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[Albreo]

As you said: "You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic", in good balance ofc you need to include those, you must chose fighters that will fight enemy fighters, some that fights incoming projectilles/big missiles/torpedo and mb even 1 wing that will have a lot of HP/Shield, good replacement rate, have low damage but close range weapon and act as a tank and its how balance should look like, atm what you are saying is just pure imagination and are in fact irrelevant till basic things isn't working and there are OP Fighters wich are 4-6 times stronger then 2 times cheaper fighters of the same class, its just obviously bad math.

I would like to point out that all combat ships with hangar bay have some form of Interceptor and Fighter cost reduction. So, what you are saying that Spark (24) outperforms some Talon H (12) by many times. In fact, it will cost 14 OP to deploy a Spark and only cost 2 OP to deploy a Talon H that's 7 times in OP cost difference on some Eagle starter ship. Most of the Pirate crafts that you said were crappy cost 0 OP to deploy. Only on the carrier where you have to pay the full price. And don't question me why it is so, it's Morrokain's decision.

[Inflow]

I would like to point out that all combat ships with hangar bay have some form of Interceptor and Fighter cost reduction. So, what you are saying that Spark (24) outperforms some Talon H (12) by many times. In fact, it will cost 14 OP to deploy a Spark and only cost 2 OP to deploy a Talon H that's 7 times in OP cost difference on some Eagle starter ship. Most of the Pirate crafts that you said were crappy cost 0 OP to deploy. Only on the carrier where you have to pay the full price. And don't question me why it is so, it's Morrokain's decision.

In BETA 1.4.0.0 Spark cost 9 OP with cost reduction and Talon cost 0. So yes, it make now, if that's the case then talon can be even 7-10 times worst and its balanced. ty for pointing it out.

[Morrokain]

My save file corrupted. I will see you again on the next major update Morrokain.

Thanks for all the feedback! (I hope this wasn't because of an update. I would have thought that the recent updates would be save compatible but I could be wrong.)

And don't question me why it is so, it's Morrokain's decision.

Its mostly just a way to limit bombers and gunships on combat ships to give carriers a valid role. This was based on earlier feedback that carriers felt relatively unattractive compared to warships before these changes since both could equip wings. Now, I can reduce the max OP on most combat ships now that interceptors/fighters are cheaper and aren't as large a part of the variant. On carriers, the intent (not implemented) is to use their max OP and weapon discount as a balance level. So it will be more difficult to use high OP wings on smaller carriers unless their DP would otherwise allow it. I may also limit larger carriers like the Legion but details have yet to be completely determined and I've taken a break from going through the variants for the moment.

It's definitely a WIP sort of thing and likely won't be perfect by any means, but I think that it's better than prior versions at least. We'll just have to see.

@Inflow:
A couple of points about interceptor strength:

1: If these tests were done with the same SpeedUp setting then unfortunately it can't be taken as balance evidence for the already stated reasons. As you have already seen, anything with beams are going to have a very significant advantage under those conditions. Beams are found on most high OP interceptors.
2: You may be correct even so. However, to be honest I am less concerned about interceptor balance overall because the current mechanics treat interceptors in the same way as any other craft that attacks a ship. They only target other craft very, very briefly unless the wings are under an escort order. (Interceptor carrier specialty for the most part since combat ships have less range for their wings.) For this reason, as long as interceptors are sort of doing their job then there is not really a point in balancing between them too heavily until that is not the case. The appeal of cheap wings is mainly the cheapness. For Talon (H), for instance, the minor OP cost compared to a basic Talon or Mauler is due to the fact that the Talon (H) or Talon (L) weapons are also useful on shields whereas the former two are fairly useless at anything other than disabling weapons/engines when not fighting other strike craft.

If you disagree, that's very fair as you have likely spent more time looking at this than me. So far I've mostly been balancing bombers and gunships and those should feel good at this point. I've looked at fighters a bit too, but interceptors are more set as a baseline for improving interdiction as OP increases and I've admittedly been very liberal with adding Burst PD Lasers to a lot of the high OP wings.

Anyway, what would be your recommended changes to any wings in question? Be as specific as possible and I'll consider it. Is the target goal to make these wings more competitive with things like the Spark specifically as far as anti-strike craft interdiction?

[Inflow]

Anyway, what would be your recommended changes to any wings in question? Be as specific as possible and I'll consider it. Is the target goal to make these wings more competitive with things like the Spark specifically as far as anti-strike craft interdiction?

