[MOD-TC]Ship Rebalance Mod:Continued v1.10b (27/6/11): Now Discontinued...

[vkerinav]

Finally, a reasonable explanation for those AI M5s flying around at 100 m/s! Its a shame you can't tie tuning price to the ship price; that would make more sense.

[paulwheeler]

Yeah. The only reasonable way to accomplish it is to reduce the number of tunings needed to max speed for small ships, and increase the number for big ships. At the moment they are the wrong way round. That would be a hell of a job though as practically every ship in the game would need to be changed .

Maybe one day ill get to it!

[vkerinav]

I'm not sure that's a reasonable way, but it might just be the best.

[Railgunner]

@pualwheeler: Double check the turret loadouts for the Argon M1 Colossus, The right(Or left) Turret, I believe it's number 4, It's unable to mount the Photon Pulse Cannon, The upwards mount IS capable of mounting it, I've checked it against the Colossus Hauler and it's able to mount the PPC in the number 4 turret position, (Left or right I can't remember). I believe this is an error, It cause problems because of the uneven fire arcs of the PPCs, one side has good coverage, while the other has it's PPCs pointing up......

EDIT: It's the left turret, slot 4....

[paulwheeler]

This was something that was done in the original SRM... To be honest I kind of like it.

You're up turret and right turrets have PPC which means you can broadside enemies and give them eight savlos of PPC rather than just four if there is a symmetrical loadout. You soon get used to flying to the left of capital ships and the right of fighters. It makes the Collosus far more effective than if the loadout was symmetrical, plus it makes it stand out a bit from the rest.

I don't know... this is the second time someone has mentioned it. I like it and I use the Collosus as my main flagship, but I guess if the consensus is to have it symmetrical then I can change it. Remember the SRM is all about giving each ship a niche so they are all useful...

Its up to you guys...

[Railgunner]

Ahh, okay, thanks for explaining, Just a quick question: Why does the split M1 have 40 hanger spaces??

[paulwheeler]

Again I think this is part of the balancing done in the original SRM. The Raptor had a bit of a weapons and speed increase to make it more split like - so to keep it in balance it had to lose something. In this case docking slots. Anyway the Split ethos is to go flying into battle - not sit at the back and let your fighters do all the work, so the emphasis will be less on number of fighters and more on the power of the main ship.


Good news! - I've successfully merged Cadius' ship and station pack. So you should get it in the next update. The main set of ships and stations is fully merged with the SRM, but adding the ships and stations to shipyards will be an optional pack.

I will go through all the ships to make sure they balance with the SRM. For the most part what I have seen so far looks quite well balanced already.

I've started to think that having all the new terran ships is not such a bad thing as the Terran's are already limited by the lack of decent weapons, so perhaps more ships will even the balance a little. I will make sure there are no "I Win" ships in there.

[djrygar]

EDIT -

After playing around it now costs about 1.5M to max out a Discoverer's engine tunings. The problem is that since there are only a few engine tunings to reach max speed on an M2, these are still pretty cheap. In an ideal world I'd go through all the ships and increase the number of engine tunings on large ships and reduce it on small - but I don't think I have the time for that!

maybe instead eng tunings just adjust default cargo size on M1/M2, so player will have to buy more? You hav eplenty of room for manipulation here

side note:
also, Exp. Falcon Advanced has 1500 cargo. Don't you think that bit silly (more than corvette)?

[paulwheeler]

Cargo bay extensions are always a set amount between the max and min. Its only engine and rudder tunings that vary. This wouldn't help for this anyway as having lots of engine tunings on a capital ship will just make it go faster.

For example, an M1 tends to have a max of maybe 6 engine tunings. An M5 can have around 25. If you give an M1 25 engine tunings it will be too fast unless you really slow down the basic speed. The only way really is to reduce the numbers on the smaller ships, but that would take forever to do. Also the engine tunings vary for all ship sizes, gradually getting less as the ships get bigger. You'd have to go through every ship to change this round the other way.

Maybe one day...

I take it you mean the Enhanced Kea Experimental... I'll check it.


Looking at Cadius' ship pack there are a couple of "I WIN" ships. For example the Proetus - 4GJ shields, 140m/s, PPCs... on an M7!?

