Thanks for the feedback, Rev!
On top of that, these ships have about -12.5% OP from the normal, except for the Buffalo (unchanged) and the Vigilance (inexplicably actually higher OP than the base).
The Buffalo was deliberate (It only has solar shielding), and the OP will be tweaked down a bit. The Vigilance was an oversight.
There are numerous problems here. First, the hullmod's effects are really overblown and overpowered -- it's like getting Auxiliary Thrusters and Augmented Engines built-in by default, and on top of that getting a huge change in flux characteristics.
Fair Cop. I'll reduce the bonuses and the OP.
All you have to pay is an amount roughly equivalent to Auxiliary Thrusters to get the benefit of both that and Augmented Engines... a crazy bargain, to be sure. The XIV bonuses don't give you anywhere near as much value.
But in my opinion, they don't FEEL all that different from Vanilla, other than being just slightly better at flux and slightly slower. I was trying to avoid that a bit, and try and give a more solid difference to make them stand out from the Hegemony and TriTachyon. I wanted to see if I could make a series of ships that was wildly different from the norm, instead of minor +5, -5% bonuses.
Plus, the hullmod blocker doesn't protect against various mod-added engine hull mods, which lets you abuse this for, say, a mega-speed SO eagle that can reach alarmingly close to the 600-speed cap. The downsides don't really overcome the huge positives.
Damn, forgot about the Safety Overrides. Will be fixed. Any others I should be aware of? I know the BRDY drive one is restricted to BRDY ships, and none of the mods I usually play with have engine tweaks.
Increased fuel consumption is usually irrelevant unless the price is inflated for some reason - and the Sindrian Diktat is the #1 producer of fuel in the first place. The reduced dissipation speed IS a major downside, but it's overcome by the built-in speed boosts and huge boost to capacity; you can charge, tank, and retreat in order to effectively kite enemies to death.
That was kind of what I was aiming for for the Sindrians - They're sitting on the Sector's main fuel producer, so they aren't bothered by it. Will probably increase this malus, on reflection. Additionally, that kiting strategy is the strength of the build. The weakness is that terrible vent - when you're venting, you're fairly vulnerable for a long time, and if you don't vent, you are going to overload - a lot. Probably should reduce armour and hull more to strengthen this weakness and balance it out.
There are technical issues as well, like the fact that the entire Lion's Guard faction file is redefined, which can cause weird problems and actually break other mods that affect that faction (such as Ship and Weapon Pack).
To be honest I have no idea what that means - this is the first time I've ever attempted something like this (and presumably it shows). Is this due to the replacement of the FACTION files? Or the additions to the FACTION files?
This mod is otherwise compatible with Ship and Weapon Pack. I wish people would stop saying Starsector+ is incompatible with content mods; it will work with this mod just fine. You're correct that it won't work with DynaSector.
Will fix the description presently.
For some reason, none of these ships are skins; they're new hull files. There is absolutely NO reason to add new hulls for any of these ships, aside from the legacy weapon placements on some of them.
That was before I knew you could change the image files directly from the VARIANT files - something I only figured out quite recently.
Which brings me to the aesthetic issue:
Some of these (most egregiously, the Conquest skin) use the old crappier sprites rather than the updates/repaints. The new Conquest is vastly superior to the old; even if the technical aspects were up to par, I would demand a redo of the Conquest before adding any of this to the aggregate mods (S&WP, DynaSector). The apparent brightness levels aren't balanced properly between them either, but that's more of a nitpick.
I wanted to make the skins look more different and older than the newer updated forms the other factions, to reflect the fact that the Lion's Guard are comprised of ships that are supposed to be from an older hegemony battlegroup, rather than the newer, cleaner ships. But if you wanted the newer conquest skin to jam it in the SWP I'm all for it - I just wanted the Sindrians to have pretty ships like the Hegemony and TriTachyon, that play in a new and exciting way.
Again, thanks for the feedback!
