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

[vkerinav]

OOZ662; I think I'd start by dropping half the main guns, and two off the top/bottom/rear turrets. It would then lose some speed and maneuverability. Five(six) thousand cargo should be then enough for its own armaments, plus resupply for twenty fighters.

(The OTAS Astraeus uses the Cerberus model; it could be added to their shipyard as a carrier variant.)

The Griffin would make an excellent salvage ship, or a sort of TML. Defensive weaponry slightly better than a corvette, meaning flak weaponry all around, and CIGs in the main guns. One or two GJ of shields, ~800 KW of weapons generators. Cargo bay and speed looks reasonable. Price it at 10-15 million.

Some Yaki ships are purchasable from a shipyard in Senator's Badlands. The Akuma, Hoshi and Ryu, plus the basic fighters(no variants) and the Chokaro. No M7s or M6s, which do not appear in game at all.

[creidiki]

I don't remember exactly what's ingame tbh, Yaki wise, but a fair lot of the TShips entries for those 2 don't actually spawn in vanilla ... well, what can I say, the ships are weak and the names all get jumbled together in my head.

As to why ... *shrug*. The Yaki M6/M7 are pretty much just entries. Stats are copies of commonwealth original, no custom model, afaik not even warpaint. Others are sort of halfway done. Its possible a few disabled ships are essentially 100% complete, ES has done it elsewhere (see Griffon).

Personally I wouldn't add them to the shipyard if you can't make warpaint work, Paul ... the thought of a pirate ship without warpaint just seems ... wrong.

[paulwheeler]

Well adding warpaint to those ships I think is something that has to be done via modelling - well beyond what I want to do with this mod.

I will add a script that adds the missing Yaki ships to the Yaki shipyard, but it will be optional. The current set of shipyard scripts are:

X2 Shipyards
ATF Headquarters
Adv/Proto Shipyard (now 2 in universe)
Xtra ships at shipyards
Missing commonwealth ships at shipyards (inc. Otas and OWP)
Yaki ships at shipyards
Goner Shipyard (probably - not actually made it yet!)

They will all be in one pack, but you can obviously pick and choose which ones to install. I will include a complete index so you know which one adds what.



---------------------


I actually quite like the idea of converting the Astraeus into a light carrier. At the moment it is a poor mans Cerberus, hardly Otas at all. It will have to be substantially different from the Griffon though...

I will have a look at this for the next update once I've released the current one.


To not bang on too much about the Griffon - but people often miss an important point about this ship - it can launch all its fighters simultenously which gives it a huge advantage in fire fight. Looks fantastic too! Fill every docking slot with a Solano, order them all to attack and watch them all break off the side of the Griffon at the same time to attack.

[Gavrushka]

I do look forward to the update. - I will be restarting for it (I somehow have polluted my saves and framerate drop is too pronounced and compounds during sessions).

Light Carriers seem a very obvious ship category that is presently under-represented. - As it is a compromise of a standard M7 I really think they should be almost hopeless against any other capital ships without the intervention of their docked ships.

[paulwheeler]

I've persuaded Betty to do a lot more work! She now says "Decomissioned Shipyard" for the X2 shipyards and "Goner Shipyard" for the new Goner shipyard.

I have rebalanced the Goner Ranger. It is now a very worthwhile ship, fast, well shielded with good cargo (and XL compatiblity which makes it great with the Systems Rebalance). Still has no weapons though. Quite expensive too.

I'm thinking about removing the weapons completely from the Truelight Seeker. Its not very "Goner" at the moment... Or at the very least just give it light defences. I'll also up its shields and speed. It will give you traders out there something to fly other than a TS. What do you think?

I've dropped the rep required to buy the Goner ships as its just about impossible to get good rep with the Goners. You'll still need to do A LOT of trading at the Goner Temple to get to the rep needed to buy the Aran though. I've increased all the prices to compensate.



I need to do a bit more testing tonight. I had my first X3 crash in ages last night and I want to ensure it was related to the Military Base Responce Revamp and not the new update. I'm pretty sure its fine so I will most likely release tomorrow.



EDIT - I've managed to get time to convert the Astraeus into a light carrier. It is fast, with good shields, but no main guns and only 2 guns on each turret. It can dock 33 ships (1 external M6/M8 ). It will be avaible from the Otas shipyard with the next update.

