scarce, and it has NPC only stuff, like Alyx SMG and emplacement Sniper Rifle in Episode 2 which player can't use despite they looks really cool.

So I liked ability to be capturable just for that reason, especially its looks strange for lore perspective, why one specific drone can't be captured at all, its looks logical for Omega drones, because they are something what no one saw before, while these Guardians appear both as keepers for Cryosleepers and appear in bounties, again as idea how make them not absurdly overpowered, you disable that drone spawning, make a bit toned down stats in player-captured version, and explain it in description like it is some battle damage which no one know how to repair.

And in late game you already capable of destroying pretty much, you already need to be strong enough to defeat it in first place, and enemy ships in vanilla not always recoverable even with story points.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: th3boodlebot on May 19, 2021, 01:40:58 PM
not to bother anyone but is this m,od getting an update for 9.5?

curious for purposes of a playthrough
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on May 19, 2021, 02:18:31 PM
not to bother anyone but is this m,od getting an update for 9.5?

curious for purposes of a playthrough

Yeah the mod author is working on it.  Will release a test version first and then handle flavor text and other non-functional updates in a later release.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 19, 2021, 04:26:01 PM
The hullmod description could use better phrasing like "Beam weapons that generate hard flux (highlight text) deal 50% additional/extra damage to armor" and we should already understand most of it.

Yeah I was being too wordy. I need to try to remember to be concise with those kinds of things. Anyway this should be a bit better. I also highlight what type of flux is dealt in the weapon tooltip now for every beam just to make it extra clear:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/EnIPkEd.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/33iUjjZ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Z4wtHIl.png)
[close]



I just personally not fan off things in games when NPCs have stuff what player can't have for some reasons, take for example first Half-Life and Half-Life 2, in first game player have access even for alien organic weapons, while in HL2 arsenal is both very scarce, and it has NPC only stuff, like Alyx SMG and emplacement Sniper Rifle in Episode 2 which player can't use despite they looks really cool.

So I liked ability to be capturable just for that reason, especially its looks strange for lore perspective, why one specific drone can't be captured at all, its looks logical for Omega drones, because they are something what no one saw before, while these Guardians appear both as keepers for Cryosleepers and appear in bounties, again as idea how make them not absurdly overpowered, you disable that drone spawning, make a bit toned down stats in player-captured version, and explain it in description like it is some battle damage which no one know how to repair.

And in late game you already capable of destroying pretty much, you already need to be strong enough to defeat it in first place, and enemy ships in vanilla not always recoverable even with story points.

Fair enough, it will be pretty easy to make this a setting and so I will do so. It's really just using code to add a tag if the setting is on - so not a lot of work. You will still need to take the Automated Ships skill to do this though.



not to bother anyone but is this m,od getting an update for 9.5?

curious for purposes of a playthrough

Yeah the mod author is working on it.  Will release a test version first and then handle flavor text and other non-functional updates in a later release.

No bother at all. Yup I'm pretty close now I just need to clean up skills and do some campaign tests (which might prompt a bit more work we'll see). I'm not necessarily shooting for 100% bug free since it will be a beta, but I at least want to take care of the lower hanging fruit first.

I also want to see how easy it is to implement the Shard's circle firing behavior because that would work perfectly with many of the tank-like gunships.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: beyondfubar on May 21, 2021, 01:37:37 PM
Best mod ever Thanks!

Can't wait to try the new version you eluded to there, good luck!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 21, 2021, 08:18:45 PM
^ Thanks I appreciate it!  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: SonnaBanana on May 26, 2021, 09:13:29 AM
Can we see more changes to skills, please?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 26, 2021, 12:24:10 PM
Can we see more changes to skills, please?

As in you would like to see more of what I'm currently doing with skills (screenshots, etc) or you want me to change skills more than I already have? (I haven't showcased everything I'm doing and I'm also not done thinking about changes. Some things I'm still in limbo about as far as them being worth the back-end hassle.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: SonnaBanana on May 26, 2021, 11:04:33 PM
Can we see more changes to skills, please?

As in you would like to see more of what I'm currently doing with skills (screenshots, etc) or you want me to change skills more than I already have? (I haven't showcased everything I'm doing and I'm also not done thinking about changes. Some things I'm still in limbo about as far as them being worth the back-end hassle.)
Just screenshots
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on May 27, 2021, 03:36:38 PM
Just screenshots

Sure. Here are most of the combat skills as they currently are implemented. I still haven't changed Missile Specialization but I'm fairly certain I know what I am going to do with it. Fpr one thing, 100% additional missile storage is waaaay too good for this mod. Fire rate is also underwhelming in most cases. I'll probably make the storage component 50% and part of the elite version and provide a small bonus to missile damage (like 20%) for the elite version as well. Systems Expertise seems like it will be fine considering how powerful some of the ship systems are. The only thing I might do is move some some of bonuses to the elite version and possibly move the elite bonus down to the normal version.

(Just be aware I'm leaving this evening for a 3 day camping/kayaking trip so I won't be on here. I'll respond to any feedback when I return.  :) )

Helmsmanship:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/YbXWLi2.png)
[close]

Damage Control: (In Combat not Industry and competes with Flux Modulation so it needs to be fairly strong.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/dsw4Pv5.png)
[close]

Point Defense: (The hullmod unlocked by the Elite version is very, very useful for support builds. Npc fleets use it too.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/4Vb0vWG.png)
[close]

Target Analysis:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/t3G78sv.png)
[close]

Strike Commander: (I may have already shown this but I don't quite remember.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/yBYWrGF.png)
[close]

Ranged Specialization: (Might make the Elite version better. Still deciding on a good bonus that's not too overpowered though.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/GXztBjc.png)
[close]

Impact Mitigation: (I'm going to make the armor calculation bonus scale with hullsize like Helmsmanship. Just haven't gotten to it. And might make the Elite version more interesting.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/KZwLBwI.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on June 04, 2021, 05:41:38 PM
No pressure or anything.

But I still havent played the new update solely because I'm waiting for this mod to update.

Excited for the release, keep at it.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 05, 2021, 04:09:38 PM
No pressure or anything.

But I still havent played the new update solely because I'm waiting for this mod to update.

Excited for the release, keep at it.

Thanks and I am slowly but surely making progress. Some recent skill changes:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/RObItE0.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/r2HnAci.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/O7PwAEU.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Fesa78U.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/6iaEe5G.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/p9EQZwU.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/stM9zXW.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/u77f6Tp.png)
[close]

I want to look at Shield Modulation's elite bonus and make a couple changes to EW and CM. Then I need to do something with industry as far as combat bonuses at the end of the tree. Not sure what to do with Derelict Contingent yet for instance.

Finally, I am making skill thresholds able to adjusted in the mod settings file. I have a feeling its going to be hard to satisfy everyone with any one threshold.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 07, 2021, 03:12:37 AM
Quote
Not sure what to do with Derelict Contingent yet for instance.
How about bringing back the D-mods supply cost reduction.


Having a fleet-wide buff on combat tree is a great idea. I'm about to suggest that myself but I want to look at your update first. As for T5 combat, I think a chunky fleet-wide boost would be enticing. All T5s have to be able to lure players into putting points in their respective tree one way or another.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: SonnaBanana on June 07, 2021, 05:55:14 AM
If I may nitpick a little, can you reduce the fleet/marine bonuses from elite Combat skills?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 07, 2021, 02:13:52 PM
Quote
Not sure what to do with Derelict Contingent yet for instance.
How about bringing back the D-mods supply cost reduction.


Having a fleet-wide buff on combat tree is a great idea. I'm about to suggest that myself but I want to look at your update first. As for T5 combat, I think a chunky fleet-wide boost would be enticing. All T5s have to be able to lure players into putting points in their respective tree one way or another.

That's definitely an option yeah. My only concern is that I'd ideally I'd like it to be good through late game though. Is that benefit still useful at the high level colony stage? It doesn't reduce DP it really only saves on supplies/money afaik.

As far as combat T5 yeah I'm considering something like that. I'm probably going to move missile specialization down a tier, reduce its effectiveness a bit, and put Shield Modulation at T5 since I'd imagine few players wouldn't take that skill. That also puts specialization skills in a linear path which is a goal of the skill system overhaul. It lets the player avoid specializations while you wrap around a tree if they want to and gives them the option to skip them altogether and choose a couple low tier skills of other trees if they want.

If I may nitpick a little, can you reduce the fleet/marine bonuses from elite Combat skills?

Sure what value would feel better? 20%?

Keep in mind that I reduced the bonus to that stat that you get from Ground Operations so the max bonus the player can get stays the same. I'm definitely trying to keep DatonKallandor's advice about overall power creep in mind. That's why I am trying to not buff the same thing when I add additional effects to skills. So far, things feel pretty good but I haven't tested some of the most recent changes yet.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 07, 2021, 10:47:38 PM
Quote
That's definitely an option yeah. My only concern is that I'd ideally I'd like it to be good through late game though. Is that benefit still useful at the high level colony stage? It doesn't reduce DP it really only saves on supplies/money afaik.

It wouldn't have to last the entire game unless you can think of some elite version that may be worth it. We can reallocate that point afterward when the benefit is minimized. It would fit as a low-tier starter boost, assuming that you place it in T1. As for the elite version, maybe, increases rescued crew post salvage or maybe allow the player to capture derelict domain ships included that Guardian that someone wants as for AI core or crew pilot, it has to be decided later.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: BreenBB on June 07, 2021, 11:10:01 PM
Also about skills, interesting, how about idea making skill thresholds configurable? I really want to see ability to reduce CR penalty from drone ships, because only overperformer you can get is Radiant, and Guardian if it can be made recorable, but rest of Remnant drone ships in vanilla are on par with human High Tech ships, in player hands, i'm not speaking about Derelict drones, which currently have no use.

Also about skill changes, one of things what I didn't liked in 095a is Helmsmanship zero-flux speed bust, in player hands in can be more useful, but in AI hands it will be never used, because they can't shut off all weapons and shield and simply try catch enemy, it will always have PD weapons activated, and even one small machinegun is enough just to disable this speed boost, and this already made combat in the game a slugfest, since slow ships often get kited with faster ones, and that actually made myself completely switch to High Tech ships. I thing is good idea is simply bring Zero Flux bonus from 091, like Quality Captains did.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 08, 2021, 05:43:52 AM
Zero-Flux speed boost works differently in Archean Order anyway, so that's not really an issue. Both because it's not a 0-flux speed boost and also because there's lots of options for no-flux weaponry.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: SonnaBanana on June 08, 2021, 09:26:47 AM

If I may nitpick a little, can you reduce the fleet/marine bonuses from elite Combat skills?

Sure what value would feel better? 20%?

Keep in mind that I reduced the bonus to that stat that you get from Ground Operations so the max bonus the player can get stays the same. I'm definitely trying to keep DatonKallandor's advice about overall power creep in mind. That's why I am trying to not buff the same thing when I add additional effects to skills. So far, things feel pretty good but I haven't tested some of the most recent changes yet.
It's more about making sure that they'll provide less than the real skills from L/T/I which are supposed to be the main sources of those fleet/marine bonuses than setting specific values.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 08, 2021, 02:54:21 PM
It wouldn't have to last the entire game unless you can think of some elite version that may be worth it. We can reallocate that point afterward when the benefit is minimized. It would fit as a low-tier starter boost, assuming that you place it in T1. As for the elite version, maybe, increases rescued crew post salvage or maybe allow the player to capture derelict domain ships included that Guardian that someone wants as for AI core or crew pilot, it has to be decided later.
It may come down to that, but if I can find something attractive enough for late game for DC I'd rather do that than have the skill as an early benefit then throwaway. As far is it being T1, personally I think the skills that increase salvage/reduce fuel costs would be a better early game boon than reduced deployment costs for D-modded ships. In my mind D-mods only really become a problem once you are no longer fighting pirates. In that sense, reducing the impact of D-mods at a higher tier makes it more likely to solidify as an actual playstyle late game. Especially when considering some of the other elite benefits from skills like EW and CM which I will showcase after responding to everyone.

That said, I'll play around with it today and find something that feels right.

Also about skills, interesting, how about idea making skill thresholds configurable?
Yes this is planned. All thresholds will be configurable in the mod's setting file if possible. If you really want to, you can even set them so high that they don't exist in practice - though of course that will make the game much easier or, much harder, depending upon the enemy NPC admiral.  ;D

Zero-Flux speed boost works differently in Archean Order anyway, so that's not really an issue. Both because it's not a 0-flux speed boost and also because there's lots of options for no-flux weaponry.
Right all ships get the 0-flux boost up to something like 10% max flux iirc, and frigates get the boost up to something like 35% max flux. PD weapons and some assault weapons are flux free. So it is entirely possible to build a skirmisher kind of ship that maintains the boost most of the time.

As far as Helmsmanship, the real meat of the skill is the base speed boost. It is pretty sizable when you have the elite version of the skill. (For reference, most capitals have a base speed of around 10-15. Elite Helmsmanship increases a capital's speed by 16!)

It's more about making sure that they'll provide less than the real skills from L/T/I which are supposed to be the main sources of those fleet/marine bonuses than setting specific values.
Well, Technology doesn't have campaign boosts beyond T1 unless you count Automated Ships as a campaign boost. It's mostly combat boosts in that tree like Combat itself. The idea was to also give Combat a couple specific campaign boosts that make sense in a combat-oriented skill line.

Leadership and Industry are the primary campaign boosting skill lines, and they remain so. While 50% of the marine effectiveness bonus from Ground Operations was moved to Combat, that skill now reduces survey costs as well so it provides a broader benefit to help the explorer playstyle. You can also get the full bonus 1 skill point earlier since GO is no longer T5 but T2 in Leadership. I did that intentionally so that a player can focus on raiding small targets early on if they wish. 2 points in either Combat or Leadership grants 50% raiding effectiveness but Leadership provides more/different campaign boosts on top of that while Combat obviously provides combat boosts.

Generally, I've set skills up so that a player can focus on either campaign boosts or hefty combat bonuses in one pass of Leadership without having to wrap around the skill line to get them all. That was a specific goal of the rework just like moving specialization bonuses to higher tiers so that they can be avoided if a player isn't using that ship type.

Industry is a bit trickier, but the player can get most of the campaign bonuses and avoid D-mod skills if they want to and if they take the colony bonuses and wrap around the skill line they can get them all with 6 points. Then they can either take more campaign bonuses in other skill lines or take their pick of the various combat bonuses. I've made it possible to avoid permanent skills while maxing any skill line.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that a player isn't going to spec into Combat for the campaign bonuses by any means. They are pretty paltry compared to the stuff in Leadership and Industry. Hopefully this helps to explain my thought process a bit.



EW and CM: (The NPC fleet admirals cannot get the elite version btw so this is strictly for the player's benefit and stemmed from various skill discussions on the forums.)

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/M19o63E.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/9dmtnLK.png)
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Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: code99 on June 09, 2021, 09:00:27 PM
Boy cant want to play with this once you update it :)

I recently just got back to Starsector after a 1-2 year hiatus and downloaded a bunch of mods to play with and im loving it.

I've been reading on this thread and so far i like what i saw, cant wait to try this out!

Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 10, 2021, 03:17:06 PM
Boy cant want to play with this once you update it :)

I recently just got back to Starsector after a 1-2 year hiatus and downloaded a bunch of mods to play with and im loving it.

I've been reading on this thread and so far i like what i saw, cant wait to try this out!

Thank you! :) I'm excited to play it myself once I get the beta out there.



Blog-post-esque time!  ;D

Ok, so I think I like what I have now as far as some key Industry perks to make that skill line more competitive with the rest of them. Technology is, I think, completely done. The only thing I might do is give some elite bonuses to the skills that lack them. I'm honestly not sure if that is necessary though. It is just kind of nice, imo, if most if not all skills have an elite version. Still, Technology is already a very powerful skill line after the elites for CW and EW were added in. Hmm...

Anyway, back to Industry. First things first, here is Derelict Contingent. As it was in Vanilla it is pretty much agreed upon that it was too strong. So I took away its primary strength which was the hull damage negation. I don't want to make the skill go from really strong to "meh I don't even care now" though. That can be difficult to avoid, so I decided to keep its overall power but shift it a bit towards the campaign instead of pure combat buffs: (You will likely also notice that I cleaned up the icons for moved skills to make them look more like their skill lines.)

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/SWa1sya.png)
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One of the things that is annoying about losing ships is that your variant is broken and you lose what could potentially be very valuable weapons and fighter wings (read as all strike craft for clarity's sake). If the theme of one side of Industry is d-modded fleets and losing ships more often, then it makes sense to remove this annoyance as part of that particular play style. It is a very strong perk, however, so it definitely needs to be the elite bonus. To make the skill strong even when its not elite I kept the CR bonus in the basic version. Since the elite version also unlocks Shield Shunt, the minimum armor bonus to unshielded ships makes the most sense in the elite version as well.

Going back to the idea of d-mods and their combat impact, I thought it would be a good idea to bring back the reduced d-mod effect perk for Industry. It just didn't make sense in DC. So where to put it? Field Repairs seemed like a good place:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/zN80nwK.png)
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This adds a much needed combat boost alongside the powerful campaign benefits in the Industry line. That should make up for the combat loss from the new DC a bit, without RNG making d-modded ships nigh invincible.

Notice how the elite version contains the d-mod removal (this was not trivial to do actually) and that is very, very much intended. Here is the reasoning: if you get a lot of combat and campaign benefits from d-mods and now their effects are also mitigated a bit, some players actually might not want to remove them so they retain the full benefit of their perks! Making that mechanic contained in the elite version lets players max the tree without being forced to take d-mod removal. If they still want to slowly remove D-mods and have less of them overall, then they still have the option to do so for the cost of a story point. I think this is the best of both worlds for an industry player.

Finally, we have the capstone T5 skills. This "blog post" is only focusing on the combat/d-mod side of the skill line, so in this case it would be Special Modifications:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/0AaPqSG.png)
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Part of what makes Industry unique in the rework is the ability to drastically alter how you build a ship. Special Modifications is the natural T5 skill for this and it was already quite strong. It was, however, somewhat limited in usefulness depending upon how much you were willing to invest Story Points into extra S-mods. For this reason, I made it even stronger. Industry needed the love anyway. Time to bring back the max OP bonus from the days of old! It makes sense here specifically because the standard version of the skill increases the amount of potential OP that the player can invest in a build through the additional vents and caps. The elite version naturally should make it easier to take advantage of the standard perk.

Since the skill is now in Industry, it also makes sense to give the elite version a small-ish campaign bonus. An extra Logistics Hullmod seemed perfect both in the theme of the skill line (unique loadouts) and as a way to use the extra OP that the player now has at his or her disposal for campaign benefits instead of strictly combat.

That's all for today. I haven't gotten to the Colony side of the Industry line yet, but I'd expect those skills (and their elite versions) to be equally as powerful - if more campaign focused and less combat focused. I am overall very pleased with Industry as a skill line. It seems a lot more versatile in the types of playstyles it supports while keeping its theme iconic.

Feedback/concerns is - as always - most welcome.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on June 10, 2021, 03:40:06 PM
I really like the changes to the T5 skill, that makes it much more appealing.  You may have a hard time balancing out the opposing option for that!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 10, 2021, 05:11:58 PM
I really like the changes to the T5 skill, that makes it much more appealing.  You may have a hard time balancing out the opposing option for that!

Glad you like it so far. And yeah it's definitely possible that it will be difficult to match that one depending upon playstyle but I have an idea for a pretty powerful bonus for Colony Management too. We'll see how it pans out though or if its even possible.  :-X
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: AlienCheekClapper on June 10, 2021, 09:24:51 PM
Bro I love the new ship designs in this mod. So simply said great work. Would it be possible to have just the ships and not the rebalanced part? I want to use the ships in Nexerellin but ships in Archeon order kind of stomp on vanilla ships. So maybe give a vanilla friendly ship pack? I don't know too much about modding but that would be great.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 11, 2021, 02:54:43 AM
I really like the reworked Field Repairs. Putting the d-mod removal behind the elite is a great way to let people choose if they want to run with lots of d-mods or no d-mods.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 11, 2021, 12:21:42 PM
Bro I love the new ship designs in this mod. So simply said great work. Would it be possible to have just the ships and not the rebalanced part? I want to use the ships in Nexerellin but ships in Archeon order kind of stomp on vanilla ships. So maybe give a vanilla friendly ship pack? I don't know too much about modding but that would be great.

This has been requested before and I am definitely open to this kind of thing. It would have to be after some of the other projects like Fleet Dialogue are completed however, so it may be a while. Apologies!

By "vanilla" ships do you mean other mod ships? Vanilla ships have been adjusted in the TC to be balanced unless you are playing the mod with changed settings that allow the original vanilla ships and weapons to be available. If that is the case, keep in mind that you can change those settings mid-campaign and the mod should actively remove them if you want a more balanced Nex experience.

If you meant mod ships, then yeah my hands are tied until I can create a mod-friendly balanced ship/weapon pack. Because those designs are built around the TC, it is not really a trivial thing to do.

Which ships are your favorite? I can start building a priority list and maybe even work on it in small increments during the times I'm bored from TC work. (Though no promises there because I've been teasing Fleet Dialogue for far too long as it is and that is a huge undertaking.)

I really like the reworked Field Repairs. Putting the d-mod removal behind the elite is a great way to let people choose if they want to run with lots of d-mods or no d-mods.

Thanks I think Industry will be a very interesting and hopefully fun skill line to spec into now. It's hard to beat the novelty of Automated Ships, but I hope this at least comes close.



3 Skill Reworks for today:

Missile Specialization:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/7SF8qlX.png)
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Auxiliary Support is no more - it is now Command Experience: (Just caught that I need to change the descriptions scope - it should read "all officered ships -including flagship")
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/bxnNi4Q.png)
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The effects of Auxiliary Support still exist, however, they are now in Salvaging along with its normal effects:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/sKSSdJY.png)
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Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 12, 2021, 10:33:11 AM
Personally I don't think 50% is a good number for missile capacity increases. I think it's much cleaner to use 100%, because then the player knows exactly how many missiles they'll get without having to do rounding and knowing how 50% interacts with stuff like single missiles.

Also, the missile capacity part of missile spec always felt like a band-aid to fix the limited ammo nature of missiles in vanilla anyway - I don't think it's even necessary for AO. Something uniquely AO like "reduced flux cost of missiles" would be more interesting.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 12, 2021, 03:50:14 PM
Personally I don't think 50% is a good number for missile capacity increases. I think it's much cleaner to use 100%, because then the player knows exactly how many missiles they'll get without having to do rounding and knowing how 50% interacts with stuff like single missiles.

Also, the missile capacity part of missile spec always felt like a band-aid to fix the limited ammo nature of missiles in vanilla anyway - I don't think it's even necessary for AO. Something uniquely AO like "reduced flux cost of missiles" would be more interesting.

Yeah its definitely not ideal its just that 100% is way, way too much. It makes PD basically worthless when so many missiles saturate the ship. (And that's before the hullmod increases it further.)

Hmm, I think I can do reduced flux costs. I agree that it would be more interesting overall. It wouldn't really help short ranged missiles since they generally don't cost flux to begin with, but the additional damage and speed/hit points would make a big difference there so it would likely work out anyway.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 12, 2021, 10:19:35 PM
Missile Specialization at T5 is kind of meh. If it unlocks a special hull mod exclusively might be more interesting.

As for 900% Militarized Subsystems, I would want a new Trader Guild's ship line for that to work.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 15, 2021, 02:25:15 PM
Missile Specialization at T5 is kind of meh. If it unlocks a special hull mod exclusively might be more interesting.

As for 900% Militarized Subsystems, I would want a new Trader Guild's ship line for that to work.

I've been thinking about it for a couple of days and I think I have something pretty interesting and powerful to make Missile Spec worth T5. It just depends upon if I can get it to work or not. Though then I'll probably need to create some kind of special buff for its competing skill haha the cycle continues... :D

As far as MS, I have been tossing around the idea of letting combat freighters benefit either from the skill or from those hullmods. That alone would would give Trader Guilds, Luddic Church, Independents and Scavengers some flavor since they tend to use more combat freighters than other factions.

That being said, Trader Guilds could certainly use some unique ships and the combat freighter theme could be leveraged to a greater extent with completely new ships (which would also take advantage of that perk/those hullmods). Hmm yeah definitely something to think about more as I finish skills. That could be very flavorful and it fits perfectly with the established lore.



Very close to being done with skills now. I have to see about officer skills' elites in Leadership and Combat T5 and that's about it. Industry is done and should definitely make an Industry playthrough interesting and different from the others. Generally Industry campaign buffs revolve around loot and credits while Leadership campaign buffs revolve around defense against enemy factions and more effective combat-oriented campaign features.

Crew Training:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/bJjOkPe.png)
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Space Operations:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/U1gQ132.png)
[close]

Makeshift Equipment:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/VnmZStR.png)
[close]

Industrial Planning:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/NaYKi10.png)
[close]

Colony Management:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/QqV91Tu.png)
[close]


*EDIT*

Missile Specialization at T5 is kind of meh. If it unlocks a special hull mod exclusively might be more interesting.

I definitely think I have Combat T5 sorted out to be as attractive as the other skill lines now:

Missile Specialization:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/kncAccd.png)
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Systems Expertise: (Shield Modulation is now T4 again alongside Damage Control. I think these are now good enough competitors to warrant it.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Po1L9P0.png)
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Shield Modulation: (I'll explain why I'm showcasing this further down.)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/4ss8Vsb.png)
[close]

Notice the elite versions and that they unlock hullmods. Specifically: Concentrated Shields, Safety Overrides and a new hullmod - Corrosive Warheads. Just like Localized Amplifier from Weapon Schematics Mastery, these 3 hullmods can only be unlocked by taking the elite versions of these skills. Yup, that's right, Safety Overrides is much, much more difficult to acquire than before.

All of the the four forementioned hullmods are very powerful and drastically change what a ship loadout is capable of. It makes sense then that they should be locked behind skills rather than market RNG. It also has the benefit of helping the skill system meet one of its key goals: skills lines create unique play-throughs and create a diverse set of playstyle options. This just further solidifies that design imo.

Ok, so what does Corrosive Warheads actually do? The name does kind of give it away:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/jKjEdqg.png)
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Keep in mind that the numbers are not finalized. As of this moment, the hullmod is far more beneficial when combined with smaller, more numerous missile weapons like the Swarmer, Trebuchet and Annihilator launchers. Considering that I feel like these weapons might be less used than the heavier hitting torpedoes or larger rockets like the Shockwave, I may just keep it that way.

The important thing to note is that while the particle cloud is not particularly large, it does penetrate shields if the hit was close to armor when the shields were impacted. That alone might be worth it even for torpedo builds.

Here is a few screenshots of the hullmod's effects in action:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/IfdLZPJ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/rKrtVp9.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KBoHJt0.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Uy3CQYU.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/r1N46BO.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/aGkgceE.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/fK2Ap8z.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 16, 2021, 07:27:05 AM
Really cool skill ideas. I especially like locking the big hullmods away behind high tier skills/elites. Through-shield-armor damage should be alright, since it'll primarily benefit small low damage per shot missiles anyway and those need the help. I assume the extra damage is armor-only like the new Breach SRMs?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Flying Dice on June 16, 2021, 04:56:51 PM
I hate to be that guy, but in the hullmod tooltip the spelling is meant to be "disperse".

Really cool skill ideas. I especially like locking the big hullmods away behind high tier skills/elites. Through-shield-armor damage should be alright, since it'll primarily benefit small low damage per shot missiles anyway and those need the help.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 16, 2021, 07:05:23 PM
Really cool skill ideas. I especially like locking the big hullmods away behind high tier skills/elites. Through-shield-armor damage should be alright, since it'll primarily benefit small low damage per shot missiles anyway and those need the help. I assume the extra damage is armor-only like the new Breach SRMs?

Correct it only damages armor. As you say, it helps small saturation missiles really shine and pairs well with gunship and fighter assaults since they can deal damage to the hull more directly far more quickly. Conversely, it also makes the Widow better at taking down heavy gunships or at least weakening them.

However, I did change it so that missiles that deal 1000 damage or more per hit deal double the armor damage over time and have double the radius of effect. It's not enough to make the hullmod better with torpedoes or anything since the damage (200 over 3 seconds for a torp) is low by comparison to the hit damage itself, but from an intuitive standpoint it feels better and helps to emphasize the shield piercing component for ships with shields farther away from the armor.

I've also utilized some of the new missile AI hints from the last update to better balance missiles as a whole. For one, Shockstorm rockets, Harpoons and Trebuchets will no longer attempt to weave on their way to the target. That caused way too many near hits and was frustrating. Now they only miss if aimed improperly or if the target is especially nimble.

For the Hivemind, Widow, Atropos, Breach, Swarmer, Rapier and possibly a couple of others, the missiles will spread out over the target rather than concentrating on the center of the ship. This was an attempt at indirectly nerfing the anti-armor capabilities or otherwise nerfing armor performance for some of those missiles. For the dedicated anti-armor ones like the Breach and Atropos, it buffs their performance by allowing them to strip greater swaths of armor on the target - leaving it more vulnerable to kinetics and strike craft than before.

As a further side-effect of the changes, missiles that spread out are less vulnerable to PD beams and to a lesser extent aoe pd like flak.

I hate to be that guy, but in the hullmod tooltip the spelling is meant to be "disperse".

Thanks I've corrected that! I appreciate anyone pointing out grammatical/spelling errors. I won't always be able to get to them right away depending upon how many there are, but I still want to know about them.



So I decided that just making HE missiles better feels... off for a skill that is supposed to be about all missiles. As a result, I've added another unique hullmod: Ionized Warheads (For the sake of UI space, ECCM has been moved to EW)

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/zrNn8ds.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/FaW5FeU.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/9I0ZHwC.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/xOMaqYG.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/5k6qtwP.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/XPSUimP.png)
[close]

I will definitely spend some time integrating these hullmods into a few npc variants to increase the challenge variety for the player. I can also potentially make them built-in to dedicated missile ships as a balancing mechanism.

In general, the hullmods are not mutually exclusive and both can be equipped or S-modded simultaneously into a single ship.

Phew! That was a fair amount of work for a single skill, but I think it was definitely worth it for the flavor it brings to Combat T5. Luckily Safety Overrides was already unique and powerful enough to make it a good competitor - especially if the player is running a fleet with ships that don't have many missile slots.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 17, 2021, 08:21:04 AM
Quote
So I decided that just making HE missiles better feels... off for a skill that is supposed to be about all missiles. As a result, I've added another unique hullmod: Ionized Warheads (For the sake of UI space, ECCM has been moved to EW)

About to comment that if it only works for explosive missiles. I'm a bit concerned. Will it mess with some of the AI? I believe, the high-tech ships really dislike damage to armor and hull, will it going to retreat even if its flux is still low and shield intact.


The elite versions of those colony skills are very very massive. 20% ship quality, that already better than the rubbish nanoforge. +1 industry slot for governed colonies, would be a bit exploity if I just switch myself around while there is still penalty for exceeding industry cap. My point is, all these good stuff, elite version upgrades have to be worth more than 1 story point. By mid-game I would have 20-30 story points laying around, so, at this rate, I want to be able to elite no more than half of my available skills by that time. I would suggest 3-4 points per 1 elite skill.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: DatonKallandor on June 17, 2021, 10:27:03 AM
The +1 industry skill is permanent, so you can't respec out of it.

There's plenty of story point sinks already, there's no reason to make skills arbitrarily cost more.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 17, 2021, 03:06:04 PM
About to comment that if it only works for explosive missiles. I'm a bit concerned. Will it mess with some of the AI? I believe, the high-tech ships really dislike damage to armor and hull, will it going to retreat even if its flux is still low and shield intact.


The elite versions of those colony skills are very very massive. 20% ship quality, that already better than the rubbish nanoforge. +1 industry slot for governed colonies, would be a bit exploity if I just switch myself around while there is still penalty for exceeding industry cap. My point is, all these good stuff, elite version upgrades have to be worth more than 1 story point. By mid-game I would have 20-30 story points laying around, so, at this rate, I want to be able to elite no more than half of my available skills by that time. I would suggest 3-4 points per 1 elite skill.

From what I have gathered while testing, the AI seem unaffected by the changes to missiles. While the hullmods are certainly powerful - especially to smaller ships atm - they aren't powerful enough, for instance, that a Crucible can suddenly take on ships it couldn't before. A Havok still beats it easily even when player controlled. With good micro it can now defeat a Wolverine, but I had less than 20% hull remaining and was pretty lucky.

What it can do is both last longer and do a better job of stripping down the enemy ship's defenses. Essentially it makes it a better support ship without directly increasing its combat power.

Re: elite skills

They are intended to be pretty powerful. The way I think of it is if you are going for colony buffs as a Leadership player, you can skip a few corners that you otherwise couldn't. As an example, the 20% fleet quality means that you might get away with a Corrupted Nanoforge instead of a Pristine one for that playthrough simply because you took elite Space Operations. That is going to be sorely missed the next playthrough when you go Combat, but then you get these really nice hullmods you didn't have access to before and that is its own kind of fun. I am also most certainly keeping Nex games in mind for these kinds of things. The 4x component of that mod means that campaign boosts are a bit more meaningful and the choice would be harder between a robust player faction and a very powerful player fleet. The trade offs are more severe in either case when you take that into consideration.

As far as additional Story Point costs, I'm not sure that's even possible to do. The cost-benefit for Story Points is indeed off in places as far as I'm concerned, but since it is such a new system and I'm not sure how moddable it even is atm, it is not something I want to tackle right now.

If in the future there are more ways to mod it that I'm not currently aware of, then I may take a look at balancing it then. I definitely get what you are saying as far as 1 story point to disengage cleanly or avoid a cargo scan != 1 story point for 20% fleet quality at 3 colonies or 1 extra S-mod and 10% OP, etc, etc. But, as DatonKallandor already pointed out, there are so many uses for them that there will probably be enough scarcity that it will be ok. Even without Special Modifications it would still take 60 points to S-mod your entire fleet - though you wouldn't necessarily need to do that of course.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 18, 2021, 03:47:38 AM
The +1 industry skill is permanent, so you can't respec out of it.

There's plenty of story point sinks already, there's no reason to make skills arbitrarily cost more.

The permanent part was not the point here. Since the skill only affects "governed colonies only" which is 3, I can still move my main character around to give all of my colonies extra industry. If it works that way.

I'm not sure about everyone else but I really have 30 story points that I don't know what to do with before pouring half of it into S-mod by mid-game. I consider S-mod to be extremely cheesy to vanilla campaign before I have to fight more cheaty fleets of REDACTED. And by having Elite skill the moment you can unlock the skill defeats its purpose somewhat and require no planning since it's the obvious choice to make. Just my opinion.

Quote
As far as additional Story Point costs, I'm not sure that's even possible to do. The cost-benefit for Story Points is indeed off in places as far as I'm concerned, but since it is such a new system and I'm not sure how moddable it even is atm, it is not something I want to tackle right now.

If in the future there are more ways to mod it that I'm not currently aware of, then I may take a look at balancing it then. I definitely get what you are saying as far as 1 story point to disengage cleanly or avoid a cargo scan != 1 story point for 20% fleet quality at 3 colonies or 1 extra S-mod and 10% OP, etc, etc. But, as DatonKallandor already pointed out, there are so many uses for them that there will probably be enough scarcity that it will be ok. Even without Special Modifications it would still take 60 points to S-mod your entire fleet - though you wouldn't necessarily need to do that of course.

That's fine. I'm not rushing you or anything.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 18, 2021, 01:06:01 PM
The permanent part was not the point here. Since the skill only affects "governed colonies only" which is 3, I can still move my main character around to give all of my colonies extra industry. If it works that way.

Bahaha *facepalm* yeah that was definitely an oversight on my part! Well, I think that can be solved by a script that checks for industries being over the limit at any given player colony level, and then applying a hefty stability/income penalty if that is the case.

If I get that implemented then the skill won't even need to be permanent I'd think.

Quote
I'm not sure about everyone else but I really have 30 story points that I don't know what to do with before pouring half of it into S-mod by mid-game. I consider S-mod to be extremely cheesy to vanilla campaign before I have to fight more cheaty fleets of REDACTED. And by having Elite skill the moment you can unlock the skill defeats its purpose somewhat and require no planning since it's the obvious choice to make. Just my opinion.

That's one of the reasons that I wanted more elite versions of skills - to somewhat tax story point acquisition while adding cool effects. One thing I can probably look at here is the experience amount to gain a point. That might be an easy band-aid should it prove necessary. I haven't really tested that part though so I don't really have an opinion about it yet.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 18, 2021, 08:51:09 PM
Very quick minor update:

 - I changed Corrosive Warheads to not cause additional damage with heavy hitting warheads. Additional effect radius was enough and additional damage started to go back to favoring torps too much. As it is, torps and such are better at penetrating shields because of the radius, but direct hits by rockets and smaller missiles cause a lot more damage over time. I also increased the duration to 10 seconds so the effect is more visible, but damage is the same per hit. (100)

- I put the militarized package hullmods and the elite benefit to them back on Command Experience and removed the 3 additional contacts (was really just a way to save two story points anyway) and the +50% combat readiness recovery per day. It still retains the always recoverable and -50% threshold for when malfunctions start to occur bonuses.

- For Salvaging, the elite bonus is now +50% additional salvage from Tech Mining. The skill is now permanent upon selection to avoid exploits.

- Related to Assault Package and Escort Package, all combat freighters and civilian conversions now have Militarized Subsystems built-in. Most npc loadouts will utilize either of the two package upgrades on those ships so that NPC admirals that have Elite Command Experience will boost their combat freighters and conversions by a large amount. Who knows, maybe the Buffalo MkII will actually be scary now!  :o
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Prince Starfy on June 19, 2021, 05:03:52 PM
I know this sounds really rude and shows a lack of patience on my part, but when is the earliest you think you can get this mod up to date. Archean Order is one of my favorite mods and it being ready for .95 would be a dream come true, especially given my lack of info on another favorite of mine, Vayra's Sector.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 19, 2021, 05:30:20 PM
I know this sounds really rude and shows a lack of patience on my part, but when is the earliest you think you can get this mod up to date. Archean Order is one of my favorite mods and it being ready for .95 would be a dream come true, especially given my lack of info on another favorite of mine, Vayra's Sector.

Welcome to the forums!

Its ok I know, I know, I'm taking forever. There are a lot of subtle things to configure with the new update to prevent bugs/unintended behavior and skills have been a lot of work. Let's see:

Skills are done with the exception of ensuring some skills aren't allowed for NPCs and a bug I likely just found (logged on just to post about it actually) that may require a bit of a workaround to solve, I need to balance the new REDACTED weapons and the Champion, I need to create/adjust the Fury variants, and I need to add the new ids to the overrides spreadsheet. (Ah damn and I need to create the thresholds settings! Sigh almost forgot.)

I suppose I can skip integrating the new hullmods into a bunch of variants as that will be pretty time consuming and I've already started a bit at least.

If I really plug away at it, I'd estimate under a week. Then I can do a micro update with the variants, etc, before starting on the descriptions.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Prince Starfy on June 19, 2021, 07:06:10 PM
Thanks for the info! The reason I even asked for an update on the update is because of the lack of other mods being updated and certain games (Halo: Infinite and S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2) either not having confirmed released dates or being released next year. This means that there is a lack of games I'm interested in that are already out that I haven't completed. In other words, I'm anxiously waiting for your update since I consider Archean Order an Expansion Pack sized mod that my computer can actually has a chance of running (unlike Halo: Infinite and S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2).

Also, maybe you've answered this before, will you be expanded upon the dialogue and mission systems like the base game did. Something like a meeting with the Barons of the Adamantine Consortium (my favorite faction) or being able to influence the politics of the Order itself to turn against the Consortium and the other major factions (without using agents)? I would personally love if the Traders could dip their hands into the League and either absorb/annex it as a faction or get absorbed.

Also Also, have you heard of the Arma Armatura mod?

Also Also Also, will you be able to stop Order Fleets from getting sucked into the black hole? The Kadur Remnant has a problem with this and the Order did as well from what I remember.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 19, 2021, 08:41:57 PM
@Prince Starfy

I definitely have plans to extend dialogue and create unique encounters, yes. There is a lot to do first, but its something I've been excited to do for a long time. There is a lot of story still up in my head and now that there is a mission framework in place it will hopefully make it a lot easier to implement. As far as specifics,  :-X  (Though there are a bunch of easter eggs that hint at things in the campaign.)

Also I won't lie I wouldn't expect major story elements anytime soon as there is a lot of technical stuff to clean up first - partly to prepare for that sort of thing. That being said, it is certainly on my list of things I really want to do.

I've looked at the Arma Armatura mod's main page and it looks very impressive! The arm animations are an especially nice touch and really sell the mech vibe.

I'm not sure if I can stop fleets from getting sucked into black holes or not. To be fair, though, I've never actually tried to directly affect npc fleet behavior so it may very well be possible. Its something I'll take a look at eventually but its fairly low on the priority list compared to other things. (Like story stuff.)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Albreo on June 21, 2021, 09:58:05 PM
Quote
Bahaha *facepalm* yeah that was definitely an oversight on my part! Well, I think that can be solved by a script that checks for industries being over the limit at any given player colony level, and then applying a hefty stability/income penalty if that is the case.

If I get that implemented then the skill won't even need to be permanent I'd think.

Alex already has some penalty in stock for exceeding the industry cap with his energy shunt. I believe, an upkeep pernalty.

Quote
I'm not sure if I can stop fleets from getting sucked into black holes or not. To be fair, though, I've never actually tried to directly affect npc fleet behavior so it may very well be possible. Its something I'll take a look at eventually but its fairly low on the priority list compared to other things. (Like story stuff.)

A workaround that I have suggested before, came from another mod, which is to replace a normal star with a blackhole texture. Sadly, a fleet that stalks you seem to have the capability to avoid blackhole build-in but not the normal patrol/roaming fleet. Not sure if anything has been changed since.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 22, 2021, 04:58:08 AM
Spoiler
@Prince Starfy

I definitely have plans to extend dialogue and create unique encounters, yes. There is a lot to do first, but its something I've been excited to do for a long time. There is a lot of story still up in my head and now that there is a mission framework in place it will hopefully make it a lot easier to implement. As far as specifics,  :-X  (Though there are a bunch of easter eggs that hint at things in the campaign.)

Also I won't lie I wouldn't expect major story elements anytime soon as there is a lot of technical stuff to clean up first - partly to prepare for that sort of thing. That being said, it is certainly on my list of things I really want to do.

I've looked at the Arma Armatura mod's main page and it looks very impressive! The arm animations are an especially nice touch and really sell the mech vibe.

I'm not sure if I can stop fleets from getting sucked into black holes or not. To be fair, though, I've never actually tried to directly affect npc fleet behavior so it may very well be possible. Its something I'll take a look at eventually but its fairly low on the priority list compared to other things. (Like story stuff.)
[close]

i apologize for being that guy......but does all of this mean an update to 95?
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 22, 2021, 07:31:41 PM
Re: Update

Should be a few days, yeah.

Alex already has some penalty in stock for exceeding the industry cap with his energy shunt. I believe, an upkeep pernalty.
Hmm, ok. Would it be enough of a penalty?

Quote
A workaround that I have suggested before, came from another mod, which is to replace a normal star with a blackhole texture. Sadly, a fleet that stalks you seem to have the capability to avoid blackhole build-in but not the normal patrol/roaming fleet. Not sure if anything has been changed since.
It was like that before, but its really weird if the player goes into it and nothing happens. Either way immersion is somewhat broken. What I'd rather do eventually is give patrols the same avoidance behavior that other fleets have.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: SonnaBanana on June 22, 2021, 08:27:00 PM
Re: Update

Should be a few days, yeah.

Alex already has some penalty in stock for exceeding the industry cap with his energy shunt. I believe, an upkeep pernalty.
Hmm, ok. Would it be enough of a penalty?

Quote
A workaround that I have suggested before, came from another mod, which is to replace a normal star with a blackhole texture. Sadly, a fleet that stalks you seem to have the capability to avoid blackhole build-in but not the normal patrol/roaming fleet. Not sure if anything has been changed since.
It was like that before, but its really weird if the player goes into it and nothing happens. Either way immersion is somewhat broken. What I'd rather do eventually is give patrols the same avoidance behavior that other fleets have.
Not upkeep, the default penalty is -5 stability according to the config file.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 23, 2021, 01:06:01 PM
Not upkeep, the default penalty is -5 stability according to the config file.

Ah that is more what I was thinking as well. Excellent that will save me some time for sure!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 08:39:54 AM
Finishing up skill thresholds and then I'm likely releasing the .95 Beta later today.

I'll update here when its been uploaded.
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Prince Starfy on June 26, 2021, 08:50:43 AM
YES!!!!
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: Darrow on June 26, 2021, 11:44:46 AM
Finishing up skill thresholds and then I'm likely releasing the .95 Beta later today.

I'll update here when its been uploaded.

I can finally play Starsector again since it's latest release lol.

Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 11:58:20 AM
The 0.95a beta is now available on the main mod page!

Have fun and please report any issues on this thread.  :)
Title: Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20
Post by: capshades on June 26, 2021, 01:53:06 PM
Finishing up skill thresholds and then I'm likely releasing the .95 Beta later today.

I'll update here when its been uploaded.

I can finally play Starsector again since it's latest release lol.

Same for me lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Hench on June 26, 2021, 02:36:39 PM
The 0.95a beta is now available on the main mod page!

Have fun and please report any issues on this thread.  :)

I’m getting error 404 when I try to download the beta mod
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 02:42:20 PM
I’m getting error 404 when I try to download the beta mod

Anyone else getting this? I just checked the download and it works for me - but I'm the account owner of the repository. Just in case it is a dropbox issue, does anyone know of a good file host without a size limit?

Patreon has a 300mb limit and the mod is too large for that, and Github only lets you upload 100 files at a time so that's out for a quick mirror.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Hench on June 26, 2021, 02:54:42 PM
See if you could put it on nexus mods
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Marco on June 26, 2021, 03:03:11 PM
I’m getting error 404 when I try to download the beta mod

Anyone else getting this? I just checked the download and it works for me - but I'm the account owner of the repository. Just in case it is a dropbox issue, does anyone know of a good file host without a size limit?

Patreon has a 300mb limit and the mod is too large for that, and Github only lets you upload 100 files at a time so that's out for a quick mirror.

I'm getting 404'd too.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 26, 2021, 03:16:21 PM
I’m getting error 404 when I try to download the beta mod

Anyone else getting this? I just checked the download and it works for me - but I'm the account owner of the repository. Just in case it is a dropbox issue, does anyone know of a good file host without a size limit?

Patreon has a 300mb limit and the mod is too large for that, and Github only lets you upload 100 files at a time so that's out for a quick mirror.

I'm getting 404'd too.



same =/
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 26, 2021, 03:16:41 PM
same 404 error here.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 03:45:21 PM
Sigh its looks like a bandwidth issue with dropbox most likely... what crap it only supports 20G of downloads now??  >:( So if 40 people view/download then it breaks the link...

They only have bots for support too which just links back to articles I've already read so there isn't any real technical support.

I'm probably going to have to re-host which is very annoying. I'm not sure how to host on Nexus Mods so I'll have to either figure that out or go with something else.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: capshades on June 26, 2021, 03:50:58 PM
Maybe google drive?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 04:36:19 PM
Got it up on Nexus Mods. DL has been updated.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 26, 2021, 05:16:45 PM
Awesome.

A number of weapon tooltips appear inaccurate, but it looks like you noted that already.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 05:25:47 PM
Awesome.

A number of weapon tooltips appear inaccurate, but it looks like you noted that already.

Yeah that will be addressed before the "official" update along with a few other minor details. I'll probably wait for 0.95.1a to release that as a vanilla market bug makes faction ships way too easy to get atm so I'll want that to be fixed first.

I didn't test the story with the mod either, so hopefully that will go smoothly.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 26, 2021, 07:22:25 PM
There are no Drams to be found anywhere, and the Militarized ship market tends to only have 1 or 2 civilian ships.

Also, using Nex, if you chose a random ship, it can result in a disabled vanilla ship with disabled vanilla weapons.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 07:37:42 PM
There are no Drams to be found anywhere, and the Militarized ship market tends to only have 1 or 2 civilian ships.

Also, using Nex, if you chose a random ship, it can result in a disabled vanilla ship with disabled vanilla weapons.

The military market thing is a known vanilla bug with the tag that limits hulls to the military market. It instead does the opposite and so the markets are bare of ships. This should be fixed for 0.95.1a.

What do you mean by "chose a random ship"? Under what context? As in the Nex starting options? Or something that Nex does in-campaign like a contact reward? There could be new configuration features that I'm unaware of.

The Dram issue is probably just bad luck. They aren't particularly rare iirc. It could possibly be that vanilla code adds them to markets by ID at a new game start - which could potentially cause an issue early on. But they should show up eventually through standard market additions. When I started a new game during my campaign tests I saw a few at the markets I visited. There were far more Phaetons though for w.e reason.

If you choose a faction start then I think I give a Dram as part of the starting fleet.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 26, 2021, 07:48:55 PM
Nex's starting fleets, where you choose from a list of possible shipsets. I can't seem to reproduce it with just Nex and Archean, so probably another mod. If I get it again I'll try to figure out cause.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2021, 08:14:56 PM
Nex's starting fleets, where you choose from a list of possible shipsets. I can't seem to reproduce it with just Nex and Archean, so probably another mod. If I get it again I'll try to figure out cause.

Appreciated. I know the AO configuration merges with existing Nex configuration, so I can't completely remove access to vanilla ships from the starting options (last I checked) so its possible another mod with higher priority is adding things that would take precedence.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: MrDrops on June 26, 2021, 08:27:33 PM
I only got into modding with the 0.95 release so I'm excited to see a new version! Can you upload the tactical manual as a download on the nexus page as well? Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 27, 2021, 12:19:25 AM
I only got into modding with the 0.95 release so I'm excited to see a new version! Can you upload the tactical manual as a download on the nexus page as well? Thanks!

Thanks! When the new version of the tactics manual is ready I will upload it there and flesh out the mod page. I want to wait until it is current as opposed to being years old when so much of the mod has changed from the initial release.

That is part of the reason why I released the new version as a beta in the first place. I have been building upon previous design ideas and I want to reflect that in the manual's info. That, and the shear number of changes obsoleted the manual long ago.

I'm also honestly concerned as to why Dropbox randomly prevented link sharing out of the blue. It's very weird that I was denied sharing capability without so much as an explanation other than a generic "Action not allowed" error when recreating the link. (From research into the matter I'm assuming bandwidth limits, but apparently it could also be a link sharing ban?? - though I can't confirm this because the free version has 0 support options... if this is a paywall thing then at least it makes sense.)

Anyway, if I'm doing something wrong I want to know about it before continuing to release the mod as is. It's incredibly frustrating that I'm getting no information as to why I can no longer create a link to the directory in the repository. (Yes I checked my email for any related reports and there is nothing. The F.A.Q said I would receive an email if it was ban related so *shrug* but I want to be sure if I can. I'm trying to do my due diligence on this matter.)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 27, 2021, 10:12:50 AM
Phew! I found out that the dropbox links were indeed disabled due to too much bandwidth in a day and not because of anything nefarious like a hack adding unintended malware or anything like that. Alright that makes me feel better!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 27, 2021, 11:27:55 AM
incredibly stoked to doa runthrough in anticipation of a lets play in the future!

im currently learning my movie maker software and trying to make a decent pilot episode that essentially is a "hey this is starsector im going to run though it" sort of affair

i will try to include footage from this beta as well, hopefully without making a video that is too long

my goal is somewhere around 20 minutes per episode, perhaps longer


besides all that my download is nearly finished, and since im toasted from the gym i think ill just chill the rest of the afternoon with your creation. thanks again!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on June 27, 2021, 11:56:39 AM
I played for some time with latest Nexerelin, Industrial Evolution, DIY Planets, and some utility mods, but got broken save, which crashes on load:
Spoiler
136100 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.util.ConcurrentModificationException
java.util.ConcurrentModificationException
   at java.util.ArrayList$Itr.checkForComodification(Unknown Source)
   at java.util.ArrayList$Itr.next(Unknown Source)
   at data.scripts.overrides.markets.AOSystemMarketManager.removeOverriddenShips(AOSystemMarketManager.java:507)
   at data.scripts.overrides.markets.AOSystemMarketManager.scrubAllMarkets(AOSystemMarketManager.java:113)
   at data.scripts.ArcheusModPlugin.onGameLoad(ArcheusModPlugin.java:113)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.o0oO.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.LoadGameDialog.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.E.I.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

I think this will be useful. In 0.9.1. version as I remember Archean Order was compatible with such mods which doesn't add new ships and weapons.

About mod ideas, interesting in what way you plan expand the mod? About my suggestion, I think good idea make more ships for Science Faction and Trader Guild, so they can become full fledged faction like Archean or Adamantine factions, with own ship line and unique weapons. For Trader Guild I think is good idea is unique logistic ships and combat ships with good cargo or fuel capacity, as for style, I think something like this is good style for them: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21717.0

Also I liked bounty changes in Vayra Sector, sadly it still isn't updated, and I'm not sure what it is compatible with AO, where bounties not always on pirates, but also for other factions too, and of course unique bounties also good idea, I'd like to see something like that. Also in vanilla game there is not much difference between hostile and vengeful relation, I think is good idea when player become vengeful with one of faction, it starts put bounty on player head occasionally.

If I don't mistake you also plan a new story line, interesting what do you planning? About quests in general, I found long quests with tons of text being not very enjoyable, like vanilla Galatia quest, when I plated for second time I skipped all that walls of text, I personally prefer some unique but short quests, like Sierra quest from Arsenal Expansion. Also about quests in somewhat similar games, Space Rangers while being 2d turn based space game have text quests, they was also basically wall of text with chooses, but done in more interesting way, being more complex had alot of illustrations and often very different outcomes, like you can just fail or die in that quest.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 27, 2021, 12:53:55 PM
thats an odd crash

are you by chnce using random sector with nex?
industrial evolution crashes with that option currently, afaik

i stopped using rando sector and no issues

im also using those mods as well as many utility mods, and have had no issues

with that being said, can confirm arma mod is compatible and my aleste docked successfully with a pillager!
looking forward to the extreme challenge that this mod will add to being a fighter pilot  8)



also it would be really cool if you set up mercenaries to work with archean order (new feature in nexerelin)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on June 27, 2021, 01:07:49 PM
No random sector, I played alot with Random Sector, but not this time, never encountered this bug.

Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 27, 2021, 03:25:17 PM
Thanks for the error that helps. I'm working on the crash now I think I know what causes it. The fix should be save compatible as well and I'll go ahead and release the balance changes I've been working on and a new large ballistic weapon. (Probably obvious what it will be XP.)

I buffed the Conquest and Executor very slightly. A little better shield efficiency and flux dissipation.

I also heavily buffed the Trapdoor Mine launcher. It should actually do its job now.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 27, 2021, 04:28:07 PM
The fix is up. Should be save compatible.

@BreenBB
If you don't mind, assuming the fix works, can you send me your log file after the save loads?

It was trying to actively remove vanilla ships from a market/markets and assuming you didn't mess with settings earlier they shouldn't have been there to begin with. I just want to take a look and see which ships were removed and from where.

Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Jackie on June 27, 2021, 11:32:07 PM
really stoked and excited for archean order's update to 0.95 now
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on June 28, 2021, 01:08:16 AM
Fix works, here log file: https://easyupload.io/gdk7q4
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: wasara on June 28, 2021, 12:56:09 PM
Heads up, including militarized subsystems to the atlas MKII and the colossus MK III hull makes it so that the crew required to run the ship is more than the maximum amount of crew the ship can hold. (before D mods!)


Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 28, 2021, 02:58:57 PM
Fix works, here log file: https://easyupload.io/gdk7q4

Thank you I'll take a look at the file! Glad the fix worked!  :)

*EDIT*
Found it:
45774 [Thread-3] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.markets.AOSystemMarketManager  - Checking: ena - for any overridden ships.
45774 [Thread-3] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.markets.AOSystemMarketManager  - Removing: ena --- open_market --- overridden ships...
45775 [Thread-3] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.markets.AOSystemMarketManager  - Removed -- buffalo -- from ena
 
 - Looks like a pesky vanilla buffalo got into Ena's market somehow! I checked the logs and the Sci-Corps don't know the hull and it should have the no_drop,no_sell,no_drop_salvage tags regardless... that's incredibly strange! Maybe it was added through a hardcoded id by something?? Oh well its gone now at least.

Known ships log:
45759 [Thread-3] INFO  data.scripts.overrides.AOVanillaOverridesManager  - Current known ships for: scicorps - [archean_shrike, archean_odyssey, archean_wolf, archean_omen, archean_fury, archean_epiphany, archean_templar, archean_apogee, archean_mercury, archean_buffalo_scicorps, archean_astral]

Heads up, including militarized subsystems to the atlas MKII and the colossus MK III hull makes it so that the crew required to run the ship is more than the maximum amount of crew the ship can hold. (before D mods!)

Ah thanks I removed the additional crew requirement for the next update. It effected a lot of ships that now have that hullmod built-in.

really stoked and excited for archean order's update to 0.95 now

Have fun and please report any issues you may find!  :)



Regarding some earlier questions/suggestions:

TG and Sci-Corps:

Yes I definitely plan to give them some more unique stuff. For TG, it will be combat freighters and a lot of their admirals will have Command Experience as one of their skills. Its both thematic and makes them fairly unique to play or fight against.

Sci-Corps will get some unique smaller ships and they exclusively have access to the Odyssey and Apogee. They already have a few unique weapons based around ion tech and several unique wings including a legendary wing. I also plan to give them exclusive access to the Clouburst legendary missile system - so I'd expect a missile cruiser or maybe light missile battlecruiser to support that. I'd expect that ship to also have built-in Ionized Warheads.  ;)

Unique Bounties:

This is something I have been wanting to do, I just haven't gotten around to it. I honestly want to add some boss encounters as well, but those will probably be time consuming to implement. As far as Vayra's Sector goes, it depends upon what the mod does as a whole and whether or not that will hurt the overall TC experience. I've heard of people running that mod alongside this one in the past, however, but my knowledge of its features is lacking.

Nex Mercenaries:

I'll take a look and see about config options for this. Its been a while since I checked them out.

Story/Quests

Apologies, but I'd expect a lot of quests to be narrative-driven and have a lot of text. I happen to enjoy story telling, sorry! I'm sure some won't necessarily be long though. A lot also depends upon the implementation methods - which I haven't had a chance to look at yet. I also need to fully complete the vanilla story line in order to get ideas of how to integrate any story I write into that narrative. I don't want to do things that will interfere with or break the immersion of the established lore. Its meant to supplement it.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 28, 2021, 04:42:11 PM
excited about the coming updates!

a personal wishlist for me: really just one thing; frigates/corvettes that can dock at (perhaps only dedicated) carriers!  ones that could flank and pose a serious threat to even the most impressive capitals

a low tech made to flank and hit ships where the shields arent

a midline that can burst around quickly with one big gun

a high tech that can do some kind of crazy something

et cetera

ANYWAY im more than happy with it the way it is and even if you dont get around to playing with the "pilotable fighters" idea i love your creation
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Darrow on June 28, 2021, 05:08:00 PM
Story/Quests

Apologies, but I'd expect a lot of quests to be narrative-driven and have a lot of text. I happen to enjoy story telling, sorry! I'm sure some won't necessarily be long though. A lot also depends upon the implementation methods - which I haven't had a chance to look at yet. I also need to fully complete the vanilla story line in order to get ideas of how to integrate any story I write into that narrative. I don't want to do things that will interfere with or break the immersion of the established lore. Its meant to supplement it.

I was under the impression the vanilla storyline/quests were already in Archean and there were additional ones added as well?
Has the new story content/quest content been completely removed in the mod?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 28, 2021, 05:40:24 PM
I was under the impression the vanilla storyline/quests were already in Archean and there were additional ones added as well?
Has the new story content/quest content been completely removed in the mod?

Sorry by "complete" I meant play but yeah that was kind of unclear. I started it during a vanilla run but I haven't finished it. But the story should be in the mod yes, I just haven't tested it yet. There aren't any additional ones added though. Just fleet dialogue interactions and market interactions/descriptions.

(Though I just realized I don't think I addressed the story ship for the mod balance and it probably has vanilla weapons/stats. Darn it! I'll look into that next. ::) The endgame content has been addressed though and should be very difficult I'd imagine.)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 28, 2021, 05:55:07 PM
My Apogee class cruiser was able to equip "ITU" system despite having a built in "Advanced Targeting Core", which claims to proclude it.
There are a lot of tooltip errors, and I am unsure if you want me to report them, but that one looks like an actual bug, because I thought that was vanilla.

What do Warship bays do exactly? It gives no numbers, and I have to guess that, given tech level indicator, it specifically cuts the OP cost of that tech level of fighter, as a themed limiter thing. But that is a guess.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 28, 2021, 09:39:57 PM
My Apogee class cruiser was able to equip "ITU" system despite having a built in "Advanced Targeting Core", which claims to proclude it.
There are a lot of tooltip errors, and I am unsure if you want me to report them, but that one looks like an actual bug, because I thought that was vanilla.

What do Warship bays do exactly? It gives no numbers, and I have to guess that, given tech level indicator, it specifically cuts the OP cost of that tech level of fighter, as a themed limiter thing. But that is a guess.

It's not a bug the tooltip is just wrong. As far as corrections go, if you feel like reporting them I appreciate it, but it would be more effective to create a list as you go and post it here when its sizeable. Alternatively, I can create a separate thread for it.

Warship bays reduce all fighter and interceptor costs by an amount that scales by tech level. Generally it means any tech below the current tech level is either cheap or free for interceptors and fighters. It also reduces the rate at which any equipped wing replaces new craft, and reduces the rate at which the replacement rate increases. A hullmod exclusive to warships, Expanded Deck Crew, mostly negates the replacement rate malus at the cost of OP.

Similarly, there is a mod on carriers called Carrier Bays that doubles wings' effective range and carriers also have OP discounts to weapons based on tech level. They replace craft at the standard rate.

Those are there to make warships with bays and carriers feel more like separate ship classes while retaining the thematic features of the mod. Large numbers of interceptors and anti-strike-craft fighters that the player gets from warships is also often necessary to prevent coordinated missle/bomber/gunship waves from overwhelming and oversaturating PD.

I am going to make all specialization hullmods hidden evetually, and put all the specialization bonuses into one visible hullmod that will represent that ships role/designation. That's part of the cleanup process when moving from the beta to the actual polished release - which the target is version 1.4.1.0 depending upon how many releases are necessary to squash bugs, etc.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 29, 2021, 04:34:57 PM
i apologize if youve done this and i just havent noticed, but it would be cool for some of the bounties to be "rebel fleet" with high end specific-to-the-faction gear
defector fleets

there was a mod that did this in the past, and it dynamically did this for the modded factions too (made it so bounty fleets could have any fleet composition or something to that effect) and yea had the defector fleets
i think it was vayra
anyway seems like a really cool way to keep the bounties interesting without having to do too much (maybe make a code that points to already made faction fleets; afaik thats how everything works anyway, right?  sorry i just play for now.  in the future i would like to get into coding[if i ever have time])

whenever you get around to making the boss bounties, maybe look into this and kill two birds with one code?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 29, 2021, 08:40:26 PM
The Rapier Sabot missiles have a too large fragmentation animation when they explode normally, as opposed to being shot down. Sabot missiles in vanilla, while still having fragments, have a highly visible, bright blue projectile, making it obvious if it was intercepted or not. Here, I have trouble telling.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on June 30, 2021, 12:22:47 AM
there was a mod that did this in the past, and it dynamically did this for the modded factions too (made it so bounty fleets could have any fleet composition or something to that effect) and yea had the defector fleets
i think it was vayra

About Vayra bounties, I liked not only unique bounties, (I prefer actually HWBs from Ship and Weapon pack, since number of active unique Vayra bounties is fixed, and you can't skip it if you don't want attack allied bounty fleet, you need to pick these from bar, but idea is very similar, its bounty with unique ships as reward), I liked what bounty fleets can belong to all factions, not only pirates, so you can play as pirate, and still complete bounties against their enemies.

Also in Vayra factions can put bounty on player head, Nexerelin have Vengence fleets, but they seems pretty weak, player bounties from Vayra was much more dangerous.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on June 30, 2021, 05:30:51 AM
there was a mod that did this in the past, and it dynamically did this for the modded factions too (made it so bounty fleets could have any fleet composition or something to that effect) and yea had the defector fleets
i think it was vayra

About Vayra bounties, I liked not only unique bounties, (I prefer actually HWBs from Ship and Weapon pack, since number of active unique Vayra bounties is fixed, and you can't skip it if you don't want attack allied bounty fleet, you need to pick these from bar, but idea is very similar, its bounty with unique ships as reward), I liked what bounty fleets can belong to all factions, not only pirates, so you can play as pirate, and still complete bounties against their enemies.

Also in Vayra factions can put bounty on player head, Nexerelin have Vengence fleets, but they seems pretty weak, player bounties from Vayra was much more dangerous.

i love all of those mechanics, really.

if i had to pick one though it would be dynamic bounties in which they can have a different factions (defector) or be a super powerful faction specific fleet turncoat (deserter)

so yea defectors and deserters

also figured i would share my enabled mods list to show what is compatible (no crashes so far)
Spoiler
"pantera_ANewLevel40",
  "adjustable_skill_thresholds",
  "Adjusted Sector",
  "anotherportraitpack",
  "archeus_beta",
  "armaa",
  "automatedcommands",
  "combat_docking_module",
  "timid_commissioned_hull_mods",
  "lw_console",
  "diyplanets",
  "DetailedCombatResults",
  "sun_flux_reticle",
  "gladiatorsociety",
  "GrandColonies",
  "hm_barratry",
  "hullmod_specialization",
  "sun_hyperdrive",
  "IndEvo",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "leadingPip",
  "logisticsNotifications",
  "MagicLib",
  "su_CarrierHullmod",
  "su_CarrierHullmod_Rebalance",
  "mir",
  "more_ship_names",
  "nexerelin",
  "console_overlord_additionalcommands",
  "QualityCaptains",
  "sun_ruthless_sector",
  "secretsofthefrontieralt",
  "SEEKER",
  "PT_ShipDirectionMarker",
  "simpleplayerflags",
  "solsystem",
  "speedUp",
  "sw",
  "starpocalypse",
  "sun_starship_legends",
  "stelnet",
  "timid_supply_forging",
  "trulyautomatedships",
  "US",
  "ungp",
  "UGH",
  "audio_plus",
  "shaderLib"
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on June 30, 2021, 10:27:01 AM
Lets see.

A lot of weapons can phase through allies. Not all of them, but most missiles and artillery type weapons it looks like.

A lot of the rocket/short range missiles seem to not use flux anymore, and I think a number of other weapons are the same. Tooltips not yet matching.
Annihilator, Javelin, Rapier, Swarmer. Presumably similar for medium and large missiles, but I'm not going to list them.

Smokescreen missiles. are interesting, being instant impact. Not sure, but I think they can phase through shields on occasion. I might be wrong.
I LOVE shattercell cannons, they shred missiles, and break shields easily. I think they might be too powerful given they also have good range.

Carrier's having a discount on weapons, longer fighter range, and warships having a discount on fighters, with lower fighter rebuild rate. Interesting approach, and makes sense. Encourges you to use those slots on each, but makes them feel like seriously different ships. Warships have fighters for personal or local support, and are not as much a strain on OP. Carriers are the strategic support fighter support, with the normal fighter range, fast fighter rebuild rate, and encouraged to still equip whatever weapons fit.
But, what exactly is the discount for fighters, is it limited to the same tech level, same tech level or lower, and does it work on all fighters, or just intercepters and drone, but not gunships or bombers? This should be in the tooltip, although you compiling those into a single hullmod eventually makes sense.

Updated Core systems, and presumably other hull mods are missing the % symbol for part of the description. 29 supplies and 29% supplies is a bit different.

Advanced Optics. Quite an interesting concept, and aside from being even more of a "Beam Only" hullmod than it was, is a serious sidegrade hullmod.
Localized Amplifier. Is similar. Is there a reason it increases flux cost of all beams weapons, but only buffs hard-flux ones?

On hard flux beams. YES! Love it. Makes up for no longer having shield flux cost matching dissipation like it used to be.

I think I am finally used to the Starsector's D-Mod overhaul, as I am no longer in mental pain every time I decide to use a ship with D-mod damage. Except for largest ship with drive field damage, anyway.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on June 30, 2021, 10:54:09 AM
Found bug with Archean Order military markets, they doesn't have any spaceships for sale, only civilian and black markets have their frigates and templars. Only way to buy more powerful AO spaceships its only from Nexerelin agents except to capture them from battle. Also good way to get their spaceships is Hybrasil system, since they perma hostile with Tri-Tachyon and always fight there producing derelicts. Also Nex nerfs that way of getting free spaceships, since it have vulture scavengers. In AO I noticed often bump into some big fight between two factions, which gives me some good ships, I got Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV) and some smaller ships from Hegemony raid in AO system, where they got killed, also I found getting trophy ships more fun than just bying them.

I thought what Automated Ship was also broken, since derelicts was never recoverable, checked ship_data.csv and found what only remnant ships is possible to recover, in vanilla game derelicts was completely useless, but here they appear more dangerous although still shield-less, sometimes they inflict more damage than pirates, I think is good idea make them recoverable too, it might possible to found use for them with makeshift shield generator. Also I'd liked my suggested idea of optional recoverable Guardian. Also very interesting idea for Mothership, now it also spawns frigates, it now much less of beating bag.

Also interesting, which ship loadout is good against Radiants and Brilliants? I got fleet Executor, Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV), Justicar and two Fulgents, Ordo with several Brilliants or with Radiant kills my fleet, so right now I avoid such fleets. I also enabled Ruthless Sector, which spawns Remant fleets in HyperSpace.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 30, 2021, 01:19:11 PM
*Responses spoilered to save space*

i apologize if youve done this and i just havent noticed, but it would be cool for some of the bounties to be "rebel fleet" with high end specific-to-the-faction gear
defector fleets

there was a mod that did this in the past, and it dynamically did this for the modded factions too (made it so bounty fleets could have any fleet composition or something to that effect) and yea had the defector fleets
i think it was vayra
anyway seems like a really cool way to keep the bounties interesting without having to do too much (maybe make a code that points to already made faction fleets; afaik thats how everything works anyway, right?  sorry i just play for now.  in the future i would like to get into coding[if i ever have time])

whenever you get around to making the boss bounties, maybe look into this and kill two birds with one code?

Spoiler
I *think* vanilla does this already after you kill enough pirate bounties. I remember something like this happening anyway when I was campaign testing a couple versions ago.

The problem with pointing to existing patrols and stuff like that is if they despawn it will mess with the quest or would be frustrating to the player. It would be better to create the fleet from scratch and just plop it somewhere.
[close]

The Rapier Sabot missiles have a too large fragmentation animation when they explode normally, as opposed to being shot down. Sabot missiles in vanilla, while still having fragments, have a highly visible, bright blue projectile, making it obvious if it was intercepted or not. Here, I have trouble telling.

Noted! I'll see about improving that. Shouldn't be too time consuming hopefully.

About Vayra bounties, I liked not only unique bounties, (I prefer actually HWBs from Ship and Weapon pack, since number of active unique Vayra bounties is fixed, and you can't skip it if you don't want attack allied bounty fleet, you need to pick these from bar, but idea is very similar, its bounty with unique ships as reward), I liked what bounty fleets can belong to all factions, not only pirates, so you can play as pirate, and still complete bounties against their enemies.

Also in Vayra factions can put bounty on player head, Nexerelin have Vengence fleets, but they seems pretty weak, player bounties from Vayra was much more dangerous.

Spoiler
My idea was to eventually do something along those lines (powerful faction bounty fleets with a couple of unique S-modded ships and more powerful than normal admirals) where you could possibly loot the unique ship. The admirals may even have special active abilities in a few cases. That will be a bit of ways off but I might do a one-off proof of concept or something while writing the story/quests in the future.

As far as player bounties, its something I might consider. As you say, Nex already kind of handles this and imo there are other more quest-driven ways to increase the general difficulty. Doing that kind of thing dynamically is far more involved, so, I have to consider the overall work for other things when making decisions like that. In other words, I don't want to over-promise complex features.
[close]



@Ranakastrasz
Spoiler
The pass-through on fire support/point defense weapons was added to make those specialized builds more noticeable/better in a large fleet battle. It really seems to help them compete with flux-less assault builds. In general I am hoping the weapons/ships are a lot more balance than in past versions.

The flux-free rockets and SRMs is a fairly new change so the tooltips will be wrong for most of them atm. I decided that the effectiveness of point defense made giving these weapons flux costs render them undesirable. The AI also uses them a lot more effectively when it doesn't have to worry about the flux calculation portion of when to fire. Seemed like a win-win.

Smokescreen rockets don't penetrate shields, however, their explosion radius is very large. So if a wing has omni shields that don't give 360 degree coverage, the blast can damage the craft by hitting parts that the shield isn't protecting even if the shield is directly facing the impact point. That's probably why it appears to penetrate. Flak can operate in the same way.

I will definitely better flesh out the description/numbers for carriers and warships when I begin the polish pass. For now, I'll add in the values to the description to make it more clear. Due to technical limitations with vanilla API, it is impossible to effect wings by tech level - so it is a blanket discount for all interceptors and fighters. However, OP for wings scales by tech - so the end result is that low tech gets cheap low tech options, midline gets cheap midline options and free low tech options, and high tech gets cheap high tech and free anything below that options. Bombers and Gunships are full price for OP, such that, for instance, a high tech warship can probably afford a couple low tech bombers relatively easily - but bombers or gunships at its tech level will put a bit of a strain on its weapon/hullmod options. That being said, Bombers and Gunships are very powerful so making a warship build that acts as a sort of hybrid (especially using Expanded Deck Crew) is quite possible. There are some ships, like the Eagle, whose ship system will make this strategy even more effective.

Updated Core systems is actually deprecated. For the sake of balance, I am going to make those ships that use it separate ship files altogether so I can differentiate deployment costs between the two as was originally intended. I already did this with most (XIV) ships, but there are others I haven't gotten to yet.

I really like how Advanced Optics turned out. It seems a lot more balanced than must-have than before. There is another hullmod, Integrated Defense AI, that acts kind of similarly with PD weapons. It can make PD specialized warships or carriers able to support other ships with PD fire at long range - but obviously makes their ship-ship abilities less effective and so they will need support. You can unlock it by buying/looting it, or by taking the Point Defense skill in the Combat skill line. Hard flux beams were sorely needed to improve the mod balance and I am glad I finally got that in there. The reason why Localized Amplifier effects all beams is due to technical API reasons, but luckily iirc all or most PD beams don't have flux costs to begin with - so it shouldn't make them worse to equip the hullmod.

Industry should now be a very interesting skill line if you want to use D-modded ships. It removes the vast majority of their downsides, or, alternatively, can outright remove them free of charge by taking an elite skill mid-way through it if you'd want to spend more points in other things rather than maxing the line's benefits.
[close]



Found bug with Archean Order military markets, they doesn't have any spaceships for sale, only civilian and black markets have their frigates and templars. Only way to buy more powerful AO spaceships its only from Nexerelin agents except to capture them from battle. Also good way to get their spaceships is Hybrasil system, since they perma hostile with Tri-Tachyon and always fight there producing derelicts. Also Nex nerfs that way of getting free spaceships, since it have vulture scavengers. In AO I noticed often bump into some big fight between two factions, which gives me some good ships, I got Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV) and some smaller ships from Hegemony raid in AO system, where they got killed, also I found getting trophy ships more fun than just bying them.

I thought what Automated Ship was also broken, since derelicts was never recoverable, checked ship_data.csv and found what only remnant ships is possible to recover, in vanilla game derelicts was completely useless, but here they appear more dangerous although still shield-less, sometimes they inflict more damage than pirates, I think is good idea make them recoverable too, it might possible to found use for them with makeshift shield generator. Also I'd liked my suggested idea of optional recoverable Guardian. Also very interesting idea for Mothership, now it also spawns frigates, it now much less of beating bag.

Also interesting, which ship loadout is good against Radiants and Brilliants? I got fleet Executor, Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV), Justicar and two Fulgents, Ordo with several Brilliants or with Radiant kills my fleet, so right now I avoid such fleets. I also enabled Ruthless Sector, which spawns Remant fleets in HyperSpace.
Spoiler
Re: Bug
Its a vanilla bug that should be fixed in the next vanilla update. I can technically fix it now but then I'd be doing triple work so I am leaving it alone.

