Nitpick: Second AI war did not involve AI ships. Just a... dispute between Hegemony and TriTach that involved the use of a planet killer on HP, in a system with the League plus pirates at Qaras.
Oh, you got me there. I need to read the sacred lore texts once again...
To @Alex: You can skip the stuff in the Spoiler Tabs, they're there just for contextThe game does limit the number of officers for most factions, btw, with the actual limit depending on the faction. The Remnants just aren't one of them. Their officers aren't really "officers" and don't need to follow anything like the same rules. Expectations for them to do so are misplaced, and, frankly, they're supposed to be a challenge! This could also involve integrated hullmods (and does in places) but exactly which levers are used to make ships tougher... well, that's just a detail.
[insert Complaingnello comments here]
Probably not a surprise after reading the above, but: that's all working entirely as intended.
(Edit: I wouldn't rule out possible tweaks to the mechanic itself, though, but I don't have anything specific in mind right now.)
I won't foolishly disagree with
the fact AI Cores used as officers do not follow the same "rules" as human officers (which they're not supposed to either), but what I mean to say is that the "Elite Skill Count" of Remnant fleets is so off the charts even serious officer tryharding plus the Automated Ships skill does not even come close to contesting the DP balance of, say, even a decently sized ordo like this one:
I know I've got mod ships in there but I'm 99% sure none of them modify the presence or absence of AI cores in any way. I'm counting 9 Alpha Cores, 2 Beta Cores and 2 Gamma Cores, which amount to that Remnant Ordo fielding
92 Elite Officer Skills in total.
By comparison, assuming you for some reason decide investing 9 skill points into leadership to be able to field 10 level 6 officers with 2 elite skills each (totaling up to
40 Skills and 20 Elite Skills) and then invest another 5 skill points to get Automated ships, then field 6 Gamma Core Glimmers (which amounts to
24 Elite Skills if you integrate each and every one of them into their respective ships) you're going to end up with a fleet able to field a total of
40 Officer Skills and 44 Elite Officer Skills in totalAssuming the game also values Elite Officer Skills more than normal Officer skills when calculating the Deployment Point Balance thru the algorithm, even going
fully nonsensical with officer spam does not put a dent in the skewed balance.
Having Vanilla prioritize giving a core to every single Remnant ship and
only then thart "upgrading" the core type on the bigger ships first (while not giving Destroyers or Frigates Alpha Cores at the same time) up to a still high (but more sensible) Elite Skill treshold would feel a lot more organic.
Also, introducing a mechanic that adds Integrated hullmods (on the bigger, badder Remnant Ships) instead once every ship gets an AI Core officer fitting the ship it's at the helm of would be a much preferred option to the current Remnant Patrol generation
slapping Alpha Cores everywhere[Regarding the ECM rating]I don't have any specific plans but it's something I'll have another look at and give it a think. Was just thinking about it the other day, actually. I think the maximum value feels good, but is reached too quickly. So maybe something like reducing the various sources of it across the board, or something along those lines...
I don't speak from experience since I've "only" been playing this game for a year and a half, but I remember being informed that ECM rating used to affect things other than maximum energy/ballistic range.
Having it both tick upwards slower and preventing not only the AI but also the player from
abusing ECM rating spam with the help of Gamma Core Frigates augmented by both Wolfpack Tactics, Coordinated Manouvers and the Elite Gunnery Implants skill (you can realistically get more than 10% ECM rating for every gamma Core Frigate with all the Commander Skills, officer Skills and Integrated Nav Package stacking)
but also provide different kinds of buffes/nerfs to in-combat stats
would be very interesting.
Do you have
some ideas on the matter? I'd personally focus on ECM affecting:
-chance of missile to ignore passive countermeasures/failure of missiles to track the target even in the absence of passive countermeasures
-weapon recoil
-peak performance time (maybe? it sounds more like a Nav Rating thing, should it also tick slower and start affecting more things)
-missile range/travel speed/handling/fuel
-damage to weapons and engines
-fighter/bomber LPC range
-autofire weapon accuracy across the board
and so on.[Regarding the Radiant being 40DP]
I'll probably adjust it when I tweak the AS skill!
That's the best news so far today
Just...uh...make sure to tweak its Vanilla Variants a bit to be more befitting of a 60DP capital ship.
Spoiler
Radiant-class Drone Battleship
Codex Entry
Radiant's Stats (above) compared to a Paragon's (below)
[..]
Vanilla Variants
1)Standard Personal Rating: Wasted Large Weapon Mounts
Armament: 2 Autopulse Lasers (Linked), 2 Locusts (Alternating), 1 Paladin PD & 6 PD Lasers (linked), 4 Ion Beams (Linked), 4 IR Pulse Lasers (linked)
Hullmods: Integrated Targeting Unit, Expanded Magazines, Heavy Armor
9 Capacitors, 50 Vents
Without going into potential modifications to the Vanilla autofit, this is a textbook example of how to NOT set up a Radiant and it's the setup you wish for when fighting an Ordo. Heavy Armor is a 40OP dead weight unless it's integrated, Locusts not only do pathetic damage to anything but weaksauce frigates but they also don't even have expanded missile racks, 4 Ion beams is overkill even for me and IR pulse lasers are as pointless as nipples on a breastplate.
