[MOD] Turret Balance Patch 0.9

[Vaeo]

The turret balance patch v0.9 is a simple, minimally invasive mod that re-balances the damage on all turrets and specifically the M-turret's ability to track and hit enemies in X4.

The roles of larger ships are now more clearly defined by their turret loadouts. Frigates, for example, who typically have four mounted guns serve as anti-fighter escorts for destroyers, who are now equipped exclusively with L-turrets, which are too unwieldy to make short work of fighters but pose a major threat to smaller frigates, enemy destroyers, and enemy carriers. The carrier is a fairly self sufficient unit that launches fighters while itself serving as a point defense platform and safe place to land (I may add more utility to the carrier in later mods).

The net change to X4's combat as a result of these turret buffs are that it is far more dangerous. And the roles of larger ships are better solidified by their load out choices. Reminiscent of older X games, getting too close as a small fighter to larger ship is an incredibly dangerous thing to do. But no ship will be instantly evaporated by any weapon in this patch. They can, however, die very quickly. Especially to a stream of large turret fire. Large turret weapons have had projectile speed reduced to compensate, but increased from the vanilla game. No more than enough to keep fighters from being stupid, by my own calibrations.

I hope you all enjoy it. Below is a road map, special thanks, and the download. I look forward to hearing input.

Roadmap for 1.0:
-Buff speed of s-class fighters.
-Reduce heating and increase fire rate on S-ship guns.
-Possibly tweak turret stats to compensate for increased fighter speed.
-Possibly look into adding ship healing docking bays to carrier.

Special thanks to:
Mr. Anderson,
Drewgamer,
Uni Trader,
VapeMom69,
atxatx,
and Celludriel.

~ Who all helped me figure out through some trial and error to how to re-class the destroyer's turrets to large on all batteries.

DOWNLOAD: https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations ... escription

[Sirilius]

Interesting.

Does this automatically turn all destroyers M turrets into L turrets? Even the NPC?

And if it is uninstalled, will it go back automatically?

Does this mod do anything to how the AI handles aiming with the turrets?

Cheers and thanks for the work on this mod. Will try it in a new game shortly.

[Vaeo]

Interesting.

Does this automatically turn all destroyers M turrets into L turrets? Even the NPC?

And if it is uninstalled, will it go back automatically?

Does this mod do anything to how the AI handles aiming with the turrets?

Cheers and thanks for the work on this mod. Will try it in a new game shortly.

To the first question: for the player that's definitely what happens with destroyers. All M turrets become L turrets. And L turrets hit hard. NPCs I am not 100% sure, but since they all pack missile turrets by default it wasn't a huge issue. They will still provide a challenge because of that. My guess is that newly manufactured NPC destroyers will all be using L turrets in place of their M though. I'd encourage you to check that out and let me know what you notice. ^^

This mod is totally noninvasive. It dynamically (temporarily) overrides default values, but it does not change the game in a core way. So you can install it and uninstall it at will. Or simply turn it off, of course.

Addressing the AI turret logic directly I've heard from the modding community is not possible right now without making really invasive mods or hacking the game version, because I guess AI turret logic is hard coded. However, their poor logic can be overpowered to an extent. M turrets in this mod swivel much faster than they used to and projectiles shoot very quickly. They also tend to have greater rates of fire with the exception of beam weapons which only got buffs to their damage and slight tweaks to their range. They do a decent job of killing things without feeling overpowered, and the AI turrets are likewise buffed, so it's not too difficult to find yourself in an ugly situation with other frigates. Because I made sure to buff not only the races but the xenon turrets too. L-turrets of course don't need to be fast. Button line is that you don't wanna be hugging anything with M turrets. And it's even somewhat dangerous to hug things with L turrets if they are running L impulse.

And I'm glad you're excited for it. ^^ I wouldn't mind some feedback. I hope that sufficiently clears up some questions.