Re: Derelicts
You can recover the Guardian if you go to the mod settings and set "capturableGuardian":false, to "capturableGuardian":true,

I'll see about letting Derelicts be recoverable with the skill too. That won't need a setting honestly. I'm glad the Mothership is a more interesting fight now.  ;D

Re: Radiants and Brilliants
Nice its good to know that the endgame content is as scary as it should be! You will need good weapons and builds, and high level officers/mercenaries to beat them I'd imagine. If you read the response to Ranakastrasz, I'd also recommend bringing ship builds that compliment each other. Using defensive hullmods and flux free weapons can create linebacker ships which you can support with long range support ships and high alpha-strike capable ships. Think of it like swordsmen/pikemen creating a defensive line supported by rear archers and flanking light or heavy cavalry.

Even with all of that, I'd expect to still take losses and you should bring a large fleet to provide reinforcements. Radiants in particular are very, very powerful ships that will shred through battle lines when its ship system is active. I'd suggest waiting until you have several self-sufficient colonies as money-generating platform from which to reproduce your fleets after raiding REDACTED systems before seriously attempting that kind of content.

Re: Ship Trophies
Now that there is a much wider variety of "faction-less" ships available, I am going to remove faction ship trophies at some point (probably with an optional setting that defaults to true since I know some people don't like the idea). Then faction ships will only be available on military markets and will require good reputation/commissions to require.

The other way you will be able to get them will be finding/raiding their blueprints and producing them at your colonies, or getting them through contacts.

The reason I am going this route is A) I like the sense of progression from unlocking unique, thematic ships as you get deeper into a campaign and B) as you describe it is currently way too easy to follow NPC fleets around until their is a battle and then looting the spoils without any real challenge involved except RNG. I generally don't like RNG like that and the only real exception I've made is with the blueprint system - since it varies playthroughs enough to provide a lot of replay-ability for the mod.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Sutopia on June 30, 2021, 04:29:41 PM
No doubt best total conversion. Awesome job.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on June 30, 2021, 08:20:25 PM
No doubt best total conversion. Awesome job.

Thanks!  :)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 01, 2021, 08:59:20 AM
also currently the only TC LOL

.....did you make vacuum in the past?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Darrow on July 01, 2021, 09:42:36 AM
So a few thoughts on fighters/bombers that I've had since playing the latest release.
Let me just preface this with a lot of these problems exist in vanilla and the core game itself but are significantly amplified in AO due to the increase in fighters/bombers.

One of the best draws of this mod is the increase in fighters/bombers for every ship. It makes the game much more lively in combat and adds a whole other layer to combat that doesn't devolve completely into who has the biggest ships.


However there is a huge balance issue between the later fighter/bombers and the earlier ones, specifically the ones without shields as an easy example. In addition once you reach a certain amount of strike-craft the AI (or player) just simply cannot handle the masses of them on the battlefield. By Mid-Late game I've amassed such a large amount of strike-craft that I can simply bulldoze through almost any large fleet. This is amplified by farming remnants who drop the Sparks/FlashBombers/HeavyFighters/etc which are by far the best strike craft to have on your ship.

A major obvious problem with this is simply that the AI's strikecraft cannot compete with the players advance strike-craft by Mid-Game/Late-Game. Unshielded strikecraft especially are near useless against almost all late-game strike-craft and large ships due to their chance of getting one-shot by large guns.

I believe a simple way to balance this out without a major overhaul could be done in three-ways.
1. Remove shielded strike-craft (other than gunships)
2. Add (more)dedicated point-defense ships to all faction fleet compositions.
3. Low-Tier Strikecraft (talons etc) should have such a fast respawn rate that theyre almost constantly insta-respawning.

An overhaul method that would be amazing would be to remove large-guns(medium/large slots) from being able to target/hit fighter strike-craft. This would enable unshielded and low-tier fighter craft to still operate on the battlefield without getting instantly destroyed by ships and allow them to challenge other strike-craft effectively. Furthermore, this would add a more realistic model to strike-craft as in most sci-fi (and naval) large turrets/guns cannot track or hit small strike-craft.

I've always found it odd that fighter-strike craft spend more time engaging enemy ships than they do actually defending/targeting other strike-craft. This is largely due to vanilla programming, where strike-craft can often damage larger ships and be harmed by larger ships forcing them to actively engage them. I believe only PD weaponry or smaller sized guns should be able to target and hit small fighter crafts. Ideally in my perfect vision of starsector, Fighter strikecraft should be flying in-between larger ships and actively pursuing other strike-craft to enjoy and not be actively shooting other larger ships.

This Mod is great and I really enjoy the emphasize of strikecraft. However I think a lot of people can agree that the low-tier strikecraft are near useless by mid-game and it causes huge balance issues especially for the AI by that stage.




Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: DatonKallandor on July 01, 2021, 10:19:05 AM
I'm still going through the beta testing things, but I do have on piece of feedback:
Please make the portraits a separate optional download. I like everything about Archean Order except the portaits. A good chunk of them are fine or even good, but there's some really bad duds in there that just do not fit the art style whatsoever.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 01, 2021, 10:42:59 AM
@Darrow
On larger weapons being unable to hit. I agree, that makes sense. Presumably with the exception of PD class weapons. Not actually sure if the engine can prevent you from targeting fighters outright, the way normal weapons ignore missiles, but if possible, yes.

As for fighters fighting other fighters, I actually have seen furballs form consisting of 50+ fighters all engaged with each other. Just a huge region of fighters, which are largely suicidal for frigates to enter until it clears out. Generally by attrition or PD ships engaging. Not consistently mind you, but it happens.

Fleets do need more dedicated PD ships, I agree. I don't see as many PD drones or platforms as I remember from earlier versions, unless built in.

Not sure about instant respawn for lower tier fighters. Combat ships intentionally have a low rate of spawning and fast decay and short range. I don't know if the AI respects or understands that though. Those ships are largely intended to keep those fighters on defensive, for local point defense, but launch them on suicidal attack runs and then lack an escort afterwards.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 01, 2021, 12:43:58 PM
also currently the only TC LOL

.....did you make vacuum in the past?

Haha I wasn't sure if there was something on discord I was missing.

No, I believe that was Xenoargh? But I honestly can't remember it has been too long.

I'm still going through the beta testing things, but I do have on piece of feedback:
Please make the portraits a separate optional download. I like everything about Archean Order except the portaits. A good chunk of them are fine or even good, but there's some really bad duds in there that just do not fit the art style whatsoever.

This is planned no worries. I just haven't gotten to it. It's not really trivial to do and I want to finish the bulk of the work of the beta and then tackle stuff like that. It will likely be that way before the release is finalized.



Fighter concerns:

Thanks for the feedback everyone! We are thinking along the same lines with a few things and some of the suggested changes are already implemented. Ironically, last night I did a balance pass on low tech interceptors and reduced replacement times because I agree that they fall off in usefulness once more advanced options are available and that isn't intended. I also improved a lot of the gunship performance so that more of those wings look and feel different from bombers and "Strike" (read as Helicopter-esque) gunships. The more tank-like wings should now attack at an angle using their turrets (which had a massive turn rate boost) and guided missiles and then sweep around for subsequent passes. Strike gunships still attack straight on but can use turrets to attack the rear of a ship after they pass through it. The Warthog comes to mind as an example there.

Midline is the real tricky thing here. I'm not sure if the solution is to further increase armor or... what. Maybe I could implement a custom Damper Field or something that wouldn't prevent the weapons from firing (similar to endgame foes). That would be a unique feature.

Anyway, I'd ideally like each wing to have a niche somewhere and feel different to play with. So while it feels better than it did in past versions imo, it is still a WIP.

To address Ranakastrasz's concerns, I think the solution would be to reduce those wings effective combat range even further so that they are forced to stay near the warship, and then further increase the bonus to dedicated carrier range. I originally thought to keep the range long enough to support nearby allied ships, but the AI is inconsistent about this. I know a "combat carrier" sort of tag where the AI wouldn't ever toggle "Engage" was suggested on a wing-to-wing basis, but I don't know if it was implemented or not. That would certainly help if it was and I'll look into it.

Talons and Maulers are so weak that constant spawning is probably necessary to make them viable late game, but I do worry about the AI a bit. From speaking with Alex, he says the AI should mostly ignore missile-less fighters so maybe it won't end up being a problem.

I will increase the number of dedicated PD ships in fleets that makes sense. They are set to spawn relatively less frequently than other roles atm. It would be a shame to have to remove most of the shielded craft, but its a possibility.

As far as large weapons being unable to hit, that is currently impossible in the engine afaik. I've requested this many times but Alex doesn't appear to want to do it or its far down the suggestion list. There could be some backend stuff I don't know about that makes it difficult or something like that. There are ways to have things pass through strike craft, but the damage is still dealt and so it would be pointless.

Another possible solution to help this problem would be to further increase Flak and medium/large beam PD's area of effect. I'd probably have to reduce fire rate a bit as well. I'll try a few things out today.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Darrow on July 01, 2021, 01:05:30 PM
stuff said

I believe one solution is to look at what makes fighters especially out-class its lower tier by mid/end game.

Speed and shielding primarily come to mind immediately.

Gunships might enjoy larger armor or shields but are near useless given that larger ships can hit them quite easily with their main batteries.
Where as Sparks as an example have speed and shields making them far more survivable and able to harass the enemy ships for an extended amount of time.
Personally to me, harassing is far more viable as it distracts the AI and makes their weapons focus on nimble fighters as opposed to a gunship which make get off a few volleys then die.


My suggestion since you stated some things are hardcoded and cant be changed is the following.

1. Increase speed on all strike-craft significantly, this will offset main batteries from ships being able to on-shot most fighters/bombers with larger slotted weapons.
2. Lower the damage or completely change all fighter weaponry to be deal little damage to ships and increase bomber damage to compensate.
3. Increase the tracking/rotating speed of PD weapons to compensate for faster fighters now.

This would ideally make all fighters survivability greater against larger ships, while reducing their direct damage output to ships but maintaining their ability to "harass" a ship. This would also stop a lot of silly thing like Large-slotted cannons targeting fighters easily and force the player/ai to use dedicated PD ships.

I would also suggest that shielded fighters are especially just too strong, especially late game where you can easily amass 20 strike-craft that just absolutely swarm the enemy who just don't have enough PD to output against regenerating strikecraft shields.





Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 01, 2021, 02:24:02 PM
@Darrow

Well, for one, there was a bug where the Dual Flak Cannon had 1/4 the radius it should have. That is a big deal since a lot of low tech ships use that as a primary source of PD.

Gunships are a lot better now that they strafe instead of attack directly. It also means they clump up a lot less against things like flak. They still die reasonably fast, but I'm looking at replacement times for the low tech ones and a defense mechanism of some kind for the midline ones. Flares don't really cut it.

Your suggestion regarding interceptors vs bombers has already been implemented, so at best I could emphasize it a little more. They have built in weapons that deal a lot less damage than their ship counterparts but have a built-in modifier that increases their damage to other strike craft and ships' weapons/engines.

I'll see about Gunship speed, but making them too fast will make them look silly imo.

For shields, I'll potentially lower the regen rate since weapons don't generate flux for any strike craft. Since overloading is any annoying factor at times, I may also make a built-in where they don't overload but regenerate shields very, very slowly.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: DatonKallandor on July 01, 2021, 04:16:34 PM
I don't think increasing the speed would significantly increase survivability anyway. It doesn't matter if you fly at speed 50 or at speed 400, if you're going in a straight line that large shot is still going to hit you. You'd have to make strikecraft fly in evasive patterns instead of straight to really help them dodge shots (at which point PD efficiency becomes mostly a factor of projectile velocity more than anything else).
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 01, 2021, 04:18:31 PM
I don't think increasing the speed would significantly increase survivability anyway. It doesn't matter if you fly at speed 50 or at speed 400, if you're going in a straight line that large shot is still going to hit you. You'd have to make strikecraft fly in evasive patterns instead of straight to really help them dodge shots (at which point PD efficiency becomes mostly a factor of projectile velocity more than anything else).


actually at some point i really hope alex makes a system whereby you can have elite fighter groups/officers or some skill that makes strike craft do something like this out of the box
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Darrow on July 01, 2021, 04:39:08 PM
I don't think increasing the speed would significantly increase survivability anyway. It doesn't matter if you fly at speed 50 or at speed 400, if you're going in a straight line that large shot is still going to hit you. You'd have to make strikecraft fly in evasive patterns instead of straight to really help them dodge shots (at which point PD efficiency becomes mostly a factor of projectile velocity more than anything else).

I kinda wish that larger caliber weapons would simply have a % chance to fly right through strikecraft.
This would easily simulate strikecraft dodging/moving too quickly for main batteries to effectively hit them.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 01, 2021, 05:22:13 PM
Instead of a percent, let them pierce like you said, but deal less damage, like how frigates deal more. I don't much like percentage chances, especially when there is already accuracy built into the simulation.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 01, 2021, 06:27:01 PM
It's impossible to do either unfortunately. The API doesn't support it. Changes to damage to fighters are blanket changes not weapon specific.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 01, 2021, 07:59:10 PM
It's impossible to do either unfortunately. The API doesn't support it. Changes to damage to fighters are blanket changes not weapon specific.

is it possible to program something into the weapon itself on a case by case basis?
copy and paste the code to each weapon you want to have the chance to mis?

isnt that how it works with the fire over friendly ships?
or is that a blanket code that just uses the code from missiles?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 01, 2021, 08:12:38 PM
It's impossible to do either unfortunately. The API doesn't support it. Changes to damage to fighters are blanket changes not weapon specific.

is it possible to program something into the weapon itself on a case by case basis?
copy and paste the code to each weapon you want to have the chance to mis?

isnt that how it works with the fire over friendly ships?
or is that a blanket code that just uses the code from missiles?

It is a specific collision class that fighters use that prevents friendly fire over allied craft. While I can edit individual weapons, yes, I can't (iirc) edit damage to specific target types - only the damage itself.

Anything that edits specific damage types, for instance beams, is supported by the API in the editable ship stats through uses cases that vanilla already needed and implemented. There are a few exceptions, but not many.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Darrow on July 02, 2021, 01:07:16 PM
I actually dont know if any of my initial suggestions are good ideas anymore.

I restarted a campaign and I'm using purely Low-Mid tier strikecraft and they dont dominate most fleets.

Im really thinking that late-game strikecraft are just simply too strong and buffing existing PD/adding more PD Ships would completely annihilate Low/Mid tier strikecraft.

A lot of has to do with the shielding on late-game strikecraft I think.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 02, 2021, 03:00:36 PM
Re: Ship Trophies
Now that there is a much wider variety of "faction-less" ships available, I am going to remove faction ship trophies at some point (probably with an optional setting that defaults to true since I know some people don't like the idea). Then faction ships will only be available on military markets and will require good reputation/commissions to require.

About trophies, I kinda like ability to loot them, thing is what I usually get capitals early game, I don't know maybe I simply get lucky. I have one cool idea, how to make them appear later, factions doesn't know all top tier ships on game start, and then they "research" them time by time getting stronger ships, so you don't get top tier stuff early game. Also maybe cool idea is make "research" building for colony, and research some own ships with research tree or reverse engineer hulls or weapons.

Another idea is balance these lucky trophies, is add big amount of D-Mods, so they are in pretty battled and harsh condition, if they are from NPC with NPC battle, especially if both fighting NPC fleet are neutral to player, come with big amount of D-Mods, so if you want have ship in somewhat good condition you need earn trophy by yourself.

Also another idea about remnants, how about make them act more aggressive, preferably make it as consequence of story events make them act like pirates, build own stations and attack habitated systems.

I noticed what alot of new weapons doesn't have description, also I think is good idea is tutorial with comparison of mod weapons and hints which weapons in which situation is better, but if I recall something like that is planned.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 03, 2021, 07:22:18 AM
Re: Ship Trophies
Now that there is a much wider variety of "faction-less" ships available, I am going to remove faction ship trophies at some point (probably with an optional setting that defaults to true since I know some people don't like the idea). Then faction ships will only be available on military markets and will require good reputation/commissions to require.

About trophies, I kinda like ability to loot them, thing is what I usually get capitals early game, I don't know maybe I simply get lucky. I have one cool idea, how to make them appear later, factions doesn't know all top tier ships on game start, and then they "research" them time by time getting stronger ships, so you don't get top tier stuff early game. Also maybe cool idea is make "research" building for colony, and research some own ships with research tree or reverse engineer hulls or weapons.

Another idea is balance these lucky trophies, is add big amount of D-Mods, so they are in pretty battled and harsh condition, if they are from NPC with NPC battle, especially if both fighting NPC fleet are neutral to player, come with big amount of D-Mods, so if you want have ship in somewhat good condition you need earn trophy by yourself.

Also another idea about remnants, how about make them act more aggressive, preferably make it as consequence of story events make them act like pirates, build own stations and attack habitated systems.

I noticed what alot of new weapons doesn't have description, also I think is good idea is tutorial with comparison of mod weapons and hints which weapons in which situation is better, but if I recall something like that is planned.



i cant remember what its called off had but there is a mod that makes [redacted] spawn in hyperspace perpetually
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 03, 2021, 04:25:13 PM
not sure if you know or not but escort package and assault package dont seem to work
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 03, 2021, 06:24:23 PM
I actually dont know if any of my initial suggestions are good ideas anymore.

I restarted a campaign and I'm using purely Low-Mid tier strikecraft and they dont dominate most fleets.

Im really thinking that late-game strikecraft are just simply too strong and buffing existing PD/adding more PD Ships would completely annihilate Low/Mid tier strikecraft.

A lot of has to do with the shielding on late-game strikecraft I think.

The shield changes I'm planning should help, as will the low tech wing buffs and midline system. While I want the OP cost of wings to be meaningful, I also want every wing to be useable. The changes I've made to PD are, for the most part, on the medium and large PD weapons to give them some AOE as anti-swarm options. And PD beams needed the help for missiles. The new missile hint/tag that makes missiles attempt to hit across the ship rather than one spot makes this possible without completely negating missile effectiveness.

About trophies, I kinda like ability to loot them, thing is what I usually get capitals early game, I don't know maybe I simply get lucky. I have one cool idea, how to make them appear later, factions doesn't know all top tier ships on game start, and then they "research" them time by time getting stronger ships, so you don't get top tier stuff early game. Also maybe cool idea is make "research" building for colony, and research some own ships with research tree or reverse engineer hulls or weapons.

Another idea is balance these lucky trophies, is add big amount of D-Mods, so they are in pretty battled and harsh condition, if they are from NPC with NPC battle, especially if both fighting NPC fleet are neutral to player, come with big amount of D-Mods, so if you want have ship in somewhat good condition you need earn trophy by yourself.

Also another idea about remnants, how about make them act more aggressive, preferably make it as consequence of story events make them act like pirates, build own stations and attack habitated systems.

I noticed what alot of new weapons doesn't have description, also I think is good idea is tutorial with comparison of mod weapons and hints which weapons in which situation is better, but if I recall something like that is planned.

The tutorial will be looked at when it comes time to begin story stuff. As far as the trophy ideas, that's probably too complex for me to do in the sense that my plate is already pretty full. I'd rather just lock the good stuff behind systems that I know create progression and have it be a setting than design my own system from scratch. Maybe one day if I'm feeling especially ambitious, but as I said I've already got a lot of things to do in the meantime. Sorry!

i cant remember what its called off had but there is a mod that makes [redacted] spawn in hyperspace perpetually

I think its Ruthless Sector.

not sure if you know or not but escort package and assault package dont seem to work

Ah thanks! Why on earth did I think overriding Militarized Subsystems meant I could get away with not overriding the two hulmods that depend on it??  :-[

Will be fixed for the next mico-update. I just want to finish the fighter changes first. It shouldn't take very long. Maybe by tomorrow night idk.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 03, 2021, 09:05:34 PM
Thanks! Your creation seems like it would really be possible to do a "I'm gonna use mostly civilian ships" run.

can confirm ruthless sector is what spawns the [redacted]
i have been having an issue where it seems to take longer than what ive come to expect to level up, however i just noticed upon looking at the ruthless sector page that it affects experience gain by "giving more experience for winning harder fights" as well as giving a rep gain
it actually does a lot of things that i forgot about


also, what does viceroy ambassador do?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 04, 2021, 01:11:25 PM
Thanks! Your creation seems like it would really be possible to do a "I'm gonna use mostly civilian ships" run.

I'd say civilian ships would be a little tough, but certainly combat freighters and civilian conversions can be a primary fleet component now. Previously they were subpar in combat though still useful for the logistics and in pursuit battles where the player has to flee. With the skills now they can probably be as strong as combat ships. It will also make dedicated civilian ships better at retreating.

Quote
also, what does viceroy ambassador do?

Its a placeholder atm iirc it increases hull by 20%. I want to make it have campaign benefits - preferably for trading and colonies.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Albreo on July 05, 2021, 09:35:27 AM
I'm late to the party. Oh crap.

No one noticed how crazy this is?
(https://i.ibb.co/gyKPNF4/654654321.jpg) (https://ibb.co/gyKPNF4)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 05, 2021, 10:25:19 AM
Spoiler
Thanks! Your creation seems like it would really be possible to do a "I'm gonna use mostly civilian ships" run.

I'd say civilian ships would be a little tough, but certainly combat freighters and civilian conversions can be a primary fleet component now. Previously they were subpar in combat though still useful for the logistics and in pursuit battles where the player has to flee. With the skills now they can probably be as strong as combat ships. It will also make dedicated civilian ships better at retreating.

Quote
also, what does viceroy ambassador do?
[close]

[/quote]

Its a placeholder atm iirc it increases hull by 20%. I want to make it have campaign benefits - preferably for trading and colonies.
[/quote]



oh very cool!  it looks like the run through i do on my youtube channel for archean order will be focusing on tricking out civilian ships (i have always wanted to do that) 
the channel is actually up! just no content yet.  im still making merchandise and really the main issue currently is my portable hard drive is at my moms house, which i need to transfer video files from my laptop (there was a yard sale at my aunts house and i was doing some work on my laptop while there and she took my ssd by mistake).  my laptop can barely handle recording, let alone actually editing videos (i have an external card for recording that has 4k throughput, so it should last me a long time without really needing anything else.  its also portable and has an sd card slot).  anyway stoked for the update!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 05, 2021, 12:31:00 PM
I'm late to the party. Oh crap.

No one noticed how crazy this is?
(https://i.ibb.co/gyKPNF4/654654321.jpg) (https://ibb.co/gyKPNF4)

Whaaa? When did this become a thing?? There apparently was a casing issue with the system id that caused the starmap values to not be applied properly. I know for a fact that it worked before, so .95 must have changed something that makes case more important. Hopefully that doesn't break anything else in the economy that I haven't found yet. Xanathos had a lowercase id as needed, so hopefully this is the only instance where this kind of thing occurred.

I didn't even notice it after starting a billion campaigns to test other things... so thanks for pointing it out! Fixed for the next beta update.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: ratpizza on July 06, 2021, 09:16:08 AM
This mod is just awesome, I simply can't play Starsector without it. However, a few small suggestions. Would it be possible to make it so that you can choose a custom starting-fleet rather than being assigned a predetermined one? The starting fleet (mercenary) is mostly fine but I really don't like the Vigilance-frigates, at least not with their starting loadout. Also, do you have plans for making a luddic variant of the Anchorage carrier as well? I Usually pick the Ospreys as additionall ships on NG but unfortunately they I find them to be to fragile especially with the nerf to 0-flux speed they got in this update. 

once again, cheers for this awesome mod! 
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 06, 2021, 02:48:16 PM
This mod is just awesome, I simply can't play Starsector without it. However, a few small suggestions. Would it be possible to make it so that you can choose a custom starting-fleet rather than being assigned a predetermined one? The starting fleet (mercenary) is mostly fine but I really don't like the Vigilance-frigates, at least not with their starting loadout. Also, do you have plans for making a luddic variant of the Anchorage carrier as well? I Usually pick the Ospreys as additionall ships on NG but unfortunately they I find them to be to fragile especially with the nerf to 0-flux speed they got in this update. 

once again, cheers for this awesome mod!

Thank I'm glad you are enjoying it!

Expanding starting options wouldn't be too hard if I'm remembering how they work. And yes I will make an Anchorage (L) variant or 4. Probably not this micro-update since it is 99% finished and I'm just testing a bit more at this point before release, but I can add that the next micro-update.

The Osprey is kind of meant to be a bargain light carrier though it will benefit from the Militarized Subsystems and related packages skill. That should make it far less squishy. It does require a story point however.

I'll increase its armor a bit too since it is shieldless.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 06, 2021, 04:06:00 PM
This mod is just awesome, I simply can't play Starsector without it. However, a few small suggestions. Would it be possible to make it so that you can choose a custom starting-fleet rather than being assigned a predetermined one? The starting fleet (mercenary) is mostly fine but I really don't like the Vigilance-frigates, at least not with their starting loadout. Also, do you have plans for making a luddic variant of the Anchorage carrier as well? I Usually pick the Ospreys as additionall ships on NG but unfortunately they I find them to be to fragile especially with the nerf to 0-flux speed they got in this update. 

once again, cheers for this awesome mod!

nexerelin allows custom(ish) [randomized] starts and you can start as a faction
it does a lot more than just that though
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Albreo on July 07, 2021, 01:05:26 AM
Gilead orbital station is empty.

(https://i.ibb.co/Zzh50Y9/456456456456.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Zzh50Y9)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Whismirk on July 07, 2021, 02:25:06 AM
Hello there ! Just discovered your mod and the amount of work you seem to have put into it is just amazing.
I was wondering though, is there any lore reason for Ilyss to only be size 5 while the station orbiting it is size 7 ? Shouldn't it be the other way around ?

(https://i.imgur.com/F4X7v3Y.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/e432kol.png)

Also, ground defense looks a bit low for a world described as 'impregnable' ?

(https://i.imgur.com/jMMVmg9.png)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Marco on July 07, 2021, 05:49:02 AM
Gilead orbital station is empty.

(https://i.ibb.co/Zzh50Y9/456456456456.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Zzh50Y9)

It seems only to have the military market and you don't have access to it. I've seen that a couple times with stations orbiting something that's not the same faction.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 07, 2021, 08:13:09 AM
Gilead orbital station is empty.

Some high level military stations are limited to military markets. Lore-wise, while you can dock with the station and undergo repairs and visit special designated areas (Bar for now but will eventually be a shrine or chapel or something), the market is off limits unless reputation with the faction is high enough. There should be a description somewhere that explains this but in some places it still uses the generic docking text I think. That will be something I change later on. Ideally I'd like custom text/flavor for every individual market that changes based upon a number of factors. Some already have a bit of that kind of thing in place.

Hello there ! Just discovered your mod and the amount of work you seem to have put into it is just amazing.
I was wondering though, is there any lore reason for Ilyss to only be size 5 while the station orbiting it is size 7 ? Shouldn't it be the other way around ?

Also, ground defense looks a bit low for a world described as 'impregnable' ?

Hi welcome to the forums!

The station guards the world from raids and should be fairly difficult to destroy. That is part of where that comes from, but I will also make a custom structure that the player likely won't have access to that will increase the defense by a flat amount at some point to better sell the description.

The size difference is due to the sector economy. At one point it was 9 I think? But that causes oversaturation of commodities like supplies to nearby colonies and makes it a lot more difficult for the player to sabotage market economy like vanilla intends. Lore-wise the population is limited to avoid pollution and over-exploitation of the planets resources. Industries that would cause this are contained in the massive orbital military installation/city.

Gilead is similar iirc.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Damienov on July 08, 2021, 12:47:54 AM
does anyone have a list of working-ish Faction mods for Archean?

and since a lot of the weapons range with the usual faction mods weapon is quite different, is it a good idea at all to use faction mods with Archean order?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 08, 2021, 03:03:53 AM
and since a lot of the weapons range with the usual faction mods weapon is quite different, is it a good idea at all to use faction mods with Archean order?

If I recall faction mods technically might be compatible, but balance wise they will be way off. They need be completely rebalanced, but nobody did any adaptations for any factions for AO, i'm pretty sure what faction ships and weapons will be seriously underpowered in AO, since having less of OPs, AO ships have much more weapon slots and big ships always have fighterbays, so you also need to edit sprites too, add fighterbays and bigger amount of weapon slots to ships. Same with weapons, alot of AO weapons are being more powerful and/or have bigger range, so I don't think what guns from factions will have some use without rebalance so they will fit in AO.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 08, 2021, 11:58:19 AM
BreenBB is correct yeah that balance will be off for faction mods.

Content mods generally work ok and there is a (far from comprehensive) list on the main page with some that have been reported to be compatible.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Aeios on July 08, 2021, 01:29:23 PM
does anyone have a list of working-ish Faction mods for Archean?

and since a lot of the weapons range with the usual faction mods weapon is quite different, is it a good idea at all to use faction mods with Archean order?

I found that ArmA works surprisingly well with AO. Didn't even need to tweak stuff. The Aleste mech is MVP.

Additionally, Super Weapons Arsenal also fits, their stats are a bit too much for vanilla, but feel right at home.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 08, 2021, 01:34:15 PM
you could theoretically change flux/armor stats to compensate;  if you dont add a bunch of guns to make it even, youwould probably have to add more flux capacity/venting to make up for having fewer actual weapon slots

you would also have to increase the armor, and it wouldnt be necessary but adding the appropriate AO hull mods (carrir bays, limited thruster, warship bays, etc) and reducing added fighter range as well as perhaps meddling with replacement/armor stats etc

so to do it completely would be a fairly massive undertaking for someone inexperienced, as i found out first hand LOL

i wanted to do a musashi manufactorum conversion, even got permission to do so, but it just is really a big task for someone as inexperienced with me when my life is so busy right now

i can attest to armaa working well enough, however it can get pretty difficult to use the aleste effectively late game in my opinion
the einhander on the other hand is easily god tier
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 08, 2021, 01:38:19 PM
Version 1.4.0.2 is out on Nexus Mods! (Link on the main mod page.)

This update contains a major balance overhaul for fighter wings in general, some balance changes to a few ships and weapons which I will detail the major ones below, a new bomber wing for the Sci-Corps, and a number of bugfixes.

The reported issue with Elite Command Experience should be fixed, and assuming the settings to remove overridden vanilla elements are in place, I have added code to have your character unlearn the vanilla versions of Assault Package and Escort Package and replace them with the mod versions so that they can actually be equipped.

The issue with Mordreath being placed incorrectly on the star map should also be fixed - though unfortunately that one isn't save compatible and will require a new start.

The story player ship should be balanced for the mod now.

Brief summary of weapon changes:
Spoiler
-- Anti-Fighter missiles such as the Widow and Locust have been greatly improved through the addition of an aoe explosion element. For this reason, the Widow and Heavy Widow launchers have been toned down a great deal and all of these missiles deal fragmentation damage so they cannot be used with Corrosive Warheads.

 -- Improved the aoe component of flak-like ballistics and reduced Flak and Dual Flak Cannon's rate of fire.

 -- Many small projectile PD weapons have autofire accuracy boosts. Increased the Machine Gun's damage for both the ship version and fighter version.

 -- Increased damage of all PD beams and medium and large versions deal 300 aoe frag damage when they hit. They also have larger charge capacity and can fire at their full rate for a longer duration.

 -- Missiles have increased hitpoints to compensate for the increased PD damage. MIRV missiles' first stage version is a lot faster.

 -- Greatly improved the Salamander missile's hitpoints to make it more reliable at knocking out engines. Damage dealt is now frag instead of HE.

 -- Fixed a bug that caused missiles to have a larger chance than intended to cause emp arcs and shield piercing when Ionized Warheads was equipped. Cleaned up the Ionized Warheads tooltip to be more accurate to what the hullmod does.

 -- Improved a few medium energy weapons' dps.

 -- Proximity Mine weapons deal larger damage per explosion with a larger explosion radius, and in the case of the Trapdoor, release a substantially larger amount of mines.

 -- Medium and Large rapid-fire projectile PD weapons now cause a small aoe explosion each impact. Their damage has been increased.
[close]

Fighter/Carrier Balance Overhaul number 2:
Spoiler
-- Carrier Bays now increases wing attack range by a flat 4000 instead of a percentage increase. Standard interceptor and fighter ranges for warships has been reduced to 1000 to keep them closer and primarily defending the warship. Standard bomber and gunship ranges for warships has been reduced to 2000. Notably, the Legion currently operates more like a warship and does not have Carrier Bays. It is the premier brawler battlecarrier.

 -- Greatly improved the defensive capabilities of the Mora, Anchorage, and Osprey carriers. They have more staying power on the battlefield while the Heron, Epiphany and Drover focus on wing damage.

 -- High Tech wings no longer regenerate shields (or at least regenerate them extremely slowly) and no longer overload when their shields are maxed. Some wings have increased shield capacity to compensate.

 -- High Tech wings generally deal the highest damage per attack run and many of them have emp components to their attacks and accurate and devastating anti-fighter weaponry. They replace the slowest of all the tech lines with a couple of notable exceptions.

 -- Many Midline and Hegemony wings have a special ship system: Deflection Shell - which negates the majority of damage for a couple of seconds with a brief cooldown. They are now likely the most durable of tech lines with medium attack run effectiveness.

 -- Some Midline wings do not have the system, and instead focus on dealing a large amount of damage per strike run. They are squishy however and replace fairly quickly compared to other Midlines wings.

 -- Low Tech wings have had their armor increased substantially. Though they are generally less durable and deal less damage per attack run than other tech lines, they replace almost twice as quickly in the majority of cases. Luddic tech sacrifices a bit of replacement time and has higher OP costs per wing, but deals a greater amount of damage over standard Low Tech wings.

 -- The Perdition, Paradigm and a new bomber wing, the Catalyst, have built-in Corrosive Warheads. The Catalyst and Renegade have built-in Ionized Warheads.

 -- The Claw has a built-in Localized Amplifier, a Deflection Shell system, and replaces very quickly.

 -- The Wasp had a bug that prevented it from using its Proximity Mine. That has been corrected and the mine is a lot more noticeable. It now deals a small amount of aoe energy damage.

 -- The Fang and Spectre interceptors now replace almost instantly - though they are extremely squishy.

 -- Increased wing size for the Banshee, Spark, and Talon (Tri-Tachyon) interceptor wings. They replace very slowly compared to other interceptors.

 -- The majority of turreted gunships will now attack like circling tanks. Their interior weapons such as rockets have been adjusted to swivel to the side. This makes them noticeably different from bombers and combining the two types can prevent too much concentrated swarming that is vulnerable to larger PD weapons.
[close]

These lists aren't comprehensive and I may have forgotten other changes I've made, but it gives a good idea of what to expect in the update. Hopefully this will finally put carrier balance vs warship balance in a very good spot, and address swarming tactics from being too overwhelming to NPC fleets. I will still see about increasing the number of dedicated PD variants in faction fleets as another safeguard, but that didn't make it into this update.

I also hope that this will at least help make wings of all tech types have their niches. Low tech and midline equipped carriers will certainly have more staying power - though in different ways between the two types, and High Tech retains the role of dealing large amounts of damage per attack run.

I'm going to keep an eye on Deflection Shell. It seems very, very powerful from my tests and it may need a nerf in the future. What I am trying to decide between, however, is whether to nerf how much damage is negated, or increase the cooldown between uses if it comes to it. I'd love to hear thoughts after everyone has some time to play around with wings that use it.

Anyway, enjoy and have fun and as always please report any bugs!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Marco on July 08, 2021, 02:43:41 PM
Has the empty AO markets thing been fixed?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 08, 2021, 02:49:38 PM
Has the empty AO markets thing been fixed?

What empty markets thing? The ships in military markets? Or the Gilead station, etc markets?

The first is a vanilla bug the second is intended. And the ships that would be in the military markets are instead in the open and black markets so they actually are more accessible for now.

Or is this something new I'm not aware of?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Marco on July 08, 2021, 02:51:45 PM
Has the empty AO markets thing been fixed?

What empty markets thing? The ships in military markets? Or the Gilead station, etc markets?

The first is a vanilla bug the second is intended. And the ships that would be in the military markets are instead in the open and black markets so they actually are more accessible for now.

Or is this something new I'm not aware of?

Empty ships market, as far as AO not having anything above a Templar.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 08, 2021, 02:55:58 PM
I noticed big amount of weapons without description, also about standard Doom, its seems nerfed pretty harsh, I know what everybody consider mines OP, but it have now Maneuvering Jets, i'm not sure if it will be useful at all.

Also about AO markets in general, except empty military markets, Revenant, Justicar and Megalith does'nt appear in open and black markets, they can be bought using Agent from Nex, but agent can't get Justicar. Strange what is easier way to get AO stuff if you fight them, not allied.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 08, 2021, 03:00:52 PM
Empty ships market, as far as AO not having anything above a Templar.

I noticed big amount of weapons without description, also about standard Doom, its seems nerfed pretty harsh, I know what everybody consider mines OP, but it have now Maneuvering Jets, i'm not sure if it will be useful at all.

Also about AO markets in general, except empty military markets, Revenant, Justicar and Megalith does'nt appear in open and black markets, they can be bought using Agent from Nex, but agent can't get Justicar. Strange what is easier way to get AO stuff if you fight them, not allied.

If you open the ship_data spreadsheet and remove the tag "req_military" they will start showing up. I just don't want to do this because I'll just have to add the tag all back again the next Starsector update. (Though to be fair I have no clue on the timeline for that.)

Well, I guess I can add a file for now that can be replaced to fix that without actually changing the mod file. I'll put that in the "supplement files" or w.e portion of Nexus mods.

Give me a few minutes and I'll have that up. Its easier to remove the tag then go through and add it all again. I'm glad I didn't do weapons and tested it instead so I was able to realize there was a bug in the first place hah.

Doom:
I'll consider re-adding the mines if I can find a way to nerf them a bit. Overall, its been reported that its not a bad ship though - especially with skills.

Descriptions:
Yes this is a known issue and the focus of the next micro-update. A lot are also outright incorrect at this point. I wanted to get the balance stuff out there first.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 08, 2021, 03:16:46 PM
The fix has been uploaded under the "optional files" portion of Nexus Mods.

Follow the instructions and it should fix the military market issue immediately upon starting a new game, or within a couple in-game months if wanting to preserve your save.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: SonnaBanana on July 08, 2021, 10:22:29 PM
Doom:
I'll consider re-adding the mines if I can find a way to nerf them a bit. Overall, its been reported that its not a bad ship though - especially with skills.

Remove homing and add a slight delay before they explode. That could be enough.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Albreo on July 08, 2021, 10:23:03 PM
Gilead orbital station is empty.

Some high level military stations are limited to military markets. Lore-wise, while you can dock with the station and undergo repairs and visit special designated areas (Bar for now but will eventually be a shrine or chapel or something), the market is off limits unless reputation with the faction is high enough. There should be a description somewhere that explains this but in some places it still uses the generic docking text I think. That will be something I change later on. Ideally I'd like custom text/flavor for every individual market that changes based upon a number of factors. Some already have a bit of that kind of thing in place.

I think the docking procedure should be denied entirely as to not confuse players.


I imagine the new redacted agent is still in development, is it? so I don't have to focus on doing quests. I do like the random fleet that tries to extort you, keep that coming, provoke me more lol.

I noticed big amount of weapons without description, also about standard Doom, its seems nerfed pretty harsh, I know what everybody consider mines OP, but it have now Maneuvering Jets, i'm not sure if it will be useful at all.

Also about AO markets in general, except empty military markets, Revenant, Justicar and Megalith does'nt appear in open and black markets, they can be bought using Agent from Nex, but agent can't get Justicar. Strange what is easier way to get AO stuff if you fight them, not allied.

I still considered Doom to be OP though. With unlimited missiles and in the hand of AI, it's super easy to dispatch a destroyer or cruiser in one salvo. I suggest you equip it with a set of anti-shield and anti-armor missiles. Buff its speed to the limit with an unstable injector and a good captain.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 09, 2021, 01:07:28 AM
About Doom, in vanilla mines can exploit omni shields, but its only one phase ship which can exploit omni shelds, not fire through them, since AI can rotate their shields as they want. About mines, from one side what Omni AI gives high priority to mines is a exploit, which allows to create opening to fire reapers, from one side, mines also deal big damage so ignoring them is not good idea either, about nerfs, I think is good idea make Omni shields cover from them only if they about to explode, because they take some time to charge up, another idea, make mines as weapon, which can work in phase space too, so they are deployed at doom location, although i'm not sure if they will be useful this way. Also alot of subsystems seems like have bigger cooldowns in AO, I think mines with simply slower recharge time or less of mines quantity will be more balanced.

In 095 Doom very buffed because of skills some subsystems such as mines really benefit from subsystem skill.

And I think Phase Ships also actually need to be punching above their class, since they doesn't have shields, and can't avoid damage when attacking.

Also I just not sure if speed increasing abilities is useful on phase ships at all, they still can catch up enemy in phase because of time dilation, and i'm not sure is Plasma Burn and Maneuvering Jets are working in phase.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 09, 2021, 08:51:33 AM
I found crash with commision effect of Adamantice Consortium from Commission Crews:
Spoiler
642566 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: org.json.JSONException: JSONObject["dreadAuraData"] not found.
java.lang.RuntimeException: org.json.JSONException: JSONObject["dreadAuraData"] not found.
   at data.scripts.hullmods.commissionedcrews.dreadchampionaura.DreadAuraFactionDataM anager.getFactionAuraData(DreadAuraFactionDataManager.java:44)
   at data.scripts.hullmods.commissionedcrews.dreadchampionaura.CHM_adamantine_consor tium.advanceInCombat(CHM_adamantine_consortium.java:59)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.entities.Ship.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: org.json.JSONException: JSONObject["dreadAuraData"] not found.
   at org.json.JSONObject.get(JSONObject.java:406)
   at org.json.JSONObject.getJSONObject(JSONObject.java:500)
   at data.scripts.hullmods.commissionedcrews.dreadchampionaura.DreadAuraFactionDataM anager.getFactionAuraData(DreadAuraFactionDataManager.java:41)
   ... 10 more
[close]

Also about commissions in general, they lack some sort of description with effect numbers, I'm not quite understand what they do. Also strange what Adamantine Consortium requires transponder, I quite used from vanilla and other mods what all unlawful factions doesn't care about transponder.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 09, 2021, 09:25:35 AM
CTD dreadAuraData not found

Code
1407462 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: org.json.JSONException: JSONObject["dreadAuraData"] not found.
java.lang.RuntimeException: org.json.JSONException: JSONObject["dreadAuraData"] not found.
at data.scripts.hullmods.commissionedcrews.dreadchampionaura.DreadAuraFactionDataManager.getFactionAuraData(DreadAuraFactionDataManager.java:44)
at data.scripts.hullmods.commissionedcrews.dreadchampionaura.CHM_adamantine_consortium.advanceInCombat(CHM_adamantine_consortium.java:59)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.entities.Ship.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: org.json.JSONException: JSONObject["dreadAuraData"] not found.
at org.json.JSONObject.get(JSONObject.java:406)
at org.json.JSONObject.getJSONObject(JSONObject.java:500)
at data.scripts.hullmods.commissionedcrews.dreadchampionaura.DreadAuraFactionDataManager.getFactionAuraData(DreadAuraFactionDataManager.java:41)
... 10 more

not sure if this is from commissioned crews mod but fighting Luddic was fine but ctd after updating to the newest AO
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta 6/26/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 09, 2021, 04:51:36 PM
I think the docking procedure should be denied entirely as to not confuse players.

There will be story elements linked to these places. The description should also explain why this is the case but the story will go into more detail.

CTD:

Strange I'll look into it. It shouldn't even be using that code yet as its not finished. The hullmods for Commissioned Crews should just increase hull... must be something with the rendering script that runs every frame during combat.

Thanks for posting the error that will make it easier to solve more quickly.

*EDIT*

Fix for the Commissioned Crews crash is under the optional files section on the Nexus Mods page. Simply unzip and replace the jar in the mod directory and it should fix the crash. Let me know if this doesn't work.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 10, 2021, 02:30:52 AM
Fix works, although I still not sure what commission effects do, and they seems apply not to all player ships.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 10, 2021, 05:07:56 AM
Fix works, although I still not sure what commission effects do, and they seems apply not to all player ships.

They only apply to the player flagship iirc and they are currently not finished. The Adamantine Consortium one is almost there, and causes nearby enemy ships to suffer malfunctions. The other three are just placeholders for now.

The code to create them is a little on the complicated side, so I had taken a break from implementing them. They are on the todo list before the mod leaves beta.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 10, 2021, 08:43:18 AM
The commissioned crew hullmods have always been applicable to every ship in your fleet unless something has changed or you have encoded it different.

Ifnyou make really powerful ones it would make sense to limit them to the flagship
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 10, 2021, 09:14:01 AM
The commissioned crew hullmods have always been applicable to every ship in your fleet unless something has changed or you have encoded it different.

Ifnyou make really powerful ones it would make sense to limit them to the flagship

Yes I coded it to be flagship-only and they are meant to be powerful. For one, flavor and something different from the standard implementation is a factor here, definitely, and two: I want to keep it balance-able and limiting it to one ship is a major part of that concept in the sense that it dramatically boosts a specific lore theme and, hopefully, gameplay elements. I'm not going to say it's fully fleshed out because it is not and was mostly impromptu, but:

Nearby ships having malfunctions is a massive benefit, imo, and I have similarly strong but thematically different ideas in mind for the other three factions. However, part of this concept relies on combat and campaign features being roughly equivalent, and I'd say this is not the case at the moment.

In that vein of thinking, there is much work to do and I'd like to explore what feels good in each specific case. Vague? Yes, but this is where I am currently at as far as design goes... *shrug* I have a rough idea as far as goals but nothing concrete at the moment that doesn't indulge power-creep for the player in ways that would make vanilla bonuses of other factions using Commissioned Crews (including vanilla) less desirable. And that is not intended.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 11, 2021, 07:13:06 PM
im sure youll make excellent design choices

i just tried using the escort/assault packages with your stuff and im pleasantly surprised; seeing as you have upped the weapon count and class for essentially every craft in the game (especially civilian craft) it ends up making civvy ships, in many cases, as strong as low tech and in some cases (like the venture) even stronger.

i have always wanted to do a run where civvy ships make up the fleet that was capable of actual combat and it looks like my wish has been granted!

of course late game stuff will likely require me to get a few dedicated combat craft, but perhaps not
my goal is to get to the endgame while (personally) fielding only civilian ships

oh which reminds me, the colossus does not have civilian grade hull.  is this intentional?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 11, 2021, 08:23:08 PM
After a few days playing AO, i found 3 meta strategies for AO
Jokes aside, is this intentional going forward or It's just the one that is "optimized" as of yet? Since almost all non-carrier ships is complemented with fighters. Perhaps just let non-carriers be just that..?
Playing with fighter gets a bit boring and restrict the player choices. Not to mention the game performance stutter when its carriers vs carriers which pretty much always happens mid-to-late game, the game pretty much turns into a powerpoint slideshow (on 8g of Xms and Xmx vmparams btw).
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 11, 2021, 09:53:27 PM
im sure youll make excellent design choices

i just tried using the escort/assault packages with your stuff and im pleasantly surprised; seeing as you have upped the weapon count and class for essentially every craft in the game (especially civilian craft) it ends up making civvy ships, in many cases, as strong as low tech and in some cases (like the venture) even stronger.

i have always wanted to do a run where civvy ships make up the fleet that was capable of actual combat and it looks like my wish has been granted!

of course late game stuff will likely require me to get a few dedicated combat craft, but perhaps not
my goal is to get to the endgame while (personally) fielding only civilian ships

oh which reminds me, the colossus does not have civilian grade hull.  is this intentional?
I'm glad the civ/combat freighter packages ended up working out nicely!

Colossus: Nope that is a bug. Thanks for letting me know and I'll fix that for the next update.

After a few days playing AO, i found 3 meta strategies for AO
  • Fighters
  • Fighters
  • Repeat from 1 :P
Jokes aside, is this intentional going forward or It's just the one that is "optimized" as of yet? Since almost all non-carrier ships is complemented with fighters. Perhaps just let non-carriers be just that..?
Playing with fighter gets a bit boring and restrict the player choices. Not to mention the game performance stutter when its carriers vs carriers which pretty much always happens mid-to-late game, the game pretty much turns into a powerpoint slideshow (on 8g of Xms and Xmx vmparams btw).

Lol it's intentional that warships have fighter/interceptor complements at least. Its not necessarily intentional that that component alone is the pure meta though. The last update targeted swarms of strike craft through a lot more aoe PD options including aoe additions to Anti-Fighter missiles. Are you playing the latest version? 1.4.0.2? It is still possible that I need to include more PD-dedicated ships since that change takes longer and I didn't get to it yet.

There are lots of pure warships without bays but they are mostly the smaller ones. Cruisers and up almost always have at least a couple of bays because that has generally been the type of sci-fi universes that I have enjoyed over the years so I framed the mod combat around that as a primary TC feature. Performance is a concern and I've tried to do what I can within the design spectrum to help, but with extra stuff on screen there is only so much possible wiggle room.

Something I might do for those wanting less fighter complements would be to create a hullmod that removes all of the warships bays (similar to converted fighter bays for built-ins) and gives bonuses based upon the number of bays removed. Once that is created, I can potentially create a mod setting that would add such a thing to all relevant NPC variants as a customization option. After I get some of the descriptions and stuff done remind me and I will work on that and see what is possible.

Also feel free to suggest potential bonuses. Off the top of my head, flux stats seems to be the obvious choice. Speed probably wouldn't be a good idea. I can already make a guess that they would have to be flat bonuses. Percent or multiplicative bonuses would be too strong and likely favor a tech line.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 12, 2021, 03:58:56 AM
Something I might do for those wanting less fighter complements would be to create a hullmod that removes all of the warships bays (similar to converted fighter bays for built-ins) and gives bonuses based upon the number of bays removed. Once that is created, I can potentially create a mod setting that would add such a thing to all relevant NPC variants as a customization option. After I get some of the descriptions and stuff done remind me and I will work on that and see what is possible.

Now this would be an awesome idea perhaps giving back extra Ordinance Points, extra ballistic/laser/missile ammo/charges similar to extended magazine/extended missile since logically you have extra storage room by removing the hangars. Maybe also by removing hangars you ships is "lighter" an will add some maneuverability/speed and perhaps an more advance Militarized mod that will give you extra burn by removing hangars on bigger civ freighter/fuel ships.

also I've also noticed that the weapon types consist of mostly only Armor/shield/energy types.
so as a future request could you:
- add non PD Hull breach weapons? This should give more options to player going against remnants or Low Tech enemies
- place more hybrids weapon slot for a more diverse combination of weapon placement by the player
- a slightly bigger bullets/beam animation, to give that extra omph! as of now its kinda underwhelming using a legendary rarity large super weapon and the animation is just a dot lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 12, 2021, 08:59:36 AM
I personally love having so many fighters, and never have any frame rate issues and all I have is 4 gig vram, 9th gen i3, and 16 gig ram and m2 ssd
Your issue could be somewhere in your hardware: you dont need expensive just the right pieces.
Also, if I remember correctly, java cannot use more than 6 gigs at a time (several people on discord actually told another person this when asking what to set vmparams at.  I would be willing to be these people know what they're talking about)
So your issue may be trying to allocate more resources than java can handle;  I am not sure if would cause stuttering or frame rate drop, but it wouldnt surprise me.

However, more hullmods more better!
It would be cool to have mods that convert hangar bays into: armor, hull, cargo, fuel, or crew space.  Or really anything.
In other games they often refer to "modifiable space" as "mass" and you can just install things.  Being able to change cargo space for crew, or whatever tradeoff would be interesting.

Anyway, not sure if you noticed but unless it's in a dedicated carrier bay, the range is only 2000 on any fighter, and unless it matches the warship bay properly, anything other than a fighter uses a LOT of op.

Back in 91a I NEVER personally used carriers (and only ever fielded maybe 2 cruiser carriers, the rest being warships) and I had a pillager with just some free talons because the rest was spent on firepower: that ship wrecked ANYTHING because I has such high alpha damage, including [redacted].

Really, even in vanilla you kind of need a carrier or two, justbfornthe utility of them.

Anyway I dont agree at all that fighters are the "meta" it's more about how you play and whether you know how to counter them.

With that being said, more pd options in a tc that ups the amount of them to a staggering level is definitely a good idea.

I think having a few that are essentially the mortar/basilisk cannon of pd would be appropriate: something high flux with slow reload and INCREDIBLE anti fighter utility, like the vanilla devastator cannon.

also, I really love the new Savoy it looks great
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 12, 2021, 11:34:31 AM
I personally love having so many fighters, and never have any frame rate issues and all I have is 4 gig vram, 9th gen i3, and 16 gig ram and m2 ssd
Your issue could be somewhere in your hardware: you dont need expensive just the right pieces.
I'm running a Ryzen 2700X, 32gb RAM Dual channel a 1660, and also M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD, so my spec is not that far from yours.

as for the heap size, with all the mods I use for Nex and factions mods, I will not even start up at 6GB heap at times thus the 8GB heap
and CMIIW here but I believe you were recommended a 6GB heap because the JVM Process Size or Memory Footprint will typically be larger than Maximum Heap size (upwards of 1.5x) plus accounting for your OS RAM usage, background processes etc, thus the 6GB heap out of your total 16GB RAM.

Sure when running on normal speed its fine with a few slowdowns when moving cameras etc, but using Speed Up you will get slideshow. Keep in mind this was a fight with a lot of fighters/bombers/interceptor with each capital/cruiser having 6-8 bays versus a hegemony bounty using 5 carrier capitals and a quite a few carrier cruisers

not using speed up is a slow and boring as hell, sure I can probably take it the first several fights with normal speed like that, but running a long campaign, I don't think it'll be fun....
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 12, 2021, 01:05:45 PM
Thanks for the suggestions I'll keep these in mind when designing the hullmod. Also noted the desire for high dps fragmentation weapons and something along the lines of a large-scale flak cannon/fire support anti-fighter weapon. I'll put those on the list of "nice-to-haves" and see when I can squeeze them in.

Sure when running on normal speed its fine with a few slowdowns when moving cameras etc, but using Speed Up you will get slideshow. Keep in mind this was a fight with a lot of fighters/bombers/interceptor with each capital/cruiser having 6-8 bays versus a hegemony bounty using 5 carrier capitals and a quite a few carrier cruisers

not using speed up is a slow and boring as hell, sure I can probably take it the first several fights with normal speed like that, but running a long campaign, I don't think it'll be fun....

Ah this explains a lot actually. Speed Up is not recommended for several reasons, including performance as you noticed. The TC isn't really designed with that mod in mind.

The other thing that speeding up a battle does is essentially break the game's AI and the combat balance - I don't want to assume too much and I'm not saying that this is 100% what it is, but that's honestly probably why you consider fighters meta because anything short of PD lasers won't ever even hit a fighter with Speed Up activated past 2x speed. Even at 2x, there will be issues and it will sometimes affect things like AI ships' decision making and whether or not things like torpedoes will be shot down or not, shield flickering accuracy, and a host of other things because the AI and hit calculations assume a mostly normal speed.

I mean don't get me wrong I understand where you are coming from as far as long battles becoming tedious after a while - especially if the fun of the game for you is more the campaign outside of combat and/or building a ship, etc. Its just not something that can be taken as reliable feedback - because the numbers are very likely off to begin with, if that makes sense. That's not just this mod, but also goes for vanilla and really any other mod, but specifically this mod's emphasis on fighters will exacerbate these issues.

If you absolutely have to use Speed Up to get enjoyment out of the game, I'd strongly recommend not exceeding x2 speed. Lowering the max battle size is also an option - though I understand that it doesn't exactly lower NPC fleet size - which is something I wish was a little more adjustable than it currently is. If you go into the faction files, you could for instance, lower the "numShips":2, portion of the file to try and get fleets as small as possible - and adjust "shipSize" portion to your tastes. That might make combat faster without using Speed Up.

Otherwise, and I know this is kind of lame, I'd recommend simply auto-resolving your battles to avoid tedium. You will take more losses, yes, but at least you won't have to deal with the above issues.

Kind of a "pick your poison" sort of situation, but there's not really much else that can be done about it other than what I've already mentioned re: hullmod, etc. Even then, that only solves the fighter portion and not the other issues you may experience.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 12, 2021, 05:04:42 PM
Please don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy AO. It gives a very different feel compared to Vanilla or Nex. Sure as hell gives me more replay-ability.

And I get it, the game uses Java. It has its benefit but as you yourself know, it also has its limitation and you're not the game dev so you have to work with what you got.

I just hope there are more option for the player as to what their fleet composition is and still be viable mid to end game. So, I'll be sure to keep up with the develeopment and keep 2 mod folder on my Starsector install, one for Nex and one for AO  ;D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 12, 2021, 06:02:20 PM
i have two installs myself lol and i just realized armor values for fighters are way higher than they were in my initial run from 91
the talons only had like 20 armor back then if i remember right
personally......i like seeing them have more armor
considering the higher armor values i may have to somewaht rescind my earlier statements;  i think having some high alpha damage pd would solve the issue
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 12, 2021, 06:48:48 PM
the obelisk yacht needs (ao) civvy hullmod

i have to say i am having a ton of fun crushing pirate fleets with my all civilian fleet =D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 12, 2021, 07:43:42 PM
I mainly use Speedup, at standard 2x, purely to close the distance to enemies, especially at the beginning of battles., because flying in a straight line isn't as much fun as strafing, attacking, retreating, etc. Can't say I'm surprised it causes issues.

----

It seems like Missiles now range the same as any other weapon type. Strike from torpedos and rockets. Assault from most SRM. Support from MRM, and Carrier/fighters from LRM.

Strike being the alpha strike type weapons, assault being flux free high DPS, support being moderate range and flux hungry/limited, and fighters being excessive range inefficient and highly counterable.

----

Got a Pillager as my first capital finally. It is more setup as a support ship, but seems reluctant to actually engage most of the time. Not sure why.

Using a Hyperion as my flagship. It is an assault/strike ship with two heavy blasters, two Shattercell cannons (medium), and two energy PD guns, can't recall name. Shattercell cannons shred missiles, like, excessively well, and mid-high tech fighters or pirate fighters also tend to die pretty badly. Actual quality low tech fighters however, are basically immune.

Pirate fleets aren't too much of an issue at this time. Main thing that is infuriating is Afflictors, because of their ability to force overload a ship, like, say, a Hyperion. Overall, able to handle small armadas at this point no issue.

Ludic path on the other hand.... I think 50% of their ships have the Dampener fields ability. Which means 6 heavy blaster bolts can't breach the armor of a KITE. I did not realize how powerful that system was up until now.

----
This is honestly more a vanilla thing, but.

This is the first game where I actually got anywhere with colonies. Mainly because I am trying to play to the endgame. I found a system, probably not the best, but not too far away from the core systems. Not sure how important proximity is, admittedly. Two planets had extensive ruins, and one was a largely habitable waterworld (150% I think) while another was like 275% volcanic world. There is also an airless planet, and a gas giant, which it turns out you CAN colonize, and it doesn't make a station or w.e. No idea how that works.

Naturally, I named the Waterworld Atlantis, and the Volcanic world Proclorush Taoynas, because I am a stargate nerd.

I have a reasonable passive income now, even if I have to hold back significantly to keep the Ludic path and pirates and Adamantine corsairs from attacking. Took quite a lot to do that, and had to do some research. As it is, I am trying to move up in the world, and even having a capital ship, four cruisers, and a dozen destroyers and frigates doesn't seem enough to invade a ludic path system.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 12, 2021, 08:45:17 PM
This is honestly more a vanilla thing, but.

This is the first game where I actually got anywhere with colonies. Mainly because I am trying to play to the endgame. I found a system, probably not the best, but not too far away from the core systems. Not sure how important proximity is, admittedly. Two planets had extensive ruins, and one was a largely habitable waterworld (150% I think) while another was like 275% volcanic world. There is also an airless planet, and a gas giant, which it turns out you CAN colonize, and it doesn't make a station or w.e. No idea how that works.

Naturally, I named the Waterworld Atlantis, and the Volcanic world Proclorush Taoynas, because I am a stargate nerd.

I have a reasonable passive income now, even if I have to hold back significantly to keep the Ludic path and pirates and Adamantine corsairs from attacking. Took quite a lot to do that, and had to do some research. As it is, I am trying to move up in the world, and even having a capital ship, four cruisers, and a dozen destroyers and frigates doesn't seem enough to invade a ludic path system.

The proximity bonus accounts for a large amount of money but not too critical if you know what you are doing. For example, if you colonized Duzak, that system got a bonus of +41% accessibility (approximately, the value shift according to mod markets) which will massively increase profit to the point of everyone getting jealous of you. 200k profit per planet is not a pipe dream there. At 20 ly mark, the value will be less, around 10%. But the thing is, you should always colonize the system you like most. Preferably with at least 5 planets with one that can produce food, more than 1 farm even better. A slot for Com Relay. A Gate if you prefer. In the proximity of either Cyroship or Energy shunt. etc.

Accessibility is the most critical value to increase profit margin but if you plan to abuse Alpha cores then none matter.


As for x2 speed yes it's a double edge sword, don't try to think that it will give you an advantage. The only bad limitation of this game is the use of single-core and I have 16 threads, the game could have been more epic.


In the process of stoping the ship during a Tachlance shot, the shaking looks very painful. I suggest that it apply a speed reduction during a shot instead or a speed limit of 10.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 13, 2021, 01:31:55 PM
However, more hullmods more better!
It would be cool to have mods that convert hangar bays into: armor, hull, cargo, fuel, or crew space.  Or really anything.
In other games they often refer to "modifiable space" as "mass" and you can just install things.  Being able to change cargo space for crew, or whatever tradeoff would be interesting.
That modifiable space is in the game, as OP, or ordinance points. The tradeoff is always better weapons, better flux stats, better fighters, better hull mods, and you never have enough OP to do everything. So this is already there. You can even get better sensors, stealth, cargo/crew/fuel capacity.
Quote
Anyway, not sure if you noticed but unless it's in a dedicated carrier bay, the range is only 2000 on any fighter, and unless it matches the warship bay properly, anything other than a fighter uses a LOT of op.
Yea, Carriers and warships behave differently now. Warships have drastically less fighter range, the base 2k you saw there, and also the regen rate decays to 30% relatively quickly, but in exchange, fighters use a bit less OP. This is to make encourage warships to have a defensive fighter screen, rather than a long range fighter support option.
Carriers on the other hand get the standard 6k range fighters (+- based on fighter types) slow fighter rebuild decay and faster regen, and also cheaper weapons, so at to encourage you to have some weapons, even if fighters are prioritized. Also zero-flux penalty, preventing them from being kiting masters.
Quote
Anyway I dont agree at all that fighters are the "meta" it's more about how you play and whether you know how to counter them.
Fighter are a lot of the meta, but not the end all. Good point defense shred fighters and missiles alike, but they are still really powerful.
Quote
With that being said, more pd options in a tc that ups the amount of them to a staggering level is definitely a good idea.
Not sure what "tc" is abreviation for.
Quote
I think having a few that are essentially the mortar/basilisk cannon of pd would be appropriate: something high flux with slow reload and INCREDIBLE anti fighter utility, like the vanilla devastator cannon.
There are already quite a few. Vulcan cannons, Microrepeaters, PD gun, Duel Flak, Void Driver, Smokescreen rockets. And, naturally, the Devastator cannon still exists. Those are all alpha-heavy weapons with high power, but limited ammo or slow refire. I believe they are largely refered to as "Heavy PD" weapons. Normal PD, like normal Assault weapons use little, if any flux.

---------

The Beammy Deffgun Beam weapons need to be better labeled. In vanilla, Laser can mean Lazor-bolts, or Beam weapons, but I largely learned what is what. here, I don't have them all memorized yet. Could you add a "Beam" indicator in the same place as you put the "Full Salvo" information?

Is the Graviton Beam not a continuous beam weapon anymore? Its hard to tell, because it has a 6 second refire delay, and it's dps of 200 and total of 1200 suggests the beam lasts 6 seconds, so I am unsure what is going on.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 13, 2021, 04:41:24 PM
Please don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy AO. It gives a very different feel compared to Vanilla or Nex. Sure as hell gives me more replay-ability.

And I get it, the game uses Java. It has its benefit but as you yourself know, it also has its limitation and you're not the game dev so you have to work with what you got.

I just hope there are more option for the player as to what their fleet composition is and still be viable mid to end game. So, I'll be sure to keep up with the develeopment and keep 2 mod folder on my Starsector install, one for Nex and one for AO  ;D
Oh you're fine and thanks for the reports and suggestions. They are always appreciated. :)

i have two installs myself lol and i just realized armor values for fighters are way higher than they were in my initial run from 91
the talons only had like 20 armor back then if i remember right
personally......i like seeing them have more armor
considering the higher armor values i may have to somewaht rescind my earlier statements;  i think having some high alpha damage pd would solve the issue
Fighters/Talon:
Spoiler
The changes were designed to reduce the effectiveness gap between tech lines for fighters and have their strengths and weaknesses be a little more differentiated rather than A > B > C if that makes sense. So the armor buffs to low tech (and they are significant its true) are a part of that. Essentially, low tech replaces quickly, has low OP costs, and has average survivability with a larger survivability against PD and weapons that don't penetrate armor well. However, the damage they deal is often a lot less than the other tech lines.

Midline rides the middle. They are the most survivable when their system is active, deal moderate damage, have moderate OP costs, and are the least survivable when their system is not active. These generalizations can vary from wing to wing though. Some are about pure damage with very little survivability - for instance the Hellcat or the Thunder.

High tech has been nerfed a bit. They were by far the best tech line in prior updates and their OP costs were supposed to justify that. Unfortunately, not only was that debatable, but it kind of sucks to lock out the 2 other tech lines once you find high tech wings. So their shields no longer regenerate very quickly. That's a pretty big nerf overall. However, they are still moderately survivable and oftentimes have a great total hp than other wings, and they deal the most damage of any other tech line. The caveat to these strengths is that they replace a lot more slowly- though again, exceptions like the Wasp and Spectre exist. Both of those wings are ridiculously fragile in comparison even to the Talon however.

As far as strike craft as a whole being stronger? If you are using low tech it will definitely seem that way at first. Overall? I think probably not. Weapons like Flak and the medium and large burst beam PD delete them fairly easily and often in large numbers. A Widow volley or two can take out the majority of an Astral's wings right at the start of a battle. Midline is the only unknown for me, because the system is possibly active for enough of the battle's duration to potentially make them too strong.
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the obelisk yacht needs (ao) civvy hullmod

i have to say i am having a ton of fun crushing pirate fleets with my all civilian fleet =D
I'm assuming you are talking about the Valkyrie? I checked everything else for Civ ships and they are good. The Colossus has been fixed and I added Militarized Subsystems to the Valkyrie since technically it is a military utility transport.

In the process of stoping the ship during a Tachlance shot, the shaking looks very painful. I suggest that it apply a speed reduction during a shot instead or a speed limit of 10.
Shaking? I'll have to test that more I didn't notice it at the time. As in the ship itself shakes?

@Ranakastrasz
Spoiler
Using Speed Up to close the distance should be fine. The worst thing it could affect would be the initial long range missile salvos, but that's trivial compared to the entire battle.

The Luddic Path is sort of like Pirates Tier II. It is meant to be the next challenge level up from Pirates while also providing a unique sort of playstyle. The best thing to do, probably is simply try and outlast them. The Ill-Advised Modifications hullmod that causes critical malfunctions is their biggest Achilles heel and they will slowly fizzle out in strength as the battle wears on. Defensive ships will probably be the best thing against them - with some carriers or artillery/support ships to cover them. Strike vessels probably won't work as well and can be punished from Safety Overrides.

"TC" is an abbreviation for Total Conversion and just basically means that the mod overhauls the majority of vanilla's systems.

I can't have the hullmod increase OP - there are technical complications/exploits with that. OP modifying hullmods are assumed to be built in.

The carrier mechanics are slightly different now. Warship wings now have 1k range for fighters and interceptors and 2k range for bombers and gunships so they stay closer to the warship and carriers have all their wings set to a standard of 4k.

Beam toolips are a little weird in the calculation of stats. The Graviton Beam is not continuous but its close. It is primarily a PD weapon that can be a nice assault weapon at close range. I thought that all beam weapons had "beam" in the name am I wrong there? If I say "burst pd laser" here I am just saying it so people unfamiliar with the mod understand the comparison. I probably should just keep it consistent with the mod name though.
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Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 13, 2021, 05:12:40 PM
@Ranakastrasz
Spoiler
Using Speed Up to close the distance should be fine. The worst thing it could affect would be the initial long range missile salvos, but that's trivial compared to the entire battle.
-I also use it to close distance during the battle, generally after my strike/assault/PD hyperion (I have no idea how that hybridization happened, or why it works so well) gets sidetracked dealing with chasing down an afflictor or other highly mobile frigate, and has to return to the main fight. Which I shouldn't be doing, I think, but it happens anyway. Also during the final cleanup phase, because distances are also large there.

The Luddic Path is sort of like Pirates Tier II. It is meant to be the next challenge level up from Pirates while also providing a unique sort of playstyle. The best thing to do, probably is simply try and outlast them. The Ill-Advised Modifications hullmod that causes critical malfunctions is their biggest Achilles heel and they will slowly fizzle out in strength as the battle wears on. Defensive ships will probably be the best thing against them - with some carriers or artillery/support ships to cover them. Strike vessels probably won't work as well and can be punished from Safety Overrides.
-Makes sense. Still hilarious and infuriating how many of them have the dampening skill. And yea, assault or covered with bees is generally how they die. Or random malfunctions, which happen a lot.

"TC" is an abbreviation for Total Conversion and just basically means that the mod overhauls the majority of vanilla's systems.
-Understood.

I can't have the hullmod increase OP - there are technical complications/exploits with that. OP modifying hullmods are assumed to be built in.
-What? I mean, yes, that is, or at least was true. at one point negative OP cost hullmods could be added, the extra OP used, then removed, and no penalty occured. But I wasn't talking about that. I was pointing out that the game already has customization tradeoffs, just not with cargo space, but with OP points.

The carrier mechanics are slightly different now. Warship wings now have 1k range for fighters and interceptors and 2k range for bombers and gunships so they stay closer to the warship and carriers have all their wings set to a standard of 4k.
-Really? Did the mod update? Thought it was still 2k with 3x on carriers from the tooltips.

Beam toolips are a little weird in the calculation of stats. The Graviton Beam is not continuous but its close. It is primarily a PD weapon that can be a nice assault weapon at close range. I thought that all beam weapons had "beam" in the name am I wrong there? If I say "burst pd laser" here I am just saying it so people unfamiliar with the mod understand the comparison. I probably should just keep it consistent with the mod name though.
-Huh. Probably it powers down then back up, but never actually stops. a 6 second refire delay, 200 dps, and 1200 damage per shot. 200 dps multiplied by 6 seconds equals 1200 damage. That is weird.
-Burst PD laser is a laser, but so is pulse laser, which is a projectile weapon. Cutlass laser PD system is projectile, I think. Lances are always beams I believe.
-Wish tooltips just had projectile speed as well, even if it was in "slow/medium/fast like turning speed or projectile manuverability. And beams are instant, naturally.
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Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 13, 2021, 05:32:16 PM
Oh whoops on the OP trade-offs I misunderstood and yeah that is correct. I thought you were talking about the removing-bays hullmod's potential bonus.

The LP have Dampeners mostly because I wanted to keep their systems low tech, and the Dampener was the closest powerful system that isn't Combat Capacitors or a weak system like Flares. Combat Capacitors already saturates much of the low tech - and doesn't synergize as well with Safety Overrides in comparison to the Dampener.

The mod is currently at 1.4.0.2. It may be that you missed the most recent update. Other than the carrier ranges I think it was the update that rebalanced wings and PD and fixed a couple of bugs. If your Talon wings are still at 20 armor and not 100, then you know that an update is available.

I forgot about "lances" and yeah they are always beams. I'll change the Burst PD Laser to Burst PD Beam so as to keep it consistent. I'll double check, but the only place I can add that info to the tooltip iirc is in the same place that already details things like EMP arcs, Hard Flux vs Soft Flux, etc. I know I can remove DPS calculations for things if that ends up being less confusing/useful.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 13, 2021, 05:54:52 PM
Yea, I check the front page to see if it updated, the second post. But turns out your beta updates don't get added there.

Beams. Makes sense. That works.
Don't touch the DPS indicator. Still confused as to why the math doesn't make that a continuous beam. Doesn't it have a 6 second duration and a 6 second cooldown?

Edit: Just updated to latest version, 1.4.0.2, and the Carrier bays tooltip says "The speed boost at low flux is reduced to null" while still having the Limited combat thrusters saying 40 out of 80 flux bonus.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 13, 2021, 09:59:31 PM
Quote
Shaking? I'll have to test that more I didn't notice it at the time. As in the ship itself shakes?

To be specific, the arrow in the overview screen shook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO-6YC_s6_c

Megalith with carrier AI is a bit shy and hard to control. I got a headache when order it to attack something and the icon show fighter strikes instead.

I kind of want a ship with a longer scan range than a normal capital ship maybe the Odyssey/Apogee could stattisfy that or a brand new utility ship to crave my urge.

On an unrelated note.
Spoiler
(https://i.ibb.co/JtJnSBB/Untitled.jpg) (https://ibb.co/JtJnSBB)
I'm scared.
(https://i.ibb.co/PjspRCR/032131.jpg) (https://ibb.co/PjspRCR)
Who built a gate here?
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 14, 2021, 06:52:17 AM
@Albreo I'm more surprized how/why your cursor is upside down  ;D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 14, 2021, 09:19:43 AM
@Albreo I'm more surprized how/why your cursor is upside down  ;D

Coincidently, I don't know why my OBS recorded the game upside down, so I have to flip it.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 14, 2021, 03:35:44 PM
Yea, I check the front page to see if it updated, the second post. But turns out your beta updates don't get added there.
Yeah the updates are shown on Nexus Mods and I typically also update the subject of the mod thread with the date of it updating. I don't always do that though sometimes it just requires checking the thread. After it leaves Beta I'll see about hooking it up with version checker or something.

Quote
Beams. Makes sense. That works.
Don't touch the DPS indicator. Still confused as to why the math doesn't make that a continuous beam. Doesn't it have a 6 second duration and a 6 second cooldown?
0.1 chargeup, 0.6 burst duration, 0.1 chargedown, 5.2 cooldown.

Quote
Edit: Just updated to latest version, 1.4.0.2, and the Carrier bays tooltip says "The speed boost at low flux is reduced to null" while still having the Limited combat thrusters saying 40 out of 80 flux bonus.
Thanks fixed that up for the next update.

To be specific, the arrow in the overview screen shook.

Megalith with carrier AI is a bit shy and hard to control. I got a headache when order it to attack something and the icon show fighter strikes instead.

I kind of want a ship with a longer scan range than a normal capital ship maybe the Odyssey/Apogee could stattisfy that or a brand new utility ship to crave my urge.
It is possible that its because I stop all momentum on the ship. I'll see if I can get rid of it. The mechanic is important though to keep the beam from being very OP.

I suppose I can change the Megalith back to a warship for the AI. I don't *think* that will effect anything that much.

Quote
On an unrelated note.

I'm scared.

Who built a gate here?

Haha a binary neutron star?! That's nuts.  ;D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ketakermit on July 14, 2021, 05:19:09 PM
I wanted to bring attention to this possible bug/issue. I'm uncertain if it is the fault of this mod as I have a couple running at once, but I have noticed that if I am carrying contraband (AI cores) and get stopped and searched, they never find anything. Is this intentional? Apologies, and thank you kindly for the amazing Mod.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 14, 2021, 05:26:11 PM
I wanted to bring attention to this possible bug/issue. I'm uncertain if it is the fault of this mod as I have a couple running at once, but I have noticed that if I am carrying contraband (AI cores) and get stopped and searched, they never find anything. Is this intentional? Apologies, and thank you kindly for the amazing Mod.

I'll have to double check rules, but I don't *think* I did anything with that portion or touch the script that handles the the results of scans.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ketakermit on July 14, 2021, 05:29:56 PM
I wanted to bring attention to this possible bug/issue. I'm uncertain if it is the fault of this mod as I have a couple running at once, but I have noticed that if I am carrying contraband (AI cores) and get stopped and searched, they never find anything. Is this intentional? Apologies, and thank you kindly for the amazing Mod.

I'll have to double check rules, but I don't *think* I did anything with that portion or touch the script that handles the the results of scans.

