New ship balancing - asking for testing and feedback

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sat, 30. Oct 04, 14:41

Sorry to hear such, but this never occured for me or any other testers, meaning that it works correctly for all of us by now.

If you have such problems, could you provide some further info about your X² and/or system ? Most important would be to know if you use any other scripts/mods - if so, please try again with an non-"modified" game. And, I guess I forgot to mention: This mod is ment to work with the current X² version 1.4 only.

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Sat, 30. Oct 04, 16:33

hi

ok problem solved looks like it was a bad install of the game all is funtioning as it should

did a quick test to make sure everythin was working ok and got in to a fight with a few khaak m5s and got hammered try as i might i just couldnt hit them coz there just to fast

mabe need to slow the m5 back down a lil bit i think the khaak m5s are already fast enough anythin over 250 to 300 and they just become to hard to hit even with the auto targeting on

ill continue testing and see what else i can come up with one question though why are the pierat bases showing red ??? that means there hostile but if thats the caes i shouldnt have been able to dock but i can a bug mabe ?

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sat, 30. Oct 04, 20:10

The M5 generally are faster now, usually 500+. This is a major part of the mad to make sure there's an area of 350-500 for the M4 between the M3 and the M5.

If you cannot hit anything... well, that's how the M5 uses to fight: Don't let them hit you. But you must also make sure to use the correct weapons vs. those fast enemies, that is preferrably a B-IRE (!) or G-IRE which are now the M5 shooters while other weapons are too slow. Also, using a missile is handy since those actually have use now - vs. M5 that'd be a wasp to get rid of most but the fastest M5.

So, using weapons has definitly changed, so you cannot just drop the largest possible weapon into your favorite M3 and kill any ship type. Actually, vs. most M4 you will need to use an A-HEPT instead of a B-HEPT for better success, while the G-HEPT wouldn't have any chance to hit at all (!). Alike for the ships rebalancing, this change is ment to give each weapon it's use - which is different to the original setup where many weapons and ship types were just useless.

The red pirate bases for sure got nothing to do with the mod. Check your friend/enemy settings in the personal settings dialog (p) and spread them to all your ships to make sure they're treated as friendly again.

I appreciate your feedback and am happy to receive more.

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Tue, 2. Nov 04, 00:56

hi

The M5 generally are faster now, usually 500+. This is a major part of the mad to make sure there's an area of 350-500 for the M4 between the M3 and the M5

sounds reasonable

if you cannot hit anything... well, that's how the M5 uses to fight: Don't let them hit you. But you must also make sure to use the correct weapons vs. those fast enemies, that is preferrably a B-IRE (!) or G-IRE which are now the M5 shooters while other weapons are too slow

err one problem with that response I was in a disco using G-IRE at the time hence why I got killed so there for I stand by my ordinal statement

that maybe you need to slow the m5 back down a lil bit I think the khaak m5s are already fast enough anything over 250 to 300 and they just become to hard to hit even with the auto targeting on

The red pirate bases for sure got nothing to do with the mod. Check your friend/enemy settings in the personal settings dialog (p) and spread them to all your ships to make sure they're treated as friendly again.

I’m sorry but I’m going to have to disagree on this one because as soon as I removed the mod and reloaded my game the stations went back to normal

well neway now to other matters i was goin to post this in the other thread but its been locked so ill post it here

hi

well here are my thoughts on the situation

m5 are scouts should be faster jump drive capable and have the largest radar of any ship after all they are scout ships

m4 these are medium fighters escort and rapid response units these need a speed and manoeuvrability boost and a small increase in weapon and shield power would better help them serve this role

m3 these are heavy fighters meant for sector defence and need a drastic speed and manoeuvrability boot these ships should be at least as fast as a corvette is at the moment also as the nova is the only ship with a back turret the other m3 ships should have an extra weapon mount to balance out the fire power a lil more

m6 corvettes these are a lil to fast and should be made a lil slower as there mini capital ships but should have there handling increased a lil bit to about the level of a current m3

capital ships these should only have a top speed of about 100 to 200 kph and should have almost no manoeuvrability as the size mass and overall offensive and defensive abilities of these ships negate this ability

carriers should be a lil faster than capital ships and should have a top speed of about 150 to 250 as these aren't as heavily armoured but they should also have a slight increase in shield power as there vulnerable to attack when there fighters are away and you don't want to lose a billion credit ship

transport ships these are a lil harder to work out but in general I think that the balance of these ships are ok but I do think that they didn't take in to account the number of jumps away from there factory they would be travelling coz currently if there travelling more than about 2 or 3 sectors then there to slow and what happens is that the factories end up being inoperative a lot of the time because the transports aren't arriving quick enough to keep up with the factories use of supplies

there for in addition to buying more ship for the factory to help compensate for this the speed should be increased a lil bit

