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16

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Orks v1.0.4 "Scrapyard"

« on: June 14, 2022, 05:01:52 PM »

If you do end up recoloring the ships to traditional ork colors, maybe leave the vanilla-styled color palet as an alternate skin pack?

17

Modding / Re: Mod to control own faction's fleets?

« on: June 09, 2022, 06:09:31 PM »

You could just use Nex but turn off random diplomatic events in config

18

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Experimental Hull Modifications 0.1.7 - Preview

« on: June 09, 2022, 05:46:25 PM »

Has this thing with the phase stuff been addressed? maybe just remove it for now?

19

Modding / Re: [0.95.1a] S/WP Submod: OOPS! ALL VARIANTS (1.1.0)

« on: June 09, 2022, 05:39:12 PM »

Maybe unite the liberator XIV variants? Replacing the hanger bay/hammer barrage with a TPC seems cool, useful, and appropriate for a XIV ship. Also, maybe make the Vindicator XIV S more common than the normal Vindicator XIV, since the XIV battlegroup were an elite unit that liked big guns? To make it more unique, the normal XIV Vindicator could lose its single cannon for a another large missile slot, and maybe gain a extra frontal medium ballistic slot so it has some degree of ballistic firepower and it has something to use its flux for.

20

Mods / Re: [0.95a] Automated Commands

« on: June 09, 2022, 05:16:31 PM »

Would you consider adding (if it is possible), a hullmod that makes it so ships always fire missiles as soon as they are off cooldown if an enemy is in range? Main utility is for LRM ships that are still way to conservative with missiles, even when they are a few thousand range away from enemies and they have massive missile capacity and can slowly reload.

21

Mods / Re: [0.95a] Automated Commands

« on: June 07, 2022, 12:19:45 PM »

Is this save game compatible?

22

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] The Star Federation v0.97.33 - Inspired by FTL (4/5/2022)

« on: June 06, 2022, 08:33:31 PM »

I like this mod a lot, but I've run into a bit of an issue with the travel drive. For some reason, some ships (so far, my piloted Centa (but not an unpiloted one, somehow) and an Emerillon) retain far too much of their speed when they come out of the travel drive and slow down far too slowly, which causes them to overshoot the rest of the formation by a long shot. I've learned to raise shields and hold W or S as soon as I can with my Centa so I merely end up about a few ships' lengths ahead of where I should be, since that significantly increases the braking speed, because otherwise I've had situations where I've ended up quite literally at point blank range of an enemy formation (at least in small engagements) in maybe two seconds and my ship dies almost immediately. The Emerillon also seems to happily overshoot, and I think I might have also seen the speed-up bug that was talked about a few pages back, since it seems to turn and change heading far faster than it should when coming out of travel drive, but I hadn't taken much notice of it until I read about the bug so I can't say more about that. Another weird issue with the Emerillon is that sometimes it won't render properly, appearing almost transparent, as if it's in phase, but the problem with that is that it only happens some of the time and I have no idea what the common factors are yet. Otherwise, this is a great mod and I'm enjoying it very much.

I have had a problem like this to a much lesser degree, where the fed ships will slam into the allied ships in front of them when deploying. (with no speed-up mods)

23

Mods / Re: [0.95a-RC15] Hullmod Barratry 2.0

« on: June 03, 2022, 08:11:34 PM »

Do you ever plan on making a mod with the functionality this mod used to have, where it let you add vanilla D-mods? I get that this is more balanced, but repeatedly throwing my ships unarmed against derelicts gets incredibly tedious incredibly fast.

24

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a]Carter's Freetraders - V 0.45 - 05/26/22

« on: June 03, 2022, 02:35:15 PM »

Hello there! Nice points you make about the Scow, thank you for taking the time to share them.

In my opinion, the problems with the scow lie in the fact not that it directly outcompetes the wayfarer as a freighter (which is debatable), but that it is very competitive with the brawler, a vanilla midline frigate fully dedicated to combat. Yes, the brawler is far more durable, with more hull, better shield, and dramatically more armor and flux capacity. However, this matters less than you might think, since the brawler still doesn't have enough armor and hull to survive a small barrage of harpoons, or enough capacity to shield tank a small sabot barrage. And that is just against other frigates and weaker destroyers, with proper heavy guns on a cruiser or a capital, the extra durability is largely irrelevant. The only other real advantage the brawler has over the scow is it's high PPT, but on frigates that is only really important late in the game, and it doesn't matter in the early-mid game, when frigate balancing is most relevant.

