Greetings,
I have taken it onto myself to revive
this great mod, which I adore very much, for the current version of the game. (
and it barely took 2.5 years to get there) Some of my first Starsector experiences involved this mod all the way back to when Starsector didn't even have a galaxy map. In consequence I can't think about playing the game without it anymore, and also consider these the best sprites around both in realism and design. As I recently really wanted to try out the new version with all those interesting 4x elements, there was finally no other option than to do the work and lift it to the new standard.
Now, you might have seen some of those ship in Weftin's mod as well, but he only created his own ship fantasy using some of the open source sprites available from the original mod, so it was in no way an attempt of actual mod revival.
Anyway, I can now pronounce that the updating is complete and tested.(and wasn't at all as difficult as people made it out to be too with that supposed 0.9 hurdle...)
Since I mainly did this for personal use at first, I ended up with two versions to release:
Standardhttps://www.mediafire.com/file/ad5n9wkhir7ooma/Interstellar_Federation_Refurbished.rar/fileThis version is true to the original in all regards and intents. The collision meshes are all cleaned up and simplified greatly, but turret slots and ship stats are otherwise untouched. The issue with this might be that the old 0.6-0.8 balancing might not really apply exactly anymore though, so feel free to express what shortcomings you see.
All blueprints can be found in form of packages by exploration in the game, so no need for a command mod.Unbalancedhttps://www.mediafire.com/file/sdip8ydy39m4m9p/Interstellar_Federation_Refurbished_-unbalanced-.rar/fileThis is the version I play on, where the Federation tech represents some lost marvels of engineering.(yes, even more lost than usual) Consequently all ships are about 20% better in all, armor, hull, flux-capacity + venting, and even ordnance. Also the fuel consumption and capacity are upgraded such that the travel range effectively doubles, because I wanted to play a distant empire far out from the core. Some minor other adjustments too, but nothing too noteworthy. These ships are very pricy as a downside.
In the ship meshes most larger classes replace all their numerous 'small ballistic' slots with 'small universal' ones, which shifts the gameplay much towards more effective PD lasers for me.
Some weapons are also somewhat more far ranging, slightly stronger, and have greater magazine capacity. I also moved the Dual Lancer Torpedo to medium from large, which can change fighting style a lot if properly utilized.
All in all, despite being "unbalanced", it is still far from the ludicrous levels of the good looking, well styled Musashi Manufactorum mod, where I needed to nerf all the weapons by up to factor 4 in damage because they broke the game so much.(..and that is their 'standard' release)Artifact prototypesOn top of this, both versions have something extra from me sprinkled in for more adventure. Rare artifact blueprints of 4 major ship classes can be discovered, which, again, have about 20-30% higher statistics over their standard counterpart, except mostly for propulsion related things.(the "feel" should stay the same) They also have slightly changed sprites to accommodate a different outfit style:
They also have nicer engine lighting to accompany the feeling of advancement:
Notice that I named the better large carrier "Ocean class" here, which is the only name adaption I did. The first time I saw this mod and got this ship, that was the first word that jumped into my mind. The play experience with this ship was then so formative to me, that henceforth every good looking large carrier I had in any game had to be named "Ocean" in my mind.
I am generally really pleased with the naming scheme Keptin came up with. Only this last one stands out, because "Titan" is just somewhat generic, and simply not a fitting name for a ship in carrier role, as it implies visions of brutish strength rather than that of an advanced floating mobile city-fortress. (You still have the original in "Standard" though)
So these are the only real additions I made to the original mod, and I think that is ok, since no original files were harmed, and the extra can be voluntarily ignored if off taste.
The ShipsHere are all the ship sprites copied over from Keptin's original post in oversight:
Spoiler
-Capital Ships-Titan-class Carrier, Auria-class Battleship, Antares-class Battlecruiser, Yukon-class Prototype Destroyer
-Cruisers-Ares-class Heavy Destroyer, Ballista-class Anti-Capital Cruiser, Mercury-class Prototype Gunship, Montana-class Utility Cruiser, Helios Assault Ship
-Destroyers-Vixen-class Missile Ship, Shogun-class Electronic Warfare Ship, Zephyr-class Strike Carrier, Defiant-class Heavy Gunship, Toa-Class Destroyer
-Frigates-Albatross-class Attack Ship, Scythe-class Interceptor, Dakota-class Frigate, Orion-class Hypertug, Rickshaw-class Strike Frigate, Echo-class Scout Ship
-Fighters-Hornet Fighter, Draken Interceptor, Foxbat Fighter, Tracer Heavy Bomber
-Industrial Ships-Mazerk-class Superbarge, Tahoe-class Cargo Barge, Trexel-class Fuel Barge
Spoiler
Omega Device, Lancer Torpedo dual, quad, single, Piranha Anti-Fighter Missile Launcher, Riptide & Locktide MLRS, Harpy MRM Pod:
Hadron Accelerator, Nucleon Ram, Cyclotron Eviscerator
Cain, Peacemaker, Citadel PD, Mass Driver, HV50 Autogun, HV75 Autogun, HV100 Autogun, Thunderchief:
Although the 3+1 superweapons are technically still in the game, I made the drop rate of their blueprints extremely low, so they are only there formally. Mainly because they aren't really necessary as the ships are plenty powerful and struggling with ordnance anyway. You can still introduce them with command or by upping the rarity rating in weapon_data.csv .
Two bothersome issues- While testing all ships, the only problem I faced on the ships themselves is that the teleport ability of the supercarrier didn't look as good as it used to in older versions. It kind of just plops out and into existence without much of a large flash that used to accompany the procedure before. If someone knows how to remedy this, I would incorporate it promptly.
- Secondly, -this might be because my understanding of the faction mechanic is still not complete-, but when I found my own faction and enable nothing but Interstellar Federation ship and weapon blueprints, for some reason they still don't get chosen by the AI, and I end up with just your common shabraques. Maybe someone can explain. Is this because the game doesn't actually care much for your chosen BPs (a mere "suggestion" like the Canadian constitution), or is there some sort of tinkering involved that needed to be done but I missed out on?
The Future of the ModI mostly made this mod for my own gameplay to be fun, and then decided to share the fruits. See it more as an "as is" release, so while I might be around a bit to address some immediate issues, I certainly wont shepherd it around for months and years to come. ..Though I might be back updating it if a Starsector urge comes for a new update, and no one has done it yet by themselves.
I can guarantee for nothing however, so everyone is free to take it and carry the torch of this great mod on. (isn't it nice that I can praise this very post so much, because I didn't make this myself?
)
Special Thanks to Keptin, and my goddamn borderline clinical perfectionist obsession of having to have my games exactly as I want them to be, and no different!
(once more, more time spent modding than playing...)
//Edit: Removed some words over Weftin's Ship pack, which took some sprite resources from the original.
