[MOD] Variety and Rebalance Overhaul (VRO) 4.x

[rusky]

Hey, I've been having a lot of fun playing X4 with VRO lately so figured I'd leave some feedback!

I did end up making my own small mod of VRO to adjust some things to my liking. In particular, one change I noticed you are already considering: I have removed the buff to NPC defense platform health and also nerfed Xenon station health by about 200%! (Apparently this was vanilla, but a typical xenon solar power plant in my game had over 20 Mil hp, which coupled with the very deadly weapons resulted in failed attempts at taking it down with a fleet of 3 battleships and 3 destroyers, both IS and OOS).

I have also buffed ship hull values across the board, and the internal generators, while increasing weapon damage to compensate. Overall this resulted in ships being stronger relative to stations in general, especially coupled with the station hull value nerfs.
You might think this was overkill, but before these changes I played the game for a total of 4+ days and I think I only noticed 1 sector changing owner (to the xenon) despite using FOCW (with medium+ settings) and Faction enhancer.
Stations are still dangerous after the changes but are no longer immortal bastions that can hold off armadas by themselves.

Also, I've been playing a split game, with the dynamic relations mod, and I'm RPing helping the Zyarth Patriarchy conquer the galaxy. So I'm mostly/only using Split tech. The only other tech I could get my hands on so far is some Teladi stuff.

One thing I noticed is the Split L Turret Mass driver is very poor relative to other similar guns.
It's meant to be a special split anti capital weapon, but compared to the Teladi Gauss is worse in every way (less damage, less range, same everything else, except for the small amount of shield pierce which is not that great against capitals).

I think you should buff it

In my game, I buffed it by making it fire in 3 round bursts to keep with the Split dakka approach, and having an overall slightly better dps (as most other split guns) than other similar capital weapons (esp considering it's shorter range).

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the work, this is a great mod, and has had me enjoy X4 greatly, please keep working on it!

[AtilaElari]

I did end up making my own small mod of VRO to adjust some things to my liking.

Those changes look like what I was thinking about. Could you share the altered mod file you created?

[rusky]

I did end up making my own small mod of VRO to adjust some things to my liking.

Those changes look like what I was thinking about. Could you share the altered mod file you created?

Here you go: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L8xkad ... sp=sharing

This has optional support for XR_Shippack / XR_Shippack_VRO since I was playing with them at the time, but no support for Extra ships/weapons mods.

Also @Shuulo: I think I spotted a typo in the Rattlesnake internal shield gen when I was messing about, pretty sure it's missing a 0!

[AtilaElari]

Thank you! Although I wonder, why did you choose to buff all the shields and weapons rather than simply decrease station Hull values, if your goal was to make stations more vulnerable?

[rusky]

I also just generally wanted to make the ships a bit more durable and amplify the variation from ship class to class a bit. Again this is just my own personal taste (low effort) modification
Overall it's still very close to vanilla VRO though, you might not immediately notice a huge difference when fighting/looking at fleet battles.

EDIT: I actually just realised I messed up the initial package I uploaded since I had just deleted some of the files in vro manually. Oops!

Reuploaded as proper mod now!

Also here's a different version with just some small changes to stations instead of all the other stuff:

* Remove defence platform hp buff
* Nerf xenon base station hp

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZXSMBq ... sp=sharing

Do note that I play with various mods that buff xenon presence so maybe the xenon nerf isn't needed in your game. You can just delete the 2 xenon macro files in the mod then.

[AtilaElari]

Did you also change projectile speed or tracking of turrets? I'm noticing that Fusion Butst L turrets are now capable of inflicting notable casualties on my fighter squadrons, while they were nearly harmless before.

[rusky]

Only weapons change is increased damage per shot to compensate the extra hp of ships.
I imagine one of the side effects is that relative to the hp of a fighter, a large turret now does more damage when it hits. I wouldn't expect L turrets to do much against fighters still though unless there's only a handful of them and all turrets are focusing.

