Hi,
I started playing Starsector 1 year ago, and I've added Sylphon RnD to my mod list when it was released 3 month ago - played a least one campaign back then. I've played a campaign with Sylphon 0.8 / 0.8.1, here is a short feedback:
- Great unique ship designs, art style and polish. Overall fits quite well with Starsector and other mods.
- Good selection of ships, they fit many different roles. They feel a bit like Tri Tachyon ships with more options.
- Interesting weapons. Most energy weapons have an unusual sustained fire capability due to their relative low flux, but are not the best at cracking armor. They are suprisingly good against shield, probably due to Sylphon weapon's native flux efficiency combined with Sylphon flux discount hull mod.
- As others have reported here, I too find the black smoke trails a bit disturbing. Especially as they seem to be displayed over the ship and over its shield, it feels a bit out of place to me. The "regular" engine smoke is displayed under the shield, isn't it ? The black smoke is a neat looking visual effect, but ships already have that special pink/red glow and of course a very distinct shield. Let me put this another way, from someone who is not an artist : IMO you don't need any of those additionnal visual effects (glow and smoke), Sylphon's ships and weapons are already great looking. Or ... maybe try to have the black smoke not cover the ship and its shield.
Balance - I'm not sure what your goal is balance-wise, so the following may or may not be relevant to you:
- Sylphon ships tend to be better than others. They are not crazy overpowered as those from Knights Templar and Foundation of Borken, I think they sit in the middle between those and the base game.
- Sylphon ships have higher than average firepower (and/or defense) combined with higher than average mobility.
- A rough estimate comparing my latest Starsector campaigns would be : playing Sylphon I can have 30% less ships in my fleet and on the battle field ... and it still feels easier. But at this point I should point out : sometimes I've used non Sylphon weapons.
- Catora frigate : 180 top speed, 200 base flux dissipation, 500 armor !
- Silverhead destroyer : 110 top speed, "phase cloak" ability, 450 base flux dissipation, good shield !
- Dread Eagle cruiser : 80 top speed, "phase cloak" ability, 750 base flux dissipation, good shield !
- Scourge Eagle cruiser : ... overall feels like an upgrade to the already good Dread Eagle (even if somes stats are slightly worse) !
- Dread/Scourge Eagles look a bit like a regular Eagle, but they behave much like an Aurora ... an Aurora that would have traded somes of its small mounts for a large mount, and accepts balistic weapons on its medium mounts. One could also compare them to a Blackrock Nevermore or a Dassault-Mikoyan Kormoran or even the purple Eagle-like mod cruiser bounty ship from Ship/Weapon Pack. IMO the Sylphon Eagles are better than these as general purpose ships and they also easilly support many different loadouts.
- Seresvalla capital : 80 top speed, 800 base flux dissipation, 2 large synergy mounts and 1 medium energy mount on the front, great shield, can be almost invincible in player's hand. The AI uses the ship system in dangerous situations where it should not - it makes the ship much weaker.
- Replekia capital : the change in 0.8 from large hybrid to large energy is good. But even without balistics, this ship is still a beast.
- Tilia destroyer-level carrier : 3 fighter bays ? Did not have this one in my fleet, but it seems to be better than any other destroyer-level carrier.
- Hubris cruiser-level carrier : 2 figher bays ? Designed as a hybrid missile boat / fighter carrier ? Kind of sits between a Gryphon and a Mora ... but also has flux to use its medium energy weapons and do some damage by himself. Maybe a bit too versatile ?
- Selene large missile launcher : fast "phase cloak" missiles with good tracking, 1500 high explosive damage, 1500 EMP damage, 5000 range, 9 ammo and ... auto-reloading - thankfully the "reloaded/minute" is low at 1.2, but I think this weapon is a bit too good nonetheless. Yet if it weren't, I'm not sure I would still use it.
Last thing: I've had several "crash to desktop", most certainly due to Sylphon 0.8 / 0.8.1. Never had a crash with previous versions. Please have a look at the relevant topic in the bugs section :
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13700.0Anyway, thank you for this awesome mod !
