have there been any changes to the Contacts so far? Cross-mod contact compatibility seems to be quite an issue such as...
- disabling certain missions from appearing in other factions' bar events.
- enabling certain missions from appearing in other factions' bar events.
- missions not allowing certain factions (only luddic church, path, and hegemony can give you remnant military bounties but what about the other factions?)
and so much more in the later era which I will clarify later in a future thread.
Otherwise, it's a cool mod feature so far, just afraid this problem will come up later on. I've been using it with partial success.
It seems like much of that should be doable by adjusting the mission spec tags; SettingsAPI.getAllMissionSpecs() gives you access to all the mission specs. Or by putting the right tags into person_missions.csv, if the only missions one wants to change are from their mod.
Perhaps worth noting: the various "tag" columns in person_missions can accept a faction id. So if "tagsNotAny" contains "hegemony", that mission won't be offered by a hegemony contact, etc.
apogee no longer available from high tech blueprint, but why?
It's replaced there by the Fury; I think it makes more sense to have a general-purpose combat cruiser in the package than a more specialized exploration ship.
Bulk Transport: burn bonus increased to +2 (was: +1)
Doesn't this make militarizing a freighter (or for that matter something like Atlas Mk.II) strongly negative? Unless half the bonus still applies to such ships, so final burn remains the same.
It does; in my mind going with "Bulk Transport" has a more civilian-ish feel to it. So if you take that skill, and want to get the most out of it, you also take some potential downsides on sensors (though ofc you could put in Insulated Engines...)
Quantum Disruptor: removed charges, now just has a 30 second cooldown
Woah, wrecked it (although SysExp will still help)
Is AI smart enough to use it, now that it can't just use the ability a few times for a wider effective overload window? Maybe overload duration could be longer.
I... think it is? Obviously it's less forgiving, but I think it does an ok job with it.
Heavy Needler: reduced range to 700, to match other needlers (was: 750, bothering me)
I feel like this wasn't really needed balance-wise, but maybe it'll help draw a specialization line between Heavy AC (longer range) and heavy needler (better for knife fighters).
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping, too - well, maybe that's too much, but that's why reducing the range on HN a bit seems better than increasing it on other needlers.
- Mauler changes
Nice, maybe it'll know its old glory again. (In recent versions I'd stopped using it since it just recoils too much after a while)
(That matches up more with how I've been seeing the Heavy Mauler lately.)
TextFieldAPI
Text input fields?!
Yes!
createCheckbox
I'm guessing this is a 'real' checkbox as distinct from the existing area checkboxes that cover the whole button?
Is this being used in vanilla GUI too?
Yeah, proper checkboxes. Not used in vanilla (at least, not yet); Jaghaimo asked for these in the API requests thread, and it was fairly easily doable, so!
Fixed issue where "order a full retreat dialog?" was persistently shown in a battle with allies when none of your own ships were deployed; now it will only be shown once unless the player deploys some ships
Wow this was bothering me so much the last couple of days, great to hear it's fixed!
Hah! *thumbs up*
I thought it was an intentional balance point for it - as long range constant pressure weapon, it matched Hypervelocity Driver in that range bracket. Also kept it from being oppressive due to how common medium slots are - if Mauler will be very accurate, doesn't it sort of nullify purpose of Heavy Mortar too? They will be very similar, only difference being that Mauler has way better accuracy, better damage, more range... making it so much more AI-friendly and usable in general despite higher cost. If anything, in my opnion, maybe Heavy Mortar could use some love or something?
I think a longer delay between bursts helps keep it from becoming too oppressive. As far as the Heavy Mortar, it's more flux-efficient, costs 7 OP to the Mauler's 12, and does about 80% more DPS, so offhand, it seems like it should still remain a fine choice. I do need to spend more time seeing how the Mauler feels, though.
I will note that previously, you could run a Heavy Mauler and use it as sustained pressure to overwhelm shields over a longer period of time. When combined with an HVD, due to it's reasonable refire rate, it can force shields to be up at 1000 SU, and apply a fair amount of pressure to ships at long range.
Sustained HE weapons are generally in a weird niche, yes, but they do work. Leaning more heavily into HE weapons rather than Kinetic weapons shortens your TTK once you do overwhelm shields.
This is visible in both the Hephaestus Assault Gun and the Heavy Mauler. I'm generally a fan of the Heavy Mauler being high-ish sustained output, premium long range HE.
The Heavy Mortar being HE burst would also be reasonable and make an amount of sense. It's currently... not used all that much?
Hmm. I feel like with poor accuracy, the Mauler is hard to make useful - but if it's accurate and sustained, it's too oppressive. And likewise if it just has enough output for its (in)accuracy to matter less. For the Hephaestus, this seems more ok because it requires a large slot.
The Heavy Mortar... my impression is (and person experience seems to support it) that it's pretty useful. If it's not the go-to medium HE option, then what is?