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[Mephansteras]

Stardust Ventures


Download Mod

Requires MagicLib

Requires LazyLib

Optional LunaLib

Older versions

Stardust Ventures was a minor shipyard during the years of the Domain, focused almost exclusively on the creation of long range exploration and colonization ships. Their proprietary core system allowed safe passage through hyperspace storms and other dangerous phenomena. With the collapse of the gate system, however, many of the crucial parts necessary are now no longer available, and the company was forced to make do with what can be created locally. The instability of the sector and its growing piracy also spurred the creation of a whole combat line of ships to help escort what were once the primary focus of the entire enterprise. These days the company has carved out a small niche in the sector, selling ships and weapons to various factions and independent explorers. It is uncertain if such a relatively weak group can maintain that neutrality forever or if they will be subsumed into one of the larger powers.

Their ships are light, fast Midline equivalents that excel at long distance exploration missions. All of the mainline ships have extended fuel range, larger than normal fuel tanks, and built in resistance to hyperspace hazards. While they integrate well with any midline or high-tech fleet, the Stardust Ventures ships are designed to work best as a cohesive fleet. In fact, the more of them in your fleet the higher a bonus to agility you get for the entire fleet in hyperspace!

The shipyard also provides some standardized 'Export' versions of some ships to the main factions for use in the core worlds.


NOTE: 0.9.0 is Not save compatible with any previous version of Stardust Ventures, and requires Starsector 0.98a or above.

This mod is fairly configurable, and is safe to add mid-save.

The Faction can be turned on or off, so if you just want it to be a ship/weapon pack you can do that. This is supported both using Lunalib as well as the standard mod config file. (Luna options take precedence)

The mod will also (optionally) add Stardust Ventures shops on select Independent planets. By default, this will be Ilm, Agreus, and Baetis, although you can configure the mod to spawn on additional planets if you wish. These shops will generally appear on the largest available independent worlds.

If the Faction is enabled, Venture Industries will also always have a Shop.

Both the Faction and the Shops will be added to an existing save if enabled.

The Stardust Ventures Systems

Home to the Stardust Ventures corporation, the Talia system sits a bit northeast of the core worlds and makes an excellent home base for exploration expeditions.

The faction will also initially colonize two random but relatively safe systems out in the fringes. Wayfarer's Rest and Mystical Grilltopia are small, but should prove to be valuable exploration hubs and safe harbors for the player.

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Mainline Ships

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Export Ships

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Special Ship

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Pirate Ships

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Weapons

Proton Guns - Ballistic shell weapons that do Energy damage and EMP

Diana's Darts, Arrows, and Spears - Fires guided high explosive projectiles with a special feature that causes then to shatter into kinetic needs upon contact with shields. Built for the Sindrian Diktat, but can be found on SDV and mercenary ships as well.

Fel Weapons (Free-Electron Lasers) - Pulse energy weapons with longer range than vanilla pulse lasers, lower damage, with a bit of EMP thrown in.

Plasma casters - Good damage against both hull and armor with a fairly low OP and flux cost, the plasma casters only real drawback is their slow fire rate and mediocre ability to take down shields on their own.

Mist Point Defense System - Slow firing but very cost effective energy based PD

Cloudburst missile launchers - Fires a guided missile that splits apart near the target into multiple warheads. These warheads explode into large clouds of charged energy. Effective both as area of effect defense against missiles and fighters and for finishing off damaged ships, the Cloudburst makes for a good multi-purpose combat missile.

Lithobreaker Torpedo launchers - Fires a guided torpedo that releases a high powered kinetic shot at the target when in range. Useful in both mining and warfare.

Streak MRMs - Very fast guided missiles with fairly low payloads. Excellent for taking out smaller vessels. Comes in Amber (frag), Azure (kinetic), Crimson (energy)

Scorpion Beam - A power hungry but versatile support beam that can safely fire over allies

Pirate Weapon - The Walloper, two Thumpers strapped together for twice the fun! Makes for a really cheap large slot weapon, and can prove surprisingly effective in the right situations


Walloper

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Misc Lore

Timeline:
Pre-Collapse <0c : Small shipyard focused on exploration/colonization ships

Venture Industries and Stardust Hall settled to provide Persean Sector manufacturing base and living quarters for local executives and workers.

