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[6chad.noirlee9]

there was a mod that did this in the past, and it dynamically did this for the modded factions too (made it so bounty fleets could have any fleet composition or something to that effect) and yea had the defector fleets
i think it was vayra

About Vayra bounties, I liked not only unique bounties, (I prefer actually HWBs from Ship and Weapon pack, since number of active unique Vayra bounties is fixed, and you can't skip it if you don't want attack allied bounty fleet, you need to pick these from bar, but idea is very similar, its bounty with unique ships as reward), I liked what bounty fleets can belong to all factions, not only pirates, so you can play as pirate, and still complete bounties against their enemies.

Also in Vayra factions can put bounty on player head, Nexerelin have Vengence fleets, but they seems pretty weak, player bounties from Vayra was much more dangerous.

i love all of those mechanics, really.

if i had to pick one though it would be dynamic bounties in which they can have a different factions (defector) or be a super powerful faction specific fleet turncoat (deserter)

so yea defectors and deserters

also figured i would share my enabled mods list to show what is compatible (no crashes so far)

Spoiler

"pantera_ANewLevel40",
  "adjustable_skill_thresholds",
  "Adjusted Sector",
  "anotherportraitpack",
  "archeus_beta",
  "armaa",
  "automatedcommands",
  "combat_docking_module",
  "timid_commissioned_hull_mods",
  "lw_console",
  "diyplanets",
  "DetailedCombatResults",
  "sun_flux_reticle",
  "gladiatorsociety",
  "GrandColonies",
  "hm_barratry",
  "hullmod_specialization",
  "sun_hyperdrive",
  "IndEvo",
  "lw_lazylib",
  "leadingPip",
  "logisticsNotifications",
  "MagicLib",
  "su_CarrierHullmod",
  "su_CarrierHullmod_Rebalance",
  "mir",
  "more_ship_names",
  "nexerelin",
  "console_overlord_additionalcommands",
  "QualityCaptains",
  "sun_ruthless_sector",
  "secretsofthefrontieralt",
  "SEEKER",
  "PT_ShipDirectionMarker",
  "simpleplayerflags",
  "solsystem",
  "speedUp",
  "sw",
  "starpocalypse",
  "sun_starship_legends",
  "stelnet",
  "timid_supply_forging",
  "trulyautomatedships",
  "US",
  "ungp",
  "UGH",
  "audio_plus",
  "shaderLib"

[close]

[Ranakastrasz]

Lets see.

A lot of weapons can phase through allies. Not all of them, but most missiles and artillery type weapons it looks like.

A lot of the rocket/short range missiles seem to not use flux anymore, and I think a number of other weapons are the same. Tooltips not yet matching.
Annihilator, Javelin, Rapier, Swarmer. Presumably similar for medium and large missiles, but I'm not going to list them.

Smokescreen missiles. are interesting, being instant impact. Not sure, but I think they can phase through shields on occasion. I might be wrong.
I LOVE shattercell cannons, they shred missiles, and break shields easily. I think they might be too powerful given they also have good range.

Carrier's having a discount on weapons, longer fighter range, and warships having a discount on fighters, with lower fighter rebuild rate. Interesting approach, and makes sense. Encourges you to use those slots on each, but makes them feel like seriously different ships. Warships have fighters for personal or local support, and are not as much a strain on OP. Carriers are the strategic support fighter support, with the normal fighter range, fast fighter rebuild rate, and encouraged to still equip whatever weapons fit.
But, what exactly is the discount for fighters, is it limited to the same tech level, same tech level or lower, and does it work on all fighters, or just intercepters and drone, but not gunships or bombers? This should be in the tooltip, although you compiling those into a single hullmod eventually makes sense.

Updated Core systems, and presumably other hull mods are missing the % symbol for part of the description. 29 supplies and 29% supplies is a bit different.

Advanced Optics. Quite an interesting concept, and aside from being even more of a "Beam Only" hullmod than it was, is a serious sidegrade hullmod.
Localized Amplifier. Is similar. Is there a reason it increases flux cost of all beams weapons, but only buffs hard-flux ones?

On hard flux beams. YES! Love it. Makes up for no longer having shield flux cost matching dissipation like it used to be.