[Sirilius]

To the first question: for the player that's definitely what happens with destroyers. All M turrets become L turrets. And L turrets hit hard. NPCs I am not 100% sure, but since they all pack missile turrets by default it wasn't a huge issue. They will still provide a challenge because of that. My guess is that newly manufactured NPC destroyers will all be using L turrets in place of their M though. I'd encourage you to check that out and let me know what you notice. ^^

It doesnt reconfig existing destroyers, only during a new save do I see the changes. I assume any new destroyers built in previous games would then be fitted with the new turret config.

My concern then would be different destroyers in the NPC hands with different turret config depending on whether a new game was started or not.

I also noticed that on the behemoth, the large turrets clips forward.

Would it be possible to try this turret rebalance without the destroyer changes? As it would make it easier to install/uninstall on existing games etc.

Cheers.

[Vaeo]

To the first question: for the player that's definitely what happens with destroyers. All M turrets become L turrets. And L turrets hit hard. NPCs I am not 100% sure, but since they all pack missile turrets by default it wasn't a huge issue. They will still provide a challenge because of that. My guess is that newly manufactured NPC destroyers will all be using L turrets in place of their M though. I'd encourage you to check that out and let me know what you notice. ^^

It doesnt reconfig existing destroyers, only during a new save do I see the changes. I assume any new destroyers built in previous games would then be fitted with the new turret config.

My concern then would be different destroyers in the NPC hands with different turret config depending on whether a new game was started or not.

I also noticed that on the behemoth, the large turrets clips forward.

Would it be possible to try this turret rebalance without the destroyer changes? As it would make it easier to install/uninstall on existing games etc.

Cheers.

TY for the input about destroyers changing on new games! That probably tells the story. When the first generation is gone, the new ones will build with these turret conventions.

As far as different NPC configs go. . . All of the turrets are pretty bamf. In a head to head I'd say the destroyer with the most pulse lasers will probably strike a victory. But flak, gatling, and beam aren't exactly weak either. They'd probably chip into the hull pretty deep unless you used clever piloting and worked your ranges. But this patch makes being caught between multiple ships of the same class a very unpleasant place to be. Anything M sized and up that engages ships on anything more than a 1to1 basis will probably get hurt fairly fast.

And yes, the mod can easily be played without these changes to destroyers. If you want to try this mod without the destroyer changes (meaning they will run with lots of M turrets and put a serious hurting on fighters) just go to your main game folder and then extensions\turret_balance_patch\assets and remove the folder called "units." The units folder exists solely for the destroyer turret placement changes. It won't impact any of the damage on large turrets or changes to their projectile speed.

Deleting it was one way to go. Or you can simply move it and pop it back in if you want to put it on later for any reason.

[Sirilius]

Thanks for that!

Tbh I keep starting again and messing about so haven’t even left my fighters yet.

Will start a new game with this mod, maybe it’ll entice me to upgrade to the medium ships as they will now tear apart my fighters

Also, the other concern with the destroyers all having L turrets is the imbalance between the destroyers. I believe the argon one has 7 slots and the Paranid has 11?

[Vaeo]

Thanks for that!

Tbh I keep starting again and messing about so haven’t even left my fighters yet.

Will start a new game with this mod, maybe it’ll entice me to upgrade to the medium ships as they will now tear apart my fighters

Also, the other concern with the destroyers all having L turrets is the imbalance between the destroyers. I believe the argon one has 7 slots and the Paranid has 11?

You're right, but there's also like a 50k shield difference between paranid ships and argon ones. I don't know how it evens out EXACTLY in application (argon have tons of shielding in vanilla, and i haven't changed any shield values). My gut tells me a slugfest between the two ships would be close. Paranid might win on a one to one basis, but I think it will be close enough to be dramatic.

[Vaeo]

And all of that assumes each ship is ever at any point firing every single onboard turret at its enemy. realistically I anticipate each will be firing between 3-6, and because of the shape of the argon ship it will probably be firing closer to most of its turrets than the paranid. But this needs some testing. I'm not on friendly enough terms with all factions to test every destroyer and I didn't wanna spend extra time learning to mod my license.

