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[King Alfonzo]

What is this mod?

While playing the game back in 0.8.1, I noticed that the Luddic Church regularly had an exceptionally hard time existing in the sector. Their ships were woefully terrible to the point where they were inferior quite often to pirate fleets. In Nexerellin, I noticed that the Luddic Church was often the first to bite the dust, due to a combination of a lack of markets in general, and their own terrible dodginess.

This is where this mod comes in.

What does it do?
This mod isn't a massive overhaul of the Luddic Church, nor do I intend it to be. However, it has sort of morphed into something a touch more than a simple ship pack. This pack adds:

-Luddic Church skins to the Brawler, Cerberus, Dominator, Enforcer, Mule, Venture, Onslaught and Legion. The skins either remain unchanged besides the paint-job, or have very slight tweaks to the weapons type in their loadouts.
-A frigate, two destroyers and two cruisers unique to the Luddic Church; these ships fulfil powerful niches, but tend to be expensive and too large for their weight class or are awkward in other ways.
-Luddic Path versions of the Hermes, Mule, Venture, Phaeton and Starliner. This was more myself considering that Pathers would convert imported civilian ships as weapons of war, and considering these hulls are relatively common in that regards, I could see them being modified for the Holy Crusade. The ships are different from your average skin job, and may make facing the Luddic Path a bit more interesting.
-IED ships, specifically a dram, a phaeton, and a Prometheus, which explode, taking ships out in the near vicinity. Also adds a Prometheus Mk 4 which fires a dram bomb
-A new system near Magec called 'Alexandretta'. This contains a size 3 Hegemony military base (Hera Station) and a size 5 Luddic Church planet (Cerberus). The Cerberus market has a lesser, Luddic-Church sanctioned ship building program, considering in 0.9.1a Asher became a heavy industry area. However, this does help boost the Luddic Church and help it last longer in mod games.

These changes make the Luddic Church a more unique faction, producing their own skinned ships which differentiate them from the other factions rather than the 'Pirate minus' they tend to be in my games. Further, this strengthens the Luddic Church a bit, so they don't immediately fall over in Nexerellin games. This also synergises very well with the Ship and Weapon pack.

Here can I download it?
Right Here, although please note - This will require a new game to use.

Please give me any feedback if something goes wrong.

[Captain Draco]

Finally the Church of Ludd got some love from modders, I like the backstory of Church industrial planet and added ships speaking of which can't wait for other low tech ships to be also added like Enforcer, Colossus and Onslaught.

 

[Hrothgar]

I can see Luddic Path raging on Cerberus, *** their last hope to cleanse sector. They're adorable mentaly dead.

[King Alfonzo]

Updated this mod to 0.9.1a spec and added the Enforcer. I kept the Alexandretta system with a new very wasteful but luddic-sacntioned industry to help boost the Church - it's not exactly necessary with Asher now having Heavy Industry, but I still feel the Church needs that boost.

[eidolad]

Great idea...strongly considering to add to my new game start!

My play progression tends to have these milestones (among others) for the my fleet:

1.  can stomp a pirate base.

2.  can stomp (or at least damage and withdraw from) a Luddic base.  This milestone tells me I've reached the middle game.

The key to #2 is:  can I defeat the defending Luddic system defense fleets in isolation.

I'm hoping that this mod keeps intact what I think is the primary Achilles Heels of the Luddic (and Pirates) fleets: 

a) the converted Colossus freighters
b) the high amount of d-mods

Item B I'll ignore for now since nothing I read in the OP suggests any tweaks there.  (phew)

Item A) though, if still intact, means that those Colossus ships would not be accompanied by stronger friends.  This is interesting. 

However if the Colossus are being replaced to a large extent by DOMINATORS, for example...then the Luddic faction seems to take on more of a "low tech deserter fleet" sort of aspect.  Hmm...also interesting. 

It also pushes out the timeline before the player fleet can safely challenge a Luddic fleet of similar size...but makes it more rewarding to capture Luddic ships.  Yup, adding to my new game!

[eidolad]

Currently the file I downloaded is corrupt...tried a few times...I wasn't able to repair it via winrar as well. 

Luddic_enhancement.rar is 411299 bytes in size, once I downloaded it, fyi.

[King Alfonzo]

Did a quick check - the mod works. Reloaded the file just in case.

And yes, the mod is fairly small.

[eidolad]

Thanks for checking!  Turns out my ancient winrar version couldn't read it.  Installed 7-zip and ran the file manager to associate .rar files to let 7-zip handle them.

My next game instance will def have this mod in there!

[eidolad]

Started a game as Luddic Church faction with random core worlds.

I think that random core world games are a bit easier in that enemy factions are far more likely to occupy the same sector and beat each other's system defense fleets to death...but I must have a new map in every game.

My objective:  get a Cathedral ship in my fleet from the Ship and Weapons pack mod (that this mod so wonderfully mentions will synergize well with).

