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[idiotekque]

Coming back to the game after a year or two, I'm curious which mods that add ships, equipment, factions, etc, mesh well into the current balance of things. Last time I threw a handful of mods in that added things of that sort, the game quickly just became a bit of a mess for my preferences of balance and immersion (Diable and Cabal tech sort of just obliterated everything, for one). I'm sure a lot of the mods were newer and have had tweaks to balance since, of course, but I think I'm looking for a bit more simplistic additions this time around.

Things that flesh out the game and don't throw over the top new factions into the mix, and ride closely with Vanilla balance (or even a bit beneath it) are definitely what I'm looking for. Stop Gap Measure sounds like a good bet, and I love the designs of the Underworld expansion (outside of the Cabal, just not my cup of tea), but I'm still unsure how things stack up balance wise in this version.

Any suggestions or greater insight into this sort of thing would be massively appreciated!

[IonDragonX]

Off the cuff, I'd say there is no balance. (Thanos = sad)
Modders seem to be following the "mad science" trope. If they can achieve it, they will.

 Let balance sort itself out.

(Which never happens  )
Honestly, its not the modder's fault.
* SS isn't finished. Its own rules keep changing.
* Some modders love to put hidden mechanics, missions, events & ships in without informing the player.
* Design space is limited. Ships and systems often re-invent the wheel. How many combat carrier destroyers is actually logical?
* Some mods will trump vanilla designs with a 'new' weapon/ship that has the same gameplay but with strictly better stats.
* Some mods add factors that make other mods brokenly OP. Like god-mode enabled accidentally.
* Faction files gets addendum one-mod-at-a-time, which results in a complete mess of the ratios.

[close]

Other than that little rant, you can change the settings file of Underworld to remove the Cabal before you start. I suspect Diable is OP in general.
Roider Union and Magellan Protectorate seem to be vanilla-compatable.

[idiotekque]

Off the cuff, I'd say there is no balance. (Thanos = sad)
Modders seem to be following the "mad science" trope. If they can achieve it, they will.

 Let balance sort itself out.

(Which never happens  )
Honestly, its not the modder's fault.
* SS isn't finished. Its own rules keep changing.
* Some modders love to put hidden mechanics, missions, events & ships in without informing the player.
* Design space is limited. Ships and systems often re-invent the wheel. How many combat carrier destroyers is actually logical?
* Some mods will trump vanilla designs with a 'new' weapon/ship that has the same gameplay but with strictly better stats.
* Some mods add factors that make other mods brokenly OP. Like god-mode enabled accidentally.
* Faction files gets addendum one-mod-at-a-time, which results in a complete mess of the ratios.

[close]

Other than that little rant, you can change the settings file of Underworld to remove the Cabal before you start. I suspect Diable is OP in general.
Roider Union and Magellan Protectorate seem to be vanilla-compatable.

Thanks for the reply. I don't mean to throw shade at the modders, haha. The entire state of modding tends to be adding new, different things in, and some of those things being stronger is pretty standard fare. I'm just pretty picky when it comes to that stuff, and like to find stuff that doesn't go too far off the spectrum of what's already in game.

I'll check those out, thanks!

[Sutopia]

The Star Federation
Legacy of Arkgenesis

Also, mad science doesn’t mean it cannot have balance.
It’s just about whether the modder is willing to devote more time into test plays to get the numbers ironed out.

[IonDragonX]

Thanks for the reply. I don't mean to throw shade at the modders, haha. The entire state of modding tends to be adding new, different things in, and some of those things being stronger is pretty standard fare. I'm just pretty picky when it comes to that stuff, and like to find stuff that doesn't go too far off the spectrum of what's already in game. I'll check those out, thanks!

I get that. I'm not throwing shade either. Until a thorough analysis of SS full release is complete, nobody knows what "fair and balanced" actually is.

[Yunru]

I try to keep all my added content in line with vanilla.


How well I succeed, I can't really say, although the ships should be good.

[AppleMarineXX]

Seconding Legacy of Arkgneisis, their ships feel extremely fair (perhaps even a bit underpowered in AI hands, I've found).

Other than that, I feel like Scalartech, Magellan, Keruvim, and SCY are also fairly on-par with vanilla powerlevels. Get Kingdom of Terra if you want to spice things up - they're extremely unique, but I don't think they're overpowered.

[idiotekque]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll definitely be checking through them all when I go wild with mods in my next playthrough, lol.

[Cyan Leader]

Pretty much none of the popular mods have ships as good as the Paragon, the Doom or the Ziggurat, and many of them add bosses/enemies that are stronger than the Tesseracts. I don't really think you need to worry yourself that much when vanilla is already pretty broken.

[Sutopia]

Get Kingdom of Terra if you want to spice things up - they're extremely unique, but I don't think they're overpowered.

Salts

They are quite overpowered imo. The drill ship enjoys 80% all damage reduction, which is about as broken as derelict contingent, not to mention if you stack them.
The t-rex is also quite cheesy by using the disabled modules as meat shields. Two pieces of those can block almost all frontal non-explosive damage. Not sure if the tractor beam is from this mod but if it is that messes up AI big times and allows user to pick fights regardless of agility once the prey is in range.

[close]