[Mad_CatMk2]

I've persuaded Betty to do a lot more work! She now says "Decomissioned Shipyard" for the X2 shipyards and "Goner Shipyard" for the new Goner shipyard.

I have rebalanced the Goner Ranger. It is now a very worthwhile ship, fast, well shielded with good cargo (and XL compatiblity which makes it great with the Systems Rebalance). Still has no weapons though. Quite expensive too.

I'm thinking about removing the weapons completely from the Truelight Seeker. Its not very "Goner" at the moment... Or at the very least just give it light defences. I'll also up its shields and speed. It will give you traders out there something to fly other than a TS. What do you think?

I've dropped the rep required to buy the Goner ships as its just about impossible to get good rep with the Goners. You'll still need to do A LOT of trading at the Goner Temple to get to the rep needed to buy the Aran though. I've increased all the prices to compensate.



I need to do a bit more testing tonight. I had my first X3 crash in ages last night and I want to ensure it was related to the Military Base Responce Revamp and not the new update. I'm pretty sure its fine so I will most likely release tomorrow.



EDIT - I've managed to get time to convert the Astraeus into a light carrier. It is fast, with good shields, but no main guns and only 2 guns on each turret. It can dock 33 ships (1 external M6/M8 ). It will be avaible from the Otas shipyard with the next update.

awesome, looking forward to it

[creidiki]

EDIT - I've managed to get time to convert the Astraeus into a light carrier. It is fast, with good shields, but no main guns and only 2 guns on each turret. It can dock 33 ships (1 external M6/M8 ). It will be avaible from the Otas shipyard with the next update.

*whistle* nice. very specialized.

P.S. Ohgod, how could I have forgotten. If you're adding ships wot look gewd, ask axeface about his two hot momas, the Thanatos and the Lusca

[paulwheeler]

UPDATE - SRM 0.70
---------------------------

This is a big major update. I have thoroughly tested, but there are soo many changes that I may have missed something. Please let me know if you spot anything out of the ordinary.

Major Changes:

- Added optional Ship Systems Rebalance Pack.
- Merged and rebalanced Cadius’ Xtra Ship and Station Pack. (minus Proetus and Longsword as these ships do not look like X Universe ships).
- Rebalanced all ATF ships.
- Fixed engine trail emitter positions on the following ships (including all varients): Nova, Notus, Perseus, Susanova, Blastclaw, Pegasus, Fujin, Valkyrie, Mjolnir, Mk1 Scorpion.
- Created new SRM Shipyards addon pack which features several scripts to add the Xtra ships, X2 ships, ATF ships, Yaki, Goner and other missing ships to various shipyards. Simply pick the scripts you wish to use.
- Added second proto/advanced shipyard to the adv/proto shipyard script. This one is Paranid owned and is under cover of a salvage merchant. Original Teladi adv/proto shipyard’s cover
changed to scrap dealer.
- Rebalanced Goner Ranger. It now costs to buy but is very worthwhile as a trading ship with no guns.
- Reduced rep required to buy Goner ships as its virtually impossible to gain good rep with them. You still need quite a high rep to purchase Aran. Increased prices to compensate.
- Converted Astraeus into a light carrier. It is fast, with good shields, but poor weapons. It can dock 33 ships (1 external M6/M8/TS)
- Lots more changes - see changelog for details.


Due to the changes to ATF ships, you may have to reload the hulls of several - esp. Odin. The Woden will need cloning as it has lost a shield slot.

The Astraeus will need cloning as it has changed completely.

Please make sure you are not in a sector with any USC stations or Teladi shipyards when you upgrade - These have had model changes so your save will probably crash.

Enjoy

[creidiki]

Eeehhhxcelent!

Love the shipyard scripts.

[DannyDSC]

Grat work!!! with SRM and lucky heir start my game is ready to jump

[Gavrushka]

Staggered, thank you - More than any of us could have wished for.

[paulwheeler]

Thanks guys - please let me know if you have any thoughts on anything.

On that note....



We have one spare model... The XTM Eclipse model is currently not being used for anything.

Any ideas what to do with it...?

[Railgunner]

How do I get Cadius Mobile mining base model?? Just tell me what to do...

[vkerinav]

The same thing XTM did. Use the XTM version for the Eclipse, and turn the rather hideous Egosoft version into a M3 freighter. Alternately, I suppose you could make one of them into an M3B, like Cadius' Falchion(still no idea how the AI will handle that).