I think I am finally used to the Starsector's D-Mod overhaul, as I am no longer in mental pain every time I decide to use a ship with D-mod damage. Except for largest ship with drive field damage, anyway.

[BreenBB]

Found bug with Archean Order military markets, they doesn't have any spaceships for sale, only civilian and black markets have their frigates and templars. Only way to buy more powerful AO spaceships its only from Nexerelin agents except to capture them from battle. Also good way to get their spaceships is Hybrasil system, since they perma hostile with Tri-Tachyon and always fight there producing derelicts. Also Nex nerfs that way of getting free spaceships, since it have vulture scavengers. In AO I noticed often bump into some big fight between two factions, which gives me some good ships, I got Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV) and some smaller ships from Hegemony raid in AO system, where they got killed, also I found getting trophy ships more fun than just bying them.

I thought what Automated Ship was also broken, since derelicts was never recoverable, checked ship_data.csv and found what only remnant ships is possible to recover, in vanilla game derelicts was completely useless, but here they appear more dangerous although still shield-less, sometimes they inflict more damage than pirates, I think is good idea make them recoverable too, it might possible to found use for them with makeshift shield generator. Also I'd liked my suggested idea of optional recoverable Guardian. Also very interesting idea for Mothership, now it also spawns frigates, it now much less of beating bag.

Also interesting, which ship loadout is good against Radiants and Brilliants? I got fleet Executor, Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV), Justicar and two Fulgents, Ordo with several Brilliants or with Radiant kills my fleet, so right now I avoid such fleets. I also enabled Ruthless Sector, which spawns Remant fleets in HyperSpace.

[Morrokain]

*Responses spoilered to save space*

i apologize if youve done this and i just havent noticed, but it would be cool for some of the bounties to be "rebel fleet" with high end specific-to-the-faction gear
defector fleets

there was a mod that did this in the past, and it dynamically did this for the modded factions too (made it so bounty fleets could have any fleet composition or something to that effect) and yea had the defector fleets
i think it was vayra
anyway seems like a really cool way to keep the bounties interesting without having to do too much (maybe make a code that points to already made faction fleets; afaik thats how everything works anyway, right?  sorry i just play for now.  in the future i would like to get into coding[if i ever have time])

whenever you get around to making the boss bounties, maybe look into this and kill two birds with one code?

Spoiler

I *think* vanilla does this already after you kill enough pirate bounties. I remember something like this happening anyway when I was campaign testing a couple versions ago.

The problem with pointing to existing patrols and stuff like that is if they despawn it will mess with the quest or would be frustrating to the player. It would be better to create the fleet from scratch and just plop it somewhere.

[close]

The Rapier Sabot missiles have a too large fragmentation animation when they explode normally, as opposed to being shot down. Sabot missiles in vanilla, while still having fragments, have a highly visible, bright blue projectile, making it obvious if it was intercepted or not. Here, I have trouble telling.

Noted! I'll see about improving that. Shouldn't be too time consuming hopefully.

About Vayra bounties, I liked not only unique bounties, (I prefer actually HWBs from Ship and Weapon pack, since number of active unique Vayra bounties is fixed, and you can't skip it if you don't want attack allied bounty fleet, you need to pick these from bar, but idea is very similar, its bounty with unique ships as reward), I liked what bounty fleets can belong to all factions, not only pirates, so you can play as pirate, and still complete bounties against their enemies.

Also in Vayra factions can put bounty on player head, Nexerelin have Vengence fleets, but they seems pretty weak, player bounties from Vayra was much more dangerous.

Spoiler

My idea was to eventually do something along those lines (powerful faction bounty fleets with a couple of unique S-modded ships and more powerful than normal admirals) where you could possibly loot the unique ship. The admirals may even have special active abilities in a few cases. That will be a bit of ways off but I might do a one-off proof of concept or something while writing the story/quests in the future.

As far as player bounties, its something I might consider. As you say, Nex already kind of handles this and imo there are other more quest-driven ways to increase the general difficulty. Doing that kind of thing dynamically is far more involved, so, I have to consider the overall work for other things when making decisions like that. In other words, I don't want to over-promise complex features.

