Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Retry]

Presented with credits to, and permission from, the original author, Hoon.  The original HHE Fighter Expansion mod can be found here.

FIGHTER EXPANSION

This mod is a content rebalancing and trimming of HHE Fighter Expansion.  Changes to the combat and campaign levels have been applied to control content bloat, and various ships, fighters and weapons have been slightly reworked to function better in-game for the new realities of patch 0.95, become more distinct from their original counterparts, or (in a few cases) just be more fun to use.

Mod includes:

• 22 Fighter craft
• 3 Capital-Class Carriers
• 8 modular Point Defense and anti-fighter weapons
• 3 Specialized Fighter Loadout hullmods, tuned to improve the performance of fighter craft in specific niches
• 2 other hullmods vaguely related to Carrier warfare

FIGHTERS

Spoiler

Cazin
Fighter

Little more than a discount Broadsword, but she tries.


Ixon
Fighter

Gladius refit equipped with a battery of Swarmer missiles.  Popular with Luddics.


Helot
Interceptor

Small, fast, and cheap: Excellent for shoring up the strength of interceptor groups.


Tinhead
Fighter

Heavily armed and armored, the Tinhead is the worst nightmare of unshielded fighter craft... if it can catch them.


Manta
Interceptor

A heavy fragmentation-based weapon array peppers the flying wing design.  Highly dangerous to fighters, but somewhat toothless against properly armored warships.


Broadsword (L)
Fighter

The end result of centuries of iteration, the late-variant Broadsword further enhances its durability with a reliable shield generator and an upgraded flux core, at the cost of the original model's logistical simplicity.


Talon (L)
Interceptor

The end result of centuries of iteration, the late-variant Talon is refit to engage and destroy shielded fighters as were common in the late Domain era.  Their own light shield generators do little to improve their survivability.


Draugr
Phase Interceptor

An unusual fighter craft using a micro-phase coil actuator, two Bright EMP missile pods are designed to knock out the engines of maneuvering fighters so the Draugr can bring its IR Pulse Laser to bear.


Vernd
Support Fighter

An inexpensive support fighter, provides both basic point-defense service and PD saturation through its weapon compliment.  Vulnerable to being swarmed, as its weaponry has limited effectiveness against even fighter-grade armor!


Brokkr
Support Fighter

Yo dawg, I heard you like fighters, so I put some fighters on your fighters so you can engage while you engage!


Loki
Superheavy Fighter

Built with some of the finest technology the Domain had to offer, the Loki's combat prowess is eclipsed only by its intense logistical demands.


REDACTED

Spoiler

Lucent
Fighter

Built around a miniature Ion Lance with shield penetration capabilities, watch your hard-flux levels.


Prism
Bomber

An energy torpedo bomber, with a twist...

[close]

LION'S GUARD FIGHTER CRAFT

Reserved for the best of the Sindrian Diktat's fighter jocks, Lion's Guard LPCs are modified for high performance in the skies of Inner Askonia.


FOURTEENTH BATTLEGROUP FIGHTER CRAFT

Heavily modified LPC variants, refit for the Fourteenth Battlegroup's "Decisive Battle" doctrine.  Though the XIV Legions the fighters used to operate from are lost to the sands of time, many XIV fighter LPCs survive to the present day.

[close]

CARRIERS

Spoiler

Sentinel
Supercarrier

Blot the stars with your fighter craft.  Finish off your foes yourself with your built-in Desolator flak cannon if you're feeling aggressive, though keep in mind the Sentinel-class is not built for the front line....


Astral (E)
Carrier

An older prototype of the Astral-class carrier commonly found in Tri-Tachyon hands, the Astral(E) lacks the production model's missile array and ship system, but the lower maintenance cost results in its use with more factions within the Persean Sector.


Artificer
Battlecarrier

A well-rounded capital battlecarrier, four fighter bays compliments its primary weapon array of two Large Energy and single Large Missile.  Rugged and reliable, as far as high-tech ships go.

[close]

MODULAR WEAPONS

Spoiler

Heavy Vulcan Cannon (8 OP)
Medium Ballistic, PD

An alternative PD solution to flak cannons, destroys missiles through sheer volume of fire.  The three barrel arrangement strains the ammo feed which may throttle if forced to fire continuously.


Prickler PD (2 OP)
Small Ballistic, PD

Accurate and fairly long range for its size, Prickler PD may struggle against either very tough singular missiles or vast swarms.  Works best in cooperation with a Vulcan PD net.


IR Autopulse Laser (13 OP)
Medium Energy, Anti-Fighter

Overpowers fighter-grade shields and armor through a flurry of light pulse laser shots, its raw damage and flux efficiency also makes the weapon a reasonable shield breaking weapon.


