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[Morrokain]

Is there any way to cut down the number of portraits in the mod? Some are fairly in keeping and some are completely out of place (I'm looking at you, Eve Online...) and I'd love to be able to clear out some of the chaff but it causes errors.

Those are handled in the faction files. If you would like to remove some, you can reference the name of the portrait file and comment out or remove the entry in each of the faction files that contains it.

Since portrait tastes are pretty subjective, I may eventually make each of the added portrait packs optional modules for the mod or just have a download option without portrait additions available. I'm not sure yet as doing that kind of thing too much makes maintaining the mod impossible in the long run.

[Chaotic-Entropy]

Those are handled in the faction files. If you would like to remove some, you can reference the name of the portrait file and comment out or remove the entry in each of the faction files that contains it.

Since portrait tastes are pretty subjective, I may eventually make each of the added portrait packs optional modules for the mod or just have a download option without portrait additions available. I'm not sure yet as doing that kind of thing too much makes maintaining the mod impossible in the long run.

Fair, I will have a fiddle myself, thanks. Also, Neophyte frigates, 6 ion torpedo racks... really? :S

[Morrokain]

Also, Neophyte frigates, 6 ion torpedo racks... really? :S

Too powerful, or silly looking?- just to clarify the concern, lol. Ion torpedoes feel slightly underwhelming to me as a whole- but this could be the Neophyte's fast missile racks coming into play with a missile that doesn't cost flux (iirc). It could be that specific synergy that is making it too strong. That being said, no immediate solutions come to mind that wouldn't further hurt the missile- and removing missile slots from the Neophyte interferes with its designated role as a top tier missile frigate.

Maybe a reduction in defenses would help this? Or changing one or both of the forward mounts to energy?

[Chaotic-Entropy]

Too powerful, or silly looking?- just to clarify the concern, lol. Ion torpedoes feel slightly underwhelming to me as a whole- but this could be the Neophyte's fast missile racks coming into play with a missile that doesn't cost flux (iirc). It could be that specific synergy that is making it too strong. That being said, no immediate solutions come to mind that wouldn't further hurt the missile- and removing missile slots from the Neophyte interferes with its designated role as a top tier missile frigate.

Maybe a reduction in defenses would help this? Or changing one or both of the forward mounts to energy?

Seemed a bit overwhelming at first due to that ability synergy, as you say, since it two shotted a few of my ships but they're fairly soft as it is so perhaps it's fine and a more cautious attitude is needed.

[Morrokain]

Seemed a bit overwhelming at first due to that ability synergy, as you say, since it two shotted a few of my ships but they're fairly soft as it is so perhaps it's fine and a more cautious attitude is needed.

Ah ok yeah that makes sense. Strike builds are generally pretty scary. The reaper-spamming Mudskipper MkII still gets me good if I'm not paying attention. In higher numbers those things are even scary to capitals and they're combat-converted personnel carriers of all things, lol.

The neophyte is pretty powerful though, so I'll keep my eye on it vs other strike frigate builds. It could still be tuned too high. The thing about the Mudskipper MkII that makes it mostly balanced is that it lacks shields and doesn't have much armor. It's the epitome of a glass cannon.

[Albreo]

This mod is on another level I like it. I would like to give you some feedback on my first playthrough with this mod plus Nexerelin.

- Bar delivery quest generated for extra faction has no NPC to be handover to.
- Onslaught build in beams is kind of rubbish and the AI doesn't like to raise shield even on low flux.
- Friendly ship collision seems to be in full throttle than vanilla.
- Hivemind orb friendly fire. Usually, missiles will pass over ally ship.
- Phase lance flux cost so much AI don't want to use it.
- Performance issues when fighters fire weapons with a lot of projectiles also small missile tend to fire a lot. I cannot play on 500 CR as my CPU max out on single core (4.3 GHz). Would suggest fighters to use a weapon with lower projectiles count.
- [REDACTED] Radiant class teleport ability cooldown is too quick, slow ships have no chance, so hard to kill, I surround it with 4 capitals and still took a few minutes to kill one.
- Helmmanship + Defensive officer for phase ship is OP and I like it, skate half a map in 2 sec.
- Phase battleship wiggles in front of the enemy ship or ontop until it runs out of flux instead of normally phase through the ship and fire at the engines.
- Mod nerfs supply and fuel drop rate(?), maintenance cost also seems to be reduced a lot but forgot the repair cost, it went through the roof, cost me 1300+ supply to fix my small fleet of 5 capitals after heavily damaged.
- Hunting pirate in the overlap bounties sector is too easy money.
- Hegemony fleet is super OP and plenty, it now owns half of the core world without the player intervention. I feel that XIV ships are too abundant.