[close]

@Ranakastrasz

Spoiler

The pass-through on fire support/point defense weapons was added to make those specialized builds more noticeable/better in a large fleet battle. It really seems to help them compete with flux-less assault builds. In general I am hoping the weapons/ships are a lot more balance than in past versions.

The flux-free rockets and SRMs is a fairly new change so the tooltips will be wrong for most of them atm. I decided that the effectiveness of point defense made giving these weapons flux costs render them undesirable. The AI also uses them a lot more effectively when it doesn't have to worry about the flux calculation portion of when to fire. Seemed like a win-win.

Smokescreen rockets don't penetrate shields, however, their explosion radius is very large. So if a wing has omni shields that don't give 360 degree coverage, the blast can damage the craft by hitting parts that the shield isn't protecting even if the shield is directly facing the impact point. That's probably why it appears to penetrate. Flak can operate in the same way.

I will definitely better flesh out the description/numbers for carriers and warships when I begin the polish pass. For now, I'll add in the values to the description to make it more clear. Due to technical limitations with vanilla API, it is impossible to effect wings by tech level - so it is a blanket discount for all interceptors and fighters. However, OP for wings scales by tech - so the end result is that low tech gets cheap low tech options, midline gets cheap midline options and free low tech options, and high tech gets cheap high tech and free anything below that options. Bombers and Gunships are full price for OP, such that, for instance, a high tech warship can probably afford a couple low tech bombers relatively easily - but bombers or gunships at its tech level will put a bit of a strain on its weapon/hullmod options. That being said, Bombers and Gunships are very powerful so making a warship build that acts as a sort of hybrid (especially using Expanded Deck Crew) is quite possible. There are some ships, like the Eagle, whose ship system will make this strategy even more effective.

Updated Core systems is actually deprecated. For the sake of balance, I am going to make those ships that use it separate ship files altogether so I can differentiate deployment costs between the two as was originally intended. I already did this with most (XIV) ships, but there are others I haven't gotten to yet.

I really like how Advanced Optics turned out. It seems a lot more balanced than must-have than before. There is another hullmod, Integrated Defense AI, that acts kind of similarly with PD weapons. It can make PD specialized warships or carriers able to support other ships with PD fire at long range - but obviously makes their ship-ship abilities less effective and so they will need support. You can unlock it by buying/looting it, or by taking the Point Defense skill in the Combat skill line. Hard flux beams were sorely needed to improve the mod balance and I am glad I finally got that in there. The reason why Localized Amplifier effects all beams is due to technical API reasons, but luckily iirc all or most PD beams don't have flux costs to begin with - so it shouldn't make them worse to equip the hullmod.

Industry should now be a very interesting skill line if you want to use D-modded ships. It removes the vast majority of their downsides, or, alternatively, can outright remove them free of charge by taking an elite skill mid-way through it if you'd want to spend more points in other things rather than maxing the line's benefits.

[close]

Found bug with Archean Order military markets, they doesn't have any spaceships for sale, only civilian and black markets have their frigates and templars. Only way to buy more powerful AO spaceships its only from Nexerelin agents except to capture them from battle. Also good way to get their spaceships is Hybrasil system, since they perma hostile with Tri-Tachyon and always fight there producing derelicts. Also Nex nerfs that way of getting free spaceships, since it have vulture scavengers. In AO I noticed often bump into some big fight between two factions, which gives me some good ships, I got Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV) and some smaller ships from Hegemony raid in AO system, where they got killed, also I found getting trophy ships more fun than just bying them.

I thought what Automated Ship was also broken, since derelicts was never recoverable, checked ship_data.csv and found what only remnant ships is possible to recover, in vanilla game derelicts was completely useless, but here they appear more dangerous although still shield-less, sometimes they inflict more damage than pirates, I think is good idea make them recoverable too, it might possible to found use for them with makeshift shield generator. Also I'd liked my suggested idea of optional recoverable Guardian. Also very interesting idea for Mothership, now it also spawns frigates, it now much less of beating bag.

