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Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722547 times)

Albreo

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Now, what an intense discussion we have here. Generally in this mod, if you rule this sky then you rule the battle. A fighter advantage means an almost 50% increase in winning chance. Fighters can tank bullet, harass capital ship into rotating it shield, cause flameout, PD better than you ship, etc. If you were to fight Remnant without any carrier, I would like to say, it's impossible. If you are looking for a bomber now, hint hint Archean Order.

Burst weapons in this mod are very very strong something a flux free weapons can't be compared to. Don't let those nice DPS numbers fool you. You won't be firing it for more than a few seconds. A single burst can end an enemy ship or cap their flux. Keep in mind that the flux you spend on firing weapons, especially ballistic, is much cheaper than taking it. You will always come out profitable from an encounter every time. The time it takes for the enemy to dissipate flux, you are ready for a second round. If you're having full flux from firing a salvo then I advise you to reconsider your loadout mix and match with low flux cost weapon.

If you're having a problem with the slow carrier then utilise battle formations. Put on an unstable injector also help carrier a lot. Set up the formation in the middle of the map or slightly further if your ships are fast enough. A good battle formation means I can beat any fleet in the game without casualty, heck I already did 3 v 1 with Hegemony and fought with 4 Radiants. A battle formation also means you can now position your fire support ship correctly, tanking/close quarter ship at the front, your huge long range glass canon 1 tiles back with room for them to fall back and vent flux. Your carrier in the middle or hybrid with long range missile in wing formation away from the front line. Fighters are an effective solution to push back enemy ships and maintain the formation, harass small ships that try to break in. In this formation configuration, speed doesn't matter much your ship will always have nearby ships for support. It will automatically sink into the formation when taking heavy fire any ship that tries to follow into the formation will be gang upon.
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Frod

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If you're having a problem with the slow carrier then utilise battle formations. Put on an unstable injector also help carrier a lot.

Sorry may be little misunderstanding. My bad.

I don't have this problem in the end game. Also I simply don't use them exept astral. when I have billions of money and can afford a fleet of capital ships. And battles are lasting for a long time, and
Quote
you rule this sky then you rule the battle
Yes everithing works fine in big battles. And the suppression effect the crafts make here is rather valuable. Though the torpedo strike crafts need to have little more impact in my mind.


I have some kind of misunerstanding on the start of the game where you have just bought five ships destroyer or cruiser base and your weapons are old garbage. You have limited money and need to make choice of what ship to buy.  What is the role of a carrier here? what is the place for destroyer base carrier in the game?

What I am tying to say you can replace it with any other ship and it will perfor better in smaller battle. The impact of one single carrier is too low.

And if we are talking about big battles there also no need of them, as the capital carrier costs far more less in comand points comparing to its perfomance.

Also for example have you ever used condor / coverted carrier? It's price is around the same as hammerhead destroyer. I can't imagine the situation where
I will choose condor instead of hammerhead.
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Morrokain

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Though the torpedo strike crafts need to have little more impact in my mind.

As well as a strike sortie range increase (they release torpedoes from farther away to avoid taking ship fire) I reset the damage of the torpedoes and annihilator rockets to their standard amounts for bombers, and I am buffing their defenses a bit. That should help carriers be a little more competitive in the early game since low tier bombers should perform more reliably and, also, require interceptors and fighters to truly counter. Ideally, PD will mitigate the projectiles but not often kill the bombers so it's not useless in that sense.

Quote
I have some kind of misunerstanding on the start of the game where you have just bought five ships destroyer or cruiser base and your weapons are old garbage. You have limited money and need to make choice of what ship to buy.  What is the role of a carrier here? what is the place for destroyer base carrier in the game?

What I am tying to say you can replace it with any other ship and it will perfor better in smaller battle. The impact of one single carrier is too low.

And if we are talking about big battles there also no need of them, as the capital carrier costs far more less in comand points comparing to its perfomance.

Also for example have you ever used condor / coverted carrier? It's price is around the same as hammerhead destroyer. I can't imagine the situation where
I will choose condor instead of hammerhead.

The bomber changes might help make this feel better- hopefully without breaking assault fighters. As far as carrier choice considerations in late game, Astral is definitely a high tier option. One thing to consider here, however, is that you are then concentrating all your strike craft. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes than can limit how many targets you can effectively hit or support (can't forget about supporting smaller ships that get themselves in trouble from large bomber attacks. Command points are a factor though, as you've said, but that might in turn make skills or hullmods that improve the amount of those you get more attractive. I kind of ignore them otherwise.