So hopefully that's where guys like you come in. ^^

[GageDragon]

Cheat menu on nexusmods might speed up testing some?


https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/73

[Sirilius]

What are the numbers that you’ve used for the medium turrets? Feels a bit too strong. A single shielded fighter gets ripped apart by a small freighters turret (eg mercury etc with their M turrets) and they only have two!

Also saw a P get smoked by an Ides

[Vaeo]

What are the numbers that you’ve used for the medium turrets? Feels a bit too strong. A single shielded fighter gets ripped apart by a small freighters turret (eg mercury etc with their M turrets) and they only have two!

For damage, the default numbers I used are matching each turret type to the MK2 medium weapon it comes from. And large turrets are 65% stronger than their medium MK2 counter parts. So they are basically shooting like your main guns now instead of some heavily nerfed version of them.

For accuracy we have increased projectile speed and rate of fire on turrets. Which of course indirectly boosts damage. I wanted any fighter not making strafing runs on turrets to get chewed up pretty fast. Flying directly into two medium sized mouted weapons is supposed to be dangerous.

And the AI is frequently stupid like that. Of course in the next version I plan to significantly buff fighter speed and adjust the rate of fire and projectile speed of their main guns to be more in line with turrets. So fighter speed and dps will see an increase that probably makes them a lot harder to hit unless they are in a bad position.

[Vaeo]

And alas, xenon suffer from poor turret placement on their hulls.

[alexalsp]

bullet_xen_turret_m_laser_01_mk1_macro.xml

Code: Select all

 <replace sel="//macros/macro/properties/ammunition/@reload">.8</replace> 

.8 its 8 or 0.8 or 1.8 ????????????????????

[Adimanther]

For damage, the default numbers I used are matching each turret type to the MK2 medium weapon it comes from. And large turrets are 65% stronger than their medium MK2 counter parts. So they are basically shooting like your main guns now instead of some heavily nerfed version of them.

For accuracy we have increased projectile speed and rate of fire on turrets. Which of course indirectly boosts damage. I wanted any fighter not making strafing runs on turrets to get chewed up pretty fast. Flying directly into two medium sized mouted weapons is supposed to be dangerous.

And the AI is frequently stupid like that. Of course in the next version I plan to significantly buff fighter speed and adjust the rate of fire and projectile speed of their main guns to be more in line with turrets. So fighter speed and dps will see an increase that probably makes them a lot harder to hit unless they are in a bad position.

I haven't tried the mod, but it sounds like power creep is afoot with increasing fighter speeds and their gun speeds to match the now overpowered turrets. Plus it doesn't sound "minimally invasive" anymore. In Vanilla a Falcon or Quasar can annihilate a Behemoth (mostly due to the shield recharge delay), but can easily be taken down by some frigates.

[Sirilius]

I haven't tried the mod, but it sounds like power creep is afoot with increasing fighter speeds and their gun speeds to match the now overpowered turrets. Plus it doesn't sound "minimally invasive" anymore. In Vanilla a Falcon or Quasar can annihilate a Behemoth (mostly due to the shield recharge delay), but can easily be taken down by some frigates.

I agree. I think that s vs s combat is ok. Not great. Some ships need balancing and tweaking but then once again once you go down that path you are no longer doing a mimimal non-invasive changes.

I do feel like the current numbers are a bit oppressive. Perhaps somewhere between the mk1 and mk2 damages? The hit rate with the medium turrets are good at the moment but because of the AI, fights do end quickly against fighters.

Ultimately it’s your mod. But if you wanna go down the non invasive route I’d just leave it with the turret tweaks. And maybe giving destroyers/carrier shields some looking into.

Turrets hitting targets = good
Fights ending in a matter of seconds = bad

Keep up the good work. Cheers

[Vaeo]

I'll tune down m turret damage and see how it plays.

[argon_emperor]

I'll tune down m turret damage and see how it plays.

Possibly consider making them equal to either Mk I M, or Mk II S damage? After all, the turrets are there to take on ships of smaller size usually, while the main guns are for taking on ships of the same size or bigger. Just my 2 cents on it