Also interesting, which ship loadout is good against Radiants and Brilliants? I got fleet Executor, Legion (XIV) and Onslaguht (XIV), Justicar and two Fulgents, Ordo with several Brilliants or with Radiant kills my fleet, so right now I avoid such fleets. I also enabled Ruthless Sector, which spawns Remant fleets in HyperSpace.

Spoiler

Re: Bug
Its a vanilla bug that should be fixed in the next vanilla update. I can technically fix it now but then I'd be doing triple work so I am leaving it alone.

Re: Derelicts
You can recover the Guardian if you go to the mod settings and set "capturableGuardian":false, to "capturableGuardian":true,

I'll see about letting Derelicts be recoverable with the skill too. That won't need a setting honestly. I'm glad the Mothership is a more interesting fight now. 

Re: Radiants and Brilliants
Nice its good to know that the endgame content is as scary as it should be! You will need good weapons and builds, and high level officers/mercenaries to beat them I'd imagine. If you read the response to Ranakastrasz, I'd also recommend bringing ship builds that compliment each other. Using defensive hullmods and flux free weapons can create linebacker ships which you can support with long range support ships and high alpha-strike capable ships. Think of it like swordsmen/pikemen creating a defensive line supported by rear archers and flanking light or heavy cavalry.

Even with all of that, I'd expect to still take losses and you should bring a large fleet to provide reinforcements. Radiants in particular are very, very powerful ships that will shred through battle lines when its ship system is active. I'd suggest waiting until you have several self-sufficient colonies as money-generating platform from which to reproduce your fleets after raiding REDACTED systems before seriously attempting that kind of content.

Re: Ship Trophies
Now that there is a much wider variety of "faction-less" ships available, I am going to remove faction ship trophies at some point (probably with an optional setting that defaults to true since I know some people don't like the idea). Then faction ships will only be available on military markets and will require good reputation/commissions to require.

The other way you will be able to get them will be finding/raiding their blueprints and producing them at your colonies, or getting them through contacts.

The reason I am going this route is A) I like the sense of progression from unlocking unique, thematic ships as you get deeper into a campaign and B) as you describe it is currently way too easy to follow NPC fleets around until their is a battle and then looting the spoils without any real challenge involved except RNG. I generally don't like RNG like that and the only real exception I've made is with the blueprint system - since it varies playthroughs enough to provide a lot of replay-ability for the mod.

[close]

[Sutopia]

No doubt best total conversion. Awesome job.

[Morrokain]

No doubt best total conversion. Awesome job.

Thanks! 

[6chad.noirlee9]

also currently the only TC LOL

.....did you make vacuum in the past?

[Darrow]

So a few thoughts on fighters/bombers that I've had since playing the latest release.
Let me just preface this with a lot of these problems exist in vanilla and the core game itself but are significantly amplified in AO due to the increase in fighters/bombers.

One of the best draws of this mod is the increase in fighters/bombers for every ship. It makes the game much more lively in combat and adds a whole other layer to combat that doesn't devolve completely into who has the biggest ships.


However there is a huge balance issue between the later fighter/bombers and the earlier ones, specifically the ones without shields as an easy example. In addition once you reach a certain amount of strike-craft the AI (or player) just simply cannot handle the masses of them on the battlefield. By Mid-Late game I've amassed such a large amount of strike-craft that I can simply bulldoze through almost any large fleet. This is amplified by farming remnants who drop the Sparks/FlashBombers/HeavyFighters/etc which are by far the best strike craft to have on your ship.

A major obvious problem with this is simply that the AI's strikecraft cannot compete with the players advance strike-craft by Mid-Game/Late-Game. Unshielded strikecraft especially are near useless against almost all late-game strike-craft and large ships due to their chance of getting one-shot by large guns.

I believe a simple way to balance this out without a major overhaul could be done in three-ways.
1. Remove shielded strike-craft (other than gunships)
2. Add (more)dedicated point-defense ships to all faction fleet compositions.
3. Low-Tier Strikecraft (talons etc) should have such a fast respawn rate that theyre almost constantly insta-respawning.

An overhaul method that would be amazing would be to remove large-guns(medium/large slots) from being able to target/hit fighter strike-craft. This would enable unshielded and low-tier fighter craft to still operate on the battlefield without getting instantly destroyed by ships and allow them to challenge other strike-craft effectively. Furthermore, this would add a more realistic model to strike-craft as in most sci-fi (and naval) large turrets/guns cannot track or hit small strike-craft.

