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[Dazs]

holy smokes these guns are OP
You know that if you make a weapon do more than five times the damage of it's peers and cost no flux but then make it frag, it's still overpowered, right?

This update was a ship balance pass, I do plan to do a weapon and wing pass after I have addressed some comments about my other mods. I will certainly take your comments in mind when I do so.

Respectfully...

Respect is always appreciated, thank you.

A lot of these would be great if they could get intermingled into the other existing factions.
This seems much less of a Faction and more of a Vanilla edition.

Well there are other aspects of this mod that add to the game that vanilla does not.

• The combat engineer and commissioned crew hull mods
• The custom smuggling quest (I do plan to add more eventually)
• The building/industry are both specific to this faction
• The set up of being in control of of the faction's alignment by using Nexerelin's faction system. You choose if they are Pirates or Neutral smugglers and the mod forces you to make that choice.
• Last, but not least to me, I have received several comments from players appreciating the lore I have built into it as well.

Thats not a bad thing, it's a REALLY good vanilla/independent faction boost.

I do appreciate that, I have been working on this faction for quite some time and am still trying to get it correct.

Thank you both for taking the time to leave me some comments to think upon as I build a to-do list for CFT. I have already received a PM on discord about other changes for this mod so I will bundle that(and any others that come in) and yours into a working changelog. Once I am done updating JYD, HIVER, CJHM and a request for Ore Refinery just came in then CFT will be back in the queue. At this stage I could not give an accurate timeline for a update but, um, stay tuned.

[last_misadventure]

You make really cool stuff. Thanks

I'm experiencing some oddities when trying to refit the large energy mount on the Knarr. This is a new game with the latest (1.9) version. I can't seem to mount any weapon but the Large Pulse Mining blaster--if I try, the new weapon just vanishes. The same thing happens with the Knarr's forward medium energy mounts. Also its drones are built-in--not sure if that's intentional as most the other ships seem to have been unlocked.

[5ColouredWalker]

You make really cool stuff. Thanks

I'm experiencing some oddities when trying to refit the large energy mount on the Knarr. This is a new game with the latest (1.9) version. I can't seem to mount any weapon but the Large Pulse Mining blaster--if I try, the new weapon just vanishes. The same thing happens with the Knarr's forward medium energy mounts. Also its drones are built-in--not sure if that's intentional as most the other ships seem to have been unlocked.

The turrets will be a bug. The fighters aren't. Multiple ships in the lineup are locked to have Tenders/Mining Drones as being mining/salvage ships.
The Tenders are pretty good. Mining Drones are PD.

[Dazs]

holy smokes these guns are OP
You know that if you make a weapon do more than five times the damage of it's peers and cost no flux but then make it frag, it's still overpowered, right?

Your comment spurred me to pause the update I was working on and look over the Electromagnetic line of weapons. When I made them the only damaging frag weapon to base on was the Thumper. All the other frag weapons are PD weapons. So taking the Thumper vs the MED version of the Electro gun, the Rail Cannon, I did a comparison:

The Thumper has a 700 range and does 100dps for 25 energy per shot with a 0.55 chargedown and a burst of 20 with a 0.05 delay proj speed of 800
The Rail Cannon has a 1k range and does 70 dps for for 17 energy per shot with a 0.65 chargedown and a burst of 9 and proj speed of 1100

Now compare the flux/damage, Thumper is 0.25 and the Rail cannon is 0.24 which makes it slightly more efficient. They have roughly the same accuracy and turn rate. The Thumper has an ammo pool and the Rail Cannon does not because my vision was to make it a constant souce of damage like a mining beam, as it is a mining weapon. To balance that I made the burst much lower so when it damages it is more smooth as opposed to the thumper that can unload a massive salvo, especially if you use the Expanded Magazines hull mod. The main difference is that the Rail cannon has a longer range and does some minor emp damage, more to add flavor as I labeled it an electromagnetic weapon than actual use.

Overall I'd say that the Medium is fairly balanced vs it's peer the Thumper. When I release new concept weapons with no direct vanilla analog I do my best but with nothing to compare to I do make mistakes. It is not perfect and upon doing this deep dive I do plan to make it's flux efficiency closer to the Thumper, maybe a little higher. I welcome any other thoughts on the matter as I work on the mod so I can get it right.

You make really cool stuff. Thanks

Why thank you, that is so nice to hear. It is honestly what keeps me trying to improve my mods.

