Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 61 62 [63] 64 65 ... 125

Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722401 times)

Sinful

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 1
    • View Profile

Not noticing any tankers in the markets or other fleets is this intended?
Edit: turns out it was Second Wave Options screwing with the ability for tankers to exist in markets and fleets >.>
« Last Edit: October 17, 2020, 03:37:44 PM by Sinful »
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

Not noticing any tankers in the markets or other fleets is this intended?
Edit: turns out it was Second Wave Options screwing with the ability for tankers to exist in markets and fleets >.>

Ah ok yeah that isn't intended as far as AO is concerned but glad you got it figured out. :)

If anything else seems off, let me know. Also welcome to the forums!

----------------------------------------------------------

New Excaliber Cannon sprite: (Bullet size is larger and more noticeable too and armor penetration has been increased as a result of flux costs added to fire since it has long range.)

*EDIT* Whoops the image showed the new sprite but not the new stats. Fixed.

« Last Edit: October 17, 2020, 10:31:12 PM by Morrokain »
Logged

Echonian

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile

Hello,

I have recently started playing Starsector, and have quite enjoyed it. After playing for a while in the base game, I decided I would go ahead and start adding various mods.

I am making this post for a couple of reasons, first: I am having some trouble with the mod.

Before I get into that, here is my current mod list:

Archean Order TC v1.3.5
Combat Chatter
Common Radar
Fuel Siphoning
Grand Sector v0.2.2
LazyLib
Nexelerin
SkilledUp
SpeedUp
Starship Legends
Supply Forging
Terraforming and Station Construction
Unknown Skies
Version Checker

All of the mods have seemed to work quite well together, though I did have to modify a couple of mod-specific settings to get a couple of them to behave.

With that out of the way, the issue is with my in-game reputation. I was attacked by the Adamantine Consortium - who bombarded my main food-producing colony and made the entire colony entirely inoperable for more than a year. In retaliation, I did the same to two of their own worlds. Most factions did not care about this, since they were hated by everyone, but the "Independent" faction took issue. Well, also the Church, but they aren't an issue in the same way.

Because the Independent faction then immediately started attacking my colonies.

Completely without the game informing me, random mercenary squads and even scavengers managed to take out 4-5 of my orbital stations - with me only learning about this by manually flying around my colonies or checking the colony management screen.

Is this intended behavior under your mod?

It could potentially be due to one of the other mods I have installed, but it seems really weird. I'm okay with a faction hating me - the Luddic Church launched multiple invasions on me due to them hating my saturation bombing of the Adamantine Order worlds - but those invasions I could counter because the game announced them and announced when they were or were not successful.

The independent fleets however vastly outnumber the invasions from other sources, even if they are weaker individually, and crucially they seem to attack entirely without warning and far more viciously than I ever had to worry about with pirates or the pathers.

Do you have any recommendations for fixing this on my end? I am likely not going to play my current save for all that much longer, but I don't want to have to scrap it over this.

Because as it stands, having my stations constantly get destroyed by untraceable fleets is weird. It also makes little sense that every single mercenary and smuggler across the world would become hostile to me the moment I decided to retaliate in kind against a particular foe.

With that question and complaint out of the way, I really do like what you have done with the mod. I have praise for the mods other than yours that I should probably express to the individual mod makers, but the changes to combat and added content in particular from your mod were the most useful things to my enjoyment of the game so far.

Oh, also, the Adamantine Consortium Battleships are slightly annoying to chase down. They seem to rarely actually fight in battles I have had against them, and instead just run away at the first sign of any danger - wasting all of their flux to phase past minor attacks, then teleporting away so I have to chase them down for ages. I wonder if there's a way to tweak this - is it possible to give a cooldown to their "phase" ability of perhaps 3-4 seconds so they actually end up fighting rather than spending all of their flux to hide? I don't want to make them weaker - I haven't had any problems actually fighting them - but most of my battles against the Adamantine Consortium end up with me spending just as long chasing those things down without them being any threat as I spent actually winning the battle.