Definitely something I will think about. How much more cost efficient do you feel capital carriers are than smaller ones? Is it a "no contest" kind of feeling, or just that they are suboptimal?

The condor might be priced a little too high for its value over a hammerhead. Depends upon if its a faction variant or not, though. Are we talking about the standard one in this case?
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Frod

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Are we talking about the standard one in this case?

The designs I can manufacture on shipyard. I have almost all recipes. Usually they are pretty well, and some changes will not influence the cost much. Also all comparison I make is from my own experience of using different ships in my fleet. And testing their effectiveness in similar simulations.

As always I have a little dissapointment that the size matters the same as in vanilla game. So the fleet consits from Megalith or Astrals only will perform better in every situation. The problem here is the deployment cost for each ship. Right now Megalith is cheaper than 2 Odysey class to compare. By the way, is it possible to increase the deployment points for each size hull already deployed?

Also the new ships of Archean and Consortium are way better than other nations. But this is logical and can be explayned by lore, same as remnants good ships. It is ok when we have bad and good ships in the same class, and usually access to that ships differs in early and mid game.

The issue I only really struggled were missing roles for some ammount of ships and the light carriers are number 1 in this list. So basically you don't need them on every stage of the game, as the whole class.
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Morrokain

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The designs I can manufacture on shipyard. I have almost all recipes. Usually they are pretty well, and some changes will not influence the cost much. Also all comparison I make is from my own experience of using different ships in my fleet. And testing their effectiveness in similar simulations.

As always I have a little dissapointment that the size matters the same as in vanilla game. So the fleet consits from Megalith or Astrals only will perform better in every situation. The problem here is the deployment cost for each ship. Right now Megalith is cheaper than 2 Odysey class to compare. By the way, is it possible to increase the deployment points for each size hull already deployed?

Also the new ships of Archean and Consortium are way better than other nations. But this is logical and can be explayned by lore, same as remnants good ships. It is ok when we have bad and good ships in the same class, and usually access to that ships differs in early and mid game.

The issue I only really struggled were missing roles for some ammount of ships and the light carriers are number 1 in this list. So basically you don't need them on every stage of the game, as the whole class.

This will probably take more time than the next update to address, but I wanted to briefly respond to say that it is under consideration- especially the light carrier part! Deployment costs have already changed slightly so for now I want to see how that plays out.
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AffectiveLead

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Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0
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Morrokain

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Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0

First off, I'm very flattered you have taken the time to do this work and that you and your friends like AO.  :)

As Thaago mentioned on the linked thread, however, Interstellar Imperium is Dark.Revenant's work so I will need his permission to give any feedback there. I know you are doing this for yourself and a couple of friends and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't publicly release anything without the author's permission.

If you are just looking for balance tips, send me a PM. (I think this should be ok since it's personal use, but if for some reason it's not- moderators please let me know!)

As far as the AO balance changes:

Spoiler
improved not so relevant weapons such as
Avalanche Cannon(less flux generation), Iridium Cannon(less flux generation + opportunity to be mediocre Point defense) , Icer Gun(same as Iridium), Gatling Laser (lower dmg, faster charges,lower flux), Sabots(increase hp a little), Heavy Gatling (a little lower dmg but faster sharges ), Obliterators(both) now don't shoot at fighters, Tachyon Lance ( a little lesser flux generation and lesser cooldown(now ai paragons can do something and you have opportunity to use this "ultimate" weapon as weapon not just fun laser)
 change  Atlas mkII - safety overrides mod now not inbuild but installed anyway on all pirates Atlas. This allow you to make  this ship more useful without changing the balance of pirates
[close]

Just a note: You can always feel free to give feedback on this thread for those types of things. You can certainly make changes yourself, don't get me wrong, but reporting them allows me to make changes that will be more accessible to everyone else too (in that they wouldn't have to search for other balance modules). I generally don't mind anyone releasing stuff like this, but reporting it and having it changed here will make bug-fixing easier in the long run. Still, thanks again for the time you have taken and I will take the above feedback into consideration.

*EDIT*

I already made an edit based off your suggestions. I wanted to also give more explanation of the above comment to ensure that you don't think I'm discouraging you and I am really trying to help you and everyone that uses this mod.

To give an example of what I was talking about as far as potentially causing things that can be perceived as bugs without a way for me to easily trace the problem:

In the AO balance tweaks mod, you changed the Obliterator Cannon and Heavy Obliterator Cannon to a strike weapon to prevent it from auto targeting fighters. This makes sense and I agree with the change and have implemented it for the next release. Thanks for the feedback!

