Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kpop on March 28, 2020, 04:51:10 PM

Title: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Kpop on March 28, 2020, 04:51:10 PM
Not sure if someone has made their own personal tier list already, but to the point: How do you think the modded factions stack up against eachother? Fighters and weapons restricted or otherwise. I haven't played enough with some factions to have a good idea but mine would look like something like:

S: Great Houses, Cabal, Blade Breakers
A: Mayasura, Legio Infernalis
B: Imperium, Appro-Light, Sylphon RnD, Stormhawk Republic, Blackrock
C: ED Shipyards, Shadowyards, HMI
D: Rimward Venture, Kadur Remnant, Revolutionary Council
F: Diable Avionics, Caparice Trade Co

This is my opinion of them considering how the general power of ships/weapons/fighters stack up. All factions have ships, weapons and fighters that stand above(or sometimes below) the rest. Might even be worth dividing them into those 3 categories of lists. Fury torpedos from Blackrock and Vespas are insane. Legio Infernalis are solid but I think the Doominator is a joke.
Thoughts?
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Tartiflette on March 29, 2020, 12:59:25 AM
I made one a long LONG time ago and it looked like that:

(https://i.imgur.com/5So7wull.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/5So7wul.jpg)

That way you get a good idea of what to expect, including outliers, instead of a singular data point that might obscure a lot of things. Please note that is is very outdated.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Igncom1 on March 29, 2020, 03:37:43 AM
I tend to find that there are a lot of mod ships that do better with vanilla weapons, where the mod weapons side grade or down grade in effectiveness if not requiring the stats of the mods ships to work very well at all.

Wanzers from DA work great in Drovers, although what doesn't? ORA ships also work very well with vanilla energy weapons, so much so that they have a built-in hull mod to nerf beams, and honestly only discourage them by a very minor amount.

If anything I'd say most mod weapons are kinda terrible and let their host ships down where otherwise they are just as good if not better then their vanilla counterparts. There are many small ballistic PD weapons or medium energy weapons n these mods that are rarely, if ever, worth using over their vanilla versions which isn't necessarily bad. Options are options, but usually they are more flash then result. Usually fighters and bombers from these mods are often just as good if not BROKENLY fantastic in comparison. But that might just be SS in general right now where it's hard to even design a bad fighter-bomber due to AI distracting being worth it's time in gold.

It is my opinion that, other then boss fight mods like the templars (one day I'll play with them, one day), any ship selection with as much good as it has crud like the vanilla ships is basically good enough. Yeah I might not use all the ships from a faction mod, but I don't use all the ships from vanilla either, so fairs fair.

Out of the faction mods I have played enough with to have a reasonable judge of them:

Diable Avionics: What they lack in cruisers and super carriers they make up with in Wanzers and that one transforming frigate that is VERY good in my opinion. A good match for the PL in mid size carrier spamming, but unable to compete with TT phase/super carrier shenanigans or Hege gunboat superiority.

LEGACY OF ARKGNEISIS: Anarakis Reparations Society or whoever they are. Might be a little unfair to comment on as I never really got around to using most of their fleet (and and older version of the mod), but they seem to be nimble, fast and relying on EMP weapons to match their more direct counterparts. They have longer range weapons then vanilla, but aren't as efficient in a brawl. They have a mix of disposable fighter drones, elite fighter interceptors and frigging gunboats for strike craft, a nice deadly mix but possibly missing the edge they might need to fully contend for a carrier based fleet. I'd rate them as sub par, but they were never contending for galactic domination anyway.

Mayasuran Navy: Imagine making the PL better. Yeah, now they can contend with Hege gunboat superiority and they have lot of new additions to their standard carrier fleet. I haven't played with the version that ads the new phase ships, so no idea how they match up to the TT in that field. Basically better all round.

Outer Rim Alliance: Broadsiding is hard for the AI to do, and with energy weapons it's even harder. But these are some of the tankiest SOB's in the sector. Their battleship struggles to use all of it's large energy slots effectively, the weapon groups or something like that, so I turned it into something that not even an AI radiant can kill. They are darn near unkillable without heavy carrier support. But they are also slow, so can almost never flee from combat if things do turn sour. Their weapons are strange and can have some utility options but I didn't favour them over vanilla weapons, which I believe they also use in their fleets anyway. Their fighters are like their cruisers, big, tanky, slow-er but packing EMP's at almost all times. They don't pack as much of a punch, but reaching that critical mass where you simply can never get rid of them is MUCH easier if they enemy don't just fire their main guns at them, which they inevitably will. I don't think they can match PL carrier spamming, nor TT in phase/super carrier shenanigans but can certainly match Hege gunboat superiority pound for pound.