Rambling aside, I really have enjoyed the mod, and am glad I found it. I am fairly new to the game but have been pretty addicted over the last couple of weeks, and am looking forward to where the game and mods like yours continue in the future. Modding has always been of great interest to me, but I have never managed to find the patience to do it myself beyond a minor level, so I do appreciate the work you have put in here.

Thanks.

Edit: Yeah, I just had to fight off two weak Scavenger fleets that suicidally flew into my station in a row, while waiting for an invasion from the Luddic Church, and this was after they wiped out four of my stations in a row in my nearby system. It's really insane how many people are willing to commit suicide against me. I am doing everything I can to increase my relation with the Independent faction, but since I lose -3 or so reputation every time I defeat one of their suicidal fleets, I may need to resort to custom commands or something to fix the relationship (though I don't know how).

Edit 2: Okay, now after fighting those two fleets off, two "more" fleets of Scavengers are repeatedly attacking the same station over and over again. When I go to fight them, the game says "Your forces let them off without incident," the game literally won't let me destroy them! They then fly away and wait for me to leave the area, then immediately attack again. This seems incredibly broken behavior-wise, and it's really weird to see in action.

Edit 3: I saw the message "Your forces let them off without incident" effectively against the Luddic Church forces as well that invaded my system, so that seems to be a larger issue. I wonder if this is due to the game (or some mod) making it so you can only have so many battles within a certain span of time - but that wouldn't make much sense to me when Combat Readiness already deals with that issue.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 06:05:53 PM by Echonian »
Logged

Albreo

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 176
  • A! Oh nyo!
    • View Profile

Quote
Completely without the game informing me, random mercenary squads and even scavengers managed to take out 4-5 of my orbital stations - with me only learning about this by manually flying around my colonies or checking the colony management screen.

Is this intended behavior under your mod?

It could potentially be due to one of the other mods I have installed, but it seems really weird. I'm okay with a faction hating me - the Luddic Church launched multiple invasions on me due to them hating my saturation bombing of the Adamantine Order worlds - but those invasions I could counter because the game announced them and announced when they were or were not successful.

The independent fleets however vastly outnumber the invasions from other sources, even if they are weaker individually, and crucially they seem to attack entirely without warning and far more viciously than I ever had to worry about with pirates or the pathers.

Do you have any recommendations for fixing this on my end? I am likely not going to play my current save for all that much longer, but I don't want to have to scrap it over this.

Lol, that's funny, do you know where they are spawning from? If they spawn from your planet then that's a problem with maybe the new Nex update. And for the second point, there won't be any warning because these are roaming fleets that randomly spawn and patrol around any planet that isn't hostile to Independent. Like free patrols but you still need some high command for it to spawn a really big fleet but usually these "big fleet" contains no capital ship, never. It also sometimes go on to attack some pirate or any enemy force but they don't usually raid planet, I think.

Quote
Oh, also, the Adamantine Consortium Battleships are slightly annoying to chase down. They seem to rarely actually fight in battles I have had against them, and instead just run away at the first sign of any danger - wasting all of their flux to phase past minor attacks, then teleporting away so I have to chase them down for ages. I wonder if there's a way to tweak this - is it possible to give a cooldown to their "phase" ability of perhaps 3-4 seconds so they actually end up fighting rather than spending all of their flux to hide? I don't want to make them weaker - I haven't had any problems actually fighting them - but most of my battles against the Adamantine Consortium end up with me spending just as long chasing those things down without them being any threat as I spent actually winning the battle.

This is normal Phase ship AI behavior at the moment. It was not designed for a big phase ship. In Vanilla, The biggest one is Doom that barely has any weapons hence avoidance behavior. In the next Starsector update, there will be an improvement to this aspect. You can still bypass this somewhat with a captain with Aggressive and Ruthless Behavior.

Quote
Edit 2: Okay, now after fighting those two fleets off, two "more" fleets of Scavengers are repeatedly attacking the same station over and over again. When I go to fight them, the game says "Your forces let them off without incident," the game literally won't let me destroy them! They then fly away and wait for me to leave the area, then immediately attack again. This seems incredibly broken behavior-wise, and it's really weird to see in action.

Edit 3: I saw the message "Your forces let them off without incident" effectively against the Luddic Church forces as well that invaded my system, so that seems to be a larger issue. I wonder if this is due to the game (or some mod) making it so you can only have so many battles within a certain span of time - but that wouldn't make much sense to me when Combat Readiness already deals with that issue.