[Morrokain]

This mod is on another level I like it. I would like to give you some feedback on my first playthrough with this mod plus Nexerelin.

- Bar delivery quest generated for extra faction has no NPC to be handover to.
- Onslaught build in beams is kind of rubbish and the AI doesn't like to raise shield even on low flux.
- Friendly ship collision seems to be in full throttle than vanilla.
- Hivemind orb friendly fire. Usually, missiles will pass over ally ship.
- Phase lance flux cost so much AI don't want to use it.
- Performance issues when fighters fire weapons with a lot of projectiles also small missile tend to fire a lot. I cannot play on 500 CR as my CPU max out on single core (4.3 GHz). Would suggest fighters to use a weapon with lower projectiles count.
- [REDACTED] Radiant class teleport ability cooldown is too quick, slow ships have no chance, so hard to kill, I surround it with 4 capitals and still took a few minutes to kill one.
- Helmmanship + Defensive officer for phase ship is OP and I like it, skate half a map in 2 sec.
- Phase battleship wiggles in front of the enemy ship or ontop until it runs out of flux instead of normally phase through the ship and fire at the engines.
- Mod nerfs supply and fuel drop rate(?), maintenance cost also seems to be reduced a lot but forgot the repair cost, it went through the roof, cost me 1300+ supply to fix my small fleet of 5 capitals after heavily damaged.
- Hunting pirate in the overlap bounties sector is too easy money.
- Hegemony fleet is super OP and plenty, it now owns half of the core world without the player intervention. I feel that XIV ships are too abundant.

Thanks a lot for all this feedback! I will respond in more detail a bit later after I go through it better. On the first pass over it what stands out:

- Bar delivery quest generated for extra faction has no NPC to be handover to.

Hmm, that was an older bug that I thought I had resolved. If you could give me the version you are using (I'm assuming the latest version but just wanted to confirm so I'm not chasing something I've already fixed lol) and maybe a screenshot if you run into it again I would really appreciate it! Do you happen to remember what faction/market it was and what you were being asked to deliver?

- Friendly ship collision seems to be in full throttle than vanilla.

As in ships seem to collide with each other more in the mod than vanilla?

- Mod nerfs supply and fuel drop rate(?), maintenance cost also seems to be reduced a lot but forgot the repair cost, it went through the roof, cost me 1300+ supply to fix my small fleet of 5 capitals after heavily damaged.

What capitals were you using? That can make a difference when taking combat damage specifically.

EDIT:

Forgot to answer your question about fuel and supply drop rate: it shouldn't to my knowledge be reduced unless something in the economy would cause that. Stuff like global shortages from invasions/raids and that sort of thing. Also, it's important to mention that alongside reduced maintenance upkeep the CR per deployment of ships has been greatly reduced on a global scale. This means that while you can deploy more often at the same cost, the downside is what you are experiencing. The recovery rate has been similarly changed to match or even get further reduced as is the case for capitals. So mechanics that reduce the total CR cap (such as hull damage) have a greater cost associated with them to get back to max CR.

The design goal there is to make sequential fights easier and cost less overall while simultaneously being less punishing to the player in regards to travel and exploration. On the other side of this- it means a close battle that results in damage has a tremendous cost- balancing out the reduction to prevent supplies from being trivial. This information is pretty unclear though- I could do better about that and I plan to when the tactics manual rewrite comes around.

Ok, back to more details:

- Onslaught build in beams is kind of rubbish and the AI doesn't like to raise shield even on low flux.

