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[Dazs]

Tri-Tac Special Circumstances

A High-Tech faction mod focused on the military and espionage might of Tri-Tachyon.

The mod offers:
3 faction stations (two in Hybrasil and 1 in Magec)
21 shielded ships
4 phase ships (including a phase capital)
3 wings - 1 interceptor, 1 fighter and 1 bomber
1 faction specific hull mod that improves beam performance pre-installed on every TTSC ship
1 Commissioned Crews integration hull mod that increases a ship’s flux performance
Custom tongue-in-cheek naming structure of their ships based on the works of Ian M Banks culture series

Requires
LazyLib, MagicLib

Mod integrations:

Commissioned crews
Starship Legends
Take No Prisoners
Version Checker
Industrial Evolution
New Beginnings
Vayra's Sector Bounty system
Nexerelin

All Ships Image

Spoiler

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Faction Lore (Note: In-game lore is based on the Culture book series by Iain M. Banks with several references.)

Spoiler

The department of Special Circumstances has always been Tri-Tachyon’s moral espionage weapon, the very cutting edge of the corporations interfering diplomatic policy. It’s standing and its image within the corporation has been ambiguous. Special Circumstances, known as SC for short, is a subset of the corporations department of diplomacy assigned to the handling on unusual, delicate, stealthy, covert or otherwise special situations.

As Tri-Tachyon grew more insular and neutral, SC became an independent organization of its own. The split occurred because SC’s activities could not be morally justified within the corporation’s publicly viewable policies. Commonly regarded with a combination of contempt and veneration by the corporation at large, SC performs the dirtiest and bloodiest work that the corporation, in SC’s opinion, needs to do.

Seen as euphuism for corporate military intelligence, SC often acts outside public policies of Tri-Tachyon in order to preserve those same policies. SC deals in the moral equivalent of black holes, where the normal laws, the rules of right and wrong that people imagine, break down. Beyond those metaphysical horizons, there exists…Special Circumstances.

Since Tri-Tachyon is a corporation and not a political entity, SC is not a publicly sanctioned group. By common practice and custom however, SC inserts itself into situations in which it believes a slackening of ordinary moralities is needed. From time to time this may irritate other divisions of the corporation. They handle the corporation’s dirtiest and bloodiest work and their ships and weapons are fine tuned to be both the first line of defense of Tri-Tachyon’s interests as well as its projection of corporate might.

SC’s motto is, “If you want peace, you must be prepared for war.”

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Mod technical notes

Spoiler

• All TTSC ships are beam specialists and are modified to extend the range, turn rate and damage of beam weapons. All SC ship’s turrets are energy and the hard points are synergy (energy/missile) with the exception of their dreadnaught, the Xenocrat, which has all synergy mounts, both turret and hard point.
• The hull mod from Commissioned Crews grants access to subroutines that improve ship flux venting and capacity.
• TTSC weapons are all variations of Vanilla high tech beam offerings. Each TTSC weapon either does a different damage type or role than its vanilla counterpart and they offer no PD weapons. I used the vanilla graphics for each but modified them with blue markings to differentiate them.
• With no ballistic offerings, their markets only sell high tech weapons. Since they have synergy mounts, SC markets will sometimes sell missiles from other factions.
• There is currently one TTSC “black ops” mission available at their stations that require smuggling of goods. I plan to add more as I learn more about the star sector mission code structure.
• TTSC faction relations are set to be the same as Tri-Tachyon's and are allied with Tri-Tachyon. Since their stations are all based in Tri-Tac space I would recommend you stay that way
• Starship Legends integration adds several TTSC ships to the SL derelict bar quest
• All portraits and music used are the same that Tri-Tachyon uses

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ANOTHER Dazs faction mod?! you ask. Well here is my reasoning:

Spoiler

JYD is low tech, CFT is all midline and Hiver is, well, Hiver so I found myself with some high tech ships I made that I had no use for. Initially I intended to either post them on Spiral Arms or release them as a ship pack mod.