However, this negatively effects ~4 variants split between the Justicar and Revenant. How? A strike weapon designation prevents the entire weapon group the weapon is in from being placed on autofire when the ship is under AI control. So for variants (which could have been many more but luckily it was a relatively small impact in this case) that had Obliterators alongside Phase Cannons, for instance, the Phase Cannons would no longer autofire with this change. When those Phase Cannons that otherwise would target fighters never fire in some instances, or when multiple faster ships are targeting the affected vessel and it's Phase Cannons either don't fire or have firing delays (AI doesn't switch strike groups fast enough in some situations when surrounded) some players might think of it as a bug and report it here. If they don't say they've installed those changes from your thread, (you override the changes rather than it being present on a mod list, so even the mod list wouldn't tell me this) then when I check and can't reproduce this in my version it looks like a "ghost in the machine" kind of issue (won't translate well and won't make sense) situation where the mod seems to be doing things of its own mind rather than following the code present for evaluation. I hope that makes sense.

I fixed these variants to not use the Obliterators in mixed weapon groups, so that will be addressed for the change in the next release as well. I'll keep looking through what you posted as I make a few more changes before the update.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2020, 09:57:13 PM by Morrokain »
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AffectiveLead

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Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0

First off, I'm very flattered you have taken the time to do this work and that you and your friends like AO.  :)

As Thaago mentioned on the linked thread, however, Interstellar Imperium is Dark.Revenant's work so I will need his permission to give any feedback there. I know you are doing this for yourself and a couple of friends and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't publicly release anything without the author's permission.

If you are just looking for balance tips, send me a PM. (I think this should be ok since it's personal use, but if for some reason it's not- moderators please let me know!)

As far as the AO balance changes:

Spoiler
improved not so relevant weapons such as
Avalanche Cannon(less flux generation), Iridium Cannon(less flux generation + opportunity to be mediocre Point defense) , Icer Gun(same as Iridium), Gatling Laser (lower dmg, faster charges,lower flux), Sabots(increase hp a little), Heavy Gatling (a little lower dmg but faster sharges ), Obliterators(both) now don't shoot at fighters, Tachyon Lance ( a little lesser flux generation and lesser cooldown(now ai paragons can do something and you have opportunity to use this "ultimate" weapon as weapon not just fun laser)
 change  Atlas mkII - safety overrides mod now not inbuild but installed anyway on all pirates Atlas. This allow you to make  this ship more useful without changing the balance of pirates
[close]

Just a note: You can always feel free to give feedback on this thread for those types of things. You can certainly make changes yourself, don't get me wrong, but reporting them allows me to make changes that will be more accessible to everyone else too (in that they wouldn't have to search for other balance modules). I generally don't mind anyone releasing stuff like this, but reporting it and having it changed here will make bug-fixing easier in the long run. Still, thanks again for the time you have taken and I will take the above feedback into consideration.

*EDIT*

I already made an edit based off your suggestions. I wanted to also give more explanation of the above comment to ensure that you don't think I'm discouraging you and I am really trying to help you and everyone that uses this mod.

To give an example of what I was talking about as far as potentially causing things that can be perceived as bugs without a way for me to easily trace the problem:

In the AO balance tweaks mod, you changed the Obliterator Cannon and Heavy Obliterator Cannon to a strike weapon to prevent it from auto targeting fighters. This makes sense and I agree with the change and have implemented it for the next release. Thanks for the feedback!

However, this negatively effects ~4 variants split between the Justicar and Revenant. How? A strike weapon designation prevents the entire weapon group the weapon is in from being placed on autofire when the ship is under AI control. So for variants (which could have been many more but luckily it was a relatively small impact in this case) that had Obliterators alongside Phase Cannons, for instance, the Phase Cannons would no longer autofire with this change. When those Phase Cannons that otherwise would target fighters never fire in some instances, or when multiple faster ships are targeting the affected vessel and it's Phase Cannons either don't fire or have firing delays (AI doesn't switch strike groups fast enough in some situations when surrounded) some players might think of it as a bug and report it here. If they don't say they've installed those changes from your thread, (you override the changes rather than it being present on a mod list, so even the mod list wouldn't tell me this) then when I check and can't reproduce this in my version it looks like a "ghost in the machine" kind of issue (won't translate well and won't make sense) situation where the mod seems to be doing things of its own mind rather than following the code present for evaluation. I hope that makes sense.

