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[Borgoid]

You might need to do a balance pass on the Firecrackers, possibly a lower fire rate.
Right now Nomad ships with Firecrackers pretty much just ignore missiles, they might as well have not been fired.
Edit: This of course has solved the Nomad firepower problem pretty handily since they trade really well with anything with missiles and trash Fighters much more easily, it does lend itself to a shieldless play style though because there's no large HE threat that can't be dodged. The Komodo in particular benefits heavily due to its thin profile.

Also is it intentional that Nomad ships don't benefit from Optimized Assembly from the Combat tree?
I'd say it's fine from a balance standpoint that they don't since Nomads scale very well with player skills but it's an inconsistency.

Oh! I haven't been able to check this yet but when a Nomad ship is repaired after being disabled in combat does it keep its weapons? If they lose their built-in weapons they'd be a useless husk.

Also - if your intention is to have Nomad weapons available to people for purchase like they currently are via pirates ect - you need to do an OP cost adjustment on the Fusion Torpedoes, currently they all cost 10 OP

LOVE the Rattlesnake design by the way, keen to see how many Onslaughts I can kill with it

[Trylobot]

Thanks for the feedback B~, I'll take a hard look at the firecracker balance-wise. Besides firing rate, there's always flux cost, limited ammo + optional regen, overall damage... lots of things I can tweak. My basis for comparison has been and will continue to be the vanilla Flak Cannon, naturally.

Nomad ships will not lose their built-in weapons (it isn't possible for a ship to lose built-in weapons, ever); but they will lose their hull mod assignments. So if your character lacks the skill to re-mod the hulls back to their standard variants, you'll have to get creative with the hullmods you do have, or add more vents/capacitors. You'll also have to manually apply the Naeran Flux Shunts hullmod, because it's not built in.

Also I was not aware of the Optimized Assembly problem, but it makes sense now that I think about it. I believe I have a solution for this. As you know, Nomad ships don't have to use any OPs for weapons, because they have mostly built-in weapons, so the Naeran Flux Shunts represents most/all of the OPs they would have used for weapons, to bring the ships' used OPs up to vanilla-esque levels. I had thought it was important for the AI to do power comparisons and strategies (not actually sure if it is). Anyways, in order to fix Optimized Assembly, all I need to do is apply it to the OP cost of the Naeran Flux Shunts, which will end up having approximately the same effect as it would with other ships, the only notable exception is not being able to actually equip different weapons (which is a desired lore-based quirk). But you will be able to fit way more vents/capacitors and hullmods, so it's not a total waste.

[HELMUT]

Have played a bit more. Going for a carrier oriented fleet. The Flycatcher is handy for this job but that's all, unlike the Condor and the Gemini, it lacks the long range fire support to take down heavier ships.  But it had very good PD to compensate.

Speaking of heavy ships, the Nomads really suffer from a lack of dedicated bomber. The Toad is a very good heavy fighter but lack the proper punch to deal with big targets (my fleet really had some troubles to take down a Venture.) Iguanas and Scarabs are interceptor, they can overload shields but struggle to pierce heavy armor.

But then again, my fleet is integrally composed of Flycatchers and wings. Having a Gila Monster at hand would obviously help me cracking though nuts.

The Death Bloom is a pretty funny ship. The Nomad equivalent of the Hyperion. It's fast and hurt like a truck but die by blowing on it and it's whooping 40% deployment cost prevent it to be used in two battles in a row.

Haven't tried much other ships. The Scorpion however seems far less threatening with its new weapon load-out. I remember being scared to death by the amount of LRM that thing was able to throw away. Have to fight some more of them to decide.

As Borgoid said, the Firecrackers may be a bit too strong. It can one shot Harpoons and Pilums and its pretty high ROF ensure that it can (almost) destroy entire volley of missiles. Haven't seen this weapon on anything else than the Flycatcher for now, and as my fleet is fielding a lot of them, it may be why i found this weapon so effective.