Light Ion Lance (8 OP)
Small Energy, Suppression

A premium light ion weapon with shield-penetration capabilities, the Lance can also obliterate light fighters in a single burst.


PD Streamer (8 OP)
Small Energy, PD

A fragmentation damage PD beam alternative to the Burst PD laser, the PD Streamer has a slight range advantage and far better sustained performance, at the cost of anti-shield and anti-armor performance.


Pulse Phaser (4 OP)
Small Energy, Anti-Fighter

An IR Pulse variant that rapidly fires unstable energy bolts, Pulse Phasers are particularly effective at peeling armor from unshielded fighters.


PD Pulser (1 OP)
Small Energy, PD

A dirt-cheap fragmentation PD laser, you get what you pay for.


Shrieker Missile Pod (2 OP)
Small Missile, PD Saturation

A cheap autoloading missile with minimal direct effectiveness against anything, Shriekers exist solely to occupy enemy PD weaponry to increase the chance of real missile weapons getting through PD nets.

[close]

HULLMODS

Spoiler

SFL: Aegis System

Specialized Fighter Loadout: Dramatically improves the point-defense capabilities of mounted fighter craft through an IPDAI-esque package.


SFL: Predator System

Specialized Fighter Loadout: Dramatically improves the anti-fighter performance of mounted fighter craft through maneuverability buffs, autofire accuracy enhancements, and minor raw damage bonuses against small targets.


SFL: Hammer System

Specialized Fighter Loadout: Dramatically improves missile and anti-large craft performance of mounted fighter craft through minor raw damage bonuses against large targets and an ECCM-esque upgrade package for missiles.


Skysweeper Point Defense AI

Essentially an anti-fighter oriented version of IPDAI, improves weapon autofire accuracy and damage inflicted to fighter-sized targets


Quickload Missile Racks

Increases the reload and regen rate of missile weapons by one third.  And... that's it.

[close]

Changelog

v1.1.1a
-Quickload Missile Racks now increases missile regen time as well as refire rate for reloading missiles, such as Pilums.

-Added Cazin (P): An ill-advised pirate modification to an already barely spaceworthy hull.

-Added Loki Superheavy Fighter: Heavily shielded two-man squadron with frigate-level firepower.

-Light Ion Lance buffed somewhat, and is now available as a high-end small energy weapon.

-Pulse Phaser reworked and reintroduced as an IR Pulse sidegrade that's particularly effective against unshielded fighters.

-Lion's Guard versions of Thunder, Gladius, and Broadsword with slightly tweaked stats introduced, moved here from the in-development *Guns & Gear* mod.

-Fourteenth Battlegroup versions of Thunder, Gladius, Broadsword, Khopesh, and Warthog with heavily modified loadouts introduced, moved here from the in-development *Guns & Gear* mod.

-Astral (E): Modified Sprite, reduced Base Value to 75% of the original Astral (was: 100%).

-Sentinel: Modified Sprite

v1.1
Initial (re)release of Fighter Expansion Rebalanced

Credits and Special Thanks

• Hoon: Original author of the mod, without whom I'd have had nothing to modify
• Avanitia: For discovering a few oversights and general balance feedback
• AppleSauce: For discovering that CTD so no one else had to
• BigBeans: For the modified Astral(E) and Sentinel spritework
• A whole bunch of people in modding bootcamp, modmaking foundry and elsewhere for general assistance (sorry for not having you all by name!)

[CrashToDesktop]

More stuff to cram on my Mora! This along with the Modern Carriers mod looks like just the thing needed to make creating carrier builds more interesting than "slap on Expanded Deck Crew and go".

[Sutopia]

I must say I’m very impressed our hull mods didn’t overlap at all!!

[CrashToDesktop]

Dear lord the new medium weapons are good. Maybe too good? Both act like 3 small weapons strapped together - same flux efficiency, but they have triple the DPS and have greater range. The IR Autopulse not only has great flux efficiency and DPS, it's also got Skysweeper PD baked in - probably too good for it's OP price. Sure, doesn't have the best armor piercing capabilities, but it does everything else. Maybe reduce the ROF so DPS goes down to 400, and drop the OP cost to 12?

The Heavy Vulcan Cannon also acts as a ridiculously good everything-defense system - missiles, fighters, frigates unfortunate enough to wander into range against a couple of them - worth far more than 8 OP in it's current state. Part of this reason is that there's never any down time to the hail of DU going out the barrel - sure, the DPS effectively halves once you run down the mag, but that doesn't stop it from shredding most things that come into range. It could probably use an OP cost bump to 10, and redesign the mag system so it reloads slower, but in larger increments, so it actually has a vulnerability window for things to break through.

The Mantis is a great interceptor! A few minor things regarding text, as well - it's classed as an Interceptor in-game, but it's named as a fighter, and the description calls it a support fighter, lacking consistency. The description also makes reference to the ancient hangar space mechanic, heh.