Agreed that could use a built-in increase to the range of beams. I made a note about that a while back but haven't gotten to it yet. I think that is why it feels pretty weak compared to putting something like Devastators in those slots. The nice thing is that you don't have to spend the OP on those- so it allows bigger guns and more hullmods considering that hull also has an ordinance point increase and more armor than the standard hull.

What you are probably noticing as far as shields not being raised is the Combat Capacitors coming online (which prevents shields from being raised but allows for some serious dps and increases movement speed). Since onslaughts have very high armor this usually isn't a big deal- but if the AI uses it right before some heavy armor piercing weapons hit it... yeah that can suck when it happens. Not much I can do about that unfortunately without coding a custom system AI like I did for Fast Missile Racks. For that I had a template to go off of so attempting that blind probably wouldn't be worth it.

- Hivemind orb friendly fire. Usually, missiles will pass over ally ship.

Hmm I wonder if they are timing out and I don't have the flight time set correctly considering the range. I'll take a look.

- Phase lance flux cost so much AI don't want to use it.

What ships are you using those on? If you are using them on midline vessels with energy weapon slots- I wouldn't recommend it unless you have invested a lot of OP into flux stats and made some critical sacrifices in your build to do so.

That weapon line was mostly designed for use by the Tri-Tachyon, Adamantine Consortium or Sci-Corps lines of high tech ships (Archean Order actually can't make as much use of them on some vessels since their flux stats are generally weaker) and because they are very powerful strike weapons with perfect accuracy and missile/fighter penetration they need a big trade-off.

- Performance issues when fighters fire weapons with a lot of projectiles also small missile tend to fire a lot. I cannot play on 500 CR as my CPU max out on single core (4.3 GHz). Would suggest fighters to use a weapon with lower projectiles count.

I'll keep this in mind! Thanks a lot for that kind of feedback. Performance management has been a constant challenge considering the design goals of the mod, so I will look into changes that can help. To be fair in that, though, I don't want to get your hopes up too high. There is only so much I can get away with without eliminating key design goals, breaking the AI, or breaking the aesthetics of the mod (which is a big part of the appeal to me).

- [REDACTED] Radiant class teleport ability cooldown is too quick, slow ships have no chance, so hard to kill, I surround it with 4 capitals and still took a few minutes to kill one.

Fixed for next update. Doubled the cooldown to see how that looks. I want them to be hard- but for the right reasons not annoying ones. 

- Phase battleship wiggles in front of the enemy ship or ontop until it runs out of flux instead of normally phase through the ship and fire at the engines.

That is vanilla AI. Not much I can do about it, unfortunately. The slow speed of a capital sometimes causes that to happen under AI control, but it even sometimes happens with frigates if the circumstances are right.

I gave the skimmer to that ship specifically to improve the AI's use of it. It makes it a monster in the player's hands so I will eventually make it very difficult to get- most like a quest line to increase the fun and make it reliable to acquire for players that really like flying it.

- Hunting pirate in the overlap bounties sector is too easy money.

'
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate? Places like Duzak and Tia-Taxet where bounty missions sometimes spawn? Penelope's Star likely doesn't get those as I've added markets there.

- Hegemony fleet is super OP and plenty, it now owns half of the core world without the player intervention. I feel that XIV ships are too abundant.

From what I've gathered by feedback, that can happen with almost any of the more powerful factions (maybe any of them just in general). That's probably the way Nex goes sometimes (an assumption) but nevertheless there will be some market changes in the next update to spread things out more as far as industries and resources go for the newer factions.

The Hegemony probably won't have much changed in the update though since their industries weren't over max. They were based upon the vanilla implementation and the only thing I did there was make their stations' thematic. I wouldn't think that would effect Nex.

The abundance of XIV ships is by design because I want "at a glance recognition of faction ships" and more differences between factions' tactics and style. Those hulls are powerful (more powerful than the stock hulls in many cases) but not more so than other factions' ships like Tri-Tachyon, Persean League, etc. It shouldn't, ideally, effect Nex campaigns overall balance.

[Albreo]

I'm on the latest version of the game and mods but NEX seems to be on updating spree at the moment. I also have combat speed mod, active gates mod and resist inspection mod enable.