I just tried starsector with archean disabled to confirm my suspicions, and my contraband was indeed found and taken.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 14, 2021, 05:37:53 PM
I just tried starsector with archean disabled to confirm my suspicions, and my contraband was indeed found and taken.

Ok I'll see what could potentially be causing it. Thanks for the report!

*EDIT*
What faction was this?

*EDIT 2*
Nvm I understand what is likely going on now.

It isn't a bug, its just that the cargo scan mechanic has a chance of finding contraband based upon the total cargo capacity in the player fleet. So if you have a large capacity and only a couple of cores, the likelihood of them being found is extremely small. I tried 15+ times in the mod and vanilla with 3 gamma cores and they were never found.

I used Console Commands to add enough cores to get close to my maximum capacity and they were found every time in both vanilla and the mod.

The mod increases the cargo capacity of ships by a bit, so what is likely occurring is that you just don't have enough cores for the scan to detect them because you have a high cargo capacity and they don't take up very much overall space.

When you ran vanilla to test, you probably chose a start that had a small fleet, so the odds of detection increased greatly - especially since starts don't include freighters iirc whereas the mod's faction starts always do.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 14, 2021, 09:58:34 PM
Before I forget, Andamantine Consortium seems to be neutral toward REDACTED. I saw a raid and it excluded Andamantine Consortium from the hit list. Presumably, it shouldn't be that way.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Darrow on July 14, 2021, 11:07:18 PM
Would it be possible to rework strikecraft compatibility with ship types?

Just an idea, but would it make it more strategic and tactical that only certain ships could equip specific strikecraft.

ie;
Low-Tier ships = unable to use AI-Strikecraft

In addition, what are your thoughts on only allowing Carriers to use bomber/torpedo strikecraft to amplify the importance of having carriers in your fleet.
I find currently you can generally ignore/not use low-tier Carriers as generally your mid-line ships can compensate with their own carrier bays making low-tier/mid-tier carriers kinda void.



Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 15, 2021, 05:12:31 AM
Would it be possible to rework strikecraft compatibility with ship types?

Just an idea, but would it make it more strategic and tactical that only certain ships could equip specific strikecraft.

ie;
Low-Tier ships = unable to use AI-Strikecraft

In addition, what are your thoughts on only allowing Carriers to use bomber/torpedo strikecraft to amplify the importance of having carriers in your fleet.
I find currently you can generally ignore/not use low-tier Carriers as generally your mid-line ships can compensate with their own carrier bays making low-tier/mid-tier carriers kinda void.

If the low-tier ship can't equip anything better than low-iter strike craft, it will cause a very big balance issue. There will emerge a Meta build that we all want to avoid. If you don't use this ship then you can't fight the REDACTED or if you want to use a certain strike craft then you will have to get a specific ship that you don't like.

If you have a better balancing idea do share.


As for bombers right now there's a workaround in place, that is, all strike crafts, whether it will be interceptor, fighter, or bomber, the cost will be very expensive to deploy. Any other ship apart from a proper carrier will have a hangar bay mod that decreases the cost of both interceptor and fighter. So the cost to deploy interceptor and fighter in those will be mild and acceptable but not bomber. The bomber will stay expensive in this case. So apart from low-tech bombers, that's already cheap, to begin with, you will have to sacrifice OP to field a better one. So it becomes a choice that actually didn't bar you from the impossible. You can still do it if you want, weird build.

For carriers, The strike craft will remain expensive but those expensive strike craft actually priced very close to each other. So it doesn't matter if you choose interceptor, fighter, or bomber, in the same tech it will cost roughly the same. Carrier will have a weapon cost reduction instead so you can completely fill your slots with 0 cost weapons. And other benefits, in line with "carrier", such as longer craft range, faster craft relaunch, and bigger craft reserve. You can read about this in ship Hull mods.

As to answer your question, low-tier/mid-tier carriers (presumably the size of the ship?) you will be using it for fielding bombers/gunships mostly, or in the case of not enough interceptors to counter out the enemy force, you can get extra from here. I always have ready to deploy extra fighter-interceptor filled carriers to counter REDACTED.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 15, 2021, 09:24:04 AM
For the graviton beam.
I checked, looks like I was just really confused as to how beam damage was displayed normally. The issue here is probably that it just doesn't tell you how long the beam lasts, I think.

And yea, it is clearly a pulse beam.

Edit:
I just got an Alpha core to govern my colony, and it is a downgrade from governing myself. It appears to not have the elite varient of the three skills. Not sure if this is vanilla, modded, intended or not.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 15, 2021, 01:26:22 PM
Before I forget, Andamantine Consortium seems to be neutral toward REDACTED. I saw a raid and it excluded Andamantine Consortium from the hit list. Presumably, it shouldn't be that way.
Ah yeah oversight I'm not sure I handled REDACTED rep with any of the new factions. I'll take care of that.

@Darrow
Albreo already pretty much covered it, but its also technically impossible to limit strike craft from specific carriers. The hullmods/OP differences were the next best thing I could do. As far as low tech and midline carriers etc, they will be useful for two things:

 - They can strike with bombers and gunships from a much longer range over warships with the same wings equipped.

 - They replace strike craft much faster than warships (I'm emphasizing this a little more in the next update now that low tech wings replace a lot faster.)

In the case of midline carriers, they also usually have ship systems that even further increase the effectiveness of their wings, so I'd say that you can ignore them and use a purely warship fleet-build for your interceptors or even low-tech or midline bombers/gunships, but if you do use carriers you are certainly going to see a difference.

It is also worth mentioning that the range differences mean that interceptor carriers can actually support other allied ships (and I think the AI does do this if the carrier is pure interceptor) whereas warship interceptors are mostly limited to the warship. For reference, a carrier interceptor wing has 4x the range of a warship interceptor wing.

For the graviton beam.
I checked, looks like I was just really confused as to how beam damage was displayed normally. The issue here is probably that it just doesn't tell you how long the beam lasts, I think.

And yea, it is clearly a pulse beam.
Yeah I don't think the tooltip tells you duration at all. As to where it's getting its overall math from I have no idea. I would guess that maybe some faction of the dps is technically dealt during chargeup/chargedown but the targeted ship would have to be at point blank range for this to matter so it is likely misleading in that sense. Btw, I added beam/projectile speeds to all weapons last night so the next update should have that info in the tooltip.

Quote
I just got an Alpha core to govern my colony, and it is a downgrade from governing myself. It appears to not have the elite varient of the three skills. Not sure if this is vanilla, modded, intended or not.
I'd say that it's because the vanilla versions of those skills don't have elite versions, and so the cores aren't coded to have them be elite. It would probably be the same way with Admins, though it may be possible to use SP to make them elite - I never checked.

However, I'm generally ok with this because:

A) Not every playthrough will the player take all 3 elite colony skills and when they do it is supposed to impact how the player plays - which it looks like it definitely is here.  ;)

B) Alpha cores are still good to use on REDACTED ships the player controls should they take Automated Ships or on any colonies that the player cannot personally govern - with the expected downsides.



I was made aware of the fact that it is impossible to get the mod's version of the Ziggurat in the current version, so the next version addresses this and also makes it possible to recover the Legion (XIV) in the constellations that have them as derelicts.

The vanilla versions of these ships will no longer be available even if the player changes the mod's settings, but there is nothing I can do about that since for whatever reason the code that deals with this sort of thing hardcodes the encounters by hull id. That means the only way to change it to the mod version while preserving the vanilla ships would be to override and replace large swaths of both code and rules. That's not a road I want to go down unless absolutely necessary. Especially since this stuff is relatively new content and its very possible that it will change in some way within the next couple of Starsector updates.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ketakermit on July 15, 2021, 03:26:34 PM
I just tried starsector with archean disabled to confirm my suspicions, and my contraband was indeed found and taken.

Ok I'll see what could potentially be causing it. Thanks for the report!

*EDIT*
What faction was this?

*EDIT 2*
Nvm I understand what is likely going on now.

It isn't a bug, its just that the cargo scan mechanic has a chance of finding contraband based upon the total cargo capacity in the player fleet. So if you have a large capacity and only a couple of cores, the likelihood of them being found is extremely small. I tried 15+ times in the mod and vanilla with 3 gamma cores and they were never found.

I used Console Commands to add enough cores to get close to my maximum capacity and they were found every time in both vanilla and the mod.

The mod increases the cargo capacity of ships by a bit, so what is likely occurring is that you just don't have enough cores for the scan to detect them because you have a high cargo capacity and they don't take up very much overall space.

When you ran vanilla to test, you probably chose a start that had a small fleet, so the odds of detection increased greatly - especially since starts don't include freighters iirc whereas the mod's faction starts always do.

I gotcha, i'm sorry mate i thought for sure it wasn't based on a percentage chance. I'm terribly sorry, and thanks for looking into it anyway.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2021, 02:24:30 AM
I gotcha, i'm sorry mate i thought for sure it wasn't based on a percentage chance. I'm terribly sorry, and thanks for looking into it anyway.
I had to dig into the code to know for sure, so honestly I appreciate the question. Don't feel bad about it at all! I might even make changes now considering that I want to possibly make smuggling a bit harder overall?

Thoughts? I don't want to go too far considering the eventual military markets exclusions, so I am just trying to get the general feel of how best to approach the campaign stuff.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Damienov on July 16, 2021, 06:44:17 AM
nah, I think the smuggling mechanics is fine. It's already impossible enough doing trading in this game, you don't need to make it harder lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2021, 03:01:45 PM
Ha fair enough.  :D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 16, 2021, 03:33:36 PM
did i ever mention that in nex "random sector: derelict empire" the derelict faction doesnt spawn any ships at all?
i just asked on the nex thread why that may and no one knows

there is a newish mod on the "modding" section of the forum that adds in different bounty types and the derelict bounties show up there (but the other kinds dont seem to)

i cant remember if i asked you about this or not lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2021, 04:05:43 PM
did i ever mention that in nex "random sector: derelict empire" the derelict faction doesnt spawn any ships at all?
i just asked on the nex thread why that may and no one knows

there is a newish mod on the "modding" section of the forum that adds in different bounty types and the derelict bounties show up there (but the other kinds dont seem to)

i cant remember if i asked you about this or not lol

Hmm, no I don't think you did. That's very strange. The faction has the correct tags in the faction file. I had thought that having an empty array wouldn't clear it so... hmm let me investigate. This is with the current version of Nex?

What's the name of the other mod?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 16, 2021, 04:34:27 PM
im using 10.2c (latest) nex and the other one is https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22276.0
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2021, 05:03:45 PM
im using 10.2c (latest) nex and the other one is https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22276.0

Thanks I'm not currently sure what is going on. I confirmed that the derelict faction knows all the ships in question... hmm. I checked the Nex config and nothing stands out as far as something I need to add. I may need to message Histidine to see if there is something I am not doing.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 16, 2021, 05:12:05 PM
woa thanks for doing that!  i really enjoy both derelict sector and archean order!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 16, 2021, 06:26:02 PM
i just ran across the most ridiculous thing i have ever seen in the sector: i paid some guy in a bar 20k for the location of a terraforming rig; once i got there, i attempted to battle the drone supership only to find out the shields either take zero damage, or it is dissipating hard flux so fast that 4 velocity cannons (in addition to 8 fighter bays worth of gunships and bombers, and some sabot missiles) had NO effect at all.  wah?!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ranakastrasz on July 16, 2021, 06:51:29 PM
Yeah, look at the ship system. Gotta backoff and let the system turn off, because it gives like 10x hardflux dissipation, as well as massive stat bonuses. Kinda rediculous, even if it seems to cause malfunctions.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 16, 2021, 07:13:57 PM
Yes it is a boss ship. (And it only causes malfunctions when the player controls it. I'm evil.)

It regenerates charges slowly and only has three total charges to start with, however, so you can wait it out. It will use the first charge aggressively and save the remaining two for situations where it is in trouble, such as high flux or taking hull damage too consistently. That way it's more difficult for the player to exploit it and waste a charge with things like long range attacks when the shield is down, etc.

That said, the ship's base stats are pretty big and you will take losses almost guaranteed. It is more of a late game mission. That's one of the problems I have with the current mission system, there needs to be more ways to indicate to the player upfront that the mission is extremely difficult.

It is also not the only ship with this system.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 17, 2021, 02:18:21 PM
oh so it is intended.  was it like that in vanilla?  didnt it have maneuvering thrusters?  either way i remember it being WAY easier in vanilla, and besides that i agree it would be cool if there was some sort of way to know the intended difficulty of something upfront, especially considering the entry price for that mission is a measly 20k.  perhaps it would be best to have a mechanic in place that checks your fleet deployment points or something and wont allow fleets below a certain level to accept the mission (i assume this is possible given there are other things that wont allow you to proceed unless you have the required resources/faction relation)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 17, 2021, 11:51:34 PM
Is the Radiant's Flux Converter skill bug? The critical malfunction is permanent somehow and cannot be repaired during battle. At most, half of the large weapon slots will become unusable the moment combat start because you script it that way to immediately use the first charge.

AC auto-solve is extremely weak compared to its capability in real combat. It can stream roll me along with a big mercenary patrol. Whereas if I let them be, it actually lost to the mercenary lol. Also, Hegemony auto-solve is too high due to the number of capital it fields in each fleet, but in reality, it is super easy to win. They will win 9 out of 10 vs any other faction fleet.

And the entire AO fell to the Trader Guild again.

Another annoying thing is the random skill choose by the captains. There seems to be a fixed trend here. Not sure how Alex did it but it's not random enough. I only found one person with a strike commander.
(https://i.ibb.co/wLCG16V/654654.jpg) (https://ibb.co/wLCG16V)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: BreenBB on July 18, 2021, 01:23:39 AM
About auto solve, I noticed too, what AO often loss to other fleets, especially in fights with Tri-Tachyon, and especially in Hybrasil system, which also gives alot of free ships, especially without Nex, since it have both vulture scavengers who pickup derelicts and invasions so these isolated colonies can be captured by factions, but this exploit with free ships is very easily fixable - just make sure what perma-hostile factions doesn't have planets in same system, or make them neutral to each other, in vanilla game all factions initially neutral to each other, and just occasionally they got hostilities with each other which isn't permanent, so it won't give you endless supply of derelicts.

Also about ship subsystems, I liked old subsystems from 091 version of Tyrant phase battleship, and Doom, like Tyrant had Phase Skimmer, and regular Doom, not Adamantine one had also temporal shell as I recall. I feel like maneuvering jets and plasma burn doesn't fit phase ships. Tyrant isn't bad ship but I think it could be more interesitng, and Adamnatine Doom is definitely better than regular one. In general phase ships, especially in vanilla often tend to have subsystems which affects enemy ships or weapon subsystems like EMP bolts or Mines, so Doom and Tyrant doesn't fit that scheme.

About ideas, Phase Skimmer can be quite strong, but I think is good idea is teleportation ability like on Karkinos from Blackrock, its doesn't have charges, and uses abit of flux and time to charge, but on teleportation its also deal AOE damage where its teleports, fun subsystem, so it can be both mobility and attacking subsystem. Also I like sound of it too.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 18, 2021, 11:04:37 AM
oh so it is intended.  was it like that in vanilla?  didnt it have maneuvering thrusters?  either way i remember it being WAY easier in vanilla, and besides that i agree it would be cool if there was some sort of way to know the intended difficulty of something upfront, especially considering the entry price for that mission is a measly 20k.  perhaps it would be best to have a mechanic in place that checks your fleet deployment points or something and wont allow fleets below a certain level to accept the mission (i assume this is possible given there are other things that wont allow you to proceed unless you have the required resources/faction relation)
That could work, yeah. I'm not sure how easy it will be to do, but that is something I will look into once the story portion of the mod is being developed. Missions will definitely be a part of that.

The system is something I developed myself and wrote my own AI for, it's not in vanilla.

Is the Radiant's Flux Converter skill bug? The critical malfunction is permanent somehow and cannot be repaired during battle. At most, half of the large weapon slots will become unusable the moment combat start because you script it that way to immediately use the first charge.
There is a chance that the malfunction is permanent for the duration of the battle each system activate. From my tests, that doesn't prevent the Radiant from getting quite a few kills anyway (it usually still managed to take down several capitals before it was completely debilitated) so while annoying, it is actually fairly balanced this way. Not having a major downside isn't really an option considering how amazingly strong the system is, and the system is necessary to make REDACTED encounters as challenging as I want them to be.

One thing that will probably help will be the ability to personally control the Radiant using neural uplink in the next Starsector update - so you as the player can be more judicious with use of the system compared to the AI.

*EDIT* Oh reading more carefully so the start of the battle thing is part of the problem? I can probably script the AI to not use its first charge aggressively while in the player fleet. That would help prevent immediate malfunctions while keeping the intended behavior when fighting REDACTED ordos.

Quote
AC auto-solve is extremely weak compared to its capability in real combat. It can stream roll me along with a big mercenary patrol. Whereas if I let them be, it actually lost to the mercenary lol. Also, Hegemony auto-solve is too high due to the number of capital it fields in each fleet, but in reality, it is super easy to win. They will win 9 out of 10 vs any other faction fleet.

And the entire AO fell to the Trader Guild again.

Another annoying thing is the random skill choose by the captains. There seems to be a fixed trend here. Not sure how Alex did it but it's not random enough. I only found one person with a strike commander.
I don't really mess with the skill selection process on leveling up. It could be bad luck or there could be a vanilla bug going on, I'm not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it was weighted against carrier skills though - as carriers seem to be avoided more and more in vanilla after all those complaints of carrier spam being OP after 0.9 was released.

About auto solve, I noticed too, what AO often loss to other fleets, especially in fights with Tri-Tachyon, and especially in Hybrasil system, which also gives alot of free ships, especially without Nex, since it have both vulture scavengers who pickup derelicts and invasions so these isolated colonies can be captured by factions, but this exploit with free ships is very easily fixable - just make sure what perma-hostile factions doesn't have planets in same system, or make them neutral to each other, in vanilla game all factions initially neutral to each other, and just occasionally they got hostilities with each other which isn't permanent, so it won't give you endless supply of derelicts.

Also about ship subsystems, I liked old subsystems from 091 version of Tyrant phase battleship, and Doom, like Tyrant had Phase Skimmer, and regular Doom, not Adamantine one had also temporal shell as I recall. I feel like maneuvering jets and plasma burn doesn't fit phase ships. Tyrant isn't bad ship but I think it could be more interesitng, and Adamnatine Doom is definitely better than regular one. In general phase ships, especially in vanilla often tend to have subsystems which affects enemy ships or weapon subsystems like EMP bolts or Mines, so Doom and Tyrant doesn't fit that scheme.

About ideas, Phase Skimmer can be quite strong, but I think is good idea is teleportation ability like on Karkinos from Blackrock, its doesn't have charges, and uses abit of flux and time to charge, but on teleportation its also deal AOE damage where its teleports, fun subsystem, so it can be both mobility and attacking subsystem. Also I like sound of it too.
Doom and Tyrant will have the mine system (though nerfed from vanilla a bit) in the next update. The problem with teleports is that the AI is too timid most of the time and there is an annoying component to battles being drawn out from teleport retreating. So while it is fun for the player flying the ship, it causes too many headaches when fighting the ship under AI control.

You might miss the movement systems after the phase ship changes for 0.95.1a though.  ;)

Re: Autoresolve
I don't really understand why this stuff would be happening other than random luck.
Spoiler
Trader Guilds
      "officerQuality":5,
      "shipQuality":3,
      "numShips":2,
      
      "shipSize":3,

Archean Order
      "officerQuality":1,
      "shipQuality":8,
      "numShips":3,
      
      "shipSize":4,

Adamantine Consortium
      "officerQuality":1,
      "shipQuality":8,
      "numShips":1,
      
      "shipSize":5,
[close]

 - Both Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium have ships with a higher FP value per ship than Trader Guilds on average, so it just doesn't make sense.

I did increase the officer quality for AO and AC to 5, and the number of ships for AC to 3, and ship size for AO to 5. I also made it so that the Megalith will spawn a bit more frequently.

Other than that, I don't know what else to do. I also feel like after these changes I am going to start getting the opposite reports - AO or AC is steamrolling the sector, etc.

Re: Derelicts
This will be addressed later on after 0.95.1a which fixes the military market bug. After that, the only ways to get these ships will be either purchasing them on military markets, using contacts/personal blueprints to acquire them, or possibly a story point to get the derelict - but even then I am hesitant to allow that.

Separating colonies in different systems doesn't really solve the problem when Nex is active, and you can still find plenty of derelicts in hyperspace even if its not.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ratpizza on July 19, 2021, 09:04:13 AM
Ok, so I,ve found a few strange things. First I found a hammerhead for sale in an independent market which had medium ballistics-slots rather than hybrid. Also, during a pirate-fight, one of the-pirate ships (a standard kite ) showed up on the info-screen during combat as having no weapons installed even though I'm certain it had (showed up as armed on the pre-battle screen). Also, when I have come across people in bars which sold surplus-ships they seem to be vanilla-variants. For example, one guy sold a buffalo and it showed up on the info-screen with only one-energy-slot, which I think is the vanilla-variant unless I'm mistaken?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 19, 2021, 01:45:49 PM
Thanks for the report. This is not the first time that I've heard about stuff like this though I haven't personally seen this come up yet. It seems to be a 0.95 thing.

Question - are you playing with Nex?

The surplus ships problem is *probably* fixable. The frustrating thing is that a vanilla variant showed up in a market. That should be impossible unless you have allowed that to happen by editing the TC's settings.  >:(

Sigh. I'm probably going to have to delve very deep into the market code and find out how this is happening. I have double checked and the ids for all of those ships are in the override csv - which means they are having all the necessary tags added to prevent this. Something must be adding them explicitly.


Big dummy alert... *spoiler* its me. I figured out why this is probably happening and I will have it fixed for the next version. I didn't override the damaged version of a bunch of ships - including the buffalo and hammerhead.



Histidine said that the Derelict Empire will be set up to work with the TC derelicts - likely in the next release of Nex, so hurray!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 19, 2021, 07:54:19 PM
Nvm, Alex shot down that solution so I am back to square one.

@ratpizza
If you don't mind, I am probably going to need a copy of your save file so I can reference both what mods are included and also have a reference to what market/fleets had this bug, etc.

Looking at the vanilla code and verifying with Alex that the logic of how I am approaching the overrides is sound, I can't as of yet find a case where this sort of thing could have slipped through the cracks.

The bar event might be an exception as I haven't gotten to looking at that code yet.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 19, 2021, 08:20:30 PM
just want to say how grateful i am for how much you soend on this creation (yes i know it is a mod but i prefer to call them creations when they are at the level that the average modder for starsector produces)
THANKS TO YOU AND THE ORIGINAL CREATORS (yknow, the ones who spawned starfarer i mean starsector LOL)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 19, 2021, 08:31:38 PM
just want to say how grateful i am for how much you soend on this creation (yes i know it is a mod but i prefer to call them creations when they are at the level that the average modder for starsector produces)
THANKS TO YOU AND THE ORIGINAL CREATORS (yknow, the ones who spawned starfarer i mean starsector LOL)

You are quite welcome, thank you.  :) (And yeah Alex is hands down THE most helpful dev I've ever seen in any game. No joke.)

I have fun doing it most of the time and I've learned a fair amount too - especially in the beginning. Still, I'm happy other people enjoy it too.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 20, 2021, 06:30:29 AM
yea i can attest to his coolness, he responds on the different threads hes active in very quickly
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ratpizza on July 20, 2021, 06:59:12 AM
Nvm, Alex shot down that solution so I am back to square one.

@ratpizza
If you don't mind, I am probably going to need a copy of your save file so I can reference both what mods are included and also have a reference to what market/fleets had this bug, etc.

Looking at the vanilla code and verifying with Alex that the logic of how I am approaching the overrides is sound, I can't as of yet find a case where this sort of thing could have slipped through the cracks.

The bar event might be an exception as I haven't gotten to looking at that code yet.

Unfortunately the save-file is to large to be uploaded here. Unless the descriptor-files are sufficient?
Btwi I can confirm that the vanilla-ships I were seeing indeed were damaged versions.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: SonnaBanana on July 20, 2021, 08:07:56 AM
Nvm, Alex shot down that solution so I am back to square one.

@ratpizza
If you don't mind, I am probably going to need a copy of your save file so I can reference both what mods are included and also have a reference to what market/fleets had this bug, etc.

Looking at the vanilla code and verifying with Alex that the logic of how I am approaching the overrides is sound, I can't as of yet find a case where this sort of thing could have slipped through the cracks.

The bar event might be an exception as I haven't gotten to looking at that code yet.

Unfortunately the save-file is to large to be uploaded here. Unless the descriptor-files are sufficient?
Btwi I can confirm that the vanilla-ships I were seeing indeed were damaged versions.
Use this site: https://pixeldrain.com/
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ratpizza on July 20, 2021, 12:11:59 PM
@Morrokain
Okay, I,ve PM:ed you the URL to the save file. I also included a screenshot of the "unarmed" kite I mentioned earlier.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 20, 2021, 03:25:32 PM
not sure if this is just me but i havent found any agents

i also run accross officers with the green font but they end up being administrators with no skills
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 20, 2021, 04:34:38 PM
@ratpizza

Thanks! I'll take a look and let you know what I find. I've already made changes so its possible that the logic will remove the ships from the market when I load the save. If that is so, I'll disable the setting that does that and see if they show up. If they do, then hopefully that means the issue was fixed.

*EDIT*
The screenshot you linked is just the codex entry for the Kite hull. Hull codex entries never have weapons on them. Variant codex entries have weapons on them. Are you saying that is what the ship looked like in the pirate group? Rereading it, it seems like you are saying it had weapons in the actual battle and this screen showed it unarmed? If so, that is how it generally works I believe.

not sure if this is just me but i havent found any agents

i also run accross officers with the green font but they end up being administrators with no skills

Hmm, I'll take a look. Maybe it has something to do with a rules incompatibility over previous versions. There isn't anything with the config that I can see that would disable them.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 20, 2021, 08:37:34 PM
I'll take a look and let you know what I find. I've already made changes so its possible that the logic will remove the ships from the market when I load the save. If that is so, I'll disable the setting that does that and see if they show up. If they do, then hopefully that means the issue was fixed.

From the save, I learned that there isn't any vanilla ships in any market (nothing came up that was removed in the log and it checks every submarket in the sector) so I can confirm that its working as intended. The Hammerhead (D) that you saw was, in fact, the TC version - but the TC version has the primary medium weapons changed to ballistic. I went ahead and removed that from being part of the damaged hull in order to avoid future confusion.

Checking the code after confirming that the freighter you get is a vanilla freighter, however, I confirmed that its hardcoded by hull id. So I will have to remove that mission and replace it with a TC version.

The surplus ships mission uses the faction's known ship list, and so this mission should always give TC ships assuming the default mod settings.

Alright, now on to admins, officers, mercs, and agents...
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 20, 2021, 11:28:32 PM
Quote
Alright, now on to admins, officers, mercs, and agents...

Apparently, all Admins have full elite skill but the Alpha core isn't...

I think the colony skills need to change somewhat so that normal Admin can only have non-elite skills or one elite skill and put half of the benefit that is currently in the elite version into base skill. +1 industry should remain elite, +2 stability in base and +1 more in elite version, etc. For Alpha cores, they will have all skill elite. Since players can elite any skill easily it shouldn't be taken into consideration whether which part should be in base or elite but look between the Admin and Alpha core.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 21, 2021, 12:13:58 AM
Apparently, all Admins have full elite skill but the Alpha core isn't...

I think the colony skills need to change somewhat so that normal Admin can only have non-elite skills or one elite skill and put half of the benefit that is currently in the elite version into base skill. +1 industry should remain elite, +2 stability in base and +1 more in elite version, etc. For Alpha cores, they will have all skill elite. Since players can elite any skill easily it shouldn't be taken into consideration whether which part should be in base or elite but look between the Admin and Alpha core.

Ah thanks I'm ok with the player being a better admin (at least until possibly everything gets reworked in 0.95.1a if you've been following the Skills Part 2 thread) but definitely not admins. I'll look at this and find out why that would be the case. Rules is really the last place I need to thoroughly check for 0.95 changes. I think I've taken care of everything else in the current dev version at this point. Unfortunately, the next update will likely not be save compatible as a result.

I ran into a skill bug that I think I just fixed when generating fleets which causes a nullpointer. I also fixed the freighter bar mission, and better fleshed out the new faction's skill choices and the "voice" section that has to do with mission dialogue.

I wish some sections of the faction file could be locked down instead of merged without locking the entire file. Right now I am in kind of a tough spot with faction skills that aren't the new factions. Ah well, best probably to leave it alone for now considering all the changes in the works. Once that update hits I might see what code options are available.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: pearagon on July 21, 2021, 02:46:10 AM
An update to the compatible modlist with old mods removed and new mods added would be appreciated. It's hard to choose between all the mods I've grown attached to and AO.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 21, 2021, 03:30:10 PM
An update to the compatible modlist with old mods removed and new mods added would be appreciated. It's hard to choose between all the mods I've grown attached to and AO.

You mean which ones are updated to 0.95? Or compatibility things?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: pearagon on July 21, 2021, 03:45:02 PM
An update to the compatible modlist with old mods removed and new mods added would be appreciated. It's hard to choose between all the mods I've grown attached to and AO.

You mean which ones are updated to 0.95? Or compatibility things?

Which mods are compatible with the balance of AO
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 21, 2021, 03:59:41 PM
Which mods are compatible with the balance of AO

I'll update that when the mod moves out of Beta along with the main page and tactics manual. Iirc I added a couple that were reported to me, but taking the time to download, install and test every mod available (there are quite a few after all) is more work than I want to spend time doing when I'm still squashing bugs and writing descriptions, etc.

Just to nip this in bud, however, I am not playing favorites with any mods I just don't have time to properly test them all. I do respond to any reports of incompatibility with feature mods (within reason) and faction mods will be unbalanced unless specifically balanced around the TC - which, to my knowledge none of them are. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't play with those mods, but from what I understand a lot of people desire a balanced experience and I just can't guarantee that without extensive testing. I have to rely mostly on user testimonials, and those have mostly been in the vein of "nah it's not balanced with the TC ships" if that makes sense.

(Also not saying you're implying favoritism or anything, I am just putting that out there in case there was ever the impression that this was the case.)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 21, 2021, 04:02:47 PM
this is my current enabled list
Spoiler
{"enabledMods": [
  "pantera_ANewLevel40",
  "adjustable_skill_thresholds",
  "Adjusted Sector",
  "anotherportraitpack",
  "archeus_beta",
  "armaa",
  "automatedcommands",
  "beyondthesector",
  "HMI_brighton",
  "combat_docking_module",
  "timid_commissioned_hull_mods",
  "lw_console",
  "diyplanets",
  "DetailedCombatResults",
  "diableavionics",
  "sun_flux_reticle",
  "gladiatorsociety",
  "GrandColonies",
  "HMI_SV",
  "hm_barratry",
  "hullmod_specialization",
  "sun_hyperdrive",
  "IndEvo",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "logisticsNotifications",
  "MagicLib",
  "su_CarrierHullmod",
  "su_CarrierHullmod_Rebalance",
  "mir",
  "more_ship_names",
  "nexerelin",
  "console_overlord_additionalcommands",
  "wisp_perseanchronicles",
  "QualityCaptains",
  "remnant_command_transfer",
  "repdec",
  "sun_ruthless_sector",
  "secretsofthefrontieralt",
  "SEEKER",
  "PT_ShipDirectionMarker",
  "simpleplayerflags",
  "solsystem",
  "speedUp",
  "sw",
  "sun_starship_legends",
  "stelnet",
  "superweapons",
  "timid_supply_forging",
  "US",
  "ungp",
  "unpackblueprints",
  "UGH",
  "vanidad",
  "wasabounties",
  "XhanEmpire",
  "audio_plus",
  "shaderLib"
]}
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 21, 2021, 04:07:08 PM
this is my current enabled list
Spoiler
{"enabledMods": [
  "pantera_ANewLevel40",
  "adjustable_skill_thresholds",
  "Adjusted Sector",
  "anotherportraitpack",
  "archeus_beta",
  "armaa",
  "automatedcommands",
  "beyondthesector",
  "HMI_brighton",
  "combat_docking_module",
  "timid_commissioned_hull_mods",
  "lw_console",
  "diyplanets",
  "DetailedCombatResults",
  "diableavionics",
  "sun_flux_reticle",
  "gladiatorsociety",
  "GrandColonies",
  "HMI_SV",
  "hm_barratry",
  "hullmod_specialization",
  "sun_hyperdrive",
  "IndEvo",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "logisticsNotifications",
  "MagicLib",
  "su_CarrierHullmod",
  "su_CarrierHullmod_Rebalance",
  "mir",
  "more_ship_names",
  "nexerelin",
  "console_overlord_additionalcommands",
  "wisp_perseanchronicles",
  "QualityCaptains",
  "remnant_command_transfer",
  "repdec",
  "sun_ruthless_sector",
  "secretsofthefrontieralt",
  "SEEKER",
  "PT_ShipDirectionMarker",
  "simpleplayerflags",
  "solsystem",
  "speedUp",
  "sw",
  "sun_starship_legends",
  "stelnet",
  "superweapons",
  "timid_supply_forging",
  "US",
  "ungp",
  "unpackblueprints",
  "UGH",
  "vanidad",
  "wasabounties",
  "XhanEmpire",
  "audio_plus",
  "shaderLib"
]}
[close]

Thanks!

Do you think you have a good grasp of how the faction mods feel? Has it overall been a fun experience?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 21, 2021, 05:03:39 PM
yea i think it is great and actually i was thinking someone who knows how to use python could set something up to automatically alter third party factions to be more in line with archean order

like for example, something that automatically adds certain percentage to different values such as hull and armor, and looks for whether something is a carrier etc in order to switch out the appropriate hullmods

i mean, im kind of just dreaming in terms of that but it would be cool lol

i really enjoy the changes in difficulty especially how it makes civilian ships more viable combat vessels, and i also like how it makes some of the more easily looked over factions actually dangerous, specifically luddic path
luddic path can be a NIGHTMARE to fight and more than a few times i have underestimated them, treating their ships the way i would pirate counterparts (BIG MISTAKE)
ive actually found them to be more difficult to fight pound for pound than any other fleets, especially at the mid stages (the point in the game where youre almost ready to make a colony, and have only one capital and a few cruisers)
the way they can hit and fade with numbers makes them incredible (which is GOOD)

the pirates i think could use a small buff in the way of perhaps some variants with safety overrides (not to the point of luddic path, just a bit in order to make up for their lackluster ships/armaments when compared to big factions)

archean order are great;  i love the long range blaster cannons thing they have going on.  i DO think they could use both a super heavy destroyer (with fortress shields maybe?) and a good hunter killer destroyer (time accelerator?  burst/maneuvering jets?  or maybe even a giant emp emitter?!)

scicorp is a great faction, really fits the mold nicely of "were tritachyon but less sinister, but more exclusive than independent"
super high tech and an all around good group for those who want to do a "paragon" playthrough

trader guilds is like the midline version of what i have to say about scicorp.  actually back in the 91 days, this was the first faction i used when i did a full run through
good all around midline type of faction

the updates and changes to the four powerhouse factions are OUSTANDING
i mean i could go on but ill spare myself and everyone else LOL

last but not least, cause no one saw them come in (lol.  phase ship joke), the consortium
what, a, cool, faction
the hammer to the anvil that is the order
i mean dont get me wrong, the order are so stylish its outrageous, but the consortium just ooze supervillian levels of "i will hunt you down and eat your childrens organs" which i mean, its hard to be the hero of the sector without a group that could be considered villians.
i mean, im sure maybe one or two of the barons are ok guys, but that is NOT the impression that is given for the whole of them.


anyway, great work.  OH and in case you thought i didnt notice, the armor increase to fighters and overall changes thereof are perfect, really.  back when the talons only had 5 armor, i found myself not using them at all (even when they were free) because the crew losses were just too much.  i mean.....i actually felt BAD about that many people dying so easily.
they are a serious threat now (as they SHOULD be) and i never field my pillager without them.
also, there should be a pillager with built in safety overrides.  im sure those mad luddites can figure it out SOMEhow.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 21, 2021, 08:03:55 PM
I don't think it would be a good idea to mess with other mods without their express permission even if the Python idea were possible. It's their (the mod authors) stuff and even though I agree it would be cool to use more factions alongside the TC, I want to respect their work and time, you know? They have their own ideas and I think it's actually great to have things that are different. It keeps the replay value even higher!

That out of the way, thank you for the general review!

To touch on a few points:

I made a polish pass over the faction files and changed up fleet sizes/compositions a bit. This will probably be the most noticeable in Nex, but factions have more access to the admiral-level skills than before - which should make some factions a bit more challenging. I also differentiated some factions through the use of more carriers than before. The only downside to this could be a reduction in performance on lower end pcs. Sorry about that!

More ships for various factions are certainly planned, I just have a lot of work to do beforehand. I certainly underestimated the amount of changes from .91 to 0.95 and now there will be even more due to the skill overhaul for 0.95.1a.

I'm glad that the Luddic Path feel like a unique and difficult faction. That is definitely the intention. I fixed up a couple of bugs in the next update that will give them military base colonies so they will hopefully last a little longer in a Nex campaign. I'll touch more on Nex balance in a bit.

Pirates are kind of meant to be an enemy that the player learns the TC on, so they have to be a bit easier just by that standard alone. That said, I would love to do some scripted, more difficult encounters possibly with specially modified ships (that the player could then use a story point to potentially recover) to add some real flavor to them, but it will be a bit before I can do those types of things.

I am glad that the fighter wings seem a bit more balanced now and less throw-away. That was something that bothered me for a while and I like where they are a lot better now.

I think your analysis of the factions from a lore perspective is pretty much what I intended. Some are complex and will have a complex place in the story, others are more cut and dry and act sort of like a catalyst. There will of course be exceptions there. (Your comment about not all the Barons being completely evil is something I definitely want to expand on as far as what is already there in the lore of Mordreath. And you're also correct that it isn't many of them because they tend to be weeded out like in the history of Echo Point.)

Especially with the new "voices" section of the faction file, I am pretty excited to make my own for the factions.

Again, I appreciate the comments and everyone's contributions for that matter in the form of feedback. I think the mod is already a lot better than when the beta first released, and once the tedious stuff is out of the way I can actually focus on using 0.95's features to create some content.

Oh right, Nex balance:

I doubled the FP value of all stations across the board. The purpose of this is to give factions a little more of a defensive advantage - especially at their major colonies with a Starbase. When I looked at the fleet generator to troubleshoot the reported market bug, I saw that there is enough random that autoresolve is probably a lost cause fleet-to-fleet. That doesn't mean I won't look at anomalies and try and keep things close, but it became apparent that an extra measure was probably needed. I hope this helps keep those campaigns a little less volatile and more "player driven" if that makes sense.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: not a luddic path member on July 21, 2021, 10:11:59 PM
Mod is really nice but fighters feel waaaay too broken. Damage and stats need to be toned down, but not to drastic vanilla levels. Really like the direction overall where the mod is heading towards, and if need be I guess I could always tweak the values myself to something I'd prefer. If anything, I'd love if there was a separate option to just have all the extra fluff/content and none of the balance-changes because I really like the new factions and how they look design-wise.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 22, 2021, 09:32:01 AM
Mod is really nice but fighters feel waaaay too broken. Damage and stats need to be toned down, but not to drastic vanilla levels. Really like the direction overall where the mod is heading towards, and if need be I guess I could always tweak the values myself to something I'd prefer. If anything, I'd love if there was a separate option to just have all the extra fluff/content and none of the balance-changes because I really like the new factions and how they look design-wise.

Hi and thanks!

Personally, I like where fighters are at right now. The weapons that counter them counter them very well, but they are less squishy then they were previously to capitals. From tests, it doesn't feel like they should be overwhelming especially if your ships have medium or large weapons that counter them. And on the flip side of that, carriers feel meaningful even at the small level because a couple gunships or bombers can make a fairly large difference. But I can certainly understand that not everyone will have that opinion for sure. One thing I've been considering is further lowering warships ability to replace them (and making Expanded Deck Crew stronger to compensate) in order to really solidify the different roles and emphasize that hullmod more as a separate and attractive build choice.

The dialogue options are already underway to have their own, separate mod, so that at least will be available at some point in the future. As far as the factions, well, at least two of them kind of lose their mystique without their ship lineups. I'd have to balance the ships for vanilla first. I'm not against the idea in principle, but I want to finish other stuff first. (Including separating the dialogue options in such a way that other mods can take advantage of them and create their own custom dialogue.)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: not a luddic path member on July 22, 2021, 03:48:50 PM
Definitely looking forward to all future progress. Got my eyes peeled for that next progress report. Thanks for the feedback.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 22, 2021, 10:24:20 PM
I think some recently adjusted fighter need to be nerfed a bit. Especially Hegemony's craft equipped with a light rail gun that can steamroll event the most expensive high tech craft and the ability to flame the heck out of high tech ships that now have a hole in the rear for some reason with no armor to support the exposed engine. Most high-tech crafts with non 360' need 360' shield to make it work properly only half frontal shield is not enough no matter how strong the shield is and it should improve CPU consumption a bit if it doesn't have to rotate the shield. And it should be fairer as low-tech craft's armor protects the entire hull from every angle. For example a Flash bomber with hefty shield value, the moment it went over the enemy ship it exposes it non-shielded rear that has no armor and will pop in a few hit with no chance of surviving. So it becomes pretty useless if you can't already overwhelm the enemy ship to the point that it can't retaliate.

I will try to do another spreadsheet if you agree on another adjustment pass.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 22, 2021, 11:58:05 PM
I think some recently adjusted fighter need to be nerfed a bit. Especially Hegemony's craft equipped with a light rail gun that can steamroll event the most expensive high tech craft and the ability to flame the heck out of high tech ships that now have a hole in the rear for some reason with no armor to support the exposed engine. Most high-tech crafts with non 360' need 360' shield to make it work properly only half frontal shield is not enough no matter how strong the shield is and it should improve CPU consumption a bit if it doesn't have to rotate the shield. And it should be fairer as low-tech craft's armor protects the entire hull from every angle. For example a Flash bomber with hefty shield value, the moment it went over the enemy ship it exposes it non-shielded rear that has no armor and will pop in a few hit with no chance of surviving. So it becomes pretty useless if you can't already overwhelm the enemy ship to the point that it can't retaliate.

I will try to do another spreadsheet if you agree on another adjustment pass.

I'll try to explain my reasoning with these things:

Wing vs ship:

High tech ships were far too immune to weapons like the Reality Disruptor and missiles with EMP arcs (including kinetic missiles with Ionized Warheads) with base 360 degree shields. This also serves to give a bit of a counter to their hit and run tactics for the player. However, that change should be completely mitigated by using Extended Shields - which previously had no use on high tech ships at all. Or, alternatively, Insulated Engines can help at least keep the engines running alongside Automated Repair Unit. Both of those were also previously unused on high tech ships (or at least I never considered them - which was a concern for me). Interdiction missiles and fighters alike were completely useless as well. Also, consider that Armored Weapon Mounts and Heavy Armor are flat increases now. That makes them more valuable on low-armor high tech ships wanting to prevent rear damage. So I think there are a lot of avenues to counteract the new weakness, if that makes sense. This might be a bit of an OP tax, but it doesn't have to be if one is willing to weigh the risks. To me this is the hallmark of good design. Build choices should be difficult and sometimes you will regret them when things go wrong with the choice you made.

I think it overall opens up some significant gameplay and build options when facing high tech factions. Some ships still keep 360 degree shields in the next update though - such as the Astral which already can't kite well and so it is less necessary. I *think* also the Megalith since it is slow enough that you'd never need to bring down its engines. That and good shields are kind of its signature thing since the large weapon mounts are placed so far back on the hull which sort of limits its potential weapon options. At first it was a blanket change, and as I tested things I thought "nah not necessary for this ship" in a few cases for the next update, iirc.

Wing vs wing:

I honestly think Hegemony wings needed the boost a bit. I saw no reason to use them considering their higher OP than low tech yet same survivability as low tech. Yes, they dealt decent damage to shields - but they were very squishy compared to high tech wings and were pretty poor against most craft except the shielded ones. High tech wings still deal a lot more damage overall too. If high tech interceptors are lacking, then I can possibly buff their weapons. With their rapid replacement rate though I'm not sure if its really needed - especially after Wasp's mine buff/bug fix (not sure if that is in the current update or not but it will be a noticeable thing if it is). Similarly, the Talon (T) has better missiles (as does all craft that use anti-fighter missiles) and anything with Burst PD Beams or Smokescreen Rockets should wreck other wings regardless of armor considering I increased the wing vs wing damage modifier to 5X base damage and both of those weapons have pinpoint accuracy. So as a result, I am assuming you are strictly talking about the bombers and gunships here. Let me know if not though!

That said, by all means give me your thoughts and a spreadsheet is definitely a valuable way to do that. I'll do some tests and consider changes based upon what I read. Specific test parameters would also be great as supporting evidence. Keep in mind I kind of want to have high tech be a little less survivable than low tech stuff as a trade off for the damage. It does mean that it will feel bad if their runs are stopped since there is more down time for the carrier between them. The thing is, when they do succeed most ships outside of a capital are just dead in the water space if there are any nearby warships to capitalize on the strike - which has more reliability if not more range than LRMs. Even capitals take a lot of damage in that circumstance. Obviously this varies from wing to wing though.

Also, I am still on the fence as to the best way to implement Deflector Shell. I'm tossing around a longer cooldown, less damage reduction while active, and limited charges as the different levers for a good balance. It seems really strong right now and was kind of implemented that way on purpose so that I can tweak it down as needed. It is meant as a way to deliberately differentiate low tech from midline in a noticeable way. Hegemony is technically more midline with a low tech style flavor - so they get Deflector Shell and more advanced weapons just like the Persean League. Luddic Church/Path on the other hand, are roughly the same OP with a more low tech style/flavor - and as such they deal a bit more damage than low tech stuff and simultaneously replace a bit faster than either of the previously mentioned factions.

Hopefully this makes sense, and if this is not what you are experiencing definitely let me know. Build info is also useful - since the update has of course changed things up. For instance, in the linked builds by numerous people over the last couple of years I've noticed a tendency to ignore rear weapon slots. That probably isn't a solid idea anymore, at least not on every build - which to me is great!

TLDR: I'm definitely open to it, but the more specific the details as to why this is that way, etc, etc, the more likely there will be changes because time is a factor and I've already spent a lot of time testing this stuff out. Of course, I'm certainly not perfect and may have missed things. There are a crazy amount of potential scenarios to test after all, and I'm just a single person. That's why all of the feedback responses are so valuable. ;D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 23, 2021, 02:56:13 AM
I did tests on Legion vs Legion when I first got it and I'm baffled that no matter what I put as an interceptor, it stood no chance against Talon (H). That thing wiped even Spark, it's obviously too strong and too tanky for the cost. The light rail gun also has an EMP effect I assume. The new damage reduction skill for craft also makes a huge difference, improving survivability. I like it but High tech crafts are lacking behind. I don't think High tech needs more firepower as it is. I prefer survivability over damage anyway. If it can't survive after the first salvo then it's pretty much meaningless.

Deflector Shell, there is some instant that a single craft can lure and tank more than 10 burst beams from Spark. Less damage reduction also wouldn't be good IMO. Is it possible to count the number of hits before wear off the skill effect? Let's say, can block 5-6 shots.

I did make use of the extended shields to patch up that said hole but I think it is still too expensive (20OP) for that meager effect. For example, stabilized shields only cost 15 which is a lot more useful than extended shields.

Burst PD Beams or Smokescreen Rockets, honestly, I don't use it as my main PD. The first one's range is too short for some occasions, work well on smaller ships. The second one has a very long reload and is better as a supplement for empty small missile slots. I prefer an Electron gun, Assault beam, and Void driver/Pulse laser as my mainstay.

New missile mods also work pretty well. The ionize work well with sabot since it spits so many projectiles. Corrosive work great for fire support purposes.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 23, 2021, 01:50:45 PM
I did tests on Legion vs Legion when I first got it and I'm baffled that no matter what I put as an interceptor, it stood no chance against Talon (H). That thing wiped even Spark, it's obviously too strong and too tanky for the cost. The light rail gun also has an EMP effect I assume. The new damage reduction skill for craft also makes a huge difference, improving survivability. I like it but High tech crafts are lacking behind. I don't think High tech needs more firepower as it is. I prefer survivability over damage anyway. If it can't survive after the first salvo then it's pretty much meaningless.

Deflector Shell, there is some instant that a single craft can lure and tank more than 10 burst beams from Spark. Less damage reduction also wouldn't be good IMO. Is it possible to count the number of hits before wear off the skill effect? Let's say, can block 5-6 shots.

I did make use of the extended shields to patch up that said hole but I think it is still too expensive (20OP) for that meager effect. For example, stabilized shields only cost 15 which is a lot more useful than extended shields.

Burst PD Beams or Smokescreen Rockets, honestly, I don't use it as my main PD. The first one's range is too short for some occasions, work well on smaller ships. The second one has a very long reload and is better as a supplement for empty small missile slots. I prefer an Electron gun, Assault beam, and Void driver/Pulse laser as my mainstay.

New missile mods also work pretty well. The ionize work well with sabot since it spits so many projectiles. Corrosive work great for fire support purposes.

I reduced the cost of Extended Shields to 3/6/9/15 and adjusted the variants that use it.

Fighters:

I ran some tests using the Support and Assault Legion and though most interceptors were close in the current dev version, there were a couple outliers. It could be a bit better though so I made some adjustments to various things and created a bunch of test Legions with only one strike weapon equipped. I also think Deflector Shell is a big part of the problem. I decided to reduce the amount it mitigates to 75% instead of 95% and I'll see how that looks.

I'll test some more until things feel closer. Btw, the Legion has 10 bays now and a fair amount of extra OP than the current Beta version. It didn't feel like enough of a battlecarrier before considering it has a lot less weapons than a standard battleship. This also helps to match its large bays in the sprite and makes up for its lack of Carrier Bays.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 25, 2021, 04:50:58 AM
just a heads up, the creator of boimancy made that mod open source, so if you want to add another threat alongside the redacted they are up for grabs!

i would love to see SOMEone do something with that body of work
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 25, 2021, 11:13:56 AM
just a heads up, the creator of boimancy made that mod open source, so if you want to add another threat alongside the redacted they are up for grabs!

i would love to see SOMEone do something with that body of work

I saw that yeah. I might pick it up after the beta is done. I've definitely been thinking about something along those lines and I thought that mod was cool back when it was available.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 25, 2021, 01:27:40 PM
it would be great to have something similar to terraria where certain sections of the outer reaches have different threats
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 25, 2021, 02:46:34 PM
it would be great to have something similar to terraria where certain sections of the outer reaches have different threats

I agree that would be cool. It also reminds me of a really old Sega Dreamcast game called Armada.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 25, 2021, 05:17:02 PM
never heard of it, wonder if youtube has a playthrough?

the answer is, kind of https://youtu.be/ijaDqaPtNTs
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 25, 2021, 08:57:15 PM
never heard of it
It was a pretty basic arcade-style space RPG. Addictingly fun though.

The part I'm talking about is that the game was an infinite (afaik) 2D grid where as you got further from 0,0 coordinates (starting point) the enemies grew in stat strength and for a limited portion of the grid, enemy type as well. I grinded a LOT at the time after I beat the story and couldn't ever find an ending point to the grid. The enemies just became too hard.

However, N.S.E.W and their respective diagonals would contain different enemy types as well. That was sort of like what you were talking about. So if you chose a specific direction to push the boundaries you'd be facing different types of threats - with a few universal ones.

Ah the nostalgia!  ;D Thanks for sharing the video.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 26, 2021, 05:37:31 AM
hey im just here to make everyone have a good time
MAKE you
yes
have fun or DIE

......ahem sorry about that outburst
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 26, 2021, 03:55:58 PM
hey im just here to make everyone have a good time
MAKE you
yes
have fun or DIE

......ahem sorry about that outburst

 :D



Ok, I wanted to give a brief update blog on interceptor balance.

I will admit I was wrong with my earlier assessment that they were in a relatively good place. I think the carrier-centric wings are and I spent a lot of time testing those, but its possible I will have to spend some more time on them at some point in the future too. The reason for my poor judgement is simple: I was testing on ships with weapons and so those weapons were a large factor in weighing the relative balance.

Once you take the weapons away, it quickly becomes apparent that some interceptors did a much better job than others - sometimes for far less OP. Since I now have a relative control with mostly weaponless (single strike weapon for AI purposes) Legion variants, I can strike see how two interceptor swarms effect replacement rate against each other.

This won't really be practical in the grand scheme of things to be honest. Weapons are typically going to be on ships and interceptors mostly focus on ships when they get into range... so three things need to be used as levers alongside the general balance wing to wing when testing:
Spoiler

- initial contact effect when two wing waves meet

 - overall staying power and damage capability when targeting a ship

 - survivability to save time on replacement rate decay for waves that use strikes then regroup

Here's how it currently pans out in the dev version after 3ish days of running a bunch of simulations and generally testing out every interceptor's performance against just about every other interceptor:

Low Tech
 - Pretty straightforward. Good survivability. Decent replacement rate. Low initial contact impact. Interceptors like the Talon will have small downtime windows and can survive against ship weapons relatively well with a few exceptions. Losses will happen, but they will be replaced easily enough. Against other interceptors, they make great defenders and less great anti-wave strikers since they need time to utilize their defenses while wearing the other craft down.

Midline/Luddic
 - Starts to vary more by wing. For instance, the Gladius, Talon(H), Talon(L) (technically low tech for the Luddic variant but it fits better in this role description), etc, are essentially a slightly more expensive (build-wise) alternative to the Talon with varying additional perks such as slightly better survivability (Deflector Shell) and weapons that are better against ships compared to the Machine Gun. Alongside the additional build cost, they also replace slightly slower. So there are trade-offs. These types of wings are great defenders and also modestly useful against ships in large swarms or to pressure smaller hullsizes. The flip side is that they falter when facing large PD weapons and other hard counters and have a larger window of downtime before they are at full strength.
 - Other midline interceptors and anti-craft fighters and gunships like the Broadsword and Hydra focus more on initial contact prowess. These wings try to destroy as many wing members in a strike wave very quickly as they pass by on the way to attack an enemy ship/support the bombers/gunships there. Missiles are often the weapon of choice here. It should be noted that these types of wings also are decent at defending - or even better - assuming their anti-formation weapons are off cooldown. However, they replace pretty slowly and can leave the carrier/warship potentially vulnerable with a lot of pressure or after a few attack runs. Again the idea is for there to be build trade-offs that hopefully can synergize well with other wings and other carrier/warship builds.
- Then there is the Fang heavy interceptor and the Hellcat fighter. These fall under the category of fragile but easy to replace and hard hitting. Both of these wings have fast replacement times and ship systems that briefly increase their damage output. They can remain a threat even at low carrier replacement rates though they are less successful with at dealing their damage with any real resistance present. In short, they are sort of a "victory by attrition" kind of choice - whether fighting a ship or other enemy craft.

High Tech
 - These wings use can use any of the previously mentioned strategies and sometimes mix and match element so different ones. A good example is the Wasp. It is incredibly fragile, replaces really quickly to compensate for that a bit, and has good initial contact effectiveness due to its proximity mine - which has both a damage increase to make it feel less useless when it hits a ship and a loooong cooldown. The Spectre, on the other hand, replaces even faster (as in pretty much always at full wing strength after less then 10-15 seconds) but doesn't have much initial contact effectiveness and even worse survivability against ship weapons. Flak or large PD beams can murder the entire wing in practically one shot. It does, however, have slightly higher survivability against some weapons and craft since it can briefly phase to avoid damage.
 - Some high tech wings like the Retribution, Spark and Banshee focus more on survivability and initial contact damage. The Burst PD Beam of the first two are actually fairly good against ships with their shields down too, and the Banshee's smokescreen rockets are just as accurate but also have a relatively large AOE component. So, right, trade-offs again.
 - Finally, there are fighters like the Arcangel and Nightmare. The strategy behind these is that they are extremely tough but harder to replace. They probably have triple the effective health of other wings and can be a big threat to frigates and destroyers in large numbers by providing constant pressure - even though their damage is low in comparison to something like a gunship.

Speaking of frigates, I gave high tech frigates their 360 degree shields back in most cases too. They were incredibly weak to interceptor swarms without them. I made a few other changes here and there but this is getting too long as it is.

To finish this up, I still think that gunships and bombers should feel pretty balanced. They were the ones I spent a proportionately longer amount of time on before. Iirc, I haven't really touched them between the currently released version and the dev version. It will be interesting to see how mixing and matching the different wing strategies will feel. While these concepts aren't especially new in the TC, they have likely been a little more emphasized and easier to visually see.
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 26, 2021, 05:15:12 PM
ok so ive got another personal wishlist sort of thing going on

the combat docking module makes saves unloadable

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20415.msg332991#msg332991
^this mod^

its almost essential to the new idea i have for a run which features heavy usage of retooled civvy ships using the mod that increases effectiveness of excort and assault packages (itd be cool to see more packages.  ill mention that in the main suggestions thread)

its a very cool mod that i think should be incorporated into archean if the original creator is cool with that (if somehow it could be changed so that only cruiser/capital can refit the flagged ships that would be flavorful)



also im very excited about the new release (both yours and the 95.1a; heres hoping it wont be too much of a step from the current version, in the interest of not making more headache and taking more time from hardcore dev of the mod



edit: id like to add (im sure youve seen) that dronelib looks like something that every modder in the sector should be playing with at some point!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 26, 2021, 08:36:36 PM
Quote
I will admit I was wrong with my earlier assessment that they were in a relatively good place. I think the carrier-centric wings are and I spent a lot of time testing those, but its possible I will have to spend some more time on them at some point in the future too. The reason for my poor judgement is simple: I was testing on ships with weapons and so those weapons were a large factor in weighing the relative balance.

When I did the test with Astral, I would just turn on the shield and let the enemy fighters come to me. My crafts would be in a defensive mode and only swarm around the ship.  Pretty useful in determining PD strength of the craft. My Astral would be bare with only 6 small burst beams just to simulate enough resistance.

Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 27, 2021, 11:44:16 AM
ok so ive got another personal wishlist sort of thing going on

the combat docking module makes saves unloadable

its almost essential to the new idea i have for a run which features heavy usage of retooled civvy ships using the mod that increases effectiveness of excort and assault packages (itd be cool to see more packages.  ill mention that in the main suggestions thread)

its a very cool mod that i think should be incorporated into archean if the original creator is cool with that (if somehow it could be changed so that only cruiser/capital can refit the flagged ships that would be flavorful)

edit: id like to add (im sure youve seen) that dronelib looks like something that every modder in the sector should be playing with at some point!
As in it makes saves unloaded with the TC? That's odd I'd think it simply wouldn't work since the vanilla versions of these ships aren't available. Remind me after the next update to take a look.

I'm aware of and excited about dronelib. Just the idea of having a separate system is neat. Its on my radar, but I haven't dug into the toybox as of yet.

When I did the test with Astral, I would just turn on the shield and let the enemy fighters come to me. My crafts would be in a defensive mode and only swarm around the ship.  Pretty useful in determining PD strength of the craft. My Astral would be bare with only 6 small burst beams just to simulate enough resistance.
That definitely makes sense though it gives a defenders advantage - especially against craft meant to pack a powerful punch upon contact since a lot of the weapons will target the ship's shield at first.

I'm considering making a hullmod that sort of acts like that for both carriers and warships. It would set the wing range to 0. Presumably the AI would never issue the engage order that way. It would probably be more useful on warships than carriers since warships still engage their wings at about the same time they get within weapon range of an enemy target.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 27, 2021, 12:42:13 PM
ok so no issues if the game loads with the mod in place, no issue loading saves with it activated, however when i install the hullmod, then save, it cant load the save
when i uninstall, save, then load it loads fine
it shows a null on loading with the hullmod active and it mentions fleetmember in the code so it definitely only causes issues when you actually use the hullmod

anyway, ill remind you after you finish the update
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 27, 2021, 01:02:02 PM
ok so no issues if the game loads with the mod in place, no issue loading saves with it activated, however when i install the hullmod, then save, it cant load the save
when i uninstall, save, then load it loads fine
it shows a null on loading with the hullmod active and it mentions fleetmember in the code so it definitely only causes issues when you actually use the hullmod

anyway, ill remind you after you finish the update

If you send me the log I'll take a look. It could potentially be something simple.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 27, 2021, 01:33:31 PM
ok this is what i have; it doesnt seem to be showing up in the log file, and im on max resolution so im not sure if what you need to see is here

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 27, 2021, 02:39:17 PM
ok this is what i have; it doesnt seem to be showing up in the log file, and im on max resolution so im not sure if what you need to see is here
Looks like this was happening in the mod itself in version 004. I *think* the mod author attempted to fix it in 005 though he/she did not specifically say that - only that they reproduced the issue, so if you are on that version then I'd let him/her know it is not fixed just to make sure. I don't think it is related to this mod though - or at least I'm not seeing anything that would point to that. That being said, the code that is coming up with the error is not available to view so it is impossible to know for sure.

I double checked the FleetMemberAPI and FleetDataAPI for any info on readResolve() but there isn't anything.

Briefly looking through the mod's source, I'd guess:

ship.setCollisionClass(CollisionClass.FIGHTER);

Is causing an issue when readResolve() attempts to read the ship JSON and finds that the ship hullSize is FRIGATE and so should have CollisionClass.SHIP. Though both implementations of that are supposed to only occur when combat as running afaik. Its strange that it affects the campaign layer for loading a save. He/She might try setting the CollisionClass back to SHIP in applyEffectsBeforeShipCreation as a safeguard.

Nothing else seems to modify the ship's definition though merely by equipping the hullmod. I doubt that setting the ship's armor to 100% or reloading missiles would cause the save to break if it occurs in combat. At least, other things seem to do this and its fine.

That's about all the advice I could give on it though. I don't know what else readResolve() actually does. You'd have to ask Alex.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vppjmzyxnzozqqc/1234.PNG?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/vppjmzyxnzozqqc/1234.PNG?dl=0)
Hi, I found out if there is one ship installed this hullmod, the save will be broken. It is a serious bug so this mod cannot work at all.When you are trying to load that broken save, a message will shows "error loading saved game" with some debuging information following. It happend on both 0.91 and 0.95. I will post it in both versions so you may find out what's wrong.

Spoiler
(tested in 0.91a, lazylab 2.5)
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.NullPointerException
cause-message       : null
method              : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 9509
class[1]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[2]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[4]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[5]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignPlanet
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CircularOrbit
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Market
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomy
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomyStepper
class[11]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Economy
class[12]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CustomCampaignEntity
class[13]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[14]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[15]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[16]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available



(tested in 0.95, lazylab 2.6)
com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException: Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
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cause-message       : null
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class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ai.NavigationModule$AvoidData
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class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ai.ModularFleetAI
class[9]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[11]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignPlanet
class[12]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CircularOrbit
class[13]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Market
class[14]           : com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.fleets.RouteManager$RouteData
class[15]           : com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.fleets.RouteManager
class[16]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomy
class[17]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomyStepper
class[18]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Economy
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class[20]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
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Complete starsector.log is here https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mrqjcjih2sy6kq/starsector.log?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mrqjcjih2sy6kq/starsector.log?dl=0)
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Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 27, 2021, 02:44:46 PM
simple fix is right lol i updated to 005 and now the saves load
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 27, 2021, 02:57:55 PM
simple fix is right lol i updated to 005 and now the saves load

Oh great glad to hear it!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 27, 2021, 03:57:56 PM
SO MY DREAM CAME TRUE.
ive got all militarized civilian ships
4 14th bg kites, a phaeton, a tarsus, a sheperd, a venture, and an aleste no one saw cause i said it isnt there ok
LOL and having the shuttles able to dock is very cool, the sheperd docks too.

anyway i had to nerd out for a minute on that
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 29, 2021, 09:26:50 PM
The long list of weapon nerf might be a bit too excessive. The disadvantage of beam hull mods really bars me from utilising it. Now, I can't beat a full fleet REDACTED anymore lol. I tried to farm AI core from Mid beacon instead but seem to don't get any. Is AI core still in the loot pool of Brilliant?

The Doritos fight is a bit too simple with strike craft advantage. For starters, add 2 more Doritos.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 29, 2021, 09:58:34 PM
SO MY DREAM CAME TRUE.
I'm glad you are having fun with that playstyle. I'll try to keep that in mind when the next big skill update hits for vanilla and I have to make adjustments. Overall I'd doubt that playstyle will be changed much - and factions like the Trader Guilds definitely benefit from the relevant skills. I still need to flesh that out more and have a mental note to do so.

The long list of weapon nerf might be a bit too excessive.
I'd need specifics in this case. I'm not saying you are wrong or anything, it's just not much to go on since it is a bit of a general statement and there have been a lot of changes.

As an initial response, I didn't really nerf weapons so much as buffed REDACTED at the large end of their ships iirc, and some of the low tier weapons that REDACTED sometimes use have had improvements though I doubt that's the overall reason. Weapons have actually gotten stronger as a whole I think - at least that is definitely true as far as PD is concerned. Maybe that is what you are seeing? Massed strike craft took a big, big hit in the last update or two. Flak might be too strong, but considering AI limitations it might actually be a good thing to prevent battles from being bogged down too much and take too long. Using large PD does also sacrifice a lot of firepower that the build could have otherwise had, so, I'm on the fence until the next update is tested on a larger scale.

I am basing some of this off of the final quote below. (Just for refence, I increased the range of PD beams so they are useful in more weapon mounts in larger ships. Its hard to remember what is in each version but I *think* their AOE damage was tripled? That could already be live though. They now deal 300 frag damage in an AOE spread in addition to the direct energy damage per strike.)

I can see Radiants in particular as being a handfull as well. And speaking of REDACTED, I just added in 3 new ships: one frigate, one destroyer and another capital. So... they might actually be stronger? Hard to tell because the Radiant system is pretty darn good. Diluting its appearance might in fact be a nerf instead of a buff. We will see with the next update.

(This might also be a moot conversation in the case of strike craft. There are a lot of changes in the dev version for interceptors and that will change things up a fair amount by itself.)

Quote
The disadvantage of beam hull mods really bars me from utilising it. Now, I can't beat a full fleet REDACTED anymore lol. I tried to farm AI core from Mid beacon instead but seem to don't get any. Is AI core still in the loot pool of Brilliant?
Should be. I don't mess with drop rates of cores. The beam hullmods are more for support ships and with ship passthrough it should be an effective combination. What are you trying to use, specifically? Is the problem flux? Or speed? Each would have different considerations. I more mean it as a sidegrade as someone else mentioned. It changes the role of the ship rather than strictly boosting the weapon strength.

Quote
The Doritos fight is a bit too simple with strike craft advantage. For starters, add 2 more Doritos.
This is a WIP from vanilla and so I'm going to wait and see how it turns out first before overriding anything. The reason is that I'll just likely have to change it later since it is so new. Offhand, a built-in hullmod reducing strike craft damage to the primary ships would be the ideal solution. I can't buff their weapons because the player can use them and then it becomes "grind till you have Doritos weapons", etc, etc. I've tried hard to have it not feel that way but those weapons are very cool so it's already hard to do, heh.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 30, 2021, 06:34:55 AM
Thanks a ton for allowing a fleet of mostly civilian ships to be effective!

In particular the mining blaster and laser are actually substantial weapons all in all!  SO plus assault package with the right skills actually brings civil ships up quite a lot, although it may be feasible in the future to further enhance that with the skill changes.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on July 30, 2021, 07:39:06 AM
Quote
Should be. I don't mess with drop rates of cores. The beam hullmods are more for support ships and with ship passthrough it should be an effective combination. What are you trying to use, specifically? Is the problem flux? Or speed? Each would have different considerations. I more mean it as a sidegrade as someone else mentioned. It changes the role of the ship rather than strictly boosting the weapon strength.

Role of ships you say. Even on my Tachlance Paragon, I don't want to put any of the two on it because it's too detrimental. The flux cost penalty makes it less effective than the counterpart with no mod. Since the Tri-beam was nerfed, the Advanced optics becomes very useless. The range benefit is simply negligible compare to the flux penalty, this would only be useful on beam weapons without or with very low flux cost. Localized Amplifier has less penalty but again it still no match to the version without the mod. So, no reason to use it as well. The armor-piercing capability of the beam is already superb with its accuracy. Only a small section of the armor has to be puncture through. For normal Tachlance, a dual hit already went through Legion's thick armor. That would be 33% wasted flux for no good reason but it might be a great combination for low flux beam.

I think if you truly wish for a support beam kind of setup then I would go with, higher damage per shot, slower rate of fire, range increase could stay the same or turn into percentage increase, Flux consumption only increase up to 0-20%. Range increase is negligible at the moment, so I don't think this got an advantage over ballistics since it can already fire over the friendly ships, to begin with. The active venting advantage shouldn't be of concern in this case or you could do a reverse of Resistance Flux Conduits and make Active Venting 50% slower. So, the difference between this one and yours would be the damage advantage for sniping purposes but the overall DPS should be equal to no mod version. The ship will turn into a sniping platform with not that much disadvantage. The speed penalty should be Percentage reduction at the moment my Paragon can still kite Onslaught (top speed reduction "when the weapon is reloading", can this kind of thing be mod in?). Alternatively, a non-mod version of the beam could deals 50% hard flux and 50% soft and with this mod increase it to 100%.

Quote
As an initial response, I didn't really nerf weapons so much as buffed REDACTED at the large end of their ships iirc, and some of the low tier weapons that REDACTED sometimes use have had improvements though I doubt that's the overall reason. Weapons have actually gotten stronger as a whole I think - at least that is definitely true as far as PD is concerned. Maybe that is what you are seeing? Massed strike craft took a big, big hit in the last update or two. Flak might be too strong, but considering AI limitations it might actually be a good thing to prevent battles from being bogged down too much and take too long. Using large PD does also sacrifice a lot of firepower that the build could have otherwise had, so, I'm on the fence until the next update is tested on a larger scale.

I can deal with the starter REDACTED fleet in High danger systems. But once these are all laid out they will build a bigger fleet which is as big as last time but it's not the same. Since I don't have my cheaty zero flux set up anymore. I have to resource to the next cheaty in line Obliterator to deal with them but it's not enough. The likely acceptable outcome is to trade a capital with a Radiant kill but usually I will get wiped. The problem with the skill is likely due to immortality. At least, I should be able to push it back with 3 concentrated capital attacks.

Their strike craft is not a concern for me. I even think the PD is just too strong lol. The REDACTED's high-tech crafts suffer what I have already described, fragility issues. I do like the old mod version more when the crafts are very strong and matter a lot. If you have a craft advantage you already won 50%, I think I have said that somewhere a few years back.

A bit of indescribable good feeling is lost along with the change. For me, I start playing this mod because of the unique craft mechanic that is very overwhelming and also very cinematic. Lately, the mod is leaning toward vanilla too much. I wish that the strike craft would take the limelight more for the sake of Total conversion.

Quote
"grind till you have Doritos weapons"

Apart from the cool beams the rest is kind of meh. A reloadable missile is not a unique thing in your mod lol.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 30, 2021, 12:37:30 PM
@Albreo

Advanced Optics:
Spoiler
Ah looks like there is a bug with the speed component. Thanks for pointing it out to me. It should be a percentage decrease and it should show the specific decrease for the ship you are equipping it on. Paragon is currently "0" speed decrease so that is definitely not right.

As far as the other suggestion I don't think its possible. It might be possible to do the snipe component of it I haven't looked into it yet. I'll consider boosting the range component to 800 though to really emphasis the "beam artillery" feel the hullmod is supposed to generate. Range is the most powerful stat, however, so I need to keep the downsides fairly steep. That said, it could be that 100% additional flux is a little too high for beams like the Atronarch or Phase Beam. It might be better to lower those beams' flux costs a bit rather than change the mod's penalty since I think it works well with the Twin Tactical Beam and otherwise might make that weapon too good if it were, say, 50% instead. Tachyon Lance already has plenty of range, so this mod shouldn't be used with it unless the build is completely focused around it and the ship mounting that weapon is heavily protected by other ships. Really, a Advanced Optics beam build should have an assault ship supporting it to begin with - just like a heavy artillery ballistic ship. Those weapons are intentionally flux-inefficient so if another ship with efficient weapons is in weapons range, the support ship is guaranteed to lose.

(Razor Tri-Beam got some of its range back already in the dev version. I think I hit it a bit too hard with the nerf hammer.)
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Localized Amplifier:
Spoiler
I agree with your assessment. It is definitely more detriment than helpful on beams that already penetrate armor well. It was more intended as a way to boost what would previously have been unused beams - namely the Mining Laser and Twin Tactical/Tactical beams, but it can also be useful to install, for instance, on loadouts with kinetic beams. Consider that the Graviton Beam and Razor Tri-beam don't generate any flux to begin with, and so the downside of the mod doesn't apply in that case. Since those beams take a lot longer to penetrate armor, the boost becomes a lot more apparent.
[close]

Fighters:
Spoiler
I empathize with what you are saying here. Strike craft are cool! And the cinematic feel is definitely still something I try and achieve. My considerations for the changes are more along the lines of two things:

 - Feedback from many people that they are too strong and too centric to the battle - which is pretty much what you said you liked about them in the past. Brick-post of my feelings on the matter:
Spoiler
I will say that from what I've gathered the community as a whole here seems... well, for lack of a better way of putting it, "anti-carrier" when you look at suggestions and complaints in the past. Despite several major reworks, carriers are still in a spot where they are just kind of there. They don't really feel unique to fly, and their strength in battle is either described as "so ridiculously good that I don't have to try anymore" or "why should I ever use them over an SO-modded ship?" and a lot of people say they are just plain boring no matter if they are strong or not.

People are also all over the map regarding which version of carriers was the best. There are a few who want to go back to 0.6 implementation! For my personal hot-take since I've been here awhile: I think that when people say "combat is the best part of this game" what they are really saying is they like controlling a ship arcade-style. They like zipping around dodging shots, tactically choosing their targets and hitting vulnerabilities where they find them while managing their flux, relying on allies to create opportunities, and using missiles as a limited resource. Carriers, therefore, are the direct antithesis to that kind of fun. If fighters can outrun you and are strong enough to be a threat, your ways as a player of dealing with them are limited. Either you have enough firepower to shoot them down or you die. The alternative is a personal pet peeve of mine where you "backpedal while targeting them until replacement rate means you can go for the carrier" and that has been what the AI has been developed around much to my chagrin. Personally, its not to my liking though I really enjoy the other aspects of combat and I've even had discussions with Alex on it. (Its really cool that the Dev entertains these btw. Its unique to this game in my experience.) I get why that behavior is good - especially when looking through the lense of what I've described above. If you are really digging the arcade part of combat, then you aren't going to do anything that would compromise it. I come from more of an RTS background - where trading ships in battle is part of the norm, and carriers should be both strong and critical targets to take down for that very reason. Unfortunately, those kinds of things don't mesh well with the way Starsector is set up for a lot of different reasons. Therefore, I've tried to come up with a way to both have an RTS-like feel and tactics without disregarding the core combat tenants of vanilla. Obviously, this has proved challenging and is still a very much ongoing process.
[close]

 - They obsolete frigates and to a bit of a lesser extent destroyers early and forever. This is also a vanilla problem that there were attempts to address in 0.95 so it is not unique here, but its really hard to have strike craft be really strong and have smaller ships able to compete in any way.

However, I don't think the changes make strike craft, well, not good or anything! A lot of the lower tier ones are much improved from the past. In the current dev version I believe the high tech ones are less squishy than the current release. I increased the shields by a bit. Flak and large PD beams are still really good though.

The problem I run into is that if I make one carrier really good against a ship, then 4 carriers become overwhelmingly good due to force concentration. LRMs have the same issue.