Well when I made the Scow I did not compare it to combat frigates like the Brawler. It's intended purpose is to be a Smugglers logistical combat freighter more focused on combat than freighter but not so much that it can replace a combat ship. Though you de-value the advantages that the Brawler has in mid game, I think they are key differences that have great value for a wolfpack fleet ship.

Now lets look at the advantages the Scow has. It has more guns, with an extra small weapon slot over the brawler, and it has a huge 15 extra OP. But the really huge advantage the scow has is that while the brawler is very slow for a frigate, at only 100 speed, the scow is incredibly fast for a frigate, at an insane 180 speed, only matched by the tempest in vanilla, which is an elite frigate that costs 40-50k. While if it was just all the things I just went over, it would probably be largely fine.

I have already taken the comments I received from Kumquat and rawkhawklives and modified it by removing the small front missile mount and reducing the OP by 5. I will give your speed concerns more thought while playing around with the data files for the next update.

The really big problem is that the scow strongly competes with the brawler, while providing lots of logistic support. It has 100 cargo capacity, which adds up when you have several scows, but the big thing is that it has a salvage gantry and shielded cargo holds. While you have equated them to being equivalent to 5 OP each, since they are not available as modular hull mods, they are worth far more than that. Shielded cargo holds is very useful and only available on 4 vanilla ships (hound, cerberus, P mule, and the rare P buffalo), but the real catch here is salvage gantry. The extra salvage it provides is huge. While you might argue that you could just use shepherds which have the same amount of cargo and a salvage gantry, and also come with free surveying equipment, shepherds do not have shielded cargo holds, and are terrible in combat, making them risky to spam.

Yes, both the Sheppard and the Scow are combat freighter logistics frigates but the Sheppard also has mining drones that provide extra PD support and mining stats for Nex which the Scow lacks. The Sheppard is intended to be a backline support frigate if deployed where as the Scow is a nimble front line glass cannon that can do some damage but one wrong move and it is destroyed. The 5 OP I used to calculate the hull mods actually comes from vanilla SS files, that is what Alex rates their worth as. The surveying equipment on the Sheppard is equal in OP to the shielded holds on the Scow so that's a bit of a wash.

With scows, on the other hand, you get the salvage bonuses of a shepherd, and shielded cargo holds, while being a top-of-the-line combat frigate. And since surveying equipment is modular and scows have so much OP, they can easily use it while still being combat viable. I think scows probably need to lose salvage gantry, and 5-15 OP, and be like 30 speed slower (and maybe downgrade one of the medium mounts to a small).

I am hesitant to remove the gantry and shielded holds because those are on-point aspects for the CFT technical lore. Overall I want CFT ships to not just be analogs of vanilla counterparts but offer something that vanilla does not offer. I do agree that in it's current state it is Op for it's role as a smugglers logistics freighter. I have the changes I made to the Scow stated above as well as sprite updates to reflect them ready for the next patch. I will take into account your comments before a final release for the Scow but I should have a patch that also includes some other player suggested changes to the mod out over the weekend.

Thank you again for your thoughts, I truly appreciate the input.

I know you were not comparing it to the brawler; my point was that it competed with the brawler. I disagree with the idea that the brawler's advantages make it a good wolfpack tactics, in my experience wolfpack tac ships generally need to be substantially faster than the brawler, and while I could see a point in having something tanky, it needs to be very tanky to be worth it and still needs to be fast, and the only option I have found for that is a personally piloted SO unstable injector hardened subsystems monitor. The high speed and heavy armament of the scow makes it pretty good for wpt though. The scow should definitely keep shielded cargo holds, just not sure about the salvage gantry, since it seems to make the shepherd irrelevant. Yes, the shepherd has PD drones, but the scow is so much faster it does not really need them that much. The big difference is that even with the lost small slot, it has the guns of a well-armed full combat frigate, and enough base flux stats and OP for vents and caps it can use that firepower, meaning that unlike the shepherd the scow is dangerous en masse against destroyers and even light cruisers. The shepherd does have mining stats the scow lacks, but those are not very important and there are far more efficient miners than the shepherd anyway. I'm fairly certain that the OP costs for non-modular hullmods are arbitrary, since the player can't normally see them, and since shielded cargo holds and salvage gantry are both definitely worth substantially more than 5 op. If they were both truly worth 5/10/15/20 OP each, then there would not be an entire ship dedicated solely to having a salvage gantry, and people would just put shielded cargo holds on their atlases instead of specifically hunting down pirate buffalo, and salvage gantries would just be used on any civilian ships with spare OP.

