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[Dal]

[0.95a] Quality Captains v1.0.8

A gameplay-first, balance-friendly skill overhaul.

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Highlights:

• A thorough overhaul of every skill, based on hundreds of hours of gameplay under 0.91
• Multiple skill trees to choose between, including all skills available at the start
• The restoration of beloved 0.91 skill effects, such as D-mod hull maintenance reductions
• Adjustments for major 0.95 skill outliers, such as Phase Mastery, Derelict Contingent, and raw damage bonuses
• A complete ECM and NAV overhaul
• Fully customizable, down to the individual effect!

Combat

Helmsmanship: a fundamental skill for any aggressive captain, it has (configurably) swapped its elite 0-Flux Boost back to its last incarnation, allowing the boost to continue during incidental shield and PD activity.

Strike Commander: Carrier captains are back with a vengeance. Now supplies bonuses to ordinance HP, target leading, fighter resilience, and a modest advantage against large targets.

Target Analysis: A modest bonus to damage against larger ships and a hefty bonus to anti-armor fire, Target Analysis is as priceless to a combat captain as ever.

Point Defense: Its PD bonus has been split between its entry and elite tiers, but a turret turn rate bonus adds a potent edge to target tracking.

Impact Mitigation: The quintessential armor tanking skill has been brought down to earth a little, but bonuses at peak and minimum performance round out any brawler's strengths.

Standoff Tactics: Ranged Specialization has been overhauled, by default swapping its bonus damage for higher effectiveness against shields. Projectile speed and range bonuses provide unmatched damage application at artillery distances.

Shield Modulation: Largely unchanged, shield captains can gain a shield raise and turn rate bonus at the elite tier.

Phase Mastery: Brought down from its extremes, Phase Mastery now provides a still-decisive but no longer game-changing edge.

Systems Expertise: It was good, and it's nerfed but still pretty damn good. Lower recharge rate and cooldown bonuses.

Missile Specialization: Bonus ammo has been split between tiers, HP and ROF are tuned down, missile maneuverability bonus for elite specialists has been added. Missile ships captained by an elite specialist will still be terrifying.

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Leadership

Weapon Drills: Now adds some basic competency fleet wide, providing minor bonuses to target leading, recoil, and turret ROF.

Auxiliary Support: Flattened bonus to double Assault/Escort package performance, added burn speed and maintenance perks for non-militarized civilian ships.

Coordinated Maneuvers: Fully overhauled, allowing nav score to boost acceleration and maneuvering for your ships, fighters, and/or missiles. Capped at 10% by default, but fully customizable. By default your fleet rating is now determined by the combined level of officers deployed on each side.

Wolfpack Tactics: Now focuses on PPT and speed bonuses. Attack, fade, and capture objectives like never before.

Crew Training: Substantial fleetwide bonuses to CR, Maintenance, and PPT. What's not to love?

Carrier Group: Fleetwide bonuses to fighter resilience and very basic target leading.

Officer Training/Management: Pure stock, officers are good. Except... Elite Officer Management now allows your officers 1 additional elite skill pick. The [REDACTED] have competition.

Space Operations: Still good, has gained an elite tier providing +1 light patrol at governed colonies.

Ground Operations: Also gained an elite tier, this one reducing colony upkeep by 10%.

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Technology

Highlights:
Energy Weapon Mastery: Its clever mechanic encouraging aggressive play remains, but the bonuses it provides are a little more sane. The elite tier buffs beams and grants a slight EMP resistance. As of v1.0.8 QC also addresses a serious bug in the vanilla code for this skill.

Electronic Warfare: A comprehensive rework, ECM now can impact any of turret autoaim, range, recoil, turn rate, missile range, and apply to fighters. Your fleet rating is determined by your deployed officer's levels, whether they're in frigates or destroyers, and oh did I mention that any aspect can be tweaked or toggled? Because every aspect can be tweaked and toggled, and by default ECM no longer impacts range at all.