Anyway, just know that I have my finger on the pulse of this issue as a whole and I'm trying to find that razor edge balance that will feel good. And I'm always open to suggestions about how to go about doing that. If it boils down to a mod setting that simply reverts damage reduction for strike craft and increases their health pool, then I'm willing to go that route to satisfy both ways to play. I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, its fun to watch a mass of strike craft rip through a fleet and each other. Lots of sci-fi centralize their universes around this concept. And then the other side of it is the tactical component of "set up a vulnerability to a strike and then capitalize with your strike craft" and that can be really fun too when it works and also feel pretty bad when it doesn't since it feels like the carrier's wings were wasted in the effort.
[close]

We will see if the next update addresses these concerns a bit. It is pretty close to being done. I have to correct some variants, do a final pass on strike craft and PD, and finish the fighter descriptions. (Not all the descriptions will be done but fighters were specifically a target since there are a lot of new ones.) I was going to wait a while since it will break saves, but there are enough critical bug fixes in it that its probably best just to get it out there.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on July 30, 2021, 02:05:00 PM
i personally love carriers.  i love the support they provide, and i love having to fight them (a good challenge!)

the only thing i dont like about them is it doesnt feel especially good trying to control them; its really hard to get the timing right on strikes and i dont feel like i have as much direct control over the fighters as i should.  there was a mod called aria that spawned a nice mobile suit from the ship that had the system where you would pilot that fightercraft: i think this sort of thing should be an actual feature of essentially whatever carrier you want to have it, rather than just a ship system.  this would do A LOT to imnprove the dynamic of using carriers

dronelib may make this a reality considering the new subsystem functionality!!!!!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on July 30, 2021, 02:43:52 PM
i personally love carriers.  i love the support they provide, and i love having to fight them (a good challenge!)

the only thing i dont like about them is it doesnt feel especially good trying to control them; its really hard to get the timing right on strikes and i dont feel like i have as much direct control over the fighters as i should. 
Yeah I was hoping for some sort of waypoint feature to control wings when directly piloting the carrier to strike from different angles, or new commands, or the ability to send them to capture points. Definitely all on my wishlist. Not sure it will ever be a thing, unfortunately, the game is almost done and I'd doubt Alex would want to get into that can of worms at the end. Maybe if an expansion happened post 1.0 assuming the game does well. Here's to hoping!!

Quote
dronelib may make this a reality considering the new subsystem functionality!!!!!
Oh yeah definitely going to look into that at some point! It looks very very cool!



Forgot to mention several changes in the current dev build:

Midline ships got a few buffs - mostly in the dissipation area, but the Conquest has also gotten its long awaited 2 large mounts in place of the center mediums and its medium weapon mounts to either side are more flexible as far as loadout options go - and it got an additional fighter bay makings its total 3 instead of 2. It has more dissipation and OP to account for all of that, but has 5000 less flux capacity to keep it relatively balanced considering its speed.

Might of mentioned this already I can't remember, but battlecarriers: The Legion now has a very distinct role as a brawler over the jack-of-all-trades Executor. The Legion can't send its wings far and replaces them more slowly, but has a whopping 10 bays now as its sprite's massive bays would indicate, more OP, slightly less speed but a Burn Drive instead of Combat Capacitors to make it very mobile. (Heg version still has Combat Capacitors since they are more about firepower and burst mobility.)

The Executor isn't changed much but has always been more defensive and uses its 8 bays generally alongside medium or long range weapons. It seems in a good spot overall since the midline wing buff - and for the player there are a lot of ways to build the ship since it has a lot of OP.

The Megalith got a tiny redesign. Reserve Deployment and Mass Deployment no longer lower replacement time for starters. Megalith never loses replacement time and has a flux shunt. Its dissipation has been greatly increased, its shield efficiency greatly reduced and armor reduced to be the same as a Paragon. Its shield doesn't reduce dissipation as much compared to other ships. The idea behind all of these changes is to keep it dreadnought-esque as far as a pseudo-carrier and warship combination, but reduce situations where it is easy for the player to kill because it overfluxes itself yet make it easier to destroy in a direct engagement when directly controlled by weakening its shield when under fire.

Finally, Odyssey and Paragon got dissipation buffs so the hopefully drop their shields less at the start of an engagement with an enemy ship. (I think that is a factor but not 100% sure.)

Final testing will commence for a few days after variant cleanup - then I'll release the dev build.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 01, 2021, 08:24:10 AM
Oh btw, I know you've got a long list currently anyway, but I thought I'd let you know the person who created musashi manufactorum is cool with that mod being converted to be compatible with your TC, and even said they'd put the TC version on their post in the modding section.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 01, 2021, 12:29:42 PM
Oh btw, I know you've got a long list currently anyway, but I thought I'd let you know the person who created musashi manufactorum is cool with that mod being converted to be compatible with your TC, and even said they'd put the TC version on their post in the modding section.

Thank you for letting me know! I will take a look after I release this build in a couple of days.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 01, 2021, 01:25:26 PM
Oh btw, I know you've got a long list currently anyway, but I thought I'd let you know the person who created musashi manufactorum is cool with that mod being converted to be compatible with your TC, and even said they'd put the TC version on their post in the modding section.

Thank you for letting me know! I will take a look after I release this build in a couple of days.


very cool!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: ratpizza on August 02, 2021, 01:40:43 PM
I can't seem to get any contacts in sci-corps. I have done at least three different missions for them and none of those mission-givers have given me any opportunity to develop a contact with them. Bug? Or am I missing something?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 02, 2021, 03:44:56 PM
I can't seem to get any contacts in sci-corps. I have done at least three different missions for them and none of those mission-givers have given me any opportunity to develop a contact with them. Bug? Or am I missing something?

Off-hand I don't think so? I'll have to take a look at the code and make sure there isn't something I have to add or something like that. I don't override any missions except the free freighter one and I don't even think that is in the current release yet. So it should have roughly the same odds as any other faction assuming the context like rep is the same. Unless it is like the Merc/Admin/Officer event in that there are new rules with higher weights that mess up the mods current rules. Since I'm in the process of fixing that atm I'll look around and see if I can find anything.

I saw another post a while back about another person not finding many contacts but I couldn't find it or I'd link it.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 03, 2021, 01:12:45 AM
I'll look around and see if I can find anything.
After a relatively brief pass looking at the code, there isn't anything directly preventing contacts from forming other than RNG for any mod faction. The max number of possible contacts can be exceeded through story points.

It's probably bad luck in this case, though I'll try and generate a contact myself at a later date for some of the mod factions to make sure I'm not missing anything. Rules didn't seem to have any relevant entries either.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: EastwardBucket on August 04, 2021, 10:07:08 AM
I may have found a bug with either faction relations or maybe the fleet ransom?

I was in some system at a trade hub and a trade fleet for the adamantine consortium came by, aggrod onto me and then asked for more money than I had for ransom. For some reason I started the game with them at -50 hostile.

After the ransom prompt I was no longer given any way to flee even though I had remaining story points and they proceeded to destroy my entire fleet while I tried to escape.

It pretty much ended that playthrough which is a bit annoying, but my question is if that's expected to happen?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 04, 2021, 03:57:48 PM
I may have found a bug with either faction relations or maybe the fleet ransom?

I was in some system at a trade hub and a trade fleet for the adamantine consortium came by, aggrod onto me and then asked for more money than I had for ransom. For some reason I started the game with them at -50 hostile.

After the ransom prompt I was no longer given any way to flee even though I had remaining story points and they proceeded to destroy my entire fleet while I tried to escape.

It pretty much ended that playthrough which is a bit annoying, but my question is if that's expected to happen?


i doubt it, at least from a technical standpoint

from a lore standpoint though?  lol it makes total sense
.....i apologize for having a joke at your expense
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: CorsairZero on August 05, 2021, 11:44:41 PM
I'm playing with both AO and Nexerelin, in case it's important. Two issues I'm having:
1. NPC fleets are regularly get stuck in the black hole in the Archean Order faction's home system, which may just be an issue with SS's AI, rather than AO's code, as it reminds me of NPCs not pathing around suns effectively.

2. Adamantium Consortium patrols aggro (commissioned) PC's fleet for turning off their transponder in their faction's system, but not Pirates.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 06, 2021, 02:54:08 AM

Adult content

This mod contains adult content. You can turn adult content on in your preference, if you wish

dang. another site to register i guess...
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 06, 2021, 02:58:51 AM
a question if i may ask though, while i believe other people asked this already i cannot find the answer so I'll ask, what will i miss out on if i turn off the total conversion?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 06, 2021, 05:54:17 AM

Adult content

This mod contains adult content. You can turn adult content on in your preference, if you wish

dang. another site to register i guess...

nu uh
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Albreo on August 06, 2021, 06:15:32 AM
I'm playing with both AO and Nexerelin, in case it's important. Two issues I'm having:
1. NPC fleets are regularly get stuck in the black hole in the Archean Order faction's home system, which may just be an issue with SS's AI, rather than AO's code, as it reminds me of NPCs not pathing around suns effectively.

2. Adamantium Consortium patrols aggro (commissioned) PC's fleet for turning off their transponder in their faction's system, but not Pirates.

Firstly, AO really has nothing to do with the pathfinding behavior of any fleet. It's rather the base game itself.

Secondly, It's also the normal occurrence of the base game. Unless you are in your home system or there's a free market planet in the system, AI will mostly mind about your transponder off. Most non-patrol fleets will also neglect your transponder off. In the past, the AC was set to act like Pirate so it's more tolerable to transponder off. It's rather a befitting behavior for AC. Let's see if Morrokain can do something about it.

a question if i may ask though, while i believe other people asked this already i cannot find the answer so I'll ask, what will i miss out on if i turn off the total conversion?

No, you will not miss anything. It's just there to indicate that it is mostly incompatible with the majority of faction mods. You can follow the instruction to turn it off.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 06, 2021, 06:26:58 AM

a question if i may ask though, while i believe other people asked this already i cannot find the answer so I'll ask, what will i miss out on if i turn off the total conversion?

No, you will not miss anything. It's just there to indicate that it is mostly incompatible with the majority of faction mods. You can follow the instruction to turn it off.

then...why is there even the need to have the total conversion being turned on/off? if it is the same either way, besides compatability, then why does it exist? if it is about faction mod incompability then the description has it noted, no? and it is probably possbile to make the mod send a message when a game is started/loaded that this mod is best played without faction mods
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 06, 2021, 08:48:57 AM
total conversion implies that the entirety of the game has been altered heavily and has nothing to do with other mods - it just means the base game has been changed drastically.  it just so happens that in this case the base factions still exist, albeit with heavy modification (the capital ships all have many more weapon mounts and also have several carrier bays, fighters themselves have been altered greatly in several ways, supply fuel use number of crew has been altered, features are present not in the base game, just to name a few)

plenty of moddable games have total conversions, and the reason why it is set up the way it is in this instance is because of the unique nature of the way starsector handles mods
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Ozgart on August 06, 2021, 10:25:17 AM
Hello there Morrokain. Wish u luck with working on this great mod.

Unfortunatly have some conserns about the future espethially in terms of balancing fighters and missiles. In last patch we got (1.4.0.2) PD is literally useless bacuse of exesesive HP of missile (like 1850 HP for salamander) and armor on fighters. Whole point why our small community loved your mod and starsector in the whole was because much more comfortable balance.

So the question - is this permanent or will be fixed?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 06, 2021, 10:43:33 AM
i think it is actually pretty great the way it is considering this is a beta.  the next version should be out in a few days/weeks id wait to see what that is like
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 06, 2021, 04:07:51 PM
Wow a lot to catch up on it seems! I'll try and quickly get to everyone:

I may have found a bug with either faction relations or maybe the fleet ransom?
Spoiler
I was in some system at a trade hub and a trade fleet for the adamantine consortium came by, aggrod onto me and then asked for more money than I had for ransom. For some reason I started the game with them at -50 hostile.

After the ransom prompt I was no longer given any way to flee even though I had remaining story points and they proceeded to destroy my entire fleet while I tried to escape.

It pretty much ended that playthrough which is a bit annoying, but my question is if that's expected to happen?
[close]
I'm sorry this ended your playthrough! It is actually intended, however. Refusing tribute is a way to really make a dreadlord/baron angry when dealing the Consortium. If you read the blurb about the faction in the lore section of intel, it states that traders and such actively avoid dreadlord fleets or even areas where one was spotted recently with a superstitious level of anxiety. In game, this mechanic is meant to communicate to the player why that reputation is well founded. The Consortium is an unlawful and evil faction, and they are hostile to just about everyone. That is why they are hostile at the start even for the player unless you choose their start. You might consider avoiding their systems entirely - especially at the beginning of the game.

In other words, if you see one of their fleets and can't bribe them, your best bet is to immediately run if you can. I get that it might be a bit annoying when you can't and get caught, but the purpose is to really drive home how dangerous and unpredictable of a faction they are. If you could always avoid them using story points, it wouldn't really feel this way.

I'm playing with both AO and Nexerelin, in case it's important. Two issues I'm having:
1. NPC fleets are regularly get stuck in the black hole in the Archean Order faction's home system, which may just be an issue with SS's AI, rather than AO's code, as it reminds me of NPCs not pathing around suns effectively.

2. Adamantium Consortium patrols aggro (commissioned) PC's fleet for turning off their transponder in their faction's system, but not Pirates.
The first part is vanilla's fleet code not caring about coronas or event horizons. I may eventually look at that but its a low priority thing even if its a little immersion breaking. I'm more concerned at the moment with all the feedback on fighters/missiles/PD and making sure that is in a good place.

The second one is more complicated. Not all of the Adamantine Consortium patrols will care about your transponder. If they spawn from the free market system, they won't harass you. Its impossible to tell if that is the case other than relative proximity however. The free market system is also one of the few places you can trade while hostile to the faction. In design terms, it is a very high-risk/high-reward place to attempt to go. If you get away with it you can get some powerful weapons and ships, but it will take a lot of skill and probably a little luck too. They are allied with pirates under their employ (look at the pirate base's and Xelion's description) and so they sort of have an idea of what their fleets look like. You could also say encrypted signals, etc, for additional handwaving. The real point is that its supposed to be an incredibly dangerous and completely hostile system - whereas a system like the one where you find Galar has some places of relative safety that you can run to if needed.

My advice would be to use a small phase fleet to attempt to sneak in. The new phase tender should help quite a bit there to smuggle stuff out. Also the related skill would be nice.


Adult content

This mod contains adult content. You can turn adult content on in your preference, if you wish

dang. another site to register i guess...
This is because the mod contains some cursing and a few portraits have blood and such, and I wanted to be conscientious of that for children. There isn't really anything "Adult Content" otherwise, and I get that its incredibly mild compared to other things on the internet... I didn't really think about the fact that it forces you to register to the site though.

Sigh, I'll give it some thought. I'm probably being overly conservative and could simply put a self-rating of T for Teen or something. The story might also contain some suggestive and horror content so that would be the most appropriate rating. I think "Adult Content" is probably more for things like nudity and heavy graphical depictions of gore, of which there is nothing like that in the mod.

then...why is there even the need to have the total conversion being turned on/off? if it is the same either way, besides compatability, then why does it exist? if it is about faction mod incompability then the description has it noted, no? and it is probably possbile to make the mod send a message when a game is started/loaded that this mod is best played without faction mods
Albreo and 6chad.noirlee9 are correct, but to add to this:

Another function of the TC flag is to require the user to read the warning about faction mods on the main page. Though this is in part to let the user know about potential balance concerns, but it was also introduced as a way to reduce the number of false bug reports to other modders when combining this mod with scripted faction mods.

I've actually spent a large amount of time reducing instances of this and so it is less relevant than it was, but since I'm not going to take the immense amount of time to scour through all of the other mods' code to find incompatibilities (because that is crazy town), this is the least I can do to have any issues reported here instead of bothering other mod authors.

Hello there Morrokain. Wish u luck with working on this great mod.

Unfortunatly have some conserns about the future espethially in terms of balancing fighters and missiles. In last patch we got (1.4.0.2) PD is literally useless bacuse of exesesive HP of missile (like 1850 HP for salamander) and armor on fighters. Whole point why our small community loved your mod and starsector in the whole was because much more comfortable balance.

So the question - is this permanent or will be fixed?
Thanks for the well wishes!

Your question: It really depends upon what PD you are using and how your build is set up. If I'm remembering the changes I've made from 1.4.0.2 to 1.4.0.3 (release is imminent btw), Beam PD has been improved upon in several areas including range, and I made the Pulse Laser and Void Driver a bit better. Flak's area of effect has been toned down a bit (an Elite Onslaught essentially destroyed all of an Astral or Executor's wings at the first point of contact with 4 dual Flaks) but its damage has remained the same. I think the midline ballistic PD has also been improved a bit, and medium and large machine-gun like PD has a small flak burst effect. A lot of small PD have had their bullet speed increased by a fair amount.

But to address the main point, here, can you give me some specific instances and general build info where PD has seemed that way? I haven't been seeing this myself but maybe that is due to the changes in the dev version. If you are using a bunch of Machine Guns to stop Salamanders or large salvos of torpedoes then that is still not going to be very effective. Machine Guns and low OP things like the Electron Cannon in particular, are designed to quickly finish off armor stripped or otherwise already struck and low-health fighters and missiles. They should be combined with things like Nova Cannons, PD Cannons or Scythe Cannons, etc. Those do the heavy lifting against strike craft and larger healthpool missiles.

Frigates and destroyers, which have less access to PD, have larger modifiers against fighters and missiles than in 1.4.0.2 iirc.

All in all, I am seeing ships of the same class able to generally strip carriers of their wings and close in to defeat them one vs one - which is a design goal. Exceptions are things like the Legion which is meant to be a brawler kind of capital.

Missiles seem generally worse than before when confronted with medium and large PD - which is sort of the goal to make those weapons used more often as a build consideration. So its less that PD is now bad and more that it requires a bit more investment to get PD to the level it needs to be. In that sense, the feedback confuses me a little bit. Again though this might just be a case of me not remembering much about 1.4.0.2 and the relative changes since then.

We will see how it feels in 1.4.0.3. Since I'll be working on a story and clerical work as far as updating descriptions/tactics manual/mod page after that release, there will likely be plenty of time for testing without any changes between the live update and the dev version. I might also begin work on a TC compatible version of Musashi Manufactorum which will mean more test time without any dev changes which messes up my perspective relative to the live release. I hope that explanation makes sense!

Anyway, I will do my very best to take in all points of view at that time and make logged adjustments as needed. And if the points of view are contrary, then a setting is another tactic to satisfying that kind of thing for both parties.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: CorsairZero on August 06, 2021, 04:42:49 PM
The second one is more complicated. Not all of the Adamantine Consortium patrols will care about your transponder. If they spawn from the free market system, they won't harass you. Its impossible to tell if that is the case other than relative proximity however. The free market system is also one of the few places you can trade while hostile to the faction. In design terms, it is a very high-risk/high-reward place to attempt to go. If you get away with it you can get some powerful weapons and ships, but it will take a lot of skill and probably a little luck too. They are allied with pirates under their employ (look at the pirate base's and Xelion's description) and so they sort of have an idea of what their fleets look like. You could also say encrypted signals, etc, for additional handwaving. The real point is that its supposed to be an incredibly dangerous and completely hostile system - whereas a system like the one where you find Galar has some places of relative safety that you can run to if needed.

My advice would be to use a small phase fleet to attempt to sneak in. The new phase tender should help quite a bit there to smuggle stuff out. Also the related skill would be nice.

My issue is that if 5 Pirate fleets are swarming me with their transponders off right next to and then over an AC colony multiple times, and there are 3 AC fleets patrolling right next to that colony, and those 3 AC patrols ignore those 5 Pirate fleets, and I have a commission with the AC at the time, and right when I turn off my transponder one of those AC patrols emergency burns to intercept me and give me a stern talking to with rep loss, then, for the purposes of internal consistency and immersion, I'd say that either the Pirates shouldn't be given the free pass or commissioned fleets should be given one to compensate, with a strong preference for the former.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 06, 2021, 06:39:49 PM
The second one is more complicated. Not all of the Adamantine Consortium patrols will care about your transponder. If they spawn from the free market system, they won't harass you. Its impossible to tell if that is the case other than relative proximity however. The free market system is also one of the few places you can trade while hostile to the faction. In design terms, it is a very high-risk/high-reward place to attempt to go. If you get away with it you can get some powerful weapons and ships, but it will take a lot of skill and probably a little luck too. They are allied with pirates under their employ (look at the pirate base's and Xelion's description) and so they sort of have an idea of what their fleets look like. You could also say encrypted signals, etc, for additional handwaving. The real point is that its supposed to be an incredibly dangerous and completely hostile system - whereas a system like the one where you find Galar has some places of relative safety that you can run to if needed.

My advice would be to use a small phase fleet to attempt to sneak in. The new phase tender should help quite a bit there to smuggle stuff out. Also the related skill would be nice.

My issue is that if 5 Pirate fleets are swarming me with their transponders off right next to and then over an AC colony multiple times, and there are 3 AC fleets patrolling right next to that colony, and those 3 AC patrols ignore those 5 Pirate fleets, and I have a commission with the AC at the time, and right when I turn off my transponder one of those AC patrols emergency burns to intercept me and give me a stern talking to with rep loss, then, for the purposes of internal consistency and immersion, I'd say that either the Pirates shouldn't be given the free pass or commissioned fleets should be given one to compensate, with a strong preference for the former.


my suggestion (if possible) is that you can only do that if your rep is high enough with them

also, heres an idea, what about an item that when placed at the end of your inventory (or top) it makes your transponder send out a signal that confuses enemy fleets into thinking your an ally if you dont get too close?

actually im going to post that in general suggestions
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: CorsairZero on August 06, 2021, 09:09:51 PM
my suggestion (if possible) is that you can only do that if your rep is high enough with them

also, heres an idea, what about an item that when placed at the end of your inventory (or top) it makes your transponder send out a signal that confuses enemy fleets into thinking your an ally if you dont get too close?

As my gripe is mainly/exclusively internal consistency for this point, high rep only is fine by me, and would fit with how other factions' patrols interact with (or choose not to interact with) a high reputation PC fleet.

I think the transponder mod item would be a fine addition if it had a cost/downside, such as being illegal. Again given that I rarely play without the AO mod, I have had a good handful of questionable experiences that suggest this might already be an NPC mechanic, where independent/scavenger/vulture fleets show as "friendly" or "neutral", but then change to "hostile"/Pirate after a few seconds without me taking any aggressive actions toward them, once they have had time to size my fleet up as "easy pickings". But I'm not certain that I just wasn't paying enough attention during the times I thought that happened.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 07, 2021, 04:58:44 AM
yea idk if thats vanilla or not either but it definitely happens to me too but it only seems to be scavenger fleets that do that
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 07, 2021, 05:04:48 AM
Wow a lot to catch up on it seems! I'll try and quickly get to everyone:

I may have found a bug with either faction relations or maybe the fleet ransom?
Spoiler
I was in some system at a trade hub and a trade fleet for the adamantine consortium came by, aggrod onto me and then asked for more money than I had for ransom. For some reason I started the game with them at -50 hostile.

After the ransom prompt I was no longer given any way to flee even though I had remaining story points and they proceeded to destroy my entire fleet while I tried to escape.

It pretty much ended that playthrough which is a bit annoying, but my question is if that's expected to happen?
[close]
I'm sorry this ended your playthrough! It is actually intended, however. Refusing tribute is a way to really make a dreadlord/baron angry when dealing the Consortium. If you read the blurb about the faction in the lore section of intel, it states that traders and such actively avoid dreadlord fleets or even areas where one was spotted recently with a superstitious level of anxiety. In game, this mechanic is meant to communicate to the player why that reputation is well founded. The Consortium is an unlawful and evil faction, and they are hostile to just about everyone. That is why they are hostile at the start even for the player unless you choose their start. You might consider avoiding their systems entirely - especially at the beginning of the game.

In other words, if you see one of their fleets and can't bribe them, your best bet is to immediately run if you can. I get that it might be a bit annoying when you can't and get caught, but the purpose is to really drive home how dangerous and unpredictable of a faction they are. If you could always avoid them using story points, it wouldn't really feel this way.
apologies if i got something wrong, but the way i understood they either paid the ransom or could simply not flee anymore, even with story points, after going back from that option. correct me if i am wrong but i think that is not intended
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 07, 2021, 05:14:19 AM

Adult content

This mod contains adult content. You can turn adult content on in your preference, if you wish

dang. another site to register i guess...
This is because the mod contains some cursing and a few portraits have blood and such, and I wanted to be conscientious of that for children. There isn't really anything "Adult Content" otherwise, and I get that its incredibly mild compared to other things on the internet... I didn't really think about the fact that it forces you to register to the site though.

Sigh, I'll give it some thought. I'm probably being overly conservative and could simply put a self-rating of T for Teen or something. The story might also contain some suggestive and horror content so that would be the most appropriate rating. I think "Adult Content" is probably more for things like nudity and heavy graphical depictions of gore, of which there is nothing like that in the mod.

i mean... sorry, i mean this here more of a joke what i will say, but, you are in a game where civilistation has esentially collapsed into a post apocalyptic scenarion, with lore such as entire planets being cracked/wiped of it's population, where you basically smuggle drugs to almost everyone because of how miserable mining and other work is, and later on beat patroll fleets into submision to still be able to smuggle weapons and drugs and organs to basically everyone, who probably has not the best idea in mind

i think there doesn't even need to be a warning considering how starsector is. it is like going on newgrounds and then being surprised about content that is not for kids
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 07, 2021, 05:15:05 AM
on a side note though, apologies for asking, but where is the 0.95 version? the downloaded version said it's 0.91, at least 2 files in the folder had that number
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: CorsairZero on August 07, 2021, 09:10:37 AM
on a side note though, apologies for asking, but where is the 0.95 version? the downloaded version said it's 0.91, at least 2 files in the folder had that number

The first post on the first page of this thread is updated for the current version/patch of the mod, labeled "Download Beta." It links to the NexusMods page.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: cptshitacular on August 07, 2021, 08:06:07 PM
just started a new game, ran into a cryosleeper and attempted to engage it. got this error message a few seconds after starting the fight. here's the log for the crash; tried updating lazylib to the newest version but that didn't fix it so i'm out of ideas

45233 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/ext/combat/CombatExtensionsKt
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/ext/combat/CombatExtensionsKt
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.assessNearbyThreats(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:166)
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.advance(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:104)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.M$1.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.BasicShipAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.lazywizard.lazylib.ext.combat.CombatExtensionsKt
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   ... 12 more

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 08, 2021, 05:56:09 PM
@CorsairZero
I'll probably make it so they explain that pirates have encrypted signals even with their transponder off along with a warning to leave them alone, and give the player a pass (if the player passes a cargo scan) if they have a commission. The player will still have to keep their transponder on, however. There are technical reasons for this mostly.

I'll probably also make the pirates at Mordreath neutral once the player takes a commission with the AC.

@6chad.noirlee9
That would be cool but I'm not sure how to implement it. There might be complications with other things in the campaign but I'm not 100% sure offhand.

The scavenger fleets turning hostile is in vanilla as well. It happens when you salvage something near them and they think they can beat you iirc. It also might happen without any provocation outside of the core worlds.

@megabot
The file names will be fixed in the next version. You are talking about the jar right?

apologies if i got something wrong, but the way i understood they either paid the ransom or could simply not flee anymore, even with story points, after going back from that option. correct me if i am wrong but i think that is not intended
Can you say this another way? I'm a little confused as to what you mean. You should still be able to flee unless you have a very large fleet. That prevents you from fleeing altogether (maybe even with story points) and that is a vanilla feature not mine.

just started a new game, ran into a cryosleeper and attempted to engage it. got this error message a few seconds after starting the fight. here's the log for the crash; tried updating lazylib to the newest version but that didn't fix it so i'm out of ideas
Spoiler
45233 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/ext/combat/CombatExtensionsKt
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/ext/combat/CombatExtensionsKt
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.assessNearbyThreats(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:166)
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.advance(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:104)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.M$1.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.BasicShipAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.lazywizard.lazylib.ext.combat.CombatExtensionsKt
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   ... 12 more
[close]
I put a message up on LazyLib's thread and the modding thread about this. What is your operating system? I can't actually reproduce this but there is something weird going on the dependency in IDE. It doesn't crash for me though.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 09, 2021, 02:20:01 AM
@megabot
The file names will be fixed in the next version. You are talking about the jar right?
[quote/]
yeah, i meant the file itself has 0.91 in it so i thought it is for a previous version and the file i downloaded is not up to date(happened with hazard mining ncorporated once, where i downloaded a version that is lower that broke my game because the main page did not have an updated link)
apologies if i got something wrong, but the way i understood they either paid the ransom or could simply not flee anymore, even with story points, after going back from that option. correct me if i am wrong but i think that is not intended
Can you say this another way? I'm a little confused as to what you mean. You should still be able to flee unless you have a very large fleet. That prevents you from fleeing altogether (maybe even with story points) and that is a vanilla feature not mine.

what i meant was that what i got from what they said(i did not use this mod a lot yet) was that they picked the option to pay ransom but then got attacked anyways and had no option to flee, or got into the menu  to pay but didn't and then after going out of it had no option to flee anymore, whether regularily or with story points. i might be wrong though
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2021, 02:13:58 PM
@Megabot

Ohhh ok maybe I misunderstood then. Hmm, I'll take a look. It could be that there is a new aggression flag in 0.95a that I have to unset if the intent of the rule is to make a fleet non-hostile. Or there is something deprecated in the rule script.

Wouldn't be surprised actually it tends to happen in at least one case after new updates.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: EastwardBucket on August 09, 2021, 05:13:21 PM
what i meant was that what i got from what they said(i did not use this mod a lot yet) was that they picked the option to pay ransom but then got attacked anyways and had no option to flee, or got into the menu  to pay but didn't and then after going out of it had no option to flee anymore, whether regularily or with story points. i might be wrong though

Yep this is pretty much what happened. It was a bit strange because I got aggroed by a trade fleet and not a roaming fleet. I was in a system owned by some other faction that I think the trade fleet was going towards.

Does Archean Order tend to modify the bounty difficulty? Having a really hard time making money as even 100k bounties tend to have multiple capital ships.

Edit: Ah I did find a possible bug, not sure where to grab log files as I didn't see a stacktrace and this is an infinite loop.

Doing an equipment raid on an adamantine consortium planet seems to hang the game.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2021, 07:05:51 PM
what i meant was that what i got from what they said(i did not use this mod a lot yet) was that they picked the option to pay ransom but then got attacked anyways and had no option to flee, or got into the menu  to pay but didn't and then after going out of it had no option to flee anymore, whether regularily or with story points. i might be wrong though

Yep this is pretty much what happened. It was a bit strange because I got aggroed by a trade fleet and not a roaming fleet. I was in a system owned by some other faction that I think the trade fleet was going towards.

Does Archean Order tend to modify the bounty difficulty? Having a really hard time making money as even 100k bounties tend to have multiple capital ships.
It increases the amount you get iirc. You can adjust the amounts in the mod's setting file if you feel they are too low. There are settings options in the vanilla settings file as well that the mod doesn't override.

Quote
Edit: Ah I did find a possible bug, not sure where to grab log files as I didn't see a stacktrace and this is an infinite loop.

Doing an equipment raid on an adamantine consortium planet seems to hang the game.
That's really strange. I don't mess with that code at all afaik, but maybe there is a different way to cause this? I'll try and reproduce it. What planet was it specifically?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: CorsairZero on August 09, 2021, 07:44:05 PM
@CorsairZero
I'll probably make it so they explain that pirates have encrypted signals even with their transponder off along with a warning to leave them alone, and give the player a pass (if the player passes a cargo scan) if they have a commission. The player will still have to keep their transponder on, however. There are technical reasons for this mostly.

I'll probably also make the pirates at Mordreath neutral once the player takes a commission with the AC.

1. The change for Pirates being (more or less) neutral to AC-commissioned fleets in AC space seems tentatively reasonable.

2. I would prefer you not to implement the free pass for passing a cargo scan with AC fleets, outside of the high rep mechanics consistent with other civilized factions. If it's illegal to have my transponder off in AC space, then I should be punished for getting caught with my transponder off in AC space.

3. I don't love the band-aid/hand-wave fix of encryption lore, but to be fair I have almost the same issue with vanilla NPC smugglers getting free passes from most/all civilized/law-enforcing factions. I dislike double standards, primarily (maybe even exclusively) when it's unjustifiable/unbelievable. I attribute the smuggler issue to dev oversight or, more charitably, to "it's in alpha".

But color me, a questionable leader incapable of growing any of my colony's populations above about half of what the NPC factions are capable of, or only being able to be competitively and logistically efficient when dealing with <3001 units of both cargo and fuel, displeased.

Moving back from that digression:
The (corrupt) act of looking the other way for a high rep character or a special case such as the PC not having to obey the transponder law in part of the tutorial? Both good by me. Both believable.

(Assuming this is different than the Pirates labeled as "Scavenger") Pirate transponder modifications that are only available to Pirates (in Mordreath), utilized consistently by all Pirates in Mordreath, that are also going to be so well made by the same engineers/workers making/maintaining the Pirate's jury-rigged fleets that they could fool AC fleets at close range? No dice.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 09, 2021, 09:21:09 PM
@CorsairZero
I hear you and it makes sense to me. Its less that I think its the best way for it to appear and more that its just how vanilla was set up and I'm not sure I want to delve too deeply into changing it, at least at the moment.

Smugglers never getting caught was always strange to me too, but I think they are tricking the patrols into to seeming legitimate or are otherwise hidden... somehow. That's how I think of it anyway. That doesn't mean they should never be caught in front of the player though. That feels off its true. I also don't understand why I don't get a reward for catching them from the faction if patrols are nearby and see me do it, but I digress.

Anyway, what I might do is turn the Xelion pirates in Mordreath into a separate faction that otherwise looks like pirates so I can better fine-tune their behavior and have it be more clear that these are "bought" pirates that are otherwise separate from the primary pirate faction. It won't be this update or anything, but that would be a nice addition to a more lore-focused update in the near future.


I'm having trouble reproducing both the raiding issue and the tribute issue. I'm able to disengage even while hostile to the faction if I give tribute, and the raid for equipment didn't cause a loop. on Lilith.

So far, I also haven't had issues with the Guardian or Radiant causing an error though my IDE still flags the Lazylib class as being undefined. It still works on all counts though.

I'll wait a little while longer before releasing the update and try some more to reproduce these reports later, but it would be helpful to have more exact circumstances and context for when these occurred. Things like:

Reputation
Size of the player fleet
The specific planet raided
When did the loop occur in the dialogue specifically?
What is your operating system?

Stuff like that is very helpful in order to track these down if I can't reproduce them easily. 
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: EastwardBucket on August 10, 2021, 05:08:08 AM
I'm having trouble reproducing both the raiding issue and the tribute issue. I'm able to disengage even while hostile to the faction if I give tribute, and the raid for equipment didn't cause a loop. on Lilith.

So far, I also haven't had issues with the Guardian or Radiant causing an error though my IDE still flags the Lazylib class as being undefined. It still works on all counts though.

I'll wait a little while longer before releasing the update and try some more to reproduce these reports later, but it would be helpful to have more exact circumstances and context for when these occurred. Things like:

Reputation
Size of the player fleet
The specific planet raided
When did the loop occur in the dialogue specifically?
What is your operating system?

Stuff like that is very helpful in order to track these down if I can't reproduce them easily.

I'm not able to reproduce the tribute issue, I'm starting to wonder if I just fat fingered a key and somehow locked myself into a disengage-with-pursuit instead of a clean disengage.

I can reproduce the raid issue, I cannot attach the save file as it's too large. Is there another way to get that file to you?

Reputation: Hostile -72, I'm currently commissioned by Tri-Tachyon
Size of the player fleet: 99 combat, 109 total, 51 marines
The specific planet raided: Hikmah, there are no defending fleets nearby.
When did the loop occur in the dialogue specifically? Cannot reproduce
What is your operating system? Windows 10

The mods I currently have active are:
Archean Order - Beta 1.4.0.2
Autosave 1.1c (configured to prompt)
Combat Chatter 1.11.2
LazyLib 2.6
MagicLib 0.34
Unknown Skies 0.43
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 10, 2021, 11:48:40 AM
I can reproduce the raid issue, I cannot attach the save file as it's too large. Is there another way to get that file to you?

Reputation: Hostile -72, I'm currently commissioned by Tri-Tachyon
Size of the player fleet: 99 combat, 109 total, 51 marines
The specific planet raided: Hikmah, there are no defending fleets nearby.
When did the loop occur in the dialogue specifically? Cannot reproduce

Thanks I was able to reproduce it with that info! I'll troubleshoot where the loop is coming from hopefully through the logs. It happens simply when you click the "launch raid" dialogue option. So the first step, assuming the logs reveal nothing, is to see what script that rule runs and dig into it. Hopefully that will yield something helpful.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: megabot on August 10, 2021, 01:41:21 PM
yo, allthough i only once tried your mod in the past, can i say thank you to you sir? for making mods and all that, which gives you nothing in return, really, yet you made it and share it with us, and update it, and i just really wanted to say thank you sir

i wish i could say this to everyone out here but i think that is a hour i do not want to spend. though, if you see a friend that happens to mod starsector, share it with them, because that thank you of course goes to them too!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 10, 2021, 01:50:25 PM
yo, allthough i only once tried your mod in the past, can i say thank you to you sir? for making mods and all that, which gives you nothing in return, really, yet you made it and share it with us, and update it, and i just really wanted to say thank you sir

i wish i could say this to everyone out here but i think that is a hour i do not want to spend. though, if you see a friend that happens to mod starsector, share it with them, because that thank you of course goes to them too!

You are welcome and thank you for the kind words. :) I agree that every modder deserves this acknowledgement, no matter how large or small the mod, simply because someone took the time out of their day to do something without reward just to give something nice to a community who shares a passion.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 10, 2021, 02:57:59 PM
Thanks I was able to reproduce it with that info! I'll troubleshoot where the loop is coming from hopefully through the logs. It happens simply when you click the "launch raid" dialogue option. So the first step, assuming the logs reveal nothing, is to see what script that rule runs and dig into it. Hopefully that will yield something helpful.

I've tracked this down to very specific parameters and I've inquired about it in the modding thread.

Essentially, if you are raiding any of the faction-added mods other than Trader Guilds and you are raiding a Patrol HQ specifically, the game will crash. I looked at the code in question and the issue is either in the faction file or its a vanilla bug in core code locked behind an interface that isn't exposed.

Later on, I'll try and see if I can reproduce this anywhere else in a vanilla faction just in case I'm missing something Alex can reproduce in the unmodded dev version.

I may also have a fix for the issue some have been having with Lazylib but I'm not 100% sure it will work. My IDE still doesn't 100% like it, but it likes it more than the last implementation and it works for me at least, if that makes sense.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 10, 2021, 03:24:46 PM
excitement is building!
at least for me LOL
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 11, 2021, 11:02:44 AM
The raiding issue has been resolved for the next update.

Am I missing any other bugs that have been reported and I haven't touched on??
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 11, 2021, 11:34:46 AM
I conquered a planet from a faction not in AO and when I tried to load the save it gave a null pointer but realistically I dont think that matters so much. 
It was a Magellan planet.
Really though I'm only pointing it out si in the future once you get a real release it might get looked into: I'd much rather see you give an update and get to integrating musashi!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 11, 2021, 03:35:07 PM
I conquered a planet from a faction not in AO and when I tried to load the save it gave a null pointer but realistically I dont think that matters so much. 
It was a Magellan planet.
Really though I'm only pointing it out si in the future once you get a real release it might get looked into: I'd much rather see you give an update and get to integrating musashi!

If you send me the log, I'll take a quick look in case its something easy, but I understand that a new faction is exciting too.



I think the Lazylib issue should hopefully be fixed now. I can't reproduce it to be absolutely sure, but following the Javadoc this should theoretically fix it as long as the latest version is installed. Since I was testing out the Radiant and the Commissioned Crews hullmod for AC for that fix, I decided to make some improvements to both.

For the hullmod, it has a unique graphic instead of the placeholder, a sound effect, and should pop up some flavor text that I will expand upon later. Its more a proof of concept atm.

For the Radiant/Guardian AI, it *should* now focus on pursuing and destroying cruisers or capital ships while its system is active instead of turning to fire at smaller ships and wasting the duration. It was too easily distracted before when surrounded.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: FranzDenKaiser on August 11, 2021, 08:14:58 PM
More of an observation than a bug report, but Archangel fighters don't really act as fighters per se. They just shoot off their missiles before returning to the ship and end up rapidly draining Flight Replication rather than using their fearsome Ion Weaponry in actual combat. Is this intended and I'm just using them wrong or is this an AI flaw? Because whenever they DO use their ionic blasters, I can see why their LPC is held at "legendary" status, its just that they never actually do this.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 13, 2021, 04:49:28 PM
The 1.4.0.3 update has been uploaded. Get it from the main page!


More of an observation than a bug report, but Archangel fighters don't really act as fighters per se. They just shoot off their missiles before returning to the ship and end up rapidly draining Flight Replication rather than using their fearsome Ion Weaponry in actual combat. Is this intended and I'm just using them wrong or is this an AI flaw? Because whenever they DO use their ionic blasters, I can see why their LPC is held at "legendary" status, its just that they never actually do this.

The Arcangel has been redesigned in the 1.4.0.3 update. Both versions no longer need to rearm and will continue firing on target until destroyed or recalled. That happens because the wing has limited missiles and so they rearm once they run out. I have been slowly phasing them out of fighters or otherwise calling them "strike fighters" to better indicate that they do this. Same thing with gunships.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 13, 2021, 05:20:48 PM
HUZZAH
im going to visit my mom in a few days so ill be able to retrieve what i need to HOPEFULLY get back to work with launching a channel
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 13, 2021, 05:55:08 PM
just want to remind you derelict empire isnt working properly with AO
the only thing that spawns are smugglers
STOKED ABOUT THE MUSASHI INTEGRATION
hopefully that is gonna come next!
either way im excited to start my newest "civilian ships can fight too" run lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 13, 2021, 06:19:37 PM
just want to remind you derelict empire isnt working properly with AO
the only thing that spawns are smugglers
STOKED ABOUT THE MUSASHI INTEGRATION
hopefully that is gonna come next!
either way im excited to start my newest "civilian ships can fight too" run lol

Did you update Nex to the latest version? It should have been fixed on Histidine's end and I think an update was released fairly recently. That was one of the things on the patch notes.

But yes I think I will work on Musashi next. It will be a nice change of pace honestly. (Sorry if the art changes are bad for that mod - art isn't exactly my strong suit. I've had some success with some sprites certainly, but I've been told I, err, don't have an artist's eye for things lol. ;) )
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 13, 2021, 06:48:45 PM
oh it has?!  not sure how i missed that
aight ima go handle that

Edit: you're right it's working now
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: megabot on August 14, 2021, 01:57:05 PM
yo, sorry for asking but, what is muashi?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 14, 2021, 02:50:38 PM
yo, sorry for asking but, what is muashi?

Small mod that adds some WW2-style battleships and I think a few smaller craft. It shouldn't take too long to make a TC-balanced version. The author is reported to be ok with it and would host the version on the mod page. I'll confirm that before I publish anything.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21692.0 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21692.0)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: EastwardBucket on August 14, 2021, 05:55:58 PM
This is probably me doing something wrong, but I can't seem to enable Unknown Skies and this mod at the same time anymore with the latest update.

It works if I set "totalConversion" to false, did Unknown Skies fall off the safe list?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 14, 2021, 06:04:41 PM
If you go to the mod page I was given permission to alter the stats it's one of the latest posts.  Not sure what's going on with the original creator, hopefully everything is good though.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 14, 2021, 06:11:16 PM
This is probably me doing something wrong, but I can't seem to enable Unknown Skies and this mod at the same time anymore with the latest update.

It works if I set "totalConversion" to false, did Unknown Skies fall off the safe list?

No its just that that flag doesn't differentiate between any mods except utility mods like LazyLib. You have to set it to false for really any other mod whether compatible, balanced or otherwise. Unknown Skies should be fine, at least afaik.

If you go to the mod page I was given permission to alter the stats it's one of the latest posts.  Not sure what's going on with the original creator, hopefully everything is good though.

He/She might just be taking a break. If there is confirmation on the mod page then that will be enough, I'd think.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: EastwardBucket on August 14, 2021, 07:05:33 PM
This is probably me doing something wrong, but I can't seem to enable Unknown Skies and this mod at the same time anymore with the latest update.

It works if I set "totalConversion" to false, did Unknown Skies fall off the safe list?

No its just that that flag doesn't differentiate between any mods except utility mods like LazyLib. You have to set it to false for really any other mod whether compatible, balanced or otherwise. Unknown Skies should be fine, at least afaik.

If you go to the mod page I was given permission to alter the stats it's one of the latest posts.  Not sure what's going on with the original creator, hopefully everything is good though.

He/She might just be taking a break. If there is confirmation on the mod page then that will be enough, I'd think.

Ah sorry, what I meant was that if I try to enable Archean Order while Unknown Skies is enabled, Unknown Skies gets disabled automatically. This didn't occur on the previous version. I'm just not sure if that's intentional.

Also should saves from the previous version be compatible? I'm hitting a crash on loading a previous save.

Spoiler
86673 [Thread-3] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Loading stage 3
88056 [Thread-3] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Error loading
88057 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.RuntimeException
cause-message       : Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
method              : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 264450
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[5]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available
-------------------------------
com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException: Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.RuntimeException
cause-message       : Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
method              : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 264450
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[5]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available
-------------------------------
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.util.SerializationMembers.callReadResolve(SerializationMembers.java:82)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:282)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.start(TreeUnmarshaller.java:134)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractTreeMarshallingStrategy.unmarshal(AbstractTreeMarshallingStrategy.java:32)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.unmarshal(XStream.java:1486)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.unmarshal(XStream.java:1466)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.fromXML(XStream.java:1346)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.o0oO.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.LoadGameDialog.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.E.I.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.M.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor61.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.util.SerializationMembers.callReadResolve(SerializationMembers.java:78)
   ... 135 more
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 14, 2021, 10:36:17 PM
Ah sorry, what I meant was that if I try to enable Archean Order while Unknown Skies is enabled, Unknown Skies gets disabled automatically. This didn't occur on the previous version. I'm just not sure if that's intentional.

Also should saves from the previous version be compatible? I'm hitting a crash on loading a previous save.

Spoiler
86673 [Thread-3] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Loading stage 3
88056 [Thread-3] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Error loading
88057 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.RuntimeException
cause-message       : Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
method              : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 264450
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[5]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available
-------------------------------
com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException: Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.RuntimeException
cause-message       : Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
method              : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 264450
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[5]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available
-------------------------------
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.util.SerializationMembers.callReadResolve(SerializationMembers.java:82)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:282)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.start(TreeUnmarshaller.java:134)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractTreeMarshallingStrategy.unmarshal(AbstractTreeMarshallingStrategy.java:32)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.unmarshal(XStream.java:1486)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.unmarshal(XStream.java:1466)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.fromXML(XStream.java:1346)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.o0oO.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.LoadGameDialog.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.E.I.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.M.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor61.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.util.SerializationMembers.callReadResolve(SerializationMembers.java:78)
   ... 135 more
[close]

That is what the TotalConversion setting does in mod_info.json - it automatically disables any non-utility mods unless its set to false. It's intentional in the sense that that's how the mod setting works and the mod is a total conversion so it needs to be set as true at first so users can choose whether to set it to false or not - basically its so people come here and ask about it/read the directions on the mod page.

Setting it to false is what you have to do if you want to play with other mods alongside the TC, even Nex requires this. It's a small step, but you'd be surprised at how many people install mods without really reading what they are about. In case that happens, that behavior makes them take pause and, hopefully, read the main page or ask why.

Save Compatibility:
Unfortunately, no I couldn't keep save compatibility between versions this time. Sorry! There were several changes that will break saves. That's one of the reasons I waited for a while to release the update. That and I wanted to give some time for bug reports in order to knock out as many as possible in a single update. So that if other bugs required save breaking-changes then I could handle them too. Hopefully I got them all.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: EastwardBucket on August 14, 2021, 11:00:42 PM
Ah sorry, what I meant was that if I try to enable Archean Order while Unknown Skies is enabled, Unknown Skies gets disabled automatically. This didn't occur on the previous version. I'm just not sure if that's intentional.

Also should saves from the previous version be compatible? I'm hitting a crash on loading a previous save.

Spoiler
86673 [Thread-3] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Loading stage 3
88056 [Thread-3] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Error loading
88057 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.RuntimeException
cause-message       : Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
method              : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 264450
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[5]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available
-------------------------------
com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException: Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.RuntimeException
cause-message       : Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
method              : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 264450
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[5]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available
-------------------------------
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.util.SerializationMembers.callReadResolve(SerializationMembers.java:82)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:282)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.AbstractCollectionConverter.rea dItem(AbstractCollectionConverter.java:73)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.addCurrentE lementToCollection(CollectionConverter.java:98)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:91)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.populateCol lection(CollectionConverter.java:85)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter.unmarshal(CollectionConverter.java:80)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshallField(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:503)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.doUn marshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:429)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unma rshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:281)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:72)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.convert(AbstractReferenceUnmarshaller.java:70)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:66)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convertAnother(TreeUnmarshaller.java:50)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.start(TreeUnmarshaller.java:134)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.AbstractTreeMarshallingStrategy.unmarshal(AbstractTreeMarshallingStrategy.java:32)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.unmarshal(XStream.java:1486)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.unmarshal(XStream.java:1466)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.fromXML(XStream.java:1346)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.o0oO.dismiss(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.LoadGameDialog.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newnew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.E.I.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Oo0O.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o00O.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Ship hull spec [archean_ziggurat] not found!
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.M.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.HullVariantSpec.readResolve(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor61.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.util.SerializationMembers.callReadResolve(SerializationMembers.java:78)
   ... 135 more
[close]

That is what the TotalConversion setting does in mod_info.json - it automatically disables any non-utility mods unless its set to false. It's intentional in the sense that that's how the mod setting works and the mod is a total conversion so it needs to be set as true at first so users can choose whether to set it to false or not - basically its so people come here and ask about it/read the directions on the mod page.

Setting it to false is what you have to do if you want to play with other mods alongside the TC, even Nex requires this. It's a small step, but you'd be surprised at how many people install mods without really reading what they are about. In case that happens, that behavior makes them take pause and, hopefully, read the main page or ask why.

Save Compatibility:
Unfortunately, no I couldn't keep save compatibility between versions this time. Sorry! There were several changes that will break saves. That's one of the reasons I waited for a while to release the update. That and I wanted to give some time for bug reports in order to knock out as many as possible in a single update. So that if other bugs required save breaking-changes then I could handle them too. Hopefully I got them all.

Ah cool thank you, just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong on my end.

I don't mind starting up a new playthrough, speedrunning back to where I was now that I have a better understanding and feel for the balance is fun.

I don't think I've said it yet, but thanks for making this mod - I really enjoy a lot of the combat balance changes (particularly making missiles useful in longer engagements).
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: BreenBB on August 15, 2021, 02:15:58 AM
I tried add Extra System Reloaded mod, and got two random crashes during gameplay, i'm not sure what it incompatibility between two mods or simply bug of one of them, and both AO and ESR was older versions (because they both isn't save compatible with never versions), AO 1.4.0.2 and ESR 0.7.1.

Spoiler
5226396 [Thread-3]
ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.util.Misc.applyDamage(Misc.java:5028)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidImpact.<init>(AsteroidImpact.java:67)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.applyEffec t(AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.java:185)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.BaseTerrain.advance(BaseTerrain.java:85)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.advance(AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.java:100)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidFieldTerrainPlugin.advance(AsteroidFieldTerrainPlugin.java:110)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignTerrain.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

And older one:

2156034 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.applyStormSt rikes(HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.java:1256)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.applyEffect(HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.java:1162)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.BaseTerrain.advance(BaseTerrain.java:85)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.BaseTiledTerrain.advance(BaseTiledTerrain.java:454)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.advance(HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.java:582)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignTerrain.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: hydremajor on August 15, 2021, 04:02:26 AM
any chance we could get a version with just the weapons ?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: BreenBB on August 15, 2021, 08:07:33 AM
I tried Doom mine subsystem in new update, I know what in vanilla this is strongest subsystem, but not in AO apparently, its seems nerfed pretty hard, mines die to PD almost immediately, plus now subsystem have cooldown between deployment of mines, which makes them die almost immediately after they spawn and I got literally zero impact from them on battlefield, I got only 1 or 2 mines which lived enough just to explode, not even damage someone. Doom is basically a ship without subsystem now, but it was also kinda subsystem-less ship with Maneuvering Jets which is definitely worse than Adamantine Consortium variant with Temporal Shell.

Also now I kinda not sure even if vanilla mine subsystem will be useful, in AO ships have much more PD and fighter cover, so mines now will be swiped pretty quickly.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 15, 2021, 01:04:05 PM
Ah cool thank you, just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong on my end.

I don't mind starting up a new playthrough, speedrunning back to where I was now that I have a better understanding and feel for the balance is fun.

I don't think I've said it yet, but thanks for making this mod - I really enjoy a lot of the combat balance changes (particularly making missiles useful in longer engagements).

You're welcome I'm glad you enjoy it!

I tried add Extra System Reloaded mod, and got two random crashes during gameplay, i'm not sure what it incompatibility between two mods or simply bug of one of them, and both AO and ESR was older versions (because they both isn't save compatible with never versions), AO 1.4.0.2 and ESR 0.7.1.

Spoiler
5226396 [Thread-3]
ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.util.Misc.applyDamage(Misc.java:5028)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidImpact.<init>(AsteroidImpact.java:67)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.applyEffec t(AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.java:185)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.BaseTerrain.advance(BaseTerrain.java:85)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.advance(AsteroidBeltTerrainPlugin.java:100)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.AsteroidFieldTerrainPlugin.advance(AsteroidFieldTerrainPlugin.java:110)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignTerrain.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

And older one:

2156034 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.applyStormSt rikes(HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.java:1256)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.applyEffect(HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.java:1162)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.BaseTerrain.advance(BaseTerrain.java:85)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.BaseTiledTerrain.advance(BaseTiledTerrain.java:454)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.terrain.HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.advance(HyperspaceTerrainPlugin.java:582)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignTerrain.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

Hmm. Well, I haven't personally run into these crashes though I haven't been running the game with that mod. Looking at the error, its pretty hard to say except that something appears to be checking for an array index that doesn't exist in the size parameters of the array. (So looking for index 8 when the array's max size is 7 or something.)

Looking at the API, there is this available:

Code
	/**
* Applies damage in a [b]random location[/b] on the hull. In the case of a fighter wing, first picks a random wing member.
* @param hitStrength
*/
void applyDamage(float hitStrength);

That is where the error is coming from - each time a FleetMemberStatusAPI has applyDamage(float) called. In these cases, it is occurring when a player fleet takes damage from a Hyperspace Storm or an Asteroid field. It would *probably* also occur due to accidents from low/zero CR.

So, in essence, what I'm getting from this is that something is modifying the ship so that the search for a place to perform the damage is causing the error. I have no idea as to what that might be though. It does seem unlikely that it is a vanilla bug because I can't imagine this would be the first time it has come up. It is coming from vanilla code, but something must be happening outside of what is normal in vanilla that the code doesn't account for.

The best thing to do would be to only add the Extra System Reloaded mod and nothing else, and then try and reproduce the crash. The mod author might want to ask Alex what could cause an OutOfBounds exception in the applyDamage() method for some clarity. Since I can't look at the code directly, I have little else to go on in this case.

any chance we could get a version with just the weapons ?

Which ones and just as-is? Or vanilla balanced?

I tried Doom mine subsystem in new update, I know what in vanilla this is strongest subsystem, but not in AO apparently, its seems nerfed pretty hard, mines die to PD almost immediately, plus now subsystem have cooldown between deployment of mines, which makes them die almost immediately after they spawn and I got literally zero impact from them on battlefield, I got only 1 or 2 mines which lived enough just to explode, not even damage someone. Doom is basically a ship without subsystem now, but it was also kinda subsystem-less ship with Maneuvering Jets which is definitely worse than Adamantine Consortium variant with Temporal Shell.

Also now I kinda not sure even if vanilla mine subsystem will be useful, in AO ships have much more PD and fighter cover, so mines now will be swiped pretty quickly.

I'm aware of this and I'm inclined to agree. I tuned it to the low end to start and I will probably creep it back up at some point. I didn't get too much time to test it manually controlling the ship and I was hoping the player could get more niche use out of the system. The AI wasn't great with it, but those ships are strong enough that I thought it might be cool if it was more of a player-specific thing and was waiting for feedback.

The reason I think mines are a bit tricky to balance is that they hit like a truck when they actually go off. If more could spawn at once, I wonder if it would serve as a way to zone out other ships.

Remind me later on about this. I don't want to make the change just yet because I want the dev version and current version mostly identical for balance feedback (like this) while I work on some lore stuff. (Musashi is halfway done already I'd say.)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: hydremajor on August 15, 2021, 01:25:49 PM
everything as is ideally but whatever works....
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 15, 2021, 02:10:46 PM
I actually had the same error and was wondering what it might be.  I guess I'll have to remove that mod and see what happens.

edit: IM STOKED ABOUT MUSASHI
Long live the brave fencer!  Lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 15, 2021, 03:28:28 PM
everything as is ideally but whatever works....

I'll see if I can do this real quick after I'm done with Musashi before I start on lore stuff. It might not be too time-consuming off the top of my head.

I actually had the same error and was wondering what it might be.  I guess I'll have to remove that mod and see what happens.

edit: IM STOKED ABOUT MUSASHI
Long live the brave fencer!  Lol

Let me know if that doesn't make the error go away. Not sure what I could have done to all of sudden start causing that, but who knows some stuff gets tricky.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 16, 2021, 09:50:06 AM
after removing that mod i havent had any issues
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: BreenBB on August 16, 2021, 12:10:56 PM
About ship sprites, how about idea to make hangars on some ships more subtle? For example on Aurora and Paragon they kinda ruin sleek design of these ships.

Here some my ideas of fixing that, although I'm not skilled at texture edits, on Onslaught hangars from pirate Onslaught from HMI and Aurora had hangars from Tempest: https://imgur.com/a/Hsub5mk
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 16, 2021, 01:22:14 PM
idk i kinda like the dramatic large bays, especially for new players to see them
they do seem a bit dramatic, but i dont think they should be reduced as much as the onslaught
the aroura was a pretty good example though: still obvious enough
i mean, one of the main points of this mod is the heavy use of fighters
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 16, 2021, 04:31:53 PM
after removing that mod i havent had any issues
Good to hear!

About ship sprites, how about idea to make hangars on some ships more subtle? For example on Aurora and Paragon they kinda ruin sleek design of these ships.

Here some my ideas of fixing that, although I'm not skilled at texture edits, on Onslaught hangars from pirate Onslaught from HMI and Aurora had hangars from Tempest: https://imgur.com/a/Hsub5mk
I have to say I really like these - especially the Onslaught and Aurora. The Onslaught because of the facing and how it now better matches the Legion bay style. Where did you get these? Do I need permission from anyone? HMI is Hazard Mining Incorporated, correct? I'll send a PM to King Alfonzo.

The only one I likely won't go with is the Paragon. That's mostly because I intend upon increasing its bays to 6 instead of 4 and that would be too small of a bay to make visual sense.

idk i kinda like the dramatic large bays, especially for new players to see them
they do seem a bit dramatic, but i dont think they should be reduced as much as the onslaught
the aroura was a pretty good example though: still obvious enough
i mean, one of the main points of this mod is the heavy use of fighters
Overall I agree, but I do like the proposed Onslaught's look since it has a low tech vibe over the current bays. I also like forward facing bays more for that sprite though that's just a personal preference. I just could never come up with anything that looked good enough in the past but that was when there were far less carrier sprites to work with. While its more subtle to be sure, the Onslaught doesn't have many bays to begin with - though I may increase the number to 3 in the future. The recent changes to range let me do more with warship bays now and 2 may be a bit too low to provide enough interceptor coverage considering the increased strength of both strike craft and torpedoes.

I could further emphasize the bays with a bit more glow and that will probably be enough to let a new player know that fighters would be coming from the battleship. Thoughts?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: BreenBB on August 16, 2021, 11:59:32 PM
I have to say I really like these - especially the Onslaught and Aurora. The Onslaught because of the facing and how it now better matches the Legion bay style. Where did you get these? Do I need permission from anyone? HMI is Hazard Mining Incorporated, correct? I'll send a PM to King Alfonzo.

The only one I likely won't go with is the Paragon. That's mostly because I intend upon increasing its bays to 6 instead of 4 and that would be too small of a bay to make visual sense.

From work of other people I only took hangars from Hazard Mining Incorporated pirate HWB Onslaught, I liked how bays are placed on it, so its doesn't alter the overall shape, Aurora bays are your work from AO Tempest, I don't know, maybe put armor at the top of the Hangar. Also sprites might be not very clean, but I'm not skilled at texturing, maybe they need some improvements, like how hangars blend on Aurora with the ship.

About Paragon, I replaced it circle because I liked perfect circle in middle from vanilla sprite, in AO its a bit messy, maybe as idea is copy that hangar which I leaved, and put it on sides of the circle, so Paragon will remain its design overall intact?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 17, 2021, 12:49:24 AM
The new craft report is up:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BWd5Q_UxVQDnEGi3oHAsiBPTF0GVZG_W92BQYGIqEQU/edit?usp=sharing

I would like to point out that the impact of craft in combat is greatly diminishing and I could play without a carrier at all and only relying on a few interceptors and PDs. The trend is leaning toward vanilla where you only have to consider bigger guns and bigger ships. If most frigate could have more leeway to avoid death as much as Hyperion that would be more ideal for players to look toward small-scale combat. Probably a scripted ability to boost out + invunerability when on full flux will do.

There are still some vanilla crafts mixed in the full rooster with "allwings" cmd. I know they won't spawn or anything.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 17, 2021, 01:55:23 AM
The new craft report is up:
For my reference, this is for 1.4.0.3, correct? My initial assumption is that it is a current analysis of the most recent update.

Or is this 1.4.0.2? (I will take feedback either way but there has been a large amount of changes between these two versions and I want to make sure I understand the context.)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 17, 2021, 08:49:30 AM
The new craft report is up:
For my reference, this is for 1.4.0.3, correct? My initial assumption is that it is a current analysis of the most recent update.

Or is this 1.4.0.2? (I will take feedback either way but there has been a large amount of changes between these two versions and I want to make sure I understand the context.)

This is for the latest version. I wrote the version number on the sheet name underneath.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 17, 2021, 02:04:49 PM
@Albreo
Ok gotcha I looked at it more closely and read the key. I will evaluate it over a couple of days.

Overall, thank you very much for doing this! I find it extremely helpful since it categorizes the craft by multiple strengths and weaknesses rather than just giving blanket assertions. For a dev, that is invaluable information.

My initial hot take is comprised of two main counter-points atm:

1) Replacement rate should be taken into consideration or otherwise rolled into the survivability grade and it doesn't seem like it is. (At a first glance.) For instance, the Wasp might be very fragile, but it replaces quickly enough that an F grade is somewhat misleading to its actual impact on replacement rate, if that makes sense. Same thing for E grades for the Spectre, Fang and Imp. In my tests with the Legion, it was actually fairly hard to reduce the replacement rate against Spectres. They could take 80% losses in one pass and be back to full strength in about 10-15 seconds - so not enough time to really reduce the replacement rate much.

2) Some survivability and anti-ship dps grades seem off from my own tests. But, that could be due to differing baseline expectations - which I will address below.

Questions: (Not just for Albreo, these are to determine expectations and context for future tests and will eventually probably result in a poll of some kind.)

Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 17, 2021, 09:43:08 PM
Quote
1) Replacement rate should be taken into consideration or otherwise rolled into the survivability grade and it doesn't seem like it is. (At a first glance.) For instance, the Wasp might be very fragile, but it replaces quickly enough that an F grade is somewhat misleading to its actual impact on replacement rate, if that makes sense. Same thing for E grades for the Spectre, Fang and Imp. In my tests with the Legion, it was actually fairly hard to reduce the replacement rate against Spectres. They could take 80% losses in one pass and be back to full strength in about 10-15 seconds - so not enough time to really reduce the replacement rate much.

Well, it's one of the very first crafts that I did a test with maybe I'm a little disappoint at how it goes poof in second. The reason for the initial low score is due to the vulnerability to all kinds of PD. It just doesn't cut it no matter how high the replacement rate is. The downtime is too severe to be worth it as they recuperate behind a carrier.

The survivability in question taking into account many things, mostly vaguely, including replacement rate, wing count. If it's a bomber/fighter, can come back from a bombing run get a bonus point. Mainly, the overall ability to maintain a full roster and maximize combat effectiveness, and these drones are far away from my expectation. It should be able to maintain at least 2/6 of the initial numbers at all times for it to get at least C while constantly engage in combat of equal proportion. And they are very weak against AoE fragmentation PD.

For example, The Aspect Shock. Even though it is the same cut as the rest of the variants, this thing can maintain a full roster due to its ability to neutralize all kinds of threats, therefore an S from me.

Now, I'm curious what kind of setup did you test with. I'm basically using a bare Astral against stock Astral/Executor/Eagle/Falcon. I don't even want to pair it with Legion, that thing is too crazy PD wise.

Quote
Should bombers be *mostly* successful with their attack runs if interceptors are not there to protect the ship? Or should they be situationally useful but damaging?
From my visualization of a space battle, they should be able to come back mostly intact. In my case, an Astral, at least 50% of what they deployed should be able to hit the target with no interceptor cover. But at the moment, PD can intercept almost 70-90% and whatever hit doesn't even increase flux level to 20%. The best scenario for me would be to boost the damage/HP of the torpedo really high and force the player to deploy interceptors/fighters as the only means to counter it. If the projectile speed is reduced I believe a frigate can avoid these easily.
Quote
How survivable should the baseline craft be against ship weapons? For instance, if one wing is under destroyer fire, how many seconds should the wing last?
Ship weapon you mean Non-PD? At the moment, I would say it already serves its purpose for being able to distract the main weapon lol.
Quote
Should shields be better than armor defensively? Why or why not?
It should be equal to leveling the playfield. the armor is just superior at the moment. And I expect more expensive crafts to perform slightly better just slightly.
Quote
Should at least a couple of carriers be required in the players fleet - whether to defend with interceptors or strike with bombers/gunships? Why or why not?
It should because it will be too vanilla if it doesn't, just kidding. I would say it's situational. If you saw another fleet full of carriers and you didn't deploy your own, I expect you to be beaten half dead.
Quote
What are the most useful types of craft you have used atm and why? What aspect of their design makes them better to use over other craft?
I use every type for research purposes.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Puff12398 on August 18, 2021, 05:01:05 PM
Am having an issue where I receive a Fatal: null error. I am unsure of how to solve the issue and could not find a solution anywhere.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.4.0.2

This is where my file is located.

Anyone have this problem or know what it might be?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 18, 2021, 08:34:15 PM
Am having an issue where I receive a Fatal: null error. I am unsure of how to solve the issue and could not find a solution anywhere.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\mods\Archean Order TC v1.4.0.2

This is where my file is located.

Anyone have this problem or know what it might be?

That is kind of not helpful. What you can do is post the bottom part of the crash log which can be located in \starsector-core\starsector.log

Cut out where the thing starts to go wrong with null error. Hopefully, it will mention which module is broken.

Also, your problem might have been solved already with patch 1.4.0.3 but I must stress that it's not save compatible.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 19, 2021, 02:54:56 PM
@Albreo
Thank you for the explanation of how you grade and your responses in general. I will keep it all in mind as I test (though not making changes atm until more time has passed so I can keep the dev version as current as the update) and I've noted your opinion on carrier strength/role. Personally, I'm of the same mind, but I do get a lot of feedback that carriers are too strong when I balance that way. It's probably because there is a fair portion of the player base that doesn't want to use many carriers even defensively. Or they feel pigeonholed into using carrier spam as an optimal strategy - though I *think* that should be less effective in this mod since more weapons mean more overall PD.

I will say that gunships seem objectively better than bombers right now after the armor changes. Not having to rearm makes a world of difference if the ship is locked down by a swarm of strike craft. Though, bombers do a lot and arguably more damage per second if their ordinance gets through the PD. But at the end of the day, guaranteed is better than not guaranteed even if the damage difference per second would be higher. Just things I'm thinking about as I play.

Now, I'm curious what kind of setup did you test with. I'm basically using a bare Astral against stock Astral/Executor/Eagle/Falcon. I don't even want to pair it with Legion, that thing is too crazy PD wise.
For interceptors, I used Legions with only a single strike weapon equipped so that ship weapons weren't a factor at all, and then measured a few metrics:

 - which interceptor won the eventual replacement rate war and how much did low replacement rate effect the interceptors overall usefulness?
 - how effective was the interceptor when the wings first clash against the enemy interceptors? What were the initial losses on each side?
 - how effective was the interceptor at causing damage to the enemy Legion itself over time? Which Legion would win in the end and how much of that win was not the strike weapon?

For bombers and gunships, I used an Astrals, Herons (without damage boosting system), Moras and Condors to test lots of scenarios.

The enemies were typically warships of the same size. The target goal was that the warship can reduce the replacement rate eventually and close and kill the carrier. It should, however, take damage in the process of doing that. Hopefully, a fair amount of damage. But at least some.

My thinking behind that balance is that carriers are support ships and their wings do better when supporting another warship's engagement. This is because the enemy target will already have some flux built up and possibly some of its PD disabled or empty of ammunition if the warship has some missiles.

I'm not 100% convinced that this is the best carrier balance, but that was the target for this update and it seemed to mostly hold true. When I test the story for the lore update that will give me a much better idea of how all of this turned out because I will be playing a campaign instead of running a bunch of simulations.

Am having an issue where I receive a Fatal: null error. I am unsure of how to solve the issue and could not find a solution anywhere.
I'd need the log to really know more, but as Albreo said its probably just that you need to update to the latest version - especially if you are starting a fresh game. If you are trying to preserve a current save by staying on that version, the log will tell me if the bug is fixable or not.



Alright, teaser time!


Here is one of the Amaterasu-class battleship's variants in the TC version of Musashi and a few pics of it in action against an Onslaught. I decided to go ahead and change the weapons' size and make a couple of new ones/edits to existing ones and I'm now at the variant building stage.

Stats have had their initial pass, but that is still a WIP as I test variants. I haven't touched the fighters at all yet.

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/kDKIs6j.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/N4eVxIu.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/h8VNpMy.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/f0IxpzD.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/qitbxGp.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/uH0UiTU.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/RnHSXlv.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 19, 2021, 09:04:02 PM
Quote
My thinking behind that balance is that carriers are support ships and their wings do better when supporting another warship's engagement. This is because the enemy target will already have some flux built up and possibly some of its PD disabled or empty of ammunition if the warship has some missiles.

That's a bit harder to set up. Hmm.. maybe I should switch to a Legion with anything but anti-shield pebbles.

Quote
Alright, teaser time!

3,800 armor. Ain't that even thicker than Onslaught. Shield Flux Efficiency is so good as well.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 20, 2021, 01:09:34 AM
3,800 armor. Ain't that even thicker than Onslaught. Shield Flux Efficiency is so good as well.
The Onslaught has 4000 and 4200 if you are flying the Hegemony version. The shield efficiency is relatively good, true, but the Onslaught has 5 large slots while the Amaterasu has 3 and less small slots but more medium slots... though more medium slots can target a single opponent when flying an Onslaught so this remains mostly irrelevant. They are the same deployment cost and FP value. Fighter bays and total OP are currently identical. The flux stats overall are definitely better for the Amaterasu atm though the defenses are definitively worse.

The Musashi ships as a whole have a feeder system which increases fire rate, but their weapons have good burst dps and low sustained dps on average in exchange for longer average range. This creates a trade-off where the system increases their strike capability while getting them closer to the low sustained point of dps where they are very vulnerable especially when outnumbered.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 20, 2021, 04:52:19 AM
So far musashi looks great and true to the vanilla version!

Personally I really like the current state of fighters, if perhaps they need minute adjusting
I definitely agree with the sentiment that an attacking ship should have a rough time getting through them, and that the carrier should have some chance at winning (weaponry tradeoff for fighters should NOT mean it always loses a 1v1, just that the tactics are different: this is how everything feels currently really)
I'm not especially good at the minute changes thing, but I do think overall everything is in a very good place.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: DatonKallandor on August 20, 2021, 09:40:56 AM
I think a defensively specced carrier should be about the equivalent of a PD-specced warship. And you certainly shouldn't be able to just ignore both options if you're fighting an offensive carrier containing fleet. That leaves it open for people that don't want to use carriers at all or defensively to still get a strikecraft counter.

For Bomber wings, I'd personally treat them similar to regular missiles - if the PD net is intact, you're not going to do much with a bomber strike, but if you can hit when there's no cover and the PD is dead or EMPed, the bomber strike should mostly work. But it's likely the bomber AI and control is not up to taking that into account. Bomber balance is hard because of that.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 20, 2021, 10:02:47 AM
I have told this before but there's really a problem with no D-mods applied regardless of ship quality. Every faction gets access to pristine ships.

(https://i.ibb.co/yPjnbBK/321312.png) (https://ibb.co/yPjnbBK) (https://i.ibb.co/sCCqCZf/54654654654.png) (https://ibb.co/sCCqCZf)
Example of my faction with no Heavy Industry.

- New mine skill is a bit too fragile and spawns very far from the target.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Beta Bugfixes 7/8/21
Post by: cptshitacular on August 21, 2021, 10:49:26 AM
Windows 10, sorry for the late response. Also, the same crash just happened when I tried to engage a Radiant-class ship

just started a new game, ran into a cryosleeper and attempted to engage it. got this error message a few seconds after starting the fight. here's the log for the crash; tried updating lazylib to the newest version but that didn't fix it so i'm out of ideas
Spoiler
45233 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/ext/combat/CombatExtensionsKt
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/ext/combat/CombatExtensionsKt
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.assessNearbyThreats(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:166)
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.advance(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:104)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.M$1.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.BasicShipAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.lazywizard.lazylib.ext.combat.CombatExtensionsKt
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   ... 12 more
[close]
I put a message up on LazyLib's thread and the modding thread about this. What is your operating system? I can't actually reproduce this but there is something weird going on the dependency in IDE. It doesn't crash for me though.
[/quote]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Puff12398 on August 21, 2021, 12:11:39 PM
I'm back again. I am having the same issue with my game crashing when I launch it with a the mod. I can't seem to find the .log file unless it is the jar executable. I may be completely incompetent and just missing something so any help would be great.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 21, 2021, 08:57:16 PM
I'm back again. I am having the same issue with my game crashing when I launch it with a the mod. I can't seem to find the .log file unless it is the jar executable. I may be completely incompetent and just missing something so any help would be great.

It's the one that says "starsector" text document 699 KB. Normally the file extension will not show up as default, sorry I forgot. You can change that by messing with the File Explorer a little. On the View tab above, there's a tick box for file extensions on the right hand side.

Wait, I just noticed you're on the wrong game version. The latest version is 0.95a while yours is 0.91a
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Staby_Mcstabman on August 21, 2021, 10:31:15 PM
@Albreo
Ok gotcha I looked at it more closely and read the key. I will evaluate it over a couple of days.

Overall, thank you very much for doing this! I find it extremely helpful since it categorizes the craft by multiple strengths and weaknesses rather than just giving blanket assertions. For a dev, that is invaluable information.

My initial hot take is comprised of two main counter-points atm:

1) Replacement rate should be taken into consideration or otherwise rolled into the survivability grade and it doesn't seem like it is. (At a first glance.) For instance, the Wasp might be very fragile, but it replaces quickly enough that an F grade is somewhat misleading to its actual impact on replacement rate, if that makes sense. Same thing for E grades for the Spectre, Fang and Imp. In my tests with the Legion, it was actually fairly hard to reduce the replacement rate against Spectres. They could take 80% losses in one pass and be back to full strength in about 10-15 seconds - so not enough time to really reduce the replacement rate much.

2) Some survivability and anti-ship dps grades seem off from my own tests. But, that could be due to differing baseline expectations - which I will address below.

Questions: (Not just for Albreo, these are to determine expectations and context for future tests and will eventually probably result in a poll of some kind.)

  • Should bombers be *mostly* successful with their attack runs if interceptors are not there to protect the ship? Or should they be situationally useful but damaging?
  • How survivable should the baseline craft be against ship weapons? For instance, if one wing is under destroyer fire, how many seconds should the wing last?
  • Should shields be better than armor defensively? Why or why not?
  • Should at least a couple of carriers be required in the players fleet - whether to defend with interceptors or strike with bombers/gunships? Why or why not?
  • What are the most useful types of craft you have used atm and why? What aspect of their design makes them better to use over other craft?

I have a huge BIAS towards Battlestar Galactica and I believe armor should have a higher defensive value than shields. Mostly due to the fact shields seem overpowered on a few ships. Another thing is in BSG and Real-Life passive protection is the last resort. Active protection such as AMM and CWIS (or a giant flak field) are relied upon as primary protection. But shields are more advanced so they should have some benefits over armor such as the ability to regen itself during battle.

