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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Anubis-class Cruiser (12/20/24)

Author Topic: [0.97a] Cinematic Combat v1.0.1  (Read 2243 times)

Gravenwitch

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[0.97a] Cinematic Combat v1.0.1
« on: July 05, 2024, 08:24:47 PM »

Download
Safe to add and remove, runs with all mods, most features configurable and toggleable, and no dependencies.

This mod is a rewrite of Realistic Combat to behave more like vanilla. Many thanks to Liral for creating RC and allowing this mod to exist.

Features
  • Weapon range is increased, spread is decreased proportionally
  • The map is larger, ships are faster, but handle slightly worse
  • Armor angling with vanilla armor, damage thresholds, and damage type adjustments
  • Missile weapon adjustments
  • Beam weapon damage formula alterations
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Features (but more in depth)
(configurable in settings)
Projectile Weapons
  • Projectile weapons range and projectile speed doubled
  • Weapon ranges are based on a multiplier of vanilla ranges rather than a multiplier on projectile speed (i.e. railguns outrange needlers)
  • Projectile weapon spread and spread growth multiplied by a factor of 0.71 to maintain a vanilla-esque spread
  • Kinetic weapons can ricochet
  • Kinetic, HE, and frag weaponry returned to vanilla values, with damage matchups returned to vanilla values
  • Vanilla range increasing/decreasing hullmods adjusted to conform to new default ranges
Beam Weapons
  • Beam weapons have tripled range
  • Beam weapons follow a simplified damage falloff curve according to distance:
    0 to 1/3rd range: 1.5x to 1.0x damage
    1/3rd to 2/3rd range: 1.0x to 0.5x damage
    2/3rd to max range: 0.5x to 0x damage
Missile Weapons
  • Missile maximum ammo doubled, tripled, or quadrupled based on launcher size/weapon type
  • Missile range doubled, tripled, or quadrupled based on launcher size/weapon type
  • Missile stats adjusted accordingly
  • Missile burst size returned to vanilla values (i.e. the locust now fires 30 instead of 4)
Armor
  • Armor angling increases relative armor value between 1 and 1.41x at a 45 degree angle
  • Minimal damage (damage reduced to 15% or less) is subject to a damage threshold
  • Damage thresholds reduce damage by 10/15/20/25 scaling with hull size, and subject to damage type adjustments
  • Damage thresholds do not apply on stripped (minimal) armor
  • All 3 tech level cruiser/capitals can now take lmg / light ac fire on armor without significant damage, the higher damage gets the more like vanilla it behaves
  • Combined with the beam formula change, beam weapons effective ranges are determined by hull size. They can destroy frigates at near max range but may need to close in to strip heavy armor.
  • Hull damage reduces cr, dropping to 30% of starting CR at 0 hull
Shields
  • Shields are unchanged from RC, they only function differently due to the beam formula change
Ships
  • Ships max speed slightly increased (more for lighter ships)
  • Ship handling largely unchanged, most ships have slightly worse deceleration
  • Map size slightly larger to allow frigate skirmishes before capitals arrive
And more! Many minor features of RC have been simplified or dumbed down
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Why I modded this mod
Realistic Combat captured my imagination like no other mod. I love the careful positioning, firing lines and broadsides. I love hulking dreadnaughts shrugging off overwhelming oncoming fire. I love that guns have gun-tier range, rather than knife fighting in space.
In light of all this, please do not take the list below seriously. They are petty grievances exaggerated for dramatic and comic effect.
  • This started because I wanted a locust capable of firing its usual 30 missiles per burst.
  • The HIL in RC can't penetrate the armor of a lasher past 100 range
  • Wings are 10/20x tankier than vanilla
  • Frigates get one shot and cannot harm a capital without a few reapers
  • The light assault gun cannot harm a single target in the game
  • After missiles run dry, fights can take 10 minutes of whittling down the few remaining ships if you lost your hellbore-ship
  • Needlers outrange railguns
  • I was stuck between the innate RC skills, or quality captains skills that were incompatible or functioned poorly with the reworked damage model
  • The requirement to get a perfect 90 degree hit on certain matchups was maddening
  • A reaper did no armor damage despite creating a miniature sun on an enemy hull
  • Modded beams (especially targeting beams) were wildly op or underpowered
  • Armor stripping armaments were extremely op
  • The AI could not handle the altered handling on some ships, causing them to zoom around wildly not hitting any shots
  • All weapons being innately at perfect accuracy / no spread and perfect auto targeting accuracy
  • High explosive damage being worse against armor than kinetics
  • Modded and vanilla missile ammo being very odd due to max ammo caps
  • (small!) Gorgons literally one shotting an invictus
  • Minimum armor, maximum armor, effective armor increases, ablative armor, etc no longer functioning
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Where will this mod go from here?
Most likely nowhere
RL (realistic life) is a bit rough rn. I am busy and tired so I may or may not provide bug fixes or further content to this mod. Sorry!
I make no claims on quality, stability, performance, or balance. I made this mod according to my subjective sense of fun and logic.
Where it might go
  • Adding / updating configuration for all features, and some vanilla stuff I found along the way
  • Implement an option for missile ammo regeneration applied to all missiles
  • Implement an option for armor to also regenerate when hull would
  • Implement more user controls over how beams work. Add efficiency cutoffs or targeting AI
  • Implement skills / add to existing skills to interact with the damage model, optionally
  • Work on retreat logic, for weapon caches or 1 [REDACTED] ship fleeing instantly over and over
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Frequently Answered Answers
  • The mod is called Cinematic Combat because it serves as the middle ground between reality and video game suspension of disbelief, or otherwise functions on a pop-cultural sci-fi logic. Also I want fights that look good and well spaced.
  • Do not run this mod and RC at the same time, use one or the other.
  • I added damage thresholds to emulate the lack of ablation of RC armor without having an invincible wall, I'll let you toggle them independently of the damage model possibly
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Changelog
1.0.1
Fix to native RC bug where cosmetic (0 damage) weapons cause ships to gain infinite flux and invisible, invincible shields. I've confirmed that ASF's Cockatrice no longer causes it.
As a side effect, all beams deal a minimum of 0.01 damage which hopefully doesn't change much.
Shield 'breakthrough' effect limited to >0.01 to assist in preventing infinite shields bug.
Beam weapon's minimum damage post-threshold increased from 1 to 2, due to beam damage being halved when calculating penetration.
Default settings for missile ammo reset to vanilla values. Still can be changed in settings.
1.0.0
Launch
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License
  • Cinematic Combat is free to use, modify, publish, etc. without attribution, permission, etc. Just like RC
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« Last Edit: July 06, 2024, 06:24:03 PM by Gravenwitch »
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oddisz

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Re: [0.97a] Cinematic Combat v1.0.1
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2024, 09:15:20 AM »

Sounds cool, starting a playthrough with this mod, will give feedback in a few days.
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aikixd

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Re: [0.97a] Cinematic Combat v1.0.1
« Reply #2 on: August 02, 2024, 02:26:50 AM »

Precisely what I need. Started a new playthrough with this.

With beams range tripled and the falloff, as opposed to double for other types of projectiles, should I not try to have similar ranges for beams and other weapons for the AI to behave correctly?
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mipacem

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Re: [0.97a] Cinematic Combat v1.0.1
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2024, 09:21:44 AM »

these changes are exactly what compromises id make from lirals to not have jank (although when it all works its peak...)
« Last Edit: October 09, 2024, 08:37:16 PM by mipacem »
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Wonderful Alien

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Re: [0.97a] Cinematic Combat v1.0.1
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2024, 12:51:01 AM »

Does it have same incompatibilities as Realistic Combat?
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