I fixed these variants to not use the Obliterators in mixed weapon groups, so that will be addressed for the change in the next release as well. I'll keep looking through what you posted as I make a few more changes.

thanks for the answer
I understand that putting everything out without copywriting was not very correct, so I will wait for the author's response.
I will immediately apologize for possible errors in the language and get down to business :)
Let me explain why I did this and why and you yourself decide whether such ideas are balanced or not
At first in one way or another, obliterators shooting at fighters do not succeed either in AA or in an attacking role
and very scary to watch how havy obliterators shoot full clips in 1 fighter right before engages it seems to me that the group of obliterators combined with anything is not showing itself very well, or more specifically to say it has big losses and instability in dealing damage for a strike weapon
I really like your mod  and I wanted to make a "filler" weapon more unique
for example iridiums  that cost less flux and can shoot at rockets become not good PD but only available kinetic PD in kinetic slots
icers with same tweaks become far worse PD because of their turn rate but they are an attacking weapon anyway and now i have opportunity not to add PD on ship's bow but install group of icers if I have other weapons of the appropriate radius that increasing the ability of small ships to attack without being too vulnerable as it be without PD at all.
changes with Avalanche mostly done to have choice in comparison to Photon Cannon but with default flux cost I did not see that someone chose avalanches(but how do they sound!:))
about sabots -  all i want a little increase their speed,but i cant(don't knowing java or programmings stuff at all and thats why recompilation is too hard for 1 tweak) i did not  want change your idea that  they should check enemy PD but in current reality high explosive harpoons or anything else better as artillery rockets on shields dmg rockets  - 4 heavy sabots have a chance to hit 4 medium also sometimes can hit with 1 rocket enemy with 2 PD if you unload full clip.Compare to AA Widows harpoons Shockwaves and ofc Thunderbolt they are never an option.So, I just increased their hp to 125 - a cheap solution
gatlings(small) have a really too high recharge for a small weapon  - i understand that they should be "hit and run"\strike weapon but they can do this only at 1 fullclip charge. I try to make them with same "strike" idea but with faster recharges - fullclip unload still strong but without fullcharges it become sustain armor breaker with lower dps than assault autocanons(they are still much better in this role) this tweak also looks unexpectedly synergistic - gatlings make armor weaker another energy weapon hits a weak point. Heavy Gatlings very cool and strong but still slow to reload - I'm just a little reduced damage to compensate for the increased recharge.In fleets battles neither the ai nor the player has time to charge at least half the clip and as sustain weapon it will be irrelevant.
I think it’s also necessary to touch a little the Artillery Blaster because  it looks cool but its role doesn't fit anywhere - you need a long-range weapon - Phase Cannon, Burst Siege Beam both cheaper on flux with actually more dmg. Yes you have additional 100 range but for what price? Maybe add them more emp dmg?or range? I don't think significantly reducing flux will be good - artillery should be artillery

and at last I would like to talk about our lord and savior Atlas MK2 - i understand that increase O.P. points and make safety override not inbuid but always installed mod  - cheap solution but giving player opportunity to use atlas2  not only as start variants(actually  i dont know people who use it) by simply removing safety overrides(1100 range cap too limited in the choice of ship roles). And also  in the late game, you can repair it and use it on the roles of artillery or support artillery ship.
I hope to read this tongue-tied message was not too difficult and I hope this will help in your work
and again thank you for such a quick response.
Ps if you still need weapons stats I will send them to you in PM or I can write them here.




« Last Edit: April 18, 2020, 11:44:22 PM by AffectiveLead »
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Impedocles

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I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range. 

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

As of now, I've got a fleet of 1 dreadcarrier, 1 nightreaver, and 4 AD destroyers.  It can pick its battles due to 10 warp speed and 350 sensor profile, and can beat pretty much any fleet with 2 or fewer battleships (or 1 paragon, those things are tough).  I'm mostly roaming around seeking out system and faction bounties, as even with such a small fleet repairs are very expensive.  Adamantine Order start is extremely hard but once you get rolling it is very fun.  I love that the sensor profile advantages incentivize making pure-phase ships so you can be sneaky.  And I like that you are basically at war with the whole galaxy.  It's like an elite pirate faction.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2020, 12:44:46 PM by Impedocles »
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Morrokain

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thanks for the answer
I understand that putting everything out without copywriting was not very correct, so I will wait for the author's response.

Much appreciated.  :)

Quote
I will immediately apologize for possible errors in the language and get down to business :)
Let me explain why I did this and why and you yourself decide whether such ideas are balanced or not

Sounds good, let us dig in.