Still, i hope you'll plan to make a bomber for the Nomads as well. Also, i really like the Rattlesnake look.

[Wunder]

I put a doom cannon on a sunder (Found it from Bre'nii), Now Capital ships are scared of me.

[Trylobot]

That is awesome GGMC. I bet it looks cool on a Sunder too.

[Magician]

All my favorite mods are updating this season. I don't know where Ill get all the time I need to taste every mod I like.

Now I wanted to say that seeing your discussion about nomads bombers gave me idea of bomber without actual bomb. Something like bomber with only one charge of Doom Cannon. As a faction with heavy maser/pink projectiles theme it will be nice addition I think. Though it probably will be tough to balance bomber version of DC, because PD will be useless against projectile(but not against bomber!).

[Erick Doe]

Are Nomad Armada's supposed to spawn in random systems? I just noticed while testing the Zorg mod (loaded along a dozen other mods to test for compatibility) that a massive Nomad Armada suddenly appeared in the middle of Zorg Zeta.

If so, that is a nice touch. They are certainly powerful. Though they did not last long as they spawned near the Zorg Zeta sun and were decimated by four or five large Zorg regulator fleets.

[Trylobot]

[...] your discussion about nomads bombers gave me idea of bomber without actual bomb. Something like bomber with only one charge of Doom Cannon.

What if I combined your idea (fighter-mounted doom cannon projectile with 1 charge) with my idea for the Thorn (post-hulk missile mode), and made that the bomber?

This sounds completely crazy as I write it, but it's also giving me a huge grin. So we could have a bomber craft, say a wing of 3; Bomber craft could have the standard expected loadout of mini-fusion torpedo launchers and maybe some half-hearted PD in the form of an ultralight maser. Taken on its own, this actually sounds kind of crappy for a bomber so far because the mini torps are pathetic against everything but fighters (they were made to replace Swarmer SRMs).

But: I could script the bomber craft so that any time one of them is hulked (but not completely destroyed), after a brief activation window period (say 3-5 seconds) the game would spawn some kind of fiery-death-missile (not the Doom Cannon projectile, something new entirely) that is about the same size as the bomber's hull but with some kind of neat particle FX. This missile would be meant to represent the fighter hulk activating its dead-man's switch, so it will spawn with the same initial position, velocity and angular velocity as the hulked fighter, and the hulk object is removed from combat at the same time; it will then accelerate toward a target of opportunity nearby. I'm thinking the nearest enemy Frigate or larger.

Factoring in a second idea that was suggested by someone earlier in the thread, the engine profile of this "phoenix missile" system could be something that has no practical top speed and decent acceleration, so this projectile would very quickly become nigh-unavoidable. And just to make things super-fun, we could set the damage of the missile to something reasonably dangerous, in the neighborhood of 40% to 80% of a Reaper Torpedo. After all, you did just lose a fighter chassis (and a crewman). To be fair, I'd have to set the CR-per-deployment much higher for this theoretical fighter wing so that it has fewer than normal replacement chassis (if any).

I actually want to start on this tonight... lol

Thanks for the inspiration, Magician.

P.S.: I need a better name for this Bomber/Ship System. The working name I had for the ship was "Thorn," but that was when it was a Frigate. And for the system itself, Phoenix System sounds OK, it at least explains the concept well enough, but maybe something more sci-fi sounding like Phoenix Field or Phoenix Drive; I'm open to suggestions there.

P.P.S.: Does anyone think this would cause problems for balance? In other words, "is it even possible for a system like this to be balanced?"

[Trylobot]

Are Nomad Armada's supposed to spawn in random systems?

Even cooler than that; they spawn in Nur, but choose random systems to journey to, and random celestial bodies within those systems at which to run their errands. So any mod that adds accessible jump gates and celestial bodies is a valid target.

Of course, if someone added a 1-way gate and the Nomads became trapped forever on the other side... that would be regrettable for the Armada.