Automated ships: Max CR capped at 80% by default, but your automated ship limit, if enabled, now scales with your Battlesize setting at 10%.

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Industry

Highlights:
A full refresh of industry skills, making each compelling for its own gameplay style. In particular,
Jury-Rigging: The once-Makeshift Engineering skill now makes your fleet more resilient, and provides a reduction in upkeep for each D-mod on your ships.

Field Repairs: The titular restoration effect now scales with the size and complexity of the ship being repaired. From just a month for a frigate, to several for a fancy capital.

Derelict Contingent: That mind-numbing game-breaking damage-tanking effect is now FIXED. At default settings, it now provides a 10% chance per d-mod to reduce damage by 50%. This is a 2/3rds incoming damage reduction to 1/4, and the max damage reduction is down from ninety(!) percent. In addition, Derelict Contingent now has an elite tier reducing the impact of d-mods, back from 0.91. And if that's not enough, the shield-shunt hullmod now infers a modest flux dissipation bonus, like mother nature intended.

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Did I mention it's fully configurable?

Changelog

1.0: First release version.

1.0.1:
- Fixed typo in Impact Mitigation
- Fixed file conflict blocking customization

1.0.2
- Restored bonus damage to destroyers and cruisers to Target Analysis (currently set to 1/3 and 2/3rd the capital damage bonus respectively.)*
- Allowed more customization settings to accept "0" as a valid input.
- Moved the Special Modification skill's S-mod capacity bonus to its base tier, keeping the XP bonus behind elite.
- Updated the QC ECM script to correctly display configured effects during battle
* Updates that require overwriting the settings file will be reserved for point releases, when possible.

1.0.3 - This update has new and changed config settings
- Updated the "lanes" preset - sensors is now T1 and navigation T2
- Reduced the default bonus XP for installing S-mods with the special modifications elite to 34% (3 installations per refund)
- Added turret turn rate as a configurable ECM penalty type
- Added missile maneuver rate as a configurable ECM penalty type
- Added config options for ECM type multipliers, e.g. ECM rating * 2 for recoil effect - which is now default
- Added config options for the Target Analysis Destroyer and Cruiser damage bonus
- Restored "Recovered ships have fewer dmods on average" effect to Field Repairs
- Added config toggle for whether the salvaging skill should provide a bonus to rare-item salvaging and an associated bonus value.
- Added support for Nexerelin's additional agents
- Added support for Vayra Ship Pack's Collapsed Cargohold hullmod

1.0.4
- Fixed a -very- errant multiplier that occurred with Rare Salvaging enabled. Salvage and Rare Salvage are now totally separate.
- Correctly added the Special Modifications SP reduction to defaults
- Bulk transport no longer scales with fleet size, now provides +30% transport stats by default

1.0.8
- Updated Officer Management, Navigation, and Sensors skills to correctly call the customization code
- Tidied up the Bulk Transport skill's effect
- Fixed a duplicated speed effect in Wolfpack Tactics
- Changed Helsmanship's elite effect to only use the Flux Threshold standard by default. Either option can still be switched to but having both enabled at once may conflict.
- Added the Field Repair effect's time factors to settings.json and updated the script with RC14 vanilla fix for hull restoration status.
- Coordinated Maneuvers has been given the ECM treatment: now supplies any combination of speed, maneuver, missile, fighter, and ship bonuses.
- Point Defense now applies only a (configurable) portion of its effects to launched fighters.
- Phase Mastery's speed bonus now varies between hull sizes
- Automated Ships supports a flat limit, if desired. Simply disable linear scaling.
- Addressed a vanilla issue where Energy Weapon Mastery dynamic damage bonuses applied to ballistic weapons.
- Added another "+Damage to ships based on hull size" set to fighters under officers that have the Strike Commander skill
- Also added a bonus for Target Analysis against frigates, though it defaults to +0%. It's there in the settings if you want it for some maniacal reason.
- Also hooked up TA's size based damage bonus to the correct config lines. ^^'
- Restored to Wolfpack Tactics the recovery assurance for frigates commanded by officers.
- Nerfed Crew Training slightly, CR bonus from 15 to 10%.
- Buffed Reliability Engineering with the same 5% max CR, to +20%.
- Nerfed dmod maintenance reduction effect with new multiplier, set to 50% of it was in 0.91a per ship dmod by default.
- Unified values in the code and default config.
- Resolved an override so that QC can now work alongside mods implementing custom skills.