I'm experiencing some oddities when trying to refit the large energy mount on the Knarr. This is a new game with the latest (1.9) version. I can't seem to mount any weapon but the Large Pulse Mining blaster--if I try, the new weapon just vanishes. The same thing happens with the Knarr's forward medium energy mounts. Also its drones are built-in--not sure if that's intentional as most the other ships seem to have been unlocked.

When I made these ships it was with a specific vision in mind and upon further reflection I realized that by releasing the mod to the general public that I was not making it just for me. In the latest patch I addressed this by unlocking weapon mounts and wings on multiple ships. Going over my changelog notes I see that the Knarr did get those turret mounts unlocked but not the drones. Also, I looked at the variant and apparently I did not assign weapons to those now open mounts and that is probably what is causing your mount issue. I apologize for the oopsie as that is clearly an oversight on my part which I will address on the next update. I guess CFT just got bumped up in the to-do queue

[5ColouredWalker]

Overall I'd say that the Medium is fairly balanced vs it's peer the Thumper.

my opinion

I would (And think I have) said that while damage/flux is fine, the medium has 300 range over the thumper (Meaning it's probably worth a couple more points of ordinance.). Similarly with the light one which while damage wise is fine compared to the autocanon (closest point of comparison), it similarly vastly outranges with no increase in ordinance points, and being beam-like better hit chances than dual autocanons and railguns. That one does have a Kinetic/Frag disparity.
The Large is cheap in slot at 14. Closest comparison is the Storm Needler at 28, which is far better (Not gonna rattle off the numbers) but has notably shorter range. The more comparible in OP is the Mark IX Autocanon, which has worse DPS but a much better conversion rate against anything except exposed hull, much better flux, at the trade off of slightly worse accuracy and 100 less range, which is a much smaller distance.

At a guess, I'd peg 'balanced' ordance points to be 6 for small (Longer range than railgun with marginally better accuracy, but Railgun has useful anti-armor properties), 10 for Medium (Longer effective and accurate range than the Heavy Autocanon, which becomes much better and has slight anti-armor benefits at closer range), and 16 for Large (Accuracy is much closer, range distance is smaller, and much better flux efficiency and conversion means that Large is a more questionable pick when going for the 'longest range' option, where Railgun and Carter's Heavy Railgun dual for dominance.)

[close]

Tldr, I think costs should increase to 6/10/16 for each size. However this isn't a weapon focused balance pass so this should probably be saved till later, as is anything else I'd continue on about in the topic.

[Dazs]

Overall I'd say that the Medium is fairly balanced vs it's peer the Thumper.

my opinion

I would (And think I have) said that while damage/flux is fine, the medium has 300 range over the thumper (Meaning it's probably worth a couple more points of ordinance.). Similarly with the light one which while damage wise is fine compared to the autocanon (closest point of comparison), it similarly vastly outranges with no increase in ordinance points, and being beam-like better hit chances than dual autocanons and railguns. That one does have a Kinetic/Frag disparity.
The Large is cheap in slot at 14. Closest comparison is the Storm Needler at 28, which is far better (Not gonna rattle off the numbers) but has notably shorter range. The more comparible in OP is the Mark IX Autocanon, which has worse DPS but a much better conversion rate against anything except exposed hull, much better flux, at the trade off of slightly worse accuracy and 100 less range, which is a much smaller distance.

At a guess, I'd peg 'balanced' ordance points to be 6 for small (Longer range than railgun with marginally better accuracy, but Railgun has useful anti-armor properties), 10 for Medium (Longer effective and accurate range than the Heavy Autocanon, which becomes much better and has slight anti-armor benefits at closer range), and 16 for Large (Accuracy is much closer, range distance is smaller, and much better flux efficiency and conversion means that Large is a more questionable pick when going for the 'longest range' option, where Railgun and Carter's Heavy Railgun dual for dominance.)

[close]

Tldr, I think costs should increase to 6/10/16 for each size. However this isn't a weapon focused balance pass so this should probably be saved till later, as is anything else I'd continue on about in the topic.

I appreciate the breakdown of the other sizes. I had a hard time with those as they had no vanilla counterpart to base them on. I see you did take that into effect and that helps me make a better judgement. I am inclined to keep the OP the same for the QOL reason that increasing it would force players to reequip their ships that have them installed and from personal experience I know that can be quite the balancing act. That being said, I will be adjusting the line with your TLDR notes in mind.