On the subject of fighters and bombers, they *should* be key to winning battles. In reality, a fleet that wasn't able to defend itself from air attack was obliterated. The most advanced battleship in WW2 was knocked out of action by a Biplane. I currently love using daggers because they launch their torpedos from a long distance so they don't get caught by enemy interceptors or flak. I feel half of my Xaphos's get knocked out on approach from enemy flak alone which makes them balanced. A fleet should have air supremacy to conduct attack runs to avoid taking heavy damage.

Maybe all you need to change is making an emphasis on interceptors on actually intercepting enemy bombers and/or reducing the firing range on some of the bombers. But a fleet with good AA escorts and some air support should be able to fend off waves of bombers until the carriers run themselves dry.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 22, 2021, 02:23:45 PM
I'm back again. I am having the same issue with my game crashing when I launch it with a the mod.
Wait, I just noticed you're on the wrong game version. The latest version is 0.95a while yours is 0.91a
This is your issue. The mod is likely looking for ship definitions that don't exist in your version of Starsector.

Windows 10, sorry for the late response. Also, the same crash just happened when I tried to engage a Radiant-class ship

Hmm well that's not the operating system I expected because that's what I have and it works. Well, have you tried the latest version of AO? It should be 1.4.0.3. I attempted to fix it in that version by using an alternative implementation of lazylib. Without some kind of input from the author or someone more experienced with IntelliJ's project dependency features, I am at a loss right now.

If you update to the latest version and it still doesn't work or want to keep your current save an not update the AO version, what you can do is remove this crash from happening by going to ship_data.csv and opening it in open office or another spreadsheet editor and changing the ship system for the radiant and guardian from archean_fluxconverter to something else like archean_displacer or archean_damper.

I have told this before but there's really a problem with no D-mods applied regardless of ship quality. Every faction gets access to pristine ships.

- New mine skill is a bit too fragile and spawns very far from the target.
That's really strange I wonder what would cause that? Maybe the no_auto_fit tag or something?? But I was seeing D-mods on faction fleets. Its especially weird because the ship quality seems to indicate otherwise.

I will do some tests on the mine system and that I can probably make some adjustments to. I just don't want to start editing stat sheets just yet.


Thanks for the additional responses on fighter balance. I am reading all of these and will be using them as references while I go through the campaign story. I'll also do a few big sim battles.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Puff12398 on August 23, 2021, 03:38:16 PM
I'm back again. I am having the same issue with my game crashing when I launch it with a the mod. I can't seem to find the .log file unless it is the jar executable. I may be completely incompetent and just missing something so any help would be great.

It's the one that says "starsector" text document 699 KB. Normally the file extension will not show up as default, sorry I forgot. You can change that by messing with the File Explorer a little. On the View tab above, there's a tick box for file extensions on the right hand side.

Wait, I just noticed you're on the wrong game version. The latest version is 0.95a while yours is 0.91a

Thanks for being patient and helping me out. You were correct, my game version was outdated and updating that fixed all my issues. Appreciate the help, again.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 23, 2021, 03:49:48 PM
DONT FEEL BAD IVE DONE THINGS LIKE BEFORE WHILE MODDING STARSECTOR.
THANKFUULLY WE HAVE A STELLAR COMMUNITY HERE

caps lock was on and i dont feel like retyping.....lol
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: CorsairZero on August 25, 2021, 11:38:46 AM
Hey Morrokain, I requested an update to the mod index to show AO as 0.95a instead of 0.9.1a, but the moderator I contacted hasn't change it after a week or so.

I don't know if the mod creator themselves has to make the request or if Alex has to be contacted instead of a moderator, as it's his post, but I'd assume a lot of potential users are skipping AO because it looks like your mod hasn't been updated to the current major release/version. Just a heads up.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 26, 2021, 05:33:10 PM
Thanks for being patient and helping me out. You were correct, my game version was outdated and updating that fixed all my issues. Appreciate the help, again.
Glad that did it!

Hey Morrokain, I requested an update to the mod index to show AO as 0.95a instead of 0.9.1a, but the moderator I contacted hasn't change it after a week or so.

I don't know if the mod creator themselves has to make the request or if Alex has to be contacted instead of a moderator, as it's his post, but I'd assume a lot of potential users are skipping AO because it looks like your mod hasn't been updated to the current major release/version. Just a heads up.
I messaged Alex about it when I released the first beta version for .95 and I never heard anything back so it might have slipped through the cracks. I'll send another message about it after Musashi has been released - especially if I don't hear of any additional bugs in the meantime for the 1.4.0.3
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 27, 2021, 12:19:08 AM
Talking about additional bugs.

Apparently, the new REDACTED ships can't be piloted by AI cores and can be sold not-so illegally to market. Automate Ship hull-mod is missing.

Secondly, I'm not sure why Salvaging has to be a permanent skill. None of the benefits are long lasting even if the skill point were to be redistributed.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 27, 2021, 08:28:02 AM
Talking about additional bugs.

Apparently, the new REDACTED ships can't be piloted by AI cores and can be sold not-so illegally to market. Automate Ship hull-mod is missing.

Secondly, I'm not sure why Salvaging has to be a permanent skill. None of the benefits are long lasting even if the skill point were to be redistributed.

Arg! Thanks that is fixed and I'll probably release that fix alongside Musashi.

Salvaging is permanent so that the player doesn't exploit the elite benefit to tech mining until tech mining no longer generates much reward and then respecs skills.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on August 27, 2021, 10:26:10 AM
Quote
Salvaging is permanent so that the player doesn't exploit the elite benefit to tech mining until tech mining no longer generates much reward and then respecs skills.

I was going to do that lol. Generally, the best I would get from a rich tech mining would be a single Alpha core which is honestly not that valuable. Blueprints are also no longer finite with the addition of the academician. And respec from Elite skill also cost a lot of points as a downside but anyway.

(https://i.ibb.co/r3NLNMZ/6546463213.png) (https://ibb.co/r3NLNMZ)

Catalyst Bomber's torpedo sprites are a bit off from where they should be.

(https://i.ibb.co/pRF9Z5M/98798765465564.png) (https://ibb.co/pRF9Z5M)

Kraken Normal version has a behavior problem while the Ludic version doesn't.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 28, 2021, 04:41:15 AM
Stoked for the next release!

I really hope that after sashi gets integrated you start messing around with dronelib

I'm most interested in seeing someone create a subsystem mod, and the sooner the pillars of the modding community get into it the sooner someone like me (only not me lol) will make something standalone that can be added to anything!

Anyway do what you want I'm happy to see any progress on AO
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: BreenBB on August 28, 2021, 09:26:22 AM
I'm most interested in seeing someone create a subsystem mod, and the sooner the pillars of the modding community get into it the sooner someone like me (only not me lol) will make something standalone that can be added to anything!

I thinking about subsystem mod too, sadly I don't know how to create such, make all subsystems as equipment which you can remove and add to another ship, also this can be expanded to reactor, armor, shield and engines, and make all ship hulls basically a hull, low tech, high tech, no matter - its depends on installed equipment.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 28, 2021, 11:23:11 AM
I'm most interested in seeing someone create a subsystem mod, and the sooner the pillars of the modding community get into it the sooner someone like me (only not me lol) will make something standalone that can be added to anything!

I thinking about subsystem mod too, sadly I don't know how to create such, make all subsystems as equipment which you can remove and add to another ship, also this can be expanded to reactor, armor, shield and engines, and make all ship hulls basically a hull, low tech, high tech, no matter - its depends on installed equipment.



I still think ships should have their own built in systems but being able to add phase coils/shields/damper field etc to any ship is really a great idea to me.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 29, 2021, 09:27:02 AM
......I did it again
I got permission from armaa armatura fornyou to integrate that mod (if you want)

That one may be a bit difficult to manage though so I understand if you dont want to, Cheers either way!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: cptshitacular on August 29, 2021, 11:22:24 AM
Updating to AO to 0.3 seems to have done it, no crash when encountering a radiant so I'm going to assume it fixed the cryosleeper guardian too

Windows 10, sorry for the late response. Also, the same crash just happened when I tried to engage a Radiant-class ship

Hmm well that's not the operating system I expected because that's what I have and it works. Well, have you tried the latest version of AO? It should be 1.4.0.3. I attempted to fix it in that version by using an alternative implementation of lazylib. Without some kind of input from the author or someone more experienced with IntelliJ's project dependency features, I am at a loss right now.

If you update to the latest version and it still doesn't work or want to keep your current save an not update the AO version, what you can do is remove this crash from happening by going to ship_data.csv and opening it in open office or another spreadsheet editor and changing the ship system for the radiant and guardian from archean_fluxconverter to something else like archean_displacer or archean_damper.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on August 30, 2021, 03:00:33 PM
I was going to do that lol. Generally, the best I would get from a rich tech mining would be a single Alpha core which is honestly not that valuable. Blueprints are also no longer finite with the addition of the academician. And respec from Elite skill also cost a lot of points as a downside but anyway.
I guess that's true. I'll revaluate it once I actually test out Tech-mining with and without the benefit. I'll either make it not permanent and a small benefit or permanent with a noticeable benefit.

Quote
Catalyst Bomber's torpedo sprites are a bit off from where they should be.
I've noticed this as well. I have no idea why this happens and why it only happens to a couple of modded wings since this is also an issue with the Renegade Fighter Bomber. It only happens in the refit screen though. In actual combat the missiles are in the correct spot according to the hull definition.

Quote
Kraken Normal version has a behavior problem while the Ludic version doesn't.
Intended actually. The gunship strafe behavior is new from 0.95 and it makes tank gunships much more survive-able since PD misses more when the wing isn't coming straight at the target. This behavior can also distract PD and other weapons away from incoming bombers by spreading out the number of targets over a much larger radius of attack instead of one general 45-90 arc of clumped units coming from one direction. The weapons have been adjusted to be able to fire from the side of the gunship alongside the visual turrets.

If anything makes interceptor carriers a necessity, I'd say tank gunships are the closest to it in this update.

Stoked for the next release!

I really hope that after sashi gets integrated you start messing around with dronelib

I'm most interested in seeing someone create a subsystem mod, and the sooner the pillars of the modding community get into it the sooner someone like me (only not me lol) will make something standalone that can be added to anything!

Anyway do what you want I'm happy to see any progress on AO
I thinking about subsystem mod too, sadly I don't know how to create such, make all subsystems as equipment which you can remove and add to another ship, also this can be expanded to reactor, armor, shield and engines, and make all ship hulls basically a hull, low tech, high tech, no matter - its depends on installed equipment.
I still think ships should have their own built in systems but being able to add phase coils/shields/damper field etc to any ship is really a great idea to me.
I will consider digging through that mod while adding story content. It's certainly a neat idea and the above ideas are cool. I do need to consider balance when making those decisions, however, because that kind of flexibility can be tricky to do correctly. For instance, being able to add a damper to any ship could make some ships way too good due to other aspects of their design such as base stats or interesting hullmods.

......I did it again
I got permission from armaa armatura fornyou to integrate that mod (if you want)

That one may be a bit difficult to manage though so I understand if you dont want to, Cheers either way!
I might do this one too, but it probably won't be immediately just so I don't burn out. I think its also still under active development so that brings increased maintenance at keeping the TC version current, but, that's not a deal-breaker or anything its more just a factor I have to consider as far as when to do what, etc.

Updating to AO to 0.3 seems to have done it, no crash when encountering a radiant so I'm going to assume it fixed the cryosleeper guardian too
Ah glad to hear it!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on August 30, 2021, 03:31:07 PM
it would be fine if there turns out to be some way to affect ordnance points per added subsystem

also im happy that youre considering adding armaa at all!  it does appear like you said to be under active development though so perhaps someday when things stabilize a bit youll be able to mess with it
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Raio_Verusia on September 02, 2021, 01:44:31 AM
Are AO colonies with Military sales supposed to have an empty ship market on military tab?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 02, 2021, 10:17:13 AM
Are AO colonies with Military sales supposed to have an empty ship market on military tab?
It's a vanilla bug that will be permanently fixed in the next Starsector update. There is a tag that should lock ships into only being on military markets but instead it makes it so they are never on military markets and that makes the military ship market empty in most cases.

I'm almost done testing Musashi and when I release that (probably tomorrow at some point) I will also release a small AO update that will both fix that issue temporarily and fix the issue with the new redacted ships not being pilotable by AI cores.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 02, 2021, 12:25:38 PM
ah i was wondering about the redacted being pilotable by humans
that question is answered then
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on September 05, 2021, 11:33:09 PM
I noticed a problem with EMC range reduction. I did have the ECM skill but removing it with cmd doesn't seem to change anything.

(https://i.ibb.co/0Qr90dz/879851321321564.png) (https://imgbb.com/)
(https://i.ibb.co/PwwkP0c/132132165466546321313.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

The Vanilla version seems to work fine.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: GrumpyDema on September 08, 2021, 02:45:26 PM
Heyo folks, I'm currently running into an issue with Archean Order where I am completely incapable of invading anything, as in I don't even HAVE the option to invade a planet. I'm running AO exclusively, and have looked through the entire thread for the mod, as well as the guide book that's linked in the mod page, but found no answer. Any help would be great!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on September 08, 2021, 09:41:31 PM
Heyo folks, I'm currently running into an issue with Archean Order where I am completely incapable of invading anything, as in I don't even HAVE the option to invade a planet. I'm running AO exclusively, and have looked through the entire thread for the mod, as well as the guide book that's linked in the mod page, but found no answer. Any help would be great!

You're going to need this mod: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.0
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 09, 2021, 01:35:47 PM
You should also check this page https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=177.0

Not sure how up to date it is so make sure to check each mods page yourself to see if it has been updated to the latest version of starsector
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 09, 2021, 03:30:00 PM
The Musashi Manufactory SWP mod is now available on nexus mods (https://www.nexusmods.com/starsector/mods/63). I haven't made a forums post for it yet but I will link everything up when I do. For now, if any bugs show up you can list them here. It should hopefully be reasonably balanced. I spent an extra week of testing on and off but I've had less overall time lately so we will see how it turns out.

I noticed a problem with EMC range reduction. I did have the ECM skill but removing it with cmd doesn't seem to change anything.

(https://i.ibb.co/0Qr90dz/879851321321564.png) (https://imgbb.com/)
(https://i.ibb.co/PwwkP0c/132132165466546321313.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

The Vanilla version seems to work fine.

Hmm, well, if you removed the skill with a cmd it could be possible that "unapply" was never called - though I don't know every circumstance where that happens or anything. Does it work if, for instance, you change ships that your character pilots? If so, that's probably what happened. Afaik, it *should* work under normal circumstances if that's what it is. I will look into it in more detail when I can. It could be that I misunderstood what the API was doing if its a new skill feature.

@GrumpyDema
In addition to the other suggestions (thanks!), I would check the main page for this mod on how to disable the setting that prevents other non-utility mods from being installed alongside this one if you run into issues at that stage.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 10, 2021, 02:33:28 PM
just started a new run with musashi
only played about half an hour but i noticed they only have the standard dedicated core (they generally are supposed to be hight tech midline, if that makes sense, and originally came with the supercomputer standard)
overall i like what im seeing so far
i will report more when i get more time into it

(stoked about the integration!)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Flying Dice on September 12, 2021, 02:50:08 PM
Morrokain, after I was stuck playing non-AO waiting for the update, I just wanted to poke my head in to thank you for all the common-sense balance changes you make in AO. It was physically painful being reminded of how bad vanilla beams are. :x
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 13, 2021, 11:39:45 AM
just started a new run with musashi
only played about half an hour but i noticed they only have the standard dedicated core (they generally are supposed to be hight tech midline, if that makes sense, and originally came with the supercomputer standard)
overall i like what im seeing so far
i will report more when i get more time into it

(stoked about the integration!)

The Super Computer would be too powerful in AO especially with their longer range weapons. The Advanced Core is possible, but they would need a bit less defensive stats for that to be balanced. My thoughts were that since their weapons already provide long range and some 0-flux assault options, it would be better to increase their initial contact defenses and skip the advanced core. Otherwise they tend to become sniper glass-cannon ships that completely fall apart when the enemy closes the distance. That creates gameplay that is a bit too binary for my tastes.

Lore-wise, they should still fit the high tech/midline doctrine simply because of their speed, decent shield efficiency and flux dissipation, and their general aesthetics. They have low tech armor levels, but that is offset by a low flux capacity in most cases. Also, keep in mind that not all of the high tech ships have advanced cores. Only a select few do and that is mostly due to balance and not lore.

I *think* they should be fairly effective per their DP, but I didn't do many tests with multiple ships, so they could quite honestly be pretty powerful in a fleet setting. Range and dissipation matter a whole lot under those conditions. Anyway, just my thoughts and feel free to disagree and provide an alternative solution. I'm certainly open to ideas and this was a first release so there is likely a lot of room for improvement and fine-tuning further down the line.

Morrokain, after I was stuck playing non-AO waiting for the update, I just wanted to poke my head in to thank you for all the common-sense balance changes you make in AO. It was physically painful being reminded of how bad vanilla beams are. :x

Thanks and I'm glad you like the changes! Hopefully this should be a fun and bug-free update after I fix the couple small-ish things left to do. They should also be save compatible so current saves can continue without worry. I'm going to try and get those fixed by the weekend.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: ansiboi on September 14, 2021, 04:39:06 AM
@Albreo
Ok gotcha I looked at it more closely and read the key. I will evaluate it over a couple of days.

Overall, thank you very much for doing this! I find it extremely helpful since it categorizes the craft by multiple strengths and weaknesses rather than just giving blanket assertions. For a dev, that is invaluable information.

My initial hot take is comprised of two main counter-points atm:

1) Replacement rate should be taken into consideration or otherwise rolled into the survivability grade and it doesn't seem like it is. (At a first glance.) For instance, the Wasp might be very fragile, but it replaces quickly enough that an F grade is somewhat misleading to its actual impact on replacement rate, if that makes sense. Same thing for E grades for the Spectre, Fang and Imp. In my tests with the Legion, it was actually fairly hard to reduce the replacement rate against Spectres. They could take 80% losses in one pass and be back to full strength in about 10-15 seconds - so not enough time to really reduce the replacement rate much.

2) Some survivability and anti-ship dps grades seem off from my own tests. But, that could be due to differing baseline expectations - which I will address below.

Questions: (Not just for Albreo, these are to determine expectations and context for future tests and will eventually probably result in a poll of some kind.)

  • Should bombers be *mostly* successful with their attack runs if interceptors are not there to protect the ship? Or should they be situationally useful but damaging?
  • How survivable should the baseline craft be against ship weapons? For instance, if one wing is under destroyer fire, how many seconds should the wing last?
  • Should shields be better than armor defensively? Why or why not?
  • Should at least a couple of carriers be required in the players fleet - whether to defend with interceptors or strike with bombers/gunships? Why or why not?
  • What are the most useful types of craft you have used atm and why? What aspect of their design makes them better to use over other craft?

Hello, I have been thinking about this a lot. I usually just lurk but I love this mod battle system more than the vanilla because I do agree about the importance of fighter wings in space battle. I do mainly agree with the concept of battlestar galactica style of space battle that put an extra emphasis on fighter wings.

To implement that, i have some ideas in my mind, if you don't mind or too hard to implement:

Fighter Archetype role issue:
I think there should be a differentiation between the archetypes of fighter wings. Bomber archetypes, as they going deep into the enemies PD death zone, should be equipped with higher armor/shield, higher hull HP and a good survivability skills such as fortress shield or plasma burn with longer cooldown and short duration (eg: 1 second) but long redeployment time, slow-ish speed and low maneuverability. This make sense as they SHOULD survive the first bombing run but struggle madly to survive after that. For fighter/heavy fighter, they should have decent speed and maneuverability, medium redeployment and *skillfull* ship system that focus more on dealing more damage or spamming flares, going in and out the PD death zone, with narrow angle hardpoint weapon but should be pitifully weak against interceptors. Now how could fighters, with decent armor n hulls be weak against interceptors archetype? By buffing interceptors wing size, speed and maneuverability! Interceptors doesn't have to have good armor or high hull HP, basically paper thin, but they should deal shitton of damage to fighters and fighters should be struggling to destroy interceptors, mainly with their weapon mount type: leaning towards anti-fighters wide angle mount type or even interdictions type. So it will be like this: bomber will be able to weather the PD and interceptors alpha strike, but will be deadbeat if not supported. Fighters will be able to harrass ships even ships with good PD because fighters long range and skill spamming, but fighters will be beaten black and blue by interceptors because interceptors higher maneuverability, speed and wing size.

Carrier archetype issue:
Lore wise, carrier should be support type ship, slow, lower armor and decent hull, focusing on PD defense rather than striking. The problem i think with carrier archetype is the lack of specialized fighter supporting hullmods. Maybe you can implement three types of fighter support hullmods only for carriers, where players can only choose 1:
1. lowering redeployment time for a specific type of wings but twice the extra time for the other type (make sense lore wise as we can use a specific streamlined nanoforge) so each carrier can have 1 specialty wing type
2. extra speed or launch speed for fighters but lowering the flux pool or regeneration rate (make sense lore wise as we can equip the carrier with catapults for the fighters and some of the ship energy should be drained to maintain those)
3. wider deck so bigger wing size but with a penalty in redeployment time and armor (make sense lore wise because we have mass deployment skill in vanilla tbh, lowering armor because some of the ship armor is taken down to support the extra deck)

I hope this can spark an idea for future development, as I really love this mod of yours. Thank you and cheers.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on September 14, 2021, 10:31:02 AM
Quote
By buffing interceptors wing size, speed and maneuverability! Interceptors doesn't have to have good armor or high hull HP, basically paper thin, but they should deal shitton of damage to fighters and fighters should be struggling to destroy interceptors

There are already crafts of this type in the build, mainly drone interceptors, and a slight problem with how AI utilizes them. Since we barely have any control over it, what most likely going to happen with paper-thin armor is that the interceptor will be sent against ships instead of other crafts or strafe far enough into PD range and they will all go poof, turned into space dust.

Quote
lowering redeployment time for a specific type of wings but twice the extra time for the other type
I mainly put only one type of craft onto any ship so this penalty will not apply to me.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 14, 2021, 11:10:39 AM
Here's hoping someone  makes a mechanic that allows you to control what fighters attack more effectively.
Being able to tell a ship to hold fighters in formation with home carrier, send specific wings to do specific things etc.
It would be nice to be able to have one wing escort home ship, one wing escort another/do specific strikes, or to be able to have wings specifically stay out of enemy ships range and attack only enemy fighters, and to be able to specify order of importance concerning what fighters are targeted.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Flying Dice on September 14, 2021, 05:53:12 PM
It would also be nice to have a third wing setting to force them to dock. A lot of times I'd like to be able to set my fighters to stand off like you're talking about so they don't all melt in the initial exchange of fire, but the only way to do that right now is to order them to... fly right into it with Engage. No idea if it would be possible to have a way to order them to land until you order them to launch into one of the other stances, but it would be lovely if so. Half the reason I use remnant fighters is to avoid crew attrition.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 15, 2021, 01:06:09 PM
yea one of the best things about AO is the short range of fighters on main attack ships due to the way carriers are handled
it helps with that a lot; still doesnt address the "intercept only" issue
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 17, 2021, 10:30:20 AM
The fighter changes proposed and discussed would be most welcome, though at this late of a development stage I'd be surprised if they were implemented. I've been wrong about that sort of thing before though.

As far as myself doing that sort of thing, I'm not sure its possible due to engine limitations. I haven't really tried to go that deep into the combat engine to know for sure. I definitely do agree that I would like some finer grained control of wings using the current implementation of carriers.

As far as the balance part of the discussion, I've made a mental note. So far, the general consensus seems to have been that bombers might need to be a bit stronger in the future.



The update to fix the couple of reported issues has been posted on Nexus Mods. I also made some of the proposed sprite changes to the Onslaught and Aurora.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Raio_Verusia on September 19, 2021, 03:38:42 AM
Hey Morrokain, I have a question about the Musashi integration. Did you do a balance pass? Because playing with Musashi non-AO atm, it seems seriously broken, in hilarious ways. Bishamonten is ridiculous, Onryo cannon on a Radiant class is also ridiculous. Kirin Burst is stupidly strong but slow. Just wondering how it fares in AO for when I go back to it.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 19, 2021, 11:55:29 AM
Hey Morrokain, I have a question about the Musashi integration. Did you do a balance pass? Because playing with Musashi non-AO atm, it seems seriously broken, in hilarious ways. Bishamonten is ridiculous, Onryo cannon on a Radiant class is also ridiculous. Kirin Burst is stupidly strong but slow. Just wondering how it fares in AO for when I go back to it.

It should be relatively balanced. I spent about 2 to 3 weeks playtesting against other AO ships and the weapons fit the current design philosophy and generally have a niche role alongside the regular weapons available in AO. That was after the initial design pass to make the weapons similar to the TC weapons.

I also tried to keep the balance in the original spirit of Musashi so while the Onryo cannon is still powerful and so is the Bishmonten (About equal to a Paragon iirc) the Onryo has a massive OP cost and only ships with really good flux dissipation (like the Bishamonten) should be able to fire it on its cooldown cycle. The Bishmonten also has very good armor, but its max flux is low enough that it can struggle with being surrounded where at least one enemy is able to pressure the shields while its trying to fire its main battery. Its secondary battery is flux free and meant to stave off destroyers and frigates.

Just generally speaking, if I integrate a mod with the TC's mechanics in mind, then I will attempt to balance it accordingly. That doesn't mean I will get it right every time though so feedback in that area is certainly welcome.  ;D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 20, 2021, 08:43:20 AM
Ifnyou could make a custom start option containing musashi ships it would make playtesting a bit easier, though it isnt necessary.
The independent starts allow for random acquisition if you're patient.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 20, 2021, 01:12:37 PM
Ifnyou could make a custom start option containing musashi ships it would make playtesting a bit easier, though it isnt necessary.
The independent starts allow for random acquisition if you're patient.

Noted for the next Musashi update. I want to work on a few other things beforehand, however, since I said I would do them a while ago and they aren't very trivial.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 24, 2021, 02:39:59 PM
hope design is going well

some notes- the ships feel a bit squishy to me.  i havent tested the largest ships yet
it seems the design choice is high mobility middling armor long range heavy burst weaponry
i am liking the general them so far- i need to do some frigate and destroyer testing, and i havent even touched the capital ships yet
overall it rings true to the original as far as i can see, and i am thoroughly enjoying the work

also, the current fighter implementation feels really good compared to the original (back when talons had 5 armor)
looking forward to what you have in the works!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Raio_Verusia on September 26, 2021, 12:07:35 AM
Just generally speaking, if I integrate a mod with the TC's mechanics in mind, then I will attempt to balance it accordingly. That doesn't mean I will get it right every time though so feedback in that area is certainly welcome.  ;D

Very good to hear, it's a great mod that just... Needs some tweaking. I'm really glad to see a ship mod entering the AO fold :D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on September 28, 2021, 01:24:56 PM
Development has significantly slowed but is still in progress. I've been a lot busier with RL stuff lately.

The focus for now will be on the dialogue systems since I'm also working on the standalone mod for vanilla faction mods as well that will have dialogue merging components.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on September 29, 2021, 02:11:57 PM
same has been happening for me as far as playtesting goes
happy to have you participate in the hobby in any capacity!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on October 02, 2021, 04:20:19 AM
Spoiler
2324655 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyHullFractionDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyHullFractionDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.applyDamageToFl eetMember(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:490)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.computeOutcomeF orFleetMember(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:690)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.resolveEngageme nt(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:333)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.resolve(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:243)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.Battle.doAutoresolveRound(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.Battle.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advanceEvenIfPaused(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

just got the above error
i have two musashi ships and a wayfayer
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on October 02, 2021, 06:30:34 AM
Spoiler
2324655 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 4
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus$ShipStatus.applyHullFractionDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMemberStatus.applyHullFractionDamage(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.applyDamageToFl eetMember(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:490)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.computeOutcomeF orFleetMember(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:690)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.resolveEngageme nt(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:333)
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.resolve(BattleAutoresolverPluginImpl.java:243)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.Battle.doAutoresolveRound(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.Battle.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advanceEvenIfPaused(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[close]

just got the above error
i have two musashi ships and a wayfayer

Hmm the error doesn't give me much to go on, I might need the save file to troubleshoot. I have a distant memory that this came up before and it was reported to be solved but I don't remember the specifics of what caused it in the first place and what the solution ended up being.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on October 02, 2021, 01:59:36 PM
Spoiler
"pantera_ANewLevel40",
  "adjustable_skill_thresholds",
  "Adjusted Sector",
  "anotherportraitpack",
  "archeus_beta",
  "automatedcommands",
  "beyondthesector",
  "combat_docking_module",
  "timid_commissioned_hull_mods",
  "lw_console",
  "domain_mship_controllable",
  "diyplanets",
  "DetailedCombatResults",
  "dronelib",
  "exshippack",
  "extra_system_reloaded",
  "sun_flux_reticle",
  "gladiatorsociety",
  "GrandColonies",
  "hm_barratry",
  "hullmod_specialization",
  "sun_hyperdrive",
  "IndEvo",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "leadingPip",
  "logisticsNotifications",
  "MagicLib",
  "su_CarrierHullmod",
  "su_CarrierHullmod_Rebalance",
  "mir",
  "more_ship_names",
  "AO_Musashimanufactor",
  "nexerelin",
  "console_overlord_additionalcommands",
  "pn",
  "wisp_perseanchronicles",
  "plight_of_the_valkyries",
  "QualityCaptains",
  "m561_ramscoop",
  "remnant_command_transfer",
  "repdec",
  "sun_ruthless_sector",
  "secretsofthefrontieralt",
  "SEEKER",
  "PT_ShipDirectionMarker",
  "simpleplayerflags",
  "solsystem",
  "speedUp",
  "starpocalypse",
  "sun_starship_legends",
  "stelnet",
  "superweapons",
  "timid_supply_forging",
  "Terraforming and Station Construction",
  "trulyautomatedships",
  "US",
  "ungp",
  "unpackblueprints",
  "UGH",
  "vanidad",
  "wasabounties",
  "audio_plus",
  "prv",
  "shaderLib"
[close]

this is my active mod list minus prv pn extra ship pack gladiator society and vanidad i removed those
not sure why they are showing up in my enabled list they were removed prior to the playtest with the crash
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on October 06, 2021, 12:21:07 PM
@6chad.noirlee9

Sorry its taken me so long to get back to you my schedule has been crazy this week. Unfortunately, the error is generic enough that the mod list and error code won't really help me troubleshoot it. I'd need the save file to try and reproduce it reliably and then start disabling mods to see if that is the case.

To be honest I kind of doubt AO is causing this error. For more detail, the error basically is saying that something is trying to apply damage to a ship in combat and somewhere during that process an array is attempting to manipulate data outside of its maximum index size. So the indexes of the array would be 0,1,2,3 for a total size of 4 and something is trying to call array index 4 or something like that which would require an index size of 5, if that makes sense.

There are a few scripts in AO that could cause this sort of thing, but afaik I've never run into that error when testing them, and it seems like something that would occur everytime the script ran rather than sporadically.

That being said, it could have been caused from an inadvertent change I made to the script after the testing phase.

Is the error reproduceable under the same circumstances each time?

The other question I would ask is whether or not you have the Localized Amplifier hullmod or Corrosive Warheads hullmods installed on any of your ships. Those scripts do use arrays to apply damage iirc. I'll test them out later tonight and see if I can get the error to occur.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on October 07, 2021, 10:37:33 AM
it must have been a crazy fluke because i just loaded the save and did the same thing i did before but no crash
it was a brand new start and i hadnt done anything yet
nex random sector derelict empire random spawning weights
watatsumi kisshotin wayfayer
standard models nothing crazy (havent changed the loadouts yet)

anyway i went to do what i was going to do before only no crash this time
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: deoxyribonucleicacid on October 09, 2021, 02:17:14 AM
I got a question... Are [Redacted] supposed to be OP? I literally lost an entire fleet of capitals and even in arcade standards that's pretty OP... otherwise i guess ill never touch [Redacted] ever again
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on October 09, 2021, 04:48:21 AM
oh no..... *passes skill checks preventing git gud reference

oh thank goodness

im kidding lol but really in all seriousness if you want to take on redacted you have to set up your loadouts to deal with shields
once the shields go down you need nice alpha strike antiarmor and they will explode nicely

they are definitely super boss level ships in this version of the game so expect losses and never let them outnumber you
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: deoxyribonucleicacid on October 09, 2021, 02:59:58 PM
Guess its time for me to make an almost entirely Astral fleet... Screw framerates but most importantly screw them i want my Alpha Core and i dont care if i lose thousands  of people to get it
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on October 10, 2021, 01:59:03 PM
The pillager when outfitted with velocity cannons x4 and some heavy mortar cannons and one dual artillery cannon can generally destroy anything if you have the skills (the character skills)

Short of that the best thing to do is the get the skill that let's you capture remnant ships.

Also, if you go to the mod nexus (nexusmods.com) there is a mod that adds a special version of musashi to AO.
Highly recommend.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on October 10, 2021, 08:31:11 PM
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EgpTR_Id25utZHpAjCAXqVYiySbT9nnn/view?usp=sharing

I haven't played for a while now. I will drop an end game save file here for anyone interested in peaking a bit. Or if you wondering what a 6 Paladins Paragon can do.

Required mods
Spoiler
Archean Order - Beta 1.4.0.4
Console Commands
Detailed Combat Results
Hyperdrive
LazyLib
MagicLib
Nexerelin
SpeedUp
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: kari97 on October 11, 2021, 12:57:12 PM
Hi, I see that the mod is now updated, waited for this so long, thank you!
Just a question: is there another update coming up soon, however minor it may be? I would like to start a campaign when everything is as in order as possible and Im not in a hurry :D
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on October 13, 2021, 08:07:37 AM
it must have been a crazy fluke because i just loaded the save and did the same thing i did before but no crash
I haven't seen it yet but let me know if it happens again. At the very least hopefully its pretty rare.

I got a question... Are [Redacted] supposed to be OP? I literally lost an entire fleet of capitals and even in arcade standards that's pretty OP... otherwise i guess ill never touch [Redacted] ever again
Errr, yeah, they are meant to be very very strong. *sheepish grin* Definitely an endgame level threat. The only real reason to fight them atm is loot though. You could probably avoid most encounters with them realistically. On average, each individual vessel is loosely balanced at around one hullsize higher in strength. So frigates can go toe-to-toe with destroyers, etc, etc. Their capitals?? Those can solo fleets and need to be beaten tactically with overwhelming numbers. Even then, I'd expect around 50% losses. They are no joke.

They are also one of the only factions that somewhat ignore the balanced-by-DP rule of the mod, and thats why the skill that lets you pilot those ships has a downside (though that can be removed in the mod's settings). Another piece of advice I'll offer is to use battlecruisers and wolfpack tactics (the tactics not the skill) sort of like how you would use frigates to take down a cruiser. Any of the battlecruisers in the mod would probably be suitable. Battleships somewhat struggle against a Radiant because they can't run away most of the time and there is little chance for them to win the flux war in that scenario unless its like a 3v1 kind of situation.

Hi, I see that the mod is now updated, waited for this so long, thank you!
Just a question: is there another update coming up soon, however minor it may be? I would like to start a campaign when everything is as in order as possible and Im not in a hurry :D
Hi thanks for asking! At this point, I'd say this is a good time to start a campaign. The update is 99% bug free I think and has all the content with at least one balance pass if not several. I think its in a good spot and stable.

In the future, the updates will be focused on less raw content like ships, weapons, and hullmods (though some things are still planned from earlier suggestions) and will be more focused on enhancing and separating out existing features while adding lore content. I really want to dig into missions and integrate the mod's lore with the current story arc. The reason I'm saying that now is a good time to play even with that in mind is because I have a feeling that an update of that quality will take a long while - maybe even a year though I could be wrong. Not only do I have less overall time to work on the project, but this will be new territory and I'll have to learn new areas of the API and rules. Also, enhancing the current systems require a lot of behind the scenes work that I am slowly working through.

I think the end result will be very worth it, but sort of like the TC settings that let you customize the campaign this will require reworking a lot of the current implementation and making it more flexible. The best part will be that other mods will be able to plug in to these a lot more easily. That's why Fleet Dialogue is my current priority. I want to get that out ASAP so that other modders can play around with it and report any issues early before I start deep diving into new features using the same implementation strategy.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on October 14, 2021, 11:32:58 AM
looks like i was running 1.4.0.3 so perhaps that was my issue
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: milosx on October 31, 2021, 05:02:43 AM
Hello I just downloaded this mod for the first time and was getting ready to start playing with it. But for some reason the game keeps crashing for unknown reasons. I have tried loading the mod alone but it always crashes. Game loads fine and other mods as well. So please if you know how to fix this issue tell me.

Thank you in advance.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on October 31, 2021, 03:12:16 PM
Hello I just downloaded this mod for the first time and was getting ready to start playing with it. But for some reason the game keeps crashing for unknown reasons. I have tried loading the mod alone but it always crashes. Game loads fine and other mods as well. So please if you know how to fix this issue tell me.

Thank you in advance.

Hello welcome to the forums! Could you give me some more information such as the error that pops up? The mod also requires LazyLib so make sure you have that included in your mod list.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: KD_621 on November 01, 2021, 06:43:57 PM
Heya, just found this mod and read through the description and i have some few questions about it

1. I saw that it might not work with skill mods, so i'm wondering if Quality Captains (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21038.0) would break stuff too much. Can't really live without that mod on so i figured i should ask about it
2. Will you do compatibility patches / options for some of the modded factions (Diable, ORA, etc)? Because i want to use those as well
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 01, 2021, 07:59:10 PM
Heya, just found this mod and read through the description and i have some few questions about it

1. I saw that it might not work with skill mods, so i'm wondering if Quality Captains (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21038.0) would break stuff too much. Can't really live without that mod on so i figured i should ask about it
2. Will you do compatibility patches / options for some of the modded factions (Diable, ORA, etc)? Because i want to use those as well

1. This mod makes changes to skills and so does Quality Captains. From the last test I *think* this mod overrides that mod's changes but shouldn't cause any crashes. To use that mod's changes, commenting out this portion of the mod_info.JSON file would likely work:

Spoiler
        "data\\characters\\skills\\skill_data.csv",
        "data/characters/skills/carrier_group.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/weapon_drills.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/fighter_uplink.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/flux_regulation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/coordinated_maneuvers.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/energy_weapon_mastery.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/damage_control.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/phase_mastery.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/phase_corps.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/special_modifications.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/strike_commander.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/point_defense.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/target_analysis.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/helmsmanship.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/impact_mitigation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/planetary_operations.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/wolfpack_tactics.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/gunnery_implants.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/ranged_specialization.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/space_operations.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/electronic_warfare.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/derelict_contingent.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/field_repairs.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/missile_specialization.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/auxiliary_support.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/salvaging.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/crew_training.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/colony_management.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/industrial_planning.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/sensors.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/navigation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/flux_modulation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/systems_expertise.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/reliability_engineering.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/officer_management.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/officer_training.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/makeshift_equipment.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/automated_ships.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/bulk_transport.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/shield_modulation.skill",
[close]

2. I will consider those types of requests with permission from the original mod author. It may take some time depending upon other priorities however. As of this moment, faction mods are compatible in the sense that they shouldn't crash in the majority of cases but they are not balanced around this mod's combat mechanics. Faction mods generally balance around the standard game and not combat overhauls like this mod.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: KD_621 on November 02, 2021, 07:17:23 AM
1. This mod makes changes to skills and so does Quality Captains. From the last test I *think* this mod overrides that mod's changes but shouldn't cause any crashes. To use that mod's changes, commenting out this portion of the mod_info.JSON file would likely work:

Spoiler
        "data\\characters\\skills\\skill_data.csv",
        "data/characters/skills/carrier_group.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/weapon_drills.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/fighter_uplink.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/flux_regulation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/coordinated_maneuvers.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/energy_weapon_mastery.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/damage_control.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/phase_mastery.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/phase_corps.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/special_modifications.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/strike_commander.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/point_defense.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/target_analysis.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/helmsmanship.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/impact_mitigation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/planetary_operations.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/wolfpack_tactics.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/gunnery_implants.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/ranged_specialization.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/space_operations.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/electronic_warfare.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/derelict_contingent.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/field_repairs.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/missile_specialization.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/auxiliary_support.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/salvaging.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/crew_training.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/colony_management.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/industrial_planning.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/sensors.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/navigation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/flux_modulation.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/systems_expertise.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/reliability_engineering.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/officer_management.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/officer_training.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/makeshift_equipment.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/automated_ships.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/bulk_transport.skill",
        "data/characters/skills/shield_modulation.skill",
[close]

2. I will consider those types of requests with permission from the original mod author. It may take some time depending upon other priorities however. As of this moment, faction mods are compatible in the sense that they shouldn't crash in the majority of cases but they are not balanced around this mod's combat mechanics. Faction mods generally balance around the standard game and not combat overhauls like this mod.

Couldn't get the fix to work (probably because i'm dumb), but i managed to live without the skill mod active. As for the second point yeah i can understand, but i'm hoping to see more ships in the future maybe, especially capital-class ones

I've been really enjoying the mod so far, and the altered combat has been really entertaining. Hoping to see more from this in the future!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on November 02, 2021, 07:51:42 AM
just so you know there is a converted version of musashi manufactorum for this mod on nexus mod database
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Darrow on November 08, 2021, 08:42:00 AM
Just a suggestion and I know you addressed this awhile back...

But some of the portraits are extremely jarringly non-fitting for starsector. Specifically the ones from EVE or that are a completely different art style compared to the rest.
Would be great if portraits could get an update or a trim to be more fitting as I find it sometimes distracts me or brings me out of the game seeing some odd leader portraits.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 09, 2021, 02:52:15 PM
Just a suggestion and I know you addressed this awhile back...

But some of the portraits are extremely jarringly non-fitting for starsector. Specifically the ones from EVE or that are a completely different art style compared to the rest.
Would be great if portraits could get an update or a trim to be more fitting as I find it sometimes distracts me or brings me out of the game seeing some odd leader portraits.

Yeah I understand. There is a huge variety from multiple portrait packs thrown into the mod. I am planning on separating them out into actual portrait packs that can be enabled and disabled at any time. Its one of the things on the list for the next update.

I myself don't know where they all came from except for a few I recognize from games I've played like Sins of a Solar Empire. You'd have to ask the respective mod authors listed on the credits section. In that line of thinking, separating them out also makes sense from the perspective of keeping the core changes of the mod separate from anything that is potentially not used with permission, etc, etc. So there really isn't a good reason not to do it that way.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on November 10, 2021, 07:41:02 AM
Stoked for the next update.  Got a teaser for us?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Darrow on November 11, 2021, 10:53:49 AM
A lot of the Legendary Gunships (Fighters) are pretty trash and expensive, kraken/goliath etc.

I find it's far more useful to have swarms of fighters rather than the slow moving legendary gunships. This is unfortunate as they offer a unique fighter/bomber type class but they just get absolutely destroyed due to their size and speed against any ship.

In small battles they're effective, but as soon as you reach mid-to-endgame they get complety swallowed up.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 15, 2021, 10:50:37 AM
Stoked for the next update.  Got a teaser for us?

I wont have anything really noticeable for a while since a lot of stuff is behind the scenes code and stuff like that. I'd check back after the holidays and I may have something more concrete by then!

A lot of the Legendary Gunships (Fighters) are pretty trash and expensive, kraken/goliath etc.

I find it's far more useful to have swarms of fighters rather than the slow moving legendary gunships. This is unfortunate as they offer a unique fighter/bomber type class but they just get absolutely destroyed due to their size and speed against any ship.

In small battles they're effective, but as soon as you reach mid-to-endgame they get complety swallowed up.

The problem I have with making them tougher is that frigates become way too weak/trivial and they already suffer from that issue a bit. For Legendary gunships my advice is that they work best when massed and only have a couple interceptor wings or an anti-fighter gunship or two for defense. That is when they are the most effective from what I've seen. As a renewable long range heavy weapons platform they seemed worth it when I was testing - at least when put on carriers. I think it would be less ideal to put them on warships though. They hit really hard even compared to a lot of bombers, but if none actually get to use their weapons it feels bad since they have a long replacement time compared to most smaller fighters.

Its not that a buff is out of the question or anything. The other factor is skills - have you put any skills into carriers or fighter craft and were you facing enemies that had buffs against fighters, for instance?

Really, the more detail the better.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on November 18, 2021, 05:49:18 PM
Just got to a game with this mod and been going for a few days, and absolutely loving it after some false starts.
Main problem was me figuring out weapons. Some thoughts on the mod:

Good
I love how ships are so much tankier. I prefer high tech but even they feel like they have noticeable armor, and their shields can be outstandingly tough. Meanwhile low tech have ridiculous amounts of armor, allowing them to actually facetanking despite shields folding like tissue paper to heavy kinetics.

Bounties are worth doing! At 5k a frigate for systems you can build a nest egg by picking on pirates, and it's worth fighting now economically instead of just trading... which is still worth more but not as exciting.
Doesn't apply to bar missions though. They offer a lot less, but can provide direction for exploring at least. I'm not sure why bar missions don't use the same pricing structure though.

Eh:
Salvage gantries have been removed from everything but the salvage ship, which seems to have lower op so you can't reduce it to a frigate sensor signature without story points, making me sad.

Maintenance is now super cheap which I love. They spike in maintenance from larger ships is barely noticeable though despite the guide, except after combat... this results in the weird situation where you can run around with a Paragon not even paying 1 supply per day with it there to protect your fleet, only to have it charge you through the nose if you it gets scratched. It might be worth mentioning the cost spike is in recovery, not maintenance.

For the tactics guide, it might be worth noting some assault weapons generate low amount of flux. The guide said they were non flux weapons, which is definitely no true for some and threw me for a bit.

The Tachyeon lance slows you down massively when firing for no stated reason. Fortunately I was testing it before fighting to get over the surprise, but having a ship going from over 100 to stationary while firing was a... experience.

Beams are useful. And you changed the beam scatter mod into something that makes kinetic beams still useful if you're exploring or after you've worn down low tech shields. However this might be too a bit of over tuning especially for non-kinetic beams, as with the changes to Flux disapation even without dealing hard flux they'd probably still be useful in this mod. I generally use them since they're basically hitscan opposed to the other high-tech weapons.

(As a point of reference, I managed to nab a Hyperion early game. While I used Assault lasers for it's 4 small slots originally, I currently use 4 Pulse Lasers and 2 Twin Tacticals. Twin Tacticals provide nice amounts of hard flux at good range and low cost, while the pulse lasers a free low damage, decent pd, work through armor and shields ok, and can be used for mining. All up, the 4 cost me 12 OP, which is tiny.)

Venting at High Flux can be almost as dangerous as overloading in this mod. Venting you vent 4* flux disapation, except flux capacity is a lot higher in this mod, especially for high tech ships, dragging out how long you're a sitting duck and you can't stop mid-vent. I'm not sure it's intentional but I think it is, particularly from watching the AI in fights. I note this mostly because from reading the guide, it's not obvious.

The Falcon Cruiser in Pirate Class has Midline and Pirate bays, which stack, making Interceptors and Fighters 10 OP cheaper. I'm not sure that's deliberate.

Bad:
The Mora (Cruiser carrier) is overturned (Just did some testing with non-Mora carriers against it. It's rediculous). It's capable of taking on dedicated combat cruisers with fighter and frigate support on its own and facerolling between super heavy armor, damping field, and 5 fighter bays since fighters don't stop shooting like it's guns while the field is on. It's also so tanky that from what I can tell, you need to bring your own Mora carriers against it or a Capital. It was a surprise when it showed up and a nice wakeup call, but when they start showing up in pairs and trios being the only real pirate threat can make for a major annoyance, since the battle comes down to 'Do I want to burn a ton of supplies and a story point, or do I want to burn a ton of supplies and risk ships killing everything that drifts too far from a Mora before retreating'. It's especially annoying since I brought a combat cruiser specifically because of them, only for my fleet to be facerolled.

The Buffalo desperately needs more OP. A Mercury allows me to carry 200 units of cargo, costs .5 maintainance, moves at speed 10, and has 30 op. The Buffalo carries 400 and moves at speed 8, while costing 1 and having 30 OP. The Tarsus sits at 60 OP so I think this is just an oversight unless it's a bug on my end (Which might be the case, despite disabling mods I have a couple of ships and weapons from old mods floating around.)

It might just be me, but baring fast torpedoes (with eccm) and interdictors using missiles is largely a waste against ships not using flak canons for pd, and if you're waiting for overload you might not have the flux to use strike and fire support missiles. Also, it might be worth restoring the maneuvering characteristic information to missiles, because I was surprised but very happy to find Ion Torpedoes are guided.
Speaking of interdictors, the Squall missile says its a kinetic antishield missile, but they're acting like interdictors. Not sure if it's a bug or the description needs updating.

The Cutlass PD system needs a nerf. They don't use ammo or flux, and they do enough damage to outcompete energy based kinetics while having over op costs. The Large one has ammo so should be fine but I haven't tested it. The medium one might be ok if you drop the dps to 300 and drop the range but honestly the only competition the cutlass has is with strike and anti armor weapons in my opinion.
(For reference, the Cutlass does 400dps at 80 a shot every .2 seconds, costs 9OP, and generates 0 flux. Gravitron Beam is 200 Kinetic DPS with a 1200 beam every 6 for 200 range and 13 OP. 4 OP for 200 range and loss of PD is not worth it IMO. The Graviton Driver deals 200dps, with 4 shots 300 damage every 6 seconds, meaning the Cutlass still does as much damage to shields as it, albeit without a spike. The Graviton driver has 1100 range compared to 600, which is great for longer range dueling and the higher hit damage means even with kinetic conversion it's more damaging to armor! But the Cutlass can fire through ships and sits at almost half the OP with the Graviton Driver sitting at a tasty 15 OP while actually costing you Flux. All in All, until I start picking fights with stations or large fleets, I'll stick with the Cutlass.)

The Assault Laser might need a nerf, at 4OP I feel no need to use higher end small weapons on almost all ships, that might miss, don't act as PD in a pinch, and only have slightly higher range for often lower DPS. This is particularly egregious since the game says it's bad, but it's my primary small weapon as a high tech use, as opposed to all the pulse canon varieties.
When it comes to what nerf, given it's status as an assault weapon, maybe increase the OP to 5 or 6. Probably 6 looking at other weapons, since at that point I'd actually have to debate using it, the Gattling Laser (Which feels a bit weak IMO), or a Pulse Canon.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 19, 2021, 12:45:51 PM
@5ColouredWalker

I'll try to touch on the general points with my response, but thank you for taking the time to write that out and give detailed feedback!

Caveat: I haven't tested in a couple months, so I am basing this off of the last tests I remember. Bear with me.

Ok, so first I've made a mental note to see if person bounties need better payouts by default as this is actually a configurable thing in the game's settings file. The mod has its own settings file that overrides a few, so I'll need to double check that the person bounties are there. I *think* they are.

Salvage Gantries are more meant for medium sized fleets not stealth ones. The Shepard class drone tender I think has some of the same capabilities though iirc. That is a frigate-sized ship. I'd try that out and see how it compares.

The tactics guide badly needs an update. I wrote that over 4 years ago and a LOT has changed in the mod since then. Its on my todo list for sure! Thanks for the specific notes there.

The Tachyon Lance slows the ship and prevents the weapon from turning while firing for two reasons:

1) The AI is better at targeting when the angle freezes because the AI has a tendency to sweep burst beams to the side - which wastes quite a bit of the Lance's damage per strike. It was a serious issue.

2) Without this feature, the TL is the best weapon by a large margin because it has pinpoint accuracy and massive range. A player or AI ship kiting with it is way too strong without this detriment. That being said, I probably need this effect in the stat card or at the front of the description to make this more clear.

Mora: That ship had a huge buff in the last update and I may have went too far with it. However, testing it against carriers is not the way to go in this case. It is a brawler-like carrier and as such it will beat longer ranged carriers in a one vs one scenario a lot of the time if it actually can close the distance. It can also hold its own against dedicated warships - though its weapon package makes it less effective overall most of the time. If you're having trouble with multiple ones, my advice would be to isolate them and don't let them isolate you. Their huge defense pool means they have enough staying power to get you into a bad spot. Use a PD specific frigate or destroyer to strip away their replacement rate before engaging them, and their lack of firepower will likely start to show more. One thing about this mod you will find is that some enemies will seem very, very scary until you realize the best way to beat them. Generalist ships certainly work and are useful all game long, but sometimes specialization is necessary.

I'm glad you are enjoying beams and it seems you have specialized into them a bit if you have the hullmod from the skill. That is designed to provide some playthrough variety sort of like the missile skill hullmods in Combat. It does indeed make beams powerful but that is sort of the point since you spent your limited skill points and some OP/SP making that happen. It wouldn't feel right to me if that investment still left other weapons as more attractive - and I think the fact that a lot of non-beam weapons synergize well at pressuring between beam bursts means that your loadouts still have a lot of variety left - which is good.

Buffalo vs Mercury: Yeah it seems to likely be another mod giving you a vanilla version of one or both of those ships. The buffalo should have 35 OP and the Mercury should only have 160 cargo capacity. I could also have missed an instance where this is hardcoded. Do you remember where you got those ships?

Missiles are opportunity weapons that really shine well when saturating a target - especially if some PD is disabled. They can definitely feel underwhelming in small numbers, but I don't think they are worse by any means. A large reason for this is that most missiles have longer range and can pass through allies. They need to be heavily countered by PD or they become overwhelming when massed. Even if they are slightly worse than other weapon types as a result in some cases, I don't think they are a waste of OP in a missile-dedicated weapon mount or anything, and some missiles are pretty terrifying in their own right. The Thunderbolt and Cloudburst come to mind there.

The Squall is a bit of a specialty weapon in that it is an anti-shield weapon through its damage compared to other interdictors, but it also serves as an interdictor. The description could stand a once over for clarity though I agree.

The Cutlass Laser and Assault Beam are definitely strong - especially with the Assault Beam's ability to provide defense against multiple targets in a line. They are supposed to be fun starter weapons mostly, and while still useful when mixed in with other weapons, both weapons will start to fall off a bit when you get to capitals and to a lesser extent cruisers. Range is a huge stat in Starsector so I'd honestly rather have a Graviton Beam over a Cutlass Laser for a lot of my builds. Even with the dps, a longer ranged ship will sometimes provide enough pressure that the ship with the Cutlass laser can't get within range fast enough to win the flux war and ends up having to retreat - which can leave it vulnerable to flanks or small, faster enemies. It IS a really great frigate and destroyer weapon though - likely will remain relevant into late game as such.

Other things come into play too, such as armor penetration and stuff like that, but suffice it to say that PD weapons are totally viable as impromptu close-range assault weapons considering their dps, but I'm not sure they are more attractive of an option over other weapons for me - though the other elements of the build certainly matter there.

I'm glad you have your favorites so far though! We will see if that changes over time and I've noted your feedback. When I start testing again I'll take a closer look there. Definitely feel free to let me know if other things come up and how the mod feels as you progress more. Again, I'm going on what I remember so I could be wrong about some of this.

I think that covers everything? Let me know if I missed something.

P.S Oh and the Pirate Falcon thing is a bug/oversight! I will fix that for the next release!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on November 19, 2021, 06:23:05 PM
@5ColouredWalker
Thanks for the response. Some notes!

Personal bounties are fine. Base game they generally don't go far above 250k, where as I've seen some up to 400ish K in this mod. It's just the bar generated bounties. System ones are set at 1k/Frigate instead of 5ish/frigate, but since those ones generate for systems that aren't the core it's fine as it's a exploration direction, though it might be worth upping to around 2k to make it attractive. However, the bar generated personal bounties seem to run for about half the value compared to random ones, though from the few I've seen they generally go for weak ships on even the high end bar bounties, which makes the higher end bar ones worth it if they're in your way.

The Shepard doesn't have Salvage Gantries in this mod any more otherwise I'd load up on them for mining, hauling and salvage (They are good miners.). As for the Lance those points are fine and I'm more than happy with it (I slapped Advanced Optics into it and boy, that had some range!), just needed noting.

Thanks for the notes on the Mora. At the moment I just stay away from pirate fleets with them since I'm mostly exploring and trading, but I'll keep it in mind for when I move to combat. That said, it's armor is high enough it reaches capital class with heavy armor which is why I think it needs toning down a smidge.

For the Mercury and Buffalo I've bought them on multiple different planets (Or not, in the Buffalo's case, but I've seen them in several skins on multiple planets.). Buffalo's been have 30 op (33 with skil) in my version, and Mercury has been having 160 storage is accurate, but it's 208 with Expanded Cargo Holds and when they have the same op but Buffalo's mods cost more due to it being frigate class there's no need to use it.
That said, why would the Buffalo be deliberately set at a lower OP than the Tarsus? I haven't spent much time comparing the two so maybe the Buffalo's cheaper (Definitely has less weapon slots, though the TT version has better built in drones.), but if it's intentional ok.

Duly noted on missiles. I've been having more luck with point blank Hammers recently on all shorts of ships (And it's fun seeing ships get yeeted, especially if their engines are blown so they don't automatically slow down, even if it means they sometimes escape to fight back instead of taking more torpedos) as well as using the odd Reaper, and I do enjoy Hunters. Perhaps I wasn't focused enough on them. As for other weapon notes, I've not been fighting stations or doing large late game fleet battles yet, so perhaps my view will change overtime.

As for the Pirate Falcon, I was wrong with it being 10op, it's 20op discounting with 10 seeming to be the intended one from ones with single replacements (I was thrown by the Venture's bays only discounting 5, not sure if that one's deliberate or not so mentioning it here but it's more than fine).

Thanks for taking note of things for update!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on November 20, 2021, 08:58:47 AM
There's another ship with Salvage Gantries which is the high-tech capital-class Odyssey. Not easy to come by early game.

Also, you shouldn't compare weapons in this mod with DPS stat alone. It's very very deceptive as the majority of weapons fire in bursts plus has a magazine. A Burst weapon has more advantages than a continuous weapon in which it can overload the opponent quicker, can dodge without losing much DPS in a small ship. You will not be able to fire those continuous weapons all the time so you are losing in DPS while finding another target/dodge whereas you can use that downtime to reload magazines. High yield, low DPS. A very high alpha damage weapon such as the Antimatter Blaster can nuke the enemy before it can retaliate. But still, burst weapons can be overwhelmed if there are too many enemies nearby and the ship itself is slow. In that situation, you might consider yourself switching to a lower flux continuous weapon to use the majority of the flux to tank damage instead.

@Morrokain
How about making the Assault beam not pierce crafts? That should lower the effectiveness somewhat.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on November 20, 2021, 03:44:42 PM
I am aware of the difference between Burst/Non Burst.

Since this is brought up in relation to a shield weapon, a 'Burst' anti-shield weapon is incredibly useful for overloading... But shields can be lowered to just let it through unless it's packing enough damage or an EMP component.

You can't just drop shields for a sustained anti-shield weapon, as that means your shields are down for any anti-armor weapons.

So, you can spend 4 op for the range and burstyness of a Graviton Beam (Which technically would be better anti-armor being a delivery of 600 damage in a burst) that can't be retasked a PD and fire through your own ships, but then low tech ships can just flicker their sheilds unless you're right next to them with torpedoes ready to go or have enough nearby threat for them to be willing to risk an overload. And with how long flux disipation takes in this mod and how well the coding works, they're not going to do that unless they'd die anyway or have a good retreat path while overloaded. Or you're lucky.

Edit:
For Cutlass Beam nerfs, I'd just suggest raising the OP to, say, 11 (That way it's no longer super cheap in comparison.), or dropping the damage closer to 300dps a second (That way as an anti-shield weapon it doesn't rival the Graviton Beam).
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 20, 2021, 05:49:12 PM
I spent today specifically testing the Assault Beam.

Spoiler
It doesn't really seem that imbalanced on a first assessment. It performs worse against fighters and missiles assuming they are spread out when compared to the Burst PD
Beam, Dual Micro Repeater, Void Driver and Pulse Laser.

So from that angle, I don't think its better. I tested this using a Damaged Falcon using the beams in its four small universal slots against four Vigilance light carriers armed with Hunters and Broadswords. They surround the cruiser and send missiles and powerful fighters at all angles.

It probably would be better against concentrated enemies though.

For the assault component, I tested a Wolf using 3 Assault Beams in its forward 3 energy mounts and supplemented each build with Shockstorm rockets on the side missile mounts and Burst PD Beams in the rear weapon mounts.

I used the AI to fight Rhino-class heavy frigates and Tempest-class heavy frigates to test both shield and armor effectiveness at the frigate level. The results are interesting.

Basically, compared to higher OP weapons the Assault Beam is worse against any decent armored targets. It performed noticeably worse against the Rhino compared to Pulse Cannons or Micro Blasters. This is WITHOUT the armor damage boosting skill, however, so factoring that in would likely change the final result.

However, vs shielded enemies its a lot closer even without skills involved. The Pulse Cannons barely come out ahead after multiple tests one vs one. I also tested Advanced Optics and it makes the Assault Beams worse in that situation as expected. So that was a good result overall as that is expected.

I decided at the end of the tests to reduce the damage from the Assault Beam from 700 damage per burst (which translates to around 500-520 hit strength) to 600 damage per burst (which translates to around 450 hit strength) and I think that will widen the gap just enough.

The reasoning for the change was mostly just the fact that the OP was low enough warrant it being slightly less effective compared to high OP weapons. While those weapons are technically better, it wasn't noticeable enough to justify the cost especially with scale being a factor on larger ships.

I'm also debating a slight buff for the Pulse Laser on the PD side of things. The Void Driver's range makes it good for an extra OP, but the Pulse Laser seems a bit worse than the Dual Micro Repeater or probably even with it - but for an extra OP.
[close]

Those are my thoughts for now. I also fixed the issue with the Pirate conversions for the Falcon, Eagle and also corrected the Sci Corps Eagle to have high tech warship bays instead of midline. The variants have all been adjusted as well.

*EDIT* I also reduced the dps of the Cutlass Laser to 320 instead of 400. This was done by slightly reducing the rate of fire so the armor penetration remains the same. This is a tentative change until I can test more.

I'll also do a brief pass of Legendary Gunships in large scale battles in the next couple days to round out the feedback from recent posts. Then its back to other things.

@Morrokain
How about making the Assault beam not pierce crafts? That should lower the effectiveness somewhat.

I looked into this, but from the tests its anti fighter performance wasn't a problem from what I saw. It was more the fact that it could pressure shields as well or close to other weapons for less OP while still retaining some armor penetration or possibly even better armor penetration with skills.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on November 22, 2021, 05:50:38 AM
So, you can spend 4 op for the range and burstyness of a Graviton Beam (Which technically would be better anti-armor being a delivery of 600 damage in a burst) that can't be retasked a PD and fire through your own ships, but then low tech ships can just flicker their sheilds unless you're right next to them with torpedoes ready to go or have enough nearby threat for them to be willing to risk an overload. And with how long flux disipation takes in this mod and how well the coding works, they're not going to do that unless they'd die anyway or have a good retreat path while overloaded. Or you're lucky.

Do you mean Gravitron "Driver" and not beam? You can always mix and match multiple weapon types in one group that will be fired together. For example, I can put my Gravitron Driver in a group together with Heavy Ion Cannon. In this situation, the enemy ship risks losing all frontal weapons if it ever thinks about lowering the shield.

Since the High-tech class isn't supposed to have a kinetic projectile weapon. The stat is lower than its ballistic counterpart to discourage usage but is still an option.

@Morrokain
Yeah, I always prefer it because it's dirt cheap and works pretty well. In a huge fight with 30+ crafts running at you, it also works great at mowing them down. Usually quicker than projectile PD but not as fast as AoE PD.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 22, 2021, 11:15:52 AM
Yeah, I always prefer it because it's dirt cheap and works pretty well. In a huge fight with 30+ crafts running at you, it also works great at mowing them down. Usually quicker than projectile PD but not as fast as AoE PD.

That makes sense. The firing delay makes it harder for the weapon to handle missiles as well as projectile PD - sort of similar to how AOE PD like Flak operates in the same way but just a circle of protection instead of a line in that case. Supplementing fast firing projectile PD enhances the overall defense zone most of the time by picking off low health stragglers of missiles or wings. If the Assault Beam cannot also operate as an assault weapon in the same way that a Pulse Cannon can then I think it will feel like more of a choice despite the low OP cost.

@5ColouredWalker
Also, I forgot to comment on the Gatling Laser. I think that weapon and its medium variant are deceptively good. The AI is pretty good about using weapons like that one and the Terminator Beam on armor to maximize the magazines' overall dps - which is substantial in that scenario due to the 50% boost.

The thing that is difficult to translate to the stat card is those weapon's projectile/beam speed mean that you can sneak in armor shots between the shield lowering and raising again. The AI is mediocre at it while the player can really emphasize that strategy. For those reasons, I think they are probably fine. They do stink against shields and it sucks when they AI wastes charges on them, but overall I think you would find a lot of use for them in the early and mid game. Admittedly there might be better options in the late game but even then they both have relatively low OP and so niche builds should still remain viable.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on November 22, 2021, 11:41:41 PM
Do you mean Gravitron "Driver" and not beam? You can always mix and match multiple weapon types in one group that will be fired together. For example, I can put my Gravitron Driver in a group together with Heavy Ion Cannon. In this situation, the enemy ship risks losing all frontal weapons if it ever thinks about lowering the shield.

Since the High-tech class isn't supposed to have a kinetic projectile weapon. The stat is lower than its ballistic counterpart to discourage usage but is still an option.
No, I mean beam.
Which is extra amusing because the Gravitron Driver is a kinetic projectile weapon. Fire Support I think, given it's (relatively) high flux costs and long range. Does even more damage, might have ammo... I think it sits at 15 OP.

As for mixing damage types, yes that's doable. I usually go for Raw damage rather than emp, but using EMP weapons has been moving me more towards EMP. Time to kill is slower, but when things are so much tougher in this mod the extra time is less important than keeping them from firing back, which is why Bolters and Heavy Bolters seem so powerful. (I was testing Eagle builds in 1v1 simulations when I first got one... I had a build that stomped the pirate varieties with ease, but unless I had a Heavy Bolter/Tachyon lance the midline ones just shredded it with their Heavy Bolters.)


@5ColouredWalker
Also, I forgot to comment on the Gatling Laser. I think that weapon and its medium variant are deceptively good. The AI is pretty good about using weapons like that one and the Terminator Beam on armor to maximize the magazines' overall dps - which is substantial in that scenario due to the 50% boost.

The thing that is difficult to translate to the stat card is those weapon's projectile/beam speed mean that you can sneak in armor shots between the shield lowering and raising again. The AI is mediocre at it while the player can really emphasize that strategy. For those reasons, I think they are probably fine. They do stink against shields and it sucks when they AI wastes charges on them, but overall I think you would find a lot of use for them in the early and mid game. Admittedly there might be better options in the late game but even then they both have relatively low OP and so niche builds should still remain viable.

You have a point on stat cards having trouble saying things like that.
I've just math'd out how long it'd take the future nerf assault beam to match the Gatling Laser, and it looks like I might be underestimating it, especially if I pack expanded ammo, unless fighting low tech cruisers/capitals. The Medium one looked fine to me however I've been preferring the greater versatility of Dual-Tacs and Phase Beams. Which with the mod for extra armor damage might be better anyway, despite having long reload times. Also they have the benefit of being far faster projectiles as beams.



As an aside for the Mora, I recently went up against a Mora with an Apogee, which ended up being one sided against the Mora.
Large missile slots was an energy missile, left and right front missile tubes are the Kinetic-EMP Mervs, and the center front is a Reaper Rack.

Kinetics quickly force the shield down and apply broad EMP prevented it from doing anything with it's weapons while it had enough shields/fighters/PD kept the fighters from bringing down the Apogee immediately. I now know how to counter Mora's while exploring. It's also not a broad counter I can just leave alone since it can be overwhelmed by massed Frigates/Destroyers/Surprisingly competent Cruiser-Grade Derelicts. (The Ramming one knows what it's doing and packs enough kinetics to surprise me every now and again.)

I am having fun using built in Flux Capaciters on all my dedicated combat ships. That plus the skills for extra flux capacity and +10 max sink/vents slots leads to very tanky high tech shields.

Oh, recently got my hands on a Doom. It seems you've nerfed the Mine Strike by slowing deployment way down. On one hand I'm sad, on the other, with the phase skill changes and everything else it seems to be a balanced ship, and the Mine Strike is still really good at taking out fighter swarms. (It also seems to hit phased ships, but that afflictor might have been coming out of phase when it went off.)
Speaking of it, and then of Afflictors, Hunter Missiles make very good Point Defence missiles with their maneuverability and damage. Are they intended to be that good? They don't reload quick so shouldn't be treated as dedicated ones, and the AI doesn't use them for that, but I figured I'd bring it up. I do use ECCM if that matters in your assessment.

Finally for Afflictors, you've swapped the system between the Afflictor and Harbinger, and Afflictors show up a lot more than Harbingers. On one hand, trying them myself they only seemed ok, and perhaps a good swap with Afflictors less able to take advantage of the system. On the other hand, Pirates are really good at exploiting the system to turn high-tech ships into shrapnel in larger battlers as opposed to using Afflictors vs Low Tech ships. I've taken to deploying Low Tech ships more often specifically because of them. Not asking for a nerf or anything, just sharing the observation.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 25, 2021, 08:56:50 AM
@5ColouredWalker

Nice I'm glad Moras aren't as hard as before and you've discovered a few good overall strategies.

The Doom Mine nerf was necessary to prevent it from being too powerful in the player's hands. I can understand the disappointment though if you are used to the Vanilla version. It used to have the time acceleration system but the AI wasn't very good at using it.  Its much better using the mines.

The Afflictor is meant to be one of the scarier things to encounter in pirate fleets because of its system. It also introduces new players to phase ships that are otherwise pretty rare unless you are fighting the Adamantine Consortium. In that sense I'm pleased that they are dangerous enough to warrant using some heavy armor.

Hunters are a high end versatile missile. They are really good at taking down smaller faster targets like frigates (even fighters) and their speed (especially with ECCM) and maneuverability make them more difficult for PD to handle in large quantities. They are balanced by the limited magazine and the reasonably high flux cost to fire. So, while it certainly is a good missile I don't think its too good. Its just really versatile instead of the heavy specialization that other missiles typically have. There are other, rarer weapons that have similar roles but also have a few differences such as range and cost, etc.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on November 27, 2021, 02:26:48 AM
Did some fiddling with starts and I noticed that the Adamantine Consortium and Trade League are 'Welcoming' with each other. (Positive relations)

After checking it turns out to be a Nex incompatibility. A pretty funny one... That said I'm now insanely jealous of their Tarsi, even if it screws with using Militarized Ships for combat due to them taking up OP. Being Energy based makes them decent miners though (6 pulse lasers for 9 mining + Expanded Bays for mining drones.)

Finally regarding them, you might want to take a look at Shattercells the same way you looked at Cutlass Lasers. They're less OP efficient and don't shoot through ships, but as kinetic PD they step on the Grav Beam in the same way. I'm not sure they need nerfing since (at least from memory) their OP cost means you're trading range and around 100dps for use as PD which makes the damage less consistant as it retargets towards missiles/fighters. (Something I didn't note with Assault Beams, because it didn't stand out as much.)


While I'm not to the stage of late game content (I keep fiddling around with early-mid stuff and missing other mods) I'm wanting to try my hand converting stuff for use with Archean Order.
While there's some level of guidelines for Weapons for conversion (You've set DPS thresholds of roughly 2/3/4 hundred per level, which mainly applies to Assault Weapons, with PD tending to have +100 except for Pulse Lasers and Shattercells. Shattercells being Kinetic and Pulse Lasers being energy based Vulcans), do you have any guidelines for converting ships beyond diversifying weapon mount types, making flux disapation around shield flux output, and slightly increasing weapon mount numbers for combat ships? (They tend to have slightly more weapons in this mod to my notice.)

From what I've noticed Shields generally have Dam-Flux conversions of 1.2-3/1ish/.7ish for Low/Mid/High tech. High Tech tends to have around 3* the armor of low tech while High Tech has much higher flux reserves and often has 360 degree shields while low and mid tech tend to be smaller.


I've never tried my hand at modding so I'm not going to be posting anything for sharing anytime soon (And I'd run it past you and relevent mod authors before doing so.), but figured it'd be worth asking for anyone who wants to do conversions rather than asking you to do the work.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on November 27, 2021, 10:14:11 AM
Nex has some configuration that I cannot override and so the intended relations wont be maintained if running the mod alongside Nex I'm afraid. I can't remember all that this affects.

Shattercell Cannon: this weapon is a funny one but I think its balanced. It is really good against light missiles and fighters and very bad against any wings with decent armor. Similar to the Pulse Laser it sort of acts as a finisher for low health things since it can retarget easily. So while it is intended to be used as a support assault weapon at close range, it trades PD effectiveness to do it. Its OP cost is also a balancing component.

As far as conversions go, my baseline is about 5-6 small weapons per frigate, 3 medium weapons and 5 small weapons per destroyer, 5-7 medium weapons and 6-8 small weapons per cruiser along with 2 flight decks, and capitals have 4 large weapons, 8 mediums and around 20 small weapons and 2-4 flight decks. For changing things up, the conversion rate of weapons is 3 of the smaller ones equals one of the next size up. So for instance you could trade 3 mediums for a large on a cruiser, etc. You can also trade defense or increase DP.

Just a note: Unless you are satisfied doing the conversion for your own personal use I'd ask the mod author first before starting work on it. There was someone else who made a conversion and they never got permission to post it. So that is a real possibility. I myself don't mind though. Just figured I'd let you know.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Fakalljakall on December 07, 2021, 08:30:45 AM
Hi, great mod. Is it possible to change the battle size? In my settings it's 500 but I changed in the files to 1000.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 07, 2021, 02:34:06 PM
Hi, great mod. Is it possible to change the battle size? In my settings it's 500 but I changed in the files to 1000.

Hi thanks! Yes, but you have to change the setting in the mod folder settings file as it overrides the vanilla settings file by default for a few things - including max and default battle sizes.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: MightyChristian on December 08, 2021, 03:50:00 PM
Without giving anything away, is there any advancement of the "Omega core"/ [redacted] fleet(s)/lore in this mod?
Like in game story, ships, weapons, etc.
:D thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 09, 2021, 10:05:43 AM
@MightyChristian

There are some new REDACTED that have lore components in their descriptions, and one mission (outside of the campaign) that briefly touches on a couple things. Other than that? Not yet...

The bulk of the planned lore is in production and a lot of it should hopefully be in the next update. That is still several-many months away though sorry I've had to slow things down a bit.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: MightyChristian on December 12, 2021, 05:46:30 PM
@Morrokain

Awesome! Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: scott324 on December 13, 2021, 11:51:40 AM
Having an issue with the skill tree, I have no other mods running besides LazyLib and for some reason, the scaling is just super off and doesn't allow me to see further skills in the tree. See attached picture. Running the latest StarSector update, 0.95.1a-RC5.

(https://i.gyazo.com/dc39c4ae71fa5185f8530776fdfda361.png)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on December 14, 2021, 08:05:53 PM
An actual skill tree should look like this.
(https://i.ibb.co/Dt3df15/65654654.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Dt3df15)
Yours definitely have something wrong with it. When you reinstall the AO mod, be sure to delete the old folder first and not to replace it. Recheck Lazylib version as well. I would appreciate it if you could post your mod list screen.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Neliahawk on December 15, 2021, 12:27:33 AM
maybe its starsector version 0.95.1a   (the new .1 version)
that is messing with the skill tree as it changed the vanilla skilltree.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: scott324 on December 15, 2021, 07:22:11 AM
An actual skill tree should look like this.
(https://i.ibb.co/Dt3df15/65654654.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Dt3df15)
Yours definitely have something wrong with it. When you reinstall the AO mod, be sure to delete the old folder first and not to replace it. Recheck Lazylib version as well. I would appreciate it if you could post your mod list screen.

(https://i.gyazo.com/1d0ab75c4d08792de990a5ca25259b21.png)

Not having any issues with any other mods, as well as LazyLib (and mods that require LazyLib as well like Nexelerin).

Redownloaded both LazyLib and AO and skill tree is still "long".

Also attempted to change resolution and remove full screen in-case it was some sort of graphical error, but then again I don't have this issue unless I am running AO with my mod list.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Neliahawk on December 15, 2021, 07:51:35 AM
the newest starsector version is 0.95.1a
and that version has a changed skilltree:
"Skill system changed for more flexible builds with more options" (what probably causes the skill tree to have more skills in there than it should with this mod and some probably getting pushed to the right outside the box)

archean order is made for version 0.95a... i dont think its updated to the latest starsector version yet as its still listed as 0.95a in the title
and on the starsector releases page you cant redownload the version 0.95a.... as them download buttons also are version 0.95.1a for some reason.


so we just have to wait for this mod to be updated and working with the latest version 0.95.1a... (most of the mod probably works "okay" still even on the latest version... apart from i.e. the skilltree being weird... the new added hulls are probably also not edited for this conversion either... and such things... etc...)
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Heitomos on December 15, 2021, 10:01:00 AM
I was asked to post this here.