Quote
At first in one way or another, obliterators shooting at fighters do not succeed either in AA or in an attacking role
and very scary to watch how havy obliterators shoot full clips in 1 fighter right before engages it seems to me that the group of obliterators combined with anything is not showing itself very well, or more specifically to say it has big losses and instability in dealing damage for a strike weapon

Yeah 100% agree there and made the change last night. I think I originally thought it would be better against things like bombers, but wasting the charges/flux on interceptors makes it feel a lot worse than it could be.

Quote
I really like your mod  and I wanted to make a "filler" weapon more unique

Thanks. :)

Quote

for example iridiums  that cost less flux and can shoot at rockets become not good PD but only available kinetic PD in kinetic slots
icers with same tweaks become far worse PD because of their turn rate but they are an attacking weapon anyway and now i have opportunity not to add PD on ship's bow but install group of icers if I have other weapons of the appropriate radius that increasing the ability of small ships to attack without being too vulnerable as it be without PD at all.

You are referring to using these with Integrated Point Defense AI, correct? That is supposed to be viable and those weapons are supposed to be good candidates, so I'll experiment with less flux. I think I increased it within the last couple updates because I also increased those weapons range a bit.

Quote
changes with Avalanche mostly done to have choice in comparison to Photon Cannon but with default flux cost I did not see that someone chose avalanches(but how do they sound!:))

Photon Cannon won't be a competitor in role in the next update. Its damage type has been changed to energy. Energy based ballistics are now part of the Persean League's tactical niche. Not saying some flux reduction isn't warranted, though, I'll take a look.

Quote
about sabots -  all i want a little increase their speed,but i cant(don't knowing java or programmings stuff at all and thats why recompilation is too hard for 1 tweak) i did not  want change your idea that  they should check enemy PD but in current reality high explosive harpoons or anything else better as artillery rockets on shields dmg rockets  - 4 heavy sabots have a chance to hit 4 medium also sometimes can hit with 1 rocket enemy with 2 PD if you unload full clip.Compare to AA Widows harpoons Shockwaves and ofc Thunderbolt they are never an option.So, I just increased their hp to 125 - a cheap solution

Like the Thunderbolt, this one is tricky to balance. The difference here is the relatively high armor penetration in comparison to other kinetic missiles. Making it able to get through PD more easily can turn it into a siege missile that can kill everything. I will increase it's speed a bit like you originally wanted and see how it goes. I definitely get the concern that the higher tier missiles might outclass this one and make it obsolete. That's not intended.

Quote
gatlings(small) have a really too high recharge for a small weapon  - i understand that they should be "hit and run"\strike weapon but they can do this only at 1 fullclip charge. I try to make them with same "strike" idea but with faster recharges - fullclip unload still strong but without fullcharges it become sustain armor breaker with lower dps than assault autocanons(they are still much better in this role) this tweak also looks unexpectedly synergistic - gatlings make armor weaker another energy weapon hits a weak point. Heavy Gatlings very cool and strong but still slow to reload - I'm just a little reduced damage to compensate for the increased recharge.In fleets battles neither the ai nor the player has time to charge at least half the clip and as sustain weapon it will be irrelevant.

Fair. I haven't looked at the specifics yet, but this change is very likely to be made.

Quote
I think it’s also necessary to touch a little the Artillery Blaster because  it looks cool but its role doesn't fit anywhere - you need a long-range weapon - Phase Cannon, Burst Siege Beam both cheaper on flux with actually more dmg. Yes you have additional 100 range but for what price? Maybe add them more emp dmg?or range? I don't think significantly reducing flux will be good - artillery should be artillery

I think more range is probably the answer. I generally dislike messing with OP because it requires so many variant edits, but that could potentially be another thing I could do.

Quote
and at last I would like to talk about our lord and savior Atlas MK2 - i understand that increase O.P. points and make safety override not inbuid but always installed mod  - cheap solution but giving player opportunity to use atlas2  not only as start variants(actually  i dont know people who use it) by simply removing safety overrides(1100 range cap too limited in the choice of ship roles). And also  in the late game, you can repair it and use it on the roles of artillery or support artillery ship.

Ah right the range cap. Good point in regards to limiting player use. That being built in is more of a Luddic Path theme anyway. Another very likely change.

Quote
I hope to read this tongue-tied message was not too difficult and I hope this will help in your work
and again thank you for such a quick response.
Ps if you still need weapons stats I will send them to you in PM or I can write them here.

It seems clear and is helpful. I have the stat mod available as a reference and I'll ask if anything needs more clarity. Thanks again for taking the time to write out your thoughts.

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I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range.

