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More ships

782 (23.9%)

More weapons

496 (15.2%)

More campaign features

488 (14.9%)

Space monsters

717 (21.9%)

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212 (6.5%)

More music

135 (4.1%)

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159 (4.9%)

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283 (8.6%)

Total Members Voted: 1462

[Piroton]

Hot dang, Cycerin, those new desdinova burners are amazingly sexy. Idea of 'compressed exhaust' for greater thrust, I presume? On the other hand, the side thrusters' exhaust look just a little too spindly to be exhaust trails, but maybe that's just me.

On the other hand, what about the converted systems battleship? I see the Gravitic Impeder has taken a new form in the subsystem you made. That's pretty awesome, but how did you get it to do that? (I can't code for peanuts)

[Cycerin]

Thanks. Ask LazyWizard! I've just done slight modifications to his work on the impeder system.

It does what it's supposed to right now, but it still needs more work down the road. The AI is unaware of impeding effects on projectiles, for instance a ship will keep its shield raised if there are Annihilator rockets that have been stopped by the impeder, and are are hovering somewhere, on an original vector heading for the shielded ship. If a ship is shooting projectiles that stop short of the shields, the defending ship keeps shields up, and the firing ships also don't move closer to compensate.

All fancy new mechanics break the game a little bit, tbh.

As for ship rebalancing in general, the Nevermore is now a frontal attack ship rather than the glass cannon it used to be. It's still a glass cannon, but now it can actually fight up close due to the better shield ratio, and its new stock variants/balancing reflects this. I don't want to turn it into a kiting ship, although it can be refitted for that purpose if the player wants to. It's still vulnerable to strike craft.

[Lopunny Zen]

Hey when do you think these ships will be available to buy in campaign if you dont mind me asking?

[Cycerin]

Right
F*ckin'
Now.

DOWNLOAD VERSION 0.20!!!

Changelog:

0.20:
SHIPS:
- Added Kurmaraja-class Battlecruiser
- Added Cetonia-class Freight Courier
- Added Squilla-class Bomber
- Added Serket-class Phase Fighter
- Added Mantis-class Attack Frigate

- Redesigned Nevermore-class Cruiser
// Nevermore is now a close-up combat ship rather than a kiting vessel.
- Redesigned Locust-class Frigate.
// Locust now a frigate, instead of a fighter.
- Rebalanced Scarab, Mantis, Desdinova, Krait and Revenant.
// Desdinova, Nevermore and Scarab now use custom Burst Maneuvering Jets.

WEAPONS:
- Added Solenoid Quench Gun
- Added Antiplasma Blaster
- Added Ironweaver Chaingun
- Added Shard Autocannon
- Added Ichneumon Assault Gun
- Added Quill Rocket Launcher
- Added Fury-class Torpedo
- Added Achilles MRM rack and Pod
- Added Argus Particle Beam
- Added Squall Cannon graphics.

- Added Blackrock station inventory
- Added Blackrock supply fleets
- Added Blackrock Strike Force combat fleet
- Added extra comm strings

SHIP SYSTEMS:
- Added Burst Maneuvering Jets
- Added Gravitic Impeder
Replaced Lucifer Generator with Burst Maneuvering Jets
Replaced Arcjet Burners with Desdinova-custom Burst Maneuvering Jets

MISC:
- Added custom ship names.json
- Added custom engine flare
- Changed faction color to orange
- Changed all sprites to use orange paint decals instead of bright green ones.
- Rebalanced all stock variants.

And with this release, I have a request to you all: Take screenshots! I want some sick screenshots to put in the OP. Bonus if they are of things blowing up.

[Spardok]

54.1a or 54a? :0

[Cycerin]

I'm 99% sure it runs on both, but why not use the latest patch?

[Spardok]

I'm asking to make sure I can run it on the latest patch .

[Cycerin]

Ah. It sure does! Save compatibility with earlier versions of the mod is probably broken to hell and back, though. Some old custom variants in mission saves might also crash the game, possibly, due to reshuffling of weapon slots... not sure.

[Axiege]

Yay! Sorry for making you feel rushed, that was really not my intention, I wasn't even in that much of a hurry myself.

[Cycerin]

Hey, we're all indie game fans here. I've long internalized the Soon™ mantra as the major guideline for my modding efforts.

[LazyWizard]

I'm loving the mod so far. Excellent sound and graphics work.

I think the Fury-class torpedo might be too good, though. It's significantly faster than the Reaper for the same OP cost and 7/8 of the damage. My Wolves have never been so effective!

[Spardok]

I would like to start off saying (not sure if we can curse on here?) your sprites are #$@#*%$ AMAZING! Very attentive to detail and the colors are beautiful and vibrant. The designs feel very futuristic and techy as well.

Now onto the criticism!:

- [Ichneumon Assault Gun] I feel this gun doesn't really have a place with the Light Assault Gun. I would suggest making it a HE equivalent of the Light Needler by bumping OP cost to 8 and range to 850/900, possibly even adding another 25/50 ammo.

- [Argus Particle Beam] Being only 2 OP points higher than the Heavy Burst Laser It feels pretty powerful. Even though it is fragmentation damage it still does around 325 dps to shields/armor and completely tears apart hull with the same range decimating fighter and bomber wings. It fires at double the speed and has near 20% increased recharge (assuming the stats are all correct). Honestly I have no idea what to suggest doing here :/

- [Interdiction Array] Feels like all it's doing is changing ballistic projectiles to purple.

<will edit/add more as I play through>

[Cycerin]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm really glad you like the sprites, a lot of care went into making them.