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Wed, 3. Nov 04, 15:16

hi

ok as it appears that i have had one or 2 other problems with x recentley to be sure that the problem isnt on my end i'll uninstall and reinstall X and then reinstall the mod and see if it still gives problems

then ill be back to let ya know

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Wed, 3. Nov 04, 21:22

Okay, good luck to get things fixed. I look forward for more input from you !

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Wed, 5. Jan 05, 07:19

Well then... having been bound to duties in RL and thus being inactive here for a pretty long time , I now am happy to see that my mod is being used and liked alot. Now I am back and find... the new bonus pack !

Just so you know:
That bonus package contains the "Gunnery Crew" script which isn't working perfectly with my balancing mod, since it uses hard-coded weapon selections and thus will not always use the optimal weapon for my modded balancing. Though, the script still is useful and enhances the game's combat - even for the AI. Maybe I find some time in the future to adapt the "Gunnery Crew" script to work perfectly with my mod, but currently I really got no time for such.

How's this balancing mod being continued ?
If people show up being interested, I'd continue to develop this balancing mod further - that is, once I got time for it again in about 6 weeks. I even could think of extending the balancing mod to the new ships that XtR is going to offer to us, so the mod will be usable there aswell.
For this, I ask for feedback on this mod aswell as for change requests and further opinions, either here or in a forum PM. Thank you !

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sat, 15. Jan 05, 22:42

*** New Balancing Mod Version 0.83 available! ***

Finally, after a long time of testing and discussing, the complete overhaul of the Balancing Mod has been finished and been published at the well-known download location. Those who are not familiar with it yet may just follow the link in my signature.

As always I am asking for feedback and ideas.

Special thanks go to Merroc und Amadeusl for all their efforts with this mod.

IMPORTANT: This mod is not compatible with AEGIS and messes up if you use that. To use the mod, you'll need to uninstall the AEGIS extension. This can easily be done by using the installer program of the bonus pack, which you also use to get the AEGIS extension re-installed.

ATTENTION:
For unknown reasons the download file received a wrong file name "s". Just rename it to "Mauzi's ship balancing - V0.83.zip" after downloading to fix this.

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 02:03

Hmmm...just took the 0.83 version for a spin. These are some pretty significant changes!

I'll need to log a bit of serious play testing time before I can comment...but so far it looks even better than before.

Thanks for your efforts!

Slugworm X · Post by **Slugworm X** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 04:00

Some thoughts.....

I cannot fathom some of the changes you have made, specifically speed.

Why are the M3's slower than the M'6's?

As it is the new, best fighter of the Agon, the M3 cannot run down a maxed pirate, for that matter it cannot run away / run down anything, oh, besides only half the TS's. I have to ask what military in their right mind would deploy a fighter that arrives 2 days after the fighting has finished?

I run my game with an expanded universe, and I gotta tell ya, I aint looking forward to traversing a single sector in the Argon Nova!

The data seems geared heavily towards the larger ships. An M3 should surely be able to run from these??? Hmmmm, launching from a max speed M1 could be interesting if you only have a few points speed advantage, you might just get run over. Also landing on a max speed M2 would be impossible if you had a Nova and any other M2 with rear docking bay. I agree that you could tell it to stop but that interupts what it was tasked to do in the first place.

Also, the nova has almost the lowest pitch and yaw rates and one of the lowest accelerations. What advantages does it have? It's now slow, less manueverable and may possibly experience launch and recovery issues. As I understand it you have not touched weapon types and amounts so it is probably still well armed, but it cannot reach anything to attack it. It is now really a small cargo bay, well armed TS. And its slower than half the TS's at max speed.....

