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Author Topic: [0.97a] Luddic Enhancement (New Version Ed. 1.2.6e)  (Read 355144 times)

Helldiver

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5f
« Reply #105 on: October 27, 2021, 10:39:39 AM »

Alright, so I have had previous complaints that the ships added by Luddic Enhancement for the Luddic Church are simple reskins, and don't really add flavour to the faction. This is a legitimate accusation; I just wanted the church to have some unique ships, while still remaining largely vanilla compliant. However, with the previous dev diary regarding the new low-tech super frigate, I decided to try something new (and shamelessly copy what Alex did). The change I made completely changes how the Luddic Church plays as a faction - it does it so radically that I'm not sure people would be comfortable with the change, especially considering this mod's popularity and vanilla compliance.

So I made an experimental pack, and released it on the Unofficial Discord (along with some other changes). In general I haven't seen much feedback; some people have complained that it buffs the church too much, others have said that it's a good change and really makes the Church it's own faction. With some refining and balancing I've got it in a state where I feel I can release this experimental version of Luddic Enhancement for a wider audience to judge. NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE. THIS IS ME TRYING TO GET FEEDBACK ON PEOPLE'S THOUGHTS REGARD THE CHANGE.

I'm not sure where complaints about the added ships to LC being just reskins could come from when this mod already adds multiple great unique ship models (love the Fasces!) to the faction already. As for the "skin" ones, I don't have a problem with them being just skins - they do add flavor, giving common ships in LC fleets a matching paint scheme. I guess they could've gotten some built-in flavor hullmod or slight mount/bay changes of some kind (ie LC Venture mining drone bay changed into full fighter bay becuz drones=evil and more ships to launch Perditions from = righteous) but that's not necessary.

I prefer the "damper field main defense" gimmick being a Lector-only thing. It fits for a specifically ancient ship, while slapping it on every LC ship feels gamey. Maybe some other ships like that could be added. Maybe some occasional existing ship conversions to that defense could be a thing (with matching visual change, I like the "grooves" running along the armor belt of the Lector giving the sense of a "different armor"), but I don't think it should be every ship of a given model and should remain a rarer sight.

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Great Wound

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5f
« Reply #106 on: October 27, 2021, 12:20:43 PM »

I'm not sure where complaints about the added ships to LC being just reskins could come from when this mod already adds multiple great unique ship models (love the Fasces!) to the faction already. As for the "skin" ones, I don't have a problem with them being just skins - they do add flavor, giving common ships in LC fleets a matching paint scheme. I guess they could've gotten some built-in flavor hullmod or slight mount/bay changes of some kind (ie LC Venture mining drone bay changed into full fighter bay becuz drones=evil and more ships to launch Perditions from = righteous) but that's not necessary.

I prefer the "damper field main defense" gimmick being a Lector-only thing. It fits for a specifically ancient ship, while slapping it on every LC ship feels gamey. Maybe some other ships like that could be added. Maybe some occasional existing ship conversions to that defense could be a thing (with matching visual change, I like the "grooves" running along the armor belt of the Lector giving the sense of a "different armor"), but I don't think it should be every ship of a given model and should remain a rarer sight.

I agree with this in almost it's entirety:

Luddic Enhancement was originally about enhancing the Church and giving them some flavour (and power in nexus). It shouldn't do much more than what the XIV does for the Hegemony (re-skins and minor tweaks). The new ships are great and, personally, I would like to see a generic version available from your local independent traders so they're not faction exclusives.

My problem with this latest change is you've moved too far away from "enhances vanilla" towards building an entirely new custom faction with unique ships and mechanics. Making a custom faction isn't an issue, but building one on top of an existing one is.