Do you happen to remember what faction/market it was and what you were being asked to deliver?

I do remember delivering to Archean Order - Temple of the Dark Stars and some places in Andamantine Consortium.

As in ships seem to collide with each other more in the mod than vanilla??

Prominently at the start of the battle, my Tyrants and Executor just plow through friendly ships, damaged them and, sometimes, directly kill smaller ships. Maybe modded ship hitbox is off?

What capitals were you using? That can make a difference when taking combat damage specifically.

I have two Tyrants, two Onslaught XIVs, an Executor, two Nightreavers, two Apogees, and a Harbinger. Also to note, I haven't put points into Repair skill yet. It may be the combat readiness recovery that costs so much. If I bath in a pulsar beam my recovery per day directly jumps to 300+. And from the tooltips, it looks like it's still in vanilla range. Usually in vanilla, If I were to blow up a large pirate fleet, I will turn a profit on supply but now I'm likely to be in a deficit even with 4 salvage ships. When I'm out exploring, I don't want to be fighting anyone anymore (in vanilla I welcome them with open arms, freebies).

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate? Places like Duzak and Tia-Taxet where bounty missions sometimes spawn? Penelope's Star likely doesn't get those as I've added markets there.

It's a sector wide pirate bounty. On vanilla, you are supposed to get 1300 credit per ship(frigate?) this has been bumped up to 5300. So, if two factions pose bounty in the same system I can get up to 300000 each(x2). If I'm able to intercept 4-5 fleets or more if there is a permanent base in that sector, then I'm rich.

The abundance of XIV ships is by design because I want "at a glance recognition of faction ships" and more differences between factions' tactics and style. Those hulls are powerful (more powerful than the stock hulls in many cases) but not more so than other factions' ships like Tri-Tachyon, Persean League, etc. It shouldn't, ideally, effect Nex campaigns overall balance.

I'm not too sure. Its fleets have so many carriers that auto-resolve usually results in their favor. Tri-tac is a goner now, got ganged by everyone and Hegemony also manages to penetrate the Diktat. Diktat is on its last leg, only Sindrian left (so hot, Hegemony don't want to live there). Trader guild all fell under Hegemony. Adamantine Consortium is, actually, neutral with Hegemony. I do feel they should be a bad guy.

The invasion fleets might be too large, everyone trade planet too easily. The home sector of every faction should be a bit stronger. I do feel that orbital stations should be buff a notch. It cannot withstand any fleet at all. But this is only my opinion, you should wait for more feedback from others.

PS. A few fleets of Achean Order actually stuck in their black hole, a nebula would be a safer choice.

[Morrokain]

I'm on the latest version of the game and mods but NEX seems to be on updating spree at the moment. I also have combat speed mod, active gates mod and resist inspection mod enable.

I do remember delivering to Archean Order - Temple of the Dark Stars and some places in Andamantine Consortium.

Thanks I'll investigate! I'm trying to remember what originally caused that in the first place. I'll have to look back and check.

Prominently at the start of the battle, my Tyrants and Executor just plow through friendly ships, damaged them and, sometimes, directly kill smaller ships. Maybe modded ship hitbox is off?

Sorry for all the questions, but there could be a lot going on here that could cause this: Are you deploying some ships first and then reinforcing immediately? Or just mass deploying? And is travel drive still engaged or does this occur after it's disengaged?

I'll definitely look into it, but the hitboxes shouldn't be the problem there. If they were, the ships wouldn't take damage (assuming the game would even start) and you'd notice when the smaller ships were damaged if hitbox proportions were off.

Well, it could be a speed issue somehow not giving the AI enough time to respond to collision avoidance. Are the smaller ships in front of them especially slow? That can cause problems when a bunch of ships are clustered together, yeah. The Tyrant is pretty fast for a capital. But the Executor? Not so much. I'm not honestly sure why that would happen more otherwise.

A complete shot in the dark, but- judging from the mod list, could it possibly be the combat speed mod? You could try turning that off (if possible) and seeing if you still run into the problem. I don't know the inner workings of that mod. This does happen to me occasionally but it doesn't seem to be a common occurrence unless I'm deploying really fast large ships en mass in front of really slow small ships en mass. It could be my battle size settings though reduces clustered ships at the start. I test on the default for the mod as a control.