If this mod is designed to make you think about other fighters, then it succeeds. I wouldnt touch the nova at all. No advantages at all.

IMHO the speed spread should be closer with M1-M2-M6-M3-M4-M5 order. I realise that the M6 is anti fighter, but its role is escort not CAP. It's a big gun boat. Any M3 should be able to strike and fade (if somewhat slower than an M4 or M5!).

This is just my opinion. Good mod but. I like curvy fights where ships dont turn on dimes! I just dont like it when my heavy fighter gets run down by a fleet of rampaging TS's!

Hmmm, are argon engines poorer than other races? I can only assume so, as the Nova has four engines compared to the Split and Teladi's two.

I relish the chance of using the other fighters, as i have used the Split M3 with Mass Drivers and that was an awesome fighter, but not at the expence of nerfing the nova into retirement. (or the Pirate orinoco either).

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 05:01

Thank you for looking at it and bringing this to my attention. Actually, I must agree that at a first glance most M3s being slower than most M6 looks weird.

I'll look into this.

Slugworm X · Post by **Slugworm X** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 08:42

Hey, I appreciate the effort that goes into modding. Kudos to you, Mauzi!

SlugwormX

AdmiralTigerclaw · Post by **AdmiralTigerclaw** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 09:05

Corvettes being the smallest capitals... I can see them having a higher speed than fighters, mainly because of larger engines. However, being larger means more mass, and more mass means a poor accelleration and turning rate. In other words... where a fighter would be nice and swift with lots of sharp turns and corscrews... the M6 would be more like a locomotive... it takes a minute to get up to speed, and then mows down anything in its path.

According to some deep info in Star Wars...
The Millenium Falcon, a light transport of the YT-1300 class, could NOT outrun an Imperial Star Destroyer. (Those huge engines on the back actually do some pushing.) However, they could out MANUEVER it!

Perhaps if the balance of things were set up that way. Fighters can outrun the large capitals, but not smaller corvettes, and no self respecting TS, or most TPs could outrun very much. However that would leave them as cannon fodder for any pirate or Khaak in the sector.

D_Zorro · Post by **D_Zorro** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 10:37

I haven't tried this mod out yet but i have a question, since it involves all ships speed changes, when you changed the ship speed, did you change acceleration too reflect the new speed??? The reasen i ask this question, is i notice that alot of ships currently have already high speed, but bercause there acceleration is poor, they don't turn into formation, and usually crash against your ship, but since you changed the ship speed, how is this gonna be any diffrent ???

DZorro,

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 13:15

@Tigerclaw:

Yes, huge engines allowing more speed actually was planned, but I have to check the calculation tables. Though, overall I like this M3 setup. Afterall they're *heavy* fighters. If you want some speedy escorts, one of those M4 are handy - and they are pretty powerful now.

@Zorro:

Yes, of course there's been adequate changes to the acceleration aswell. It is derived from the ship speed (higher speed = better accel) and the ship size (larger = worse accel), so all should be fine here.
If you have no time to play the mod, you maybe should download it already and look at the data sheet I attached to the zip file.

AdmiralTigerclaw · Post by **AdmiralTigerclaw** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 17:38

I wonder how hard it would be to create a player owned shipyard like the one I fleshed out in the Devnet...

http://www.egosoft.com/x2/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63501

From what I gather of the current game engine, the ship creator engineering lab wouldn't work, but what do you think of most of the rest? (I don't think adding docking slots would work either.)

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 18:10

OK...after staying up until 0430 playing the new 0.83 release, here are some comments. Please remember that the following is all "IMHO"...

First, some background on my testing session:

I used my custom galaxy map, where sector sizes are 1.6x larger than the standard X2 map. There are also a number of extra sectors and gates, which alter traffic flow. (This means that, for me, ship performance characteristics matter.)

I played with the X2 plot...to make sure the speed changes (along with the larger sector size) didn't make the BBS & KC missions impossible to complete.

I focused (in this first session) on the M5/M4/M3 class.

Here are my observations, so far...

1) The new release makes for a whole new style of game play...one I really enjoy. Great work by Mauzi! on this one!

2) I now find that there really is a use for each of the ships. This mod doesn't simply make all the ship classes useful...it also (in almost every case) makes the individual ships within a given class useful as well.