2)Strike Personal Rating: Deployment Point Imbalance Incarnate
Armament: 5 Tachyon Lances (linked), 4 Sabot Pods (Alternating), 10 PD Lasers (Linked)
Hullmods: Integrated Targeting Unit, Advanced Optics, Resistant Flux Conduits
0 Capacitors, 50 vents
This is the most infamous Remnant setup in the whole roster despite being horribly unoptimized. It's more or less a testament to how the Radiant Stats are so broken across the board for a 40DP ship they are able to pull the suboptimal setups up in performance by sheer brute force. Advanced Optics is not only useless since the ship never makes use of that extra range but it also makes T-lances and PD lasers even more unwieldy to swing around and hit their targets. Sabots are both firing in ALTERNATING MODE and without Expanded Missile Racks.
A Remnant Ship with a 0.6 shield and a litteral
Fearless Personality that already has 1000 range weaponty with ITU and most likely also GUnnery Implants does not Need Advanced Optics, just to name one example out of many.
Addendum: I know what I'm about to write will sound both entitled and silly considering it's adressed to someone that's been nicely balancing this game for almost a decade (as in
you) but I'll say it anyway: be very wary of buffing the amount of Automated Ship Points we get from the AS skill. We players can already abuse the skill to disgusting degrees by either blotting out the sun with Gamma Core Frigates and their 10%+ ECM rating each and also deploy two Alpha Core radiants still sitting above 42% Combat Readiness with the help of both Crew Training (and a fleet under 240DP of combat ships) plus 3-Dmods at minimum on each ship with Derelict Contingent.
Having the AS skill make AI cores consume more Automated Ship Points each the more of the same type that are present (and probably doing the same to multiple ships of the same type) as you raise the avaiable Automated Ship Points of the skill would not be a terrible idea.
[Referring to the possiblity of both Scintilla Drone Carrier Variants having Expanded Deck "crew"]
I mean, "crew", so no, they wouldn't!
Have you considered giving the Scintilla (and possibly also the Brilliant) a brand new Integrated Hullmod called "Combat- rated Drone Autoforges" witht he same effect of Expanded Deck Crew as a solution? The recent (and most welcome) carrier changes have somewhat butchered the Remnant carriers as a whole, especially combined with the very needed Spark nerf.
[Referring to the possibility of introducing Overridden Variants of Glimmer, Fulgent and Brilliant]
Not really! I mean, I'm not specifically against that, either, but it's not something I've really thought about one way or another.
I would personally suggest having one Overridden Variant for each of those 3 Remnant Ships. The strength of a SS faction is not in a small way affected by the variety of the same Ship classes it can field. Having multiple decently effective variants of the same ship will go a long way into making the faction as a whole more competitive, especially if they cover eachother's weaknesses.
[Referring to all Vanilla Remnant Ship Variants having their missile weapons on "Alternating" instead of "Linked"]
Hmm, I'll need to have a look. I don't think I'll want to do that, though; if anything I'd want to adjust alternating group behavior to be more effective. But generally the idea is to have missiles last longer.
I'm really looking forward to the changes to how the AI uses Alternating weapon groups
As for the idea of putting Remnant missile weapon groups on alternating to have missiles last longer, I don't think that helps the faction peform better at all and makes it more dependant on the plehora of buffs vanilla SS gives them as a whole.
Most remnant ships are generally slower than their manned counterparts (aside from the Radiant), meaning they perform best with higher amounts of burst damage allowing them to quickly paralyze the enemy and prevent it from easily getting away without suffering serious or catastrophical damage first.
This also applies to ships like the Radiant which have the ability to suddenly get into the range of the enemy.
More strike damage on a ship that teleports right behind (or in front of you, does not really matter) and saying "
Sorry Human, nothing personal" before blasting you with 8 Sabots at the same time to then melt your face off with 5 Tach Lances works a lot better than a slow pathetic drip of 2 Sabots at a time giving the enemy the chance to retaliate before the radiant can do its thing.
Remnants aren't the only faction whose performance is crippled diminished by poor-quality goal variants and autofit randomization. All factions struggle with that really, except maybe the [super-redacted]. It's just more visible for Remnants because people expect them to be strong.
For what it's worth: I'm working on a mod that addresses this, among a few other things
I am very pleased to hear that! Can I PM you about it?
I may just have
extensively tryharded Vanilla Remnant ship setups enough to provide you with 3 to 6 very well performing variants of each ship in the roster, including additional variants making use of 1,2 or even 3 Integrated Hullmods!
Edit: I've sent you a PM @Delta_of_Isaire!