I've always found it odd that fighter-strike craft spend more time engaging enemy ships than they do actually defending/targeting other strike-craft. This is largely due to vanilla programming, where strike-craft can often damage larger ships and be harmed by larger ships forcing them to actively engage them. I believe only PD weaponry or smaller sized guns should be able to target and hit small fighter crafts. Ideally in my perfect vision of starsector, Fighter strikecraft should be flying in-between larger ships and actively pursuing other strike-craft to enjoy and not be actively shooting other larger ships.

This Mod is great and I really enjoy the emphasize of strikecraft. However I think a lot of people can agree that the low-tier strikecraft are near useless by mid-game and it causes huge balance issues especially for the AI by that stage.

[DatonKallandor]

I'm still going through the beta testing things, but I do have on piece of feedback:
Please make the portraits a separate optional download. I like everything about Archean Order except the portaits. A good chunk of them are fine or even good, but there's some really bad duds in there that just do not fit the art style whatsoever.

[Ranakastrasz]

@Darrow
On larger weapons being unable to hit. I agree, that makes sense. Presumably with the exception of PD class weapons. Not actually sure if the engine can prevent you from targeting fighters outright, the way normal weapons ignore missiles, but if possible, yes.

As for fighters fighting other fighters, I actually have seen furballs form consisting of 50+ fighters all engaged with each other. Just a huge region of fighters, which are largely suicidal for frigates to enter until it clears out. Generally by attrition or PD ships engaging. Not consistently mind you, but it happens.

Fleets do need more dedicated PD ships, I agree. I don't see as many PD drones or platforms as I remember from earlier versions, unless built in.

Not sure about instant respawn for lower tier fighters. Combat ships intentionally have a low rate of spawning and fast decay and short range. I don't know if the AI respects or understands that though. Those ships are largely intended to keep those fighters on defensive, for local point defense, but launch them on suicidal attack runs and then lack an escort afterwards.

[Morrokain]

also currently the only TC LOL

.....did you make vacuum in the past?

Haha I wasn't sure if there was something on discord I was missing.

No, I believe that was Xenoargh? But I honestly can't remember it has been too long.

I'm still going through the beta testing things, but I do have on piece of feedback:
Please make the portraits a separate optional download. I like everything about Archean Order except the portaits. A good chunk of them are fine or even good, but there's some really bad duds in there that just do not fit the art style whatsoever.

This is planned no worries. I just haven't gotten to it. It's not really trivial to do and I want to finish the bulk of the work of the beta and then tackle stuff like that. It will likely be that way before the release is finalized.


Fighter concerns:

Thanks for the feedback everyone! We are thinking along the same lines with a few things and some of the suggested changes are already implemented. Ironically, last night I did a balance pass on low tech interceptors and reduced replacement times because I agree that they fall off in usefulness once more advanced options are available and that isn't intended. I also improved a lot of the gunship performance so that more of those wings look and feel different from bombers and "Strike" (read as Helicopter-esque) gunships. The more tank-like wings should now attack at an angle using their turrets (which had a massive turn rate boost) and guided missiles and then sweep around for subsequent passes. Strike gunships still attack straight on but can use turrets to attack the rear of a ship after they pass through it. The Warthog comes to mind as an example there.

Midline is the real tricky thing here. I'm not sure if the solution is to further increase armor or... what. Maybe I could implement a custom Damper Field or something that wouldn't prevent the weapons from firing (similar to endgame foes). That would be a unique feature.

Anyway, I'd ideally like each wing to have a niche somewhere and feel different to play with. So while it feels better than it did in past versions imo, it is still a WIP.

To address Ranakastrasz's concerns, I think the solution would be to reduce those wings effective combat range even further so that they are forced to stay near the warship, and then further increase the bonus to dedicated carrier range. I originally thought to keep the range long enough to support nearby allied ships, but the AI is inconsistent about this. I know a "combat carrier" sort of tag where the AI wouldn't ever toggle "Engage" was suggested on a wing-to-wing basis, but I don't know if it was implemented or not. That would certainly help if it was and I'll look into it.