I had set aside a couple hours this afternoon to work on my other mods but the Knarr oopsie makes me feel I should release a hot fix for that ASAP. And since I will be doing a CFT update today, I may as well spend that time I has put aside and incorporate yours and couple other players observations on the last patch and make it an actual patch and not just a Knarr hotfix. I will be starting that in approx. 3 hours and with what I have already, I should have no problem getting a patch out tonight. If anything else comes to mind in that time, I should still have time to add requests to the to-do list.

[Corto]

Hello ! Sorry to bother you with that.

I made a mistake updating my mods. I have a 0.96a-RC10 save I want to keep, but I updated your mod, rendering it incompatible.

Would you be ok with giving me the version that worked with 0.96a?

[Dazs]

Hello ! Sorry to bother you with that.

No worries, never a bother to get a message from someone about my mods.

I made a mistake updating my mods. I have a 0.96a-RC10 save I want to keep, but I updated your mod, rendering it incompatible.

Would you be ok with giving me the version that worked with 0.96a?

Can do, I keep a repository of back editions of my mods on dropbox. Here is a link to v1.7a which is the version prior to the .97a update
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pyuqqf8v46n0hbdz9q72c/Carter-s-Freetraders-1.7a.zip?rlkey=9b4axz7tlmulczhm6xqugsayn&dl=0

Enjoy!

[Dazs]

v1.9.5 released today -Save game compatible - If you have a Knarr in your fleet you will need to re-arm it
   -Narubet: Changed the ability from flare launchers to reserve wing - This change improves the reason to choose it over the newly changed Bawley
   -Dhow: Changed a small turret to a medium, realigned the left fin small turret, added 10 OP and equipped the variant with dual flak - Was under performing and the misaligned image hurt my OCD once I saw it
   -Coventry: Changed all energy and ballistic mounts to hybrid, changed the system to fast missile racks and increased the speed to 65 - Helps it better stand out and the speed allows it to keep up with other CFT ships
   -Kerberos: Increased the max flux by 1k and the flux regen by 200 - It was flux starved and upon review I noticed I had the regen lower than my light cruiser
   -Chester: Increased the max speed, acceleration and deceleration by 10 - As a lightly armed medium carrier it needed to be more nimble to be worth using   
   -Note: The above changes were based on suggestions from 5ColouredWalker and I yet again thank him for the work put in
   -Knarr: Increased the OP to 260, unlocked the wings and armed the variant with a mix of pd and damaging weapons - Fixing an oopsie I made last patch I unlocked some mounts but never armed the variant -TY last_misadventure for letting me know
   -Increased the energy per shot of each weapon in the Electromagnetic line of weapons by 10% -Ty doll for pointing out they needed an adjustment and 5ColouredWalker for comparison suggestions
   -Dingy: Increased the refit from 10 to 12 -Puts it inline with similar bomber wings
   -Blackburn: Increased the refit from 8 to 10 and changed it's tag from bomber3 to bomber5 - same as above + correctly places it in the torpedo bomber class when you refit
   -Updated the all ships image on the forum and discord with the new Dhow

I thank the players who have submitted ideas and suggestions to me here and on discord. I truly believe that my mods are a collaborative effort and together we can made them the best they can be.

[5ColouredWalker]

Darn me falling asleep. You missed the Bawley, which if staying unlocked needs its deployment points readjusted (currently 4 points for 2 wings and 55 ordinance points). Though reserve wing does make the Naruebet the better carrier, and unlocking the Knarr does indicate you're looking to unlock wings more broadly.
If so unlocking the Danube would be interesting. 4 wings is a ton on a destroyer, but it has a lot less ordinance than other carriers so it'd be much more vulnerable using it as a dedicated carrier. A interesting trade off. I think there's one more locked I noted in my previous post patch post


Coventry changing mounts to hybrid allowing 4 mediums ballistic for autoloader then going to fast missile racks is funny, but probably better.

Electromag being more flux inefficient is a easy way to adjust without having to rebuild ship layouts and is a way to make them less autopicky. I'll need to try it before commenting further. Instead of becoming my default ballistic mount it may become '1 for suppression, 1 other kinetic for damage'.

[Dazs]

Spoiler

Darn me falling asleep. You missed the Bawley, which if staying unlocked needs its deployment points readjusted (currently 4 points for 2 wings and 55 ordinance points). Though reserve wing does make the Naruebet the better carrier, and unlocking the Knarr does indicate you're looking to unlock wings more broadly.
If so unlocking the Danube would be interesting. 4 wings is a ton on a destroyer, but it has a lot less ordinance than other carriers so it'd be much more vulnerable using it as a dedicated carrier. A interesting trade off. I think there's one more locked I noted in my previous post patch post


Coventry changing mounts to hybrid allowing 4 mediums ballistic for autoloader then going to fast missile racks is funny, but probably better.