All I was saying after the fact I understand how SpeedUp! works was my new tests withoult SpeedUp! mod
Example (No SpeedUp! mod, Battle Size set to 500): I fight against Hegemony task force with 1 Onslaugh, 10 Legion and the rest is mostly cruiser class. All of my avaible combat ships are: 2 Paragon, 3 Astral, 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers. I intentionally didn't build big fleet so enemy can deploy more ships then me in combat, cruisers mostly used in sittuations when I need more interceptors and destroyers are to chase the enemy after the fight, they mostly don't fight. In this battle I deployed 2 Paragon and 3 Astral (didn't deployed cruisers with additional interceptors becouse as I thought Hegemony have mostly useless fighters that don't pose any thread and was right, fighter wings from 10 Legion and some carrier cruisers was useless in attack). Enemy PD+interceptors was huge in number but in fact was a joke in combat, 3 Astrals with 20 Flash Bomber (fighter/gunship type, not bomber) and 10 Trident overrun interceptors+PD.
So by that said the goal is that low-grade interceptors of main factions perfom at level that will be at least in some way similar to how Spark perform, they not must be verry similar to Spark and though really strong but 20 Flash Bombers and 10 Trident should not easelly overrun PD+interceptors combined from way bigger fleet like they are nothing. OR mb they should pose some or even significant thread, by one way or another, mb by increasing strenght of individual ships and especially fighters (more about this below) or by lesser increase of individual strenght and by more capital ships (more capital ships, more interceptors, though they will take it by swarm) in strongest fleet/fleets that will protect core systems. In perfect scenario as I see it, I would force players to use "follow me" command more often, for that to happend you need to increase power of core systems significantly, atm this fleet with 2 paragon, 3 astral, 2cruisers and 3 destroyers can attack almost any strongest system of any faction, as I can see this fleet must be not capable doing something like this alone, but its up to you.

disclaimer: it's not the best tactic now when SpeedUp! mod turned off and their PD+Interceptors are in fact much more affective now when SpeedUp! turned off, but not effective enough. Its a demonstration of how bad those fighters are, intercepceptors with taht huge amount Legion Capatil Ships+Cruiser ship wasn't been able to defend. Gunship/fighters was even worst, when interceptors can at least do something, gunship/fighters was almost anytime instakilled by paragon and most of them can do only couple shots or even none.

how I see this can be solved:
1. Fighters problem. Effectivness of low-end fighters should be increased heavily, there should not be interceptors with 250-350 HP and 0 shields (I'm not talking about pirates, only about major factions), HP of those 250-350 HP Inteceptors should be increased 2 times, not sure about the damage though, mb it's enough, whenever they need more damage or not must be tested only with new HP stats. Also something must be done with gunship/fighter/bomber since they don't pose any thread at all in some factions (for example Hegemony), for example increasing HP by factor of 1.5-2 and armor by 1.5-3 to fighter/gunship that don't have any shields and a little bit less then that to bombers, also not sure about the damage, must be tested only after the fact they will met increased HP, in current meta they are incredebally squishy and for the most part can't even get close, even when Player with not big fleet fights vs 10 Legion Capital Ships + 1 Onslaugh + cruisers with fighter wings.
2. PD weapon and weapon that can act as PD problem. This 2nd problem is linked to gunship/fighter/bomber class fighters so if those PD+aka PD weapons will be nerfed, then there will be less upgrades needed of those gunship/fighter/bomber. Capital ship with energy slot can install: Graviton Lance (0-Flux), Razor Tri-Beam (89-Flux), Graviton Beam (0-Flux), those 0-Flux and 89-Flux are super effective as an anti-fighters and torpedo defence and at the same time they are also verry effective weapon vs ships and allows you to put some high flux weapon, Atronach Beam or Apocalypse Aannon for example. On the other side there is 0-Flux Vulkan Heavy PD System wich for some reason much worst vs ships then Graviton Lance or Graviton Beam. As I see Vulkan Heavy PD System, you probably need to increase its effectivness vs ships a little bit, didn't tested it much tough, can't say for sure. Graviton Lance and Graviton Beam should be nerfed and must be similar to Vulkan Heavy PD System, I remember that you can't do anything anything about 0-Flux becouse of limited amount of weapon groups, but you can increase their attack rate and decrease damage, by doing so they will be left at almost same effectivness as PD (more effective vs rockets/swarm of weak fighters, less vs fighters as Trident, Nightmare Heavy Fighter and similar) and less effective vs ships. Also Graviton Lance and Graviton Beam +200% shield and -50% armor damage is questionable, almost all fighters have almost no armor, only Shield and Hull, if that -50% armor don't decrease the damage output on hull, then those +200% shield and -50% armor its almost like x2 damage vs fighters? It's hard to tell exact stats of the weapon as I see it becouse if you will remove this +200% shield damage less nerfing would be needed + its need to be tested, if you would show me how to change those parameters, I can try to change some, tell you exact numbers and you test if you would like those or not, I just can't be 100% specific atm.
3. Weak defending strength of core systems problem. as I already said (I will summarize, hopefully dat make sense in English): by making less big fleets in core systems and making those big fleets stronger (so Player won't kite so much), also by increasing individual strenght of Ships, especially wia making low-end fighters stronger, also by nerfing some OP weapon, not last and not least by giving those elite squads defending core systems more and better officer (good officers make a lot of sense when we talk about core systems of main factions). Dat's the main for now.