This "Your forces let them off without incident" is also another normal behavior because you're trying to assist your orbital station in combat and the enemy is scare of your big fleet and trying to run. Since you are an assisting force, your orbital station gets to decide what to do and they will always let them go. If you don't want them to run away and still want the orbital station assistance, you have to run your ship at them after this massage end and be the one to initiate the combat. You will have the orbital station in combat as well as it's still in the vicinity.

And for the recommendation in what to do with all these messes, you have a few options
1) Make amend with the Independent by doing their quest. Transport quest always counts for Independent no matter who you're transporting for. Use prisoner spam. Use agent.
2) Build multiple High Commands in one system. The recommended number is 3. Orbital station with no support is just a chunk of steel.
3) Choose a proper system that's easy to defend. I saw you have Terraforming mod install, so, pretty much any system that has at least 8 rich planets with at least one stable orbit slot is fine. You can then spam multiple High commands in it and no one can mess with you ever again.

In my last playthrough, I ally with pirate and hostile to all but still find no trouble ruining everyone's day. Hence if there's something crazy happening, it's not this mod fault.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 11:18:20 PM by Albreo »
Logged

Echonian

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile

Lol, that's funny, do you know where they are spawning from? If they spawn from your planet then that's a problem with maybe the new Nex update. And for the second point, there won't be any warning because these are roaming fleets that randomly spawn and patrol around any planet that isn't hostile to Independent. Like free patrols but you still need some high command for it to spawn a really big fleet but usually these "big fleet" contains no capital ship, never. It also sometimes go on to attack some pirate or any enemy force but they don't usually raid planet, I think.

No, I am unsure where they are spawning from. But there were tons of independents in my home system - which has about 6 colonized planets of fairly high development at this point in the game - before they became hostile to me. There are so many of them, and while I'm okay with the variety and number of them being due to my system probably being one of the main hubs in the game by this point (two of the planets in particular are highly productive and developed), it's an issue when endless fleets keep attacking my star stations. Weak fleets that are easily destroyed, but which are impossible for me to deal with when they keep attacking without warning and I can only be in one place at a time.

They endlessly focus on my star stations. I only found out they were doing so because I had to save scum when I went to defend against a Luddic Church invasion - a proper invasion - yet the station that they were attacking was apparently already destroyed by random independents (the game of course did not tell me this), so they instantly were able to conquer it without me being able to intervene. I then checked and no less than 4 stations in that same system were knocked out by independents. I then went on a rampage and hunted down about 10 independent fleets nearby, but they were endless, and not being able to auto-resolve those battles made it tedious.

This is normal Phase ship AI behavior at the moment. It was not designed for a big phase ship. In Vanilla, The biggest one is Doom that barely has any weapons hence avoidance behavior. In the next Starsector update, there will be an improvement to this aspect. You can still bypass this somewhat with a captain with Aggressive and Ruthless Behavior.


In that case I will just take it in stride. I realize the behavior is as intended, but as you said - it doesn't work as well on a large ship. Since it using that ability constantly makes it impossible for it to have the flux necessary to actually fight back, and the double teleport away makes it tedious rather than fun to chase it down. If I were using the ships in my own fleet of course they would be more enjoyable I reckon, or piloting it myself, but as part of an AI fleet they seem a bit weird in their current state.

This "Your forces let them off without incident" is also another normal behavior because you're trying to assist your orbital station in combat and the enemy is scare of your big fleet and trying to run. Since you are an assisting force, your orbital station gets to decide what to do and they will always let them go. If you don't want them to run away and still want the orbital station assistance, you have to run your ship at them after this massage end and be the one to initiate the combat. You will have the orbital station in combat as well as it's still in the vicinity.

And for the recommendation in what to do with all these messes, you have a few options
1) Make amend with the Independent by doing their quest. Transport quest always counts for Independent no matter who you're transporting for. Use prisoner spam. Use agent.
2) Build multiple High Commands in one system. The recommended number is 3. Orbital station with no support is just a chunk of steel.
3) Choose a proper system that's easy to defend. I saw you have Terraforming mod install, so, pretty much any system that has at least 8 rich planets with at least one stable orbit slot is fine. You can then spam multiple High commands in it and no one can mess with you ever again.