I have two Tyrants, two Onslaught XIVs, an Executor, two Nightreavers, two Apogees, and a Harbinger. Also to note, I haven't put points into Repair skill yet. It may be the combat readiness recovery that costs so much. If I bath in a pulsar beam my recovery per day directly jumps to 300+. And from the tooltips, it looks like it's still in vanilla range. Usually in vanilla, If I were to blow up a large pirate fleet, I will turn a profit on supply but now I'm likely to be in a deficit even with 4 salvage ships. When I'm out exploring, I don't want to be fighting anyone anymore (in vanilla I welcome them with open arms, freebies).

Ah yeah all of those ships are very powerful and therefore very expensive to repair and deploy. Hazards that decrease CR cap should be avoided at all costs. There are so many ways to turn a nice profit in the game that I kind of wanted combat to cause a deficit. There has to be a deficit somewhere, and out of personal preference I wanted lighter costs for just existing.

It's a sector wide pirate bounty. On vanilla, you are supposed to get 1300 credit per ship(frigate?) this has been bumped up to 5300. So, if two factions pose bounty in the same system I can get up to 300000 each(x2). If I'm able to intercept 4-5 fleets or more if there is a permanent base in that sector, then I'm rich.

Oh ok, noted. I boosted that back in .8 (I think?) when it felt more necessary than it probably does now. It might not need to be as high of a payment. I'll see about reducing it slightly. You can also do this yourself in the mods settings file: mods\Archean Order TC v1.3.4f\data\config\settings.json - under: "   "baseSystemBounty":3500,"

You can see a lot of different settings there for campaign payouts that you can play around with. I may reduce it to 3000 or 2800 for the standard download. Undecided until I can test more.

The cost-effectiveness of capitalizing on overlapping bounties will always be very lucrative though. As a concept, that doesn't feel any more or less dynamic a reward than a probe mission that happens to have good salvage opportunities, survey payouts, etc. I remember one salvage run in an especially good spawn that I stumbled across while running a derelict mission that netted me over 500,000 credits in rewards.

I'm not too sure. Its fleets have so many carriers that auto-resolve usually results in their favor. Tri-tac is a goner now, got ganged by everyone and Hegemony also manages to penetrate the Diktat. Diktat is on its last leg, only Sindrian left (so hot, Hegemony don't want to live there). Trader guild all fell under Hegemony. Adamantine Consortium is, actually, neutral with Hegemony. I do feel they should be a bad guy.

The invasion fleets might be too large, everyone trade planet too easily. The home sector of every faction should be a bit stronger. I do feel that orbital stations should be buff a notch. It cannot withstand any fleet at all. But this is only my opinion, you should wait for more feedback from others.

From what I've gathered by feedback off this version, I think it's pretty variable in Nex and someone always seems to dominate. I've had reports of Archean Order, Sci-Corps and now Hegemony. As far as carriers, that doesn't affect autoresolve unless Nex does something to that. It's based on the fleet points of each ship in the fleet. Hegemony has some high FP ships, but not any higher than Tri-Tachyon, Archean Order, Persean League, Lion's Guard, Adamantine Consortium, etc. The variance of diplomacy events alone must be a factor there because Hegemony and Trader Guilds start with good reputation with each other.

That being said, I'm about to go into testing that stuff and I'll keep all this in mind as I do it in case additional changes need to be made. Hopefully some of the market changes will already shake things up a fair amount.

PS. A few fleets of Archean Order actually stuck in their black hole, a nebula would be a safer choice.

The final voyage of the phase walker, lol, jk.  I have some lore related stuff planned with Xanathos otherwise I probably would.

But yeah I would not let AI fleets do that if I could, but I don't think I can. I'll look into it eventually. It's not the hugest deal usually. I believe it kills the fleet after a while.

[DatonKallandor]

I have noticed that when deploying at the start of a fight, sometimes the flagship (it could also happen to other ships, but I can't really see those) spawns in without doing the entry-burn. This isn't just an Archean thing though, it happens with regular modded starsector too (I can't confirm if it also happens in pure vanilla, I haven't played that in ages) - even with a very light mod load (I don't even use more than 1 faction mod if that).