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FAQ

Q: Can I install this in an ongoing game?
A: Yes! Quality Captains can be installed in previous save, though it may be a good idea to head to your storage before making the switch.
Q: Can the mod be uninstalled from a save?
A: There is an uninstallation-mode toggle made available in the mod's settings.json.
Q: Is the mod awesome?
A: Yes I think it's pretty awesome and I hope you enjoy it.
Q: Does the AI benefit?
A: The AI will receive full access to the same skills you do, only now with more consistent results.
Q: Is it compatible with other mods?
A: It should be compatible any any mod that doesn't change the same skills.
Q: How do I select a different skill tree to use?
A: Open the mod's folder, select the "Optional" folder that sounds good to you, copy the data folder from inside over the mod's data directory, overwriting skill_data.csv.
Q: How do I adjust the values and options?
A: Open the mod's folder, then open data/config/settings.json in your favorite text editor. Make sure you toggle custom values on at the top!
Q: Does Quality Captains change leveling in any way?
A: Not at all! It should be fully compatible with any mod that modifies character or officer levels.
Q: Does this work with the newest hotfix?
A: So far so good! Quality Captains should be fully operational as of RC14.

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[Tartiflette]

Congrats, looks awesome!

[blackcatvn]

Love it, awesome mod. Time to be a god-like admiral.

[Donko]

Congrats on finishing this, looks great! Having the Weapon Drills skill help counter the new ECM is really nice. I like the philosophy of "A given skill should have a counter-skill."

[Cyan Leader]

• Fully customizable, down to the individual effect!

Incredible, I've been wanting something like this for ages. Thanks you!

[Chairman Suryasari]

This look awesome! Make the game less painful in a way. I prefer 0.91a sandbox skill than current skill any day now.

Also, do you think it's possible to increase the monthly cost every time I level up? I like to imagine myself recruiting resourceful individuals to acquire these skills Mount and Blade style. Thanks! Have a good one!

[Nia Tahl]

Makes the vanilla officer spam more bearable in lategame. Still a pain, but a lesser one. Think I'll nerf damagecon.

[MagicKarpson]

Very nice, I love having the ability to customize all the skills effects.

[SCC]

Targeting Analysis: it's a bit weird the bonus is just to capital ships now.
Impact Mitigation: it now protects from small strength hits more than bigger hits, which I'm not sure is a good idea.
Standoff Tactics: it's better than Ranged Spec, since it works for more than two ships in the game.
Phase Mastery, Phase Corps: I suspect they will still be problematic.
Systems Expertise: it's a real shame you nerfed it, because it was pretty fun for most ships that aren't Doom.
Missile Specialisation: it stacks with ECCM, missiles are so fast now.
Officer Training: spend story points to spend story points... Come on.
Energy Weapon Mastery: what's up with that EMP resistance? It's not much, but it's weird it's there.
Special Modifications: again, spend story points to spend story points.
Automated Ships: it's hilariously OP now. Getting a Radiant for a single skill point is incredible value.
Colony skills: they presumably are the best moneymaker skills, making other (mostly industry) skills obsolete. It's in a similar position as Automated Ships, in that it isn't immediately strong, only after you can get what makes it strong, but then it blows other skills out of the water.

I also have more fundamental issues with what you're doing with those skills, but you have heard about them already.