Collapse 0c - 50c : Loss of specialized equipment and support cuts off the company from most of its vendors. Local factory is retooled to provide as much as possible, though with diminished capabilities.

Brabant 62c : Settled by independent minded workers, the colony initially focuses on mining and later expands to refining to support the SDV industries in Talia.

First AI War (~100c) : CEO Brandon Silverlight makes the decision to stay neutral. This causes and end to any ongoing joint development work with Tri-Tachyon and a chilling of relations. Hegemony accepts the neutrality provided the company begins to build warships. A similar deal is struck with the League. Neither side is happy with the Company, but has much bigger issues to deal with.

Warlord Loke's invasion 160c: Increased pirate raiding and dangers prompts the formation of the System Defense Force military HQ under the now famous Commander Monoco and an increase in internal fleet development.

Rise of the Sindrian Diktat 182c: Sindria contracts with the now famously neutral shipyard to work on warships that fit with the Solar Shielding doctrine of the Diktat. Joint work between Sindrian engineers, Tri-Tachyon scientists, and Stardust engineering dramatically improve the capabilities of the Stardust Core systems following breakthroughs in the Solar Shielding technology.

Second AI war 189c: CEO Cameron Olympus follows tradition and refuses to be involved in anything other than a manufacturing capacity for either side. Relations with Tri-Tachyon sour further, and contracts are broken. While some SDV hulls are in use by TT, no new orders are made.

CEO retires 204c: Cameron Olympus retires, leaving the company in the hands of the capable but relatively young Ravenna Silverlight, great-granddaughter of Brandon Silverlight.

Star Seeker Initiative: 205c : Captain Danlia convinces Ravenna and the board to approve the expansion of the company out beyond the core worlds to make use of the rich resources, many long forgotten, throughout the sector. Wayfarer's Rest and the whimsically named Mystical Grilltopia are founded and serve as hubs for the increased exploration efforts.

[Player arrives in 206c]

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If you are running Nexerelin, the mod has a custom start called A Golden Ticket, which starts you off with a VIP version of the Storm Seeker carrier and a bundle of Stardust Ventures blueprints. Perfect if you want to quickly jump into a SDV run!

NOTE: This mod is still in development, so expect a good bit of change as things get tested, balanced, cleaned up, and generally tweaked.

Thanks to Quacken for custom portraits, Tecrys for Midline ship version assistance, Lylhm for new Sound Effects, Nissa for finding typos, theDragn for help with campaign map movement modding, ruddygreat, Wisp, Lukas04, PureTilt, and Vanilla for helping me get past some code hurdles, and the Unofficial Discord folks in general for help with all of this!

EVE Copyright stuff

"Non-commercial sites may use content and resources from the official EVE Online website under the condition that the copyright notice below is displayed prominently on each page where those items appear. When using materials or content that was originally published elsewhere, proper credit must be given to the original author and used only by permission. When using content, including forum posts or blog entries, from the official EVE Online site, please include the name of the contributor and a link to the post or location of the content you're using."

Thanks to celestis for the old Eve ships mod which I used as part of the kitbashing to make these ships originally.
Everything is pretty much new and only inspired by the EVE stuff, now, but keeping this in anyway.