I can see how there'd be more ship bumping when some ships don't do their entry burn and others do.

[Morrokain]

I'm on the latest version of the game and mods but NEX seems to be on updating spree at the moment. I also have combat speed mod, active gates mod and resist inspection mod enable.

I do remember delivering to Archean Order - Temple of the Dark Stars and some places in Andamantine Consortium.

Thanks I'll investigate! I'm trying to remember what originally caused that in the first place. I'll have to look back and check.

Looked into this a fair amount today and can't reproduce it in the current build. Do you remember if it was it from a bar mission or a procurement mission from intel? I assume it was a procurement mission. Those actually don't pop up that often for me, and I almost wonder if I've balanced the economy too well for Nex to the point where these things are rare due the overall stability of each faction.

The ones I did get to spawn all worked fine though, even the one to the Sci-Corps Headquarters. The bar missions all worked flawlessly among new and old factions (there were plenty of those). Just wanted to give you an update. I'll keep looking. Any other information you can provide would be helpful to narrow this down. I know, if my suspicions are correct, that it is likely a rules issue. So the next step will be to cross reference all those rules instances for new factions with core starsector to see if I'm missing something.

I have noticed that when deploying at the start of a fight, sometimes the flagship (it could also happen to other ships, but I can't really see those) spawns in without doing the entry-burn. This isn't just an Archean thing though, it happens with regular modded starsector too (I can't confirm if it also happens in pure vanilla, I haven't played that in ages) - even with a very light mod load (I don't even use more than 1 faction mod if that).

I can see how there'd be more ship bumping when some ships don't do their entry burn and others do.

Yeah that could definitely be it. I'll talk to Alex later and see if he is aware or if there is something I'm doing wrong here. From what you described though, if your flagship is a capital then wouldn't this help prevent that from happening? I have seen this in the mod though. Once I figure out this darn weirdness with procurement missions that keeps cropping up I'll look into it more thoroughly (I am assuming this only tends to happen in the campaign and not so much the simulator since joining fleets is a thing and all that.)

[Albreo]

Looked into this a fair amount today and can't reproduce it in the current build. Do you remember if it was it from a bar mission or a procurement mission from intel? I assume it was a procurement mission. Those actually don't pop up that often for me, and I almost wonder if I've balanced the economy too well for Nex to the point where these things are rare due the overall stability of each faction.

Yes, after more investigation, I do think that most of the bar quests should work fine as long as it auto accept. The ones that will have a problem are quests that require you to directly hand over to NPC, i.e., smuggle quest that has to be handover with transponder off, procurement quest or, somehow, a quest that didn't get auto accept. The problem is can you create an NPC to accept quests the same as vanilla?

Also, for the ship bumping after comparing to vanilla, I notice a big difference is that you nerf small ships speed by a lot. I install an unstable injector on most of my capital, even one that I did not put in, with entry burn, actually fly faster than smaller ship loitering around at the start. Hence bump fest commence.

On another note, I did get a Paragon to test Phase lance on, with max capacitors, I can only fire 3 shots simultaneously before venting. I think flux/damage ratio does not justify using it, Artronarch beam is much better. The firing delay feels alright.

Thunderbolt MIRV is the new OP sabot.

Ah yeah all of those ships are very powerful and therefore very expensive to repair and deploy. Hazards that decrease CR cap should be avoided at all costs. There are so many ways to turn a nice profit in the game that I kind of wanted combat to cause a deficit. There has to be a deficit somewhere, and out of personal preference I wanted lighter costs for just existing.

I understand that you would like it to be a bit more challenging. But I insist that those environmental damages cost too much that I prefer to reload than wasting 300 supplies. Everyone will one day have to dip into that corona for a research station + salvage 3 times. Another thing is auto-resolve no longer cost effective to do.

Defense fleet with modded ships will never have d-mod for some reason (no nanoforge).