Electromag being more flux inefficient is a easy way to adjust without having to rebuild ship layouts and is a way to make them less autopicky. I'll need to try it before commenting further. Instead of becoming my default ballistic mount it may become '1 for suppression, 1 other kinetic for damage'.

All the other frag weapons are PD weapons.

Yes, and? That doesn't mean that you should ignore the weapons that are flagrantly OP, just because they're labeled PD. I guess that's what you got hung up on, rather than that they were frag.
This

isn't okay. It isn't even vaguely in the same realm as any other gun in the game. It's literally the strongest thing I've seen in the game or a mod worth installing, and not by a narrow margin either.
200 DPS versus shields. 200 damage shots every second versus armor. x4 damage to hull.

Vanilla Competitors

[close]

The paixhan significantly outdamages the pulse laser (again, a good, MEDIUM, 10 OP gun) against armor and hull and does 2/3rds the hard flux, for roughly zero flux usage to fire, in a small slot, for less OP. 200 base versus armor is HUGE. It strips armor better than basically anything in a small slot that's not a single use missile, obliterates ships with stripped armor, and applies huge shield pressure for free (literally, 1/10th the flux/damage of it's competitors, which are designated efficient pressure guns). Keep in mind that a 10 flux a second discount on a weapon that constantly fires (which as a PD gun (for free, without needing the PD AI Smod) it will be) is an 'extra vent' i.e. 1 OP saved. This is a better-than pulse laser that uses a small slot and ~25 less OP.

DPS comparison

Light pulse laser:
shield DPS: 150
shield damage/240 flux: 300
Armor DPS vs. 1000 Armor: 7.14 -> 22.5|15 (85% reduction cap|90% reduction cap)
Armor DPS vs. 500 Armor: 13.63 -> 22.5|15 (85% reduction cap|90% reduction cap)
Hull DPS vs. 1000 base Armor: 75
Flux used: 120
Pulse laser:
shield DPS: 300
shield damage/240 flux: 300
Armor DPS vs. 1000 Armor: 27.27 -> 45|30 (85% reduction cap|90% reduction cap)
Armor DPS vs. 500 Armor: 50
Hull DPS vs. 1000 base Armor: 200
Flux used: 240
Paixhan:
shield DPS: 200
shield damage/240 flux: 3200
Armor DPS vs. 1000 Armor: 33.33
Armor DPS vs. 500 Armor: 57.14
Hull DPS vs. 1000 base Armor: 640
Flux used: 15

[close]

This doesn't need a balance pass. What possible process led you to think that a gun that puts 800 damage shots out every second for free was okay in the first place?
Unironically, halve it's damage, then increase the flux usage.
Culvern also is a vulcan that pays 1 OP (5 vs. 4, same slot) for a more than 50% increase in effectiveness, which is too good but not especially worth writing home about. It's nowhere near the ridiculousness of this warcrime cheatgun, but is overtuned.

Overall I'd say that the Medium is fairly balanced vs it's peer the Thumper. When I release new concept weapons with no direct vanilla analog I do my best but with nothing to compare to I do make mistakes. It is not perfect and upon doing this deep dive I do plan to make it's flux efficiency closer to the Thumper, maybe a little higher. I welcome any other thoughts on the matter as I work on the mod so I can get it right.

I never mentioned the medium EMR, though yes it is a horribly overtuned workhorse gun.
The thumper is a very good gun but they have totally different roles, so it's an odd comparison overall, even if it was the prototype for some of it's stats. In either case, the EMR is significantly superior to the thumper in terms of overall stats because you've given it EMP damage and a staggering, tremendous range increase for free.

The main difference is that the Rail cannon has a longer range and does some minor emp damage, more to add flavor as I labeled it an electromagnetic weapon than actual use.

Longer range on an actual longrange gun is a huge deal - though it's conventionally paid for in OP rather than flux ratio - and you've given the EMR 1000. It outranges everything that isn't designated for that role and it doesn't pay for this range in any way, and should be 10-12 OP for being a 1000 range thumper alone.

some minor emp damage, more to add flavor as I labeled it an electromagnetic weapon than actual use.