[Dal]

Thanks for the kind words and feedback! I'll look into individual skills later today, for now I've released a quick hotfix to resolve the customization lock. 1.0.1 is available from the banner; if you already have a copy of the mod you just need the .jar file from the update.

[PeepingPeacock]

"The restoration of beloved 0.91 skill effects, such as D-mod hull maintenance reductions"

"Fully customizable, down to the individual effect!"

I love you

Can't wait to start a new campaign with this and see how it plays!

[IonDragonX]

Targeting Analysis: it's a bit weird the bonus is just to capital ships now.

Agree, It was already weird by ignoring the frigates in vanilla.

Systems Expertise: it's a real shame you nerfed it, because it was pretty fun for most ships that aren't Doom.

Agree, I'd revert that and nerf the doom system to balance the numbers back.

[Nia Tahl]

Targeting Analysis: it's a bit weird the bonus is just to capital ships now.
Impact Mitigation: it now protects from small strength hits more than bigger hits, which I'm not sure is a good idea.
Standoff Tactics: it's better than Ranged Spec, since it works for more than two ships in the game.
Phase Mastery, Phase Corps: I suspect they will still be problematic.
Systems Expertise: it's a real shame you nerfed it, because it was pretty fun for most ships that aren't Doom.
Missile Specialisation: it stacks with ECCM, missiles are so fast now.
Officer Training: spend story points to spend story points... Come on.
Energy Weapon Mastery: what's up with that EMP resistance? It's not much, but it's weird it's there.
Special Modifications: again, spend story points to spend story points.
Automated Ships: it's hilariously OP now. Getting a Radiant for a single skill point is incredible value.
Colony skills: they presumably are the best moneymaker skills, making other (mostly industry) skills obsolete. It's in a similar position as Automated Ships, in that it isn't immediately strong, only after you can get what makes it strong, but then it blows other skills out of the water.

I also have more fundamental issues with what you're doing with those skills, but you have heard about them already.

Using one of the alternate skilltree layouts (I like the skill lanes the most) helps with the Automated ships and colony skill issues at last.
Fully agree on Special Modifications and Officer Training (changed those to not have elite effects on my end)

[Nia Tahl]

Targeting Analysis: it's a bit weird the bonus is just to capital ships now.

Agree, It was already weird by ignoring the frigates in vanilla.

Systems Expertise: it's a real shame you nerfed it, because it was pretty fun for most ships that aren't Doom.

Agree, I'd revert that and nerf the doom system to balance the numbers back.

TA being tiered makes somewhat sense since the smaller ships are squishier. Those tiered bonuses basically just offset the innately higher armor and hp values of larger ships a bit. Imho TA should definitely have bonuses against cruisers and destroyers again.

[Radicaljack]

Targeting Analysis: it's a bit weird the bonus is just to capital ships now.
Impact Mitigation: it now protects from small strength hits more than bigger hits, which I'm not sure is a good idea.
Standoff Tactics: it's better than Ranged Spec, since it works for more than two ships in the game.
Phase Mastery, Phase Corps: I suspect they will still be problematic.
Systems Expertise: it's a real shame you nerfed it, because it was pretty fun for most ships that aren't Doom.
Missile Specialisation: it stacks with ECCM, missiles are so fast now.
Officer Training: spend story points to spend story points... Come on.
Energy Weapon Mastery: what's up with that EMP resistance? It's not much, but it's weird it's there.
Special Modifications: again, spend story points to spend story points.
Automated Ships: it's hilariously OP now. Getting a Radiant for a single skill point is incredible value.
Colony skills: they presumably are the best moneymaker skills, making other (mostly industry) skills obsolete. It's in a similar position as Automated Ships, in that it isn't immediately strong, only after you can get what makes it strong, but then it blows other skills out of the water.

I also have more fundamental issues with what you're doing with those skills, but you have heard about them already.

Tis a mod, and a customisable one at that, the base game skill tree is hilariously out of balance as it is, why the intense scrutiny for this?

Big fan of this OP, will let you know if any issues come up!