Getting an error when attempting to engage a Domain Era Cryosleeper Guardian.

63831 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/combat/AIUtils
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/lazywizard/lazylib/combat/AIUtils
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.assessNearbyThreats(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:164)
   at data.scripts.shipsystems.ai.AO_FluxConverterAI.advance(AO_FluxConverterAI.java:102)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs.M$1.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.BasicShipAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.lazywizard.lazylib.combat.AIUtils
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   ... 12 more

Judging from log, its Archean Order issue, Flux Converter its its subsystem for it. Probably its got broken due new update, post this log in Archean Order topic.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 15, 2021, 12:30:32 PM
Hi everyone!

Yes, I need to update the mod for the next version and that is why the skills, new hullmods and new ships are not currently adjusted for the mod. I will work on this soon. It should hopefully be done before Christmas.

I was asked to post this here.

Getting an error when attempting to engage a Domain Era Cryosleeper Guardian.

Just to double check, do you have the latest version of the mod? 1.4.0.4? And are you running the mod alongside the latest version of LazyLib? This issue was a past one that was fixed afaik.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Heitomos on December 16, 2021, 05:23:46 AM
Hi everyone!

Yes, I need to update the mod for the next version and that is why the skills, new hullmods and new ships are not currently adjusted for the mod. I will work on this soon. It should hopefully be done before Christmas.

I was asked to post this here.

Getting an error when attempting to engage a Domain Era Cryosleeper Guardian.

Just to double check, do you have the latest version of the mod? 1.4.0.4? And are you running the mod alongside the latest version of LazyLib? This issue was a past one that was fixed afaik.

I have 1.4.0.4 and LazyLib up to date (based on the forum post, the mod itself says that it's a slight revision behind the game). I downloaded them only a few days ago
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 16, 2021, 09:18:10 AM
I have 1.4.0.4 and LazyLib up to date (based on the forum post, the mod itself says that it's a slight revision behind the game). I downloaded them only a few days ago

It *shouldn't* have anything to do with the recent update. For some reason your system can't find lazylib's class even though its there. I double checked the documentation and its definitely still in lazylib's jar.

I inquired about this in the misc modding thread. I tested this for an hour or so this morning and the ship system AI works just fine for me with no errors. Sorry this is happening to you though. I suspect it might be environment related but I honestly don't know. :(

I'll post here if I find out anything useful. Have you used other mods that use lazylib's static methods? I'm not sure if its easy to know that or not, but I'm trying to narrow it down further. I wish I had my old labtop that I used to test this kind of thing on different systems. However there have been ~ 1200 fairly recent downloads of the mod on this version and this is the first I'm hearing of this (I think anyway, it's been brought up before but iirc that was a past version where my import path was wrong) so it may unfortunately be something pretty obscure in this case.

Listing your operating system might be useful just in case its something related to that.

*EDIT*

Actually, just to clarify, is the path to your mods folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector? That is what the jar assumes it is. I may have to find a workaround because that seems like it would be a problem for other operating systems since mac and linux don't have that directory.

Phew at least that actually makes sense! Ok, I'll see what I can do about this.

*EDIT 2*

Alright, so until I find a better solution I will just include the lazylib jar in the mod itself so it can always be found regardless of the root directory for programs/applications. I don't even need Lazylib in the mods directory to run the script now, whereas before I did or I would get the same crash. This should solve the issue assuming my above assumption was correct.

That said, since I will be looking for a better solution I have included a script to crash the mod upon the games start unless LazyLib is installed since it is still a dependency for the AI script. This doesn't cause any conflicts or issues as far as I can tell, and doesn't effect load times.

The fix will be in the 0.95.1a compatibility update. Sorry for the inconvenience and for not catching this sooner and thanks for the reports!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 17, 2021, 11:39:14 AM
Does anyone have any requests/comments on the new skills for vanilla vs the old skills of the mod? I am almost done with balancing the new ships and adjusting skills is probably the last thing I need to do before I release the compatibility update.

This will likely be today or tomorrow, so get any thoughts you have here sooner rather than later if you want them considered for this release. Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: CrimsonPhalanx on December 17, 2021, 01:07:05 PM
Just a minor thing not related to the skills, since I just started playing this mod while waiting for the majority of mods to catch up to the newest update.

Not sure if reported before but the front small hybrid turrets on the eagle have different angles.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: memeextremist on December 17, 2021, 11:24:18 PM
Thanks, Morrokain! I really like your mod. Have a Merry Christmas, everyone! \o\
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on December 18, 2021, 12:04:37 AM
Does anyone have any requests/comments on the new skills for vanilla vs the old skills of the mod? I am almost done with balancing the new ships and adjusting skills is probably the last thing I need to do before I release the compatibility update.

This will likely be today or tomorrow, so get any thoughts you have here sooner rather than later if you want them considered for this release. Thanks!

Haven't had a chance to play yet until today. From what I hear I'd prefer the new system instead of forced dichotemy, but I'd rather keep some skills boosting colonies as well as ship events.
The only other thought off the top of my head is that Ground Operations could use a better Surveying Buff or the Makeshift Equipment skill could use a worse one, since GO gives a slight bonus to marines and surveying, while Makeshift Equipment gives a big one to salvaging and to survey, and gives the (ok, mostly useless) preliminary survey burst.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: TehGanker on December 18, 2021, 06:41:41 AM
Is a variant/desire to make separate stand-alone skills-mod ? I think is many people wants it, current vanilla state isn't.... touchd few aspects of fleet build, especialy fighter based.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 18, 2021, 08:04:38 AM
Just a minor thing not related to the skills, since I just started playing this mod while waiting for the majority of mods to catch up to the newest update.

Not sure if reported before but the front small hybrid turrets on the eagle have different angles.

It was not (afaik but could have forgot) and I fixed this up! Thank you!

Thanks, Morrokain! I really like your mod. Have a Merry Christmas, everyone! \o\

Thank you and you too!  :)

Haven't had a chance to play yet until today. From what I hear I'd prefer the new system instead of forced dichotemy, but I'd rather keep some skills boosting colonies as well as ship events.
The only other thought off the top of my head is that Ground Operations could use a better Surveying Buff or the Makeshift Equipment skill could use a worse one, since GO gives a slight bonus to marines and surveying, while Makeshift Equipment gives a big one to salvaging and to survey, and gives the (ok, mostly useless) preliminary survey burst.

The skill system will have the new mechanics of the updated vanilla skill system, so no worries there. I'll look into the other details you mentioned too, but I was also inquiring about things such as Neural Uplink which is a pretty interesting skill. I am assuming players want that included somewhere, but I was also wondering if there were others I had missed for instance.

Anyway, most of the mod skills will likely be preserved in the update.

Is a variant/desire to make separate stand-alone skills-mod ? I think is many people wants it, current vanilla state isn't.... touchd few aspects of fleet build, especialy fighter based.

As in a skills mini-mod? I wouldn't mind doing something like that. Its not priority until after the compatibility update but assuming it wouldn't take long I can do it. As long as I'm not stepping on Dal's toes though.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: ratpizza on December 18, 2021, 08:52:46 AM
Not that this is very important (it's very easy to just add the hullmod yourself) but I have noticed that the Dram-tanker has been missing the "integrated power-circuit"-hullmod. I assume this is simply an oversight? Just thought I'd mention this.

Oh, and Merry Christmas. Looking forward to the update.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 18, 2021, 10:17:40 AM
Not that this is very important (it's very easy to just add the hullmod yourself) but I have noticed that the Dram-tanker has been missing the "integrated power-circuit"-hullmod. I assume this is simply an oversight? Just thought I'd mention this.

Oh, and Merry Christmas. Looking forward to the update.

Ah yeah I think at one time I was not adding that to utility vessels to make them easier to catch in escape battles. But that made them too easy to catch. So yes an oversight. I'll get it changed.

Merry Christmas to you too!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 18, 2021, 02:56:50 PM
Update on the release:

I am trying to figure out why the Guardian isn't spawning support drones from its drone factories and finally fixing the random derelicts that aren't TC versions and subsequently can never be recovered - at least if I can.

I'm not sure how long this will take, but hopefully not more than a couple of days. I'll update progress as I get it. Anyway, this will also give me some more time to playtest the new ships for balance purposes.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Athos on December 18, 2021, 03:07:42 PM
Could you just release an update that fixes the skills visual bug first?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 18, 2021, 03:58:42 PM
Could you just release an update that fixes the skills visual bug first?

Hmm, well I haven't completed that yet but I guess I can release a skill and ship fix before working on the other stuff. I want to get away from micro-updates in general but I'll prioritize this a bit. I'll see what I can do tonight but I can't stay up late and there is a bit of work to do yet.

I may see about simply fixing the skills and getting the barebones updates to the ships and then expand on that in another micro update. Like I said though, I don't want to do this too often.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Athos on December 18, 2021, 04:11:26 PM
Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 18, 2021, 07:28:25 PM
Thanks!

Sorry to disappoint but it won't be tonight. I haven't gotten through enough of the necessary edits and changes to be able release an update yet and I can't stay up any further with work tomorrow. I'll spend some extra time on this after work and see if I can get an update ready by tomorrow night. No promises, though. I am estimating some of this effort and it could prove to be more time consuming than I thought just to get things incorporated into the most recent update.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Albreo on December 18, 2021, 11:20:25 PM
Comments on new skills in .1a
- The skill gate system I always talk about, better diversifying. So the last two perks require 4 and 6 lower skill's skill points respectively.
- Damage Control: big hit Damage reduction once every 2 sec is kind of interesting but I'm certain it's not enough to do anything in my kind of large combat.
- Best of the Best: 10% DP bonus in outnumber fight is also a good addition.
- Support Doctrine: It's borderline OP
- Neural Link: Honestly the most interesting of all, I want that in your mod.
- Ordinance Expertise: Should be hard to balance. Just ditch it.
- Polarized Armor: At the moment, I think there should be a new hull mod or for this skill to provide 100% EMP immunity when hitting just armor. If the armor has a hole in it then it's another story.
- Hull Restoration: OP. I also want this kind of perk for Frigates only. So players won't be afraid to use smaller ships. Actually, the frigate perk should be built-in.

What to implement? I think you should keep your skill tree. I like that one more, we have more interesting stuff like missile mod. Just port that into this new layout. Add some interesting things to it such as Neural Link. The new system doesn't have any implication in adding more lower-tier skills. The permanent skills seem to be no more, I'm not sure what Alex did to solve all that mess behind the scene when reassign.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 19, 2021, 04:20:55 PM
Comments on new skills in .1a
Thanks I'm finishing up the first pass now for the release.

Quote
- The skill gate system I always talk about, better diversifying. So the last two perks require 4 and 6 lower skill's skill points respectively.
Yeah that's how it works now. I think it works very well at a first assessment. My only concern is that there really isn't a reason not to spend 6 points considering the power of the highest tier skills.

Quote
- Damage Control: big hit Damage reduction once every 2 sec is kind of interesting but I'm certain it's not enough to do anything in my kind of large combat.
It's the current mod version for now and set as a tier 2 skill choice.

Quote
- Best of the Best: 10% DP bonus in outnumber fight is also a good addition.
It's in there, but I have plans to also combine part of the bonus of Support Doctrine - which is currently not a choice.

Quote
- Support Doctrine: It's borderline OP
Not all of this one will make the cut. Especially the built in hullmods to non-officered ships. Some of it will get combined with Best of the Best.

Quote
- Neural Link: Honestly the most interesting of all, I want that in your mod.
It's the tier 4 choice alongside Automated Ships atm.   ;)

Quote
- Ordinance Expertise: Should be hard to balance. Just ditch it.
My thoughts exactly.

Quote
- Polarized Armor: At the moment, I think there should be a new hull mod or for this skill to provide 100% EMP immunity when hitting just armor. If the armor has a hole in it then it's another story.
I'm not sure that this is possible but with some fancy scripting it might be. I'll keep this in mind but its too much of an effort for the next release at least.

Quote
- Hull Restoration: OP. I also want this kind of perk for Frigates only. So players won't be afraid to use smaller ships. Actually, the frigate perk should be built-in.
You mean as in part of the hullsize itself? That skill currently isn't available as I think my Industry tree was already pretty good, but I'm not 100% decided yet. Some changes may come in the second micro-update.

Quote
What to implement? I think you should keep your skill tree. I like that one more, we have more interesting stuff like missile mod. Just port that into this new layout. Add some interesting things to it such as Neural Link. The new system doesn't have any implication in adding more lower-tier skills. The permanent skills seem to be no more, I'm not sure what Alex did to solve all that mess behind the scene when reassign.
I'm removing the permanent tags and formatting the skills to the new system - which I like a lot more atm.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 19, 2021, 08:01:05 PM
The 1.95.1a update has been uploaded. This version merges some new skill additions from the new Starsector update and fixes the skills issue from using the previous version with the new update, and it will hopefully fix the crash with the Guardian encounter for non-windows users, as well as also including the new ships from the recent Starsector update. This is a pretty bare bones patch that I will expand upon in another micro update in the near future.

Please report any bugs on this thread in case I missed anything.

*EDIT*

*Hotfix* Redownload if you encounter the missing vanguard id error. It was an oversight from a name/id change that I have hopefully now corrected in the primary download.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Capt. Butters on December 19, 2021, 11:58:52 PM
Is the new update save-game compatible? I would assume not, as it's not letting me load a save.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 20, 2021, 10:27:45 AM
Is the new update save-game compatible? I would assume not, as it's not letting me load a save.

Unfortunately, no. Since the new Vanguard frigate shared a name with the heavy fighter wing, I had to change both the name and ids and that will break any earlier saves. Its possible that you could open the save file and search for any references to "vanguard" in the data and change it to "stalwart" and that might make it possible to load but I'm not 100% sure on that.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Igor on December 20, 2021, 11:08:56 AM
thanks for the hard work. a question, where can I report any bugs or errors in the mod?
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Athos on December 20, 2021, 11:10:02 AM
Thanks for the speedy update. I hope my post didn't seem too demanding. I know it's pretty involved. I'll make sure to post about my experience once I have a decent play through done or if I run into anything.
Title: Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 20, 2021, 04:06:15 PM
thanks for the hard work. a question, where can I report any bugs or errors in the mod?
Thanks and here will get it to my attention the fastest since I check the forums regularly. Discord, NexusMods, etc are hit and miss and I check them infrequently at best.

Thanks for the speedy update. I hope my post didn't seem too demanding. I know it's pretty involved. I'll make sure to post about my experience once I have a decent play through done or if I run into anything.
You're welcome and I didn't take it as demanding so no worries there. Its involved, yes, but I get that sometimes its better to simply update the mod rather than work on additional stuff and then balance and add later. This update should at least serve as a baseline.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: memeextremist on December 21, 2021, 02:50:51 PM
Howdy! I thought this was a nex bug so I reported it to Histidine first, but I was told to send it your way since it looked like another error that also used AO+Vayra's ship pack [the latter of which I don't use.] If you could take a look at it, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

link to thread: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9175.4290
pastebin: https://pastebin.com/wCbk6run
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 21, 2021, 04:13:31 PM
Howdy! I thought this was a nex bug so I reported it to Histidine first, but I was told to send it your way since it looked like another error that also used AO+Vayra's ship pack [the latter of which I don't use.] If you could take a look at it, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

I will and thanks for reporting it. Sorry I missed the other thread. I don't know how I've improperly defined moduled ships off the top of my head, but I'll cross reference vanilla and see if any changes have been made.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: memeextremist on December 21, 2021, 08:28:53 PM
Thanks, man. it could be a vanilla bug too. I saw a guy doing a lets play saying some fleet spawning crashed him, and he didn't say he was using your mod. weird
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: ratpizza on December 22, 2021, 01:31:13 AM
@morrokain A small question. Does the hull-restoration component which was moved to the repair-skill use the same dice-roll as in vanilla, i.e 90% chance every second month to remove a dmod-from a frigate and 75% for capitals/cruisers?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 23, 2021, 06:47:42 AM
Thanks, man. it could be a vanilla bug too. I saw a guy doing a lets play saying some fleet spawning crashed him, and he didn't say he was using your mod. weird

I don't see anything so far. I posted about it in the modding thread because the code where this crash is occurring isn't visible to modders and the context is not necessarily obvious so I am making guesses at its functionality. It would be helpful to have some reproduce-able scenarios to go off of. That way I could know the exact stations involved, etc.

If you have a save that you could upload with it being easily reproduce-able that would be really helpful. Or, if not, if you remember the exact type of station you were engaging that caused the crash.

@morrokain A small question. Does the hull-restoration component which was moved to the repair-skill use the same dice-roll as in vanilla, i.e 90% chance every second month to remove a dmod-from a frigate and 75% for capitals/cruisers?

It uses the old implementation from the 0.95a version of Starsector - which I *think* is just a chance to remove a D-mod every 1-2 months. It doesn't differentiate between hullsizes. Would that be preferred?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: ratpizza on December 23, 2021, 07:37:47 AM
Yeah, I'd prefer that. Doesn't necesarily have to be those exact numbers, I just like it that rules are transparent and that I know what my odds are if something is based purely on chance.
Oh, another question. If I take the repair-skill won't the effect of "reduces negative impacts of hullmods by 50%" take effect immediately? I'm asking cause I have a wolf-frigate with the d-mod "damaged fuel-injector", which increases fuel-consumption by 50% and decreases zeroflux-boost by 10 su. I took the repair-skill from Industry but there's no indication  in any tooltip's that the impact of the d-mod is actually reduced. Am I missing something? Or will it only affect ships which gained d-mods after the skill was taken?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 23, 2021, 08:00:51 AM
Yeah, I'd prefer that. Doesn't necesarily have to be those exact numbers, I just like it that rules are transparent and that I know what my odds are if something is based purely on chance.
Noted. Be aware that there is some variation in the timeframe regardless of any additional hullsize chance in this version, but I'll look at the current vanilla version and see what changes are there. It might be more predictable in this version idk. I'll see what I can do when doing the second skill pass, which is also relevant to:

Quote
Oh, another question. If I take the repair-skill won't the effect of "reduces negative impacts of hullmods by 50%" take effect immediately? I'm asking cause I have a wolf-frigate with the d-mod "damaged fuel-injector", which increases fuel-consumption by 50% and decreases zeroflux-boost by 10 su. I took the repair-skill from Industry but there's no indication  in any tooltip's that the impact of the d-mod is actually reduced. Am I missing something? Or will it only affect ships which gained d-mods after the skill was taken?
It *should* be immediate afaik. Its a dynamic stat.

It could be one of two things since it uses:
Code
			stats.getDynamic().getMod(Stats.DMOD_EFFECT_MULT).modifyPercent(id, -DMOD_EFFECT_REDUCTION);
- The first is that it doesn't update the tooltip and yet still works. (Since this uses stats that are a bit trackable, a confirmation of yes or no would help - though I'll try and test it on my own too.)
 - The second is that I've implemented it incorrectly and it doesn't work. So, I need to use setMult() or modifyMult() or something like that or this is a deprecated stat that isn't actually modifiable and I need to remove it completely.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: damatrix16 on December 23, 2021, 01:09:53 PM
Hello, most of my mods are still in the 0.95a-RC15 version, is the link to that version posted somewhere?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 23, 2021, 01:35:35 PM
Hello, most of my mods are still in the 0.95a-RC15 version, is the link to that version posted somewhere?

Look under "old files" on the NexusMods site. It should be there.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: kjodice on December 24, 2021, 10:49:05 AM
Hey all, been using this mod for a while, and for some reason when spawning in a battle the game crashes with a message, FATAL Archean_damper. any ideas?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: neofoxx on December 24, 2021, 10:51:37 AM
Hi thx for the mod love it so far :)

But can we edit skills value ?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: neofoxx on December 24, 2021, 09:48:23 PM
But can we edit skills value ?

Have to decompile the archeusTC.jar ? modify the .class and recompile everything ?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 26, 2021, 08:23:56 AM
Hey all, been using this mod for a while, and for some reason when spawning in a battle the game crashes with a message, FATAL Archean_damper. any ideas?

Hmm, it could be a change from the new version impacting old scripts. Can you post the error? I'll do a quick check on that system later on and see what turns up.

Hi thx for the mod love it so far :)

But can we edit skills value ?

Have to decompile the archeusTC.jar ? modify the .class and recompile everything ?

Np I'm glad you like it! Yes you would have to decompile the jar and change the scripts. What values were you looking to edit? You should be able to adjust the OP/fighter bay thresholds for fleetwide skills in the mod's settings file if its any of those.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: neofoxx on December 26, 2021, 01:22:42 PM
Hi thx for the mod love it so far :)

But can we edit skills value ?

Have to decompile the archeusTC.jar ? modify the .class and recompile everything ?


Np I'm glad you like it! Yes you would have to decompile the jar and change the scripts. What values were you looking to edit? You should be able to adjust the OP/fighter bay thresholds for fleetwide skills in the mod's settings file if its any of those.

Yep guessed it thx, i already made some custom edits.

I changed "Special Modifications" skill for more % extra ordinance.

Settings is only for tresholds wich is increasing the maximum cap before loosing effectivness right ?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stalkar on December 26, 2021, 03:45:08 PM
Probably a question that has been asked,aswered/ignored a lot,but bear with me
as far as i can grasp from those lines
Spoiler
> Fighters are smaller, faster, more numerous, and can deal extra damage to ships' weapons and engines
> Smaller weapons, more weapons per ship- designed to mimic a cinematic combat experience inspired from multiple movies and games
> *Compatibility details for adding additional mods: Faction mods are technically compatible and won't crash in the majority of cases, however........
+ list of mods that *SHOULDNT* break balance
[close]
The problem you will run in to with modded factions (if you actually manage to run them,as i remember long time ago i planned on trying this out but half of my mod list was inactive so i ceased the idea) is them being usually? undergunned and have fighter size+balance? issues? but come out on the ~same "dps/DP/OP" or any other comparison or theres more hard changes to vanilla systems,like flux value difference,supply/fuel consumption or general commodities,prices and in that way

Its hard to tell how massive on scale are the changes from base game(which i am not blaming for) to try and find middle ground between running this as "intended experience" and "adding some 'flavor'" without breaking it completely
and yes i intentially ignore possible technical issues like insane RAM usage combined or just outright crashes,currently i am trying to figure out the theoretical part of what i can do
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on December 26, 2021, 05:25:59 PM
Settings is only for tresholds wich is increasing the maximum cap before loosing effectivness right ?
Right yeah. Bonuses/negative side effects have to be decompiled and recompiled.

The problem you will run in to with modded factions (if you actually manage to run them,as i remember long time ago i planned on trying this out but half of my mod list was inactive so i ceased the idea) is them being usually? undergunned and have fighter size+balance? issues? but come out on the ~same "dps/DP/OP" or any other comparison or theres more hard changes to vanilla systems,like flux value difference,supply/fuel consumption or general commodities,prices and in that way

Its hard to tell how massive on scale are the changes from base game(which i am not blaming for) to try and find middle ground between running this as "intended experience" and "adding some 'flavor'" without breaking it completely
and yes i intentially ignore possible technical issues like insane RAM usage combined or just outright crashes,currently i am trying to figure out the theoretical part of what i can do
Hmm. On the one hand this is sort of subjective considering its hard to narrow down things like "flavor" and such, but I'll do my best to give the full picture of what the mod does so you can make your own determination:

The mod changes many aspects of both the campaign and combat. For one, blueprints are generally rarer and a lot of ships are gated behind military markets. As far as logistics, supplies per month is a LOT lower to allow for ease of exploration in systems, and fuel consumption is lower iirc at the capital level compared to vanilla and higher or the same at the frigate level? Either way, it will feel like a different balance of logistics compared to faction mods. Their ships will not be balanced against the same logistics or combat balance just in general.

Besides relying upon more weapon mounts as well as a separate distribution of mount sizes per hullsize, warships also have the ability to carry fighter wings albeit with a completely different way of balancing carriers vs warships (carriers have cheaper weapons but more expensive wings and warships have cheaper interceptors and fighters but lower replacement rate). So having access to vanilla or faction mod wings will allow those ships to have potentially more firepower than vanilla or mod faction ships would generally have access to. DP is also much different compared to vanilla balance. Capital ships in particular are much less costly to deploy.

Flux and armor values are adjusted to make ships tougher, and venting is more dangerous. Speed is a bit different as well.

Ok, so details aside, what I've heard is that generally the mod's ships are OP compared to vanilla stuff - which is generally the baseline balance for any faction mods.

Pretty much all of the combat aspects of vanilla is changed or rebalanced to some degree *except* for the basic premise of flux sharing the dual role of powering shields and acting as weapon "fuel". In this case, however, many weapons are balanced around no flux cost. Like vanilla, its all designed to work in combination to make combat fun and balanced while hitting the goals of the mod - which is summarized a bit above but doesn't include everything because that would take too long to really dive into.

Aaand all of that said, I've also had reports of lots of people using faction mods and having very enjoyable experiences.

I hope this helps a bit.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stalkar on December 26, 2021, 09:28:16 PM
Spoiler
The problem you will run in to with modded factions (if you actually manage to run them,as i remember long time ago i planned on trying this out but half of my mod list was inactive so i ceased the idea) is them being usually? undergunned and have fighter size+balance? issues? but come out on the ~same "dps/DP/OP" or any other comparison or theres more hard changes to vanilla systems,like flux value difference,supply/fuel consumption or general commodities,prices and in that way

Its hard to tell how massive on scale are the changes from base game(which i am not blaming for) to try and find middle ground between running this as "intended experience" and "adding some 'flavor'" without breaking it completely
and yes i intentially ignore possible technical issues like insane RAM usage combined or just outright crashes,currently i am trying to figure out the theoretical part of what i can do
[close]
Spoiler
Hmm. On the one hand this is sort of subjective considering its hard to narrow down things like "flavor" and such, but I'll do my best to give the full picture of what the mod does so you can make your own determination:

The mod changes many aspects of both the campaign and combat. For one, blueprints are generally rarer and a lot of ships are gated behind military markets. As far as logistics, supplies per month is a LOT lower to allow for ease of exploration in systems, and fuel consumption is lower iirc at the capital level compared to vanilla and higher or the same at the frigate level? Either way, it will feel like a different balance of logistics compared to faction mods. Their ships will not be balanced against the same logistics or combat balance just in general.

Besides relying upon more weapon mounts as well as a separate distribution of mount sizes per hullsize, warships also have the ability to carry fighter wings albeit with a completely different way of balancing carriers vs warships (carriers have cheaper weapons but more expensive wings and warships have cheaper interceptors and fighters but lower replacement rate). So having access to vanilla or faction mod wings will allow those ships to have potentially more firepower than vanilla or mod faction ships would generally have access to. DP is also much different compared to vanilla balance. Capital ships in particular are much less costly to deploy.

Flux and armor values are adjusted to make ships tougher, and venting is more dangerous. Speed is a bit different as well.

Ok, so details aside, what I've heard is that generally the mod's ships are OP compared to vanilla stuff - which is generally the baseline balance for any faction mods.

Pretty much all of the combat aspects of vanilla is changed or rebalanced to some degree *except* for the basic premise of flux sharing the dual role of powering shields and acting as weapon "fuel". In this case, however, many weapons are balanced around no flux cost. Like vanilla, its all designed to work in combination to make combat fun and balanced while hitting the goals of the mod - which is summarized a bit above but doesn't include everything because that would take too long to really dive into.
[close]

Aaand all of that said, I've also had reports of lots of people using faction mods and having very enjoyable experiences.

I hope this helps a bit.

that very much gives the vague picture of what i will have to deal with
Spoiler
Ok, so details aside, what I've heard is that generally the mod's ships are OP compared to vanilla stuff - which is generally the baseline balance for any faction mods.
[close]
i  assumed that the changes are making the vague "power number" of ships go up rather then specifically balancing around cos and pros,but if that is not too high, like it sounds, then it should be fine and everything else should not fall behind at least much
i will still might have to do some adjustments on the fly since (like reducing the cost of maints to AO level if its harder to get them,or use CC cheating wizardry) i run like ~half of the factions mods from [index] page so that could be the bane of me
and as much as it pains me i will also probably will have to start over rather then use save-splicing like prior to it
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Athos on December 29, 2021, 12:59:06 AM
I know the mod lists choosing the Adamantium consortium as a starting faction as "hard" but the faction seems to be so strong they are dominating everyone else. I've had no trouble with dealing with other factions and I'm already colonizing. Is there a way to slow the Adamantium consortiums expansion or do I need to kill them myself to do that?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 01, 2022, 07:32:05 AM
Took some time off for the holidays, but I'll respond to questions and post some changes for discussion a bit later today. :)

Bugs: So far, I'm not finding reproduce-able scenarios of the reported crashes. I haven't exhausted all test scenarios, but any additional context would be appreciated. Unless it is something very specific to the campaign (not likely), the Dampener system seems to work as intended when running the simulator and testing stations aren't causing out of bounds exceptions.

For the station issue, the only thing left that I can really do is start a game and cheat to test every station using autoresolve.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: shpooky on January 07, 2022, 04:30:24 PM
i suggest adding a second download link for ur mod btw. not everyone wants to go through the hassle of having to make a yet another account on the internet. if u could provide a link that did not force u to make a account to download. that would be amazing and would make the mod more easily accessible
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Michigancubed on January 08, 2022, 02:05:14 AM
Heya, had a crash on bootup with this mod and tried looking for similar cases and/or how to fix it, dunno how to nor did find a similar case, so I'll post my logs since I haven't a clue on what happened. Crash log is the same with different mods though (as in the starfarer.combat stuff is the exact same) if that has anything to do with it, but I suspect it might be a game issue itself and not the mods in this case;

125580 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Error loading [data.scripts.ArcheusModPlugin]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Error loading [data.scripts.ArcheusModPlugin]
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.scripts.ScriptStore$3.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: data.scripts.ArcheusModPlugin
   at org.codehaus.janino.JavaSourceClassLoader.findClass(JavaSourceClassLoader.java:179)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   ... 2 more


EDIT: It seems this type of crash was because of corrupted download, got it fixed within the hour, I gotta remember to properly extract files next time! ;D
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: memeextremist on January 08, 2022, 04:49:20 PM

I don't see anything so far. I posted about it in the modding thread because the code where this crash is occurring isn't visible to modders and the context is not necessarily obvious so I am making guesses at its functionality. It would be helpful to have some reproduce-able scenarios to go off of. That way I could know the exact stations involved, etc.

If you have a save that you could upload with it being easily reproduce-able that would be really helpful. Or, if not, if you remember the exact type of station you were engaging that caused the crash.
sorry for the late reply. I reloaded an earlier save and avoided the system I kept crashing in, and never had another one. I wasn't engaging a station iirc. I just rolled into that system to buy supplies then *zzt*
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 09, 2022, 06:45:55 AM
i suggest adding a second download link for ur mod btw. not everyone wants to go through the hassle of having to make a yet another account on the internet. if u could provide a link that did not force u to make a account to download. that would be amazing and would make the mod more easily accessible

I'm not sure I can because the mod is too large. I know I can't use Patreon or Dropbox and it will take forever to get the mod up on git due to the number files and the 100 file per upload limit. Any suggestions as to where I can host it? For reference, the size is just under half a gb.

EDIT: It seems this type of crash was because of corrupted download, got it fixed within the hour, I gotta remember to properly extract files next time! ;D

Ah glad you got it figured out! I thought it was because the jar was missing or something upon first reading the issue.

sorry for the late reply. I reloaded an earlier save and avoided the system I kept crashing in, and never had another one. I wasn't engaging a station iirc. I just rolled into that system to buy supplies then *zzt*

Weird! Any way I can take a look at the system? A save file perhaps? Then I can see what could potentially be causing it. If its just in the system I am assuming its a nearby battle being autoresolved. The main thing I'm curious about is whether its a pirate station or a luddic one, adamantine consortium, etc. Those are the only 3 that could spawn out in the wild.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: shpooky on January 10, 2022, 01:28:03 AM
i think google drive or mega should suffice
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: blackace on January 10, 2022, 04:31:09 PM
dont know if this is a good place to put this fr been using this mod for years now and never had an account or anything on here so i just kinda made one to say thanks for the amazing mod really makes me love this game more
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 11, 2022, 04:32:46 PM
i think google drive or mega should suffice

I always forget above google drive. I'll try that and see about getting a mirror dl up.

dont know if this is a good place to put this fr been using this mod for years now and never had an account or anything on here so i just kinda made one to say thanks for the amazing mod really makes me love this game more

It is, and thanks! I'm glad you are a fan of the mod!  :)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 13, 2022, 05:15:01 PM
Mod, gifs of combat, new ships and weapons - look simply too fantastic to believe. I dread to even fathom amount of coding involved and efforts put into it. I will totally give a mod a try on new game.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 13, 2022, 07:43:33 PM
Mod, gifs of combat, new ships and weapons - look simply too fantastic to believe. I dread to even fathom amount of coding involved and efforts put into it. I will totally give a mod a try on new game.

Thanks and I hope you have fun!



Minor progress update: I've been looking a bit more into skills now that I have some new things to work with I have made some changes for the next update which I will post below. There isn't an exact ETA for this update as I've been moving very slowly atm and skills are slightly more involved due to UI limitations over other areas of the code.

Two skill changes currently in the dev version:

Phase Mastery:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/fWpCUmG.png)
[close]

Best of the Best:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/3lP3UGl.png)
[close]

Small improvements:

 - Skills and thresholds that check for carrier bays actually check for the hullmod itself rather than the CARRIER tag.
 - Fixed an oversight where Electronic Warfare's elite effect negated the enemy fleet's bonus rather than reducing it by 50%.

And design changes:

 - All of the hullmods unlocked through Combat are now unique unlocks and those hullmods cannot be bought and should be hard if not impossible to find.*

*I decided to double down on this balance strategy for Combat since it was seeming like the other trees were becoming more competitive. They contained numerous fleetwide bonuses compared to Combat's mostly flagship-only bonuses. The new hullmods allow for more customization options for the entire fleet without further directly increasing the player's overall power. There should still be a fair amount of purchasable hullmods available, but now dedicating points to Combat should have a more noticeable impact to builds. These hullmods also can synergize well with other trees at various levels depending upon whether or not a player wants to specialize. We will see how it works out and I have a few more planned changes among other things I'd like to ideally add before release.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 13, 2022, 11:03:06 PM
Great stuff. I haven't started a new run on .1a yet. So, I will wait some more.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 14, 2022, 09:23:38 AM
Great stuff. I haven't started a new run on .1a yet. So, I will wait some more.

Probably a good idea. There will be more variants/skins of new ships as well for some additional goodies. Working on that and some other stuff today. I am also going to try and test skills a little more to make sure they are working correctly since I'm sort of relying on existing skill code from old vanilla skill implementations still working as intended.

When I'm more confident of a time frame I'll post here.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 14, 2022, 01:32:12 PM
If i disable total conversion to use DIY Planets, Grand Colonies and other mods like that, what parts of TC will be disabled?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 15, 2022, 12:12:55 PM
If i disable total conversion to use DIY Planets, Grand Colonies and other mods like that, what parts of TC will be disabled?

Nothing will be disabled its just there so that inexperienced users wont just slap the TC on with a ton of mods and then wonder why things break or the balance is off, etc, and report issues to another mod's thread. So in essence its just there to hopefully encourage people to read the compatibility portion of the main page.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 16, 2022, 03:46:25 PM
And considering some factions' Open market do not have any ships for sale, its stated in info as a bug from vanilla game? It will only be fixed by Alex at some later release?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: ryujinblade on January 16, 2022, 05:51:24 PM
hey i noticed in the main page that it says there are customs starts? one with pirates and wolf pack or a merc with a strong financial backer? are those still possible starts?
also love your mod! the changes make combat sooooo fun and i love carrier spams so
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 16, 2022, 06:47:35 PM
And considering some factions' Open market do not have any ships for sale, its stated in info as a bug from vanilla game? It will only be fixed by Alex at some later release?

Just to double check, are you on update 0.95.1a of Starsector? If so, what markets? Or is this more of a global economy issue? If it isn't Nex on random mode, then just give me the market names and I can double check them. The issue you were talking about should have been fixed in the current version but iirc it was the opposite (no military market ships) so I think this is unrelated or at least something additional to the last problem - like the faction doesn't know any basic ships and the market is small, etc. Also, if the market is very small then it can sometimes have a shortage of ships for sale - like only a small tanker or two or only shuttles. If there is literally nothing for sale, then that is likely more in the realm of a bug unless you have recently bought them all and it just hasn't been resupplied yet. Every market I checked while testing had ships for sale but I easily could have missed something.

hey i noticed in the main page that it says there are customs starts? one with pirates and wolf pack or a merc with a strong financial backer? are those still possible starts?
also love your mod! the changes make combat sooooo fun and i love carrier spams so

I'm glad you like the combat and as long as you aren't running Nex there are a couple of different starting conditions under "Faction Starts" or something like that when starting a new game. The merc starts are currently the vanilla ones under "Normal Starts" but you do start near a Trader Guilds outpost when you choose those so it simulates it to a certain degree. I haven't added the strong financial backer part though. It's planned as part of a lore update which has been slightly delayed with the latest Starsector release since I'm handling those changes and implementing the new stuff atm. You will, however, possibly get the galatia academy stipend with a normal start. I can't remember if I added that in or not though.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 17, 2022, 05:37:09 AM
I use latest download 0.95.1a-RC6 and i started fresh game with TC + some minor mods like DIY planets (Grand colonies and like that), dont use Nexerelin.

Archean Order have no ships on Open market, and i think i saw other TC faction has same issue, but they do have ships in Military section and Black market. And i mean i visited 6 Archean planets, and all 6 of them have empty Open market for ships. I think a cycle passed in my game already, so traders should've brought ships to sell them, but its still empty.

I can try scouting all other factions to see if it happens everywhere, but i saw Hegemony is having no such issues, got ships in all 3 tabs - Open, Military, Black markets. So maybe issue is only with modded factions.

So i was just wondering if that issue is to be adressed or should've been fixed already.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 17, 2022, 06:00:35 AM
2 Cycles passed in my game, so trade should've replenished markets.

Checking Factions:

Traders guild - have ships in Open.
Hegemony - have ships.
Independent - have ships.
Pirates - have ships.

Archean Order - no ships in Open on any planet.

Sindrian Diktat - have ships.
Tri-Tachyon - have ships.
Persean League - have ships.
Sci Corps - have ships.

Adamantium Consortium - can't check due to relations.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 17, 2022, 10:08:37 AM
@Stroichik

Ah ok thanks - especially for the detail! Yeah that's a new thing probably due to the fact the the earlier issue was fixed. I'll take a look and it should be fixed in the next update.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Radicaljack on January 17, 2022, 02:01:32 PM
How well is this working with the new update? Spooling up another run and I always follow that up with a good ol AO run because it's just such a fantastic piece of work.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2022, 11:38:53 AM
How well is this working with the new update? Spooling up another run and I always follow that up with a good ol AO run because it's just such a fantastic piece of work.

There is the minor issue of the empty open market for Archean Order and probably Adamantine Consortium, but other than that all the rest works afaik (or, rather, the other stuff that doesn't work I'm pretty sure hasn't ever worked and I'm just now finding out about it, hehe).

However, personally, I'd recommend you wait for the next update because I'm doing a second pass through of a couple of the skills' functionality and that could break saves. Its one of the reasons I've held off on releasing stuff because I figured I'd give some time for players to start playthroughs and potentially give feedback/bug reports - which has happened and has been very helpful.

I'm planning on the release to happen fairly soontm.

(Also thank you for the kind words!)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 18, 2022, 11:56:55 AM
I also noticed, that sometimes my ships do not like to activate their shields, even when attacked by enemies and having low flux. I don't know if its some weird conflict between vanilla combat AI and new weapons being constantly used in battle, or if combat AI was somehow reworked in TC.
But after several dozen battles watched i still think that in vanilla ships were a bit more inclined to use shields to protect against enemy fire.

In vanilla, though, ships usually were dropping shields, when they were attacked by anti-shield weapons (probably to prevent excessive flux build-up), but engaged ships right after those weapons were no longer a threat (until next volley).

With so many new weapons, could it be that AI considers even smallest Anti-shield shots, from weakest weapons as a flag to drop shields temporarily, and due to a sustained fire by those weapons, AI almost never finds opportunity to raise shields again, even though he is being battered from all sides?

I was lucky to find a big Odyssey-class ship very early in game, so i was wondering why would it drop shields so often, and let itself get damaged by frigates and gunboats, instead of soaking dmg to shields. It shouldn't be any sort of malfunction too, since i could use manual control to raise and keep shields up.
Smaller ships seem to ok, but maybe they are just targeted by less amount of enemy ships for me to notice any real change in behaviour.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 18, 2022, 01:34:19 PM
I also noticed, that sometimes my ships do not like to activate their shields, even when attacked by enemies and having low flux. I don't know if its some weird conflict between vanilla combat AI and new weapons being constantly used in battle, or if combat AI was somehow reworked in TC.
But after several dozen battles watched i still think that in vanilla ships were a bit more inclined to use shields to protect against enemy fire.

In vanilla, though, ships usually were dropping shields, when they were attacked by anti-shield weapons (probably to prevent excessive flux build-up), but engaged ships right after those weapons were no longer a threat (until next volley).

With so many new weapons, could it be that AI considers even smallest Anti-shield shots, from weakest weapons as a flag to drop shields temporarily, and due to a sustained fire by those weapons, AI almost never finds opportunity to raise shields again, even though he is being battered from all sides?

I was lucky to find a big Odyssey-class ship very early in game, so i was wondering why would it drop shields so often, and let itself get damaged by frigates and gunboats, instead of soaking dmg to shields. It shouldn't be any sort of malfunction too, since i could use manual control to raise and keep shields up.
Smaller ships seem to ok, but maybe they are just targeted by less amount of enemy ships for me to notice any real change in behaviour.

Yeah this is just an AI limitation. Its probably less noticeable in vanilla because the AI is tuned to vanilla standards and its seems like you've picked up on a few possible reasons. I don't replace the AI at all and only provide custom AI hooks in a few very limited cases (ironically to do just the opposite - trying to keep shields up 100% of the duration - and even that doesn't work 100% of the time) and the rest is just likely something the vanilla AI just can't handle well for whatever reason.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to attack in groups so the shielded ship can retreat while covered by an ally. The majority of the moments this seems to occur for me is when a ship is being attacked by more than one enemy, but it certainly isn't limited to that case either.

I don't think its necessarily because of kinetics though because it can happen with pure energy weapons too. I think it actually has something to do with venting being more time consuming in the TC and so the ship prioritizes low flux far too much instead of simply trying to survive until assistance arrives depending on the circumstance.

I've seriously seen a Paragon get destroyed by an Executor without getting a shot off because it refuses to raise shields and the Executor is faster but has a slightly longer range energy weapon. The Paragon really seemed to want to get the 0 flux boost or otherwise save flux and kept dropping shields as the shot was being fired and also seemed to have zero indication that it had zero flux weapons or that its armor would never hold out until it could escape - because it never actually could escape in the first place! Nevertheless, it kept trying to retreat and passively vent any shots it did shield tank - until it was destroyed. It was painful to watch.

While frustrating, there isn't much I can do about this and the best way to get around it is to try and avoid situations where the AI is tempted to do those kinds of things. I wish I had more detail as to how to do that, but when I test it seems to happen a lot less when I am tactically engaging the enemy with numbers rather than a 1v1 scenario and then reassigning targets, etc.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 18, 2022, 02:54:44 PM
Yeah. I suspected it to be related to severely increased weapon types and roles. And it differs from battle to battle, due to different enemy speeds and weapons. At least its how i feel, when i watch battles. Improving my own weapons and fire range seems to help a bit, at least i`m shooting enemy more and have higher chance to kill them, before they get me.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 19, 2022, 06:53:11 AM
Yeah. I suspected it to be related to severely increased weapon types and roles. And it differs from battle to battle, due to different enemy speeds and weapons. At least its how i feel, when i watch battles. Imporing my own weapons and fire range seems to help a bit, at least i`m shooting enemy more and have higher chance to kill them, before they get me.

I dont know this for sure since the AI isnt really exposed, but I dont think it has much to do with extra weapons or continuous fire or even a bunch of different weapon roles if I'm making an educated guess. The AI generally knows what to do with those and with the addition of 2 more possible weapon groups and recent improvements to autofire logic, that part of the AI is really good at what it does.

I really think it's more about dissipation rate and the AI wanting to flee rather than tank in most circumstances when being pressured. Since the 0 flux boost is often a crucial part of fleeing, the AI tries to keep flux as low as possible when in that mode. The reason it can sometimes be painful is that it goes into that mode during times it shouldn't- mostly during a 1v1 or 1vmultiple where it feels in danger but would be better off standing its ground.

The other thing that could possibly factor in is range. The enemy ship could be far enough away that the AI is not threatened when the weapons are actually in range. While it tries to passively vent it takes a hit, raises shields briefly but drops them again because it resets to the non threatened state because the circumstances are otherwise the same.

You'll probably notice that the issue happens less after hull damage is taken. That's probably because the AI feels more inclined to just tank at that point.

These are just observations based upon testing though. Only Alex knows for sure exactly how its operating.

What I do know for sure is that despite these flaws they can be worked around by builds and tactics, at least for the most part. Errors in AI judgement will still be made though as that's mostly unavoidable.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 19, 2022, 08:33:43 AM
Is there Unknown shard vessels with weird weapons in vanilla and TC? They appear in Hypershunt.

If there is - they need some power boost, i think. In vanilla it was really hard to fight them with vanilla weapons. with TC weapons they are not really that dangerous.

If they are not part of vanilla or TC - forget it.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 19, 2022, 10:03:51 AM
I also just noticed that Archean Order Military tab doesn't have any cruiser sized ships. Its only Capitals, frigates and destroyers. Not a single cruiser size anywhere.

However i just found an Archean Order Justicar blueprint in ruins. Its a cruiser, says its Archean Order design. But i have never seen in on sale anywhere, nor any other cruiser-sized vessels in Military of Archeans. I thought they didn't have cruiser-sized ships, but it seems they do, or at least they should have.

Also, i don't see any cruiser sized ships in Archean fleets too. Capitals, frigates and destroyers only.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 19, 2022, 06:22:41 PM
Is there Unknown shard vessels with weird weapons in vanilla and TC? They appear in Hypershunt.

If there is - they need some power boost, i think. In vanilla it was really hard to fight them with vanilla weapons. with TC weapons they are not really that dangerous.

If they are not part of vanilla or TC - forget it.
They are vanilla and also rebalanced for the TC so the feedback is definitely relevant to the TC as a whole. What weapons seem strong against them? Their weapons should be relatively balanced since they do drop, but the vessels themselves should be fairly strong DP-wise when you consider pure stats. If they seem easy, I'm missing something that makes them hard in vanilla. Their weapons have different mechanics altogether but is it also an efficiency thing with flux? Or pure dps? What makes them harder?

I also just noticed that Archean Order Military tab doesn't have any cruiser sized ships. Its only Capitals, frigates and destroyers. Not a single cruiser size anywhere.

However i just found an Archean Order Justicar blueprint in ruins. Its a cruiser, says its Archean Order design. But i have never seen in on sale anywhere, nor any other cruiser-sized vessels in Military of Archeans. I thought they didn't have cruiser-sized ships, but it seems they do, or at least they should have.

Also, i don't see any cruiser sized ships in Archean fleets too. Capitals, frigates and destroyers only.
Hmm, I'll double check that I added the Justicar to their known ships. That could be an oversight.

I have a couple of off days coming up that I will try and tackle all the recent feedback! Thanks for all the reports!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 20, 2022, 01:01:52 AM
In vanilla those ships had good range and were very agile, making it hard to hit them long enough to drop their shields, and they did constant dmg to me, since they had good range and unlimited energy rockets and torpedoes.

In TC, player can get weapons with range that is greater than vanilla allowed, plus ships generally have more weapon turrets and unlimited missiles too, some with good range. So, i feel like my ships were upgraded, but those enemy ships still use vanilla weapons, actually.
Also in TC player have a lot more fighters to fight NPC fighter-shards and a lot more PD weapons, and PD is generally more efficient than vanilla, so those fighter-shards are not as dangerous as in vanilla.

In vanilla i used Radiant (and Prometheus Mk2, Dominator and several other cruisers) with plasma throwers and rapid fire lasers against those NPC ships, and they almost killed my Radiant (which is strongest ship in vanilla). In TC NPC couldn't even make a dent in my armor (which is also a lot thicker than vanilla), although i haven't used Radiant. I used Tyrant, Megalith, Odyssey, Revenant and some cruisers, because i expected a real tough fight, so i threw everything i had at them.

I`d give them at least 25% more flux capacity, to hold shields against dmg, and maybe a unique hullmods for 15-30% weapon range. This way u wouldn't have to change their weapons directly, to prevent imbalance for player, but NPC could shoot farther and be generally more dangerous. Plus its only 2 ships, so if player uses TC values for fleet size and battle points, he still have a lot more weapons in battle compared to vanilla fleet, so maybe make them 3-4 ships, or even 5?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 20, 2022, 12:14:10 PM
If u gonna do some changes, can u look at Mine Strike ability? I got Tyrant-class Battleship and i see it makes those teleporting mines sometimes, but it spawns so far away from any ship that i haven't noticed it actually damaging anything. I`m not sure it can even damage fighters, to be honest. Maybe it needs bigger AOE radius.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 21, 2022, 12:25:57 PM
In vanilla those ships had good range and were very agile, making it hard to hit them long enough to drop their shields, and they did constant dmg to me, since they had good range and unlimited energy rockets and torpedoes.

In TC, player can get weapons with range that is greater than vanilla allowed, plus ships generally have more weapon turrets and unlimited missiles too, some with good range. So, i feel like my ships were upgraded, but those enemy ships still use vanilla weapons, actually.
Also in TC player have a lot more fighters to fight NPC fighter-shards and a lot more PD weapons, and PD is generally more efficient than vanilla, so those fighter-shards are not as dangerous as in vanilla.

In vanilla i used Radiant (and Prometheus Mk2, Dominator and several other cruisers) with plasma throwers and rapid fire lasers against those NPC ships, and they almost killed my Radiant (which is strongest ship in vanilla). In TC NPC couldn't even make a dent in my armor (which is also a lot thicker than vanilla), although i haven't used Radiant. I used Tyrant, Megalith, Odyssey, Revenant and some cruisers, because i expected a real tough fight, so i threw everything i had at them.

I`d give them at least 25% more flux capacity, to hold shields against dmg, and maybe a unique hullmods for 15-30% weapon range. This way u wouldn't have to change their weapons directly, to prevent imbalance for player, but NPC could shoot farther and be generally more dangerous. Plus its only 2 ships, so if player uses TC values for fleet size and battle points, he still have a lot more weapons in battle compared to vanilla fleet, so maybe make them 3-4 ships, or even 5?

I have this noted and will look into testing/changes this weekend.

If u gonna do some changes, can u look at Mine Strike ability? I got Tyrant-class Battleship and i see it makes those teleporting mines sometimes, but it spawns so far away from any ship that i haven't noticed it actually damaging anything. I`m not sure it can even damage fighters, to be honest. Maybe it needs bigger AOE radius.

Also noted. My concern with buffing the system is that I don't want it to get too strong. Its sort of a pendulum that is easily unbalanced in either direction. I'll take a look at it though since I'm already looking at a few other things. The list is pretty big atm and goes back more than few pages of this thread, so if I miss anything let me know once the next update is released.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 21, 2022, 09:04:28 PM
I heard the ECM problem has been fixed already? The other thing would be that the D-mods free NPC fleet that does not follow ship quality policy nor present of nano forge. It's going to break faction balance for sure when fixed, so you better deal with it early.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 22, 2022, 05:59:30 AM
I heard the ECM problem has been fixed already? The other thing would be that the D-mods free NPC fleet that does not follow ship quality policy nor present of nano forge. It's going to break faction balance for sure when fixed, so you better deal with it early.

You mean how the skill was completely negating the range bonus?

What D-mods free fleet? You mean a faction? Sorry, I'm not quite understanding the context.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 22, 2022, 08:48:49 PM
I heard the ECM problem has been fixed already? The other thing would be that the D-mods free NPC fleet that does not follow ship quality policy nor present of nano forge. It's going to break faction balance for sure when fixed, so you better deal with it early.

You mean how the skill was completely negating the range bonus?

What D-mods free fleet? You mean a faction? Sorry, I'm not quite understanding the context.

The ECM is referred to this post https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13183.msg340631;topicseen#msg340631
Where enemy weapon range reduction is -0% instead of -10% or something.

And the D-mods is referred to this post https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13183.msg338815#msg338815
Only some of the mod modified ship has D-mods when spawning in an NPC fleet. Majorly, they are all pristine even pirate Atlas.

(https://i.ibb.co/g31t8RM/456.jpg) (https://ibb.co/VtyMGqW)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 22, 2022, 09:43:02 PM
Ah ok thanks for the links that especially helps!

To answer regarding ECM: hopefully? The past link was about the skill not unapplying I thought- because it was removed via console commands (which presumably doesn't call the relevant code). The fact that the bonus was 0% was not intended as it was supposed to be 5% (or half of the standard value). That part has been fixed at least. If you are respeccing skills via the normal method and the 5% bonus (instead of 10%) is still showing up under the same circumstances, then that is a separate issue that I'll need to try and handle if I can.

The faction d-mod issue: Ok I remember that post now sorry there has been a lot of feedback in the last few months and I'm sure that isn't the only thing slipping through the cracks. :-[

So just to continue to narrow things down, was this a vanilla issue that was/is being fixed and now I should account for that in faction balance, or is this issue still at large in the current version? To be honest, if its the latter then I'm not really sure what could be causing it other than possibly a miscommunication of the UI regarding the actual d-mod chance. It certainly doesn't seem to meet the average based upon the screenshots though.

From the technical side of things, the only thing I do regarding faction quality is set the quality of the faction for the new factions and in some systems I obviously include nanoforges - including a couple additions to vanilla factions iirc. Though nanoforges are accounted when displaying overall ship quality afaik, so that wouldn't explain the discrepancy.

I'll try and investigate a bit tomorrow when I also look into bomber stuff that was relatively recently discussed. That's the current plan anyway. I spent quite a bit of time diving into more skill work today and I'm feeling pretty satisfied with the final-ish results. Once I'm 100% sure I'm done I will post some screenshots of the changes - there are specifically a lot of changes to Industry to discuss/showcase.

I've also completed ~75% of the new variants for the new ships that came with the last official Starsector update.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 23, 2022, 02:09:05 AM
Quote
To answer regarding ECM: hopefully? The past link was about the skill not unapplying I thought- because it was removed via console commands (which presumably doesn't call the relevant code). The fact that the bonus was 0% was not intended as it was supposed to be 5% (or half of the standard value). That part has been fixed at least. If you are respeccing skills via the normal method and the 5% bonus (instead of 10%) is still showing up under the same circumstances, then that is a separate issue that I'll need to try and handle if I can.

The issue actually occurs before I'm messing with the console command. It might be related to the skill not being applied correctly. So this one can be put on hold. I will reconfirm it when your new version comes out.

Quote
So just to continue to narrow things down, was this a vanilla issue that was/is being fixed and now I should account for that in faction balance, or is this issue still at large in the current version? To be honest, if its the latter then I'm not really sure what could be causing it other than possibly a miscommunication of the UI regarding the actual d-mod chance. It certainly doesn't seem to meet the average based upon the screenshots though.

This issue is exclusive to your mod. I never encounter it in vanilla or in other combinations of mods. It might be that it doesn't pull the quality value properly or there's no D-mods version of the ship to choose from? or they don't know the new modified D-mods? Also adding or removing nano forge (by stealing) doesn't affect the D-mods. Most of the factions have quality over 100% so they will be fine even with this bug initially but if the player stole the nano forge the quality issue will not be reflected correctly as well.

I haven't tested this on .1a yet. I will try to test it today.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 23, 2022, 08:38:23 AM
@Albreo

Hmm, ok thanks for bringing it up again. I'll run some tests and I posted on the misc modding thread to see if I can get any insight in the meantime. It's weird because afaik this always worked in the past when I ran campaign tests.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: memeextremist on January 23, 2022, 10:23:41 AM
In vanilla those ships had good range and were very agile, making it hard to hit them long enough to drop their shields, and they did constant dmg to me, since they had good range and unlimited energy rockets and torpedoes.

In TC, player can get weapons with range that is greater than vanilla allowed, plus ships generally have more weapon turrets and unlimited missiles too, some with good range. So, i feel like my ships were upgraded, but those enemy ships still use vanilla weapons, actually.
Also in TC player have a lot more fighters to fight NPC fighter-shards and a lot more PD weapons, and PD is generally more efficient than vanilla, so those fighter-shards are not as dangerous as in vanilla.

In vanilla i used Radiant (and Prometheus Mk2, Dominator and several other cruisers) with plasma throwers and rapid fire lasers against those NPC ships, and they almost killed my Radiant (which is strongest ship in vanilla). In TC NPC couldn't even make a dent in my armor (which is also a lot thicker than vanilla), although i haven't used Radiant. I used Tyrant, Megalith, Odyssey, Revenant and some cruisers, because i expected a real tough fight, so i threw everything i had at them.
same experience tbh. iirc, a couple of weeks ago I was playing AO with a shunted XIV onslaught and a few capital carriers, and they just got smoked. on non-archean order, they're pretty beast.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 23, 2022, 10:37:21 AM
Only the ship with the (D) variant can spawn with D-mods somehow while others can't. This issue still persists in .1a version tested without Nex. Some pirate variants that can come with D-mods are missing from codex? While Atlas Mk.II that's in the codex can't spawn with D-mods. It might have something to do with the forced apply ship variant or possibly the no auto fit tag preventing D-mods from being added during generation.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 27, 2022, 06:01:39 AM
Is there a way to get somewhere a list of all modded hullIds? I want to add it to Industrial Revolution whitelist for reverse engineering.

Oh, Excel actually helped me with that.

So it should be 208 ships, if i remove all station hullIds and modules, right?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 27, 2022, 04:33:16 PM
i just noticed that when i salvage derelict probes, ships and motherships i only get resources. Not a single weapon or blueprint or anything. Is it supposed to be that way?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2022, 09:02:43 AM
In vanilla those ships had good range and were very agile, making it hard to hit them long enough to drop their shields, and they did constant dmg to me, since they had good range and unlimited energy rockets and torpedoes.

In TC, player can get weapons with range that is greater than vanilla allowed, plus ships generally have more weapon turrets and unlimited missiles too, some with good range. So, i feel like my ships were upgraded, but those enemy ships still use vanilla weapons, actually.
Also in TC player have a lot more fighters to fight NPC fighter-shards and a lot more PD weapons, and PD is generally more efficient than vanilla, so those fighter-shards are not as dangerous as in vanilla.

In vanilla i used Radiant (and Prometheus Mk2, Dominator and several other cruisers) with plasma throwers and rapid fire lasers against those NPC ships, and they almost killed my Radiant (which is strongest ship in vanilla). In TC NPC couldn't even make a dent in my armor (which is also a lot thicker than vanilla), although i haven't used Radiant. I used Tyrant, Megalith, Odyssey, Revenant and some cruisers, because i expected a real tough fight, so i threw everything i had at them.
same experience tbh. iirc, a couple of weeks ago I was playing AO with a shunted XIV onslaught and a few capital carriers, and they just got smoked. on non-archean order, they're pretty beast.

I'm addressing this in the next update. Thanks for the feedback!

Only the ship with the (D) variant can spawn with D-mods somehow while others can't. This issue still persists in .1a version tested without Nex. Some pirate variants that can come with D-mods are missing from codex? While Atlas Mk.II that's in the codex can't spawn with D-mods. It might have something to do with the forced apply ship variant or possibly the no auto fit tag preventing D-mods from being added during generation.

I asked about this and didn't get a response so I'm not really sure what to do other than try to remove "no_autofit" and see if that changes anything. If that turns out to be the culprit then I will have to either add variants with d-mods to the relevant factions or just ignore it.

I can't remove the no_autofit tag as the default though. Its just too important to ensure the variants work correctly under AI control. The autofit system is fine for vanilla but it really doesn't work well with the mod in the majority of cases - especially as ships get larger. (Though there is a config option in settings to remove the tag anyway. You could try that and see if it effects anything while I get the other stuff finished up but no worries if you don't feel like messing with it further.)

Is there a way to get somewhere a list of all modded hullIds? I want to add it to Industrial Revolution whitelist for reverse engineering.

Oh, Excel actually helped me with that.

So it should be 208 ships, if i remove all station hullIds and modules, right?

Sounds about right, yeah. You are including the skin file ids with that number, correct?

i just noticed that when i salvage derelict probes, ships and motherships i only get resources. Not a single weapon or blueprint or anything. Is it supposed to be that way?

I believe so. You get blueprints from techmining, weapon caches iirc, raiding, missions (I think), and possibly some scripted encounters. Do you find blueprints from salvaging derelicts in vanilla? I don't think I have yet in my playthrough but its not like I've gone really far out of the core yet.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 28, 2022, 09:26:01 AM
i dont remember about blueprints, but maybe some occasional rare weapon drop should be added based on what derelict i salvage?
Like probe is minimal chance to get any weapon,
ship - low chance of mid-game weapons up to medium size,
and motherships - low chance of rare weapons up to large size and slightly higher than low chance of several medium weapons + extremely low chance of single legendary weapon.

Derelicts supposed to be Domain-era and space usually preserves things quite well, so its kinda strange to not see anything weapon related.

And for ships whitelist i opened ships.csv with Excel, took Id column and posted it in I.E's whitelist file, removed anything related to "modules" and "station". In other ships' files those were called "hullIds". I wasn't including anything else, since it was a whitelist for reverse engineering feature, so it only needed a sort of permission on which Ids to perform that feature. Didn't added to whitelist anything except those Ids. Seems to be working fine.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2022, 11:54:57 AM
i dont remember about blueprints, but maybe some occasional rare weapon drop should be added based on what derelict i salvage?
Like probe is minimal chance to get any weapon,
ship - low chance of mid-game weapons up to medium size,
and motherships - low chance of rare weapons up to large size and slightly higher than low chance of several medium weapons + extremely low chance of single legendary weapon.

Derelicts supposed to be Domain-era and space usually preserves things quite well, so its kinda strange to not see anything weapon related.

This would be neat, but I'm not sure I'm up for the work of replacing all the vanilla systems required to make that happen. At least not until a lot of other things are done anyway. It wouldn't be a trivial to do I'd imagine.



In the simulator it now takes a full deployment of ships to take on two SUPER REDACTED destroyers. Under complete AI control, the destroyers win either with very little hull remaining or maybe one of the destroyers "splitting" before the battle's end. I've tested with multiple fleet compositions of all techs and this seems to be a fairly reliable outcome. Granted this is unofficered ships so I may need to further buff SUPER REDACTED as a whole. Their unique weapons remain unchanged. They have instead had some pretty sizeable buffs to speed and general defenses. I've also made their shields 360 degrees alongside some built-in stats to greatly reduce the impact that strike craft have on them.

There are a few other balance ideas I'd like to implement today - one of which being another pass at bombers and legendary wings based upon recent feedback and some potential frigate class changes. I think I finally have a way of addressing the balance concerns of higher tier craft that won't break other areas of general balance - such as frigates.

We will see how it turns out.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 28, 2022, 01:09:34 PM
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This would be neat, but I'm not sure I'm up for the work of replacing all the vanilla systems required to make that happen. At least not until a lot of other things are done anyway. It wouldn't be a trivial to do I'd imagine.

Yeah, it depends on how it is realised in game. If its something like a loot table list that gets assigned to certain objects - should be relatively easy. If its made in some other way - its harder.

But i thought vanilla did dropped weapons sometimes from derelicts, no? Maybe its not dropping now because it needs to have new weapon Ids pasted somewhere in whitelist too? Or derelicts never dropped weapons? I think it even dropped AI cores sometimes. But i really dont remember.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 28, 2022, 03:56:45 PM
But i thought vanilla did dropped weapons sometimes from derelicts, no? Maybe its not dropping now because it needs to have new weapon Ids pasted somewhere in whitelist too? Or derelicts never dropped weapons? I think it even dropped AI cores sometimes. But i really dont remember.

I'll have to doublecheck the drop_groups.csv to see if perhaps there were changes that I didn't account for in the update. Iirc there are categories there that are less linked to specific objects and more to general categories (such as salvage) so maybe I can add some things in there easily.

I was more referring to having to replace the classes that use those drop groups in order to pull more things from there - but its possible I don't even have to do that to implement something similar to what you are proposing. I don't think it will make the list today, but next time I work on the mod I'll try and remember to take a look!



Ok, brief summary of changes in the current dev version:

 - Super REDACTED are now extremely difficult to fight and better simulate their in-campaign lore and movements.
 - Bombers and gunships have double or more defenses - replacement rates currently remain unchanged
 - All strike craft deal 50% less damage to frigates and 30% less damage to destroyers.
 - Several Archean Order vessels have reversed their flux management theme (they have massive dissipation and very deep flux pools but take a lot of shield damage per hit)
 - High tech capitals as a whole lose a lot less dissipation when shields are raised.

I'm hoping that this will address a few reported issues. For one, legendary craft should last longer in late game in order to better justify their replacement times. Alongside that theme, the general consensus that bombers were a bit too squishy has also been addressed. Without interceptors or anti-strike-craft fighters it will be hard for ships to shoot down bombers before they can return to their carrier to reload and non-strike gunships will be able to withstand more PD and direct weapon fire. These changes should hopefully not obsolete smaller ship classes due to the fact that those ships take less damage from and deal more damage to strike craft. Capitals will have to rely upon their numerous weapons to fight them off.

The other part of these changes will possibly reduce the likelihood that high tech vessels drop their shields while engaging. I'm testing this using capitals for now as I continue to test super REDACTED.

Next, the issue with Archean Order ships being easy for players to fight due to overfluxing from their weapons should be addressed hopefully without unbalancing the ships when in the player hands or in AI vs AI fights. This is probably the most radical change in the dev mode and I'm uncertain as to how it will go. I could have broken the balance pretty hard with those changes so I'll keep an eye out for feedback and continue to test.

So far from tests I think the Megalith is fine, but I may have to nerf the Apocalypse Cannon and its heavy variant. They are too powerful when they can be continuously fire. The question is whether to nerf damage or range.

Finally, a revamped Industry skill line. Salvaging has been removed and some of its effects have been absorbed by other skills. Some parts were not working correctly and have been adjusted to work as intended. One thing I still can't figure out is how to actually reduce the negative effects of D-mods, so assuming I can't get that part of Field Repairs working I will have to change that effect to something else.

Pics:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/kzfyOCP.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/MjjGKDJ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/rShn4Ub.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/cV9CJWe.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/eKJhwf2.png)
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Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 29, 2022, 01:09:16 AM
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So far from tests I think the Megalith is fine, but I may have to nerf the Apocalypse Cannon and its heavy variant. They are too powerful when they can be continuously fire. The question is whether to nerf damage or range.

I prefer damage reduction. Less damage means less flux and is more manageable by AI.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 29, 2022, 07:05:43 AM
When i referred to Derelicts, i only meant exploration Domain-era Derelicts - probes, ships and motherships. Not every derelicts ships from any battle. Just making sure i`m correctly understood.

If u give fighters a damage reduction against frigates, then those damper frigates packs will be simply unkillable by carrier fleets. Even capital ships have to spend some times to break those damper fields, while using large weapons too. If fighters will be made 50% less usefull against them, that would be a real buff to pirates and nerf to every carrier-fleet faction.

And i see no problem with Apoc cannons, since they are a rare weapons, expensive to craft or buy, plus player needs to upgrade ships to actually withstand flux generation. For example, Heavy obliterator cannons are even more dangerous, since they have huge EMP dmg as well, effectively disabling enemy ships and their weapons, but have a lot less range.
If Apocs will be nerfed, i`ll just switch to Obliterators and disable whole enemy fleets with massive EMP barrage, even if i`ll have to fly closer.

And Apocs dont do nearly as much dmg as a single shot of Atronach Beam weapon. Those are 100% accurate beams of Doom, very good against smaller, faster ships, since Apoc just misses them too much. And also good to burn through big tough enemies, due to huge dmg.

I see no problem with either of those 3 types of weapons, since they serve each their own purpose:
Apoc - long range artillery, inaccurate.
Obliterator - mid range suppression artillery, inaccurate, disables enemy ships.
Atronach - mid range damage-dealer, very accurate, low rate of fire.

I tried replacing Apoc with Obliterator, and due to Obliterator's disabling effect it was even more effective in 1v1 battles. I used Revenant against Paragon, Onslaught and Megalith. Paragon and Megalith had Apocs. And my Revenant with Obliterators still got them, even though he had no officer and had 400 less range on Obliterators compared to Apocs on Megalith and Paragon (their massively larger shields and flux capacitors).

Can't say Apoc is OP, since its just serves its purpose - to shoot far at big slow targets. It doesn't have bigger dmg, since Obliterators have almost same dmg + huge EMP. And single Atronach is 3x times more damaging than Apoc.

To me getting those weapons is just a part of game progression. Since i really could upgrade half of my fleet with those only at around 10 cycles in game. Before that i was only using weapons that i looted. Using those types of guns gives a good range against NPC, but also reduces effectiveness against fighter-swarms and smaller/faster ships (damper fields, phase ships), since artillery-type cannons cant really hit them effectively enough, unless i`m using beams.

Whats the point of having 100+ weapons in game, if there are no good ones (since they will be nerfed). With how slow capitals are, its quite logical for them to have big guns to shoot far.
Nerfing their stats will make some of them simply useless compared to other weapons with larger range. Not to mention u can't put Apoc on Low Tech ships without energy turret slots. Its by default reserved for a higher tech fleets. And what about station defenses if long range cannons will be reduced in range? Or NPC fleets of high-tech factions? It will nerf them too. If Megalith with its speed wont have long range weapon, it will be simply useless in battle.

Capitals should have top-tier weaponry, otherwise whats the point of buy, searching or crafting those rare weapons?

I`d also suggest adding missles some more healthpoints, otherwise they feel quite week compared to how OP PD systems are, not to mention fighters shoot incoming missles too.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 29, 2022, 07:44:31 AM
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So far from tests I think the Megalith is fine, but I may have to nerf the Apocalypse Cannon and its heavy variant. They are too powerful when they can be continuously fire. The question is whether to nerf damage or range.

I prefer damage reduction. Less damage means less flux and is more manageable by AI.

Right now it's only 100 less range and I may lower the fire rate a bit and reduce the flux cost that way. I want the armor penetration to stay the same.

@Stroichik

You have some fair points. Rest assured that the weapon will still be living up to its Legendary status. I dont think it's super OP or anything it's just a tiny.bit too strong and even then only on Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium capitals. Maybe the Paragon too since the variants with Apoc cannons generally performed better than all but the Tach Lance and Beam variants.

I did reduce the Obliterator Cannon damage by 100 because it was too much of a competitor. I will make sure that this doesnt mean high tech ships are worse off but I truly dont think it will. Part of the reason for the change is opening up the Apoc cannon for use on more ships.

As for frigates and carriers, I think carriers actually get a buff from these changes overall. The 50% damage reduction is only so that I can make bombers and gunships very strong.

All that said, more testing is needed on a couple of things.

Do you just mean all missiles? Which ones have you tried?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 29, 2022, 10:05:02 AM
I think ballistic weapons should be boosted a bit. High tech ships are my main firepower, and when i compare them to any low tech variants - low tech is always looser, simply because ballistic and missle categories weapons either have not enough kick against shields or accuracy (ballistics) or can't breach PD systems (missles).

Phase orbs bombers btw are simply useless, compared to them taking 32 OP per squad, and incapable of even hitting Megalith shields 90% of time due to PD. Same goes to phase orb weaponry - its interesting and super longranged, but any PD system shoots it with just 1 hit, so its practically useless. Currently i try to use widow launchers as much as i can, simply because they launch a swarm of fast missles which could at least dmg enemy fighters due to sheer amount of them launched. They are also good at hitting enemy hulls, when shields and armor is down too.

I tried several different missle weapons, dont remember their names, though. But generaly all missles have very poor shielding against PD. So when i choose missle weapons i only look at amount per shot and speed stats, otherwise they wont make it to target. Any solo missle is useless, since even frigates can blow it up with 1 PD hit and capitals got lots of PD + fighters, who shoot missles too.

I tried sending 9 squadron of Dagger Torpedo Bombers against Megalith - it looked scary, but only 1 torpedo actually reached shields, and it wouldn't even harmed him, if shields were dropped. Considering that bombers get blown and next volley won't be as strong - its practiacally safe to say, that any missle-based attacks are always inferior to any other type of attacks, sending heavy gunboats with damper fields would've at least distracted Megalith's PD for a few seconds to let missles from main ship to hit him. Only Squall MRM launchers are good, because they have number per burst of widow launcher and EMP dmg, which disables target's systems for a while. Any other missles, that doesn't fly as fast, or shoots less than 8 rockets per volley 95% never reaches target.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 29, 2022, 11:31:52 AM
A bit weird to see, how Squall missles are circling around target trying to hit its engines, when it have 360 degree arc. I suppose it follows vanilla anti-engine rocket attack pattern, although its current role is anti-shield. That only gives more chances for PD to shoot them all down.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 29, 2022, 02:16:46 PM
I think ballistic weapons should be boosted a bit. High tech ships are my main firepower, and when i compare them to any low tech variants - low tech is always looser, simply because ballistic and missle categories weapons either have not enough kick against shields or accuracy (ballistics) or can't breach PD systems (missles).

Phase orbs bombers btw are simply useless, compared to them taking 32 OP per squad, and incapable of even hitting Megalith shields 90% of time due to PD. Same goes to phase orb weaponry - its interesting and super longranged, but any PD system shoots it with just 1 hit, so its practically useless. Currently i try to use widow launchers as much as i can, simply because they launch a swarm of fast missles which could at least dmg enemy fighters due to sheer amount of them launched. They are also good at hitting enemy hulls, when shields and armor is down too.

I tried several different missle weapons, dont remember their names, though. But generaly all missles have very poor shielding against PD. So when i choose missle weapons i only look at amount per shot and speed stats, otherwise they wont make it to target. Any solo missle is useless, since even frigates can blow it up with 1 PD hit and capitals got lots of PD + fighters, who shoot missles too.

I tried sending 9 squadron of Dagger Torpedo Bombers against Megalith - it looked scary, but only 1 torpedo actually reached shields, and it wouldn't even harmed him, if shields were dropped. Considering that bombers get blown and next volley won't be as strong - its practiacally safe to say, that any missle-based attacks are always inferior to any other type of attacks, sending heavy gunboats with damper fields would've at least distracted Megalith's PD for a few seconds to let missles from main ship to hit him. Only Squall MRM launchers are good, because they have number per burst of widow launcher and EMP dmg, which disables target's systems for a while. Any other missles, that doesn't fly as fast, or shoots less than 8 rockets per volley 95% never reaches target.

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with ballistic weapons being worse than energy weapons or low tech ships being worse than high tech. Low tech armor is no joke and their weapons are far less flux hungry and are generally more damaging when hitting their intended defense type than energy weapons. Low tech will often lose to high tech 1v1, but that is because high tech costs more to deploy and balance is intended to align with the DP value. What role the ship is intended to serve will also factor in the 1v1 engagements and I can generally start a 4v4 or 5v5 using the exact same starting variants of low tech vs high tech and have 3 or more varying outcomes where each tech can win under purely AI control.

It could possibly be that recent changes have brought this out of the refined balance state I had last time I was extensive testing, but iirc I specifically limited balance changes for that reason so that I could get additional feedback. I'll monitor it as I'm testing carrier changes. So far, however, the balance seems good ship-wise.

One of the things I wanted to do with the carrier changes is boost the missile hp so that PD cannot mitigate much of the strike craft based munitions. The primary point of feedback I got from multiple players was that bombers needed to have more of an impact. Gunships seemed like they needed more staying power - especially legendary variants - and since the damage reduction on frigates and destroyers eases the restrictions that had to be placed on carrier based power (since it is so easy to concentrate it at long range), I can hopefully get away with a significant power boost to carrier strikes without making them OP. The general goal is to make them feel more satisfying and reliable without making them too spam-able or always the obvious choice in a fleet composition.