In my last playthrough, I ally with pirate and hostile to all but still find no trouble ruining everyone's day. Hence if there's something crazy happening, it's not this mod fault.

Good to know I can still initiate combat by chasing them down afterwards, though it is odd that the station is letting them go rather than letting me decide when it is my own station. It would be nice if the game were modified to allow me to chase down enemies in the case of assisting a station, because obviously a station shouldn't be deciding whether to "chase down" an enemy (since they can't, logically speaking, chase anyone at all).

I have been using an agent for the Independent forces, but my reputation goes down far too quickly with the -3 from every single one I have to defeat (1 at least per day if I'm patrolling my home system) in order to defend my starbases. Honestly it's just really weird that my reputation goes down with the independent faction in the first place, let alone by so much - when they are independent. I wonder if there's a way to mod the game to make the Independent faction have less influential changes in reputation, because it is really weird that random mercenaries, smugglers, salvagers, etc - all would hate me increasingly more every time I dare to defend my own station against some other unaffiliated group of independent ships.

I'm in the process of finally getting proper High Commands built in my home system right now actually. Since upgrading from Patrol HQ to the next level requires an industry slot however, and given the limited number of those, it has taken me a very long time to have the free room. I'm hoping that will help a bit.

Ultimately I might just have to use a console command or such though to reset their reputation, because I'm not looking forward to having to patrol my home system for the next few in-game months doing dozens of battles against weak fleets.

Thank you for the advice.
Logged

Echonian

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile

Since my previous post was answered more or less, I had another question.

Is there a particular balancing philosophy behind specific weapons, ships, or other aspects of this game which could be shared so that I might be able to potentially rebalance some faction packs to work properly with this mod?

I realize adding new factions officially might be too much work, but I'm considering the idea of doing the testing and implementation myself for one or two custom factions at least. Since I really love the custom factions in this mod as well as the combat changes, finding a way to make it work with other faction mods would be great (even if the lore might seem a bit odd).

I might not end up actually doing this, but it is something I have been looking into, so if it's even a possibility any relevant balancing information would be appreciated.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

@Albreo
Thank you for answering Echonian's questions! I appreciate it.  :)

@Echonian
First, welcome to Starsector and the forums and thanks for trying out the mod! I'm glad you are (mostly) having a good time with it. I'll add two things to Albreo's response:

1) Alongside the coming AI changes in the next Starsector update, the next Archean Order update will remove the jump ability from the Tyrant in place of a speed boosting system that is more punishable. If it makes the Tyrant weaker in the AI's hands until the official update, so be it. I'd rather that than a tedious battle every time. It might not weaken the AI with it though as one additional thing I've done is create some flux free builds. It might make the AI more willing to engage before its flux gets too high. We'll see I guess, I can't really afford the time to deep dive test its performance.

2) Sat-bombing a colony of any faction will make any faction that cares about atrocities (defined in the faction file under: "caresAboutAtrocities":true,) hostile or lose a lot of rep. Even though the independents hate the AC, from a lore perspective bombing not only kills dreadlords and barons but also the slaves that work in their colonies. That will make the independents angry at you for the collateral damage caused. I'm surprised that it didn't make the Sci-Corps mad at you too to be honest - but maybe distance matters? Either way, it's not something I directly manage in the mod. It relies on vanilla settings and mechanics there. Nex could also affect rep in different ways than vanilla, but I'm not really sure. Trying to change existing rep impacts would require way too much hackery though. It would make the mod incompatible with a lot of other mods.

FWIW that experience sounds highly annoying. From what I remember, I thought independent fleets wouldn't spawn from faction colonies that are hostile to independents and vice versa. I'm not sure if this directly applies to player colonies though - there could be something special going on I'm not aware of. If you have the save still, you could try setting that value to "false" for independents and then sat bomb the AC again and see if the same result occurs. I think it is still overridden in the current release, but I don't override a lot of faction content in the next update since its technically redundant unless I'm making changes.

