[MOD] M6 Overhaul 2.2

[Bobucles]

Bobucles' M6 Overhaul mod for X3TC.
Includes Bobucles Weapon Rebalance 2.1.
Feb. 3, 2012
http://www.gamefront.com/files/21289148/m6+overhaul+2.2.rar
http://www.filefront.com/17646745/m6_overhaul_2.0.rar

I have always been troubled by the M6 class. Corvettes are the first ship truly big enough to specialize into their own. However, there's very little to tell them apart. There's almost no personality between respective races, and all of them basically play as 5 different colors of "Extra heavy fighter". They can be so much more.

Therefore the M6 class has seen a complete overhaul. These ships are now built to represent the ideologies of their respective races. Read more below.
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Patch notes
2.2:
- Includes latest missile and laser data
- Ships have been tweaked to be compatable with pre-patch AP.

2.0:
- Includes warelists.txt, with three custom entries.
- Comes with weapon rebalance 1.7, changing the repair laser to be a disabling/hull repairing weapon.
- Skiron overhauled. Read more below.
- Heavy Osprey moderately overhauled. Is now a super heavy "missile" corvette, for serious escorting duties. Uses fighter grade missiles and has good defenses.
- All generic corvettes have all been upgraded to "dog fighting" corvettes, with major boosts to agility and minor boosts to speed.
- Cargo tweaks across the board. Paranid corvettes received the biggest boost to cargo room. In general, every M6 should have room for full weapons and 200-600 extra space.
- Moderate reduction to Osprey and Pirate Osprey combat abilities.
- Kha'ak corvette now uses 1x1GJ shield and custom warelist to always have max shields. Due to game restrictions the AI can not install the warelist extra weapons, but it still has default weapons.
- Truelight seeker received a major speed and shield recharge increase. Is designed for hit and run attacks on heavy ships. Has the Jumpdrive by default.
- Xenon corvettes no longer have rudder/engine/cargo upgrades. They are given max attributes by default.

1.6: Patch notes 1.6:

- Includes Weapon rebalance 1.6. (Tweaks to corvette weapons, nerf to tiny weapons, and buffs to area weapons)

Argon Centaur:
- weapon generator boosted 15% (262.4 to 301.76)
- cargo reduced from 750/1250 to 650/1150.

Pirate Centaur:
- weapon generator boosted 15% (301.8 to 347.07)
- cargo reduced from 750/1190 to 550/900

Split Dragon:
- weapon regen boosted 20% to compensate IRE change.
- left and right weapon banks improved.
- base speed reduced to be slightly above vanilla values.

Split Heavy Dragon:
- Speed reduced to vanilla values.
- weapon regen boosted 10% (350 to 385)

Pirate Osprey:
- Major overhaul. Is now a "pirate transport" style of ship, with high cargo and very high

speed. Can dock 1 fighter. Heavy missile removed.

Teladi Osprey:
- Weapon regen boosted 15% (209.6 to 241.04)
- Cargo increased to 4000/7000
- Heavy missile type removed

Pirate Marauder Hauler:
- Is now a "light assault" corvette.
- The missile bay has been retrofitted to only launch boarding pods.
- Weapon generator boosted 15% (262.4 to 301.76)
- Shields reduced to 2x200MJ (from 3x200MJ), shield power reduced to 1800 (from 2500)

Other:
- Paranid Nemesis weapon generator boosted 15% (287.4 to 330.518)
- Boron Hydra and Heavy Hydra heavy missile type removed.

- Teladi Heavy osprey weapon regen boosted 6% (338.4 to 359.55)

1.1:
- Adjusts boron mobility traits. They are much slower than their vanilla counterparts, but keep their (terrible) vanilla agility.

1.0:
- Initial Release
- Fixed vanilla bug where terran prototype weapons were improperly referencing the standard weapon projectiles. They now use their proper custom projectiles.

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About the mod:

I tried to give every race something special about their corvettes. Now players can pick corvettes that really suit their play style. I hope you have as much fun using them as I did remaking them!

Boron: Use their water filled craft to cool a high powered weapons core. Boron craft are deadly "lance" variants that use the most devastating weapons ever to fit on a corvette.

Split: Split slavery is heavily reflected in their ship design. The fast and fragile "flak" variant corvette provides absolute authority over fighter craft.

Osprey: Slow, cumbersome vessels suited for trade in areas of lethal competition, the Osprey is an "armored transport" designed to ensure the safe trade of valuable cargo. Can not fire missiles.

Pirate Osprey: Similar to the Osprey, the Pirate Osprey is the light version of the armored transport. It has a spacious cargo hold, is very fast, and can dock a defensive fighter, making it perfect for illegal trade.

Heavy Osprey: The heavy "missile" variant serves as a trade escort. Filling its spacious cargo hold with missiles and redundant weapon systems, the heavy Osprey has unmatched endurance and burst firepower, well suited to protecting trade convoys.