However the more I thought about it, it seemed to me that there are mods out there that are sub-factions of the vanilla factions up to the total re-write of Sindrian Diktat with the exception of Tri-Tachyon. Which gave me the idea of a sub-faction that deals with the corporation’s dirty work which lore wise would make sense for a mega-corp to have a cut-out department for deniability. That combined with my love of the Culture book series in which SC is the dirty jobs sub-department of Contact gave birth to this mod.

Lastly and most important, if this mod inspires even one person to check out the works of Ian M. Banks then my time was well spent.

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Sources and Thank You Credits

Spoiler

Each TTSC ship is a Dazs kit bash. The sprites used were sourced from:

• Starsector’s art team - The ships are mostly kit based from vanilla art assets and the weapons are all modified game assets.
• Spiral Arms II (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12896.0) and Sporaled arms (Spaceport Corvus discord server) contributors. - I used bits and pieces from the free to use art assets found there in some of the ships. All credit goes to the multitude of kind people who have donated their artwork.

Beta Testers: – AsinineMorta, LukeTasrook, SpaceDrake, wepto, eidolad, LukeTasrook, PigeonPun, HuginBlar, Sorrydough, AsinineMortal, Moasseman, Knifiel, justnewaccount3131  - would you like to help? I’ll add your name here

Timid – For helping me understand the mission code and supplying me with an example.

Lore: Iain M. Banks – for writing such a wonderful space opera that sparked my imagination.

A special thank you to Alex and team for their hard work making this game and keeping it up to date all these years.

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If you enjoy my content, please consider buying me a coffee to keep me going! on Ko-Fi!

Current Changelog

v0.4.6 - Save Compatible with v0.4.5
   -Some code changes for Linux compatibility - TY justnewaccount3131 for helping me

Past Changelogs

Spoiler

v0.4.5 Save Compatible with v0.4
   -Capitalized the X in Xenocrat - TY SteelSirokos for letting me know
   -Raised the DP of the Kakistocrat from 8 to 11 to properly assign it's power level - TY Moasseman for making the case
   -Fixed a spelling mistake on the description of the Ablation - rear turrets not read turrets    
   -Looked over the remaining descriptions and added some missing commas as well as changed a couple poorly written descriptions.
   -Adjusted the code so the mod can now be enabled with OR without Nexerelin - TY Knifiel for letting me know


v0.4- Save Compatible with v3.6 - Some changes require new sector generation
   -Fixed an error with the TTSC Graviton Beam having an incorrect tag
   -Lowered the energy per second of the TTSC High Intensity Laser to 400 - matches the vanilla 0.96a change to the HIL
   -Lowered the speed to 60 and acceleration to 45 of the Hronish and raised the deployment/supply use to 35 - Ty wepto for asking me to take a look at it
   -Changed the orbit of GSV Gobuchul Station to be a bit further out than SC Headquarters in Hybrasil - New sector generation only
   -Upgraded the station used on GSV Gobuchul Station to a Star Fortress - As a military station it needed more teeth - New sector generation only
   -Changed the Tier of the TTSC Rift Beam and Rift Lance from 2 to 3 - makes them less likely to be fitted on game generated assets
   -Updated the sprite for the Kraiklyn tanker - received complaints that it looked too much like the Prometheus - TY HuginBlar for the help
   -Converted the compression from RAR to ZIP - Received some "requests" and it is a more widely used format
   -Replaced the Kraiklyn sprite on the forum "all ships image" with the new one - It's much more sleek, take a peek!

v3.6 Quick hotfix - Save compatible with v3.5 Note: If you have a Latebricole in your fleet you will need to re-arm it
   -Fixed an issue with the Latebricole missing a collision radius and re-balanced it by replacing the medium turret with two smalls - TY LukeTasrook for bringing this issue to my attention
   -Redesigned the Latebricole to match the new weapon layout and replaced the sprite on the "All Ships Image" on the forum OP   