25

Mods / Re: [0.95a] Gladiator Society

« on: June 03, 2022, 11:41:56 AM »

Would it be possible to make it so that if you have an IndEvo interstellar relay on a planet you own, you can access gladiator society (since interstellar relay functions as a comm relay). Maybe make it an option when talking to the base commander?

26

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a]Carter's Freetraders - V 0.45 - 05/26/22

« on: June 03, 2022, 11:09:35 AM »

Sorry that was from my phone and didn't have the game handy. It is the Scow. It's so good, and so easy to fit. I would think just 10 less ordnance points maybe? And/or one less fitting point? It's such a good combat craft, and it can haul, and it's only like 12k? A handful of those can handle so much.

Pretty sure the reason it's so good is mostly volley and point defence missiles.
I generally give them 2 PD, and then 2 of those plus a medium gun of the opposite damage type plus aux thrusters since their guns aren't turrets. Slap on the Expanded missile s for a third less cargo and they're not going to run out of ammo but aren't great haulers. Salvage rigs on all of them meN they easily account for +50% salvage in a small fleet.

I just finished up a hotfix for JYD so I have some time to tinker with CFT. I've already got a couple adjustments made from messages I received on discord and would like to incorporate both your views into a potential update to the Scow for the next patch.

First off, thank you both for taking the time to provide your input and well thought out comments. I would like some clarity if you have some time to let me know if I have your concerns correctly. Here is a TLDR breakdown of how I designed the balance and loadout of the Scow and how I generally layout the ships in both of my playable faction mods:

The comparable vanilla midline frigate sized combat freighter, the Wayfarer, has a 2250 HP, 250 armor, 1600 flux, 120 flux dissipation, 170 shield arc, 150 cargo, 55 OP, 120 max speed, 50 max crew, 40 fuel, and 6 small turrets.

The Scow is a midline frigate sized combat freighter with 1500 HP, 200 armor, 1850 flux, 250 flux dissipation, 170 shield arc, 100 cargo, 65 OP, 180 max speed, 40 max crew, 30 fuel, 2 small turrets, 1 small hardpoint and 2 medium hardpoints. I put two built in hull mods, shielded cargo bay (5 OP) and a salvage gantry (5 OP) on the Scow.

Comparable stats: The Scow has 750 less HP, 50 less armor, 50 less cargo, 10 less max crew, 10 less fuel capacity 3 less small mounts. To offset that it gains 20 more OP (adding in the OP of the mods), 60 more speed 250 more max flux, 130 more flux dissipation, and 2 more medium mounts. I felt that by replacing 3 small mounts with 2 medium mounts it put it farther into combat w/out going too OP. (idk I'd appreciate any comments on that)

I designed the Scow to be more combat than freighter vs the Wayfarer which is more freighter than combat. I felt that by making the Scow less durable in HP and armor but giving it more max flux, flux dissipation and speed with the two hull mods puts it line with CFT tech lore of "less durable but with better than average speed and shields and smuggler/scavenger oriented". The additional flux strengthens it's shield capacity and offsets the higher demands of it's weapon mount loadout. To balance that I gave the Scow less capacity to carry cargo, crew and fuel.

So bottom line, I tried to balance it while letting it stand out from it's vanilla counterpart by designing the Scow to be less freighter but more combat/utility. By giving it those built in hull mods (shielded holds for smuggler and salvage gantry for salvager) it puts it inline with CFT lore and the additional weapons and higher OP gives it more combat options.

If I understand both of your concerns correctly, Kumquat believes that lowering the OP from 65 to 55 and removing one of the mounts would balance it. Whereas 5ColouredWalker makes another point that with it's higher OP they can add two combat oriented hull mods that make it even less freighter and more combat ship category.