[Morrokain]

Yes, after more investigation, I do think that most of the bar quests should work fine as long as it auto accept. The ones that will have a problem are quests that require you to directly hand over to NPC, i.e., smuggle quest that has to be handover with transponder off, procurement quest or, somehow, a quest that didn't get auto accept. The problem is can you create an NPC to accept quests the same as vanilla?

I've never seen a bar mission that doesn't auto-complete when docking with the correct market. The procurement missions from intel can go either way- the NPC will contact you when you dock sometimes, but other times you have go to the comm board to talk to the NPC. These can be legitimate or they can be smuggling missions. Thanks for help narrowing it down. I'll focus on those. The ones I got yesterday worked- but it was a far more limited number of tests than the bar missions.

Also, for the ship bumping after comparing to vanilla, I notice a big difference is that you nerf small ships speed by a lot. I install an unstable injector on most of my capital, even one that I did not put in, with entry burn, actually fly faster than smaller ship loitering around at the start. Hence bump fest commence.

Hmm, ok. I'll look into a slight speed boost to see if it helps. Have to be careful there because frigates shouldn't be fast enough to run down fighters and increasing fighter speed makes them dodge PD more effectively. With the exception of the fastest frigates in vanilla, I didn't think it was that much different, but I haven't looked in a while.

On another note, I did get a Paragon to test Phase lance on, with max capacitors, I can only fire 3 shots simultaneously before venting. I think flux/damage ratio does not justify using it, Artronarch beam is much better. The firing delay feels alright.

Wait do you mean the Tachyon Lance? I thought you were talking about the Phase Beam. 3 shots simultaneously from a Tachyon Lance will likely one-shot anything below a capital at over double the range of most weapons. With the Paragon's system active it could probably even one shot lighter capitals. That's worth max flux to me.

I'm pretty happy someone likes the Atronarch Beam more, though. I was worried that weapon felt underwhelming to a lot of players since people typically talk about the legendary weapons more.

Thunderbolt MIRV is the new OP sabot.

That one is interesting, yeah. I've tweaked it a bunch and it seems to be a razor edge of garbage/OP depending upon how well PD can handle it. The real issue comes when it is massed, though. Then it can be overwhelming. I'd rather have that than make an expensive and rarer missile that costs a lot of flux to fire feel underwhelming in small numbers. Still kind of thinking about potential solutions.

I understand that you would like it to be a bit more challenging. But I insist that those environmental damages cost too much that I prefer to reload than wasting 300 supplies. Everyone will one day have to dip into that corona for a research station + salvage 3 times. Another thing is auto-resolve no longer cost effective to do.

Keep in mind that 300 supplies per day doesn't necessarily equal 300 supplies if it takes less than a day to recover the CR/damage. Probably not the case here but figured I'd mention it just in case because that can be unclear in the tooltip.

The trade off, if I reduce that cost, is that you won't be able to chain battle as much. But yeah corona's are harsh. It does make skills/hullmods that reduce that effect more attractive for capitals as a result though. Would you ever even consider those otherwise? (I know I don't in vanilla). With the hullmod, you can equip the capital specifically for corona missions then unequip it when that isn't a danger.

I'm curious, why would auto-resolve no longer be cost effective from that specifically? It in theory shouldn't effect that at all. (auto-resolve is less effective than combat in vanilla by default)

Defense fleet with modded ships will never have d-mod for some reason (no nanoforge).

As in, don't give factions nanoforges? Any particular reason? Does it make it impossible for the player to reduce fleet quality for enemy factions through targeted hits to stability or something?

*EDIT* Oh did you mean the faction's ship quality in it's doctrine is too high? What faction is this?

[Albreo]

Wait do you mean the Tachyon Lance? I thought you were talking about the Phase Beam. 3 shots simultaneously from a Tachyon Lance will likely one-shot anything below a capital at over double the range of most weapons. With the Paragon's system active it could probably even one shot lighter capitals. That's worth max flux to me.

I'm pretty happy someone likes the Atronarch Beam more, though. I was worried that weapon felt underwhelming to a lot of players since people typically talk about the legendary weapons more.