I'm going to look forward to the increased power of my holy brethren fleets.  The secular hordes outnumber us greatly and my sub-faction will need the help.

Once I get my Cathedral...there will be a Wreckoning.

If I don't get one, there will be sobbing.

edit:  I withdraw my comment that "random maps are easier"...my beginning Luddic Church enlistment is in a planet with two enemy planets...and it is freaking chaos.  However the derelict pickups are quite tasty...if I survive to pick them up.

___

edit:  Nope, too much chaos, restarted with non-random core worlds.  (Plus, I wanted to see what this mod did with the factional enhancements to the Church's planets).

Some feedback after two days playing in the Luddic Enhancedment Mod (with Ship and Weapon pack):

1.  The Dominators and Enforcers are a welcome addition to the Luddic fleets, as are the reduced number of converted freighters.

2.  Luddic Church actually took a planet right out of the home system of the Dyktat.  An impressive feat.  I wish I had been there to see how they did that.

3.  The converted freighters are still their Achilles Heel.

Suggestions:

3.  I don't suppose we could tweak the largest Luddic formations to have a better chance of fielding Cathedral class from the Ship and Weapon pack mod?

4.  How difficult would it be to include new ships in the Luddic Church fleets, say, a year after the game started?

a) A Mora or two might help them...would it be possible to "introduce Moras in small numbers" say, a year into the game instance?  I.e. the Church Elders start learning that cruiser-weight carriers are a Good Thing to begin phasing out the converted freighters?  I hate to request this since the converted freighters are a key differentiator between their fleets are other factions.

b) A semi-random chance for Luddic fleets to contain several Vindicator-S variants (from Ship and Weapon pack mod):  this variant mounts *two*  Gungnir cannons...they would be a surprise to see indeed.  Why are they included?  Some Church Elders opted for a different counter to the other faction's use of carriers:  big guns. 

The Dominator needs some help with flankers...and Gungnirs salvos have a way of moving ships out of the line of fire...

[King Alfonzo]

Just a quick little update to tweak the Venture (LP) to be considerably less OP.

Download in the OP.

[Shoat]

3.  I don't suppose we could tweak the largest Luddic formations to have a better chance of fielding Cathedral class from the Ship and Weapon pack mod?

I've already been seeing one of those in almost every big-boy-fleet the church fielded (both the big home defense fleet and the assault fleets they've sent out to other systems). The frequency of cathedrals might be lower or higher depending on how many mods you add that modify the faction's roster (for example, if you have several mods to "add stuff to pirate roster" you will pretty much never see an atlas mk2 in any fleet ever again) and can differ greatly between different users.


But now that we're on the topic of the Cathedral-class ship and enhancing the luddics, I wonder how much work it is to make a Pather version of the Cathedral?
I think the mechanical changes aren't too big a deal and can probably be done even by a novice modder like me (safety overrides and ill advised modifications on all the modules except the central main one, replace the neat and clean infinite holy missile launcher with something more dirty and low tech - maybe a battery of 2 or 3 built-in hellbores) but boy am I not up to the task of doing any spritework on a modular ship, even if it's "just" adding some red stripes.

[eidolad]

Giving Pathers a Cathedral-class boost would be pretty great...but also a seriously challenging bit o' kit to be showing up at the home colony's doorstep.  Sure hope I have a tier2+ station by that time...

[Aedarin]

I love playing as the Pathers! Please, make a Cathedral version for them! It's not like they can build one that is made out of anything other than D-mods. I use Nexerelin, Ship/Weapon Pack and a few others to round out the content. Being able to buy and restore a Pather Cathedral ship would be amazing. SAFETY OVERRIDES ON! DESTRUCTION GET!

The only thing is, it is very hard to find Pather ships with the Pather start. Perhaps increase the level of one of their planets or make it a military planet to produce ships? I love to play as the underdog side and as soon as I seen they hated A.I. and Safety Overrides was default on their ships, I knew who I had to play as.

I love this mod, and can't imagine playing without it. I wish I didn't have to quit my commission just to get one and then rejoin the Pathers. If you think it would be OP consider this - what do when a 'Grand Invasion Fleet' from Tri-Tach show up with 2 Paragons at the lead? Its a Space Opera and everybody should have cool toys that are themed around their backstory. Not just the rich kids getting all the cool stuff. That's why Underworld and SWP are so good, they add content that make the 'other' sides less than a diversion from the 'real' content.

You do a good job of offsetting that, please continue. Pather Cathedral. Say it with me. W I N N I N G.

Edit: Just please don't take all the missile launchers off of it if you do. Gotta have something for smashing those who would flee the Judgement of God.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The .rar file refuses to open for me. Is there any chance of a .zip version or something else?

The error I get says "The archive is either in unknown format or damaged."

[Aedarin]

You can download 7zip for free, and that will open it.