Short test. Paragon with 2 Graviton Beam and 2 Graviton Lance vs Paragon with 1840 Flux Dissipation. With that amount of damage and +200% Shield damage it's irrelevant that those weapon don't build Hard Flux, even Paragon shields can't hold, any other ships shield will be evaporated almost instantly + ship attacked by Graviton Lances+Graviton Beams can fire back only with low flux or 0-Flux weapon, becouse of amount of soft flux generated by the hits from Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance. Conclusion: Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance are OP.

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/RefV7oNq1BY

[close]

Razor Tri-Beam (89-Flux) for me seems like pretty much balanced weapon atm, though should have a slight increase in Flux cost, something ~110-120 Flux should be enough probably, again, I can't say for sure when I just can't test this.

disclaimer #2 (yes, I love them so much, don't ask why xD): I don't really know how to give particullar numbers about of those fighters/weapon/ships changes as I see them. For example I already pointed out early on a problem of Graviton Beam and Graviton Lance being OP (watch video) and you told me that they are not, that they are just verry good choise but not OP. If I would tell you exact numbers for those weapons/fighters/ships then:
1. it will be just a waste of my and yours time, I will write why below
2. for the most part you won't use those
3. if you would use first thing and don't use second, then even that first thing can not work becouse they should be done all at once, fighters/weapon/ships
4. as I already told, I can give you my full vision only if you will show how can I change those values myself, though I will change them and then you can test them
5. even if I will try to tell you all, dat will take A LOT of time to discuss all of those, like for example most of the balancing Hegemony fighters can be done in couple days, after that balancing of other factions will be faster. But at the same time talking about that balance can take months
6. becouse of those reasons above, atm all I can give you its just some small simple things, I just can't see how I can give you my full vision in current format. Its not like I don't like testing, I like it more then actually playing, in some games its the main sense of why Im still playing those games. Its just not really affective in regards to your and my time what we are doing right now, would be much faster if you would allow me to actually help you. If you won't like what I done - dat's not a problem at all, I understand that you have your vision in regards to your mod so its completely ok.

[Morrokain]

Nice details and thanks for the video. It gives me more context to work off of.

Your installed mods/character skills are definitely causing a fair amount of power creep from what I can see. That may be part of the reason things are seeming pretty easy. To be fair, the Hegemony variants could be an issue there too and I haven't gone through most of them yet. At the current build from prior changes, the Legion has about 50 OP to spend still from pre-carrier changes. That doesn't mean that it will stay that way obviously but that kind of shows you how this particular update is changing a lot of things and so it will take a fair amount of effort to balance everything.

But, aside from that, I'd be curious to see that exact same build/conditions and switch out the Graviton Lance/Beams for Obliterator Cannons (they have roughly the same OP cost) in the exact same spots. I did a controlled test with myself piloting (to save time from defensive AI retreating mostly) in order to do a strength comparison and here are the results:

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/2s8zcEFy_8A

[close]

My analysis:

Initial Disclaimer: The stock Beam Paragon featured in this test has a natural disadvantage against the Graviton Lance Paragon because its Atronarch Beams and Phase Beams generate a significant amount of soft flux since it also equips Advanced Optics. The Paragon being tested only really feels those strike beams if its shield is down considering its maxed dissipation. Also, while the Graviton Lance Paragon benefits from Advanced Optics, the Obliterator Cannon Paragon could technically be more optimal if I added Expanded Magazines.