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Change log

v0.1.1 = Initial upload
v0.1.2 = Vortex Hunter takes over the Light Cruiser role from the Storm Herald, which is now more in line with the Eagle.
           Various rebalancing to make the ships more consistent with things like shield effectiveness and fuel efficiency.
           Added the new pirate hull the Cosmic Fury.
v0.1.3 = Additional balancing of various hulls
             Added the Storm Bringer battlecruiser, Warp Diver Electronic Warfare destroyer, Comet Tail missile frigate, and Plasma Burst superfighter.
             Bumped up the size of the Solar Flare's sprite & bound box to be more appropriate for its hull size
v0.2.0 = Renamed the tags for all files from sv_ to stardust_ (this will break saves!)
              Art pass on all of the Frigates
              Some minor balance tweaks
v02.1 =  Swapped out the carrier decks as requested
v0.2.2 = Added two new weapons, the dual proton gun and heavy proton gun.
              Added the new weapons to some variants
              Small modifications to the Ion Skimmer and Comet Tail sprites     
v0.2.3 = Compatible with 0.95.1a-RC6
              Art rework of the Starlight Guard
              Stats rebalance of the Starlight Guard   
              Added three new pulse laser weapons, the Fel Repeater, Fel Pulsar, and Fel Cannon. Longer ranger than the vanilla Pulse weapons but do a bit less
damage.
v0.2.4 = Art rework of the Warp Diver, Stargazer, and Sunbeam Rider
              Added a new missile type, the Cloudburst. A mirv weapon like the Sabot that does wide AOE designed to take out groups of missiles and fighters. 
v0.3.1 = Added in a new fighter, the Meteorite
              Added a new proton gun, the single-barrel light proton gun
              Added a Large mount Cloudbust weapon, the Stormfront launcher
              Art rework on the Vortex Hunter and Cosmic Wind ships
              Art rework on the Fel Pulsar and Fel Cannon to make them more distinct from vanilla energy weapons.
v0.4.1 = REQUIRES A NEW SAVE
              Added in a new fighter, the Stormwing
              Art rework on the Storm Herald, Void Nomad, and Starlight Raider ships
              Rebalance of abilities on the Starlight Raider and the weapon mounts on the Storm Herald and Void Nomad
v0.4.2 = Art rework of the Solar Flare
              Rebalance  of hull mods and stats on the Solar Flare
              Added in Moonbreaker bomber wing and Stormlight gunship wing
              Added in Lithobreaker torpedoes and double, pod, and barrage versions(s/m/l)
              Added in nex mining capabilities to the Void Nomad and Lithobreaker torpedoes
v0.4.3 = Art replacement of the Storm Bringer
             Major rebalancing of the Storm Bringer
             Added custom faction skins for the Plasma Burst - Persean League, Hegemony, Sindrian Diktat, Mercenaries           
v0.5.0 = MAY BREAK SAVES
             Added in a new Destroyer, the Storm Seeker
             Reworked the Cosmic Fury into the Cosmic Horror with new art and some big stats/hardpoint adjustments
             Added in a new weapon type, the Plasma Caster with Small, Medium, and Large slot versions
             Added in a new Large proton gun, the Proton Autocannon
             Added in a new Large version of the Thumper, the Walloper
v0.5.1 = Added in a new variant of the Storm Seeker that swaps the large mount for a fighter bay
             Added in a new set of weapons, Diana's Dart/Arrow/Spear with Frag, HE, and Kinetic versions of each
v0.5.2 = Bugfix to prevent issues on Linux systems
v0.5.3 = Added the Oort Traveler, twin-linked fel repeater, and quad-linked fel repeater
             Updated the sprites for a few ships
             Adjusted the stats on a few ships to improve balance
             Fel weapon shots are now a bit more blue looking
             Moved the Diana's Dart/Arrow/Spear to being Sindrian Diktat and merc only, and actually gave some factions access to the Cloudburst pod, Stormfront launcher, and Stormlight gunship
v0.6.0 = BIG CHANGES - MAY MAKE SAVES WONKY
          NOW REQUIRES LazyLib and MagicLib
          Solar Shielding swapped out for Stardust Core Drive, which has slightly weaker effects but also adds a fleetwide boost to campaign map agility, up to 50% improvement for all-SV fleets
          Added in Stardust Engine Enhancements hullmod, which gives +1 burn, +10% combat speed, and +20% maneuverability.
          Cosmic Wind is now cheaper to deploy and maintain
          Warp Diver has more OP and better flux stats but costs more to deploy and maintain
          Adjusted some loadouts and ship variants, particularly for the Warp Diver
          Stardust Venture blueprints have been split out of the midline pack and into two packs, one for civilian and one for military
          Did some rebalancing of which factions get access to what bps
          Added Industrial Evolution integration for reverse engineering and ship duplication
          Fixed a sound issue with the linked fel and fel battery weapons
          Added versioning support and direct download for SMOL         
          Various bugfixes
          Various minor art tweaks      
v0.6.1 = Bugfix
           Fixed an issue with the version checking files   
v0.7.0 = Starsector 0.96 Update
          Updated code to handle MagicLib changes
          Added new ship, the Celestial Guide
          Added new fighter, the Gamma Racer
          Added new weapon, the FEL pds