Minor EMP damage? It's over a quarter the EMP damage of the ion beam, which does all but nothing besides EMP. It's a little under half the EMP damage of the Mjolnir (and the gun appropriately has about half the DPS of the Mjolnir, but gives up armor stripping for hull shredding). The flux per shot should be bumped up to account for the EMP or the EMP removed (I wrote everything before this sentence without having seen your update).

Increased the energy per shot of each weapon in the Electromagnetic line of weapons by 10% -Ty doll for pointing out they needed an adjustment and 5ColouredWalker for comparison suggestions

This neatly addresses the the flux efficiency of the free EMP, but in no way the range of the gun. The EMR is still by far the OP cheapest longrange pressure gun.
(From what I recall the small and large were somewhat mediocre but I haven't done a comparison)

Edit: added damage comparison, fixed spelling error

[close]

Thank you both for your detailed follow up messages. Rather than spam the channel, I placed both comments under spoilers so they are in one post that I can review later. I will take both observations into account in the next CFT update. I am however backed up on updates on my other mods and have already given CFT 11 hours between the last two updates so It'll be awhile before I can address these issues. Please add any additional future comments as I tinker with the other mods. I do welcome them and will also take them into consideration once CFT comes around back in the update queue.

[5ColouredWalker]

Done some testing and I'll put this here publiclly

The paixhan significantly outdamages the pulse laser (again, a good, MEDIUM, 10 OP gun

Having tested it, I have the feeling that Paixhan was actually based off the Flak Canon and then given 800 damage like the other Carter's light PD. Clearly a oversight and on testing a massive one.

As for the Culvern vs Vulcan. Vulcan is 20 flux/second for 500 dps in 25 damage bursts. Culvern is 200 Flux per second for 800 damage per second in 8 damage bursts. In theory you could use it for chewing through hull once you've gotten to it but it'd be a tiny range and flux hungry monster to it, even in comparison to the light dual machine gun which for all it's theoretical 416 dps vs shields costs 25/second. I'm pretty sure as PD the Culvern and Fog of War are closer to unusable. But I'll given them another try later.

Minor EMP damage? It's over a quarter the EMP damage of the ion beam

As for the EMP comparison with the Ion Beam, I'm not sure I've ever seen the Electromag guns ever disable something without far more fire than the Ion Beam would need to put in, at which point more damaging weapony might have disabled it anyway (because raw damage does do that). I've a feeling armor protects against emp in a similar way to small vs little shots. I'm not sure how well a 10% flux cost increase will work compared to increasing ordinance points like I previously suggested, I'll need to try using them in battle later.

But I've a feeling Dazs' a little burned out on CFT, so I'm not in a rush to test. But for abusing CFT, get the Bawley and the Paixhan while they're still broken.

[doll]

I think it's clear at this point that this is a troll mod designed to waste people's time

I'll avoid appearing in this travesty's patch history again thankyou very much

[apogee4lyfe69]

This 1.9 update letting us fully kit out carriers is amazing, great job to everyone involved.

Respectfully...

A lot of these would be great if they could get intermingled into the other existing factions.

This seems much less of a Faction and more of a Vanilla edition. Thats not a bad thing, it's a REALLY good vanilla/independent faction boost.

You can do this yourself by editing Nexerelin's data/world/factions/independent.faction file, just look at the CFT.faction file from this mod and copy over the relevant parts of the knownShips array. Usually you can get most ships by just copying the "cft_bp" tag but in some cases hulls aren't tagged (special ships mostly) and you'll need to copy the contents of the "hulls" array over.

[Dazs]

I think it's clear at this point that this is a troll mod designed to waste people's time

I am sorry to hear you feel that way, I did my best to address your points.

I'll avoid appearing in this travesty's patch history again thankyou very much

OK I still intend to make some changes to the mod with your observations in mind. I will follow your request and not add my standard thank you in this or JYD's changelogs.

This 1.9 update letting us fully kit out carriers is amazing, great job to everyone involved.

Excellent thank you, I'll pass it along to 5ColouredWalker if he does not notice it as it was his breakdowns that convinced me to do it.

You can do this yourself by editing Nexerelin's data/world/factions/independent.faction file, just look at the CFT.faction file from this mod and copy over the relevant parts of the knownShips array. Usually you can get most ships by just copying the "cft_bp" tag but in some cases hulls aren't tagged (special ships mostly) and you'll need to copy the contents of the "hulls" array over.

I do not have any module ships in this mod so adding the cft.bp tag should add all of them. Thank you for adding to the correspondence.