But right, I can definitely see the benefits of the Graviton Lance right away. It pierces fighters and missiles and damages both, its perfectly accurate, it deals decent damage to armor despite its intended role as an anti-shield assault beam, and it can build soft flux despite the Paragon's massive dissipation. I messed up and overloaded but I think the battle would have been close-ish had I not made that mistake.

However, when replacing the beams with Obliterator Cannons (only 2 total OP more) the performance is roughly the same. The downsides being that you can see fighters blocking projectiles and the flux cost can sometimes prevent firing when shields are near max. The upsides being hard flux that doesn't dissipate when the enemy Paragon's shields are near max and the emp arcs when the weapons hit armor disabling more weapons.

(Side note: It's not in the video, but I used 2 Heavy Shattercell Cannons and 2 Graviton Drivers - 8 OP more than Graviton Beams - in the same test conditions and could take out the enemy Paragon without taking hull damage. Player vs AI is just not a fair fight. )

So I think my initial statement roughly holds true: the Graviton Lance isn't really OP depending upon how you define that, but it is very strong considering its dual purpose nature. It's meant to be an assault weapon with a PD secondary role. I will say that it is extremely good in the PD part of the role. So, in that sense, a damage reduction might be ok and I'll try it out. The side effect that chaage will likely have is that the Persean League fleets will be a bit weaker against Tri-Tachyon. The Graviton Beam/Lance is their primary anti-shield weapon.

That being said, just in general the current state of the Graviton Lance isn't where I want it to be eventually. I want it to cause hard flux and then I would increase the time between firing to 5 seconds from 3.5 - putting the dps at 460 instead of 620. That is about where a large 0-flux energy weapon should be damage-wise. If I do that before I make it cause hard flux, then it becomes a very poor weapon to use against the Paragon compared to something like the Heavy Obliterator at the same OP cost. Really, all beams are - which is why I want to make them all build hard flux. Or, at least most of them.

As far as the Razor Tri-Beam, I am currently in the middle of fleshing out its role more. I think I am removing the flux cost, increasing the dps/hit damage by 10%, but lowering its range to 700 from 800. I want to see how that feels because right now if feels like a worse Graviton Lance that costs flux for 2 less OP.

Re: Testing different values yourself.
For weapons, you can open weapons.csv in a spreadsheet editor and play around with values. Most columns are named in a way that is intuitive though I know English isn't your first language.

Look under data\weapons in the mod directory.

[gacsean]

It says that skilled up, starship legends, unknown skies, commissioned crews, and hyperdrive should work with this mod but when I click it in mods it automatically unselects them. Does this mean it has to wait for those mods to update or does the mod creator control if mods can be use or not with his mod?

[Morrokain]

It says that skilled up, starship legends, unknown skies, commissioned crews, and hyperdrive should work with this mod but when I click it in mods it automatically unselects them. Does this mean it has to wait for those mods to update or does the mod creator control if mods can be use or not with his mod?

Any mod that is set as a "Total Conversion" (which basically means any mod that changes a lot of things in ways that will cause incompatibilities with other mods - which this mod does) in the mod_info.JSON file will auto deselect any mods not marked as "Utility" mods - for example LazyLib.

There are directions on the main page under "Directions to Enable Nexerelin and Other Non-Utility Mods:" which explains how to change this setting to allow other mods to be enabled.

The reason this is there is to help reduce false bug reports for other modders due to overrides in this mod, and so I would ask that you read the warning under the directions carefully. I am actively working to reduce incompatibility to the degree that it's possible, campaign feature mods typically won't cause any balance issues/bugs, etc, but to be on the safe side I keep the TC setting active as the default so players are incentivized to know more/ask about compatibility.

Hope that helps!

[Darrow]

So any good take-aways or plans with the new patch?

[Morrokain]

So any good take-aways or plans with the new patch?

Yes work has been going rather smoothly for the most part thanks for asking.

The code was very easy to get running for the patch and so far everything seems fine in that regard. However, there is a bug that will have to be hotfixed for phase fighters before anything can be released. Or I guess I could just remove the phase part and balance them some other way if it came to it.

I have over 90% of the variants done and I've been rebalancing beam weapons since they now cause hard flux. (Yaay!! And, wow they need to cause a lot less damage when hard flux is possible, heh.) I also need to go back through (ugh) and improve some variants now that I have 7 weapon groups to work with. Autofire AI has been noticeably improved.

Speaking of beams, does anyone have any suggestions for what High Scatter Amplifier should do? I was thinking that maybe it could give PD beams a small AOE component like the Paladin? It needs to do something different since assault and strike beams already cause hard flux.