I will tone these down a bit, but don't worry it will still be a good ship, just balanced... and damn expensive!

[Railgunner]

Outstanding!! Most of the terran stations are a nightmare to fly past or dock at, They're just too big!! So do you have a general estimate on when the next version of SRM will be ready?? I'm really looking forward to the new changes!!

[vkerinav]

I have been looking over Cadius' pack, and I'm not overly impressed with the fighter models(its the wings; too wide a profile.). I imagine you're thinking about the re-balancing already, but I'll offer some thoughts and hope they help. Feel free to ignore the occasional complaint about the models. Please don't replace the MMBS model with Cadius'.

The Verdani and the Kopesh seem like the most overpowered, and I'm curious to know just how the computer would handle an M3B(That could be an interesting idea, but they should really have their own, short range anti-capital missile, a cross between the Spectre and the Phantom).

I like the Macana(With respect to Egosoft, shouldn't they have saved 'scabbard' for the TM, what with the fighters all named after swords?), but its seriously overpowered. The Lofn needs work(try launching six fighters from it at once; the only reason they don't collide is that collisions are turned off.) Its another interesting concept, but it should launch Phantom, not Ghoul, missiles, to make it more of an M8/TM cross, not an M7M/TM.

The Hakata can't be balanced without removing most of its docking ports, or reducing its speed considerably, I'd say to 30 m/s. It also has too many guns.

The Sendai escort looks to be the equivalent of SRM's Boreas; you might just make it an M2.

The M7 Longsword also needs work. Less shields and reduced weapons recharge.

I'd be interested to see the Aomori turned into a light fast carrier, similar to the Panther. With their expansive sectors and lack of jump gates, I'd expect the Terrans to field something along those lines. Could be done with the Morioka variant, also. This might be more Cadius' domain.

The Hiroshima has far too many weapons. An Aegir-level array would be more appropriate.

I see you've already noticed the Proteus. I think the Ocelot has too many turrets, as well.

[paulwheeler]

I hope to have this out sometime next week, but as has just been pointed out these ships need a bit if tweaking.

That list is great and very helpful. If anyone else has ideas on how to best balance these ships please post them.

I'm going to have a proper look at them over the weekend.

[vkerinav]

Oh, minor thing; SRM is missing the Vidar's BSD scene file. I can't find any problems in the file itself. I'll leave it up to you whether to use it, or correct the Tships entry.

[Antheus]

Again I think this is part of the balancing done in the original SRM. The Raptor had a bit of a weapons and speed increase to make it more split like - so to keep it in balance it had to lose something. In this case docking slots. Anyway the Split ethos is to go flying into battle - not sit at the back and let your fighters do all the work, so the emphasis will be less on number of fighters and more on the power of the main ship.

Not to mention that it is one of the visually smaller M1 models. (I never understood why it had the most hanger space compared to the others.)

I originally had problems with the split Elephant having the fastest/strongest Gens/largest hanger of all TL's but only 34,000 cargo makes up for it. (Split ethos ... combat.)

Good news! - I've successfully merged Cadius' ship and station pack. So you should get it in the next update. The main set of ships and stations is fully merged with the SRM, but adding the ships and stations to shipyards will be an optional pack.

Yay~! I wasn't expecting this, and was going to look into editing the TShips manually. Spending most of my time in PTNI Headquarters, this should be real nice, ty.

[Railgunner]

What are your plans for balancing the Saitama Heavy Carrier?? And could you get it to launch more than two or four fighters at once?? It has 20 launch bays.....

[paulwheeler]

What are your plans for balancing the Saitama Heavy Carrier?? And could you get it to launch more than two or four fighters at once?? It has 20 launch bays.....

I would if I had a clue how to fix how many ships it can launch at once... I'd imagine this is more likely to be something to do with the model itself so maybe beyond what I can do at the moment.

I'll have a look though

As for rebalancing it - I had a look yesterday and it was already quite well balanced. Just maybe a few tweaks here and there. I will compare it to the Tokyo and make sure that it balances with that.



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Regarding putting these ships into your game, I think I will have a play with Cadius' scripts so that they don't appear in every single shipyard, but more selective ones. I'm thinking of only having the newer USC ships in Saturn and/or the Moon.