          Updated graphics for the Starlight Guard
          Upped Stardust Core fleet agility boost to 100% max bonus from 50%
          Tweaks to various variant loadouts
          Tweaked Faction usage of SV ships/equipment to better fit new lore
v0.7.1 = Added Environmental Shielding hullmod
       Added Mist PDS
       Added Amber, Azure, Crimson, and Violet Streak MRMs (in small/med/large mount sizes)
       Fixed Celestial Guide not showing up as often as it should
       Fixed Celestial Guide not giving the intended 30% nav penalty reduction
       Updated the Gamma Racer to also use a Mist PDS
       Updated some variant loadouts to include the new weapons
       Updated the Exploration ships to include built-in Environmental Shielding (Horizon Chaser, Stargazer, and Void Nomad)
v0.7.2 = HOTFIX for the Celestial Guide harmonics crash
v0.7.3 = Added Twilight Defiance missile cruiser
       Fixed Environmental Shielding not showing up as often as it should
       Updated engines to have a little less smoke in the contrail
       Adjusted Independents to use SDV ships a little less often
       Adjusted some descriptions
       Added S-Mod bonus for engine mod
v0.7.4 = Added Fel Defender and Guardian
         Added Proton Gun Battery and Heavy Proton Battery
       Art update for Plasma Burst, Storm Seeker, Vortex Hunter, and Cosmic Wind
       Cosmic Wind gains a new unique ship system
       Updated various weapon stats
       Updated Storm Runner stats (slightly tankier, slightly slower, better flux dsp.)
       Mercenaries get their elite Plasma Burst
       Color shift for Proton weapons and Fel PDS based weapons
       (Linux) Fixed a capitalization issue that could cause crashes
       Added VIP version of the Storm Seeker (c) as a rare blueprint
       Added a Custom Nex start using the VIP ship that includes the two base Stardust Ventures blueprint packages
       Updated various variant loadouts
       Rebalanced the Stormwing fighters
       Save compatable, HOWEVER some OP costs have changed so your ships may be over/under on existing saves
v0.8.0 = Added Stardust Ventures Store to some Indy markets
       VIPs get special treatment
       Added mod configuration files and Lunalib support
       Scavengers can now use some SDV ships
       Toned down SDV ship usage in most factions
       Art update for Sunbeam Rider
       Save compatible, stores WILL generate in markets on game load after update if enabled.
v0.8.1 = Updated some ship variant loadouts
       Fel Guardians are less common (autofit was abusing it to the detriment of AI ships)
       Fixed an issue that was causing crashes with Java 7
v0.8.2 = Added unique base for Streak MRM (double) versions
            Fixed market blacklist not working
       Fix - Golden Ticket start now gets a skill point
       Art updates for Horizon Chaser and Void Nomad
       Horizon Chaser now has Advance Survey Drones (This reduced the available OP slightly)
       Updated various variant loadouts
v0.8.3 = Starsector 0.97 Update
       Extended the shield bubble for Vortex Hunter
       Tweaked some weapon arcs
       Updated some descriptions
       Rebalanced some ship stats, and gave Solar Flare Harmonic Winds instead of Active Flare system
       Rebalanced some weapon stats
       Added Stardust Ventures ship name list
       Added the Scorpion Beam weapon
       The Twilight Defiance's internal Streak MRMs now have slow ammo regen
       Reduced Moonbreaker wing size down to 2, as well as OP cost to 14
       Updated some variant loadouts
v0.9.0 = FACTION UPDATE - Save Breaking!!
       Added Stardust Ventures as a faction
       Added Talia star system
       Added random location colonies
       Added Unique characters
       Updated wing classifications
       Added a midline export versions of the Storm Runner, Storm Seeker, Storm Herald, and Comet Tail
       Updated some id typos
       Updated many variants
       Updated Scorpion Beam graphics
       Added Wyvern Beam
       Resprites of the Storm Herald, Storm Bringer
       Added the Monoco Storm Bringer variant
       Storm Heralds and Storm Bringers now use the Storm Surge ship system. Export heralds still use maneuvering jets.
       Added 4 new hullmods to specialize Celestial Guides
       Restricted the Hegemony, League, and Diktat to subsets of SDV gear and removed most from Tri-Tachyon.
       Cloudburst missile line is more expensive but now regenerates ammo
       Added the Moonlight Walker small logistics vessel so SDV doesn't use drams for fuel.
       Fel PDS line now has ammo charges
       Reworked the Diana's Dart/Arrow/Spear. They now use proper guided projectiles instead of missiles, always do HE damage base, but have an on-hit that does kinetic against shields.
       Ion Skimmer now has Shielded cargo holds      
v0.9.1 = HOTFIX
       Fixed a crash from the description of the Celestial Guide Harmonic Enhancer hullmod
v0.9.2 = HOTFIX
       Fixed an issue that forced the faction to always spawn, even if configured to be off   
v0.9.3 = World Gen update
       Bunch of updates to the faction spawning system to make it more reliable and consistant when added mid-save instead of starting with the faction enabled
       The Export ships are now listed as Midline style instead of Stardust Ventures
       Added a few debris fields to the sector for some additional exploration loot
v0.9.4 = Crash Fix
      Fixed a crash with nex random sector and adjusted sector
      Added SDV Ship name list
      Fixed Cloudburst missile description

