Gonna comment on some specific things, mostly the things I feel have problems.
So first I gotta say: this is almost entirely good news! I had to scroll down three pages to find a thing I specifically objected to.
Thank you, and gotcha! Stuff that's good, there's not much to talk about, right.
I mean, not having easy money is good! But taking on any kind of base (especially now that one-module bases are no longer a thing) requires a considerable investment and risk in the early to mid game. It sounds like the problem was more that person bounties and LP base bounties weren't paying enough.
Well, this was a direct reaction to suddenly finding myself swimming in credits during a test run, for what felt like no good reason. It's entirely possible that it's an "overnerf" but consider that 1) it's probably fine not to have a bounty on pirate bases *at all*, and 2) beating one gets you a fair amount of salvage, too.
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months
Synchrotron: requires "No atmosphere" condition
Ow. Is this a way to incentivize colonies on non-habitable worlds?
Does pollution from nanoforges requite the Habitable condition (like the pollution from bombardment)?
It feels like the heavy industry itself should be the source of pollution, not the nanoforge. Was that deemed too punishing?
Part of an effort to incentivize colony world variety, yeah; most items have requirements or interactions with planetary conditions.
Pollution doesn't require habitable - consider corrosives, radiation, etc. Good point re: bombardments, though; let me remove the "habitable" requirement there. Hmm. On the other hand, what this does is instead of disincentivizing industry on habitable worlds, it more incentivizes (somewhat) industry on a world by itself. So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.
Re: whether it's heavy industry or a nanoforge, I'm not sure it actually matters all that much which one causes it, since a nanoforge of some sort is almost required. But I suppose this leaves the option of having a safer, low-tier heavy industry, not that it's going to generally be a good option.
Spaceport: removed "No spaceport" accessibility penalty when under construction or disrupted
*happy dance*
Although I fear that straight-up reducing the penalty to zero swings the pendulum to spaceport disruption being too weak. With the +5 in-faction trade capacity bonus, disrupting a core world spaceport will likely have no effect whatsoever on commodity scarcity on the planet or elsewhere in the faction.
One thing to consider: the in-faction bonus doesn't matter as much for exports. So while a spaceport disruption won't be crippling (i.e. raiding it on Jangala gives it a deficit of one in a couple of commodities), and doesn't interrupt too much of its ability to supply in-faction colonies with organics (though it interrupts some of it - more of an effect for things that are a colony's specialty, really), it *also* gives it something like 6 or 7 units of surplus organics since it can't export them out of faction. So, still opens a major opportunity, just not one that cripples a colony/faction.
It might seem a lot weaker - and it is - but I think that's also to do with just how incredibly crippling it was before.
Can you also do something about the shield modules dying early on in autoresolve? This has awkward effects when a player joins an ongoing battle with/against the station.
Let me make a note to take a look; that could be a bit hairy.
I feel like only one of those changes should have been implemented.
So the idea is that Tarsus is the safe option and Buffalo is the cost-efficient option. But past a certain point, having to fight a disengage scenario at all is a sign you did something wrong (which is why people like me keep suggesting ways to drag civ ships into fights). So the Tarsus's strength will very rarely be relevant.
...unless this is intended to work with the new options to turn civilian ships into combatants?
Hmm. Yeah, looking at it again maybe the Tarsus could use, say, 350 capacity or something. It *does* make a reasonable chassis for a civ-combatant (really, a damage sponge brick) but I'm not sure that's enough to really swing things in its favor.
And, yeah, I get why the suggestion about dragging civ ships into fights comes up. Just, I don't think that it works out in a way that's generally better than "civ ships are usually stat slots" - which, while unexciting, is also not actively a negative.
(Also: you can force a running enemy to fight now, with a story point! So at least enemy civilian ships can be dragged into a battle.)
Drover was overdue for an adjustment, but with Reserve Deployment already having the run-in with the nerf bat, isn't the DP increase on top of that really punitive?
Even with the RD change, it's still quite good, so: I think it's reasonable. The RD change isn't an outright nerf, right, and having a critical mass of Drovers with wing-size-boosting RD early in a fight could even be stronger than before.
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
This is probably actually bad!
The attachment is gone now, but bobucles made a graph which shows Light Needler significantly out-DPSes Railgun early in a fight (for like 20 seconds or such) due to having the large damage spike at t=0. Mind, that's a double-edged sword since it also adds flux to the firing ship, and you pay 2 more OP for the privilege, but it persuaded me that LNs are actually worth using over railguns sometimes. And Needler is more efficient and has faster projectiles.
Hmm. The thing with the LN is, beyond pure DPS, it's pretty much only good vs shields. I think it's ok for it to be a bit cheaper *and* to be worth using over railguns sometimes, since it's more specialized where a railgun is just always good.
Ha ha ha this is three mod ships and one mod weapon that will now need renaming
(Ahh, apologies to all affected parties. Just, hard to avoid.)
Added UI scaling setting
4k time?!?
Indeed!
Kind of bummed about the hammerhead rear turrets not being able to face forward but it's pretty understandable considering how great safety overrides chaingun hammerheads are at ripping enemies to shreds
(Yeah, it's a bit much, plus it looks kind of silly.)