v0.3.5 Should be save compatible however you will have to rearm any Xenocrat ships in your fleet
   -Re-worked the sprite for the Xenocrat to better match 0.96a - TY to PigeonPun,Sorrydough,and my biggest discord fan ARandomRobloxJal for your helpful advice
   -Replaced/rearranged several mounts on the Xenocrat to give it a better weapon profile - You will need to rearm any in your saved fleet
   -Replaced the image of the Xenocrat on the "All Ships Image" on the forum OP - I spent a couple hours on this one, take a peek if interested.
   -Fixed an issue where the mod crashed when using Random Core Worlds in NEX - May break saves so save a copy of 0.3 just in case - ty eidolad for reporting the issue

v0.3 - 0.96a balance pass - Should be save compatible with v0.2.5 but not sure since I did not have a save game to test against
   -Re-enabled Nexerelin features
   -Increased the damage of the Heavy Burst Laser from 400 to 450
   -Lowered the range of the Interdiction beam from 1200 to 1000 and impact from 500 to 400 - Hard to balance this one since it is a vanilla weapon but not implemented
   -Lowered the damage of the Long range laser from 150 to 100
   -Lowered the turn rare of the Medium Laser from 100 to 80
   -Increased the eng/sec of the Short range laser from 15 to 20
   -Removed the impact rating on the Plasma Beam
   -Added a missing zero to the cost of the Rift Beam and Rift Cascade Emitter to match the cost of their vanilla counterparts
   -Doubled the energy cost and damage output of the Rift lance - still half of the vanilla counterpart but makes it more desirable for a 9 op weapon
   -Lowered the damage of the Tactical laser from 85 to 75 - Puts in on par with it's vanilla counterpart
   -Lowered the range bonus on the hull mod OC Beams from 100 to 50 - AsinineMortal makes a good point that the range was a bit much when stacked with Advanced Optics
   -Lowered the max speed of all TTSC ships by 10% - AsinineMortal makes a good point that combined with their beam bonus and good shields their speed was making them a little too OP

V0.2.5 -Minor patch to update for current game version
   -Removed all Nexerelin compatibility - will re-enable once a stable patch for that mod is released
   -Adjusted the code to be compliant with the 0.96a MagicLib changes
   -Adjusted the code compatibility to work with 0.96a
   -NOTE: mod integrations will be re-enabled as they are made 0.96a compliant

v0.2 - Save Compatible with v 0.1
   -Removed some duplicate text from the forum page and added the TTSC Flag with an embedded d/l link for some color
   -Added a config file for the mod "take no prisoners" - TTSC officers can be captured, they now accept ransom and will send vengeance fleets after you if prisoners are not properly treated
   -Added config files for the mod Industrial Evolution - The TTSC embassy added to the whitelist, Some ships added to the reverse engineering and printing whitelists
   -Added TTSC to the list of factions included in the mod "New Beginnings"
   -Added TTSC to the Vayra Bounties whitelist - If you use that mod, TTSC can now be targets for bounties including you if you are commissioned with them
   -Added the more OP TTSC ships to the Prism Freeport blacklist
   -Changed the TTSC faction color to a darker blue that matches their flag - Differentiates their assets from Tri-Tac
   -Removed some unneeded comment code left over from when I was designing the mod
   -Gave all TTSC descriptions a once over and fixed some spelling and grammar mistakes

v0.1
   - Initial release for review, testing and constructive criticism.

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[Dazs]

V 0.1 is a fully functional beta test of the mod. I hope you enjoy the content and I do plan to add more to the mod based on player feedback so I am posting the mod in the modding forum first to gauge player interest and hopefully receive feedback. Once I feel it is ready for full release, I'll post it on discord and the main mod forum.

[Oni]

Is this an entire faction, in of itself, in the same vein as Iron Shell (possibly also starting allied with Tri-Tac) or is it a mini-faction/expansion to Tri-Tac itself?

[Dazs]

Is this an entire faction, in of itself, in the same vein as Iron Shell (possibly also starting allied with Tri-Tac) or is it a mini-faction/expansion to Tri-Tac itself?

Hi there Oni, it is a bit of an explanation but...

TLDR:
TTSC is it's own faction but with close ties to Tri-Tachyon (TT). They start off allied with TT and have the same faction relations as TT, their stations are in TT space near TT stations and can act as defensive measures if TT is attacked by a hostile faction say like Hiver I recommend staying in good relations with TT since SC stations are in TT space but the direction they take is their own. If you install them as a NPC controlled faction then they *should* stay in synch with TT since they have the same starting relations and faction temperament. If you start off commissioned with them then you can directly effect their sector relations and even come into conflict with TT if you so desire.