Paranid: Paranid vessels are designed to do everything well, and are fitted with the finest of adamantium plate. They are your average "super heavy fighter" style of corvette, with access to the draining ion shard railgun.

Argon: Argon corvettes are generic "super heavy fighter" vessels tasked with securing argon space. Fixes in weapon technology make them exceptionally deadly with Ion Pulse Generators.

Xenon: Xenon corvettes are designed by a flawless AI. They do not require rudder/cargo/engine upgrades.

Kha'ak: Warelist entry allows the corvette to come pre equipped with full weapons and shields. Due to game limitations, warelist weapons can't be equipped by the AI.

Skiron: It is now a "repair/utility" corvette, equipped with the new repair laser. Is capable of crippling enemy corvettes and fighters, rendering them helpless. Game limitations prevent the ship from installing warelist weapons, restricting combat use for players only.

[Kadatherion]

Neat ideas, and I did for myself something kinda similar, though definitely quicker and mostly related to those corvettes I meant to use for my fleet in different roles.

However, I see one potential big issue there: the hydra with anti cap weapons. Overkill. Even most M7s do not have front mounted anti cap weapons, since they make killing M2s and M1s ridiculously easy: you can snipe 'em from 7-8 km away while they will not fire back at you until they are at around 4-5 km, and with such a small ship avoiding that is a cakewalk with strafing.
The basic issue is that the AI won't fire at you until it sees you as in range for its weapon. Problem is, when you are 8 km away from a K you actually ARE in range since that distance is calculated at the centre of the K, and as such you can hit it when it's facing you for pursue, while it cannot react especially if you have a small ship.

This makes sinking cap ships just a matter of sniping 'em for a while, turning around and running away for a bit when they get close, and repeat until they go down, even with a rather small laser generator.
The Thresher is already quite "game breaking" for that very reason, an even smaller ship with that feature is a big no go IMO. I did the very same when customizing corvettes for my game, and had to switch back to a more conservative setup to keep having fun

[Bobucles]

I can't do anything about in game AI. The "run+gun" strategy really works for every high end ship, the best I could do is lower their agility and restrict it to the short ranged cap guns. I had to balance them using other methods:

Unlike capital frigates, the Hydra and Heavy Hydra are practically helpless against fighters. Both can only use heavy missiles (which I may remove). The cargo space looks great, but after loading weapons and e-cells there isn't much room to spare. Both Boron corvettes have the lowest agility available, and both have reduced main weapon slots. They can't use anything smaller than CIG/IPG, and the Hydra's weapons shoot AROUND fighters. At 25mil, the HH is a big prize to lose when it gets swarmed and taken out by a pile of M4 and M5 ships.

The weapon rebalance mod narrows the gap between the HH and other corvettes. At the same time it makes frigates far more deadly, and softens up the Aldrin ships. The lance variant was made to provide a capital killer that won't break the bank (as much). I don't see anything wrong with it being good at its role (especially when they start shooting at YOU).

Lastly, the HH is BORING as hell to fly, and tends to be terrible in AI hands. You only really get one to play with. Try some of the other corvettes out, such as a hunting pack of Dragons or a Phalanx of Heavy Ospreys.

[Bobucles]

Because I'm bored, a bit of fluff.

Dragon: The Dragon was a misguided attempt at creating a fast fighter killer to stalemate the frequent skirmishes between Family clans. Instead, aspiring pilots have destabilized family clans in their desire to captain the new ship. Equipped with mass drivers, the Dragon can do considerable damage to infrastructure, while being fast enough to escape fleet patrols.

Heavy Dragon: Unable to develop the high powered corvette class weaponry of the other races, the Split instead use vast arrays of dated weaponry to simplify ship design and maintenance. The Heavy Dragon's slave crew live short lives due to the ship's powerful and poorly shielded engines.

Hydra: With the hull contents measuring over 60% water, the Hydra's life support system also serves as a massive heat reservoir for its powerful weapon generators. During combat, sections of the ship can be drained into the cooling system and blasted into space as superheated steam.

Heavy Hydra: Sporting the largest weapons ever seen on a corvette, the Heavy Hydra utilizes an advanced liquid cooling system to keep its weapon core running at peak efficiency. The bravest Boron captains have been known to drain even their cabin life support into the engines, sometimes being killed from dehydration.

Osprey: The Teladi Corporation's latest corvette class ship is a heavily armed and armored freighter, allowing business leaders to extend their trade influence into the most dangerous areas of the galaxy. Neither nebulae nor pirate nor Kha'ak nor border patrol stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Heavy Osprey: Using advanced compression technology, Teladi shipwrights are the first to outfit their heavy corvette with frigate class weapon cells. The Heavy Osprey's incredible endurance provides contesting parties ample time to negotiate a cease fire.