I'll look at missile hp for ship weapons. The thing you have to remember is that they tend to have far longer range, accuracy, and are often flux free compared to other weapons. So unless there is some way to mitigate them they will just be the best weapon category. PD has had some recent changes in efficacy though - so its worth taking a look.

A bit weird to see, how Squall missles are circling around target trying to hit its engines, when it have 360 degree arc. I suppose it follows vanilla anti-engine rocket attack pattern, although its current role is anti-shield. That only gives more chances for PD to shoot them all down.

Since this is not the first time this has come up (its been mentioned as confusing several times I think) I am going to change to weapon to a SRM anti-shield missile system that fires directly at the target. That sort of weapon doesn't currently exist and the Salamander may be too overshadowed by the Squall as an interdiction weapon anyway. The Squall was also too strong against ships without 360 degree shields - especially ones with front shields that cant be redirected to cover the engines.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 29, 2022, 06:37:33 PM
I pitted my Revenant without officer against 2 Elite Onslaughts XIV. And he won. Same with 1v2 Pillagers, even easier.

I put 1 Megalith (no officer) without any Apocs against 3 Onslaughts XIV - 2 Elite ones and 1 Assault. They had bigger range and same speed. Megalith won.

Low tech ships usually have less OP and about twice less Flux capacity. So even if ballistics generate slightly less flux, Low Tech ships have less points to spend on either Flux management or weapon caliber. Plus ballistic weapons are either good against shields or against armor, while energy weapons are equally good against anything + some of them have EMP bonus.

Maybe i haven't found all legendary ballistic weapons yet, but so far i haven't seen any Low Tech that could threaten any of my high tech ones. Except for Legion, but Legion is good all by itself.

---

Yeah i understand that missles have long range and are no longer limited for a battle, but if they can't dmg anything that is not disabled but EMP, then they are practically useless.
So some little tweaks are needed. So far only missles that hit targets - are those that are fired either in huge volleys, maybe even from several launchers at same time, or fired at point blank range (like how AD missle cruisers do with Reaper torps, now thats dangerous, but those cruisers die after first volley(point blank range)). So far its Squall and Widow.

Also, Resonator MRM are actually the only medium volley missles that are also good - i`ve seen them hit targets at least with some realism (not all of them make past PD, but at least its not 1 out of 4). They dropped from Hypershunt Remnant ships.

--

Considering changing Squall's attack pattern, if they are gonna behave like Widow - it`ll be grand. But i think the would also need to have reduced EMP dmg (and/or disabling arc chance), otherwise its too imbalanced with how many of them you shoot.

Actually having anti-engine swarm rockets is nice too, it gives option to control enemy ship's movement.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 29, 2022, 09:10:25 PM
The problem with Apocalypse doesn't lie with players but AI. It will shoot those until its flux bottom out and die in a flash due to flux overload. Since AO ship is also paper-thin, it doesn't help out. It's a long-standing issue and he's trying to fix it. But boosting Dissipation and flux pool really going to be hard to balance in my opinion.

Revenant is fast of course it can kite slow stock Onslaughts with ease. For Megalith, my Legion can snipe it with no damage. It's all depends on loadout and your understanding of weapons. And these stock ships tend to be milder at my request else the players won't feel good being able to beat it with their own loadout or being able to make a stronger ship. Due to that, stock ships tend to be filled with a lot of PD so that their damage won't be too crazy. Talking about Obliterator, no, it's still not the strongest weapon. There's another one in plain sight. Super strong when arrange correctly.

Now on to missiles, it is indeed correct that missile has to be fired in huge volley to make it effective. It really won't shine in a 1v1 situation but in a big battle where most ships PD are occupied, these missiles can output insane damage in a single volley. Also do keep in mind that this mod is vastly different from vanilla. Fire support is a thing. The battle is consist of the front line and the backline. It's very distinct in this mod.

Squall, with the current interdiction pattern, is already strong in itself. In a 1v1 situation, it's pretty much the deciding factor by preventing the enemy ship from retreating and also making them rotate awkwardly so that some weapon can't be pointed at you.
Harpoon is my favorite right now. Putting 4 of these on Astral and watching it wreck an entire battle with fire support. Simply MVP in damage contribution.
Atropos can delete a capital ship in one salvo. I put it on my Executor. AI generally knows to use it well when the shield is down.
Thunderbolt is also very useful long-range fire support. Don't have to be fired in salvo at all.
Sabot combined with Ionized Warheads Hull mod is probably the most OP thing you can put on your ship. Perma EMP stun lock. Don't talk about 1v1 you can go for 1v4 instead.
Rupture, good stuff, no flux cost. This is the best missile for Doom.
Shockstorm, very strong shield breaching burst missile. Useful for frigate->cruiser.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 30, 2022, 08:32:22 AM
I pitted my Revenant without officer against 2 Elite Onslaughts XIV. And he won. Same with 1v2 Pillagers, even easier.

I put 1 Megalith (no officer) without any Apocs against 3 Onslaughts XIV - 2 Elite ones and 1 Assault. They had bigger range and same speed. Megalith won.

Low tech ships usually have less OP and about twice less Flux capacity. So even if ballistics generate slightly less flux, Low Tech ships have less points to spend on either Flux management or weapon caliber. Plus ballistic weapons are either good against shields or against armor, while energy weapons are equally good against anything + some of them have EMP bonus.

Maybe i haven't found all legendary ballistic weapons yet, but so far i haven't seen any Low Tech that could threaten any of my high tech ones. Except for Legion, but Legion is good all by itself.
Hmm. I don't know what your builds are, but that is definitely not what I'm seeing in the dev version. I tried those exact tests and the high tech ships get easily demolished within seconds. The Megalith got half the hull of one of the Onslaughts (it had Apocs) but the second use of Combat Capacitors and the Onslaughts finished off the Megalith easily.

Now to be fair, I did a weapon pass last night and made some changes to how a lot of strike weapons work and lowered the dps of the Obliterator and the sustained dps of several other energy weapons.

I also slightly increased the dps of the MarkIX and Devastator and the large ballistic strike weapons deal their damage out over a longer period of time. That was a change I made for a lot of strike weapons. I think strike builds were a little too strong with some weapons able to deal 3000dps upon the point of contact. Now its more along the lines of double or triple the sustained dps for generally about 15 seconds or so. It seems to work a lot more smoothly.

There will certainly be changes to all the battlecarriers with the gunship and bomber buff. They are currently way too powerful and will need some stat adjustments. Legion is probably going to go up to 38-40 dp. Its one strong ship.

Onslaught will probably get a max flux and dissipation boost so that the AI will retreat with it a bit less and let its damage potential be more of a factor.

Quote
Yeah i understand that missles have long range and are no longer limited for a battle, but if they can't dmg anything that is not disabled but EMP, then they are practically useless.
So some little tweaks are needed. So far only missles that hit targets - are those that are fired either in huge volleys, maybe even from several launchers at same time, or fired at point blank range (like how AD missle cruisers do with Reaper torps, now thats dangerous, but those cruisers die after first volley(point blank range)). So far its Squall and Widow.

Also, Resonator MRM are actually the only medium volley missles that are also good - i`ve seen them hit targets at least with some realism (not all of them make past PD, but at least its not 1 out of 4). They dropped from Hypershunt Remnant ships.

--

Considering changing Squall's attack pattern, if they are gonna behave like Widow - it`ll be grand. But i think the would also need to have reduced EMP dmg (and/or disabling arc chance), otherwise its too imbalanced with how many of them you shoot.

Actually having anti-engine swarm rockets is nice too, it gives option to control enemy ship's movement.
Now on to missiles, it is indeed correct that missile has to be fired in huge volley to make it effective. It really won't shine in a 1v1 situation but in a big battle where most ships PD are occupied, these missiles can output insane damage in a single volley. Also do keep in mind that this mod is vastly different from vanilla. Fire support is a thing. The battle is consist of the front line and the backline. It's very distinct in this mod.

Squall, with the current interdiction pattern, is already strong in itself. In a 1v1 situation, it's pretty much the deciding factor by preventing the enemy ship from retreating and also making them rotate awkwardly so that some weapon can't be pointed at you.
Harpoon is my favorite right now. Putting 4 of these on Astral and watching it wreck an entire battle with fire support. Simply MVP in damage contribution.
Atropos can delete a capital ship in one salvo. I put it on my Executor. AI generally knows to use it well when the shield is down.
Thunderbolt is also very useful long-range fire support. Don't have to be fired in salvo at all.
Sabot combined with Ionized Warheads Hull mod is probably the most OP thing you can put on your ship. Perma EMP stun lock. Don't talk about 1v1 you can go for 1v4 instead.
Rupture, good stuff, no flux cost. This is the best missile for Doom.
Shockstorm, very strong shield breaching burst missile. Useful for frigate->cruiser.
After some brief testing last night, I think a boost for some missiles durability isn't out of the question. Its mostly rockets and SRMs that need it the most. I may boost torps a bit but that is a slippery slope too.

I buffed the Hivemind and ran some simulations and while its better at hitting things I'm worried about how strong it will be when massed. 4 of them can grind down capitals unless the Megalith is destroyed so I can imagine that frigate and destroyers will have a very hard time.

I do like the Squall change. It is a very reliable anti-shield/suppression missile at a relatively short range for a missile. As Albreo already said it was too pivotal to a fight before. The presence of the weapon could make 1v1 an instant win against too many ships. I think it should be a lot better now.

Quote
The problem with Apocalypse doesn't lie with players but AI. It will shoot those until its flux bottom out and die in a flash due to flux overload. Since AO ship is also paper-thin, it doesn't help out. It's a long-standing issue and he's trying to fix it. But boosting Dissipation and flux pool really going to be hard to balance in my opinion.

Revenant is fast of course it can kite slow stock Onslaughts with ease. For Megalith, my Legion can snipe it with no damage. It's all depends on loadout and your understanding of weapons. And these stock ships tend to be milder at my request else the players won't feel good being able to beat it with their own loadout or being able to make a stronger ship. Due to that, stock ships tend to be filled with a lot of PD so that their damage won't be too crazy. Talking about Obliterator, no, it's still not the strongest weapon. There's another one in plain sight. Super strong when arrange correctly.

Razor? Also I could see the Excalibur as it hits like a truck at good range and flux efficiency.

Anyway, the Megalith, Revenant and Justicar changes seem really good atm. They are better differentiated from the typical tech theme that Tri-Tachyon uses (very efficient shield and fast) and are now the go to ships for flux hungry weapons but they rely on a very deep flux pool for defense.

Take the Megalith: its shields are still very strong because of the huge flux pool, but despite having enough dissipation to efficiently fire several Apocalypse Cannons it cannot vent its flux build up as quickly as most other capitals. This means that faster capitals like the Paragon can keep enough pressure on the shields to wear it down. In other words, its no longer overfluxed for a cheap win but its not invincible because of that fact. Its shields can be broken with concentrated fire and it has a trade off for its large dissipation in that it cannot recover its shields as quickly once they are stressed.

I still want to test various things more and like I already mentioned I will have to change lots of things now that gunships and bombers are stronger. Even small changes cascade into other areas of balance and these were not small changes. I think it will turn out for the best though.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Stroichik on January 31, 2022, 01:21:25 PM
Hmm. i explored half of Sector, but haven't seen any High-danger system. Was this tweaked or am i just unlucky?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 31, 2022, 02:14:13 PM
Hmm. i explored half of Sector, but haven't seen any High-danger system. Was this tweaked or am i just unlucky?

You should just be unlucky I dont adjust that at all.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: 5ColouredWalker on January 31, 2022, 06:14:31 PM
Confirming, just unlucky.

As for missiles, while they're theoretically long ranged, I only use them as point blanks. I find that they're too slow, adjusting hp or speed would work.

That said, if you can get them off, they work well as strike weapons, generally dumping more raw damage in then other weapons.


As for high tech vs low, I find reduced flux cap and high flux/damage conversion ruins many low tech ships, but not all.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on January 31, 2022, 06:53:17 PM
I've only gotten through small and about halfway through medium missiles, but I'm making some reliability adjustments and offsetting the net power increase by preventing some missiles from being spammed quite as much. Those have turned into more general assault weapons. The small rapier, annihilator and swarmer are examples. I also increased speed for the rapier and annihilator.

For long range missiles, I can increase hitpoints only if I make them more clip based rather than able to dump a whole salvo at once. So there could either be missiles that can be massively spammed to kill overloaded ships but are easily mitigated or less easily mitigated but less easily spammed. Or, really, something in between.

I also worked on the Thunderbolt aand Hurricane yet again. I cant seem to stay satisfied with those when considering looks and functionality both. Hopefully I've hit a real sweet spot this time but I'll wait for feedback once I release this version.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on January 31, 2022, 10:52:12 PM
I noticed I rarely use any of the small missiles. It seems to stem from the lack of small missile slots on capital class. What do you think about having some of the small ballistic and energy slots become hybrid? Of course, it doesn't have to be available on every ship. On other hull sizes, if the slot is too few, I also won't feel like using the missile much. I would just slap some PD missile, Ion torp or Shockstorm.

Also, to comment on a few missiles that I deem poor:
Hivemind has very poor performance. It's good that it shouldn't be spam able but it also barely hit anything. The bomblet is too fragile and can be easily intercepted by craft in a big fight. Flux cost to performance is also undesirable.
Cloudburst is very problematic. It seems that AI doesn't like to use it much. I have tried various ways to coax it to use. Seems like, the only way is to pair it with other weapons and force fire together. A longer range around 2000 would be preferred.
Hurricane also suffers a lot like Hivemind. It's easily intercepted couple with a slow rate of fire. The point of intercept for this Hurricane should be when it's still whole. Once split it should barely be interceptable. The mini-missile also doesn't look imposing, unbefitting large weapon. If you could make the white trail slimmer plus more prominent and the speed extremely quick. It would look cooler.
Fury flux cost is a tad bit too high IMO. I tried using it a few times and it doesn't worth it.


Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 01, 2022, 09:47:38 AM
@Albreo

As far as composite/synergy mounts, I might do that for a couple of ships where it fits thematically. The Hivemind is definitely tankier now I just have to find the right burst size.

I too notice the AIs stubborness at using the Cloudburst. I will probably increase the range to 1500 or 1800 similar to where the Squall currently is at.

The Hurricane (and Thunderbolt) now has a much higher secondary stage speed and its arc spread is more designed to spread around the ship rather than simply spread out to avoid concentrated pd. I've also increased the Hurricanes damage per each secondary missile by 50% so it destroys armor a lot better around the ship. Its also durable enough to reliably hit each time unless the first stage missile collides with something.

The Thunderbolt is more mitigatable by larger pd, but its still pretty reliable now even in larger fights. To offset this I reduced the EMP component by half and changed the medium and large versions to be less spammable. I cant remember if I also increased flux costs but I probably did. That said, the AI is more than willing to use it on cooldown in the situations I've tested.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 01, 2022, 01:43:51 PM
The mini-missile also doesn't look imposing, unbefitting large weapon. If you could make the white trail slimmer plus more prominent and the speed extremely quick. It would look cooler.
Fury flux cost is a tad bit too high IMO. I tried using it a few times and it doesn't worth it.

I made the Hurricane second stage and the Firestorm use red engines to make them more distinct and menacing. They also move a lot faster. The change better indicates to the player intuitively that these are heavy hitting anti-armor missiles because they look roughly along the same lines as shots from ballistics like the Guillotine and Devastator so there were several different reasons to do this.

If it wasn't so time consuming to make them, post them and link them, etc, I'd make a demonstration video because I think they look really cool now. I'll use the time to continue to balance instead.  :P

I'm surprised you don't like the Fury though. When I test the Executor variants that use them they are very effective especially vs high tech ships. The flux cost is pretty high, true, but until this missile rework it was one of the most reliable rockets available. Even after the missile rework I still think it will be strong.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on February 01, 2022, 08:16:13 PM
If it wasn't so time consuming to make them, post them and link them, etc, I'd make a demonstration video because I think they look really cool now. I'll use the time to continue to balance instead.  :P

There actually a lot of utility programs out there that can capture GIFs directly from the screen. I believe it would be a lot quicker than uploading a video.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 02, 2022, 08:05:05 AM
There actually a lot of utility programs out there that can capture GIFs directly from the screen. I believe it would be a lot quicker than uploading a video.

Throw one out there and I'll give it a try. I tried Gifcam a while back and wasn't very satisfied with the results.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on February 02, 2022, 08:32:10 PM
I use this one before but I can't find a way to tap into the game screen lol.

https://github.com/NickeManarin/ScreenToGif/releases/tag/2.35.4
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 03, 2022, 11:59:45 AM
I use this one before but I can't find a way to tap into the game screen lol.

Thats the same problem I have with Obs! It only works sporatically.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Sutech on February 06, 2022, 09:46:43 AM
Hi, have a problem with Starship Legends - when i check SS its uncheck Archean and counteractive, in "mods" before i start game, any ideas how to fix?
thx and have nice day.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 06, 2022, 12:36:12 PM
Hi, have a problem with Starship Legends - when i check SS its uncheck Archean and counteractive, in "mods" before i start game, any ideas how to fix?
thx and have nice day.

Hi!

Check under "Directions to Enable Nexerelin and Other Non-Utility Mods" on the main mod page. That should guide you through enabling more mod merging capability.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 07, 2022, 01:22:22 PM
Progress update on missiles:

Well, it was as I feared. Buffing missiles' durability has made them extremely dangerous especially when saturating a single target at long range. Here are some pics of the newly updated Hurricane and a showcase of its new power:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/zSJ8Zhv.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Dm7QpSI.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/hGWty5e.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/EP0rAjI.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/OqshT77.png)
[close]

This doesn't really give much indication of the overall speed, so this next set should help clarify a bit:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/cb3jPxD.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/mchE5vw.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/OjtIx9u.png)
[close]

 - so even when initially dodged the the secondary missiles have enough tracking and speed to turn around and hit the target very quickly.

Ok, now that I've established the concern and briefly showcased how a lot of changes ended up working to make missiles reliable and deadly, I wanted to take a moment to discuss solutions to preventing them from just being the best weapon type over energy and ballistic weapons. Essentially the problem is two-fold: 1) easily mitigated missiles are technically balanced but unfun and frustrating for the player as a whole, and 2) durable missiles are also frustrating for the player because they lose ships a lot more quickly to LRMs or torpedo spam and can be used to somewhat exploit the AI too easily.

It seemed like a real catch-22 situation at first. Therefore, I decided to approach the problem from a completely different angle and incorporate it into the mod's "ship role system" in a more concrete and obvious way. For those unfamiliar with what I'm referring to, ship roles in the mod are often more strictly defined fleet synergies that have obvious strengths and weaknesses. For example, a fire support artillery ship can support assault ships from a distance very well, but often will struggle with a direct confrontation from an enemy assault ship in return and needs an allied assault ship to support it. Carriers work similarly.

Back to the problem. I have decided that the best way to tackle missile defense is to create a more dedicated support role around it. For those who use or have used Integrated Defense AI in the past, that was a rough first implementation of this idea. Here is the new and hopefully more refined version with a new name that makes it more obvious:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/e4HvM56.png)
[close]

And finally, a change to Carrier Bays that makes interceptor and fighter-based carriers more appealing in some situations:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/GLSyXfx.png)
[close]

These two new mechanics should ideally come together to make missiles not too scary in every battle whilst simultaneously fleshing out the PD support role a bit. The trick now is making sure that NPC fleets have access to these. Carriers obviously won't need adjustments as plenty of Interceptor-based builds are already in faction fleets. I'll have to slowly build in more builds using the PD support hullmod, however.

Feedback welcome!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Albreo on February 07, 2022, 08:37:59 PM
Hurricane's submunition turn rate should be nerfed by a lot. It doesn't look good if it can even turn around to hit the engine. Hopefully, it won't be too effective on a fast smaller ship. You could consider it as a fire support weapon now and bump up the flux/damage ratio to be in line with artillery. Also, do test in presence of interceptors as well.

Torpedo spam is a thing..., well I believe, reducing its charge by half would be a good starter. So, you're going to have to use the hull mod to bump it back up.

Missile interdiction hull mod: No love for beam? I think the damage reduction and flux increase are quite excessive, I can't come to terms with it. I mean it is only supposed to reroute the power. Reduce the fire rate some more instead and maybe prevent the ship from equipping medium size and larger non-PD weapons? Can it be done with Hull mod? For example, double the cost to equip. Or half ship flux pool.

Is it possible to have a missile to missile PD? Will it be too crazy on CPU?

Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2022, 12:24:55 PM
Hurricane's submunition turn rate should be nerfed by a lot. It doesn't look good if it can even turn around to hit the engine. Hopefully, it won't be too effective on a fast smaller ship. You could consider it as a fire support weapon now and bump up the flux/damage ratio to be in line with artillery. Also, do test in presence of interceptors as well.
That might be better as long as it keeps the general look of the weapon. I can then see about changing the AI to use it mostly against non-frigate targets. I definitely plan on testing interceptor carriers a bit more too.

Quote
Torpedo spam is a thing..., well I believe, reducing its charge by half would be a good starter. So, you're going to have to use the hull mod to bump it back up.
Torpedoes are more difficult to spam now- but they hit more reliably and shields are required to tank some damage most of the time. They seem fairly balanced but I haven't tried large fleet engagements yet.

Quote
Missile interdiction hull mod: No love for beam? I think the damage reduction and flux increase are quite excessive, I can't come to terms with it. I mean it is only supposed to reroute the power. Reduce the fire rate some more instead and maybe prevent the ship from equipping medium size and larger non-PD weapons? Can it be done with Hull mod? For example, double the cost to equip. Or half ship flux pool.
PD beams are already boosted by Advanced Optics with its own set of downsides as a result. PD beams are also generally really good against missiles to begin with - though I may have that hullmod boost their damage to missiles a bit to make it more comparable. Accuracy-wise, however, there isn't a question in my mind that beams perform better than projectile PD weapons. Therefore the range boost from the Missile Interdiction Refit hullmod is too unreasonable for me to be able to keep PD beams balanced.

As far as the downsides go, I definitely understand that on paper it seems like steep penalties for what you are getting in return - and they are harsh its true. However, I found that I actually had to make them that harsh because ships that used the hullmod with high dps PD like the Cutlass Laser or, alternatively, with Integrated Point Defense AI to make small assault weapons PD and therefore also benefitting from the range boost - were way too strong. They could constantly pressure with zero-flux weapons for reasonable damage at extremely long range. They made artillery look terrible in comparison. Ships with the hullmod are supposed to be supporting other ships since PD weapons can fire through allies. Their weapons should support other ships with a small amount of dps, but in a 1v1 situation against an assault ship the support ship should have a really hard time coming out on top.

Your suggestions, while they would be a better solution, are not possible with the API - at least not without doing things that probably shouldn't be done with a hullmod that is removable and not built-in. I'm not 100% sure its possible to do that even then since I don't think you can prevent weapons from being installed that way. I could make the OP really high and I might even be able to differentiate between non-pd and pd weapons doing that I can't remember off hand, but nothing prevents the player from installing the weapons first and then installing the hullmod. So it really doesn't work in practice.

Quote
Is it possible to have a missile to missile PD? Will it be too crazy on CPU?
I assume you mean missiles with tracking? There are already several PD missiles in the mod. The Trapdoor and Smokescreen, for instance. As far as tracking goes, I don't think it would be too CPU heavy but I don't think it would work very well either. The way that missiles maneuver isn't predictive enough to make that work well and thrust is only coming from a single direction instead of omni-directional which is what would be required I think. Either that, or the missile would need to have a crazy amount of AOE and trigger within that circle. Even then I don't think it would be great at stopping things like rockets.

What I could possibly do is something like make a launcher that launches flares that the missile redirects to though. That would probably work a lot better mechanically. The only issue is that it would undermine the flare ship systems a bit.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 08, 2022, 02:01:53 PM
I completely forgot to mention this:

The other day, I finally discovered why the Obliterator Cannon, Bolter, etc, are more powerful than intended despite reasonable looking stats! It was actually a bug. The damage from each hit was being distributed in full each time an emp arc would proc! Definitely an oversight there on my part.

I've changed it to only deal 1/10th of the damage when the emp arc hits but with the full emp component. That, along with some other changes to ships in the works, should help even out the energy weapon line-up.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Sythion on February 09, 2022, 06:20:15 AM
I'd like to start by saying thanks for making this, I'm having a ton of fun!

Something I noticed, and am curious if intentional or an oversight, when running Commissioned Crews mod alongside this, the modded factions (At least AO itself and Trader Guild anyway, haven't gotten on good terms with the other two) Offer a crew bonus but the description is too vague to convey what it gives.

I was able to find out Trader is +hull, but couldn't understand what AO buffed. Would it be possible to add the information  in a future patch?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 10, 2022, 12:33:43 PM
I'd like to start by saying thanks for making this, I'm having a ton of fun!

Something I noticed, and am curious if intentional or an oversight, when running Commissioned Crews mod alongside this, the modded factions (At least AO itself and Trader Guild anyway, haven't gotten on good terms with the other two) Offer a crew bonus but the description is too vague to convey what it gives.

I was able to find out Trader is +hull, but couldn't understand what AO buffed. Would it be possible to add the information  in a future patch?

First off, I'm glad you are having fun!

If I'm remembering this correctly I think that all the 3 other factions "bonus" are the same - a 20% or 10% increase to hull or something like that. Those are definitely just placeholders!

The only actual bonus that has been mostly fleshed out is the Adamantine Consortium. I got redirected to a bunch of other stuff in the middle of making the other 3 and so they were put on hold. Honestly thanks for reminding me about it!

I'm currently going through a station balance pass since the weapon changes of course broke things again. Once I'm done with that, and with fixing the issues with the Guardian not spawning drones and attempt to address to the ship quality issue (which I may have my hands tied if it is, indeed, no_autofit causing it) I will try and work on those some more.

Just generally to everyone: I apologize that all of this is taking a while. I've taken a step back and made this project more of a hobby than a full time endeavor. I'm still trying to spend ~10 hrs a week on it, but that's a lot different than, say, 50 or 60 hrs a week that I was spending at the height of building and designing some of this stuff.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 13, 2022, 02:15:35 PM
Progress update:

TLDR: Here is some of my thought process on station balance and a few concrete changes already in the dev version, and I'm hoping to have an update available in a couple of weeks.

Anytime I make significant changes to weapons, stations become very unbalanced. Mostly this is because station mechanics are complex. A lot of the balance comes down to small things. For instance, when ships are facing a primary weapon battery module, the only thing that matters most of the time is: 1) can the ships get there before they have high enough flux or are otherwise armor stripped? and 2) do they then have enough dps to cause significant or fatal damage during that brief window before they have to retreat? This concept will come up again later in this post.

I've had recommendations in the past to not worry about station balance too much as station battles are often not player-facing unless the player is assaulting another faction's station. I agree that the point has a good deal of merit, but I'm not convinced that attempting to balance stations is not worth the time and effort. Part of the reason for my opinion is that I want to eventually limit station designs for the player to either a standard variant or their chosen commissioned faction's variant. In that sense I don't want one station to feel obviously better than another. I'm not saying the balance will be perfect because there are too many variables, but I want to come close at least if possible.

Now for some details as to the changes I've made, I've significantly reduced the defenses of low tech stations across the board. They were so tanky precisely because they had low-tier and unreliable missiles and mostly relied upon short range guns for defense. Therefore, they had to withstand a considerable amount of punishment in order to deal damage back in a large enough amount to cause ship losses. Before I continue, keep in mind that testing for this revolves around unofficered ships. Officered ships will without a doubt perform much better as a whole, but for a baseline I don't want to rely too much upon high level officers for players to take out a basic orbital station. They really should just need a lot of ships or a few really strong ones. Battlestations and Star Fortresses are a different story. They should be very difficult to destroy for the player as they often guard colonies that are extremely important to the faction: faction capitals, heavy industry worlds, and major resource deposits, etc.

The first thing that I tried (really on a hunch after some very basic math if I'm completely honest) was to test a fleet of only Fire Support ships against the basic stations. As it turns out, stations in their current form are fairly exploitable. Only their missiles could match Fire Support ranges for artillery and modified beams in many cases. This meant that the player could outfit their fleet to snipe stations before they could do much in return. That simply wouldn't do and is too unfun imo. The changes to missiles helped a tiny bit, but not nearly enough. So, the first major change to stations was a massive buff to Targeting Supercomputer:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/OTYHtjO.png)
[close]

(Notice that any station modules with fighter bays get the same missile interdiction bonus a carrier would - only with additional perks from Chassis Storage.)

And now I come back to the idea that fighting combat modules boils down to two things - getting into range and having enough dps to cause damage during that window. The reason its so important that both things happen is that stations can literally kill an unlimited amount of unofficered ships otherwise. CR isn't a factor and so the only attrition to the station is raw damage. Even a completely new max DP deployment wave (at the default battle size of course because I need to balance around that at least to start off) will not cause enough damage to eventually win the battle - also assuming no support ships for the station.

Anyway, I bring this up because range has such an important impact upon the two requirements. As station range increases, the ability for a max DP deployment to actually do anything is exponentially diminished under the standard steady enemy AI. Yet, the extra range is necessary because station battles should rely less upon a specific fleet composition and more upon either power creep from progression/ship acquisition or the skills of the player either tactically, personal flying, or both. As a result, I've had to pay more attention to station design at every level and rely upon an admittedly small amount of sample control tests to determine how to approach balance as whole. I tried to diversify the composition in the tests to include all tech levels and various weapons and roles since the sample size has to remain so small. Station battles take a long time to play out and waiting that whole time is necessary. There were instances where a single module is powerful enough to eliminate all ships in the battle - albeit over a long period of time. The idea is to try and reduce the instances where that sort of scenario occurs. Player intervention will make them occur less just by the player being involved (which can allow for more aggressive and decisive AI decision making). While that's certainly true in most cases, Allied AI-assist battles where the player has limited deployment options are an exception that I feel I must address at some level. They do occur and are more likely to occur when running the mod alongside Nex after all.

Almost all stations have had an increase in weapon count at the first tier as well. The majority of the time this is solely to add more point defense to modules in order to prevent LRMs from being an easy station counter when massed. I'm very close to having Orbital Stations balanced across the board. Once that's done, the higher tiers are generally easier to balance because they have a solid foundation to build off of.

Finally, I have come to a point in the dev version where I feel pretty good about releasing an update soon. It will take a couple of weeks to really nail everything down enough for me to be fully confident, but I am excited for this update in particular because battles feel more... fluid? Hmm, is that really the right word to describe it? The strike weapon, carrier and missile changes kind of come together to improve the feel of battles both viscerally and tactically. Support ships have a greater impact and that creates priority targets for the player depending upon their own fleet composition. If the player is relying upon missiles, PD ships are going to be a primary target. If they lack interceptors and dedicated interceptor carriers, then bombers are going to give them a hard time and so those carriers equipped with them will be a primary target. An interceptor carrier sending its wings to support an ally has an immediately visible effect to its general defense. I am able to tell the difference between carrier interceptors and warship interceptors during a large torpedo salvo, or during swarms of LRMS. I think these are all good signs that the mod is in a better balance state than before. I'm sure there will be more to do and experiment with after the next update of course, however I think the general direction is positive.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Radicaljack on February 14, 2022, 03:55:10 PM
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!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 15, 2022, 01:08:57 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Sythion on February 19, 2022, 10:24:48 AM
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
(https://i.imgur.com/yiS1zVX.png)
[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
(https://i.imgur.com/KFMfhaO.png)
[close]
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 20, 2022, 12:00:25 PM
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
(https://i.imgur.com/yiS1zVX.png)
[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
(https://i.imgur.com/KFMfhaO.png)
[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?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Sythion on February 20, 2022, 02:02:37 PM
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
(https://i.imgur.com/QhkuAIY.png)
[close]

I was also wondering, is Effulgence currently obtainable? Haven't encountered it in the "wild" and the crafting cost is more the maximum availability.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 21, 2022, 01:19:16 PM
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
(https://i.imgur.com/QhkuAIY.png)
[close]

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!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on February 21, 2022, 03:52:44 PM
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
(https://i.imgur.com/KFMfhaO.png)
[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:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/L5Dw3Fh.png)
[close]

 - 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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Sythion on February 21, 2022, 10:10:48 PM
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
(https://i.imgur.com/L5Dw3Fh.png)
[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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: moosekin16 on March 02, 2022, 09:07:01 PM
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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on March 03, 2022, 04:52:05 AM
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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on March 05, 2022, 10:24:08 AM
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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
Post by: Morrokain on March 05, 2022, 05:10:25 PM
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).
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 3/5/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 06, 2022, 08:53:38 AM
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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 3/5/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2022, 10:52:17 AM
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.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 06, 2022, 12:12:38 PM
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
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 06, 2022, 12:23:44 PM
1 more thing. Is this mod compatible with Industrial Evolution and its special features like the Embassy? Thank you
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 06, 2022, 01:50:55 PM
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

Thanks for the kind words I appreciate it and I'm glad you like the mod!

To answer your questions:

Shield Shunt: It very possibly could be. So, here is what I was thinking by the change:

Spoiler
Ships like the Legion and Onslaught were obviously the top choices for something like the old Shield Shunt. The 25% bonus meant that either ship got a 1000 armor bonus since they start out at 4000 armor. In that sense, the change was actually a nerf. XIV ships got an even larger one. On top of this, equipping something like Heavy Armor also scaled with the bonus iirc. So that would be a total of a 2000 or higher armor bonus and adding armored weapons gets it pretty close to 2250 for a total of around 6250 armor value. To me, that's pretty insane when you look at skills like Polarized Armor and other defense oriented skills that reduce damage taken. I would imagine that some ships became practically invincible with the right officers and built in mods. Now, the flat bonus may stack alongside the other hullmods, but now the bonus should be 1800. Its still really large and so it could still be OP, but its at least a bit better than before. I haven't tested enough to know for sure since stations took up a lot of time. (Station bonuses were even greater with the old version of Shield Shunt and that is another part of why I changed it since I wanted that to be a theme of Luddic stations.)

That isn't the only reason I made the change though. That 1800 bonus is also applicable to high tech ships now rather than scaling far lower due to their low base armor. I'm hoping that this opens up the hullmod for use on more ships - specifically I was targeting midline as high tech ships losing shields might be a harder sell.
[close]

So thats the reasoning behind it, but the numbers aren't set in stone until I can test more thoroughly as I flesh out the new roles into the campaign as stated on the roadmap. The other route I could take is making it a competitor with Heavy Armor and making them mutually exclusive. Since Shield Shunt is the same bonus plus emp resistance for lower OP, it might compete well with Heavy Armor on some builds despite removing shields. This is especially interesting since removing shields also changes the AI of the ship. As I'm typing this I like that route more and more, but we'll see after I can test a bit more.

Codex: What I really want is for the Codex to unlock entries as they are encountered in the campaign. Those lines of ships are supposed to be "secrets" to the players that are first starting out and so Codex entries kind of ruin that. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if it weren't for the fact that UI scrolling in the info screen is apparently hard to do and so only the first paragraph of the description is included. It does seem like a bit of a waste, but I haven't decided yet if its worth spoiling the ships for a first time player. Obviously I'd rather have the unlock feature, but I can't do that myself afaik.

1 more thing. Is this mod compatible with Industrial Evolution and its special features like the Embassy? Thank you
Honestly I'm not 100% sure. I've heard its mostly compatible. Details:

Spoiler
Iirc, I need to get around to adding a whitelist for some things that a few users have taken it upon themselves to do on their own. Reverse Engineering I think is one? Due to time limitations, I don't normally look at other mods and rely upon user feedback to point me to compatibility issues or features that I could and haven't implemented in feature mods like Industrial Evolution. I also have to admit that sometimes I will read about it, make a mental note, take time off, and forget about it by the time I get back to dev work or finish the item I'm currently working on, etc. I do try to limit the amount of times this will happen or otherwise reread a few pages back on the thread, but things still slip through my fingers from time to time especially if I'm in the middle of a big change that requires a lot of time to implement.

The obvious question is why not write more things down? Sometimes I do, but I've also felt that it's a slippery slope in its own way. At one point, I realized I was spending half of my dev time documenting and the other half actually making or improving things. There are pros and cons to it but I ended up taking a looser approach to really maximize what I can do in a dev sprint. The other side of this is the risk of more bugs and balancing oversights, as well as the "seesaw effect" - which is mostly specific to balancing where the balance item goes back and forth from two states due to differing user opinions or, simply, me not remembering that I already tried it and didn't like it in the end for whatever reason. A great example of this is the Shattercell Cannon. I *think* I've finally found a good spot for it, but I'm almost positive that it was a slow firing and hard hitting weapon in the past and it was too good. I changed it to rapid fire missile interdiction at some point and wasn't 100% satisfied with it but it mostly worked. Now with missile changes I had to change it again or it would be pretty bad for its OP and its back to the first state (though somewhat different if I'm remembering it correctly to begin with - this was over a year or even years ago I think).
[close]

Well, that turned into a bit of a dev diary so I will put this in spoilers to consolidate the post. I hope that helps explain things a bit!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: OmegaMan on March 06, 2022, 10:56:44 PM
So I just tried this mod, and most (all I saw in two hours) of the (ao) weapons have ZERO flux use on firing....    Is this by design?? Seems very OP if so I also noticed pirates and luddic path fleets are much more hostile, and prevented me from completing a cargo delivery mission, had to reload an older save.       The new fighters on my apogee seemed pretty cool but did it lose it's large energy mount?   
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 07, 2022, 10:35:30 AM
Next question. Where can I find the shield shunt blueprint?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 07, 2022, 12:38:20 PM
So I just tried this mod, and most (all I saw in two hours) of the (ao) weapons have ZERO flux use on firing....    Is this by design?? Seems very OP if so I also noticed pirates and luddic path fleets are much more hostile, and prevented me from completing a cargo delivery mission, had to reload an older save.       The new fighters on my apogee seemed pretty cool but did it lose it's large energy mount?

Hi thanks for giving the mod a try!

Zero flux weapons are indeed part of the combat design. They should actually be pretty balanced with weapons that cause flux. This is because they tend to have lower dps and hit strength than weapons that cost flux, or have a lot worse range. Weapons are categorized a bit differently in this mod. Flux free weapons include most point defense weapons and assault weapons. These provide almost constant defense or pressure. Strike weapons deal high alpha damage but their sustained damage is generally low. Heavy assault weapons have high sustained damage for the cost in flux, and fire support weapons cost a lot of flux for very long range with below average damage. These come together to allow you to build ships with very specific fleet roles that then are intended to synergize with other roles tactically.

The Apogee did lose its large energy. All ships have been changed to some degree over their vanilla counterparts, so any notions about what ships are capable of from playing vanilla are probably not valid here with all of the changes in the mod.

The cargo delivery mission is, afaik, untouched and I thought it always had a chance for a pirate fleet to attempt to intercept you and take the cargo.

Next question. Where can I find the shield shunt blueprint?

You need the skill that unlocks it to get it. Skill balance is reliant upon hullmods being unique to the skill, so for the most part any skill that unlocks a hullmod is the only way to get that hullmod. There might still be one or two exceptions left iirc.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 07, 2022, 04:27:07 PM
Well, I just looked and there is no skill which unlocks the shield shunt. Also, of many of the hullmods that you can acquire via skill points, I have already found many in markets.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 07, 2022, 04:43:55 PM
Well, I just looked and there is no skill which unlocks the shield shunt. Also, of many of the hullmods that you can acquire via skill points, I have already found many in markets.

Darn, I just checked and you're right. I meant to add it to Polarized Armor. If you open the hullmods spreadsheet and remove , no_drop, no_sell from Shield Shunt (AO) it should eventually show up. As of right now you probably wont be able to find it. It will probably just be available in the next update rather than tied to a skill if I make it mutually exclusive with Heavy Armor (AO).

Also let me clarify because I wasn't being specific enough, sorry about that. You can still find a lot of hullmods - even ones that are unlocked through skills such as from Leadership. You shouldn't be able to buy any of the combat hullmod unlocks, nor should you be able to find Localized Amplifier (AO) or the Neural Interface hullmods.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 08, 2022, 05:09:01 AM
Well, I bought the expanded missile racks and the expanded magazines on some market. And I found the neural integrator hullmod blueprint outside the core somewhere. Though it may have been on some base from the Industrial Evolution mod. They also add derelict space bases with loot pools. Regarding the whole idea of hullmods being locked behind skills, I am not a big fan. I think it is better to just incentivize exploration. The specific skills already give enough bonuses for a specific playstyle. No need to force someone to go down a specific skill path if they want to make low tech viable for example, because it is a bit underpowered at the moment in my eyes.

Another thing I want to say is that if you make Heavy Armor and Shield Shunt mutually exclusive, you should add more armor bonus to the shield shunt and maybe more ordinance points. Another very fun and balancing idea would be to make the shield shunts effectiveness depend on the "shield flux per damage" stat. Therefore a high tech ship could get more armor from the shield shunt, because "flux/damage" is better and you would sacrifice more by removing their shields. It would also make it more viable for certain midline ships and would open up a range of new playstyles for ships. But shield shunt on ships with 0,5 flux/damage should not be twice as good as shield shunt on ships with 1,0 flux/damage, just a bit stronger.

Next regarding the Warship Bays High Tech and Low Tech. Instead of giving an ordinance discount for certain ship classes like interceptors/bombers you should make it so that Low Tech Carriers give a bonus to Low Tech LPCs and Luddic carriers give an even greater bonus to Luddic LPCs etc. The system at the moment limits the strategic application a little bit by incentivizing interceptors for example. However, if you would change the system for high tech carriers to give an ordinance discount to high tech LPCs (and archean and sci corps and high tech factions) and midline carriers to give a bonus to midline LPCs OP and replace speed and low tech carriers to give a bonus to low tech LPC OP, replace speed and hull points, then you would incentivize low tech more on carriers. Carriers mostly stay behind front line ships and get artillery weapons or long range missiles, they don't need a lot of flux strength, because ideally they don't take too much fire, so you usually fill the up with your strongest High Tech LPCS and breaking up that meta a little bit would be a nice thing I think.

Another fun thing would be a hullmod called "Armor Maintenance Nanites". It would repair your armor (not hull) over the course of a minute but during that minute you would be completely vulnerable to everything (no shields, no movement and no weapons active). Lock it behind a skill and make it player exclusive because programming an AI for it, would take way too long. If the player uses "Armor Maintenance Nanites" the AI treats their ship as if it is being Flux overloaded so they would take advantage of it. This would be a very interesting tactical option because it would force you to retreat your flagship, which might turn the battle in the enemies favor and also withdraw some escorts to protect it. It's also interesting because a minute is a long time and it's hard to plan ahead.

I don't know how hard these things are to program or if you agree with them but those are some ideas on my part. Thanks for all the effort you put into improving the best starsector mod. Thanks
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 09, 2022, 11:55:52 AM
...

Definitely some neat ideas here.

Hullmods: Ah yeah it could be another mod potentially, or it is possible that the "no_drop, no_sell" tags aren't working in some situations. I checked a few markets and didn't see them but I didn't check every one. If you were using an old save, it could also be that the hullmods were placed in those places before that change took place. It was not in the first .95.1a update for this mod. At least not the ones you mentioned.

Having hullmods locked behind skills in combat was primarily just a way of artificially giving some fleetwide combat bonuses to combat without actual fleetwide bonuses if that makes sense. It naturally limits power creep from adding too many bonuses since these were available prior to the change (and UI space is an issue when adding too many things to a skill) but I felt that combat needed something even beyond the powerful flagship bonuses. It also makes the choice of skills more interesting imo. Heavy Armor and Safety Overrides are both very powerful hullmods. Though Corrosive Warheads got a nerf this update, Corrosive and Ionized Warheads are just as powerful. This makes investment into combat more than just flagship investment without overtaking the other skill lines in usefullness. It keeps it primarily a "powerful flagship" skill line, but adds something to the fleet that also synergizes well with other skill lines in various ways. For instance, taking the OP bonus from Industry makes it easier to install those hullmods - or lets them be built in as a story point dump.

Shield Shunt: Interesting idea with it scaling based upon shield efficiency. That might be possible and I'll probably look into it. I agree that the numbers might change if I make them mutually exclusive since my real concern was with them stacking in the first place.

Carriers and tech levels meta: I'm generally aware of the tech issues with carriers and I've done a lot to try and address that in the recent updates. For a brief summary, high tech was meta until the last update - which it was then considered less useful than some of the legendary midline and low tech gunships. Low tech bombers are budget LPCs for certain builds lacking OP. Low tech carriers in particular get a bit less OP to work with in order to discourage too much high tech LPC investment. They have a smaller DP to compensate and usually but not always have more weapons over high tech carriers.

Your idea is what I originally hoped to do, but it's currently impossible with the API. You can only differentiate wings by type, not by tech level. That's why I had to make OP scale so much and adjust carrier OP pools from there.

To further develop the balance more, I've been tossing around the idea of making high tech a lot more durable but really increasing the replacement times. I just need to find a sweet spot where low tech feels useful because of staying power, midline is an upgrade to damage for additional OP but replaces less quickly, and high tech is the choice for extremely good effectiveness at the start of a battle but once you lose them they will gone for a long time. Thoughts?

Armor Maintenance Nanites: Very cool idea. I can't tie it to a new button press or anything like that, but I have a thought on this: what if I linked it to venting (player flagship only) so that active venting always assumes a full flux bar and venting takes 3 times as long but fully repairs armor over the process? That's similar to the original idea. Armor is tricky to work with code-wise though, so it might not be easy, and that is assuming that active venting can be captured in the available code. I know some inputs are. I'll do an effort analysis on it and go from there.

Thanks for your thoughts!

*Fixed up awkward wording and minor typos*

*EDIT*

Unfortunately, editing Shield Shunt to scale via shield efficiency will not work. It *technically can* via coding but I cannot communicate the bonus through the UI and so it realistically can't be implemented without causing confusion. The built in hullmods to ships and fighters is already a stretch as far as player communication is concerned. I have intentions to consolidate them eventually once balance is more defined, but for now adding additional layers to that is off the table, sorry!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Albreo on March 10, 2022, 04:40:09 AM
Initial observation report:

The current mine ability is too strong against crafts. The AoE is very large and can wipe an entire chunk of crafts from the screen. Effectively rendering carrier ineffective. While craft should be the best option at chasing Phase ship down. Tyrant's mine skill is also excessively fast. Fighting Andamatine will be a nightmare now. IMO, the mine ability should be reserved for frigate or destroyer class phase ship only. The mine should be smaller in AoE and move toward the target as in the vanilla setup. Doom And Tyrant should have something else.

AI still fires Atropos at crafts wasting a lot of ammo.

Hurricane MIRV's second stage lifetime is too long the missile can circle awkwardly around a small ship for a few laps.

Megalith raised shield's flux is supposed to be zero? It is now... very strong. I will try to abuse it as best as I can.

Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 10, 2022, 05:19:42 AM
Three more balancing things I am a bit curious about. The Sunder is horrible in terms of defense. In vanilla it had this particle accelerator weapon to balance this out. Here it seems to be missing. And the second thing is the Medusa. Its armor rating is incredibly low. Lower than that of some heavier fighter wings. Maybe make it a bit higher. And the Eagle (Sci) has this built in hull-mod that lets you passively vent 50% of hard flux. It might be a tad bit too strong, though I can't say I don't like it :P

Regarding armor maintenance nanites: I would make it so that venting takes 2-8 times as long to balance it out depending on hull size (bigger ones take longer), because else it's too strong for ships with super tough armor. Though I think the AI may be too stupid to use it properly. If they use it when they would normally vent, they could disable their ship for too long and it might leave them in a bad spot. There should also be some AI loadouts for a few ships with this and shield shunt installed which would need some playtesting.

Regarding carriers I would make it so that some carriers then give an ordinance discount to gunships and bombers, instead of fighters and interceptors so that some carriers are thus more specialized towards them. Epiphany could use that for example, because it has a recall device and can quickly restock bomber payloads.
Well my idea of the tech levels is that low tech should have bad shields, but a lot of ballistic fire power, very heavy armour and hull integrity and maybe some shield alternatives. Mid line is more about good maneuverability and mediocre shields and still good firepower and high tech is about phasing, special weird ship systems and very good shields and low armour and they should lose combat readiness quickly.

Maybe you could make some versions of low tech LPCs that cost as much OP as high tech LPCs. They could have very fast replace for example. Or you could just add more ships to the low tech wings and increase their OP. Talon wing with 6 fighters per wing instead of 4 for example and call it Big Talon Wing.

I have one more question: I modified the file with the Shield Shunt like you said and it is still nowhere to be found. There is even a mod I use, where you can look which market has which item currently and there is still none to be found. Can I modify a file somewhere, so that I have shield shunt from the start or that I get shield shunt in my current game? I wanna test it out a little bit.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 10, 2022, 06:15:47 AM
Or better yet: Make Armor Maintenance Nanites an active ship system so that it is harder to abuse. Add it to some ships with only 1 charge and 15 minutes recharge time. Ships that rely (mostly) on armor for defense or that have a shield shunt built in could rely on that system for armor repair. Otherwise I could make a Tyrant Phase Ship even more OP than it already is. And make it generate some hardflux while active. I think that would be better. And don't add it to Luddic Ships because nanites are tools of the devil.

The Vanguard frigate has 2 active ship systems. One of them is called Special. How do you activate that? And maybe that could be the solution to the problem with the Armor Maintenance Nanites.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 10, 2022, 07:43:16 AM
In this search bar from the Stellar Networks mod, I can only search for an item called "Shield Shunt Modspec", which removes shields and adds 15% armor. Is this the right one?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Adalbert on March 10, 2022, 07:57:21 AM
Through cheating with the console commands mod, i got the version of the shield shunt from your mod now :)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 11, 2022, 02:12:15 PM
Read these a day or two ago and just now able to respond in detail:

Albreo:
Spoiler
Initial observation report:

The current mine ability is too strong against crafts. The AoE is very large and can wipe an entire chunk of crafts from the screen. Effectively rendering carrier ineffective. While craft should be the best option at chasing Phase ship down. Tyrant's mine skill is also excessively fast. Fighting Andamatine will be a nightmare now. IMO, the mine ability should be reserved for frigate or destroyer class phase ship only. The mine should be smaller in AoE and move toward the target as in the vanilla setup. Doom And Tyrant should have something else.
What if I moved the mine system to the Harbinger and gave the Doom the Harbinger's system? The Tyrant I'm still thinking about potential systems. Mines seem too hard to balance for it since I got the opposite report the last update so maybe a mobility system to offset the speed changes to phase ships?

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AI still fires Atropos at crafts wasting a lot of ammo.
Unless Alex finally adds an AI hint that strictly prevents the missile from firing at them, the only thing I can do is lower its maneuverability to make it less likely. That will make it bad against frigates but that's not necessarily a bad thing. *EDIT* Made it less likely to use on strike craft but hopefully retains overall hit rate against ships - even when the weapon is side-facing.

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Hurricane MIRV's second stage lifetime is too long the missile can circle awkwardly around a small ship for a few laps.
Noted thanks. *EDIT* I fixed this up and balanced a little more as far as the Hurricane goes. I gave it 1 additional missile in the clip and increased the second stage hitpoints a bit. It's a good finisher weapon for its OP now I think. I also adjusted the Thunderbolt line of weapons to no longer circle the target either.

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Megalith raised shield's flux is supposed to be zero? It is now... very strong. I will try to abuse it as best as I can.
Lol ok let me know the results. It is definitely better under AI control and I think its weaker to a direct attack without relying on high flux sniping.
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Adalbert:
Spoiler
Three more balancing things I am a bit curious about. The Sunder is horrible in terms of defense. In vanilla it had this particle accelerator weapon to balance this out. Here it seems to be missing.
Are you sure you don't have it backwards? Iirc, vanilla sunder just has a large energy slot. This mod has the built in particle accelerator which deals very high damage at long range for a lot of flux. The caveat is that the Sunder is very weak defensively. However, the (D) version doesn't have the built in and has a medium weapon instead. At the time, there wasn't as many balance levels for that, but now I can reduce the deployment cost considerably to compensate. Let me go ahead and do that now for the next update. Also, the Sci Corps version has a large energy like the vanilla version. I lowered the DP cost a bit for that one too.

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And the second thing is the Medusa. Its armor rating is incredibly low. Lower than that of some heavier fighter wings. Maybe make it a bit higher.
That is because its drones are really good. It has decent shields and it now has the Terminator Sequence just like the vanilla Tempest.

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And the Eagle (Sci) has this built in hull-mod that lets you passively vent 50% of hard flux. It might be a tad bit too strong, though I can't say I don't like it :P
I increased its DP to match the Eagle (AD) and adjusted its mounts to have a few synergy so I can add a few more variants.

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Regarding armor maintenance nanites: I would make it so that venting takes 2-8 times as long to balance it out depending on hull size (bigger ones take longer), because else it's too strong for ships with super tough armor. Though I think the AI may be too stupid to use it properly. If they use it when they would normally vent, they could disable their ship for too long and it might leave them in a bad spot. There should also be some AI loadouts for a few ships with this and shield shunt installed which would need some playtesting.
Unless I make it a system with its own AI I will try some way to prevent it from being applicable on ships that aren't the player flagship. I can already tell it will take a while to implement.

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Regarding carriers I would make it so that some carriers then give an ordinance discount to gunships and bombers, instead of fighters and interceptors so that some carriers are thus more specialized towards them. Epiphany could use that for example, because it has a recall device and can quickly restock bomber payloads.
Well my idea of the tech levels is that low tech should have bad shields, but a lot of ballistic fire power, very heavy armour and hull integrity and maybe some shield alternatives. Mid line is more about good maneuverability and mediocre shields and still good firepower and high tech is about phasing, special weird ship systems and very good shields and low armour and they should lose combat readiness quickly.
That is generally the way I think about tech levels. As far as carriers, the OP of bombers and gunships is set to already encourage gunships and bombers because they are very strong and a lot more effective than interceptors or fighters at assaulting ships. I actually had to add a bonus to interceptors and fighters against missiles to make them more of an alternative. Warships are generally incentivized to use fighters and interceptors in their launch bays since they get an OP discount but the same effectiveness.

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Maybe you could make some versions of low tech LPCs that cost as much OP as high tech LPCs. They could have very fast replace for example. Or you could just add more ships to the low tech wings and increase their OP. Talon wing with 6 fighters per wing instead of 4 for example and call it Big Talon Wing.
That would sort of break the balance of low tech carriers because most of them wouldn't have the OP to use them. I am under the current opinion that low tech wings are still effective due to other factors, like high armor and replacement rate. Does this not hold up?

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Or better yet: Make Armor Maintenance Nanites an active ship system so that it is harder to abuse. Add it to some ships with only 1 charge and 15 minutes recharge time. Ships that rely (mostly) on armor for defense or that have a shield shunt built in could rely on that system for armor repair. Otherwise I could make a Tyrant Phase Ship even more OP than it already is. And make it generate some hardflux while active. I think that would be better. And don't add it to Luddic Ships because nanites are tools of the devil.

The Vanguard frigate has 2 active ship systems. One of them is called Special. How do you activate that? And maybe that could be the solution to the problem with the Armor Maintenance Nanites.
You activate the Special system through a right click like you would shields. I'm not sure there is a way to set up a similar thing with a hullmod, but if so that would be my ideal route.

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I have one more question: I modified the file with the Shield Shunt like you said and it is still nowhere to be found. There is even a mod I use, where you can look which market has which item currently and there is still none to be found. Can I modify a file somewhere, so that I have shield shunt from the start or that I get shield shunt in my current game? I wanna test it out a little bit.
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Through cheating with the console commands mod, i got the version of the shield shunt from your mod now :)
Glad you found it! I was going to suggest that exact solution. It should ideally show up in a couple of in game months anyway once stuff is bought from markets, but the wait could be a bit so that was the easier way.
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Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Vilab on March 12, 2022, 01:51:59 PM
  Hi, i wrote a very long player feedback to highlight what i loved in this mod, and also a few issues i found, when the forum decided to **** me over login and deleted everything.

  So in short : Great mod which make the Vanilla combat looks bland. Love the many small weapons slots, the widespread fighter bays, the variety of weapons (in theory );

  A list of specific issues i found :

- The Nexerelin mod make the AO modified Tutorial ( which looks very promising and gives actual weight behind the AO ) playable, but it is unfinished and unfinishable as a player, so it is quite irritating.
You migh add that Nexerelin give access to a not working tutorial on the frontpage.

- An ultra heavy gunship ( Golliath ? ) have 20 000 shield, it looks a bit too much

- The small assault autocanon is much better than the small dual and regular autocanon ( 125 dps vs 80ish and 67 ), both of the latter could get a buff, but the former could also get a slight nerf.

- The dual pulse laser is a terrible PD weapon, barely better dps than the regular one while the magazine is full, half of that on the long term

- The extremely effective Rapier missiles and effective Atropos ones are flux-free despite having better/similar stats and dps as most flux hungry ones.

- the effective range of many missiles ( rapier, atropos, ion torpedoes, swarmers, harpoons... ) is much higher than stated, providing the player with an unfair advantage over the AI.


  Personal opinions :

- The balance of missile is a bit all over the place : ( plus Rapier and Atropos being flux-free while among the most effective missiles ).
Overall : the missile are quite bad, they are very flux hungry despite not being very effective since most ships have a high amount of PD weapons. Only missiles that are fast and/or can be swarmed are a chance to reach a isolated non overloaded target and the damages they deal when they sucessfully hit them is barely worth the flux cost.
Some missiles are extremely bad : the Trebuchets are useless, the Firestorms looks decentish but have a way too long reload time of 52s.

- The overall balance of Strike/Line/Support weapons is not great : flux producing weapons are not good enough vs flux-free ones
I find that most support weapons have way too low dps to matter in combat.

Strikes magazines weapons are very rarely worth it, not only they cost flux, but their magazine are often too small to make their "burst firing time" matters, then they are stuck with often terrible long term dps. The hull mod help a bit but isn't enough.

If Weapons cost flux, then they should have similar dps as "line free flux" weapons on top of having some advantage ( range, burst or alpha  ability ), instead of only having extremely narrow advantage while being much worse on the front line.

- Too many PD weapons use slow reloading magazines : the PD weapons often have a good enough range to engage regular ship, on which they empty their magazines which then leave them useless against missile and fighters. The Shattercells are an exemple of that.

- Skills shouldn't be OP : Some skills give way too good advantage and are game changers instead of small bonus :
The 0-flux advantage at any flux level, the 15% hard flux dissipation, the massive flat max speed bonuses, the 200-300% PD effectiveness bonus, the various +50%... completely change the way you can play or how annoying an Officer led AI ship can be.

- Aknowledgment of AI limitation : The AI is limited and will often do stupid things, such as getting stuck in Black Holes and Weeeeeeeeing accross the battlefield by Plasma Burning into wrecks.
Does it really matters that the AO system have a Black Holes ? Couldn't it be a Blue or Red Giants instead so that there wouldn't be AI fleets suiciding by gravity ?
Could you switch Plasma Burn like ship ability by softer Plasma Jet like ones ( increased max speed and maneuvrability instead of  ) ?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 12, 2022, 04:29:49 PM
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Welcome to the forums and thanks for the feedback! I'll try to touch on as much as I can but there is a lot of information there so feel free to remind me if I miss anything or if you have counterpoints, etc.

I didn't know about Nex making the tutorial available so thanks for telling me! I will post a note but yes its completely unfinish-able and I was in the middle of trying to solve the bug when an update changed how things work in tutorial and I abandoned that project until a bunch of other more important things are accomplished.

TLDR General Balance Concerns: Correct me if I am wrong because I can't realistically deep test everything every update, but it seems like some of these opinions are based upon stat cards or through 1 vs 1 tests outside of a fleet context using builds that are countered by the tactical build's inherent counter. I will explain in detail below, but what would be really helpful would be specific builds against specific builds that showcase the imbalance rather than general statements. Please do not think I am saying that the feedback is incorrect, but with all the tactical synergies and the intended balance considerations of the tactical roles present in the mod, I think it is easy to get wrong first impressions based upon over relying on stat card math comparisons rather than in battle testing. I also think that if you are using single ship vs single ship comparisons it is really easy lose the sense of tactical synergy that comes from larger fleet engagements. This isn't a hard rule or anything, because not all of the variants I test are optimized or meant to counter all other builds. That is why it greatly helps me to decipher the problem if I get examples to reproduce. The recent testing I've done doesn't match up with the reported feedback imo, but there could easily be things I'm missing and so details would help me narrow this down! I hope this explains where I am coming from and you don't feel like I am dismissing the feedback as a whole. That isn't the case at all.

Details:
Spoiler
Goliath: The number itself is a bit high considering immersion, but the effectiveness is necessary when looking at comparisons to replacement times. That said, the eventual idea is to increase its replacement time so that it effectively serves as a very difficult to destroy heavy assault gunship that takes a very long time to replace. That is why its considered a legendary experimental design. I can reduce the number and increase shield efficiency and it will look a bit better. It doesn't seem imbalanced from initial tests after the change and through station battles, but if you give me a variant that you think is way too strong I will build and test it!

Autocannons vs Assault Autocannon: Range is huge in Starsector.  The 100 additional range and the fact that both of those weapons do not cost flux while the assault version has .55 flux efficiency makes a big difference. They are more for serving different spots in a build based upon how much OP needs to be saved and what the flux budget is. While this matters the most for frigates, it also can impact ships with a lot of small weapons since all of that flux build up will start to matter. So is the extra dps worth it considering those factors? Well, it really depends. It can be but it doesn't always add up to that in my experience. That is intended. You bring this up, actually, when you mention flux free vs magazine capacity weapons and their effectiveness. There you seem to reason the opposite stance where flux weapons don't have enough of an advantage. Is this discrepancy due to the idea that these impression are coming from testing specific weapons against others? (Not trying to be aggressive with that statement in case it comes across that way. I'm just trying to flesh out your thoughts overall and understand where the opinion is stemming from.)

Dual Pulse Laser: Range factors in here too. It can mean the difference between shooting the missile down or not. 100 extra range matters quite a bit from my tests. So if it didn't have the sustainability drawback, the weapon would far outshine the single barrel version with more dps, range, and a wider area of hit margin since it fires two bolts that have a wider spread. The sustained damage may be a tiny bit low, but combat tests haven't given me the feeling that one is worse or better than the other one. At least not yet. I admittedly haven't tested it extensive but I will as I add the weapon to more builds. It is very new (just this last update).

Atropos and Rapiers: The Atropos already has changes in the dev version that make it a bit easier to dodge, so that will help. The short answer is that adding flux to it makes the AI practically unwilling to fire it even when the target is overloaded. I won't argue that it seems stronger than other missiles. The Rapier is a similar story. But, other anti-shield weapons are very good as well, so that is something to consider.

Effective Missile Range: The AI also has unfair advantages over the player in many cases. The actual ranges being higher is so that fast kiting ships can't immediately kite out of missile range. Considering how PD will eventually work, I don't think it will be a huge problem, but I will keep my eye on it just in case.

Missiles in general: Long range missiles have to be hard to hit with due to their range and force concentration. If you concentrate missile strikes and saturate point defense you can take out ships at very long ranges without them being able to do much about it. I definitely see where you are coming from in a general sense of firing a couple weapons and having them do nothing. It doesn't feel good. But the opposite of that is this boring scenario that allows you to sit back and slowly pick off all the ships in the battle without much thought. That is why:

Magazine Weapons: PD weapons have magazines specifically so that there are windows where long range missiles can do some damage. Not a lot, but as a support ship they aren't supposed to deal a lot of damage unless the player or another allied shield creates an opportunity such as an overload or their own srms or rockets, torpedoes, etc distracting PD or burning through the PD magazines.

Strike magazine weapons are similar in that they are a small window of opportunity weapon that you build the ship around, and then support it with a defensive flux free weapon ship to allow the magazines to replenish and the flux to dissipate. The extra damage increase during the small strike window makes the target more vulnerable to the assault weapons of the follow up ship.

Fire Support Weapons: The same concept as above applies. Fire Support Weapons don't deal as much damage because they would be far too effective if they did. They stack damage at range and can support other ships by firing through them. This concentrates damage much more efficiently than two ships with flux free weapons in a large battle with many concentrated ships. If they did equal dps then there would actually never be an instance where a flux free build could beat a fire support build because the AI retreats from weapon range once its flux gets too high. The massive range of fire support weapons mean this happens often before the assault ship can even get within weapon range unless it is considerably more durable.
[close]

Skills: These are fairly new and are meant to be pretty powerful - more powerful than vanilla. You will find that this will become very necessary to combat end game threats if I've tuned it right. A high level officer does make a massive difference, but the enemy will have more - which makes, for instance, response fleets that have a lot more officers than the player a serious consideration that will require good decision making and tactics to overcome. At least that's the idea. It is very new and one of the least tested aspects of the mod to be fair.

Black Holes in AO system: It is supposed to factor into the eventual lore/story and that is why I haven't changed it yet. I'm curious though, is this just an immersion consideration or does it impact the campaign rig? For instance, does it mean that the AO often doesn't have defending fleets or something like that?

Plasma Burn: I'm a little confused as to what you are referring to here. Do you mean a specific ship? Or replacing all ships with Plasma Burn with Plasma Jets instead?

Thanks again for the feedback as a whole! I will keep all of this in mind as I continue to test. Every time I do a test session, I inevitably end up making some changes. (I just reduced the EMP of the Retribution interceptor weapon while testing Eagle (Sci) changes. Stuff like that.)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Vilab on March 13, 2022, 05:58:10 AM
  My opinions and feeling are based on my experience as a player in game : I play with 500 battle size, and i am often the underdog since my fleets usually consists of cruisers +1 capital carrier + 4-6 frigates not exceeding much over 200 since the slow down in storms and such is very irritating to me ( i just found ou about a x3 time multiplier, it might change my habits ).

  In my experience the ship do not often stack behind each other and support armed ships either end up temporarily in the frontline or remain far behind doing very little until they are engaged by ennemy frigate. Those frigates are not deterred by the low dps at all, especially since they can evade most of the slow firing fire. Indeed support weapons having relatively high alpha but very slow refiring make them very often miss their target ( when not beam based ), and lead to even lower than stated long term dps.

  My experience might be biaised since i often play frontline cruiser and very often ( have to ) force my other ship to push with me, the lack of aggressivity of ship with steady or without officier is slightly annoying to me, while Agressive Oficiers will suicide themself or abuse of the plasma burn ability and woink themself across the battlefield with disabled engines after hitting a big wreck.

  Cruiser level of shielding on a gunship suprised me, especially since its other stats are for now not that far from other gunships.

  I somehow missed the assault autocanon costing flux, the flux free version still looks very weak to me compared to a mass driver for exemple. They also suffer from long refiring time and often miss while the multiple 100 damages shots are not that effective against armor, so even when they finally hit it does not do much.
In my experience, a range difference of 100 do not matter, especially since they very rarely hit less than capital size at that range, and capital laught at such tiny damage.

  About Atropos, i also noticed both it and the Sabots, and Harpoons have single launcher version with much reduced OP cost, yet they behave very differently : the Sabot launcher no longer have multiple ammo in magazine, but reload time is barely increased, Harpoons's is increased, while the Atropos reload time is extremely increased. 

  As for Skills : i may not be a good exemple of the playerbase, but i dislike must-have extra abilities in games. Getting small advantage, or extras that matters in a few specifics case is great, getting abilities that completely change the mechanics of science based games is just irritating : either the game is balanced without them and you stomp everything once you get them, or it is and you struggle without them.
  Losing a few ships to End Games challenges in a desperate gamble looks fine to me, having to get and rely on abilities to survive againt them isn't, especially if getting them make standart fleets and challenges a walk in the park.

 The Plasma Burn ability make the ship "jump forward" a short distance at extremely high speed, the issue is that the AI will use it very often ( whenever it is available i guess ? ), and sometime it will use it and propel the ship against a big ennemy ship, a wreck or a battlestation, disabling the engines of the ship, and letting it go spinning accross the battlefield at 200-300 speed. By the time the engine get repaired and the ship's standart max speed is enforced, the ship crashed in the middle of the ennemy formation or is on the other side of the battle map. Odysseus Battlecruisers are extremely prone to this.
  Replacing those abilities that the AI use to suicide themself would be welcome. Yes it is a Vanilla thing, but since AO touches abilities...

edit You already did that ! I didn't touch the Odysseus recently...  don't know if other ship still have that terrible ability *

 edit 2 : Shrike hight tech destroyer do have that ability

  As for the Black hole, it is immersion breaking, and i can very easily see invasion or defensive fleets sometime getting stuck in there too ( i haven't yet, i don't go there often ). Would it be possible to add some kind of buoys with repellant effects arround it ( faking red giants... ) ?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 13, 2022, 11:53:17 AM
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Thanks for your response and continuing to flesh out your thoughts! I'm working on improving the fast missile racks AI today but I might have some time to run some tests based upon your feedback. I'll look at the autocannons and see if some improvements can be made without breaking the immersion of their lore or unbalancing them. I will say that other weapons have had a few buffs recently and so they could have fallen slightly behind in comparison. What I'm currently thinking is keeping their slow projectile speed or making it even slower but possibly further increasing their range and armor penetration. Essentially that turns them into a weapon good for hitting larger ships that can't dodge while the assault version and other ballistic weapons are more useful for nimbler ships.

The single sabot might be an oversight. I'll look into it. It may be because of the dps comparisons on the stat card. I'll also probably work on the gunships a bit more if I have time.

Question: do you often issue command orders in battle? I can see how support ships would "do their own thing" without orders being given and since the AI doesn't really recognize the different roles they would indeed likely get themselves into trouble unless assault ships happen to be nearby. Specifically, I'm talking about escort commands. You could also use defend commands and include a couple of defensive built ships to provide support through engage and eliminate.

Support ships being vulnerable to flanking frigates is intended to give them a role when built as attack ships rather than PD focused.

I'll respond to the other things a bit later, but the last thing I'll mention for now is that I have a possible idea for the Shrike.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Vilab on March 13, 2022, 04:09:30 PM
  Fury high tech cruiser also have Plasma Burn, though the issue was mostly with the Odysseus. The Shrike are so fragile that they tend to get deleted before they get close to ennemy ships, while Fury appear to be just the right size to get fluxed enough to decide to not kiss ennemy ships, and small enough to rarely hit big wrecks, or if they do they lose their velocity. I have never seen a Fury or Shrike being yeeted accross the Battlefield, while it was very frequent with Odysseus BC.

  About the Black Hole, i no longer need to imagine, i visited that sytem just when the AO planet were on the opposite side of the Black Hole, i visited both sides and there were quickly over 10 fleets stuck there. I don't know the lore you plan to introduce, could a binary system with a standart star - arround which the planets would be - + Black Hole on a lonely orbit be fine ?

  The orders i give are mostly to specific ship to eliminate an ennemy one faster, or to get out of a dangerous area, i usually order frigates to escort vulnerable ships such as carrier or weak DD in 1/1 ratio.  When the ennemy is likely to destroy a few of my frigates i order them to escort my line cruiser so that they don't get isolated and destroyed.
  I also use defend but since the AI will also defend the side there is no ennemy i only use it to keep some kind of formation until contact. When the ships are spread everywhere i will usually order a spare or damaged cruiser to escort my carrier to limit surprises.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 13, 2022, 06:40:41 PM
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Ah ok thanks for clarifying. It sounds like you are issuing commands mostly as intended. I'll do some fleet tests at some point. The ones I've seen recently have confirmed that support weapons are working as intended, but there may be some outliers. Those ships definitely need support though.

Skills: I have the opinion that it's more interesting to change the dynamic of what is possible through upgrades. I think it gives excitement to gaining levels and keeps the game feeling fresh. This is just my opinion though and I get where you are coming from. When I start deep testing the campaign I may make changes as I see imbalances or things that didn't quite work.

Black Hole: It might be possible to do a binary type thing and still keep the intended lore there. Hmm. I'll consider this more as I make changes.



The next update will have improvements to the Fast Missile Racks system's AI. It should be wasted a lot less often, and now takes into account things like the ships flux level and whether or not the missiles weapons cost flux to fire to determine whether its worth it to reload all missiles. There is probably additional improvements I could make, but I'm leaving it at this state for now.

I also buffed the armor penetration/dps of the small autocannons and reduced projectile speed a bit. I then increased the assault autocannon's projectile speed and increased its alpha dps while reducing sustained dps. That should hopefully differentiate the two in their roles.

The Enforcer, Manticore, Lasher, Gemini, Mule and Medusa have had a buff to their max flux. Shield efficiency remains the same I believe.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 14, 2022, 04:37:45 PM
Dev blog for today:

I spent a fair amount of time on modding during the last couple of days as I have had some off time. Today in particular, I decided to investigate the reported issues with missiles a bit more in-depth from a small scale perspective. I have to admit that they were pretty broken at the frigate stage of combat from what I've seen. It could be that the bonus damage to missiles from the frigate and destroyer designations was too much to begin with. Since I'm moving in the direction of adding missile interdiction as a specific role instead of delegating it to smaller ship classes, I might reduce that bonus to make testing missiles more reliable as a whole. I have mostly been testing at the larger side of the combat spectrum when it comes to missiles and they seem roughly ok at that stage - when capitals are engaging capitals or stations, etc. Some of that could have been from changes that weren't in the most recent update however. I plan to spend the next couple of weeks fine-tuning that particular portion of the mod as I have time - alongside working on the portrait pack request and other roadmap items.

I made some additional weapon changes with the intent of giving more distinct roles by adjusting projectile speed and further fine tuning damage values along the ballistic and energy weapon lines. I have also taken a specific look at missile-emphasized ships that have fast missile racks since I recently made changes to the AI of that system.

In short, ugh... Even with some serious defensive buffs, they don't hold their weight via a DP comparison even with the fast missile racks improvements at the frigate level. At least not 1v1. Design-wise, I would ideally like to bring missiles to a state where they are a unique weapon type that increases total dps short term while being somewhat mitigated by PD and especially by ships emphasizing PD via the hullmods related to that. Missile regeneration is a feature of the mod and I don't want to change that just in case that was the impression. I also don't want to completely remove missile interdiction from the frigate designation in order to keep that ship type useful in more roles in the late game. The bonus may inevitably need some adjustments however, and I want the interaction between the damage potential of missiles and the PD component of ship builds to continue to mean something.

I want to also take this time to give individual missile weapons some more interesting nuance. Example: A question I asked myself was "what is the functional difference between the swarmer and the annihilator?" and the answer was "not much" since both are designed to break armor and both were reasonably accurate before I reduced the annihilator's speed. So one goal was to take a look at these issues and try to address them. The added wrinkle of course is maintaining a relative faction balance while fleshing out these nuances.

Feedback as always is welcome. I will probably release a stand-alone experimental version of the changes over the weekend at some point later this week. It won't be an update to the main download but instead it will be a test bed for the recent changes for those interested. If they prove useful, I will release them in the main update at that time alongside the roadmap items.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 18, 2022, 04:00:34 PM
The experimental balance update for small missiles (also affects some larger ones) and frigates is now available on NexusMods under the "optional files" under version: 1.4.1.2 if anyone wants to see the general direction I'm taking as far as missiles go. It also includes a few ship and small PD weapon balance tweaks iirc.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Albreo on March 19, 2022, 10:24:50 PM
So, you adopt the Hurricane approach for Thunderbolt as well. I think it will do but can the sub missiles despawn a little later. I want the leftover to be able to smash into ships in the rear. Also, in one instance of firing at a backtracking ship, the sub missiles stop working before it reach the target.

The new Annihilator is pretty cool and strong. Although it misses a lot, like half, it's great at suppression.

The Breach pod is too expensive performance-wise and also clashes with a lot of other options. I think it can have the corrosive mod build in.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 20, 2022, 07:32:56 AM
So, you adopt the Hurricane approach for Thunderbolt as well. I think it will do but can the sub missiles despawn a little later. I want the leftover to be able to smash into ships in the rear. Also, in one instance of firing at a backtracking ship, the sub missiles stop working before it reach the target.
Sure I changed it from 1 to 2 seconds flight time.

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The new Annihilator is pretty cool and strong. Although it misses a lot, like half, it's great at suppression.
Nice that's what I was going for! It is supposed to be a way to "punch up" a hullsize a bit. It has medium weapon dps while its ammo isn't regenerating but it misses a lot and is fairly easy to shoot down by PD.