For Console Commands:

SetRelation independent neutral (or w.e relation you want them at) should do the trick.


Since my previous post was answered more or less, I had another question.

Is there a particular balancing philosophy behind specific weapons, ships, or other aspects of this game which could be shared so that I might be able to potentially rebalance some faction packs to work properly with this mod?

I realize adding new factions officially might be too much work, but I'm considering the idea of doing the testing and implementation myself for one or two custom factions at least. Since I really love the custom factions in this mod as well as the combat changes, finding a way to make it work with other faction mods would be great (even if the lore might seem a bit odd).

I might not end up actually doing this, but it is something I have been looking into, so if it's even a possibility any relevant balancing information would be appreciated.

There is a set of balance sliders I use, yes. A *short* summary:

Spoiler
1) Weapon counts:

Frigates: 4-6 small weapons or 3-4 small weapons and one medium weapon, etc. If a hangar bay exists, 1-3 weapons. The more weapons, the less defense or higher the DP as a counter-balance. A built in wing is generally smaller and replaces slower than standard module wings, and either costs more DP or takes the place of a weapon or two.

Destroyers: Same number of small weapons but also typically 3-4 medium weapons. Slightly greater defenses and lower combat speed than frigates. Less maneuverability. Slightly higher DP. Destroyer carriers get 2-3 hangar bays (Epiphany now has 3 for the next update). Same number of small weapons but 0-1 medium weapons. The presence of a medium weapon should remove a hangar bay or have very high DP.

Cruisers: 8-12 small weapons and 4-6 medium weapons and 0-2 large weapons. Same stat differences that differentiate frigates from destroyers but by a larger margin comparatively. Carrier cruisers usually have 4-6 hangar bays and only 6-10 small weapons and ~2-3 medium weapons. Combat cruiser still have 2-4 bays, but can't use them as efficiently as carriers (will discuss details further down)

Capitals:  15-30 small weapons -- 8-12 medium -- 3-6 large (variance depends on DP/defense/role). Much higher defensive stats for capitals and low speed. Like cruisers, non-carrier capitals have 2-4 inefficient hangar bays while carrier capitals have as many as 10 efficient hangar bays. 10 is the max because with the hullmod bringing the total to 12 that is the most the UI can reasonably handle in the refit screen.

Weapon layout guidelines: Weapon arcs and position are such that at least 2 small weapons can be used for PD at most directions for a frigate or destroyer and 3-4 can be used for a cruiser. Capitals have the most overlapping arcs, but keep in mind that you can't overlap too many arcs for both aesthetic reasons and because that is oftentimes wasted ordinance when considering lots of small targets. At least 3 large weapons and 4 medium weapons should generally be able to focus fire on one target in the case of capitals.

Sprite size guidelines: Each weapon size is one size smaller relative to vanilla. So vanilla medium is AO large, vanilla small is AO medium, etc. From there, sprite size generally scales with OP cost or possibly the range of the weapon. Fighters are a lot smaller than vanilla, but typically have similar wing sizes. They replace slower and have less standard range than vanilla wings since carriers will buff these values with hullmods.

Weapon flux cost guidelines: Short range, low armor penetration and fast firing weapons don't usually cost flux. These are considered assault weapons. PD weapons also don't cost flux. Heavy assault weapons, such as the Railgun or Dual Railgun, fire with 0.2 - 0.4 flux efficiency considering they are longer range than the standard assault weapon. Strike weapons deal a lot of damage very quickly, but fire with 0.4 - 0.8 efficiency or have a lot lower sustained dps. The higher the armor penetration for an assault weapon, the lower range or DPS it probably needs to have. Fire support (or very long ranged) weapons have greater than 1.0 firing efficiency and lower sustained dps in most cases. Missiles are different. Many strike missiles don't cost flux but have very low sustained dps and can be heavily mitigated by PD (see Atropos) and long range missiles are also heavily mitigated by PD but have better efficiency to fire (~0.5 - 0.8) compared to non-missile fire support weapons.

Designation details: (these are done using built-in hullmods -- more of these will be added in the next update)

Frigates: +100% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 35% of max flux not considering skills.

Destroyers: +50% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 20% of max flux not considering skills.