Short version:
Think Iron Shell but no where near as polished (working on it though)

Hope that clears things up for you, if not please let me know.

[Dazs]

v0.2 released today - Added more mod interactions and cleaned up the code a bit to lessen memory size/use. Changelog in the RAR and posted on the forum OP has the details.

It has been less than a week and the mod already has over 300 downloads which is great for a new mod, at least for me - woo!
I will be adding more "black ops" missions in the next update, no ETA on that but it is in the works. Also, I would be appreciative for any constructive criticism that you are willing to share so we can better tune the mod before releasing it in the mod forum and discord.

Enjoy helping our corporate overlords!

[Dadada]

Nice

[Dazs]

Nice

A positive review - NICE!

[Dazs]

0.2.5 released - Updated the code to be compliant with the current game version. Changelog in the RAR and posted on the forum OP has the details.

Note: I disabled all Nexerelin code and will re-enable once a stable patch is released by Histidine

[swatmore]

High-tech enjoyer

[Dazs]

High-tech enjoyer

Well I hope you enjoy the mod, I'd appreciate if let me know what you think after playing it a bit (good or bad)

[MattyK]

Oooh, The Culture references. That said, I detect a certain lack of gravitas...

[Dazs]

Oooh, The Culture references. That said, I detect a certain lack of gravitas...

Incorrect good sir, check the ship names

[AsinineMortal]

I've been playing this mod while working on my .96 mod load. My initial impressions are positive. It feels like a proto Iron Shell. I appreciate the vanilla design style. High Tech and Energy weapons don't get enough love.

That said, there are some issues. For instance, seeing [REDACTED] tech for sale on the market seems wrong from a lore standpoint.

There are also some power level concerns. Most of the TTSC beam weapons are very strong compared to the base game variants. The Tactical laser has higher damage, in a more useful damage channel, and gets better a flux/second ratio all for the same OP cost as the standard variant. The LR PD laser has triple the DPS and double the damage/flux as the standard variant and only costs 1 OP more. I haven't experimented with all the weapons, but I've found that it's too easy to end up with overpowered ships just by putting basic beams on any TTSC ship. An Ingenui (2 DP Frigate) with 3 TTSC Tac lasers and Advanced Optics will overpower basically any frigate up to 8 DP I tested before it can close to range with it's own weapons. Even Safety Override frigates get soft fluxed out. I also tried out the Hronish carrier. It has Astral level firepower, with Heron level speed, and never loses fighter replenishment rate. It can kite away from most ships while sending endless 6 wing waves of doom. This was all before I took any combat skills or officers.

One change I would recommend is to make Beam Overclock incompatible with Advanced Optics. It's just too easy to stack beam buffs and end up with frigates that outrange capital ships. Next, I'd make the TTSC weapons should come with at least some drawbacks. Either by paying a high cost in flux for the extra DPS or kinetic/HE damage, or by significantly increasing the OP cost on these weapons. Reducing the damage would also work. As for the ships, I haven't tried all of them, but for the most part, it seems like they are fast, have excellent range, and shield tanking ability. I would take away one of those main strengths in the interest of balance. Cutting speed could force fleets to provide mutual support to avoid being swarmed. Cutting range (i.e. Overclocked Beams reducing range while keeping the damage buff) would keep the beam firepower advantages while giving enemies a chance to fight back. Shield tanking could be reduced by cutting the OP points on each ship. Beams are generally low cost weapons, so there is usually plenty of excess OP on the TTSC ships to spend on flux cap/dissipation. The flux efficiency of the TTSC beams means the ships only really have to worry about hard flux buildup.

Still I think this is a very good start. This mod has it where it counts, flavor wise and mechanically. Looking forward to see what you do with it.

[Dazs]

I've been playing this mod while working on my .96 mod load. My initial impressions are positive. It feels like a proto Iron Shell. I appreciate the vanilla design style. High Tech and Energy weapons don't get enough love.