Talons and Maulers are so weak that constant spawning is probably necessary to make them viable late game, but I do worry about the AI a bit. From speaking with Alex, he says the AI should mostly ignore missile-less fighters so maybe it won't end up being a problem.

I will increase the number of dedicated PD ships in fleets that makes sense. They are set to spawn relatively less frequently than other roles atm. It would be a shame to have to remove most of the shielded craft, but its a possibility.

As far as large weapons being unable to hit, that is currently impossible in the engine afaik. I've requested this many times but Alex doesn't appear to want to do it or its far down the suggestion list. There could be some backend stuff I don't know about that makes it difficult or something like that. There are ways to have things pass through strike craft, but the damage is still dealt and so it would be pointless.

Another possible solution to help this problem would be to further increase Flak and medium/large beam PD's area of effect. I'd probably have to reduce fire rate a bit as well. I'll try a few things out today.

[Darrow]

stuff said

I believe one solution is to look at what makes fighters especially out-class its lower tier by mid/end game.

Speed and shielding primarily come to mind immediately.

Gunships might enjoy larger armor or shields but are near useless given that larger ships can hit them quite easily with their main batteries.
Where as Sparks as an example have speed and shields making them far more survivable and able to harass the enemy ships for an extended amount of time.
Personally to me, harassing is far more viable as it distracts the AI and makes their weapons focus on nimble fighters as opposed to a gunship which make get off a few volleys then die.


My suggestion since you stated some things are hardcoded and cant be changed is the following.

1. Increase speed on all strike-craft significantly, this will offset main batteries from ships being able to on-shot most fighters/bombers with larger slotted weapons.
2. Lower the damage or completely change all fighter weaponry to be deal little damage to ships and increase bomber damage to compensate.
3. Increase the tracking/rotating speed of PD weapons to compensate for faster fighters now.

This would ideally make all fighters survivability greater against larger ships, while reducing their direct damage output to ships but maintaining their ability to "harass" a ship. This would also stop a lot of silly thing like Large-slotted cannons targeting fighters easily and force the player/ai to use dedicated PD ships.

I would also suggest that shielded fighters are especially just too strong, especially late game where you can easily amass 20 strike-craft that just absolutely swarm the enemy who just don't have enough PD to output against regenerating strikecraft shields.

[Morrokain]

@Darrow

Well, for one, there was a bug where the Dual Flak Cannon had 1/4 the radius it should have. That is a big deal since a lot of low tech ships use that as a primary source of PD.

Gunships are a lot better now that they strafe instead of attack directly. It also means they clump up a lot less against things like flak. They still die reasonably fast, but I'm looking at replacement times for the low tech ones and a defense mechanism of some kind for the midline ones. Flares don't really cut it.

Your suggestion regarding interceptors vs bombers has already been implemented, so at best I could emphasize it a little more. They have built in weapons that deal a lot less damage than their ship counterparts but have a built-in modifier that increases their damage to other strike craft and ships' weapons/engines.

I'll see about Gunship speed, but making them too fast will make them look silly imo.

For shields, I'll potentially lower the regen rate since weapons don't generate flux for any strike craft. Since overloading is any annoying factor at times, I may also make a built-in where they don't overload but regenerate shields very, very slowly.

[DatonKallandor]

I don't think increasing the speed would significantly increase survivability anyway. It doesn't matter if you fly at speed 50 or at speed 400, if you're going in a straight line that large shot is still going to hit you. You'd have to make strikecraft fly in evasive patterns instead of straight to really help them dodge shots (at which point PD efficiency becomes mostly a factor of projectile velocity more than anything else).

[6chad.noirlee9]

I don't think increasing the speed would significantly increase survivability anyway. It doesn't matter if you fly at speed 50 or at speed 400, if you're going in a straight line that large shot is still going to hit you. You'd have to make strikecraft fly in evasive patterns instead of straight to really help them dodge shots (at which point PD efficiency becomes mostly a factor of projectile velocity more than anything else).

actually at some point i really hope alex makes a system whereby you can have elite fighter groups/officers or some skill that makes strike craft do something like this out of the box