Quote
The Breach pod is too expensive performance-wise and also clashes with a lot of other options. I think it can have the corrosive mod build in.
I haven't made it to medium weapons just yet since I'm working from the ground up and still have a few more small weapons to look at. That sounds reasonable though. When I was testing station battles I added breaches to the Trade Guilds stations to test them out and they were ok enough. But that's a little different than ship vs ship so I'll take a closer look at that part once I finish small weapons.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Albreo on March 23, 2022, 09:28:07 PM
Had one crash so far. Trying to retreat my drone carrier from combat. Not sure if it's related or replicable. Also, REDACTED can somehow equip Shadowloard and Apocrypha even though both require pilots.

Quote
1032240 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at java.util.HashMap.put(Unknown Source)
   at java.util.HashSet.add(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.D.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.D.Object(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.FighterAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 24, 2022, 04:23:21 AM
Had one crash so far. Trying to retreat my drone carrier from combat. Not sure if it's related or replicable. Also, REDACTED can somehow equip Shadowloard and Apocrypha even though both require pilots.

Quote
1032240 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at java.util.HashMap.put(Unknown Source)
   at java.util.HashSet.add(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.D.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.D.Object(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.FighterAI.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Looks like it might be related to those new fighter tags that change fighter AI. The drones on drone carriers all use most of them. I discovered that "attack_at_angle" can't be used in conjunction with Termination Sequence or a similar nullpointer happens.

Which drone carrier was it? I'll try and reproduce it when I'm off and see if removing any of the tags fixes it. I'd ideally like to use the tags, but I cant bring this up to Alex without having more specifics.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Albreo on March 24, 2022, 07:42:32 AM
Which drone carrier was it? I'll try and reproduce it when I'm off and see if removing any of the tags fixes it. I'd ideally like to use the tags, but I cant bring this up to Alex without having more specifics.

This happens on Effulgence. It was quite a big fight with 6 invasion fleets, so, the CR ran out and I was forced to send it back. I might also tap the retreat button too many times.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 24, 2022, 08:00:48 AM
Quote
This happens on Effulgence. It was quite a big fight with 6 invasion fleets, so, the CR ran out and I was forced to send it back. I might also tap the retreat button too many times.
Ok noted. Sorry for all the follow up questions, but do you remember what wings you have equipped? Specifically, did you have gunships that attack from the side?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Alexhandr on March 24, 2022, 01:18:10 PM
Hey, love the mod! Great work! :)

Is there a way to join the Adamantine Consortium early game? I like to start off on my own with just a single ship or two, no colonies, not allied to anyone, and work my way up into their faction organically, kind of like in Mount and Blade Warband. Of course at the start, AC is at -50 and hostile. Any tips on how to get them to like me without joining them at the start through Nex?

Thanks!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 24, 2022, 02:02:58 PM
Hey, love the mod! Great work! :)

Is there a way to join the Adamantine Consortium early game? I like to start off on my own with just a single ship or two, no colonies, not allied to anyone, and work my way up into their faction organically, kind of like in Mount and Blade Warband. Of course at the start, AC is at -50 and hostile. Any tips on how to get them to like me without joining them at the start through Nex?

Thanks!

Thanks and welcome to the forums!

There should be a faction start option for the Adamantine Consortium when using Nex unless something has changed that I'm not aware of. It is flagged as a playable faction within the mod's exerelin faction config. There should also be an option to start with a single Acolyte (Ad) frigate as well. However, it will set you as cooperative and commissioned iirc.

If you want to role play a neutral player joining them though, it actually is possible, but very, very difficult. In the mod, there is the option to bribe fleet officers to avoid battles. It has a low chance of succeeding for the Adamantine Consortium, but if you throw a ton of credits at them each time (largest bribe or tributes both work I think) and run from any failed bribes either through the escape battle mode or the story point option, the successes will slowly improve your reputation until you get to the point of the fleets not being hostile (inhospitable). From there you can do all of the normal things to improve your reputation with them until you can take a commission.

I think you may also be able to use Nex's agents feature to increase reputation as well.

Finally, there occasionally should be missions given from that faction when flying near their systems. Completing those successfully will also improve your reputation.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Alexhandr on March 24, 2022, 02:13:34 PM
Thank you for the quick reply! Will use this info to roleplay my way into the AC with my evil character.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on March 24, 2022, 02:52:24 PM
Which drone carrier was it? I'll try and reproduce it when I'm off and see if removing any of the tags fixes it. I'd ideally like to use the tags, but I cant bring this up to Alex without having more specifics.

This happens on Effulgence. It was quite a big fight with 6 invasion fleets, so, the CR ran out and I was forced to send it back. I might also tap the retreat button too many times.

Well, I can't reproduce it using the simulator at least. I tried both retreat and direct retreat using the Shadowlord and Apocrypha. I tried it a couple of times. It must either be another mod, or something to do with the campaign context.

If you happen to run into it again, give me some specifics to the context (I already noted 0 CR and a very large battle) - preferably an exact build and what enemies are in the battle.

Oh, I also removed the crew costs for the Shadowlord and Apocrypha. I'm pretty sure that was just a copy paste oversight.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Hotfix 3/6/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 01, 2022, 10:52:15 AM
A new experimental balance build is out on Nexus Mods under optional files!

It should be save compatible with the first experimental build. All small weapons have been looked at and almost all of them have changes. The general goal was to provide a more nuanced niche for each weapon - centered around balance factors such as projectile speed and accuracy. This is basically an extension of the concepts from the missile rework spread out across all small weapons.

I meant to release this before last weekend, but I decided an additional week of hardcore testing would be best to produce a better overall result. I haven't tested like this for a couple of years (its very, very tedious) but it seemed appropriate given the last couple of rounds of feedback.

If you're curious about how I'm testing and some of what exactly has changed from the last experimental version, here are some details:

Spoiler
The first thing I needed is a controlled test scenario. This means it has to be tests over and over and over and over again on the same ship. The Centurion is the perfect ship for this for several reasons. One, it has middle of the road stats - decent flux stats, average armor, etc. So the tests will give me a general sense of the armor penetration of every weapon. Secondly, the Centurion is one of the most flexible ships to build. It has a lot of weapon mounts that can fit multiple types of weapons. That is important since I can test literally all weapons without breaking the control. To further emphasize build diversity, I made a couple of changes and made the center turret composite instead of just ballistic and the rear side turrets universal instead of hybrid. I also gave the Centurion 5 more OP.

Here are some of the resulting builds: (yes they have been added to the campaign as well  ;) )

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/3I8ptZq.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/zkVDRQC.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/2s6wLRz.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/yginDhJ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/6xzYc2G.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/G7mDj2x.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/4LMQDjn.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/uYnHOUq.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/T8XrVk6.png)
[close]

So the goal is to make weapons balanced enough that builds designed to perform similar roles perform relatively equally as a trend. After numerous tests, I think this mostly holds true. When I talk about roles, I'm not just talking about Strike, Assault, PD, and Fire Support. I am also talking about subcategories within those roles such as "anti-frigate" or "fights larger hulls well" and taking into consideration how well the builds could handle fighters and to what degree. The idea of course is that there has to be tradeoffs in each case.

The idea of subcategories of roles is a new idea that stemmed from the rework of missiles. Rockets such as the Annihilator and Javelin have been completely reworked to feel different over guided missiles such as the Rapier and Swarmer. Really, rockets in general are now designed to provide high amounts of dps spread out over a fairly wide area and are more vulnerable to PD mitigation. Swarmers, on the other hand, hit more reliably and really take a bite out of armor when they connect with unshielded targets. These traits make them ideal against frigates or even gunships. Since missiles as a whole have a lot more ammo and can last a lot longer at optimal dps, using them on gunships or bombers shouldn't feel too painful. The AI shouldn't do it as often compared to anti-fighter missiles though.

So how are rockets and torpedoes different? They now act as a heavy weapon that can give frigates a way to get closer to destroyers in damage potential - with the drawback that these weapons are more useful against larger and slower targets and hit frigates a lot less often. Some of this was already mentioned in prior posts, but the concept should be more refined and now has been implemented across small weapons as a whole.

An example of a non missile weapon that this concept applies to is the Photon Cannon. It now has the highest sustained dps of any small weapon in the mod except for I believe the Tactical Beam. It also hits for 500 per shot and so it has very, very good armor penetration for a small weapon dealing energy damage. However, since it has a much slower projectile speed, it can't hit frigates all that well. It performs best when it targets larger ships and there it shines as a heavy assault weapon. Something like the Pulse Cannon or the Avalanche Cannon is much better at hitting frigates, and fill the role of strike (high initial dps, low sustained dps) and assault (flux free average sustained dps) respectively. This opens up the need for a hard hitting but slow anti-armor ballistic weapon, and the Fissure Cannon fills it nicely. Whereas the Avalanche loses its initial dps more quickly, the Fissure keeps it longer at the expense of projectile speed. So now the Avalanche and Fissure don't feel as much like they are competing for the same spot on a ship where the main consideration is OP. They are used for different things and that feels nice to me.

You can make similar comparisons to the Autocannon and Assault Autocannon. (Which I need to rename at some point.) The Autocannon has really good armor penetration and like the Assault Autocannon it is cheap to install, but it is also flux free and has higher range. That said, it misses a fair amount against frigates and even sometimes destroyers. The Assault Autocannon hits much more reliably and with substantially higher initial dps, but it costs a bit of flux and its damage falls off eventually as the magazine needs to reload. Hopefully, this means that there is much more consideration about which weapon you'd ideally want on a ship - depending largely upon what you want that ship to do and the needs of the build. So maybe the Assault Autocannon would be better, but is the build already heavy on flux generating weaponry? It might be better to take the Autocannon and deal with the potential of missed shots. Or if the build is targeting larger ships, the armor penetration and higher sustained dps might be more ideal. It just depends.

Finally, looking at fire support weapons I decided to rework them a bit. They still cost a lot of flux to use, but instead of also being coupled with lower dps they now work similar to strike weapons. They have a large initial dps mitigated by the flux stats of the ship, but eventually that dps falls off to very low levels. Therefore, fire support ships essentially have a limited window of effectiveness to support close range ships hopefully without them dominating the battle from continuous concentrated fire through allies. These changes also generally improve the AI performance of allied ships because running out of ammo gives the AI some breathing room to vent or retreat, etc, in a 1v1 scenario. This means that fire support ships still shouldn't be able to beat close range ships in 1v1 scenario in most cases (there are some heavily optimized builds that can but largely they can't otherwise) and work best when used in conjunction with other ships.

To test this out, I ran simulations of 4 Centurions vs 4 Centurions and 5 Centurions vs 5 Centurions testing out a variety of builds in the same role while keeping the enemy fleet identical in each case. Yup, very tedious, but the data is worth it most of the time.
[close]

While this isn't enough data to be foolproof and I'm sure that I'll still be making adjustments as I get into medium weapons, it is enough that I'm fairly confident that weapons will feel more fun and the choice between them will be a bit harder. In many cases, I think they look better visually too. Finally, since many weapons are more difficult to acquire, finding or unlocking one will hopefully feel a bit more satisfying than "A" but a better "A" for more OP.

Alongside that thought, I'm hoping that balancing weapons first will help to expose ship imbalances in the future. If I can be mostly certain that all weapons hold their weight and are useful, and also get a general sense of how each one works on a build and what builds should beat what builds, I can better determine whether a discrepancy in ship performance is from random chance, poor build optimization, the build naturally performing worse across multiple ships when competing with a build that counters it, or is actually, in fact, a ship imbalance that requires an adjustment to stats.

That's the thought process and some detail as to what changed and why! For those who feel like trying the experimental build, thanks as always for the continued feedback and have fun trying out the reworked weapons! As another reminder, I haven't looked in depth at medium or large weapons yet and the larger versions of small weapons haven't been adjusted to match the changes in design yet.

(Now I just need to figure out a way to not see Centurions circle each other whenever I close my eyes.  :P )
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: thedarkgod on April 05, 2022, 06:57:13 AM
Requesting assistence is very broken as is, just by having a large fleet I can get 500k plus credits from any maxed out faction, like the player faction, and 300k plus from any friendly one, per request!

It needs both re-balancing (it scales waaay too much with player fleet size), an addition of negative rep even on success, as well as a hard cap on resources given.

I would personally also exclude requesting credits from the player faction, or give a negative multiplier to resources given to you.

Edit: Did a little bit looking around, and I believe the offending line for the insanely high credits given to the player is: "credits = (int) (credits * (relativeStrength + 0.25));" which means that with a big fleet you can get to absolutely insane values from a tiny patrol fleet, unsure how to get the mod to read the changes in src to test this hypothesis tho. (Additional de-incentives for flying around begging for cash still needs be implemented even with this glaring bug fixed, like a negative rep on success like suggested before)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 06, 2022, 04:59:24 AM
...

I agree yeah. That particular system needs some refinement and that's part of what fleet dialogue is supposed to accomplish. In particular it will get its balancing values from settings in each faction file so that modders can heavily customize the assistance or cease fire features. That is also a good place to put any caps on the reward or whether or not rep is lost, etc.

Conceptually Fleet Dialogue is mostly finished I just need to finish converting the substantial amount of dialogue from rules to the merging spreadsheet and set up all of the code that pulls it from there for each column. After that, I will rework the portion of code you were looking at to pull info from the faction files instead of having it hard coded.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: thedarkgod on April 06, 2022, 05:36:40 AM

I agree yeah. That particular system needs some refinement and that's part of what fleet dialogue is supposed to accomplish. In particular it will get its balancing values from settings in each faction file so that modders can heavily customize the assistance or cease fire features. That is also a good place to put any caps on the reward or whether or not rep is lost, etc.

Conceptually Fleet Dialogue is mostly finished I just need to finish converting the substantial amount of dialogue from rules to the merging spreadsheet and set up all of the code that pulls it from there for each column. After that, I will rework the portion of code you were looking at to pull info from the faction files instead of having it hard coded.

That seems like a smart solution, I'm not sure how far along you are, but if you do release another beta before finishing said changes, do change "relativeStrength + 0.25" into a fixed number like "1.25" or so for credits, fuel, and, supplies respectively, to mitigate said linear increase bug though, since fixing said bug shouldn't need any other change to the code.

Let me know if you need any assistance converting the dialogue by the way, if its a relatively straightforward conversion of format I should be able to whip up a script for it, to save a little bit of time.

Edit: figured out how to compile the mod, supplanting the bonus reward calculations from supplies does mitigate the issue, but we still get a a linear increase that gives you values in the 100s of thousands when you have high fleet points, I think the way to go about this would be to have the reward exponentially level off towards some reasonable value, since that would give a decent amount of cash to lower level players and some sane value to high level players as well.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: cd on April 07, 2022, 12:33:48 PM
I'm having lots of fun with this mod/tc.  Looking forward to trying out the experimental install for my next run. 

I have found a couple of bugs, and I'm not sure if this is the right place for them, but I'll post them anyhow.

I started a Archean Order run and picked the Cruiser "Justicar" as the starting ship, but now that I have a fleet and over 3mil credits I can NOT find another Justicar to add to my fleet.  They don't appear to be anywhere.  I have a the stelnet mod to let you search markets and it never finds them either.  I have all the other Archean ships in my armada, but more Justicar cruisers are no where to be found.

Also, the HEAVY Apocalypse Cannon says that it "can fire through allied ships" but it CANNOT.  The AI never does, and if you manually try it you blow up your buddies. 

There is something funny going on with the Tachyon Beam, Stabilized Drive Conduit, and perhaps Advanced Optics.  If you fire the Tachyon Beam and hit an enemy you'll never get your zero flux speed bonus working right again.  You can try it in the "run simulation" area.  I ran into it with the Adamantium Consortium Dreadcarrier and it made piloting that painful with the carrier speed penalty.  So now I never use the Tachyon Beam, even though I love its sound effect.

Anyhow, I really love your mod.  Thanks for the fun times.

Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 07, 2022, 02:32:54 PM
That seems like a smart solution, I'm not sure how far along you are, but if you do release another beta before finishing said changes, do change "relativeStrength + 0.25" into a fixed number like "1.25" or so for credits, fuel, and, supplies respectively, to mitigate said linear increase bug though, since fixing said bug shouldn't need any other change to the code.

...

Edit: figured out how to compile the mod, supplanting the bonus reward calculations from supplies does mitigate the issue, but we still get a a linear increase that gives you values in the 100s of thousands when you have high fleet points, I think the way to go about this would be to have the reward exponentially level off towards some reasonable value, since that would give a decent amount of cash to lower level players and some sane value to high level players as well.
I agree that some sort of cap is needed based upon those values and the general idea is sound to me. (The scale seemed ok-ish when I tested a long time ago, but not only have lots of things changed since then but I didn't implement it with scale in mind to be frank. It was more concept than fine tuned with balance in mind.)

Let me know if you need any assistance converting the dialogue by the way, if its a relatively straightforward conversion of format I should be able to whip up a script for it, to save a little bit of time.
Working on displaying what I'm doing a bit and you can be the judge of whether a script could accomplish this/is worth it, etc.

I'm having lots of fun with this mod/tc.  Looking forward to trying out the experimental install for my next run. 

I have found a couple of bugs, and I'm not sure if this is the right place for them, but I'll post them anyhow.

I started a Archean Order run and picked the Cruiser "Justicar" as the starting ship, but now that I have a fleet and over 3mil credits I can NOT find another Justicar to add to my fleet.  They don't appear to be anywhere.  I have a the stelnet mod to let you search markets and it never finds them either.  I have all the other Archean ships in my armada, but more Justicar cruisers are no where to be found.

Also, the HEAVY Apocalypse Cannon says that it "can fire through allied ships" but it CANNOT.  The AI never does, and if you manually try it you blow up your buddies. 

There is something funny going on with the Tachyon Beam, Stabilized Drive Conduit, and perhaps Advanced Optics.  If you fire the Tachyon Beam and hit an enemy you'll never get your zero flux speed bonus working right again.  You can try it in the "run simulation" area.  I ran into it with the Adamantium Consortium Dreadcarrier and it made piloting that painful with the carrier speed penalty.  So now I never use the Tachyon Beam, even though I love its sound effect.

Anyhow, I really love your mod.  Thanks for the fun times.
Always glad to hear that people are having fun so thank you!

Fixed the issues with the Apocalypse Cannon and Justicar for the next experimental update which might be tonight or tomorrow at some point - oof I must have added the tooltip without checking the projectile itself - assuming I had already done that or otherwise planned to do it. Sorry let me know if you find more cases of this sort of thing! For the Justicar, another great catch thanks. I think it was originally part of the tier 3 blueprint package which is included in the "known ships" portion of the faction file. I removed it from that to tune down those packs' power and didn't realize I didn't include the hull id in the known portion.

The Tachyon Lance issue is a bit of an odd case. To explain: It could definitely be that something is off with my code as it is exceptionally fancy probably not a good idea but seemed like it should functionally work most of the time and did in a few tests lol. I'll have to take a look in some detail to provide more insight on that. Iiirc, it was supposed to permanently lower the max speed of the ship the first time it fired the weapon by half for the duration of the battle. This is because kiting with the weapon was too powerful (lore-wise its an experimental super weapon that does catastrophic things to systems when fired that take detailed maintenance to repair post-combat) and it needed some kind of downside even beyond lower sustained dps. It does make piloting slow capitals extra painful, but ideally the weapon should make up for that by its ability to damage things at extreme range with perfect accuracy. What this means is that using the weapon kind of means you have to build your build around it if that makes sense. That doesn't mean its fun per se from a piloting perspective, but that's the general idea. When I look at large weapons in more detail, I'll see if I can think of a better or more fun solution. Iirc, it just had obnoxiously high flux costs once upon a time, but that isn't necessarily fun either and also messes with the AI a bit more.

Basically the speed reduction was just a balancing mechanism that probably isn't perfect. That, or there is a bug somewhere I haven't found yet.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Albreo on April 08, 2022, 05:46:30 AM
Can you also take a look at the Phase Mastery skill? I don't think 50% Flux Threshold before speed reduction is being applied properly. The top speed is still reduced immediately at the start of the phasing or did I misunderstand something?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2022, 07:56:50 AM
Can you also take a look at the Phase Mastery skill? I don't think 50% Flux Threshold before speed reduction is being applied properly. The top speed is still reduced immediately at the start of the phasing or did I misunderstand something?

Sure I'll take a look when I'm off this afternoon. I could have implemented it wro g or something.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2022, 11:06:21 AM
Meant to post this last night but the server went down:

Let me know if you need any assistance converting the dialogue by the way, if its a relatively straightforward conversion of format I should be able to whip up a script for it, to save a little bit of time.
Working on displaying what I'm doing a bit and you can be the judge of whether a script could accomplish this/is worth it, etc.

So this is a sample of the "text" column of the rules.csv file:

Spoiler
The $personRank looks like $heOrShe is about to say something menacing, then $heOrShe sees the number of credits and stops the threat mid sentence. "Ok, ok, you win I will take that and, um... just let you go." $HeOrShe says excitedly.

Your bribe was successful, and since pirates value such incentives, your reputation has increased as a result. The $personRank has agreed to end hostilities between you for a time. During that time, you are free to request things like you would a friendly fleet. Be careful not to over-request or attempt to make demands, however, or you may renew hostilities once more.
OR
"That... is a lot of credits" $HeOrShe says breathlessly. "Have a nice day then. I will remember this."

Your bribe was successful, and since pirates value such incentives, your reputation has increased as a result. The $personRank has agreed to end hostilities between you for a time. During that time, you are free to request things like you would a friendly fleet. Be careful not to over-request or attempt to make demands, however, or you may renew hostilities once more.
OR
"I.. I... I'm so happy I'm a pirate right now." $HeOrShe immediately powers down weapons and forgets all about your $shipOrFleet in $hisOrHer mad rush for your stash of credits.

Your bribe was successful, and since pirates value such incentives, your reputation has increased as a result. The $personRank has agreed to end hostilities between you for a time. During that time, you are free to request things like you would a friendly fleet. Be careful not to over-request or attempt to make demands, however, or you may renew hostilities once more.
OR
"Wow, just wow! I can't believe I've hit the jackpot!" $HeOrShe has, for the moment, all but forgotten about your $shipOrFleet.

Your bribe was successful, and since pirates value such incentives, your reputation has increased as a result. The $personRank has agreed to end hostilities between you for a time. During that time, you are free to request things like you would a friendly fleet. Be careful not to over-request or attempt to make demands, however, or you may renew hostilities once more.
OR
"You just gave me enough to provision for 30 days. I don't need your blood on my hands to begin with." $HeOrShe will let your $shipOrFleet escape unharmed.

Your bribe was successful, and since pirates value such incentives, your reputation has increased as a result. The $personRank has agreed to end hostilities between you for a time. During that time, you are free to request things like you would a friendly fleet. Be careful not to over-request or attempt to make demands, however, or you may renew hostilities once more.
[close]

Afaik it's just a string and not a complex object or anything.

It corresponds to a ruleId: PiratesCFSuccessWithLargeBribeRep - which is found in the first column of the rules.csv under "id".

I need to convert it to a spreadsheet entry in the FleetDialogue_factionText.csv in fleet dialogue. (And there are other changes such as changing "OR" to "-OR-" but I won't go into detail yet.)

The real wrinkle here is that the "Pirates" portion of the rule id means it needs to go under the pirate faction id of the FleetDialogue_factionText.csv spreadsheet where the faction id is an entry in the "id" column of that spreadsheet. Each faction gets its own row. The ruleId is the column name.

If there isn't a faction indicator in the ruleId, then it goes under "default" for the id.

Here is what the entry could end up looking like (not the same line its a test example but you get the idea):

default,"After exchanging a few $STARTHLpleasantries$HLCOLORCUSTOM255,192,203$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL, you inform the $personRank that you could use some assistance. The weight of your $STARTHLinfluence$HLCOLORPINK$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL, if any, with $hisOrHer faction is behind the request, as is the military strength of each of your respective forces...-OR-You chat $STARTHLidly$HLCOLORBLUE$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL for a few minutes with $PersonRank $personName as you work your way up to the point of this $STARTHLconversation$HLCOLORFACTION$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL. You indicate that your fleet could use some resupplying and request that the $personRank spare what $heOrShe can.$NEWLINEAny $STARTHLinfluence$ENDHL you have with $hisOrHer superiors will most likely $STARTHLfactor$HLCOLORNEGATIVE$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL in $hisOrHer decision- as will any advantages or disadvantages in relative fleet strength...-OR-After some initial small talk, you ask $PersonRank $personName for a few $STARTHLcommodities$HLCOLORGREEN$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL to help safeguard your journey. $HeOrShe considers your $STARTHLreputation$HLCOLORSTORY$ENDCOLOR$ENDHL and the size of your $shipOrFleet..."
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 08, 2022, 01:59:05 PM
Can you also take a look at the Phase Mastery skill? I don't think 50% Flux Threshold before speed reduction is being applied properly. The top speed is still reduced immediately at the start of the phasing or did I misunderstand something?

Sure I'll take a look when I'm off this afternoon. I could have implemented it wro g or something.

Hmm, well its implemented in the same way that vanilla does so it *should* be working correctly. However, looking at 0.95.1a patch notes to see exact values:

Quote
Phase cloak reduces top speed as hard flux goes up, down to 33% speed at 50% hard flux while phased

 - it could very well be that this negates the actual benefit quickly enough that it isn't very noticeable. One easy way to test this would be to severely reduce the flux per second while phased to make the effect last longer to confirm. I'll do that and from there, I can decide what a better approach for the skill should be, or whether or not phase mechanics need some adjustments. (I've noticed that the AI Tyrant phase/unphases rapidly in an unfun and ugly way to try and get a brief speed boost.)

This is probably also a good time to try tackle the system situation with that ship too.

*EDIT*

Hmm, I guess that weird phase movement is only during the title screen. It seems fine in the simulator. So, the current implementation gets the Tyrant to half its max speed in only a few seconds. So even assuming 60 max speed from the bonus - it will be 30 and therefore under normal max speed in that timeframe and at 33% of a 50% bonus max I think its only about a 7 net speed bonus overall after the threshold is met. Yeah that wouldn't be all that noticeable.

I might just do what I normally do for speed boosts and scale it by hullsize. Only in this case it would scale up instead of down as you increased it. Something like 50%/75%/100%/100%. That way the bonus is noticeable even at the flux threshold.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Matthew_Collins on April 11, 2022, 07:33:15 PM
My bad if I'm dumb - But I can't seem to get this total conversion to work, even standalone? Game won't even launch, the Mod Loader says the required game version is 0.95. 1a-RC6, while mine is apparently 0.95aRC15.

I downloaded the latest version of Starsector, so I'm kind of confused. I installed the mod correctly by placing it in my mod folder?

I'll try and fiddle around a bit more.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2022, 07:36:28 PM
Edit: Did a little bit looking around, and I believe the offending line for the insanely high credits given to the player is: "credits = (int) (credits * (relativeStrength + 0.25));" which means that with a big fleet you can get to absolutely insane values from a tiny patrol fleet, unsure how to get the mod to read the changes in src to test this hypothesis tho. (Additional de-incentives for flying around begging for cash still needs be implemented even with this glaring bug fixed, like a negative rep on success like suggested before)

So, I followed up on this for the next experimental release, and in my current dev version the credit request script has changed to: (I'm not actually sure where your line of code came from - that wasn't part of the code I was looking at anyway - though it was similar. If you have a line number and file name, I'll gladly take another look in case I missed something!)

Spoiler
Code
            if (fleetStrength > playerStrength) {
                relativeStrength = (((playerStrength * 100) / fleetStrength)) * 0.01;
                credits -= (int) (credits * (relativeStrength * 0.25));
            }
            if (fleetStrength <= playerStrength) {
                relativeStrength = (((fleetStrength * 100) / playerStrength)) * 0.01;
                credits += (int) (credits * (relativeStrength * 0.25));
            }

 - which if my math is correct should increase or decrease the initial credit pool by a small fraction of the original credit pool depending upon the enemy/ally fleet strength comparison with the player fleet. If the enemy or allied fleet strength is higher, it will decrease the initial credit pool granted. If it is lower, it will increase it but only by a small amount. Importantly, this change theoretically impacts the scenario where you are requesting credits from a welcoming captain with a low fleet strength.

I also added a hard cap on the initial credits awarded in the first stage of the calculation as well as a sanity check for cases where the reduction portion would bring the credits below zero:

Code
        if (credits > 25000) {
             credits = 25000; // maximum starting amount.
        }
Code
            if (credits <= 0) {
                credits = 50; // sanity check for calculation.
            }

 - and I also greatly reduced the scaling on the "awarded" side of the calculation for rep, etc, while maintaining mostly the same scaling in the "reduction" side of the rep calculation with a de-emphasis on extremely vast differences between captain personalities. That said, the reduction for "reckless" is still sizable in comparison and even more so because its at the bottom of the scaling portion, but its a bit less extreme.
[close]

All in all it should make things a little more consistent while retaining the dynamic feel of the feature. However, this is mostly a stop-gap for exploiting the feature rather than the fine-tuning and customization I intend to implement later on. I may also add a small amount of RNG to the final amount to really keep the feel of each encounter being a unique experience.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 11, 2022, 07:46:01 PM
My bad if I'm dumb - But I can't seem to get this total conversion to work, even standalone? Game won't even launch, the Mod Loader says the required game version is 0.95. 1a-RC6, while mine is apparently 0.95aRC15.

I downloaded the latest version of Starsector, so I'm kind of confused. I installed the mod correctly by placing it in my mod folder?

I'll try and fiddle around a bit more.

The latest version of Starsector is 0.95.1a-RC6. You have an outdated version of the game from a prior update: 0.95a. You should be able to find the version of this mod for that under "Old Files" on the NexusMods site.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Matthew_Collins on April 11, 2022, 07:47:20 PM
My bad if I'm dumb - But I can't seem to get this total conversion to work, even standalone? Game won't even launch, the Mod Loader says the required game version is 0.95. 1a-RC6, while mine is apparently 0.95aRC15.

I downloaded the latest version of Starsector, so I'm kind of confused. I installed the mod correctly by placing it in my mod folder?

I'll try and fiddle around a bit more.

The latest version of Starsector is 0.95.1a-RC6. You have an outdated version of the game from a prior update: 0.95a. You should be able to find the version of this mod for that under "Old Files" on the NexusMods site.

Woah wait what? My friend and I just got back into this game after years - Did we accidentally install an old version of the game!?

Edit: Yes. Yes we did. Holy crap - My bad.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 12, 2022, 04:34:01 AM
Woah wait what? My friend and I just got back into this game after years - Did we accidentally install an old version of the game!?

Edit: Yes. Yes we did. Holy crap - My bad.

No worries have fun!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: 6chad.noirlee9 on April 12, 2022, 04:47:43 AM
running the experimental.  no problems so far
even with a laptop workstation, this jams well in smaller battles, especially frigate skirmishes.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 12, 2022, 07:39:25 AM
running the experimental.  no problems so far
even with a laptop workstation, this jams well in smaller battles, especially frigate skirmishes.

Ah good to hear! I have some exciting stuff to post later today regarding the next update to the experimental - which might also be today at some point. I'm still debating if I want to spend a little more time with small PD.

Generally speaking I've spent a lot of time over the last couple weeks further refining small PD and missiles and further uniqueifying them, but that's not the exciting thing per se.  ;D
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/1/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 12, 2022, 08:03:29 PM
A new experimental balance build is out on Nexus Mods under optional files!

It should be save compatible with the first experimental build. I've finally found a really good ship system for the Tyrant! I have kept the heavy mine system in the mod, but it is currently unused. I do have plans for it though. The new system is something I'm excited about and I'll explain why further down in this post.

However, before I detail the new system, there are some other changes I want to highlight that indirectly came as a result of looking at the Tyrant and the phase ship lineup. As I think Albreo suggested a bit back on the thread, I mixed up the systems for the larger phase ships. The Doom now has Entropy Amplifier instead of the Harbinger. The Harbinger has the Doom's mine system instead. I flipped the two because the Harbinger needed the mines more against fighters and its a neat concept that the phase destroyer can support larger phase ships against their natural weakness with its system. That, and the Entropy Amplifier is a bit of wasted potential when doubling or tripling its presence in a fight. The Doom seemed like the perfect ship for it because the relatively limited number of cruisers means its not being too saturated in any given battle. And it fits the name!

Because the Doom needs to be a unique ship, I removed Entropy Amplifier from the Wolverine so not only the Doom has access to it! The Wolverine now has... Active Flare Launcher. Before you all throw rotten fruit at me, there actually is a good reason for this change. One of the Wolverine's weaknesses is missiles since it doesn't have many forward facing small weapons that aren't missiles. So a missile interdiction system makes sense here especially considering the general missile buff.

Alongside that reason, it was long since time to take a second look at the flare systems themselves. They were in my mind without a doubt the weakest system available for a ship. There are simply too many missiles at any given time in a large battle for a couple of flares to make much of a difference. Even small scale the flares often ejected from the engine of the ship only. It was only moderately useful at preventing interdiction missiles from knocking out engines. So, flares are much higher in number and surround the ship on ships that have them:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/PZM896g.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/7E373MO.png)
[close]

 - and in this case the flares are actively seeking out missiles or fighters and so can in turn be used for supporting nearby allied ships as well. Now there is some nuance when piloting a flare system ship and that's a lot better than before imo. Flares have 5 charges and regenerate fairly quickly. The 5 charges can mitigate the majority of incoming missiles for about 10 seconds or so. That can be a world of a difference in close fight. And since the charges regenerate fast enough to maintain some utility in prolonged engagements, this is one of the few defensive systems that are a little spammable. We'll see how it goes.

Ok let's get back to the Tyrant's new system. I designed this after spending a bit of time fleshing out what I think the role of a phase battleship is compared to a standard high tech battleship like the Paragon. The Paragon has good shields and a lot of large weapons. It deals damage and can take damage very well. It is fairly slow, however, and its system is there to give it extra bursts of damage to ensure the time before its shields fail is well spent if outmatched. This because once the shields fail the Paragon falls a lot faster than a low tech battleship like the Onslaught. So the Paragon must either vent and renew its primary defense resource or kill its target before its shields fail.

The Tyrant on the other hand doesn't have a very good defense resource. Phasing may protect from damage, but it also prevents damage from being dealt in return. Phasing hurts the Tyrants overall chance at preserving its armor if it cant use its flux to fire powerful weapons to either quickly destroy its target or flux its shields so it goes on the defensive (and ideally take some damage too) and the Tyrant can vent and strike again. The key to the Tyrant is damage and damage quickly. It is essentially an assassin ship. Its armor protects it for a time but once its gone the Tyrant cannot do much unless its using phase to strike an unprepared target that can't strike back.

With this in mind, I designed a system that works with these concepts to make the Tyrant fun to fly and scary to face while playing into the theme of phase and phase ships mechanics.

Anyway, here is the description and visual for the new system:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/G4qSt8k.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/IWCXN4U.png)
[close]

(It kind of gives off a necromancer-ish vibe which I think is cool and fits perfectly into the lore.)

And here is it in action: (well somewhat but it doesn't really capture what its capable of or the nuance of its use)
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/YlnjHrY.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/PS0NZoi.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/kB56Ozs.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/a3YXqsb.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/dbWYCpA.png)
[close]

Why am I excited by the system? Because I think it is a real sweet spot of system design. First let's take a look at the details as to what it does. It combines elements of several existing systems. It accelerates the player's frame of reference which slows down enemies and projectiles (or speeds up AI ships visually to the player fighting one) just like Temporal Shell but not quite as much. However, this means that while phased the frame of reference is actually quite a bit greater - almost double! When combined with the movement speed increase and the higher threshold for phase slowdown, the Tyrant can move very quickly while phased as if the new phase limitations didn't exist (sort of like prior versions without the slowdown mechanic). On top of the mobility, the altered time flow is supplemented with a 50% increase in weapon rate of fire (including missiles) which means that while unphased the Tyrant can unleash an immense amount of damage must faster than the average battleship.

I want to emphasize why I think this is interesting. You have two states while the system is active - phased and unphased. In one state, the ship can move very fast and can't take or deal damage. The other state leaves the ship vulnerable but able to deal immense damage. On the surface, it seems OP. The hit and run capabilities seem too much. However, one can't deny that it sounds fun right? Active system, move fast, hit hard. Retreat behind a defensive screen. Recharge. Repeat.

The thing is, its balanced because its actually pretty hard to do both adequately. The system only lasts 12-ish seconds and with the accelerated time part of the effects that timer goes really fast. It won't seem like it, but every second spent while phased is a lot of wasted damage in return for movement. So this makes for difficult choices based upon the context of the battle. Do I use a charge to retreat or gain a positional advantage? Or do I use a charge to fire my strike weapons so fast that few ships can withstand the damage for long? You only get 4 charges and they take a LONG time to regenerate. This means that the system is a limited resource that does powerful things and has tactical nuance and hard decision making. That's really what you want out of a single button press and it makes the ship feel very unique! And that's before you get into the deeper nuances like the fact that now there is more of a reason to use weapons that deal less damage per second than weapons with charges but more than the sustained damage once the charges run out. The charges will run out a lot faster with the system active. Similarly, since being phased accelerates time for the ship, it can recharge both the system and its weapons by remaining phased to max flux and then quickly venting (as long as the ship is positioned in a safe place of course).

What about the AI? Will it be annoying and run while the system lasts? No, it shouldn't. The AI is set to use the system offensively in most cases. It might still get nervous around large swarms of fighters or missiles, but it won't retreat and vent with the system as much. From tests it mostly uses it to get a flanking position. So it keeps the intended general mechanical design behind phase ships while under AI control. Its just more interesting for the player.

Maybe this is the design nerd in me, but I think the system really hits the nail on the head. I hope you all have fun with testing it out!

Finally, the update contains more small weapon fine-tuning mostly focused on PD weaponry. The big changes are that the Scythe Cannon mostly targets fighters and has been redesigned as an anti-fighter weapon specifically. This way, it doesn't compete with the PD Cannon as much and has a separate role. Less useful PD weapons like the Machine Gun now should have a niche in the PD of a ship due to range layering and other aspects of the fine-tuning (I already have a wall of test here and so will spare you all the details) that add to what the weapon can do for a build.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/12/22
Post by: Albreo on April 12, 2022, 09:38:29 PM
Crashed on save loading. Is it because I have the phase mastery skill?

Quote
66505 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.Float cannot be cast to java.lang.Integer
java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.Float cannot be cast to java.lang.Integer
   at data.scripts.skills.ArcheusPhaseMastery$Level3.apply(ArcheusPhaseMastery.java:93)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CharacterStats.applyPersonalToStats(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember.updateStats(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData.syncIfNeeded(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData.getCargo(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet.getCargo(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.menuItemSelected(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.title.ooOO.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OoO0.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.V.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/12/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 13, 2022, 07:43:27 AM
Crashed on save loading. Is it because I have the phase mastery skill?

Ah darn it I think I did the int conversion incorrectly when setting up the scaling. Try replacing the jar in the mod with this one (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1acy1oPaVxLGVQzSlF6V8m4hD7Fc8B0G2/view?usp=sharing) and see if you can load the save. If so, I'll correct the main experimental release with a hotfix.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/12/22
Post by: Albreo on April 13, 2022, 08:21:05 PM
Crashed on save loading. Is it because I have the phase mastery skill?

Ah darn it I think I did the int conversion incorrectly when setting up the scaling. Try replacing the jar in the mod with this one (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1acy1oPaVxLGVQzSlF6V8m4hD7Fc8B0G2/view?usp=sharing) and see if you can load the save. If so, I'll correct the main experimental release with a hotfix.

Nice, I got passed the loading screen. But when I pointed my mouse over Doom's tooltip, the game crashed once again.

Quote
110551 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at data.scripts.skills.ArcheusPhaseMastery$Level3.apply(ArcheusPhaseMastery.java:93)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CharacterStats.applyPersonalToStats(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CharacterStats.applyPersonalToShip(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.entities.Ship.setCaptain(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.entities.Ship.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.loading.specs._.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.trade.OoOO.??O000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.trade.OoOO.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.trade.OoOO.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.OoOoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.super(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.StandardTooltipV2$2.beforeShown(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.showTooltip(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.ooOo.super.new(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.ooOo.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.G.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e$Oo.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.e.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.publicsuper.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.X.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.o0OO.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.N.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.OO0O.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.v.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/12/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 14, 2022, 04:30:31 AM
Hmm ok I'll take a look when I get home this afternoon.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Experimental 4/12/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 14, 2022, 11:50:23 AM
Hmm ok I'll take a look when I get home this afternoon.

As it turns out, its impossible to scale by hullsize using a skill because hullsize comes up as null. Huh. Well... I guess I'll just make it a flat 50 increase? I tested it out with the Doom and the speed increase is notable - so it should be more noticeable on the Tyrant as well since that has a lower max speed than the Doom and will benefit more from the flat bonus.

I wasn't getting any crashes when testing in the sim after starting a new game.

Once again, you just have to replace the jar with this one (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WxBXCnwOxbhUVxlpHeAKT0eLGrDnoghM/view?usp=sharing) and it should hopefully fix everything.

I'm also hotfixing the main experimental download now.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Lowest Hegemon on April 15, 2022, 11:57:43 PM
I was recently playing against remnants and noticed that their hulls were regenerating, is this something unique to remnant ships? Or is it a bug to do with remnants still using skills from the base game, because I looked through the skill tree and saw nothing to do with hull regeneration.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 16, 2022, 06:49:04 AM
I was recently playing against remnants and noticed that their hulls were regenerating, is this something unique to remnant ships? Or is it a bug to do with remnants still using skills from the base game, because I looked through the skill tree and saw nothing to do with hull regeneration.

Hmm I'm not sure. Do they regenerate in vanilla?? I've not seen that in the simulator. Im not really sure what perks AI cores give though so that certainly could be one of them. It could also be another mod potentially.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Lowest Hegemon on April 16, 2022, 03:51:02 PM
I was recently playing against remnants and noticed that their hulls were regenerating, is this something unique to remnant ships? Or is it a bug to do with remnants still using skills from the base game, because I looked through the skill tree and saw nothing to do with hull regeneration.

Hmm I'm not sure. Do they regenerate in vanilla?? I've not seen that in the simulator. Im not really sure what perks AI cores give though so that certainly could be one of them. It could also be another mod potentially.
the reason why I asked is because vanilla combat endurance has an elite passive that makes your ship regenerate hull when your hull is below 50%. I noticed that a fulgent droneship was repairing it's hull up to 4000 (Vanilla fulgent has 5000 hull but I know archeon order changes hulls a lot), and I was thinking what you were thinking, that AI cores still have vanilla skills attached to them. I am playing with other mods but the only one that affects skills is a new level of confidence, and that only increases the max skill limit.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 16, 2022, 06:38:33 PM
the reason why I asked is because vanilla combat endurance has an elite passive that makes your ship regenerate hull when your hull is below 50%. I noticed that a fulgent droneship was repairing it's hull up to 4000 (Vanilla fulgent has 5000 hull but I know archeon order changes hulls a lot), and I was thinking what you were thinking, that AI cores still have vanilla skills attached to them. I am playing with other mods but the only one that affects skills is a new level of confidence, and that only increases the max skill limit.

Ah ok thanks for explaining. Since this is REDACTED ship-only its *probably* ok unless one of the skills really breaks things. If that is the case let me know though. I haven't looked into details as to whether its possible to override AI core skills in general but its probably possible I'd imagine. I mostly looked at player skills with a rough implementation for officers and admirals when I did the skill rework based upon what was obvious. There could definitely be details I'm missing.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on April 18, 2022, 09:26:25 AM
I have some complaints about skills, especially the elite upgrade for officers. Currently, Reliability Engineering, System Expertise, and Polarized Armor are undesirable at the elite level.

For elite Reliability Engineering, I think, giving it an increase in fighter redeployment rate would be a good addition.

Polarized Armor could get 25% EMP resistance at the base skill and an additional 25% at the elite level. It's "based on current hard flux" could get a bit more explanation as well like range description on Ranged Specialization skill. Its base skill is also pretty useless to high-tech ships at the moment.

For System Expertise, I don't know. You should give it something worthwhile. Increase active flux vent rate? Flux capacity?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 18, 2022, 04:20:20 PM
I have some complaints about skills, especially the elite upgrade for officers. Currently, Reliability Engineering, System Expertise, and Polarized Armor are undesirable at the elite level.

For elite Reliability Engineering, I think, giving it an increase in fighter redeployment rate would be a good addition.

Polarized Armor could get 25% EMP resistance at the base skill and an additional 25% at the elite level. It's "based on current hard flux" could get a bit more explanation as well like range description on Ranged Specialization skill. Its base skill is also pretty useless to high-tech ships at the moment.

For System Expertise, I don't know. You should give it something worthwhile. Increase active flux vent rate? Flux capacity?

Ok I'll take a look. The Reliability Engineering change is a good one and I'll do that. Polarized Armor is a bit trickier, but the point on high tech ships is solid and I'll see what I can do.

For Systems Expertise, however, the Safety Overrides unlock is pretty huge right? Just to make sure, you shouldn't be able to get that anywhere else. So if that's not the case that changes things since that is supposed to be its main elite perk.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on April 18, 2022, 08:28:13 PM
Quote
For Systems Expertise, however, the Safety Overrides unlock is pretty huge right? Just to make sure, you shouldn't be able to get that anywhere else. So if that's not the case that changes things since that is supposed to be its main elite perk.

For player character well yes that hull mod would be the main attraction. But when it comes to Officer piloting your ship the benefit is reduced to only one line which is a measly 30 seconds increase in peak performance and nothing more. Of course, no one would waste an elite point there.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 19, 2022, 07:30:30 AM
For player character well yes that hull mod would be the main attraction. But when it comes to Officer piloting your ship the benefit is reduced to only one line which is a measly 30 seconds increase in peak performance and nothing more. Of course, no one would waste an elite point there.

Ah yeah I see what you mean there. I'll try and spice it up a bit but not sure what to give it just yet.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on April 19, 2022, 11:30:31 PM
(https://i.ibb.co/tJgkLrQ/654654.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

Unforgivable! Wait, how do I find them again I just want to know what another option does.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 20, 2022, 07:56:10 AM
(https://i.ibb.co/tJgkLrQ/654654.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

Unforgivable! Wait, how do I find them again I just want to know what another option does.

Not my mod I'm afraid.  ;)

But awesome! lol
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on April 25, 2022, 01:13:57 AM
Not super important but the Heavy PD Drone is so weak right now. It should at least has a Scythe cannon and maybe proximity mines as well.

What do you think about the Specter interceptor having a short-range teleport as a skill?

Hellcat is kind of OP and it's cheap.

Torpedo firing delay should be reduced somewhat. Low max ammo already hurt its DPS by a lot and I don't like Atropos large and medium to have different firing delays, lol, very painful to make it work properly.

Trebuchet missile is very spammy, half that max ammo.

AI officer currently has access to Vanilla Combat Endurance and Field Modulation. Combat Endurance is fine but Field Modulation is a poorer version of AO Shield Modulation. It also has extra phase ship buffs which the current Shield Modulation doesn't have.

(https://i.ibb.co/mqvcmsq/6546464.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

Double shields
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 26, 2022, 04:48:15 PM
Not super important but the Heavy PD Drone is so weak right now. It should at least has a Scythe cannon and maybe proximity mines as well.
Scythe Cannon would clash with the Hydra. Proximity mines is a good idea though. And maybe just boosted defenses?

Quote
What do you think about the Specter interceptor having a short-range teleport as a skill?
On top of phase? I think that might be OP considering its replacement rate. Of course, that could be adjusted. The question I'd ask is: why does it need that? Or is it more of a flavor/uniqueness kind of thing.

Quote
Hellcat is kind of OP and it's cheap.
Too much damage?

Quote
Torpedo firing delay should be reduced somewhat. Low max ammo already hurt its DPS by a lot and I don't like Atropos large and medium to have different firing delays, lol, very painful to make it work properly.
Noted. I haven't gotten to torpedoes in the medium weapons category. I think I've done a single or maybe two passes at them atm.

Quote
Trebuchet missile is very spammy, half that max ammo.
Hmm. Well, they seem pretty balanced small-medium scale. Are they a problem large scale? I could see that. Just in general its a pretty difficult missile to balance. Its a fine line between "OP" and "worthless" as far as small LRMs go.

Quote
AI officer currently has access to Vanilla Combat Endurance and Field Modulation. Combat Endurance is fine but Field Modulation is a poorer version of AO Shield Modulation. It also has extra phase ship buffs which the current Shield Modulation doesn't have.

(https://i.ibb.co/mqvcmsq/6546464.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

Double shields
Yeah I definitely need to look at officer skills. Hopefully there is something I can do there but I'm not sure if skills were ever intended to be completely overridden. I might just be missing something obvious though.

I've taken a small break this week. (Blame Vampire Survivors haha) Once I start modding again I'll take a look at all of these things.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on April 26, 2022, 09:15:51 PM
Quote
Scythe Cannon would clash with the Hydra. Proximity mines is a good idea though. And maybe just boosted defenses?
An additional increase in defense would be nice. At the moment, its weapon is very poor and can't really do much against crafts or missiles which ruin its sole purpose. It's going to need some kind of AoE weapon. Clashing with Hydra won't be much of a problem I believe. Since they have very different ranges. Actually, giving it a new flare system would be ok as well. Mass flare deployment and something to deal with crafts.

Quote
On top of phase? I think that might be OP considering its replacement rate. Of course, that could be adjusted. The question I'd ask is: why does it need that? Or is it more of a flavor/uniqueness kind of thing.
That would be mainly for the uniqeness, I suppose, to balance the OP cost. Phase behaves like the armor counterpart, deflection shell, which has become quite common.

Quote
Hellcat is kind of OP and it's cheap.
Too much damage?
Firing too rapidly, I guess? It's very good in both anti-craft and anti-ship aspects.

Quote
Hmm. Well, they seem pretty balanced small-medium scale. Are they a problem large scale? I could see that. Just in general its a pretty difficult missile to balance. Its a fine line between "OP" and "worthless" as far as small LRMs go.
I put it on my Revenant and it's quite effective at the initial burst. Maybe, the massive flux dissipation did help a lot. Then just leave it as it is for the moment.

Quote
Blame Vampire Survivors haha
Lol, unbelievable. Such a simple and plain game makes so many people addicted.

Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on April 28, 2022, 07:50:51 AM
An additional increase in defense would be nice. At the moment, its weapon is very poor and can't really do much against crafts or missiles which ruin its sole purpose. It's going to need some kind of AoE weapon. Clashing with Hydra won't be much of a problem I believe. Since they have very different ranges. Actually, giving it a new flare system would be ok as well. Mass flare deployment and something to deal with crafts.
Flares could definitely work well and mines deal with crafts very well when based upon another craft due to the damage boost. I'll play around with it.

Quote
That would be mainly for the uniqeness, I suppose, to balance the OP cost. Phase behaves like the armor counterpart, deflection shell, which has become quite common.
I'll keep it in mind. I'm not sure exactly if a teleport would do much, but I can try and give it something flavorful.

Quote
Firing too rapidly, I guess? It's very good in both anti-craft and anti-ship aspects.
Iirc correctly it has combat capacitors. Maybe just removing that would do it.

Quote
Lol, unbelievable. Such a simple and plain game makes so many people addicted.
(The nuances between weapons and the general balance and feel of the game is great. Its simple to learn, but rewards careful decision making and micro. And picking a different character makes a pretty huge difference in how your early game build will look.)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Ranakastrasz on May 03, 2022, 08:07:37 PM
Archean Order Plus Nexerelin means no Civilian tankers, and possibly other issues. Either mod on it's own works fine, but together breaks spawning somehow.

Used the Stellar Networks mod to do a universal search, and no fleet or shop contains them at all.

Edit: There seems to be other mods that cause this to happen, but Archean order is clearly required. Optimistically, fixing it with Nexerelin will fix it with other mods as well.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on May 04, 2022, 03:51:00 PM
Archean Order Plus Nexerelin means no Civilian tankers, and possibly other issues. Either mod on it's own works fine, but together breaks spawning somehow.

Used the Stellar Networks mod to do a universal search, and no fleet or shop contains them at all.

Edit: There seems to be other mods that cause this to happen, but Archean order is clearly required. Optimistically, fixing it with Nexerelin will fix it with other mods as well.

Huh I wonder what I do that causes that to happen. Thanks for letting me know about it though! Quick question: does Nex define tankers by id somewhere that you know of? I haven't looked in the mod in a bit but I know its had some major updates since the last time I did. That would be my first guess but I'll probably have to look into it more in depth to figure it out.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on May 05, 2022, 01:08:55 AM
I'm also wondering as well. I have been playing with AO and Nex since forever. Everything works as intended. It's likely that other mods override the AO file and cause this issue. So nothing on this end is likely to solve it.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: LinWasTaken on May 05, 2022, 01:26:15 AM
(https://i.ibb.co/tJgkLrQ/654654.png) (https://imgbb.com/)

Unforgivable! Wait, how do I find them again I just want to know what another option does.
i believe that's from Nex.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Ranakastrasz on May 10, 2022, 11:41:08 AM
I'm also wondering as well. I have been playing with AO and Nex since forever. Everything works as intended. It's likely that other mods override the AO file and cause this issue. So nothing on this end is likely to solve it.

Odd, because I specifically disabled all the other mods, and the problem remained. Just AO and Nex.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on May 10, 2022, 09:19:09 PM
It would be best if you could provide a screencap of your mods page and also any screencaps of what went wrong so that we can have more clues to work with. Also, note that AO doesn't override the normal ship ID. If for example, you want to use a "findship" console command to look for Atlas. The vanilla ID is just atlas but for AO it will be archean_atlas.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Ranakastrasz on May 11, 2022, 07:20:19 AM
What exactly is the Mods page, because I use the built in mod-manager, and it doesn't expand.

Will try using console command instead of stellar.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: danando123 on May 14, 2022, 04:25:58 PM
Am i right in thinking that this mod will not work with Ship mods such as faction mods, due to the inability of changing said faction mods weapons, ships, fighters etc? in turn will not work means: (unbalanced, as this mod will have different ranges to those faction mods, and also fighters etc?)

Thanks
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on May 14, 2022, 10:24:23 PM
Am i right in thinking that this mod will not work with Ship mods such as faction mods, due to the inability of changing said faction mods weapons, ships, fighters etc? in turn will not work means: (unbalanced, as this mod will have different ranges to those faction mods, and also fighters etc?)

Thanks

All of the above.

AO is a beef-up version of vanilla. Most low tech ships will have armor in thousands, HP in ten thousands. Weapon ranges tend to be a lot longer than normal plus fire support mechanics with super long ranges. Crafts also have a higher shield and armor but are more prone to damage from PD. Ship deployment cost has also been reduced somewhat across the board.

If you know how to edit the other mod file then you can change some of the stat yourself. As for which specific, I have no clue.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: danando123 on May 15, 2022, 12:14:22 PM
Am i right in thinking that this mod will not work with Ship mods such as faction mods, due to the inability of changing said faction mods weapons, ships, fighters etc? in turn will not work means: (unbalanced, as this mod will have different ranges to those faction mods, and also fighters etc?)

Thanks

All of the above.

AO is a beef-up version of vanilla. Most low tech ships will have armor in thousands, HP in ten thousands. Weapon ranges tend to be a lot longer than normal plus fire support mechanics with super long ranges. Crafts also have a higher shield and armor but are more prone to damage from PD. Ship deployment cost has also been reduced somewhat across the board.

If you know how to edit the other mod file then you can change some of the stat yourself. As for which specific, I have no clue.

ahhh thanks for that, so just avoid using faction mods etc with this mod , since balance would get totally skewered lol
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Unduck on May 21, 2022, 02:43:30 PM
Soo the justicar cruiser is missing from every AO base cant get it to spawn anywhere is it just me or has it happened to everbody
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on May 22, 2022, 03:38:03 AM
Soo the justicar cruiser is missing from every AO base cant get it to spawn anywhere is it just me or has it happened to everbody

No, it is quite easy to find.
(https://i.ibb.co/xLsWg2B/546464.jpg) (https://ibb.co/xLsWg2B)

Or are you talking about markets?
(https://i.ibb.co/6y9TBYz/5464646464.jpg) (https://ibb.co/9pK1tn6)
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Unduck on May 22, 2022, 04:43:58 AM
Soo the justicar cruiser is missing from every AO base cant get it to spawn anywhere is it just me or has it happened to everbody

No, it is quite easy to find.
(https://i.ibb.co/xLsWg2B/546464.jpg) (https://ibb.co/xLsWg2B)

Or are you talking about markets?
(https://i.ibb.co/6y9TBYz/5464646464.jpg) (https://ibb.co/9pK1tn6)
yea im talking about markets it just does not exist  :-\
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on May 22, 2022, 04:57:36 AM
yea im talking about markets it just does not exist  :-\

From my second picture, you can see that there are 10 ships up for sale on 4 different planets but all of them are locked behind the military submarkets. A military submarket is a kind of market that require you to either receive a Commission from that faction or have an alliance with that faction to be able to buy from the submarket.

(https://i.ibb.co/R98BXZW/65465479879.jpg) (https://ibb.co/R98BXZW)

You will need +15 relations to be able to see what is inside the submarket.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Unduck on May 22, 2022, 06:03:12 AM
yea im talking about markets it just does not exist  :-\

From my second picture, you can see that there are 10 ships up for sale on 4 different planets but all of them are locked behind the military submarkets. A military submarket is a kind of market that require you to either receive a Commission from that faction or have an alliance with that faction to be able to buy from the submarket.

(https://i.ibb.co/R98BXZW/65465479879.jpg) (https://ibb.co/R98BXZW)

You will need +15 relations to be able to see what is inside the submarket.
Yes i know my problem is that all the ships are offered up for sale...The only one missing is the justicar which does not seem to spawn in markets or in AI fleets.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on May 22, 2022, 08:02:43 AM
Yes i know my problem is that all the ships are offered up for sale...The only one missing is the justicar which does not seem to spawn in markets or in AI fleets.

What version of the mod do you have? That was an issue in an older version (can't remember which one off the top of my head) but it should be fixed in the latest version. Its possible that it was fixed in an experimental version though and isn't in the primary download - but I thought I fixed it before working on the experimental builds.

If you do have an older version, iirc the fix is pretty easy to do yourself. You just have to add:

         "archean_justicar",

under the "knownShips" portion of the archean order faction file located in data/world/factions

It might take an ingame month or two, but they should start showing up in the markets after that change is made.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: FranzDenKaiser on May 25, 2022, 04:13:15 PM
Completely minor and ignorable suggestion, but would you be willing to turn the standard AO starts (20 relations with major benefactor + Small Destroyer/Frigate Fleet) into custom Nexerelin starts? Because, I feel that a large part of the enjoyment of AO is slowly climbing yourself from small-time grunt all the way up to a big boss in terms of your favorite faction. And Nex starting you at friendly wherein you have access to a lot of the cool toys kind of breaks that.

I don't mean change the numbers on Nex's "faction starts", since I imagine that means working into Nex itself, but rather specific custom starts like what Tahlan did with the Red Hand and the Balisong.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on May 25, 2022, 07:14:12 PM
Completely minor and ignorable suggestion, but would you be willing to turn the standard AO starts (20 relations with major benefactor + Small Destroyer/Frigate Fleet) into custom Nexerelin starts? Because, I feel that a large part of the enjoyment of AO is slowly climbing yourself from small-time grunt all the way up to a big boss in terms of your favorite faction. And Nex starting you at friendly wherein you have access to a lot of the cool toys kind of breaks that.

I don't mean change the numbers on Nex's "faction starts", since I imagine that means working into Nex itself, but rather specific custom starts like what Tahlan did with the Red Hand and the Balisong.

Do you mean custom Nex-specific starts assuming Nex is included in the mod list? Or just more custom starts that Nex doesn't override? Iirc, Nex overrides the starting conditions at some point and uses JSON files to give modders ways to include their own ships per starting fleet category as well as some mod-specific starting values for faction specific starts - such as the faction capital and starting relations with other factions, etc.

Looking into the current Nex implementation is already on the ToDo list anyway for other reasons, so is the Tahlan (Tahlan Shipworks mod right?) example based upon new Nex features or an entirely different thing within that mod's implementation?

In other words, I'm open to the idea but it would help to have a starting point to get the ball rolling so to speak. If you can't answer that, that's no big deal but I figured I'd ask to try and save time.

Also keep in mind that this is an addition to the ToDo list that is admittedly growing large atm since I've taken some time off modding recently. (And some of the suggestions require more testing/effort than others.)

I'll try and tackle a few things this weekend since I will have some prime modding free time saturday night/sunday hopefully.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: FranzDenKaiser on May 26, 2022, 11:35:34 AM
I unfortunately can't answer your question, but what I can tell you is that Nia Tahl was able to create starts in the "custom start" section of Nexerelin that begin with faction relations artificially augmented, and even give the player a great deal of fun goodies in the form of an abandoned storage station chock-full of sellable goods and high-tier weapons to help get the player started with their hard-mode game as the Pirate Captain of the Red Hand. So its definitely possible to shift around with Nex. Though I imagine this information alone won't be much help.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Magmaul on June 04, 2022, 07:08:08 AM
I have encountered a bug with Archean Order stations. I wanted to supply a rebellion on Obsidian Crucible and after I sneaked in with transponder off the text says: "You might be able to establish contact dissident elements within the order if you come in later with the transponder turned off." I tried to access the black market anyway but there is not even an option to see markets, only the colony info.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on June 04, 2022, 08:26:42 PM
I have encountered a bug with Archean Order stations. I wanted to supply a rebellion on Obsidian Crucible and after I sneaked in with transponder off the text says: "You might be able to establish contact dissident elements within the order if you come in later with the transponder turned off." I tried to access the black market anyway but there is not even an option to see markets, only the colony info.

One possibility is that you were spotted before with a transponder on by one of their patrols. In this case, the game will not consider you to be sneaky enough and they will still recognize you even with your transponder off. You can read the text description in the upper left corner whether this is the case.

Another possibility is that there's really some oversight on the AO part and we will have to wait for Morrokain.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Gamingninja01 on June 11, 2022, 02:55:08 AM
Hey there! First of all thanks for making the mod. I was planning on playing it with nexerelin, however when I do the tutorial custom start I talk with the planet I get a nullpointer exception without crashing. It happens when it tries to add a ship and an officer to my fleet I think.  I am not sure what causes it or why but I thought i'd attach a file of what it gives me, so someone more experienced with mods might be able to help. I've also included my modlist, and without nexerelin the tutorial start isnt available. I like the storyline so I like playing with it tutorial and all Thanks in advance!
- Archean order
-Combat Chatter
-Concord
-DroneLib
-LazyLib
-MagicLib
-Nexerelin
-speedup
-starship legends
-Terraforming & station construction
-Unknown Skies
-crew_replacer
-Graphicslib
Since my attachment didnt work here is the error typed out: RuntimeException: attempting to add null fleet member to [player player fleet]
Could not find vigilance_Starting variant, getting random ship instead (it doesnt add anything to my fleet afterwards)
NullPointerException: Null
edit: the officer part is fixed, however the tutorial seems to not be completable since I cannot hand over the AI core to the station commander
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Morrokain on June 26, 2022, 10:41:08 AM
I have encountered a bug with Archean Order stations. I wanted to supply a rebellion on Obsidian Crucible and after I sneaked in with transponder off the text says: "You might be able to establish contact dissident elements within the order if you come in later with the transponder turned off." I tried to access the black market anyway but there is not even an option to see markets, only the colony info.

Hi sorry for the delay I've been taking a break from modding for sanity purposes. I believe I did some special exceptions with a few markets to restrict access so that could be what you are running into, but I will look into it once I start modding again - which should hopefully be soontm.

Hey there! First of all thanks for making the mod. I was planning on playing it with nexerelin, however when I do the tutorial custom start I talk with the planet I get a nullpointer exception without crashing. It happens when it tries to add a ship and an officer to my fleet I think.  I am not sure what causes it or why but I thought i'd attach a file of what it gives me, so someone more experienced with mods might be able to help. I've also included my modlist, and without nexerelin the tutorial start isnt available. I like the storyline so I like playing with it tutorial and all Thanks in advance!
- Archean order
-Combat Chatter
-Concord
-DroneLib
-LazyLib
-MagicLib
-Nexerelin
-speedup
-starship legends
-Terraforming & station construction
-Unknown Skies
-crew_replacer
-Graphicslib
Since my attachment didnt work here is the error typed out: RuntimeException: attempting to add null fleet member to [player player fleet]
Could not find vigilance_Starting variant, getting random ship instead (it doesnt add anything to my fleet afterwards)
NullPointerException: Null
edit: the officer part is fixed, however the tutorial seems to not be completable since I cannot hand over the AI core to the station commander


Hello there! I am glad you like the story line I put in place. That was done forever ago and is very much incomplete so unfortunately at this time its not a good idea to use the tutorial with the mod. I disable it by default but Nex overrides the starting options so it is technically playable again but uncomplete-able. Apologies its definitely something I want to finish up at some point.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: MiniMaster22 on June 28, 2022, 08:37:55 AM
Been enjoying this mod a lot, I love the amount of weapons each ship has. I was wondering if there are any faction mods that work well with this mod or have been made with this mod in mind or even any recommended factions with stronger ships in general that can contend with the combat balance XD

thx :D
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Dtox on July 01, 2022, 11:08:13 AM
First I wanna say this mod has been really interesting to play, haven't experienced a whole lot just yet but so far combat has been feeling more tentative than what I was used to and I think I like it.

Second I've got a question regarding flux venting; there seems to be fewer options to improve one's ability to vent flux, is this intentional? because I remember combining things such as a skill and ship mod to vent flux really fast, but now it seems there isn't a skill that affects flux venting anymore.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Jaime-wolf on July 05, 2022, 06:18:55 AM
Hello so I don’t know if this is supposed to happen but the adamantine consortium has a ludicrous amount of colony’s. They have captured just over 1/4 of the sector and it keeps getting worse and I am in no position to intervene. Is this a bug or are they just over powered right now?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on July 07, 2022, 07:29:16 AM
Been enjoying this mod a lot, I love the amount of weapons each ship has. I was wondering if there are any faction mods that work well with this mod or have been made with this mod in mind or even any recommended factions with stronger ships in general that can contend with the combat balance XD

thx :D

There's no mod faction that officially supports AO right now.

First I wanna say this mod has been really interesting to play, haven't experienced a whole lot just yet but so far combat has been feeling more tentative than what I was used to and I think I like it.

Second I've got a question regarding flux venting; there seems to be fewer options to improve one's ability to vent flux, is this intentional? because I remember combining things such as a skill and ship mod to vent flux really fast, but now it seems there isn't a skill that affects flux venting anymore.

The skill that increases maximum flux vent has been moved to the last tier yellow tech. There's also some phase ship hull mod like the Phase Anchor that double phase ship flux vent.

Hello so I don’t know if this is supposed to happen but the adamantine consortium has a ludicrous amount of colony’s. They have captured just over 1/4 of the sector and it keeps getting worse and I am in no position to intervene. Is this a bug or are they just over powered right now?

The latest experimental build has some changes to the AD faction ships but that only affects actual combat and not the auto resolve. Perhaps, they just got lucky and their foes are occupied with each other. Has to wait for Morrokain to confirm this.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: MegaMemeMan on July 27, 2022, 07:40:58 AM
Hi, I've been having a lot of fun with the mod, however it seems as though there's been some sort of problem with my save, haven't had this sort of problem with the base game so I'm assuming it has something to do with the mod, and was just wondering if there was any way to fix it. Here's the error message from the logs:
---- Debugging information ----
cause-exception     : com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.StreamException
cause-message       :
class               : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.JumpPoint
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.JumpPoint
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 317221
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.JumpPointAPI$JumpDestination
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[5]            : com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.procgen.Constellation
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.oooO
version             : not available
-------------------------------
com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException:
---- Debugging information ----
cause-exception     : com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.StreamException
cause-message       :
class               : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.JumpPoint
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.JumpPoint
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 317221
class[1]            : com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.JumpPointAPI$JumpDestination
class[2]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[3]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[5]            : com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.procgen.Constellation
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.oooO
version             : not available
-------------------------------
There was some other text after this but was significantly longer that I can provide if required
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Barracuda on August 02, 2022, 05:40:13 AM
Would it be possible for me to know the code to reduce the number of ships in a fleet in this mod. I am using Nex and the early game is a little rough without going straight to the crusier start as most starting pirate fleets usually have up to 7 frigates that will run down anything short of a combat crusier. Since this is just personal preference I don't want to ask for a whole update for just one change.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Albreo on August 05, 2022, 01:28:36 AM
@MegaMemeMan That doesn't look like a normal AO crash to me. Are you trying to start on a specific campaign? This mod campaign is unfinished. Also, some other mods that you install might conflict with this mod. In that case, Please refer to the front page.

Would it be possible for me to know the code to reduce the number of ships in a fleet in this mod. I am using Nex and the early game is a little rough without going straight to the crusier start as most starting pirate fleets usually have up to 7 frigates that will run down anything short of a combat crusier. Since this is just personal preference I don't want to ask for a whole update for just one change.

It's not recommended to immediately start a fight with a starter fleet. You should join other fights first to accumulate your fleet some more or fish in troubled water. Grab all the broken ships and slap whatever garbage weapons you have onto every slot. Even an unarmed shuttle start can go this way.

I'm assuming, NEX should be the one that controls fleet spawn. This mod only contributes by lowering the deployment cost of all ships. Adjusting and rebalancing those would be more of a pain.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: kbjone on August 05, 2022, 10:25:35 AM
Playing this mod with the A New Level 40 mod, and I've found an issue:

When working down the Technology tech tree, I've been unable to choose Electronic Warfare because it requires 4 lower tier skills. But I have all five skills before it in the line, although I think the issue is with how the skills are "divided" in the tree, it seems to be a 3-3-2-2 divide, causing EW to only see 3 lower tier skills. Link to screenshot included below.

https://imgur.com/a/p8tBLnw
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Kragh on August 23, 2022, 09:29:30 AM
No idea if this is intended, but since you modified the civilian-hull Hullmod, anything that looks for it doesn't find it. That does include the extra storage, fuel and crew hullmods. That means no maintenance penalty for not having militarized subsystem.

Edit 1: I also noticed that you can't cancel Burn Drive in this unlike in Vanilla.

Edit 2: The Automated ship skill is borked when installing AI cores. The Beta and Alpha cores automatically have 2 vanilla skill that you can't have in AO (Combat Endurance and Field Modulation). You can't remove them and they stack with the AO version of the skill.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Adalbert on October 10, 2022, 06:24:40 AM
Hi. How do I get the shield shunt hullmod? I can't find it on any market anywhere. Is it not unlocked by any skills? Thanks
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: shpooky on October 13, 2022, 11:22:29 AM
Hi. How do I get the shield shunt hullmod? I can't find it on any market anywhere. Is it not unlocked by any skills? Thanks
its not in the mod.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Emodan on December 10, 2022, 08:46:51 PM
Hello Morrokain
i have recently been working on a pet project and maybe sometime in the distant future I would like to use some of your ships in a XIV reskin mod...
is it alright with you if i do post them or would you rather I not share them?
i will give all due credit
Please contact me via email: [email protected]
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Emodan on December 11, 2022, 12:37:04 PM
Here is a sample of your ships in case you want a glance.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: TravoltinoSK on December 18, 2022, 07:44:20 AM
Hello pls, can someone help me how to change skill treshold variables for certain skills? Like CR for AI ships, Bulk transport etc?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Helbrecht on January 02, 2023, 10:32:43 AM
Hi, just noticed an error regarding concentrated shields hullmod, it says it reduces shield arc "by 40%" but what it is doing is reducing it "to 40% a 40% reduction would drop it down to 216 degrees, what it is doing is dropping it to 144 degrees or 40% of 360.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Ephara on January 05, 2023, 05:40:35 PM
Hello there, same here for the character skills, i have tried tweaking the values found in the scripts folder to no avail as nothing shows in game.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: mark.sucka on January 12, 2023, 07:16:32 PM
Interesting overhaul mod.

Not sure if it has been addressed before, but I see others in earlier posts have mentioned the potential balancing issues of logistic ships.  Is this by design?

Like cargo hauling.  In vanilla, you've got a progression of ships like wayfarer, buffalo / tarsus, colossus, and atlas.  Early game with not much to haul, a desire for fast burn speed, and the need for all the ships in your fleet to be combat-capable, it's economical to get a small gaggle of wayfarers to haul your stuff.  As your fleet gets larger and you go for a specialized combat fleet with a few supporting logistics ships, the lower operating cost per cargo hauling capacity of the buffalo and then the atlas dictate you swapping to those ships as your need for larger and larger amounts of cargo space in your fleet go up.

However, it AO, this is the inverse.  Take a mercury, with its 160 units of cargo capacity.  If you expect 15 light years of travel per month, you've got an operating cost of $154/month; $50 for the 0.5 unit of supply, $10 for the crew salary, and $103 for the expected fuel usage of 15ly of travel.  That's $0.96 per unit of cargo hauling.  Now take a buffalo.  $575 per month for 400 units of hauling, or $1.44 per unit.  Colossus is a bit better at $1.27 per unit, but the Atlas comes in at $1.69 per unit -- worse than everything except quasi-combat capable haulers like the tarsus or Sci/Tac/Arc variants of the buffalo.  Unless you're planning to put your cargo haulers into combat, you're economically best served by just getting a huge fleet of mercury shuttles to haul your loot.  Is this intended?  What would be the reasoning?
A) Yeah sure it gets more expensive to haul things with larger ships, that's the penalty for moving towards a late game fleet as you hit the 30-ship cap and are forced to move from frigate-sized haulers to capital-sized haulers.
B) Well okay, but a mercury will die on the battlefield in half a second, whereas the Atlas with its fighter bays, better durability, and weapons systems will survive for a while, so you've got to value that for something.
C) Oops!

I feel like this must be an oversight, as the economical improvement of going from dram->phaeton->prometheus for fuel hauling and mudskipper->starliner for crew hauling (nebula is an outlier, nearly 2x more expensive than 4 mudskippers for the same crew hauling) still hold true as they did in vanilla.

Also, with fog of war, are missile ranges overpowered?  I feel like an incredibly cheesy tactic is available of building long-ranged missile boats, deploying tanks at the beginning of battle, then reinforcing with the missile boats (so they are far behind the battle lines), then sending the missile boats off secretly to the bottom corners of the map.  From there they can fire away at the enemy in the middle of the map (or even the enemy spawn point) with zero risk of being found, nor any depletion of peak performance time since no enemy is near them.  You can even deploy a single kite, send him off towards top right, deploy a long range missile boat, send him bottom left, click the biggest enemy ship your kite sees along the way and hit R to missile lock him, and then have your missile boat salvo away until the enemy ship is so damaged it retreats.  Send in another kite to acquire a new target, repeat process, trading a kite for a capital or cruiser grade ship each time.  Then send in your cruisers and caps to slaughter what enemy destroyers or frigates are left.  Round 2 and all that is left of the enemy is a bunch of badly damaged and CR depleted cruisers & caps to tease for the half-second before your fighters take their last 100 or so HP.  I've had to use this tactic against a deathstack that appeared out of an asteroid belt, and my apogee needed to clip the nuts of half a dozen capitals.  The enemy only seems to search the 80% middle of the battle map, ignoring the extreme edges unless they have seen an enemy fly there -- never mind there is a torrent of missiles coming from the southeast corner boys, keep sweeping the middle of the map until we find this bastard!
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: rogerbacon on February 17, 2023, 06:06:15 AM
How hard would it be to just extract the "More dialog options" part of this mod? I have a ton of faction mods installed and the op mentions this is not designed for balance with other faction mods. So, I'd just like the more dialog options. Is it possible that this might be offered separately at some point?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Xhaldor on March 04, 2023, 01:08:53 PM
When is next update?
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: uamadman on May 22, 2023, 01:54:34 PM
(0.96a) It does seem to work just fine with Total Conversion set to false with Nexrillian, However pretty much everything is wildly over tuned. Ships are 2x Hull/Armor OP is .75 and weapons are 1.5-2.5x over tuned... I've been trying to balance the sheets but its just alot of work trying to get it right.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: JaxSparrow on July 02, 2023, 03:05:31 AM
Anyone know if https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=6403bb43d20087d753b9107a9ee1634f&topic=26307.0 (Ashes of The Domain) Mod is fine with this overhaul, Since I do love the overhaul of the Ashes of The Domain mod for own world/planet building and research.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Stroichik on December 11, 2023, 02:30:47 AM
That Mod is amazing. I really love it more than vanilla game. I hope author won't be staying away from modding forever and will update mod.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: Xhaldor on December 18, 2023, 11:25:21 AM
It's sad how this mod isn't as compatible as it was before.
Title: Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22
Post by: paulogabbi on February 20, 2024, 11:58:37 PM
i hope one day it gets updated