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

Thanks a lot for the feedback on your playthrough.  :)

Some initial thoughts:

The Adamantine Consortium start is the hardest starting option- since they generally have the best ships of any faction. The AI can sometimes struggle to make effective use of the phase ships, but players can dominate with them. The Malevolent is strong all the way around and competes with the Megalith in power and deployment cost. There are some tweaks to that in the next update. Though these ships are meant to be OP to be scary to the player as an enemy faction, that is because they will not be salvageable/recoverable later. They are more available now mostly for testing purposes so players can get their hands on them. Once I develop a mission to allow players to get the blueprints, they will be made unboardable and the only way to get them will be to play as the Adamantine Consortium or sneak into Brelter in the Mordreath Triangle to buy them- which is not easy with all the dreadfleets and pirates that swarm there and I don't think that market often sells capitals so those will be especially difficult to get unless you get a commission- which will also be difficult. It will hopefully be a really neat way to make use of the upcoming story point system.  :)

Archean Order will probably go the same way. You can kind of think of these factions as on par with Remnants- though Archean Order a bit less so and their ships will be slightly more accessible - well possibly. I haven't fully decided how I am going to go about that faction, yet.

Another thing I am hoping to address (not sure if it will be this update but it was originally planned to be) is the lack of mission availability when playing as the Consortium. I want to add another system for them that will help introduce more procurement opportunities and give access to some less stable markets. Hopefully that will help out the early game money making opportunities. Ideally, I would want to eventually make another mission system specifically when starting as the Consortium. Something that provides combat opportunities similar to pirate bounties since those, as you said, will be hard to do when it alienates your one ally.

Independents are hostile because Adamantine Consortium is notoriously cruel and predatory to their worlds. Most factions don't like the Consortium and some outright seek to wipe them out. Independents are one of the latter category. It certainly is difficult when a merc fleet spawns on top of you though. I think about ways of reducing the chance of that, but I'm not sure how possible it will be.
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Impedocles

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I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range.

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

Thanks a lot for the feedback on your playthrough.  :)

Some initial thoughts:

The Adamantine Consortium start is the hardest starting option- since they generally have the best ships of any faction. The AI can sometimes struggle to make effective use of the phase ships, but players can dominate with them. The Malevolent is strong all the way around and competes with the Megalith in power and deployment cost. There are some tweaks to that in the next update. Though these ships are meant to be OP to be scary to the player as an enemy faction, that is because they will not be salvageable/recoverable later. They are more available now mostly for testing purposes so players can get their hands on them. Once I develop a mission to allow players to get the blueprints, they will be made unboardable and the only way to get them will be to play as the Adamantine Consortium or sneak into Brelter in the Mordreath Triangle to buy them- which is not easy with all the dreadfleets and pirates that swarm there and I don't think that market often sells capitals so those will be especially difficult to get unless you get a commission- which will also be difficult. It will hopefully be a really neat way to make use of the upcoming story point system.  :)

Archean Order will probably go the same way. You can kind of think of these factions as on par with Remnants- though Archean Order a bit less so and their ships will be slightly more accessible - well possibly. I haven't fully decided how I am going to go about that faction, yet.

Another thing I am hoping to address (not sure if it will be this update but it was originally planned to be) is the lack of mission availability when playing as the Consortium. I want to add another system for them that will help introduce more procurement opportunities and give access to some less stable markets. Hopefully that will help out the early game money making opportunities. Ideally, I would want to eventually make another mission system specifically when starting as the Consortium. Something that provides combat opportunities similar to pirate bounties since those, as you said, will be hard to do when it alienates your one ally.

Independents are hostile because Adamantine Consortium is notoriously cruel and predatory to their worlds. Most factions don't like the Consortium and some outright seek to wipe them out. Independents are one of the latter category. It certainly is difficult when a merc fleet spawns on top of you though. I think about ways of reducing the chance of that, but I'm not sure how possible it will be.

The flavor for the faction is pretty nice.  As far as early income sources, I think that system and faction bounties feel the most appropriate.  But I haven't seen AC place many (or any?) of those.  So I've mostly been making my money off of a long-running Archean - Tri-Tach war, since the Archeans keep a system bounty up most of the time.  It feels right to just be hunting down fleets.  Maybe increasing the rate that the consortium places system/faction bounties against their enemies would help. 

I adapted to the hostile independents by just stopping trying to go to neutral stations, at first.  Now that I have a battleship I can deal with them, but early on it was too dangerous.  Maybe if I'd chosen a different starting fleet that would have been different: a smuggling start with.  As such, the only procurement missions I did succesfully were within Mordreath itself or going to an Archean Order station. 