Pirate Osprey: Popular among various smuggling rings, pirates have filled the Osprey with high powered weapon cells to turn this simple design into a dangerous raider.

[irR4tiOn4L]

Some interesting changes, but i will have to test this out to see what i think.

I like the fact youve gone to the trouble of comprehensively editing these ships - extra turrets especially!

However, and remember i havent tried the mod so its just an impression - some of the changes are made based of what SOUNDS like a good implementation of the idea, but may not be.

For example - H/HHydra EVEN LOWER maneuver then stock game? Why not increase M6 maneuverability across the board first, then start taking away?

Another might (and i havent tried yet) be the fact that Boron being 'heavy lance' where split are 'flak' isnt exactly sticking to the game lore - it seems to me that, if anything, it was the HDragon that was supposed to be an anti-frigate 'lance' and Hydra the 'pacifist' type ship, where small calibre weapons with a large cargo bay (apparently the vanilla hydra was a good high tech trader) might suit it.

But this is just going off what youve written. Let me test it out and ill get back to you with feedback

[Bobucles]

It wasn't really a tough call between split and boron. I picked options that would best fit the lore.
The Split get small guns because:
A) Keep a hearty slave crew on their ships that need something to do. Why not have them work the turrets?
B) Have a fierce caste system where ships must ALWAYS be superior to the lesser castes. Frigate > corvette > fighter. It would be pure anarchy otherwise.
C) Split don't have the advanced tech to put big guns on a small ship.
This dragon is meant to enforce the master/slave relationship within families, and as such is built to overpower the lesser fighter caste.

I gave the Boron big guns because:
A) They are cowards that prefer to fight at long range.
B) Their ships are full of water, a natural heat sponge.
C) The Heavy Hydra looks like a custom built water cooled PC with huge forward guns
Boron ships run massive weapon generators that run hot. DAMN hot. How do they keep cool? Well, they have an entire cargo hold filled with liquid coolant. No other corvette has that! They are the race that can literally pump life support into their weapons to keep them from melting. The downside is that a ship filled with water is HEAVY, so it can't dogfight.

I dunno about the hydra's agility. I don't want it to be good at dog fighting. I want it to be good at long range, and a threat to capital ships. I've been playing with different movement values. I might nerf the speed, since the AI is real bad with using the Hydra.

I tried to keep most changes focused on M6's throughout the mod. Things like redesigning cargo holds, redesigning hull values is outside the scope. I do have some ideas for making a more in depth mod, but I got other projects to do right now.

[Bobucles]

The link was broken. I have uploaded a new file.
http://www.filefront.com/17498876/m6-overhaul-1.1.rar/

Updated to 1.1:
- tweaked boron M6 mobility traits.

[eldyranx3]

Im going to have to agree with irR4tiOn4L on this one. The Boron / Split changes dont fit established lore.

Boron: Shouldnt underwater creatures favor agility?
Split: Typical ship design. Big Guns. Minimal shielding. I dont believe Im familiar with this 'caste' system you've implied. Where is it noted in the X-encyclopedia?
Pirates: Smugglers wouldnt use a M6 to smuggle illegial goods as they draw too much attention. Instead, wouldnt a pirate M6 use IPG's (and other such tech) to cripple transports and steal cargo?
Paranid: So, whats their 'weakness' again?

I applaud your efforts overhauling the M6 class. Its one of the most glaring holes in the X-Universe.

[Bobucles]

Yeah, I had to make some hard choices.

Boron may be fish, but they are smart, and they are cowardly. In your face dogfighting takes a level of bravery ill suited to a captain. Sitting back lobbing giant energy balls of death while sipping a space martini- that's thinking like a Boron. Also, do you know how the tonnage of water compares to air? They're lucky their ships can move at all!

Split make frequent use of slaves, so they obviously have some sort of master/slave caste system. It makes sense (to me at least) that Split ships would enforce those castes by using slave corvette gunners to keep slave fighters in line. You use the slave crew of the frigates to keep the corvette slaves in line. And so on, with all the best toys being held by the slave masters.

Good point on the Pirates. I'll make sure they have all the ship disabling weapons they need, and the cargo space to haul away goods. I'd like to give them a docking clamp, as it suits the idea of hijacking and stealing ships. They're pretty boring as is.

Paranid ships are superior. They have no weakness. I may consider reducing their cargo a bit, but armor is such a minor attribute, and they're cramped enough as is.
Paranid and Argon ships are the only true "vanilla" ships. If they're balanced against each other, it's good.

[Bobucles]

Updated to 1.6!

Includes updated weapon rebalance mod. Full notes in first post

- Light corvettes have been given more firepower
- Pirate ships have been drastically changed

[Bobucles]

Updated to 2.0! Includes a completely new ship type, the Skiron "repair" corvette. Also provides major improvements to existing roles.

All details are in the first post.