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[Mephansteras]

Mod notes:

• All of the mainline ships in this pack are faster than most vanilla ships with considerably less hull, armor, and flux capacity to balance this. They are all solidly Midline, restricted to Front shields, and do not get things like teleportation or phase. All of them now have built in a Stardust Core Field hullmod to allow for somewhat less risky travel through hyperspace as well as better fleetwide agility on the campaign map. They also generally have better fuel efficiency and often hold more fuel and less cargo than similar vanilla vessels.
• This mod is designed to be balanced against vanilla ships, weapons, etc only. I'm not terribly concerned how well it mixes with other mods and factions, at least a this point.

General planned stuff (no set timeline for any of it)

• Integrate Ontheheavens' Forge Production into a set of custom capital ships to really let you wander the our regions of the sector for long periods of time
• Add exploration content
• Add questlines and something that uses the Colony Crisis system
• Change Danlia from a military contact to an Exploration contact, especially for the systems that the two randomly placed colonies end up in
• Have Danlia purchase survey data for a mix of credits and rep
• Have Ravenna purchase colony items, and maybe blueprints for a mix of credits and rep
• New ship using the Fleet shield from the Star Federation mod. (I have permission, just need to get around to it)
• New hullmod for the Stargazer to make it more interesting as an exploration ship
• New Exploration capital ship that makes having more exploration ships in your fleet useful in various ways
• Resprites of a bunch of the older ships, plus cores that turn off when the ship is venting/overloaded
• Crossmod content? Might be fun to have Sierra interact with a non-evil company, for instance.

[6chad.noirlee9]

Looks interesting.

[Mephansteras]

Put some more work into this. I've done some re-balancing and added in two new ships.

The Cosmic Wind now has its sister hull, the Vortex Hunter:



I've also added in a Pirate section which is what I'm using rejected designs for.

[6chad.noirlee9]

Ah. the rejects love more rejects.

[Mephansteras]

Heh. We'll see how it goes. I actually haven't had too many rejected hull designs so far.

Right now I think I'm looking at 6 more ships planned for the pack.