[Wunder]

That is awesome GGMC. I bet it looks cool on a Sunder too.

Yeah But I took A week leveling up so I could get enough OP to put it on

Also, Maybe Nerf the OP of that Superweapon?
It Murders me Without proper Capacitators
And That Funny Looking ship system you have there.

[Wunder]

Speaking Of Cycerin, There is already another mod with a Nevermore, which is now nevermore that name

[xeranes]

[...] your discussion about nomads bombers gave me idea of bomber without actual bomb. Something like bomber with only one charge of Doom Cannon.

What if I combined your idea (fighter-mounted doom cannon projectile with 1 charge) with my idea for the Thorn (post-hulk missile mode), and made that the bomber?

This sounds completely crazy as I write it, but it's also giving me a huge grin. So we could have a bomber craft, say a wing of 3; Bomber craft could have the standard expected loadout of mini-fusion torpedo launchers and maybe some half-hearted PD in the form of an ultralight maser. Taken on its own, this actually sounds kind of crappy for a bomber so far because the mini torps are pathetic against everything but fighters (they were made to replace Swarmer SRMs).

But: I could script the bomber craft so that any time one of them is hulked (but not completely destroyed), after a brief activation window period (say 3-5 seconds) the game would spawn some kind of fiery-death-missile (not the Doom Cannon projectile, something new entirely) that is about the same size as the bomber's hull but with some kind of neat particle FX. This missile would be meant to represent the fighter hulk activating its dead-man's switch, so it will spawn with the same initial position, velocity and angular velocity as the hulked fighter, and the hulk object is removed from combat at the same time; it will then accelerate toward a target of opportunity nearby. I'm thinking the nearest enemy Frigate or larger.

Factoring in a second idea that was suggested by someone earlier in the thread, the engine profile of this "phoenix missile" system could be something that has no practical top speed and decent acceleration, so this projectile would very quickly become nigh-unavoidable. And just to make things super-fun, we could set the damage of the missile to something reasonably dangerous, in the neighborhood of 40% to 80% of a Reaper Torpedo. After all, you did just lose a fighter chassis (and a crewman). To be fair, I'd have to set the CR-per-deployment much higher for this theoretical fighter wing so that it has fewer than normal replacement chassis (if any).

I actually want to start on this tonight... lol

Thanks for the inspiration, Magician.

... Dear god, this sounds amazing!

[Borgoid]

P.P.S.: Does anyone think this would cause problems for balance? In other words, "is it even possible for a system like this to be balanced?"

Oh it's totally possible for it to be balanced. Current Torpedo bombers function almost identically with larger payloads and lower velocities. The only real difference is the actual delivery mechanic is... strange. I have no doubt it's balanceable.
There are really only two things to consider for bombers, effective damage and cost. You've already got a nice tweakable system with replacement chassis and CR costs. The damage is a trivial change via actual damage value, acceleration, and maneuverability of the projectile.
The real question on my mind is "can you make it work"? Because that's probably the coolest mechanic I've ever seen anyone even consider!

A bomber that you almost don't want to escort as opposed to the obnoxious babysitting of current bombers? Yes please!

[Trylobot]

Yeah and of course the AI will completely ignore hulks... it's so devious

[FlashFrozen]

I like the new ships

But some concerns, I'm not sure about some of the shield efficiencies, some are pretty high... like on the gila monster, 0.4 eff and 35000 giving a tanking ability of 87500, a paragons is 0.6 eff and 25000 capacity giving around 41600 tanking, but it does have a fortress shield.

The scorpion missile destroyer also has pretty darn efficient shields for glass missile boat though that may be because of the hardened shields also applied, but it does vent pretty quick given it's role.

Most others are okay, just the oddballs with some shield efficiency that push them over, I'm fine if they had the same total capacity with reduced eff ( more capacitor ) to offset the high amount and make the dissipation of them actually feel more like a weakness.

Neat updates though