The high-tech Talon Interceptor doesn't have a different name, or a different icon, so the only way to tell these apart is to hover over their name.

The SFL Aegis System feels underpowered for it's price - most fighters can already deal with missiles without this system, so just dealing more damage to missiles and nothing else is a very niche requirement - the +100su range to PD weapons is probably more valuable than that.

SLF Hammer System would be worth the price tag just for ECCM Package on bombers alone - the damage is a nice side bonus!

Quickload Missile Racks feels overpriced for what it does - missile rate of fire is typically not the most important thing, and in some cases firing faster might not be what you want, like in the case of the Annihilator Rocket Pod whose sole purpose is to keep shields up - putting more rockets downrange isn't really required. I haven't tested it, but it doesn't sound like it helps with reloading magazine-based missile systems either, like the Pilum.

[Retry]

Dear lord the new medium weapons are good. Maybe too good? Both act like 3 small weapons strapped together - same flux efficiency, but they have triple the DPS and have greater range. The IR Autopulse not only has great flux efficiency and DPS, it's also got Skysweeper PD baked in - probably too good for it's OP price. Sure, doesn't have the best armor piercing capabilities, but it does everything else. Maybe reduce the ROF so DPS goes down to 400, and drop the OP cost to 12?

The IR Autopulse was 16 OP initially, it was dropped from its ultra-high end price for the official release to compete with mid-high end energies because of criticisms that it felt too weak for that spot.  IR Autopulse is a PD_ALSO weapon like the Devastator, rather than having Skysweeper PD baked in (which would maximize its autofire accuracy and inflict extra damage to fighters).

The Heavy Vulcan Cannon also acts as a ridiculously good everything-defense system - missiles, fighters, frigates unfortunate enough to wander into range against a couple of them - worth far more than 8 OP in it's current state. Part of this reason is that there's never any down time to the hail of DU going out the barrel - sure, the DPS effectively halves once you run down the mag, but that doesn't stop it from shredding most things that come into range. It could probably use an OP cost bump to 10, and redesign the mag system so it reloads slower, but in larger increments, so it actually has a vulnerability window for things to break through.

The heavy Vulcan is quite solid.  The main reason it's priced so low is because of the low range, low accuracy, and the competition is really tough!  The same-priced Flak Cannon has an accurate splash effect and good range, and the premium Dual Flak tends to turn the nearby space into missile no-fly zones.

I'll keep both of those in mind though.

The Mantis is a great interceptor! A few minor things regarding text, as well - it's classed as an Interceptor in-game, but it's named as a fighter, and the description calls it a support fighter, lacking consistency. The description also makes reference to the ancient hangar space mechanic, heh.

Yeah, that's an artifact of the many iterations of the Manta.  It was initially a bomber, but it'd only launch its missiles at ships and never at fighters, which was not terribly ideal.  Then it was a support fighter, which didn't help that issue.  Then it was a fighter, which helped but it would still like to prioritize ships when available.  Then a few extra guns were added, the Locusts were made reloadable, and the Manta was re-rolled as an interceptor to finally prioritize shooting down fighters.

Anyways, fixed it internally, thanks for the heads up.

The high-tech Talon Interceptor doesn't have a different name, or a different icon, so the only way to tell these apart is to hover over their name.

The High-tech talon has an alternative color scheme, currently nabbed directly from an unused sprite in the base game (unless you mean the LPC item icons, in which case I think the LPC fighter silhouettes should be different colors because of the design types?).  It might be a bit difficult to tell because there's still some red on the high tech talon (at least, until they start shooting or bring up their shields), so perhaps I could do a color pass on the few remaining red bits.

Good catch on the name though, should be Talon (L) like the high-tech Broadsword.  Fixed internally.

The SFL Aegis System feels underpowered for it's price - most fighters can already deal with missiles without this system, so just dealing more damage to missiles and nothing else is a very niche requirement - the +100su range to PD weapons is probably more valuable than that.

Aegis is a more support fighter-oriented hullmod, compared to the interceptor-centric Predator and bomber-centric Hammer SFLs.  In addition to increasing anti-missile damage, the hullmod also gives flare ignorance to PD weapons, which is very useful in that role.  It's not a perfect IPDAI analogue though as I didn't include the ability to make non-PD smalls PD capable (thought it may be too powerful), but maybe I'll add that in if it doesn't break things.

Quickload Missile Racks feels overpriced for what it does - missile rate of fire is typically not the most important thing, and in some cases firing faster might not be what you want, like in the case of the Annihilator Rocket Pod whose sole purpose is to keep shields up - putting more rockets downrange isn't really required. I haven't tested it, but it doesn't sound like it helps with reloading magazine-based missile systems either, like the Pilum.