Cruisers: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +20% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Capitals: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +30% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- half the 0-flux speed boost -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Carriers (any size): Same designation benefits as warships but also -- half the 0-flux speed boost unless a capital which already has that -- 50% replacement rate bonus -- 100% range bonus for effective wing range -- OP discounts to weapons depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Phew! That's a start anyway! Obviously these are just guidelines that I go by, and exceptions of all kinds exist in order to create unique ships. At the end of the day, playtesting is important both 1v1 and fleet simulations. I hope this helps give an idea of how to approach a rebalanced faction mod or creation of additional custom ones.
[close]
Logged

Echonian

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile

Thank you for the detailed reply, that answers everything I needed.

As far as the independent fleets are concerned - they became less of an issue after a bit of time had passed. I suspect that the independent fleets initially attacking me were largely "already" in my area or nearby at the time that my relation with them became poor, but once I cleared out enough of them and my colony defenses were working they became less of an issue. Or perhaps - since the Independents are rarely hostile to anyone - there was less of a risk of their fleets being destroyed, so they were too numerous until they threw themselves to their deaths upon my forces? I'm unsure, especially since I don't know how the spawning works exactly, but it seems to have resolved itself. Though I may want to look into this more in the future.

It makes sense from a lore perspective that they would dislike my saturation bombing. What confused me more was that the Adamantine Consortium had done the exact same saturation bombing to one of my colonies, and (at least with my mods) that should have made the independents hostile to them. Which in turn should have made them not care as much about my saturation bombing, as everyone else who hated the Adamantine Consortium "overlooked" the issue (which was pretty much everyone). Might be a Nex related issue.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

Thank you for the detailed reply, that answers everything I needed.

As far as the independent fleets are concerned - they became less of an issue after a bit of time had passed. I suspect that the independent fleets initially attacking me were largely "already" in my area or nearby at the time that my relation with them became poor, but once I cleared out enough of them and my colony defenses were working they became less of an issue. Or perhaps - since the Independents are rarely hostile to anyone - there was less of a risk of their fleets being destroyed, so they were too numerous until they threw themselves to their deaths upon my forces? I'm unsure, especially since I don't know how the spawning works exactly, but it seems to have resolved itself. Though I may want to look into this more in the future.

It makes sense from a lore perspective that they would dislike my saturation bombing. What confused me more was that the Adamantine Consortium had done the exact same saturation bombing to one of my colonies, and (at least with my mods) that should have made the independents hostile to them. Which in turn should have made them not care as much about my saturation bombing, as everyone else who hated the Adamantine Consortium "overlooked" the issue (which was pretty much everyone). Might be a Nex related issue.

Np! For exact stat comparisons, the spreadsheets are labeled pretty clearly by hulls size and weapon size/type. I'd probably wait until the next AO update to start modifying any other factions though. For one, you'll have access to the new designation hullmods that will be included. For another, the file/override structure of the mod has been greatly improved upon and it will be easier to decipher stats and such. I'm working hard on this today. I had taken a small break after making a bunch of new weapons (and I still have two more to make) to give more Legendary options and fill in some niches.

As for the independents thing, I'm glad the spawning seemed to hold true. I may have changed this is the update version so maybe this isn't accurate to the currently released version?, but I checked the Nex faction config and independents have a starting relationship of "Vengeful" with the Adamantine Consortium, and a 0.01 chance of a positive diplomacy event. Even then, the max relationship should be "Inhospitable" so it's weird that they weren't hostile to each other.

Adamantine Consortium, too, has a starting relationship of "Vengeful" with Independents and should be locked out of Diplomacy altogether.

So, maybe something else is coming into play or I have the wrong values for the exerelinFactionConfig files?? I'm not really sure. I'll have to ask Histidine for some advice for better control of the faction config. It should be really rare for those two factions to be at peace. Hmm.
Logged

DatonKallandor

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 718
    • View Profile

Nexerelin also has a "random faction relations" toggle because it wasn't hard enough to troubleshoot already.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

Nexerelin also has a "random faction relations" toggle

Ahh, that makes more sense, ok thank you for the info I did not know that! I'll keep that in mind. I assume it defaults to false, but if not, I'll look into maybe a soft override option for not-random-generated campaigns in order to help preserve the lore mechanics of the standard core starts. Probably not this update since my plate is full there, but the information itself is very helpful.