Ah yes, Tachyon Lance my bad. It's kind of strong, maybe, if my Paragon doesn't try to turn its hull mid beam and slash three ships. Is there a way to not let it turn during firing?
Atronarch is strong OP. I put three on my Tyrant and it just one shot everything and almost one-shot capital. It seems to benefit greatly from phase acceleration, so the cooldown is minimal and can be fired in quick succession.

The trade off, if I reduce that cost, is that you won't be able to chain battle as much. But yeah corona's are harsh. It does make skills/hullmods that reduce that effect more attractive for capitals as a result though. Would you ever even consider those otherwise? (I know I don't in vanilla). With the hullmod, you can equip the capital specifically for corona missions then unequip it when that isn't a danger.

That would never be in my mind for the first playthrough for sure. I will test it out with two skill points I have left just in case, lol.

As for auto-resolve, it's kind of a chore to do so after main battle, in vanilla, to get rid of all stragglers but if I stop doing it, I notice that I'm able to turn profits a little from a very clean engagement. I only send small ships to do the cleanup afterward.

As in, don't give factions nanoforges? Any particular reason? Does it make it impossible for the player to reduce fleet quality for enemy factions through targeted hits to stability or something?

Oh, I haven't stated clearly. It's my faction. Defense fleets spawn from my own planet. I'm looking at very clean no d-mod capitals then suddenly a 4 d-mods fuel tanker/trader. Only ships that have been tampered with seem to be affected.

[Morrokain]

Ah yes, Tachyon Lance my bad. It's kind of strong, maybe, if my Paragon doesn't try to turn its hull mid beam and slash three ships. Is there a way to not let it turn during firing?
Atronarch is strong OP. I put three on my Tyrant and it just one shot everything and almost one-shot capital. It seems to benefit greatly from phase acceleration, so the cooldown is minimal and can be fired in quick succession.

Ah right! I'm equally annoyed by that, yeah. The AI doesn't understand how to use long lasting burst beams. It doesn't seem to recognize that moving the beam to a new target is a really bad idea in almost all circumstances because it wastes much of the burst damage when it does. Even if I lock the beam, for instance, the AI will still rotate the ship to distribute shots on the armor and this will still happen. I have reported it, but there aren't any long duration burst beams in vanilla to compare, though (I don't think anyway). Small duration burst beams don't have this problem as much. So, not sure if it will be fixed eventually, but I don't have access to the AI to fix it. It happens with the Atronarch Beam too, but it's less noticeable because the burst is shorter.

The Tyrant in general is pretty OP just by being a phase capital. Any strike weapons you put on it will annihilate things very quickly. Atronarch Beams are the best at this though since in tier they are only a step below Tachyon Lance. Ideally that ship will eventually be very hard to get but something you run from when you see it. The AI isn't up to that task at the moment.

That would never be in my mind for the first playthrough for sure. I will test it out with two skill points I have left just in case, lol.

If it still feels too painful, increasing the CR lost/gained per deployment/recovery will help. (with the caveat I mentioned early)

As for auto-resolve, it's kind of a chore to do so after main battle, in vanilla, to get rid of all stragglers but if I stop doing it, I notice that I'm able to turn profits a little from a very clean engagement. I only send small ships to do the cleanup afterward.

The player gets a lot of extra cost effectiveness from playing out the battle and flying well. Personally, I think this is a good thing. I don't want autoresolve to not be an option, of course, but it shouldn't be an equally attractive one as far as efficiency goes. Otherwise, if a player is bad at flying they will be tempted to autoresolve everything rather than continue to learn by participating in the combat. In short, there is an increased cost for convenience.

Oh, I haven't stated clearly. It's my faction. Defense fleets spawn from my own planet. I'm looking at very clean no d-mod capitals then suddenly a 4 d-mods fuel tanker/trader. Only ships that have been tampered with seem to be affected.

Hmm, ok. I'll investigate to make sure this isn't something I caused in the faction file. To be completely honest I have very little experience with the player faction mechanics currently. I've been testing a lot of other things/creating content and haven't gotten there yet. It's getting close to when I'll look into it to tweak the commodity request system for player owned fleets. The default way it works probably technically is fine, but it could be better. (Such as affecting that colonies monthly income, etc)