This one's nearly untouched from the original day, I discovered it a bit late into the revamp.  I've not got strong opinions on that and right now I'm more-or-less in the feedback gathering stage for that hullmod.  Good to know it's likely not game-breakingly powerful though.

Magazine recharge rates is a thing I'm considering.  The main obstacle to that is my abysmal luck with the Ammo Tracker with getting a similar hullmod to work, so I can't give a date on when that'll be working.

[CrashToDesktop]

For the Heavy Vulcan, I'd argue it's almost identical to the Dual Flak Cannon strictly in terms of stopping a horde of missiles before hitting the hull, at least before the ammo supply runs dry. It also deals with fighters much better than the Dual Flak Cannon does - the flak cannons might have circular AoE, but the Heavy Vulcan projects a cone of no-living for anything small and squishy like a fighter or frigate. It's range also isn't all that short; the dual flak cannon sits at 400, while the Heavy Vulcan isn't much less at 350, especially once you take ITU into account.

For the Talon (L), yeah, it's the LPC icon - definitely the same as the regular Talon.

Support fighters in Starsector are few and far between, and most of them can already handle point-defense fine without boosting it further.  I'd suggest making Aegis more fighter-related; as in, that role of fighter - distract / disable ships with flares, EMP, or just themselves so bombers can come in. More tankiness would be in order so they can survive contact with the enemy vessel for longer, either as a distraction or so they can pester the enemy ship longer - more armor / hull and possibly more flux capacity and dissipation for those with shields. Also happens to still fit the whole Aegis theme of protection.

[UselessGoddess69]

Hey just wondering if you fixed the Remnant bug where Remnant fleets only spawned the same single (Or two or three) ship over and over again instead of spawning with different types of ships, even when you downloaded other mods which adds more Remnant ships?
The Original version of HHE has this issue (Not sure if others have this issue).

[Retry]

I'm 99.999% certain that's been fixed.  Which is to say, I fixed the empty sets that were causing the issue in 0.91, and Alex said he fixed the empty-set-data-wipe that caused such things in 0.95, and none of the other issues caused by the original mod's faction files have cropped up.  I haven't done extensive testing in Remnant Space, but I've done at least a half-hour's worth, and they seemed to spawn the usual variety of ships during the time I spent sleuthing around their territories.

[Arcagnello]

...how did I miss this mod?

I'll bump this to find it better when I come back home later 

Addendum: I've already got the "Modern Carriers" mod, I assume combining two or more hullmods of the two mods could lead to some...uh... overperforming results.

Forgive me if I speak heresy, but have you considered doing a merger of the two mods in the future? I've got this sensation that both content additions are trying to achieve the same result through similar actions and that the combination of the two would result in quite the compelling set of additions with no internal conflict to speak of!

[Melanoc3tus II]

Please don't combine the two, I really don't want the features from Modern Carriers, and all it would do is save you like one download per 4 months or something on average.

[Sutopia]

Please don't combine the two, I really don't want the features from Modern Carriers, and all it would do is save you like one download per 4 months or something on average.

Sorry for stealing the thread;
Would you like to elaborate what parts you don’t like about Modern Carrier?
I would like every feedback I can get to improve the mod quality and make it enjoyable for players.

[Retry]

The two mods will not be merged.  FER introduces a few new carriers, a hefty helping of fighter craft, and a small set of fighter-enhancing hullmods with strong conventional performance boosts in relevant fields.  MC introduces fighter-modifying hullmods with novel concepts, usually implemented with radical enhancements and similarly large drawbacks.

[Gaaius]

You might want to change the name of your graphics/ships/Drones and /Fighters folders to drones and fighters (all in lowercase) - since that seems to be the way you refernece the path to those graphics.
I got an error(alot) because of that and doing said thing fixed it for me.
The reason why is probably (most definetly) that my OS (Ubuntu) is case sensitive, while yours isnt.

[CrixM]

The Prism bomber is probably too strong. Two wings of them pretty much would delete any medium or small ship.

[Retry]

I'll take another look at Prism.  Compared to the Dagger, their torpedo's special effects are intended to be somewhat compensated by their reduced raw damage and higher interceptibility compared to Atropos torpedos (Lachesis both have less HP and speed), though the interceptibility probably matters less on small ships. which don't usually have the PD throughput to deal with multiple missiles.  I suppose it really depends on whether the Prism (or Prism+Longbows) performs in excess of Daggers (or Daggers+Longbows) against the same small and medium-sized targets, and if so by how much.

Another HHE update is coming very soon^tm to a forum near you: Featuring a fix for case-sensitive OS's, 2 more modular weapons, 1 new fighter hull, and 9 modified skins of existing fighter hulls.