I guess they could've gotten some built-in flavor hullmod
Shameless plug!  ;D

Amoebka

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5f (Experiment?)
« Reply #107 on: October 29, 2021, 05:16:48 AM »

If anything, I have the exact opposite complaint. I prefer the Luddic ships to be simple reskins, and have modified my copy of Luddic Enhancement to outright remove all the new additions beyond reskins.
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korqi

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5f (Experiment?)
« Reply #108 on: November 12, 2021, 05:16:44 AM »

Kamikaze ships barely do damage. Is it a bug, or it works as intended? because in this video they are quite devastating
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOvZip_gs1w
« Last Edit: November 12, 2021, 05:18:53 AM by korqi »
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IonDragonX

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5f (Experiment?)
« Reply #109 on: November 12, 2021, 05:26:38 AM »

quote author=korqi link=topic=15084.msg344936#msg344936 date=1636723004]
Kamikaze ships barely do damage. Is it a bug, or it works as intended? because in this video they are quite devastating
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOvZip_gs1w[/quote]
IIRC, the IED Dram is using Fragmentation damage equally over the area, which would do that to an Atlas or Starliner or any other civvie that doesn't have armor and has a very large sprite. Armored ships are going to reduce the damage the higher the armor. The larger the sprite, the more multiples of the damage that it takes.
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korqi

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5f (Experiment?)
« Reply #110 on: November 12, 2021, 06:07:30 AM »

quote author=korqi link=topic=15084.msg344936#msg344936 date=1636723004]
Kamikaze ships barely do damage. Is it a bug, or it works as intended? because in this video they are quite devastating
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOvZip_gs1w
IIRC, the IED Dram is using Fragmentation damage equally over the area, which would do that to an Atlas or Starliner or any other civvie that doesn't have armor and has a very large sprite. Armored ships are going to reduce the damage the higher the armor. The larger the sprite, the more multiples of the damage that it takes.
[/quote]
Ah ok, makes sense now. Thanks for the answer.
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King Alfonzo

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5i
« Reply #111 on: November 22, 2021, 06:32:59 PM »

A MINOR UPDATE

After getting everyone's feedback, I'm still unsure as to what people like - some people here don't like the experimental change, while others on the discord love it. For the time being I'm going to release an update to both versions. The official version will now have properly functioning IED ships, while both version have minor tweaks to the Christopher's Speed and the Starliner (LP-X) flux stats.

Changes with Version 1.2.5i:
-Fixed IED ship AI to actually charge into enemies properly.
-Fiddled with IED explosions in light of the above, as they weren't properly dealing damage when they charged.
-Christopher now moves slightly faster
-Starliner (LP-X) flux stats tweaked, it should be a bit more scary now.

Download the OFFICIAL version HERE.

Download the SHIELDLESS EXPERIMENTAL version here.

Updates are savegame compatible.

EDIT:HOTFIXED.
EDIT2: ACTUALLY HOTFIXED. Please redownload if your mod is crashing from missing archaic Damper field.

CrimsonPhalanx

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5i
« Reply #112 on: November 23, 2021, 06:56:38 PM »

I swapped over to experimental to see the difference and it does feel fresh, but after reading the other comments I felt like having minor changes would have been better, like how there's an XVI and pirate variants of certain ships (I forgot which mod it was from since it was from one of my previous version's playthrough, but I recall something on the lines of "more armour, more crew", because they replaced the automated systems as a "luddic refit")

However, I do like the the shieldless systems, and it could make for a fun, rare "elite forces" fleet/variant instead of being a direct change to the luddic standard fleet, maybe the oldest knight order or some extremists knight order that sees shields as "too high tech"

I only played around in simulation in my campaign though so I don't have direct battle feedback, personally I like picking up variants of ships and specializing them, so I would love having some minor differences in a luddic dominator vs a normal or XVI one.

that being said apparently I can't swap back to the official version after going shieldless (I'm an idiot for not backing up my save), but since I only have like 1-2 of them, I'll just put it in my headcannon that the normal luds use the normal shielded variants and I picked up some elite variant.

On a side note, I was testing out the suicide bomb craft in simulation(not very intensive testing though so take it with a grain of salt) and it felt weak, like even with the big prometheus it seems like the only thing I can kill is an atlas, not to mention the suicide speed boost occasionally pushing lighter ships so fast that they just outrun 80% of the explosion from the momentum of being pushed away. It's even worse with the dram, since it just slams into larger craft so hard it dies from the impact before it can explode. It just feels a little underwhelming at the cost of a whole ship, I expected the large Prometheus to be like a siege weapon, softening up stations for the rest of the fleet, or crippling a formation of lighter craft, while the dram was basically torpedo XXL, a nice tactical punch to larger craft, or take out high priority light craft. I understand that the explosions are weaker since with the boost its much harder to avoid compared to last time.