It's worth noting that I think the agent supership start I used might be one of the more difficult ones for the faction early on.  The other options for starting fleet have better logistics, so could run exploration missions and potentially even get the neutrals to stop hating you.  Starting off as special agent and buying a freighter immediately also would have made things much easier.  Smuggling to the lone independent outpost in Mordreath is also a good income stream.  It honestly might be tuned to a good difficulty given it is supposed to be the very hard option, but more missions that you can do would certainly be nice.  Worst case scenario, since you start with a commission you can just bum around Mordreath until you can afford a fleet to go hunting with.  It takes about $250k to upgrade to a fleet that can take out merchant convoys and snipe small patrol fleets.  You just need a freighter, a couple frigates,  and some better weapons, fighters, and mods.

I could go on about how strong the Malevolent is: it will make a great late- game reward.   I haven't had an opportunity to inspect the other capitals, but it seems to be in a league of its own.  It rapidly snipes enemy escorts, wins every fighter war,  andrapidly cripples enemy capitals. 
« Last Edit: April 19, 2020, 03:01:34 PM by Impedocles »
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DatonKallandor

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It's good to hear there's plans for more ship rarity. I think the salvage reduction built-in already helps, but imo it could stand to be even harsher. You still get a lot of Consortium ships just by fighting them even if it's low intensity small fleets. And they're amazingly strong obviously.
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Morrokain

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The flavor for the faction is pretty nice.

Thanks, it was the most fun to write for sure.

Quote
As far as early income sources, I think that system and faction bounties feel the most appropriate.  But I haven't seen AC place many (or any?) of those.  So I've mostly been making my money off of a long-running Archean - Tri-Tach war, since the Archeans keep a system bounty up most of the time.  It feels right to just be hunting down fleets.  Maybe increasing the rate that the consortium places system/faction bounties against their enemies would help. 

I was thinking about a Consortium specific mission to attack certain fleets or raid certain worlds near their systems. There are a couple things that would be cool to do.

As far as System Bounties, is there nothing around Galar or Hikmah? (in Isirah and Zagan, respectively) I would especially think Galar would post a bounty on Sci-Corps but maybe it didn't spawn. Bounties generally spawn (iirc) when commodity fleets are taken out. After I put in a couple extra systems with enemies in between, these should happen more frequently.

Currently at least, faction bounties only occur once a player completes a certain amount of pirate bounties, so that is why you aren't seeing those.

Quote
I adapted to the hostile independents by just stopping trying to go to neutral stations, at first.  Now that I have a battleship I can deal with them, but early on it was too dangerous.  Maybe if I'd chosen a different starting fleet that would have been different: a smuggling start with.  As such, the only procurement missions I did succesfully were within Mordreath itself or going to an Archean Order station. 

I'm glad there are still some procurement missions in Mordreath. Is that independent and pirate mostly, or still some from the Consortium?

Quote
It's worth noting that I think the agent supership start I used might be one of the more difficult ones for the faction early on.  The other options for starting fleet have better logistics, so could run exploration missions and potentially even get the neutrals to stop hating you.  Starting off as special agent and buying a freighter immediately also would have made things much easier.  Smuggling to the lone independent outpost in Mordreath is also a good income stream.  It honestly might be tuned to a good difficulty given it is supposed to be the very hard option, but more missions that you can do would certainly be nice.  Worst case scenario, since you start with a commission you can just bum around Mordreath until you can afford a fleet to go hunting with.  It takes about $250k to upgrade to a fleet that can take out merchant convoys and snipe small patrol fleets.  You just need a freighter, a couple frigates,  and some better weapons, fighters, and mods.

That ship is pretty powerful, but maybe throwing in a Consortium freighter might help with early options.

Quote
I could go on about how strong the Malevolent is: it will make a great late- game reward. I haven't had an opportunity to inspect the other capitals, but it seems to be in a league of its own.  It rapidly snipes enemy escorts, wins every fighter war,  andrapidly cripples enemy capitals.

Ha ha. (In case this was perceived as sarcastic) The Tyrant might give the Malevolent a run for it's money in the player's hands, but otherwise it's only real competition is the Megalith and the Radiant (in the upcoming update the Radiant got a big buff). I think it's a pretty cool ship, overall.
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It's good to hear there's plans for more ship rarity. I think the salvage reduction built-in already helps, but imo it could stand to be even harsher. You still get a lot of Consortium ships just by fighting them even if it's low intensity small fleets. And they're amazingly strong obviously.