If no override option exists, oh well *shrug*. Custom start options from the perspective of a 4x design make sense, but it does help to explain why some experience reports seem to defy the intended lore mechanics from the Nex config. Honestly, I need to take a break and play a full campaign with Nex at some point to better understand all the mechanics there. Same for modern vanilla, really. I'm not sure I fully fleshed out a campaign since ~0.7-0.8 - though some of that was purposeful to not spoil anything for myself and then get a fresh new experience. Also - time spent not modding - obviously. It's a delicate balance alongside RL lol.
Logged

basileus

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 133
    • View Profile

Random relations are off by default; however, Nex does alter the vanilla faction relations to make the game more "interesting" by default, iirc.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

Ah ok I looked in the Nex faction config for Nex itself and found:     "noRandomizeRelations":true,

 - so that should be the soft override I'm looking for.

Random relations are off by default; however, Nex does alter the vanilla faction relations to make the game more "interesting" by default, iirc.

Thanks! I checked the independent file in Nex and it shouldn't interfere with the Archean Order Nex config itself. It could be possible that another mod is doing something by implementing their own independent faction Nex config, but even then it shouldn't affect the Adamantine Consortium Nex config sooo... I honestly don't know.

The soft override for random faction relationships was easy enough to add that I will include it in the next AO update. That way users will have to disable it within the AO mod as well - which at the very least should prevent this from happening on accident.
Logged

hollow

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 54
    • View Profile

Hello there!

First of all great mod, I've been playing it more than the original game for quite a while now.
I feel like this mod makes the ships and weapons feel quite powerful while the overhaul to the wings is also really amazing.

My question at the moment is if there are any faction mods that are compatible with AO (other than interstellar imperium)
and if there is any way to balance out the faction ships to be able to keep up with AO ships
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

Hello there!

First of all great mod, I've been playing it more than the original game for quite a while now.
I feel like this mod makes the ships and weapons feel quite powerful while the overhaul to the wings is also really amazing.

My question at the moment is if there are any faction mods that are compatible with AO (other than interstellar imperium)
and if there is any way to balance out the faction ships to be able to keep up with AO ships

Thanks!  :)

In the current update, I'd say most faction mods that make their own ships/weapons and don't use vanilla ids should be compatible. In the next release, I have removed the override behavior of most of the vanilla stuff (variants I think are the only exception for now) so that should open up the mod to most if not all faction mods to be crash free.

As for balance, here is a brief summary of how I design the mod's balance (brought down from an earlier post for convenience):

Spoiler
1) Weapon counts:

Frigates: 4-6 small weapons or 3-4 small weapons and one medium weapon, etc. If a hangar bay exists, 1-3 weapons. The more weapons, the less defense or higher the DP as a counter-balance. A built in wing is generally smaller and replaces slower than standard module wings, and either costs more DP or takes the place of a weapon or two.

Destroyers: Same number of small weapons but also typically 3-4 medium weapons. Slightly greater defenses and lower combat speed than frigates. Less maneuverability. Slightly higher DP. Destroyer carriers get 2-3 hangar bays (Epiphany now has 3 for the next update). Same number of small weapons but 0-1 medium weapons. The presence of a medium weapon should remove a hangar bay or have very high DP.

Cruisers: 8-12 small weapons and 4-6 medium weapons and 0-2 large weapons. Same stat differences that differentiate frigates from destroyers but by a larger margin comparatively. Carrier cruisers usually have 4-6 hangar bays and only 6-10 small weapons and ~2-3 medium weapons. Combat cruiser still have 2-4 bays, but can't use them as efficiently as carriers (will discuss details further down)

Capitals:  15-30 small weapons -- 8-12 medium -- 3-6 large (variance depends on DP/defense/role). Much higher defensive stats for capitals and low speed. Like cruisers, non-carrier capitals have 2-4 inefficient hangar bays while carrier capitals have as many as 10 efficient hangar bays. 10 is the max because with the hullmod bringing the total to 12 that is the most the UI can reasonably handle in the refit screen.