For now I feel like they have become a "oh the problem will settle itself" situation compared to the old version's "Oh lawd he comin" situation when a suicide ship closes in. Maybe it'll fare better in actual battle after some armour gets stripped, but it'll be quite hard to position them without lots of friendly fire.

Maybe have a small close range explosion that isn't fragmentation to crack nearby armour and shields before the usual fragmentation wave hits? or build in some sort of armour damager in the front (I know I can put guns on them but they have a tendency to get shot at and stop working)

however if I am just using them wrongly please do tell me.
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n0

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5i
« Reply #113 on: December 02, 2021, 04:26:36 PM »

it could make for a fun, rare "elite forces" fleet/variant instead of being a direct change to the luddic standard fleet, maybe the oldest knight order or some extremists knight order that sees shields as "too high tech"
That was my thought too. They're a fun addition but a little much for the whole faction. It leads to inconsistency when used with other mods too since a lot of the popular ship packs add shielded luddic ships which don't fit in with the new identity. Having it as a line of elite variants ala XIV would be the best of both worlds for me.

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eidolad

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5i
« Reply #114 on: December 05, 2021, 02:10:47 PM »

Yay updates to Luddic Enhancement!  I'm glad for any tweaks/improvements for the IED ships...they stand out in making Luddic ships as well as their fleet formations more unique...and I fight Luddic Path a lot while leveling up.

Is there a death-dealer or two in that wall over there?...I don't suppose there are any near my stupidly balled up carriers, or isolated ships?

Thinking out loud...looking forward to testing the new IED ship tweaks:
And the mere possibility that they could still have one or two buried farther down in their order of battle makes me think about tactical positioning a bit more as a long battle progresses.  The top of the map becomes potentially an all-Luddic zone: Perhaps IEDs being sprinkled in the Luddic fleet may take away the option of concentrating on new enemy ship spawns?

____


I don't suppose there is currently,  or in the works, plans for a "Luddic IED fighter"?  Japanese Kamikaze: a specially built plane made to attack ships.  Luddics read history books don't they?  "Motoharu Okamura, who commanded a kamikaze squadron, remarked that by 1944, “I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes. There is no other way. Provide me with 300 planes and I will turn the tide of war.”"  (they didn't but killed more than twice their number of enemy combatants)

..give 'em a fighter-sized burn drive...
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King Alfonzo

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Re: [0.95.1a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5j
« Reply #115 on: December 17, 2021, 10:18:30 PM »

All of this feedback

Thanks for your feedback! I have contemplated making the shieldless ships as a Luddic Church+, but then I realized exactly how badly this bloats the mod, and I don't want to do this. I also don't really want to stick a hullmod on all the ships, ebcause there isn't a hard consensus across all the mods as to what that should be.

...They're a fun addition but a little much for the whole faction. It leads to inconsistency when used with other mods too since a lot of the popular ship packs add shielded luddic ships which don't fit in with the new identity. Having it as a line of elite variants ala XIV would be the best of both worlds for me.

I feel this is the big thing I felt was risky and didn't really want to make it apart of the base Luddic Enhancement mod.

Yay updates to Luddic Enhancement!  I'm glad for any tweaks/improvements for the IED ships...they stand out in making Luddic ships as well as their fleet formations more unique...and I fight Luddic Path a lot while leveling up.
...

I've played around with this, and now they're a touch more terrifying and are much better able to get into your formations and kill you. And for an IED fighter, there already exists one in another mod. I'll consider maybe making my own, but right now I'm a touch busy with other things.


SO, after all of this feedback from here and elsewhere, and looking at the download numbers, it's quite clear that the experimental shieldless version is a bust. People would prefer it as an elite group of ships, but I'm not sold on adding unecessary bloat to Luddic Enhancement, which is for a more general playerbase. So for the time being the base version of these ships will have shields.

