Alright, first impressions after finally getting to play the mod:
Very impressive, what you've been able to do with the game. I admire your dedication to this project, with the many updates I've seen to this in only one month. I find how angle changes armor penetration particularly interesting, and the ricochets are very fun to watch.
However, I do have some gripes, mostly due to personal taste. The game feels much more chaotic, most certainly, with this mod enabled. I can hardly tell what's going on, at least at first, during even somewhat larger battles. To some extent I like that, not knowing exactly what's going on makes the strategy much more difficult, and increases the possible skill ceiling, as you learn how the game works, and that's great. But with how much overlap with the massive ranges, and ludicrous projectile speeds, it almost feels like fights are pure slugfests, with little outmaneuvering possible. I'm sure that with enough experience I could find the subtle ways to maneuver and strategize in such a game, but it's very different from what I'm used to with vanilla, and I really liked how vanilla felt with how battle strategy worked, with its ship speeds and weapon ranges and scale.
Past the gripes, I am very, very much loving the way you changed range. Frigates being able to get much closer to larger ships is definitely how it should have been, but due to vanilla range, and with integrated targeting unit being essentially standard, that was hardly the case. With a very maneuverable frigate, you could maybe dodge some of the weapons of larger ships, and get into attack range, but this was a difficult and risky maneuver. In this mod, frigates are actually threatening to larger ships due to their evasiveness. However, this unfortunately largely goes unnoticed, if it even practically works out, due to the aforementioned chaos and overlapping ranges of larger battles.
So far, what I have found most fun for me, and I think for others overwhelmed by the chaos of this mod, is toggling off all ship, fighter, and weapon changes. It makes the game feel much more similar to vanilla in how the grander battle strategy and movement and such feel, while retaining the 3D targeting feature, which is honestly something I do not think I can go without at this point.
However, the issues with this are threefold:
1, The difference in weapon ranges is quite extreme with the 3D targeting system. This is a fairly minor issue, and may or not cause much actual imbalance. Honestly, this is the least of the problems we face with the changes toggling off your changes to weapons and ships causes.
2, This makes citadel hits extremely unlikely, essentially. As the cannon classification no longer exists, few weapons deal enough damage to get into the citadel layer of most ships' armor. This makes every ship quite bullet spongey, especially the bigger ones, as few weapons exist that can really deal with the sheer bulk of hull they bring to the table.
3, Again with weapon damage, is a very, very strange issue I have found, with a very easy fix, luckily:
I have found that with all three toggles set to false, the armor thickness modifiers for the three ballistic damage types still apply. I discovered this by testing the arbalest and the mauler, both weapons with 200 base damage, against an onslaught with ~2000 armor, and against an onslaught with ~2500 armor. The result was that the arbalest could pierce the compartment armor of both, whereas the mauler was only able to pierce the armor of the weaker onslaught's 2000 armor. Doing the math for what the armor thickness should be for both weapons against either onslaught, and factoring in the armor thickness modifiers for their damage types, it checks out that the heavy mauler could not pierce a ship with ~2500 armor.
However, the plot thickens. After these weapons pierce any ship's compartment armor, the arbalest deals anywhere from ~17-32~ damage to hull, and the mauler does anything from ~54-74~.
This would indicate that either that damage type damage modifiers from either vanilla or realistic combat are affecting the hull damage of these weapons
after they pierce. Whether it's vanilla or the mod, or some other unknown factor in hull damage, I cannot tell, though, given that both weapons should deal 33 base damage to a compartment given that the compartment damage modifer is 1/6th. If the vanilla damage type damage modifiers were applying, or if the mod ones were applying, the damage of the arbalest should in both cases be around half of 33, so about 16-17, not going close to 33. The mauler's damage is much more expected for both damage modifiers.
I don't know enough about how damage is calculated in the base game or in this mod, so I can't figure out why these weapons behave this way exactly.
However, I know enough to see that something very odd is happening.
Regardless of the strangeness of this discovery, the solution for it, and for issue #2, is luckily very simple, that is to add a toggle for the new armor system.
I would be very saddened to have to go to such a length to preserve the overall strategic feel of vanilla starsector battles, but I do have another idea.
Besides a toggle for the armor system, which I think should be added anyways for those who do not like it, yet like the new range system, I do have an idea for players in my position, who like both:
After some testing, I have determined that ALL toggles can be turned to true, maintaining the same overall feel of the base game, making these specific changes:
* All weapon velocity changes are set to 0, including that for missiles. This allows for the weapon damage changes to be kept, while reverting the rough scale of combat the same as is in vanilla starsector.
* All ship movement is set back to factors of 1, so same as vanilla. This keeps the pace and flow of battles the same.
Overall, reverting these changes allows for the same general feel as vanilla starsector combat, while maintaining the new armor system, which is super cool.
No doubt some small changes could be made to improve balance from this starting point, but with these basic changes, I believe the game retains its original feel, with the still game-changing and very fun changes to the armor system and how ship size and acceleration affect range.
If this ends up introducing too many balance issues somehow, I think an armor toggle should be very doable, and just the 3D targeting system by itself is revolutionary, and, as I said, I do not think I can play without it.
Thank you very much for this mod. Keep up the hard work. I'm going to begin a campaign with my suggested changes soon, and see how it affects various content mods I want to play with. I hope I've helped with my suggestions and research. God bless you for this contribution to starsector modding, it's honestly the most significant project I've seen with how it changes the combat. Nothing comes close to it. I really hope you can get somewhere with it so that it's suitably stable and balanced, at least with vanilla. Even if you aren't, the fact you were able to get it to work to this extent is amazing.
Edit: I apologize for the messy post. I revised and edited it over the course of an hour and a half of focused testing of the mod in missions, and deep thought on the issues I saw with it.
