Alpha 2 has been released.
Features:
1. Addressed issue with end-users not having LazyLib installed, etc.
2. Ships have been pretty substantially rebalanced across the board. Changes included things like:
Sunder has Plasma Jets, so that it can shoot-and-scoot, rather than being a one-time-use Glass Cannon. It's finally competitive. I thought about restoring HEF's old range bonuses, instead, but I think if I'm going to start reworking Vanilla Systems or adding new Hull Mods, weapons etc., that's a different project.
The Wayfarer has properly-fixed turret arcs.
The Centurion's rear and side turrets are all Universal, so that it can actually be useful.
Drams, Phaetons and the Prometheus are no longer quite such easy trash kills.
The Hound got buffed OPs, so that it can mount enough Hull Mods to be competitive again, with ITU, etc.
The Cerebus, ditto.
The Gryphon's a contender again.
3. More weapon tweaks; generally, just smoothed out a few details this time.
4. Missile tweaks across the board:
I fixed some things that felt silly (like, why bother having ammo for Locusts, Squalls and Hurricanes; they're all Pilum-like support weapons) but I didn't go super-crazy.
Harpoons, Sabots and Reapers remain as ammo-limited weapons; of the three, the only one where I actually feel that's arguably warranted, sort of a big change in mechanics, is Sabots. Personally, I'm leaning towards restoring the Vacuum 60 / 120 second rules for Harpoons and Reapers. Sabots need a minimum of 60 seconds, but I think the big problem is their burst DPS; a single Sabot is not that scary, but a couple of Pods in one's face definitely are.
However, every other Missile now regenerates, with tweaks to burst sizes and all that to keep them roughly OK-ish; I think this still needs work, but it's not terrible right now.
This feels better thematically, because in long fights, there's no period of, "gee, we're all out of ammo", which is boring and kind of broken if your ship requires missiles to be viable in combat.
5. The Valkyrie is actually useful as a light Destroyer and will actually spawn in fleets properly.
I've been playing with most of these changes for a couple of months now; they feel pretty solid over here. I think this is finally ready to move over to releases; there are various little things I'll keep messing with, but this is pretty much what I wanted to get done here.