Weapon layout guidelines: Weapon arcs and position are such that at least 2 small weapons can be used for PD at most directions for a frigate or destroyer and 3-4 can be used for a cruiser. Capitals have the most overlapping arcs, but keep in mind that you can't overlap too many arcs for both aesthetic reasons and because that is oftentimes wasted ordinance when considering lots of small targets. At least 3 large weapons and 4 medium weapons should generally be able to focus fire on one target in the case of capitals.

Sprite size guidelines: Each weapon size is one size smaller relative to vanilla. So vanilla medium is AO large, vanilla small is AO medium, etc. From there, sprite size generally scales with OP cost or possibly the range of the weapon. Fighters are a lot smaller than vanilla, but typically have similar wing sizes. They replace slower and have less standard range than vanilla wings since carriers will buff these values with hullmods.

Weapon flux cost guidelines: Short range, low armor penetration and fast firing weapons don't usually cost flux. These are considered assault weapons. PD weapons also don't cost flux. Heavy assault weapons, such as the Railgun or Dual Railgun, fire with 0.2 - 0.4 flux efficiency considering they are longer range than the standard assault weapon. Strike weapons deal a lot of damage very quickly, but fire with 0.4 - 0.8 efficiency or have a lot lower sustained dps. The higher the armor penetration for an assault weapon, the lower range or DPS it probably needs to have. Fire support (or very long ranged) weapons have greater than 1.0 firing efficiency and lower sustained dps in most cases. Missiles are different. Many strike missiles don't cost flux but have very low sustained dps and can be heavily mitigated by PD (see Atropos) and long range missiles are also heavily mitigated by PD but have better efficiency to fire (~0.5 - 0.8) compared to non-missile fire support weapons.

Designation details: (these are done using built-in hullmods -- more of these will be added in the next update)

Frigates: +100% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 35% of max flux not considering skills.

Destroyers: +50% damage to strike craft -- +50% damage to missiles -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 20% of max flux not considering skills.

Cruisers: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +20% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Capitals: Either -- (+45% additional non-PD weapon range -- +30% additional PD weapon range -- OR -- +30% additional weapon range) -- maintains 0-flux speed boost until 7% of max flux not considering skills -- half the 0-flux speed boost -- has hangar bays unless a phase ship -- OP discounts to interceptors and fighters depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Carriers (any size): Same designation benefits as warships but also -- half the 0-flux speed boost unless a capital which already has that -- 50% replacement rate bonus -- 100% range bonus for effective wing range -- OP discounts to weapons depending upon tech level/manufacturer.

Phew! That's a start anyway! Obviously these are just guidelines that I go by, and exceptions of all kinds exist in order to create unique ships. At the end of the day, playtesting is important both 1v1 and fleet simulations. I hope this helps give an idea of how to approach a rebalanced faction mod or creation of additional custom ones.
[close]

Keep in mind these are more like guidelines and to get a real sense of the scale that I tend to shoot for would require study of the data spreadsheets for things like weapons and hulls, etc. Another thing that is going to prove difficult without sprite edits will be hullsize scaling. The addition of more small weapons as a part of the aesthetics of the mod and a defining difference between hull sizes makes balancing against standard vanilla balance very tricky. Even if I mathed out the percentage of dps for 1 AO small weapon to 1 vanilla small weapon on the entire spectrum of damage range, for instance, that would work maybe for frigates and destroyers but not cruisers or capitals, if that makes sense. If I balanced around capitals, then frigates would feel off. It is kind of like fitting the square block into the circle hole unless the mod follows the same weapon scheme for hulls (described above).

TLDR: Balancing other factions will require a certain amount of modding ability that will vary from mod to mod. (For anyone who doesn't already know: Please do not publish any rebalances without the mod author's permission - but personal use is fine. :) )

After I release the next update I may formally make a post in modding and add more detail to it over time. That would get a more comprehensive guide going, but for now the update is enough work as it is - way more than I anticipated, actually. Variant overhauls are brutally tedious lol. Full disclosure: RL stuff has gotten more demanding of my attention lately as well.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 61 62 [63] 64 65 ... 125