Well hello there, thank you for the detailed writeup. Yes an Iron Shell for Tri-Tac was what I am going for but I am no where near as talented as Timid but it is a work in progress. And yes I agree High Tech/Energy especially beams are sort of underrepresented which I try to address in this mod by focusing on them.

That said, there are some issues. For instance, seeing [REDACTED] tech for sale on the market seems wrong from a lore standpoint.

Well I figured that since lore wise, Tri-Tac are [REDACTED] scavengers, tinkers and researchers but do not want to upset the Hegemony or Luds and hurt their profit margins, that they would use a cut out organization for testing and implementation. 

There are also some power level concerns. Most of the TTSC beam weapons are very strong compared to the base game variants. The Tactical laser has higher damage, in a more useful damage channel, and gets better a flux/second ratio all for the same OP cost as the standard variant. The LR PD laser has triple the DPS and double the damage/flux as the standard variant and only costs 1 OP more. I haven't experimented with all the weapons, but I've found that it's too easy to end up with overpowered ships just by putting basic beams on any TTSC ship. An Ingenui (2 DP Frigate) with 3 TTSC Tac lasers and Advanced Optics will overpower basically any frigate up to 8 DP I tested before it can close to range with it's own weapons. Even Safety Override frigates get soft fluxed out. I also tried out the Hronish carrier. It has Astral level firepower, with Heron level speed, and never loses fighter replenishment rate. It can kite away from most ships while sending endless 6 wing waves of doom. This was all before I took any combat skills or officers.

I am about to head to bed but I was so excited to finally get some feedback that I wanted to do a surface level response. One thing to keep in mind is that I had to adjust some numbers because I changed damage types so for example: a vanilla weapon that was kinetic that I changed to fragmentation needed it's numbers adjusted to compensate. Also, I balanced versus pre-.96a beams so any changes with the vanilla beams are not represented but I plan to do so. With that in mind, I will go over all your individual observations tomorrow when I have time to do a detailed deep dive for each point and give a better response then.

One change I would recommend is to make Beam Overclock incompatible with Advanced Optics. It's just too easy to stack beam buffs and end up with frigates that outrange capital ships. Next, I'd make the TTSC weapons should come with at least some drawbacks. Either by paying a high cost in flux for the extra DPS or kinetic/HE damage, or by significantly increasing the OP cost on these weapons. Reducing the damage would also work. As for the ships, I haven't tried all of them, but for the most part, it seems like they are fast, have excellent range, and shield tanking ability. I would take away one of those main strengths in the interest of balance. Cutting speed could force fleets to provide mutual support to avoid being swarmed. Cutting range (i.e. Overclocked Beams reducing range while keeping the damage buff) would keep the beam firepower advantages while giving enemies a chance to fight back. Shield tanking could be reduced by cutting the OP points on each ship. Beams are generally low cost weapons, so there is usually plenty of excess OP on the TTSC ships to spend on flux cap/dissipation. The flux efficiency of the TTSC beams means the ships only really have to worry about hard flux buildup.

Good points and I will give them more thought tomorrow.

Still I think this is a very good start. This mod has it where it counts, flavor wise and mechanically. Looking forward to see what you do with it.

Thank you. With the help of kind people such as yourself that take the time to give a response like this one, I can better balance the mod. I am a low-tech/ballistic player by default but I felt there was a hole in the game that this mod may address and it is nice to have the perspective of someone who likes high tech / beams.

[SpaceDrake]

Dazs, my good hiver, I'm not sure if this is part of removing the Nex integration, but TTSC is now nulling out when trying to generate in a random sector. If this is part of the temporary Nex removal, you might want to put in big bold letters that TTSC isn't compatible with random sector mode; it was causing some confusion with folks earlier.

Code

191539 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at data.scripts.world.TTSC_systems.TTSC_Generator.generate(TTSC_Generator.java:16)
	at data.scripts.world.TTSCGen.generate(TTSCGEN.java:19)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.super(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.public.dismiss(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.L.dismiss(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.J.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.classnew.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.I.processInput(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.W.o00000(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.super(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)