I posted this a few days ago on the Dutch forum and after some tweaking decided to also post it here.
A couple of weeks ago I bought my first M6, trying to figure out how it was intended and playing the rocket barge and having my wingmen crash into me at the most annoying of times, I figured I'd enjoy my M6 more if it was different.
I was struggling with targets that proved to be no problem at all for my Nova Vanguard. So feeling all brave and "I know better than you" I dove into the Ship Creator (for which many thanks to Cycrow) and set about 'rebalancing' the M6 class.
The point of the exercise was to make the M6 from a ship that's far more vulnerable than it looks and a lot less powerful than you'd expect into something that I felt better suited the size and cost of the ship.
Basically turning them into ships that are significantly more powerful and a lot tougher. Removing the need to spend heaps of Cr on missiles and torpedoes and removing the need to have an escort wing with you at all times.
Making the M6 into a proper Pocket Destroyer. Good straight line speed, slightly less oil-barge-esque steering and a weapon loadout that fits with a small capital class ship.
Updates:
- 22-04-08: Added the Xenon P to the package, new stats added to this post.
- 24-04-08: Drastically tuned down the Laser Recharge. None of the ships, even during prolonged sustained fire from ALL weapons would not drain any significant energy from the ships.
- 03-10-08: I've removed the gPSG from the Nemesis and Osprey and replaced them with aFLAK. I've changed the turrets on the Hydra and Nemesis to be double barrelled so those can now mount 2 aFLAKs at the rear. Also I've increased the maximum cargo on the Nemesis and Dragon, so they can now accommodate a full weapons load while keeping some room for missiles, drones and jump fuel.
- So far I have only added the M6s that occur "naturally in the wild", I will add the Nemesis and Osprey variants in following updates.
- I have not taken the M7 into account. So honestly I have no idea how it would compare to my rebalanced M6s, but as far as I know, these M6 will probably put the M7 to shame.
- Laser Energy and Recharge Rate may need some more tweaking, I'm open to suggestions here.
- You get nothing for free from this, I did not change base stats for any ship. Bar the much bigger Laser Energy pool you will have to buy all the new upgrades yourself.
- The new stats will partially overwrite the old ones on existing ships, but will only work entirely with newly spawned ships. So if you already own an M6, you will need to buy a new one to replace it to get all the new stats.
- The Xenon P has received a lesser upgrade in Laser Recharge than other ships. Giving the full Recharge upgrade to the P would mean infinite Laser Energy even when using 8 bHEPT.
- The Xenon P has received a lesser number of Rudder Tunings in the upgrade than the other ships. Rudder Tunings on the P are on a completely different scale compared to the other M6, it's turning rate does gain a significant amount with the extra Rudder Tunings.
Well on to business.
Weapon Upgrades:
I feel that it's appropriate for the M6, being described as a small capital ship, to bear weapons that are for capital ships. I also made some additional tweaks which I found to be logical in this light.
(weapons marked with * are only in some turrets, they are not in the main laser array. the same goes the other way, unmarked weapons are only in the main laser array, not in the turrets)
Weapons I've added:
- Centaur: aPPC, aFLAK*, bPSG*
- Dragon: bPPC, aFLAK*, TB*
- Hydra: aPPC, aFLAK*, bPSG* rear turret upgraded to 2 barrels
- Nemesis: aPPC, aFLAK*, TB* rear turret upgraded to 2 barrels
- Osprey: aPPC, aFLAK*
- P: bPPC
I raised the maximum top speed by increasing the amount of engine tunings. This way I raised the top speeds about 50%. I gave the same treatment to the rudder tunings, which in turn adds about a 50% increase to steering (eg. max 9% becomes 13%, not 59%,) I haven't got exact numbers on the steering, so I'm leaving those out of the list for the moment.
I know these speeds may seem really high, but it's really just straight line speed. There is no way a M6 will suddenly out turn an M3, most M4s and M5s will still out run you even in a straight line.
New top speeds:
- Centaur: 157m/s
- Dragon: 218m/s
- Hydra: 184m/s
- Nemesis: 172m/s
- Osprey: 121m/s
- P: 204m/s
I got these numbers pretty much at random. They seem appropriate to me, though they might be some what on the high side. I took the Comparison between a Centaur and a Titan, figuring I'd want the Centaur to have about 25-30% of the power that the Titan has.
In general the recharge from 0% to 100% takes about 80 seconds, it was like this per default and I haven't changed that ratio.
The new Laser Energy and Recharge Rates:
- Centaur: 84kJ @ 1048J/s
- Dragon: 125.6kJ @ 1568J/s
- Hydra: 56kJ @ 700J/s
- Nemesis: 92kJ @ 1148J/s
- Osprey: 84kJ @ 1048J/s
- P: 80kJ @ 1000J/s
I was kinda annoyed at there being TS and M3s that could rival an M6 in shielding. The difference in nature and size of these ships made me feel that the M6 class should have considerably more shielding.
New Shield Strength and Shield Generators:
- Centaur: 7x 125MJ @ 7500MW
- Dragon: 5x 125MJ @ 6450MW
- Hydra: 1x 1GJ @ 8550MW
- Nemesis: 7x 125MJ @ 7500MW
- Osprey: 1x 1GJ @ 7950MW
- P: 5x 125MJ @ 9000MW
The Cargo Bays on the Nemesis and Dragon were insufficient to fit even a single loadout of weapons and shields. Any station that sells Cargo Bay Extentions will now sell the new amount.
- Dragon: 1060 units max
- Nemesis: 750 units max
Hull Points
I wasn't sure how Hull Points in the editor would translate into the game, hence I left them alone. Also since the actual ship hasn't changed it's more canon in a way to leave the Hull Points as they are.
Download and Install
All ships are in XSP format, made with Cycrow's Ship Creator and install with Cycrow's X Plugin Manager.I've packaged it into a rar archive which can be found here.
The rebalanced ships will overwrite the original ones from Vanilla X3 and so far that hasn't given me any trouble. Also NPC ships will use the new upgrades.
If you already own M6 class ships, you will most likely have to replace them (eg. sell and buy a new one) for all the changes to be correctly applied.
If you already have a previous update of this mod, it may be required to remove all gPSG weapons from current Nemesis and Osprey ships that you may own. I don't give any sort of guarantee that your game won't crash if you do not remove them. During testing it did crash my game, so you have been warned.
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Every single time I hear the ship computer warning me that I have ships under attack, I see a destroyed M6 in my KIA list. 
