Small announcement for people playing with this mod:
I just realized the 0.96version was released. It will be a good opportunity to do some weapon and ship balancing. Unfortunately I'm away for a few weeks and will not be able to update the mod until early June.
So, if people have any suggestions/comments about some weapons not balanced enough, ships that feel "wrong", duplication of ships vs the new release etc... please feel free to type it down this topic, it will help me move faster toward a new updated version of SGM and will be greatly appreciated!
Very gladly! But first of all do we compare SGM to Vanilla or other mods too? Because if we're talking about overlaps there are some cases but here goes my thoughts, based on personal tweaks I've made to my personal bootleg of the mod (for personal use ofc), also this is pretty long so please bear with me
:
1. Ships:
a. Auspicious/Apex: with the new update upsizing the Apogee's left hardpoint to a medium, the Auspicious is just Apogee but fighter bays instead of missile (something that could be done with the buffed Converted Hangar while keeping the Large Missile slot), without its own niche I think it's best to retire this ship.
b. Foundation: the small turret in the middle is facing backwards which is a bit awkward, maybe flip it to the other side or make it 360 degrees? It could also use another medium mount I think.
c. Era (LC): loses its small missile mount at the front compared to the regular Era.
d. Herder: sprite has two symmetrical bridges on both sides.
e. Copernic & Copernic (A): sprites have what looks like to be fighter bays but no slot.
PS. so glad you decided to bring back the
Foundation Babel.
2. Weapons:
a. Hive SRM Launcher: as I've mentioned previously, it is severely underwhelming, I can share my stat sheet for what I think is properly balanced for it (to be between Swarmer & Locust).
b. Scorpius LRM: overlapped with the new Pilum Catapult, even the EMP niche, suggest removing it to reduce bloat.
c. David Missile System: personal opinion but the name is boring imo (no offense), and they, true to the lore, are awful and the only ones who'd use these missiles are Pirates (which in many cases it's either cheaper to use Hammers or just upgun to actual Harpoons), might want to try rebranding it or just remove them to reduce bloat.
d. Scattergun: a bit unreliable as a PD and a bit expensive for 5 OPs (for what looks like a makeshift weapon), might try increasing the firing rate so it can cover better and reduce the OP cost to 4.
e. Ice Bomb: very nice gun just think the sprites could use a touch up (feels a bit stretched) and a cooler name.
f. Mining Array: there are a few other mods that have similar or even the same as the Mining Array (at least HMI and BSC), personally I chose the HMI's out of the other options and disabled this in my bootleg to reduce bloat.
3. Systems/Worlds:
a. Byzos: Lepia's placement is too close to Bythinia in range of its patrols which leads to being rapidly decivilized in a few cycles, Bythinia is also lore-wise is a space dump so Scattered Ruins feels a bit lacking, personally I bumped it up to Widespread Ruins.
b. Ivree: Scilly has the size of 5 but the population of 6.
c. Utic: Nepheria being a size 6 independent with a high command and orbital works complete with a corrupted nanoforge strikes me as less than a "second rank industrial planet" lore-wise and more of a regional capital/command center (when the largest indie settlement in Vanilla is Nova Maxios), so I tuned it down by replacing high command > military base and orbital works > heavy industry.
Others:
a. Planet Illustrations are very awesome, would like to see more of them (or again, maybe AI generated illustration could be cool too) to give each planets more distinction.
b. Lots of typos/minor adjustments that could be made in the descriptions, I'd gladly help proofread if you need help with it.
All in all, this is my personal opinion based on my experience as a long time user of this mod, being one of the most Vanilla friendly that is still mantained (RIP DaRa & Missing Ships) and I'm very happy to support the development of this mod in any way I can.
If any others have different experience/POV/idea how to balance/improve, please kindly bring it up and maybe we can cook something up to make it even better.
Edit: added Copernic feedback