Sanguinary Anarchistic Defectors: Strange faction that spend more on pimping their rides then building highly effective weapons. I'll say that they can be alright, but their default weapons are nothing impressive over vanilla energy weapons. Mass EMP fighter spam though, which is nice. I wouldn't put them up to matching any of the big three vanilla factions, but they are a remnant like faction to fight rather then a local power. So fight to hunt for free survay data, which is odd but cool.

Scy: It's been a long time since I played with this mod so I'll just say this, arm your cruisers and battleships with super-charged pulse beams, and they will delete half the enemies fleets within a few minutes. Assuming it still applies, that weapon is brokenly powerful.

Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority: Another long time since, and I'm getting tired of writing this all. But carrier spammers, like the PL. Otherwise they have equivalent energy weapon gunboats like the TT and they never fare too well in a gunboat battle against those who are built for it like the Hege.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Mordodrukow on March 29, 2020, 07:10:07 AM
Tried D-Mic, Shadowyards, Imperium, Appro Light, Sylphon, Blackrock drive and Ship and Weapon Pack.
IMO:
D-Mic: look good, have nice weapons, two good capitals and a carrier-freighter.
To play against... well. While idea of Blade breakers is nice and you can enjoy it, bounty missions can be pita sometimes, because of geniusly balanced carrier mechanics. I can remember one mission, i tried to solve in 6 consecutive hours of save scumming. You sittiand at the border, doing well, then they start to run. You need to chase em. You doing that, following one of the carriers, then you moving the screen for a second on your allies to check if they doing some idiotic actions (again). Then you return the screen back (i remember: 1 second) and watch your flagman dead, because of fighters, demanding you to spend all your hardpoints for PDs to kill em fast enough and having 15 reapers on the each board. 10/10 (no)

Shadowyards: pretty much the same, but cant remember any weapon i need to have and no ships i want to pilot (even capitals). But ships look awesome.

Imperium: pretty boring. You will use their ships if the game give you some, but there are no stuff you cant replace.
To fight against: tougher fights than vs vanilla, but not much. You will not feel rage against mod creators like in 2 previous cases... until suicide-ship appears. Yes, it gives you some time to split or destroy it, but lets be realistic: in tough battle its pretty hard to do without help from bots and bots need years to realise your commands.
Best part of mod: heavy pulse laser. Love it.

Appro Light: for me it looks slightly above the level i want, but it is ok. Some challenge, but not annoying.
Have cool ships (thought they are slightly OP, but if you try em, they look balanced. I mean: Paragon still better, lol...), some good weapons, some interesting hull mods.
Look very nice. May be, my favorite mod right now (aside Nex and S&W pack).

Sylphon: doable fights against. Nice ships. Can mention Replekia capital. I had agressive officer, dying a lot... On replekia she never died at all. Well, may be in really suicidal situations, which can easily be avoided.
Not the best looking ships, but mostly original anyway.

BDR: plugged this mod because of really nice looking ships, but at the end never used even single one (even having opportunity). So, i dont know...

S&W pack: imo, this one can be part of vanilla. Mostly because of Victory battleship, but there are a lot of good stuff.

Right now im running a game with S&W and Appro Light on. Pretty satisfied.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on March 29, 2020, 12:35:18 PM
To play against... well. While idea of Blade breakers is nice and you can enjoy it, bounty missions can be pita sometimes, because of geniusly balanced carrier mechanics. I can remember one mission, i tried to solve in 6 consecutive hours of save scumming. You sittiand at the border, doing well, then they start to run. You need to chase em. You doing that, following one of the carriers, then you moving the screen for a second on your allies to check if they doing some idiotic actions (again). Then you return the screen back (i remember: 1 second) and watch your flagman dead, because of fighters, demanding you to spend all your hardpoints for PDs to kill em fast enough and having 15 reapers on the each board. 10/10 (no)

(Just a note; the balance hacksaw has come out for Blade Breaker stuff next update; many changes, but in particular the fighter spam is going to be trimmed in favor of a more balanced approach. Hopefully still very difficult, but less... unrelenting.)
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Thaago on March 29, 2020, 02:20:49 PM
In general, most large factions are fairly well balanced when they stick to their own equipment. Its crossing different equipment from different mods and vanilla that causes balance problems. Super long range Imperium HE guns on non-Imperium ships can be a problem. Wanzers on Drovers (already mentioned). Assault chainguns on fast shielded mod frigates (frigates that were designed before the AC buff). Etc.