Let me try to clarify a bit around why the weapons are the way they are and what I am trying to accomplish.
The Ichneumon AG is supposed to be equal in power to the Light AG, but more focused on burst damage. Vanilla gameplay in Starsector makes a point out of the risk of trying to finish off overloaded ships: small ships usually need to get close to them in order to deal HE damage, while larger ones get the luxury of being able to threaten from range. I don't want every BR ship to be a kiting ship, I want them to use the mobility to dart in and out of combat and deal their damage more or less up-close. That's why the Shard and Ichneumon fire bursts of projectiles.

However, I had considered to create a weapon that deals light mortar-style DPS at higher flux cost, and has 900-ish range. A sort of light artillery cannon for sneaky Locust and Mantis variants. A HE light needler should have enormous flux costs or OP costs or it would make every other small sized assault weapon superfluous.

The Argus is supposed to be the best alternative for destroying missiles and low-tech fighters if you have the flux and OP. It very easily wastes flux if it fires on enemy shields due to the damage type and huge flux costs. But if you have an Argus PD, you are very, very safe from enemy missiles. That is my design philosophy for it, at least - if it needs readjustment in line with this idea, then I'm more than willing to make them. And iirc frag damage is 25% against armor and shields, so your calculations are off.

If you want to see just how much more effective the Heavy Burst Laser is at actually hurting enemy ships than the Argus, arm a ship with a single Argus/Heavy Burst Laser (use the Desdinova) and then try to kill a Buffalo II using no other weapons in the simulator. It takes almost twice as long to kill it using the Argus. And this is an unshielded ship that mainly uses hull to soak damage.

The Interdiction Array is very experimental currently. However it does more than simply tint enemy projectiles. It stops missiles dead in their tracks if the engine has burned out (like Annihilators) and makes Hellbores, Arbalests, Assault Chainguns and such useless because the AI does not move closer to compensate for the projectile falloff. Ideally the system should force ships to fight much closer, but right now the AI does not seem aware of changes to projectile speed brought on by a stat mod.

LazyWizard: I thought the Fury did 2500 damage, not 3500... I think it probably overshadows the Reaper a bit in this case. I'll make some adjustments!

[Spardok]

Let me try to clarify a bit around why the weapons are the way they are and what I am trying to accomplish.
The Ichneumon AG is supposed to be equal in power to the Light AG, but more focused on burst damage. Vanilla gameplay in Starsector makes a point out of the risk of trying to finish off overloaded ships: small ships usually need to get close to them in order to deal HE damage, while larger ones get the luxury of being able to threaten from range. I don't want every BR ship to be a kiting ship, I want them to use the mobility to dart in and out of combat and deal their damage more or less up-close. That's why the Shard and Ichneumon fire bursts of projectiles.

However, I had considered to create a weapon that deals light mortar-style DPS at higher flux cost, and has 900-ish range. A sort of light artillery cannon for sneaky Locust and Mantis variants. A HE light needler should have enormous flux costs or OP costs or it would make every other small sized assault weapon superfluous.

Following that design philosophy you definitely got the IAG to where it should be then. Certainly acts like a burst version of the LAG. I was probably a bit too lenient on only increasing the OP cost to 8 instead of 9 or 10 with no additional flux costs.

The Argus is supposed to be the best alternative for destroying missiles and low-tech fighters if you have the flux and OP. It very easily wastes flux if it fires on enemy shields due to the damage type and huge flux costs. But if you have an Argus PD, you are very, very safe from enemy missiles. That is my design philosophy for it, at least - if it needs readjustment in line with this idea, then I'm more than willing to make them. And iirc frag damage is 25% against armor and shields, so your calculations are off.

If you want to see just how much more effective the Heavy Burst Laser is at actually hurting enemy ships than the Argus, arm a ship with a single Argus/Heavy Burst Laser (use the Desdinova) and then try to kill a Buffalo II using no other weapons in the simulator. It takes almost twice as long to kill it using the Argus. And this is an unshielded ship that mainly uses hull to soak damage.

Assuming the dps on the weapon listed is accurate for burst, 1294 * .25 = 324 a fair bit higher than HBL's 275 against armor/shields. And 1294 against unarmored/unshielded. Though of course this all assumes the stat page for the weapon is calculated accurately. (I know some weapons in other mods have not been) I don't know how great it would be against capital ships though, it would tear fighters apart like tissue paper.

The Interdiction Array is very experimental currently. However it does more than simply tint enemy projectiles. It stops missiles dead in their tracks if the engine has burned out (like Annihilators) and makes Hellbores, Arbalests, Assault Chainguns and such useless because the AI does not move closer to compensate for the projectile falloff. Ideally the system should force ships to fight much closer, but right now the AI does not seem aware of changes to projectile speed brought on by a stat mod.

Long range and short range Ballistics were still hitting me while turned on even while backing off, and missiles from far ranges were still smacking into me. Wish I could fraps it but alas my computer is a piece of garbage. It may have been because I was running on .54a and not .54.1a, though I would think that would have given me an error if it couldn't obtain the status to apply.

[Cycerin]

When in doubt about whether or not the tooltips are right, check it in the simulator. The burst damage of the Argus against armor is closer to... 80 or something, according to the damage numbers that pop up in-game. If anything, the weapon is sort of underpowered for the cost/overshadowed by the HBL.

And I know that the gravitic impeder system is buggy. It's not a simple matter to make it work better, though, but I have some ideas. I'll probably need help from a person who is very good at Java. *glances innocently over at LazyWizard*

Need to test the reflector shield code after the patch too, since it's supposed to work now...