Theoretically Better Balanced:
I added a promising new hullmod for PD support roles that should make them stand out more. It should create an attractive build option for player anti-fighter/anti-missile ships. It will hopefully also help NPC fleets combat spam slightly better than before.

I think carrier mechanics will feel a lot better than the last Beta release. I was misunderstanding how the API was operating and I made pure carriers able to replace things too quickly even at low replacement rates. That has been corrected and warship bays are slightly less punishing overall as well.

New Stuff:
Besides the patch additions, I've added a couple more weapons to balance out a few build niches for ballistics - which have also had a deep dive balance pass. One weapon is the Assault Chaingun so its not really new, per se, but it has been added back into the mod for some SO build fun.

The Fury has been balanced around the mod but I need to test builds and address the Champion. I also plan on balancing the Breach missile weapons and, of course, the new Endgame Threats. The Endgame enemies are a little tricky so I'm still considering how best to approach balancing them for the mod. The distinct art style will take a bit to get the hang of when reducing weapon sizes. (Let's be honest I'll probably butcher it but oh well haha.)

Other than that, I have a note to check out some new weapon tags to see how they could improve AI performance in a few cases.

All in all, I'd say I'm ~75% done with everything I want to do for 1.4.0.0 and the only thing I am really dreading is updating/writing the descriptions to account for all the changes. Well, that, and I really, really need to update the Tactics Manual and consolidate the designation hullmods into one highlighted hullmod that stands out.

[Albreo]

What!! 0.9.5 is out while I'm away playing Magic Legend lol. Seems like there's a lot of bugs to be squish. I will wait a few more days then. If I remember correctly, there's a new ship with the same name as the one in the mod?

[Morrokain]

What!! 0.9.5 is out while I'm away playing Magic Legend lol. Seems like there's a lot of bugs to be squish. I will wait a few more days then. If I remember correctly, there's a new ship with the same name as the one in the mod?

I haven't verified it yet but I think the phase fighter fix is already in the latest hotfix so that's good news.

I'm currently trying my hand at a pretty crazy combat hack to lock the Tachyon Lance (and the ship firing it) in place in order to both prevent the AI from switching targets mid fire and prevent TL kiting just in general. I'm not going to do this with all beams I don't think. It might be too performance intensive even if I can get it to work in the first place.

Advanced Optics also has some extra downsides too. One to prevent kiting and one to keep the support role from being optimal assuming the OP is available.

[kari97]

Hi, wouldn't want to rush you or anything but can you estimate when the mod would be up to date with the new version? I am really looking forward to playing with it!

[Darrow]

Hi, wouldn't want to rush you or anything but can you estimate when the mod would be up to date with the new version? I am really looking forward to playing with it!

Ditto,

I can't play Vanilla Starsector anymore, just the changes to the fighters/bombers are too huge for me to go back.

[Morrokain]

Hi, wouldn't want to rush you or anything but can you estimate when the mod would be up to date with the new version? I am really looking forward to playing with it!

Ditto,

I can't play Vanilla Starsector anymore, just the changes to the fighters/bombers are too huge for me to go back.

Thanks I'm glad people are looking forward to it, and @kari97: Welcome to the forums! 

To answer, I'm not completely sure I can give an accurate estimate so... when it's ready but hopefully fairly soon? I'll be better about periodic progress reports on what I'm doing/how close I think the update is to completion. I haven't gotten to the point where I am testing the new campaign changes with the mod yet so that is also an unknown right now. I know I will likely have to update the rules on officer recruitment at the very least and I'm sure some skills will have to be changed for the mod's balance. Hopefully nothing I've added interferes with the story or anything but it seems unlikely that it would.

And I'll try and increase my efforts to work harder on it. I will admit the tedium of all the changes and the difficulty of balancing the mod had gotten to me a bit and I slowed down for a while - well that and on and off elbow/wrist pain. Darn it I hate getting older!

That being said, I am excited about the new Starsector update and rest assured I am still working on the mod quite a bit. Thank you for everyone's patience and I'm sorry this has been taking forever.

If I remember correctly, there's a new ship with the same name as the one in the mod?

Whoops forgot to address this. Yes there are two I think. The Phantom and Revenant. I'm going to have to think of other names for the mod's capital ship and bomber I suppose.

[Flying Dice]

Not to worry, since I suspect most of us are also waiting for Nexerelin to update. :V