The other issue is outlier collection. Vanilla has a couple ships and weapons which are quite powerful for their cost (to varying degrees). Most mods usually have one or two weapons and ships that are the same. Add a bunch of mods together, and suddenly there is a moderately overpowered option of everything.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Igncom1 on March 29, 2020, 02:25:51 PM
I suppose that's player choice really. The AI factions aren't really set up to pick and chose from other mods, where as the player can actively do so to their advantage.

Which can kinda break the game, but that's frankly the point in my opinion. Finding combos that bring you glory, or bring you fun.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Abraxas on March 29, 2020, 03:58:52 PM
I made one a long LONG time ago and it looked like that:

(https://i.imgur.com/5So7wull.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/5So7wul.jpg)

That way you get a good idea of what to expect, including outliers, instead of a singular data point that might obscure a lot of things. Please note that is is very outdated.

What is T?
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: TimeDiver on March 29, 2020, 04:08:11 PM
What is T?
(Knights) Templar (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8095.0) by Dark.Revenant; not updated for v0.9x or newer.

And even if it were, its 4 ships (one for each size class) would still be stupidly OP.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on March 29, 2020, 04:25:32 PM
What is T?
An old, outdated mod that was built around being a boss faction. Sadly the updates to SS have made updating it pretty much impossible as far as I know
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Mordodrukow on March 29, 2020, 04:55:09 PM
Quote
(Just a note; the balance hacksaw has come out for Blade Breaker stuff next update; many changes, but in particular the fighter spam is going to be trimmed in favor of a more balanced approach. Hopefully still very difficult, but less... unrelenting.)
Sorry for salty review, but it was really too much. I dont change my fleet composition too often, so, i can compare battle difficulties. It was like vanilla heron-based carrier swarm, but slightly different (and much harder): better speed because of hullmod bonus and simply better fighters and bombers. Ah, and overwhelming ECM... Every single mod, that i like, has it...

It was doable (i mean: i did it, after all...), but it demands to act like a robot without any mistakes, while other challenges allow to make some. May be if i had just few Paragons instead of my fleet (it was like: Victory, Astral, Legion, Odyssey and some cruisers like Apogee and Eagles, all with few D-mods vs 3 Zelenograds, 4 carrier capitals, like 12-14 cruiser carriers and some lesser stuff) there, it could be easier, but Paragon can hit you from other galaxy and has shield which can stop Chuck Norris for a few seconds, so, i dont think it is the right ship to balance carrier challenges around.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on March 29, 2020, 06:24:05 PM
Sorry for salty review, but it was really too much. I dont change my fleet composition too often, so, i can compare battle difficulties. It was like vanilla heron-based carrier swarm, but slightly different (and much harder): better speed because of hullmod bonus and simply better fighters and bombers. Ah, and overwhelming ECM... Every single mod, that i like, has it...

It's fine! It's meant to provoke some salt.

It was doable (i mean: i did it, after all...), but it demands to act like a robot without any mistakes, while other challenges allow to make some.

Yeah, this is the crux of the issue and why I'm making some changes; not enough variation in possible strategy.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: FooF on March 29, 2020, 07:04:12 PM
Re: Knights Templar

The lore indicated that they were using alien tech that was superior (perhaps vastly superior) than even the Domain at its peak and a Frigate was a Cruiser-level threat. Every weapon was ludicrous, they had always-on shielding, they could discharge their flux as a massive AoE burst...everything about them was OP but they were awesome to fight against.

One of my favorite mods, to be honest. Some of their Crusade fleets could easily wipe out 2-3 large defense fleets. I would love to see them in the game now because even high-level colonies with Star Fortresses would be hard-pressed to repel their invasions.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: Megas on March 29, 2020, 07:17:41 PM
While Templars was fun, it felt more like a god mod because once the player could beat them, he gets the weapons (and maybe ships) for a disgusting powerup.  Aside from Paladin cruiser, stock Paragon with Templar weapons was disgustingly overpowered.  Even normally junk ships like Astral (before it get Recall Device) became frighteningly strong with ROLANDs and Templar fighters.
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: shrek_luigi on March 31, 2020, 11:55:01 AM
tiandong didn't make the cut LOL, I give them an F for gameplay & an S for flavour
Title: Re: Mod Faction Power Rankings
Post by: MesoTroniK on March 31, 2020, 05:21:18 PM
tiandong didn't make the cut LOL, I give them an F for gameplay & an S for flavour
That chart is ancient now...

The mod has changed, and had a lot of balance work since then which was a number of years ago.