My personal belief is that I want to give players choice and options with the ships I design and I am always happy to see players share their loadouts that show ways of using the ships I would not of thought of. So if I were to lower the OP, it would disallow 5ColouredWalker the option to go their route. Removing a turret is sort of vague since the Scow had varied types of turrets, so some clarity on which mount to remove would be appreciated. Ok so now that you have my thought process on balance and based on the stats I would truly appreciate some constructive comments on how to balance the Scow.

I look forward to both your replies as well as any other player that would like to add to the conversation. 

In my opinion, the problems with the scow lie in the fact not that it directly outcompetes the wayfarer as a freighter (which is debatable), but that it is very competitive with the brawler, a vanilla midline frigate fully dedicated to combat. Yes, the brawler is far more durable, with more hull, better shield, and dramatically more armor and flux capacity. However, this matters less than you might think, since the brawler still doesn't have enough armor and hull to survive a small barrage of harpoons, or enough capacity to shield tank a small sabot barrage. And that is just against other frigates and weaker destroyers, with proper heavy guns on a cruiser or a capital, the extra durability is largely irrelevant. The only other real advantage the brawler has over the scow is it's high PPT, but on frigates that is only really important late in the game, and it doesn't matter in the early-mid game, when frigate balancing is most relevant. Now lets look at the advantages the Scow has. It has more guns, with an extra small weapon slot over the brawler, and it has a huge 15 extra OP. But the really huge advantage the scow has is that while the brawler is very slow for a frigate, at only 100 speed, the scow is incredibly fast for a frigate, at an insane 180 speed, only matched by the tempest in vanilla, which is an elite frigate that costs 40-50k. While if it was just all the things I just went over, it would probably be largely fine. A very strong option, but it would be ok for the most part. The really big problem is that the scow strongly competes with the brawler, while providing lots of logistic support. It has 100 cargo capacity, which adds up when you have several scows, but the big thing is that it has a salvage gantry and shielded cargo holds. While you have equated them to being equivalent to 5 OP each, since they are not available as modular hull mods, they are worth far more than that. Shielded cargo holds is very useful and only available on 4 vanilla ships (hound, cerberus, P mule, and the rare P buffalo), but the real catch here is salvage gantry. The extra salvage it provides is huge. While you might argue that you could just use shepherds which have the same amount of cargo and a salvage gantry, and also come with free surveying equipment, shepherds do not have shielded cargo holds, and are terrible in combat, making them risky to spam. With scows, on the other hand, you get the salvage bonuses of a shepherd, and shielded cargo holds, while being a top-of-the-line combat frigate. And since surveying equipment is modular and scows have so much OP, they can easily use it while still being combat viable. I think scows probably need to lose salvage gantry, and 5-15 OP, and be like 30 speed slower (and maybe downgrade one of the medium mounts to a small).

27

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Torchships And Deadly Armaments V0.16rc2 (2021/04/11)

« on: May 30, 2022, 08:26:43 PM »

I think triple mortar needs a buff. Compared to the light assault gun, it has slightly better flux efficiency, but lower dps and very low projectile speed that makes it fairly unreliable, especially against fast targets. While it might have a place as a niche 5-op sidegrade to the light assault gun (also 5 op), but right now it costs 7 op, 2 more than the generally superior LAG. While it doesn't need to be buffed to be a top-tier weapon, I think a drop to 5 op is probably justified

28

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Torchships And Deadly Armaments V0.16rc2 (2021/04/11)

« on: May 05, 2022, 06:58:41 PM »

LP Bonnetheads really should be better than they are, and it doesn't match up with vanilla. Both the LP Brawler and Lasher are literally just their respective hulls with Ill-advised modifications and safety overrides built in, so the LP Bonnethead should at least be that.

29

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Hazard Mining Incorporated (Compatibility Ed., 0.3.4k)

« on: May 03, 2022, 01:56:54 PM »

They won't trade with me unless my transponder is off, but they want me turn it on

30

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Hazard Mining Incorporated (Compatibility Ed., 0.3.4k)

« on: May 02, 2022, 07:36:09 PM »

When I try to trade with HMI, they won't trade with me because my transponder is on, but then their patroller takes notice so I still can't trade, and they tell me to turn the transponder on, and then after I comply, I try to turn off the transponder off to trade, but they see me again but they don't attack, they just continually chase me and keep opening comms without attacking. Anyine know any fixes for this?