As for the shieldless ships, I plan on making a completely different Luddic faction mod (because yes I am that deranged at this point, I have eight mods, why am I making a ninth!?) that is entirely comprised of shieldless ships utilising the damper field system.

And now, the update - Added a Vanguard (LC), Manticore (LC), Eradicator (LC), Vanguard (LP) and Eradicator (LP) while updating for compatibility.

Download HERE.

Farya

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Re: [0.95.1a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5j
« Reply #116 on: December 18, 2021, 12:31:30 AM »

Suicide Talons are from DaRa and are marked for removal in next update... when it actually happens in unforseen future. So feel free to add some new suicide wings to Luddic Path, you can do it in your usual way!
And honestly it feels just right to make this sick shieldless luddic ships into a separate pack. Hegemony got an anime subfaction in another mod already and Persean League has Mayasurans as an ally - why not making Knights of Ludd a new luddic faction with their own ships and mechanics? They are pestering researchers and explorers lore-wise if you look at Galatian missions - maybe they could be a somewhat more pro-active militant subfaction of the Church that would mess with you if you use drone ships and such?
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Captain Draco

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Re: [0.95a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5i
« Reply #117 on: December 19, 2021, 10:00:44 PM »

A MINOR UPDATE

After getting everyone's feedback, I'm still unsure as to what people like - some people here don't like the experimental change, while others on the discord love it. For the time being I'm going to release an update to both versions. The official version will now have properly functioning IED ships, while both version have minor tweaks to the Christopher's Speed and the Starliner (LP-X) flux stats.

Changes with Version 1.2.5i:
-Fixed IED ship AI to actually charge into enemies properly.
-Fiddled with IED explosions in light of the above, as they weren't properly dealing damage when they charged.
-Christopher now moves slightly faster
-Starliner (LP-X) flux stats tweaked, it should be a bit more scary now.

Download the OFFICIAL version HERE.

Download the SHIELDLESS EXPERIMENTAL version here.

Updates are savegame compatible.

EDIT:HOTFIXED.
EDIT2: ACTUALLY HOTFIXED. Please redownload if your mod is crashing from missing archaic Damper field.

Well I would love to see the mod split onto two parts, just paint jobs (Ludic Enchantment)  and then Ludic Armada for the new ships so players who don't like those can pick the former only.
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Dostya

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Re: [0.95.1a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5j
« Reply #118 on: December 23, 2021, 05:39:11 PM »

So I found out the hard way that Luddic IED ships damage phase ships when they're phased by my big thingy getting pulverized by a Prometheus. On the one hand that's annoying, on the other, much more significant, hand that's incredibly flavorful as a cool Luddic counter to phase ships and hilarious to boot. Please never fix it. I would ask that you maybe put a note in the ship descriptions about how Ludd's holy light melts the devil's tools or somesuch so it's not technically coming out of nowhere.
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TontonBoo

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Re: [0.95.1a] Luddic Enhancement Mod 1.2.5j
« Reply #119 on: January 04, 2022, 12:25:47 PM »

So I was just tweaking the systems as usual before a big brawl - calibrating the guns if you will - while the little guys started trading pleasantries. The Ludd crazies were trying to play chicken with us as they always do, no worries there, so I looked away from the main scrape to watch a skirmish slightly of the big melee.
And suddenly there was a blinding flash and a gut-churning rumble. Then more flashes, more rumbling, and my fps tanked severely i felt like i was getting too close to a leaking phase coil, you know ? All weird and slow.
When the picture came back on our screens we could see that most of the Ludds and a good chunk of my fleet were reduced to scrap. I guess one of their suicide guys must have connected, then blown another one up, then another, and so on in rapid succession. I guess we'll never know.
So this is why we had to order a full resupply of uniform pants that day from the home office. The surprise, you see. Those of us that survived thought it was pretty, though. In a pants-ruining kind of way.

(Captain Hagar Lassarius, inquiry into misappropriation of Hegemony supplies)
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