I recommend using this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/645/ if you're using fighters against capital ships, and use the "Attack. Disable all subs" or such when attacking. This will considerably reduce incoming damage as the turrets will be stripped by your fighters pretty quick.
Interestingly, I noticed this is the default behaviour of S/M ships attacking capitals OOS (both your ships and NPC ships). It's why I often see xenon I's running around with no turrets.

Also a good reason to make sure you escort your capitals with something that can take out fighters!

[AtilaElari]

Are you sure you changed Split station parameters as well? I just seen 2 Xenon I's and 1 V getting wrecked by a Split Solar Plant.

[rusky]

Are you sure you changed Split station parameters as well? I just seen 2 Xenon I's and 1 V getting wrecked by a Split Solar Plant.

Yes, but make sure you redownload if you have the first upload I put up a few hours ago, I messed up the packaging.

Also, reductions in hp don't work like you'd expect in an ongoing game. The max hull of something changes to the new max but the current stays as what it was until that object is damaged/detroyed/recreated via script.
So you might see stations with 180% hp for example etc until they get damaged enough to the new, lower, max.

Try inspecting the I and seeing what it's turrets look like. I often seen xenon capital ships get stripped by roaming fighter squads. They can't kill it but they make it a harmless lump that drifts around looking scary.

Btw happy to answer anything specific to my little modmod in PM if you have any other questions, as this is not really pertaining to VRO.

[Sam97531]

Quick question all,

I also am long time user of VRO. but I really want something more minimalist when it comes to a vanilla change.

I want only a slight boost to survivability, but I do want that variation between fighters and M class that was so good in X3.

As I start fooling around with a mod that does that, is there no way that these modifications can be applied generally to size of ship? Do changes have to be applied on each specific ship separately ?

[Shuulo]

Also @Shuulo: I think I spotted a typo in the Rattlesnake internal shield gen when I was messing about, pretty sure it's missing a 0!

You mean 2000 shield capacity? its not mistake, its for balancing purposes. ALL of its energy is diverted to weapons

[Shuulo]

And what software do you use to work this file? Notepad++ opens half of it in broken code and corrupts it on saving.

Spoiler

Show

Code: Select all

</aiscript>‹`A^ ship_l_frigate ì]	¸VC¾·ºíé¶ÜíѾªÛFÚDR¡B¥M
mJTDВ‹HimhВЎ
•6DiÑ®}"Ú·;¾wúNÿ1÷œÿÌùïßí?Ý3÷q»wfΙygæÌ;óÍ7õë·(Ü?***klTԀ¨KˆJ%C4¡A£»î)G‘¢£RG9…„º—Füÿ#6Ê~ðƒRbˆ6!•
qüp-3ß©	i1„´„t„ô ÿœ–ÿ–†ã¦òۂ§ƒ™÷æ8#á:B6BNBÀ?gã¿eä¸1F;ðۀç‚Á}æ2󛇧Æ%	å7üs	þ[Ž›‰Ó¦ñۀ§‚™ûôܧsn$T"Ô#4'<LhðÏÍð7ŽsÒpÚô~ðLP¹%ä'”'ÜNhGx‘00°àŸÇóßÚêÊqÚX¿
x&€›Ô&îâ	-Ïæö„

seems you have incorrect encoding selected or something
I use VScode with XML plugin from RedHat

[rusky]

Also @Shuulo: I think I spotted a typo in the Rattlesnake internal shield gen when I was messing about, pretty sure it's missing a 0!

You mean 2000 shield capacity? its not mistake, its for balancing purposes. ALL of its energy is diverted to weapons

Haha fair enough!

[Lord Dakier]

What's the deal with the Meson beams? The damage is impressive, sure, but the heat build-up just makes them so unviable for me. 3 shots, assuming you land your hits, but then you have to wait what feels like >30s. I'm assuming people are using some kind of ship mods to get the most out of these things?