3) As already noted in a prior post, the M3 class no longer rules the game. Personally, once I got over the pain of finding my beloved Nova was no longer "king of the mountain", I realized that there were actually 4 other M3's in the game, and that they all could be considered "best in class" for a specific purpose.

4) Missiles! I had stopped wasting cargo space on missiles...but not any more! The improved speed and maneuverability make a huge difference. Now, an M4 with a load of Dragonfly's is actually a decent combat ship, although you'll need to re-think your strategy.

5) The weapon tweaks are particularly useful. In the past, I would typically just keep upgrading a ship's loadout until it was "max'd out", and then only carry around the "hottest" weapons (with the exception of the IonD). You will now want to carefully think about the weapons you carry around with you. Having the xHEPTs slowed down keeps them from becoming a "fire hose of death", and speeding up the xIREs make them worth considering as an option in high-speed combat. Oh yeah...and the MD actually works! (Believe it or not, an M4 with GPAC's, an MD, and some missiles is now a formidable little combat ship.)

6) Handling! I use a Saitek Cyborg Evo stick and, frankly, X2 ship handling has always been a week point for me. The 0.83 mod is like magic, and the handling changes are so good, they could have been designed specifically for my configuration. This may be equipment/configuration specific...so you'll need to make your own assessment.

Sooo...

Combat testing is not something you can do in a few hours. There are simply too many ship configurations, combinations, etc.

I have spent a bit of time on the fighters (as I said, more is required), and will now go off and play with the M6 and CapShips.

...let you know what more I find, once I find it...

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sun, 16. Jan 05, 18:25

@DeadlyDa:

Thanks for the quick review. Especially the effects on the gameplay you described are what the mod bases on, so - at least for players with your style - the goal seems reached so far. I'm eager to read more about the other test results you promised.

But just for your info: I don't use a joystick myself but only keyboard. So, reading that the mod works greatly with your joystick makes me happy.

Thanks for your efforts !

AdmiralTigerclaw · Post by **AdmiralTigerclaw** » Mon, 17. Jan 05, 09:17

Alright... here's my quick review...

I had a script that enabled me to put in a Teladi Trading dock....
I combined this with the station upgrade commands, altered the SCRAP STATION command to make me 100,000,000 per scrap... I created a Teladi shipyard, and then scrapped it for some fast cash, and then bought some starfighters...

I was impressed with the speed rebalancing. However I wasn't too thrilled with weapon balance for the plasmas...

The Beta HEPT fires too slow... perhaps if it could be set to fire in bursts of three in a very short period between them, and then half a second before another burst shot. It's just too GAMMA HEPT feeling now with its firing rate turned down.

For feel references, I had been playing previously with the Burin's laser and economy rebalance mod, combined with the flagship mod.

Note This: This mod IS NOT compatable with the Flagship Mod.

What else what else...

I think that's good. Maybe a little more rate of fire for the hepts... maybe at least burst fire anyway... I'd figure the lasers would store a few 'rounds' worth of ready to fire energy. Otherwise, I'm liking, maybe if you could add in the incorporations of the Flagship mod. (or at least set it up so that it can be compatable because I'd like my main game to work like with it.)

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Mon, 17. Jan 05, 11:24

@Tigerclaw:

Thank you for the feedback.

Sorry, I really have no clue what that flagship mod could be. Maybe you could provide a link to it, so I can have a look at what it is doing, and eventually a mini description.

About the HEPTs: These are somewhat tricky now due to the great differences between the A-, B- and G-Types. The smaller the type the faster the shooting rate and bullet speed. So, if you want to hunt down an M5, pull out that quick A-HEPT, while versus some slow-motion-M1 you pull out the G-HEPT.

A visible speed difference to the PAC-class is intended to make the M4 more useful. Those in return keep their short ranges (as do the HEPTs). Sorry, but for now there's no change to the HEPTs planned, but I understand your view from being used to the ultra-speedy Laser-Mod Burianek made.

P.S.:
A laser burst is somewhat impossible, since it cannot be done by balancing but would require some scripting which I won't do. Such functionality changes just isn't what the balancing is intended for.

New ship balancing - asking for testing and feedback

Hmmmmmmm