In fact I would prefer it if the ATF ships only appear if you have the ATF shipyard installed. This may of course mean making my own SRM version of the ATF shipyard... I'll see what happens.



BTW - anyone know what the safe undocking scripts in Cadius' pack do? Are they there for a reason?

[creidiki]

Mmm, you know ...

I have to admit that the recent trend of kitchensinking this mod almost has me shopping for another ship rebalance.

While it nice that you take care of people like me - thanks for the alternate TShips - not everyone has blazing-fast internet with no download budget.

Personally, I really don't want to DL the X2 ships and Cadius' mod when I'm not going to use them.

I never liked the look of the X2 ships - one of the reasons I quit playing it very quickly - and as far as Cadius' mod, his on work is very good to excellent, but the 2 mass effect (2) normandys and the EVE-online Proteus cause critical immersion failure when I'm playing.

Although I'd love to just have his Terran and ATF models that 'fit' ...

... anyway, how much extra work would it be on your end to make a 'light' version without those two?

P.S. I vote for symmetrical turret setups on all ships. Asymmetrical setups are deeply annoying to me ... and the first thing I change when a new SRM is out, so I suppose having it done upstream is really just convenience/lazyness for me.

P.P.S. The safe undocking script is probably the XTC Safe Undocking Script

[paulwheeler]

I wouldn't exactly call adding a few ships "kitchen sinking" a mod. Most of the other additional stuff is all optional.

Its only about 62MB with cadius' ships in. Hardly a killer, even if you're still on 56K dial up.

I will remove cadius' ships in the alternative Tships too if you want. That way if you want to inlude a ship, simply change its race back to what it should be. But I can't create custom versions to keep everyone happy. Its either all ships or a version with no new ships.

I'm not sure yet if I will include all the ships anyway. I certainly won't include two versions of the same model, one M6, one M7 (normandy). I will choose the one that fits best. Not sure about the Proetus either. I haven't really had time to check them all out yet. I don't particularly like the idea of adding ships from other games.

Keeping this mod true to the spirit of the X Universe is very important to me.

However, please remember - I have taken on the SRM mainly for myself and my own game. I'm not getting anything out of this. I will try and accomodate people's suggestions as much as I can, but ultimately I will only include things or change things which I want to see in my own game.

The day it becomes something other than that is the day I stop doing it.

[creidiki]

I wouldn't exactly call adding a few ships "kitchen sinking" a mod. Most of the other additional stuff is all optional.

Its only about 62MB with cadius' ships in. Hardly a killer, even if you're still on 56K dial up.

Oh that's not too bad, although with 56k its two and a half hours.

I will remove cadius' ships in the alternative Tships too if you want. That way if you want to inlude a ship, simply change its race back to what it should be. But I can't create custom versions to keep everyone happy. Its either all ships or a version with no new ships.

Of course, I only suggested a second version because I wasn't aware marking it as unknown in TShips would stop it from spawning (hadn't re-read the whole first post after you merged the X2 mod). A single 'lite' version of the TShips should be plenty.

I'm not sure yet if I will include all the ships anyway. I certainly won't include two versions of the same model, one M6, one M7 (normandy). I will choose the one that fits best. Not sure about the Proetus either. I haven't really had time to check them all out yet. I don't particularly like the idea of adding ships from other games.

Keeping this mod true to the spirit of the X Universe is very important to me.

Well, that obviously comes down to personal taste ... the way they hit me, those three just don't fit ... The Normandy looks nothing like the rest of the UCS ships, and the Proteus doesn't look Paranid.

I'm ambivalent about the various model replacements ... the original mobile mining base looks odd but has more character.

However, please remember - I have taken on the SRM mainly for myself and my own game. I'm not getting anything out of this. I will try and accomodate people's suggestions as much as I can, but ultimately I will only include things or change things which I want to see in my own game.

The day it becomes something other than that is the day I stop doing it.

That does without saying.

[Railgunner]

I prefer Cadius' TL model, and I love his stations, but I hate to bring this up but a good amount of the Terran ships are based off of ships from Nexus: The Jupiter Incident...... Though with the detail that engine put into each ship and their general style they usually fit the X3 terrans pretty well....