Agreed, that's why at one time that built-in reduced the recovery chance by 100%. It doesn't solve derelicts though, and as another player suggested it can be confusing to players why they never seem to be able to recover one. With the new mechanics around remnant accessibility that are being developed in vanilla, it seems like the perfect solution alongside the built in to really prevent these ships from being easy to get. And hopefully end game mechanics will give their usage a little more challenge as well.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 12:40:00 AM by Morrokain »
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Albreo

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Quote
(In case this was perceived as sarcastic) The Tyrant might give the Malevolent a run for it's money in the player's hands, but otherwise it's only real competition is the Megalith and the Radiant (in the upcoming update the Radiant got a big buff). I think it's a pretty cool ship, overall.

What kind of big buff? I thought it's already the strongest in the game. Not cruel enough, are you? I think remnant unique weapons drop would be nice addition.

Faction ships review time!!

Remnant: Holy crap fleet. Good thing they can't burn. Actually lost against everyone in auto resolve. Radient has sucide tendency to teleport into battle immediately and of course die. When will I be able to capture one, hurry up dev.

Archean Order: Revenant ship is pretty bad, lacking a lot of weapon mounts, also a very serious matter to all energy base ship is that the weapons flux/damage ratio are the most inefficient. It's usually self suicide all the time by firing till no enough flux for shield. Mine got killed by a Legion(XIV) with no crafts, so bad I don't want to recover it. I think Archean needs one more frontline capital ship or repurpose that Revenant. Megalith is pretty bad in AI fleet as it's so slow, the front line are all gone before it arrive. OP Phase bomber.

Adamantine: Overall OPnessly balance. Hivemind Orb is OP, projectile speed wise, can't be countered with PD. Widow is your best Anti-craft support but usually, shoot ship instead. Great fighters loadout. Has the strongest star fortress of all with so many Reapers. AD>High Tech>AO.

Psi-Corp: Why are you even here? Has the weakest fleet of all. Could make do as a minor faction. Apogee is weaker than vanilla. Odyssey is Odyssily weak.

Tri-Tac: Paragon speed is just superb than vanilla, the second best ship after Tyrant. Astral missing one small mount texture. Harbinger is pretty cheap this time. Auto resolve may never be in their favor.

Hegemony: Strongest fleet below Remnant. Devastator + Boltter is great. Onslaught(XIV), apart from the ability and terminator beams, is very strong for 30+5 points (not sure but look like it’s bug at 30 instead of 35). Terminator is actually a very crappy beam. Can't it be thicker to look more imposing? Normal Onslaught might actually be stronger with more ballistic? Legion(XIV) ability is so good, a very strong fire support ship as well. Dominator with Reaper is scary and can fire guns indefinitely with so little flux cost for some ballistic weapons. Eagle and Falcon (all models except AD) are not so great, easy to kill, can't kill anything maybe due to gun arc.

Persean: A little love for midline ship? Executor and Conquest Feel great but a bit squishy. Has good balance weapons. I do feel that there are too many high tech ships and would like to have more midline for Persean, Diktat, and Independence.

Prate/Ludd: Practice targets. Very threatening early game. Pillager is too squishy. I think the smallest fleet is still too large for starters. Can there be an additional smaller size fleet like a picket roaming out of the system like Luddic mini fleet for pirate? It could also be paired with a mini trader fleet for the would be pirate starter.

Overall Frigates: Too slow to survive. Have no meaning endgame. I think frigate should be half as fast as the average bomber/gunship, at least 120-150 in speed without boost. It should be balanced so that even with navrelay it will still be lower than fighter speed. Frigate should be an annoying ship that is hard to kill. I do imagine frigates as the Millenium Falcon fast but cannot shake away TIE fighters but also won't get swarm by it either. Also, peak performance time is not enough.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 12:09:48 PM by Albreo »
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Impedocles

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After more testing,  the consortium start is very doable even with the 1 frigate agent start.   Just worked my way up from that start to getting a doom AD in iron man.  The night reaver start isn't too hard once you buy a freighter,  which only takes a couple months of commission salary.  I haven't tested the doom yet,  but if the harbinger and the stats are any guide I will probably be soloing small fleets with it.   The flux dissipation is higher than a battleship, so phasing between massive damage bursts to reload and dissipate flux is likely an extremely powerful tactic with the mod changes.

If you want to make the consortium fleets extra scary,  I suggest making the default loadouts include insulated engines.   The players wouldn't see them until they are quite close.

Edit: the Doom AD is less OP than I expected from using the harbinger.   The triple plasma cannon harbinger is somewhat uniquely OP.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 02:30:53 PM by Impedocles »
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