My thoughts at the moment is that maybe the damage needs nerfing for less heat build-up time.

Edit: I'm referring to specifically the fighter sized ones. I can't remember which ones they're called. Lancers maybe?

[Shuulo]

Edit: I'm referring to specifically the fighter sized ones. I can't remember which ones they're called. Lancers maybe?

Terran mesons are anti-M weapon, its very easy to hit with them any M-sized ship and deal noticeable damage. They are not meant as anti-fighter weapons.

[Axeface]

Hello! Im making a new ship that i'll probably release this week and ide like to release with a vro version straight away, the vro wiki says that since 2.4 its no longer necessary to add an internal shield to the ships macro, is it still needed to add the connection to the component file? If so, when adding that tag do I just make up a name for it? eg, ishield_axe_kea and done?
Also, its a Teladi corvette with 4 weapons, 1 turret, 2 shields and 4 engines. Standard and telonly tags on the weapons and the turret too?

Oh, can I add these tags to the main mod, making it compatible without having to make a separate vro specific version or would that cause issues for non-vro players?

[Falcrack]

I was thinking about starting up a new custom "creative" game using VRO and 4.1 b6. Any showstopping bugs I should be aware about?

[Shuulo]

I was thinking about starting up a new custom "creative" game using VRO and 4.1 b6. Any showstopping bugs I should be aware about?

VRO was not yet updated for 4.1, particularly 4.1 changed OOS calc a bit, ill delve into its polishing closer to 4.1 release.
apart from that I dont think there are any major issues, just balancing.

[Shuulo]

Hello! Im making a new ship that i'll probably release this week and ide like to release with a vro version straight away, the vro wiki says that since 2.4 its no longer necessary to add an internal shield to the ships macro, is it still needed to add the connection to the component file? If so, when adding that tag do I just make up a name for it? eg, ishield_axe_kea and done?
Also, its a Teladi corvette with 4 weapons, 1 turret, 2 shields and 4 engines. Standard and telonly tags on the weapons and the turret too?

Oh, can I add these tags to the main mod, making it compatible without having to make a separate vro specific version or would that cause issues for non-vro players?

No need to add it to macro, but still need to add ishield in component, and a unique shield if you want.
If you dont want to add unique internal shield than you can just use some shield from VRO, for example one from Osprey will serve well.

Code: Select all

  <connection name="con_ishield_01" tags="ishield shield mandatory ishield_tel_m_frigate_01_a">
  <offset>
   <position x="0" y="0" z="0"/>
  </offset>
 </connection>

The only thing is that you may want to remove "mandatory" tag from it so if player doesn't have VRO he will still be able to build the ship

[Axeface]

Hello! Im making a new ship that i'll probably release this week and ide like to release with a vro version straight away, the vro wiki says that since 2.4 its no longer necessary to add an internal shield to the ships macro, is it still needed to add the connection to the component file? If so, when adding that tag do I just make up a name for it? eg, ishield_axe_kea and done?
Also, its a Teladi corvette with 4 weapons, 1 turret, 2 shields and 4 engines. Standard and telonly tags on the weapons and the turret too?

Oh, can I add these tags to the main mod, making it compatible without having to make a separate vro specific version or would that cause issues for non-vro players?

No need to add it to macro, but still need to add ishield in component, and a unique shield if you want.
If you dont want to add unique internal shield than you can just use some shield from VRO, for example one from Osprey will serve well.

Code: Select all

  <connection name="con_ishield_01" tags="ishield shield mandatory ishield_tel_m_frigate_01_a">
  <offset>
   <position x="0" y="0" z="0"/>
  </offset>
 </connection>

The only thing is that you may want to remove "mandatory" tag from it so if player doesn't have VRO he will still be able to build the ship

Thanks, is it ok to not use highpower tag on the weapons and turret and only add 'telonly'? Highpower in vanilla looks like it allows my ship to mount terran exclusive weapons.