A Battlecruiser, which will be the heaviest combat-focused ship this pack gets since it's more of a swift strike set and not so much on heavy line combat.
An electronic warfare ship, either frigate or destroyer sized.
Another frigate/destroyer. Probably a missile boat of some sort. Size would be whichever isn't used for the EW ship.
A capital sized Exploration/Flagship. Not a true dedicated combat ship, but strong enough to work as a flagship while still being focused on Exploration.
A capital sized Refinery/Forge ship based on Ontheheavens Forge Production hull mods.
A capital sized general logistics ship with a starborne city motif. Pondering trying to give it some slow commercial goods/farming/crew production as well. Would have large minimum crew requirements, but also fits the "stay out on the rim for extended periods of time" theme of the pack.

Thoughts? Anything I'm missing that you'd love to see in this pack?

[Mephansteras]

Currently working on testing out my new battlecruiser, the Storm Bringer class


And a WIP missile frigate, the Comet Tail:

[Mephansteras]

A bit more testing and balancing to do, but I expect I'll have v0.1.3 up this weekend.

This one normalizes some more of the stats across the ship pack and adds in some new ships. In addition to the Storm Bringer and Comet Tail, we have the Warp Diver (EWar Destroyer) and the Plasma Burst (basically a frigate classed fighter).
         

Plasma Burst wasn't really part of my intended plans, but it just kind of came together. It's kind of neat and can be fun to fly, but isn't terribly powerful. Still, it can make a decent little escort ship and works pretty well for anti-fighter duty if you don't have any fighters of your own.

I might hold off on the non-combat Capital Ships until I get to the hull mods they'll need to be interesting.

So next release after this will probably be v0.2, which will move on to adding in some weapons to the pack.

[Mephansteras]

v0.1.3 is now up.

I am going to hold off on the last few capital ships for now and move on to some of the other bits. So next up is weapons.

I may end up shifting the Storm Bringer's design to one of the non-combat hulls at some point. I like it, but not really as a combat ship for this pack. It'll probably end up being the city-ship.

On the whole, though, I'm pretty pleased with the balance I have so far. The ships feel pretty good, they don't look terribly out of place compared to the vanilla art while still looking distinctive, and they are fun to use without feeling OP.

[Mephansteras]

Started doing an art pass on the ships. I'll probably end up doing multiple of these, but it's a good start.

Also made the mod items less likely to collide with other mods by changing the prefix of all the tags.

[Thaago]

Please do respect this Mephansteras and remove those parts: DME is published under a no-derivatives license and the mod's FAQ explicitly asks others not to use their sprites or portions of them.

There is a sprite thread here: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12896.135
and here: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=1131.0
which are all free for use if you want parts/inspiration.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, I'll get the flight decks replaced. Sorry about that!

[Mephansteras]

Carrier decks have been replaced.

I do apologize for that. I had just skimmed things in the thread and the license and had mistakenly assumed it was similar to many creative commons style licenses that I'd encountered in other areas where using stuff was fine as long as you didn't claim it was yours or try to make money off of it. Good reminder to make sure I read things more carefully in the future and not make assumptions! Won't happen again.

[Mephansteras]

v0.2.2 is out.

Added in two new weapons, the dual proton gun and the heavy proton gun. These are both basically mini-mjonirs. The dual is pretty long range point defense gun that is also good at disabling ships. The heavy is better vs ships, though still not great against strong armor. They seem to do well when paired with anti-armor weaponry.

They probably need more balance tuning, but so far they seem to work pretty well and have a nice distinctive look to them. I've added them to some of my ship variants. Mostly the smaller classes of ships.

Other than that I did some tweaks to the Ion Skimmer and Comet Tail. They're getting a bit closer to how I think they'll ultimately end up looking.

[Mephansteras]

0.2.3 is up!

Redid the sprite for the Starlight Guard, which looks a bit beefier now and more like the tanky light destroyer that it is. Also did some light rebalancing of it.

           
       Old                             New
       
I've also added in a few more weapons. New pulse lasers this time.

Fel Weapons (Free-Electron Lasers)
                                          
Fel Repeater       Fel Pulsar      Fel Cannon 



Next up is the sprite re-work for the Warp Diver and Stargazer class ships as well as a new missile or two.