Thanks! I've actually had this thread on the bookmark bar of my gaming rig for like a year now. I've just been lurking. I check in periodically to look for new versions of this or SS.
Oh nice! Hopefully I'll have an update out pretty soon. I was originally planning on this weekend, but it doesn't look like that will happen. Still some work/testing to do. I'm going to preview some of the new functionality a little bit later on today though.
I completely agree that Tyrants should be threatening. I'm glad to hear that the AI will be getting tweaked soonish because currently it really is suitable for harassment and not much else. The Tyrants weren't even particularly threatening to Auroras is what really made it frustrating. They'd fire one salvo. As soon as something shot at them, they'd phase, their flux would skyrocket, and they'd jump away. They'd need pretty epic alpha strike potential to threaten cruisers with even half decent shielding.
If it had been a battle between the AC and me rather than the AI, I'd just anchor my fleet into a corner and they would become toothless.
Ideally, I think a good rock-paper-scissors balance for them would see them very dangerous to cruiser and smaller ships / reinforcements, too agile for things like the ubiquitous Tach Lance Paragons (or Megas, etc.) to deal with, too armored for Astrals to deal with effectively, but vulnerable to properly configured battlecruisers or pocket battleships that have just enough speed and durability to chase them and survive. It would be kind of neat if Tyrants and Radiants defined a late game role for ships like the Revenant, Ody, Conquest, etc. (The Nightreaver is already pretty OP on a DP basis as far as I'm concerned.) Of course, I realize there are many considerations when it comes to balance.
Alex's latest blog post makes it sound like he, too, wants to get away from the late game fleet being 15 tach lance Paragons and a train.
100% agreed. Iirc, the difference between having the jump and not having the jump was the single salvo you talk about. Without that exit strategy this ship only really engages anything when the target is distracted. Otherwise, it moves in until the first counter shot goes off, phases, and backs off.
Thing is, the higher alpha strike potential I give it for the AI, the more broken it is when in the player's hands. And it's already very broken.
The idea of it being sort of countered by pocket battleships and battlecruisers is interesting. I'll probably have to wait for the changes to really do anything, but I'll keep that in mind. The lower jump range might make this possible since those types of vessels typically are pretty fast themselves, and it already will annihilate anything below a cruiser.
Really it could annihilate most cruisers too... but the AI just doesn't lol. In a straight front to front engagement it can still beat an Onslaught, Executor, etc, but it would take significant damage doing so, which is intended. The ideal strategy is to jump behind and attack the vulnerable engines, so if the AI can ever reliably pull that off the Tyrant will become a really intimidating AI ship.
As far as the Hivemind Orb Launcher, I don't think it really needs to be nerfed. The BP seems quite rare, and it is legendary, as you say. There are lots of RNG elements that can make particular playthroughs easier or harder. Currently, it doesn't seem like BP seeds actually update, so you're not guaranteed to find it in any particular playthrough. (Maybe by raiding AO?) Moreover, there will always be gimmicky fleet compositions that players can exploit if they choose. The way they are now, it's a big deal if I find a launcher much less the BP in early game exploration. I'd say it's a good thing to have a few items like that that really incentivize exploration.
Correct they don't update and there is a finite amount that can be found so it's possible it won't be obtainable outside of raiding either the AC or the AO.
That is generally my thought process when it comes to Legendary weapons. They should be rare/maybe unobtainable without raiding - depending on RNG - but when you get one you go: "Whoa! This thing packs a punch and looks pretty cool doing it!" I also want that to be a way to distinguish factions a little more in regards to commissions.
Oh, there is one other thing. Is it possible to adjust the scolding about running with transponders off? I feel like the system would work a lot better if there was only a rep loss for your commissioned faction in a contested system if you were within X distance of a friendly planet/station. They should be perfectly happy about you contributing to the war effort with hit and run tactics, imo.
In particular, I have in mind AO starts where you have a small fleet and are in a system full of hostile Tri Tach. You lose one of the big advantages of AO fleets if you have to run with transponders on. Plus, it makes the early game a lot more fun if you can stalk with small fleets. The way it currently works, I ended up spending nearly as much time dodging small AO patrols as huge Tri Tach fleets.
Hmm, interesting. I *think* that would be possible off the top of my head. I'm always a fan of more nuanced, contextual interactions with NPCs. Obviously these things can take a lot of work to get it to "feel right" and natural to the player, so I doubt I could squeeze it into the coming update. The next one I should be able to, though. This update is already huge, though it's admittedly a lot of "behind the scenes" code changes that will make things a lot easier and more things possible going forward.
It's not to say there aren't exciting things in it, but the bulk of the work is refactoring how things are done to be more extensible and efficient. The player will have a lot of customization options as far as the campaign is concerned too. To give an idea:
This is the W.I.P list of new settings:
Spoiler
"archeusTCSettings":{
"checkSettingsOnSaveLoad":false,
"vanillaOverrides":{
"overriddenHullmodsCanBeFound":false,
"fightersInCodex":false,
"fightersCanBeFound":false,
"weaponsInCodex":false,
"weaponsCanBeFound":false,
"shipsInCodex":false,
"shipsCanBeFound":false,
"blueprintsCanBeFound":false,
"campaignOverrides":{ # Anything within this section will be permanent once a new game is started.
"weaponsInFactions":false,
"fightersInFactions":false,
"shipsInFactions":false, # Determines whether vanilla ship blueprints are obtainable through raiding.
"shipsSpawnInFleets":false, # Only used if shipsInFactions is true. Factions will spawn vanilla ships if set to true.
"overriddenHullmodsInFactions":false,
"marketOverrides":{
"adjustVanillaStations":true, # TC stations are set in place of vanilla equivalents. See: "*Archean Order Directory*/data/config/ArcheanOrderEcon/systems"
"adjustVanillaIndustries":true, # Adds or removes industries based upon the TC balance. See: ^ ^
"adjustVanillaConditions":true, # Adds or removes market conditions based upon the TC balance. See: ^
},
},
},
"nexerelinOverrides":{
"preferVanillaStationsNex":false, # Currently unused - hoping to allow customizable Nex behavior regarding stations in the future.
"removeNexStationAdditions":true, # Removes or replaces stations that Nex adds with TC friendly ones.
},
"logOverrideInfo":true, # Adds debugging info to the log on new game starts if enabled. Should be false by default.
},
- and all the market changes in the mod are now, for the most part, customize-able.
For instance, want to add a High Command to a vanilla market? Or give a market better resources? Now you can by adding the id to a spreadsheet. The mod reads a separate spreadsheet for each system to determine how to change the campaign's markets. A market actually has to exist for this to be possible, of course, so you can't add new markets to existing entities or anything.
The cool thing, at least to me, is that a lot of these settings are save-independent. So things like codex entries or whether vanilla ships can be found or recovered, etc, can be changed in the middle of the campaign. I'm planning on having all the settings work this way in the future, but for time reasons some of that has been cut for this update.
Anyway, sorry for the text wall and if you have any more feedback don't hesitate.
Author
Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22 (Read 822004 times)