Now that I've had time to browse the new stats a bit, the new version looks pretty good. First observations;

The Sendai A costs more than the Osaka;

The alterations to the Hiroshima look like a vast improvement, but a smaller cargo bay would force the player to choose between SSC and M/AM in the turrets;

The Baldric SF has too much cargo space or too much speed; the shields are very low for its class, but not enough for balance;

The Macana has a similar problem; too many docking slots with too much speed.

The new ATF fighters are very powerful for a low price;

The Vidar still has its docking slot in TShips, but no updated scene file. My opinion is now that the slot should be removed, not fixed.

I see the Ocelot and the Aomori are now anti-fighter frigates, much like the Cerberus. They both look good;

The Astraeus looks good, too.

That's about it for now.

[paulwheeler]

How do I get Cadius Mobile mining base model?? Just tell me what to do...

Bare with me on that one. Its not a simple as changing the scene. You need to check the nodes too. Ill post the line to copy into tships tomorrow morning.

[creidiki]

I see the Ocelot and the Aomori are now anti-fighter frigates, much like the Cerberus. They both look good.

I equate anti-fighter frigates with the explanation the EVE devs used to give for minmatar ships which were rubbish at their intended task, but 'made up for it' by being rubbish and overpriced for things other ship classes could do better cheaper, ie 'its versatile'.

*shrug* my solution is to not fly them, but this pinged my pet peeve detector. Make of it what you will.

[paulwheeler]

The same thing XTM did. Use the XTM version for the Eclipse, and turn the rather hideous Egosoft version into a M3 freighter. Alternately, I suppose you could make one of them into an M3B, like Cadius' Falchion(still no idea how the AI will handle that).

Now that I've had time to browse the new stats a bit, the new version looks pretty good. First observations;

The Sendai A costs more than the Osaka;

The alterations to the Hiroshima look like a vast improvement, but a smaller cargo bay would force the player to choose between SSC and M/AM in the turrets;

The Baldric SF has too much cargo space or too much speed; the shields are very low for its class, but not enough for balance;

The Macana has a similar problem; too many docking pslots with too much speed.

The new ATF fighters are very powerful for a low price;

The Vidar still has its docking slot in TShips, but no updated scene file. My opinion is now that the slot should be removed, not fixed.

I see the Ocelot and the Aomori are now anti-fighter frigates, much like the Cerberus. They both look good;

The Astraeus looks good, too.

That's about it for now.

I could swap the eclipse model... although is this veering too far from egosoft's vision?

Ill check all the other things out for the next update. I deliberately made the sendai a expensive as I converted it to an m2. It was basically a light destroyer in an m7 shell. I didn't want to nerf all the ships so i thought id promote this one to an m2 and give it a boreas-esk price tag. Perhaps ill tone down the price a little.

I agree about the vidar. Ill fine tune things more in the next update. Glad my initial balancing wasn't too far off!

[paulwheeler]

I see the Ocelot and the Aomori are now anti-fighter frigates, much like the Cerberus. They both look good.

I equate anti-fighter frigates with the explanation the EVE devs used to give for minmatar ships which were rubbish at their intended task, but 'made up for it' by being rubbish and overpriced for things other ship classes could do better cheaper, ie 'its versatile'.

*shrug* my solution is to not fly them, but this pinged my pet peeve detector. Make of it what you will.

Anti-fighter frigates would be far more useful if we had decent "attack fighters only" combat scripts. They can still be useful to get into battle quickly while your m2s catch up.

I'm hoping one day soon someone will give the combat scripts a serious overhaul. I want to be able to order my anti-fighter frigate to keep the enemy fighters off my back while i concentrate on capital ships. The current attack fighters command doesnt work that well and there isn't one at all for wings.

[Mad_CatMk2]

The same thing XTM did. Use the XTM version for the Eclipse, and turn the rather hideous Egosoft version into a M3 freighter. Alternately, I suppose you could make one of them into an M3B, like Cadius' Falchion(still no idea how the AI will handle that).

Now that I've had time to browse the new stats a bit, the new version looks pretty good. First observations;

The Sendai A costs more than the Osaka;

The alterations to the Hiroshima look like a vast improvement, but a smaller cargo bay would force the player to choose between SSC and M/AM in the turrets;

The Baldric SF has too much cargo space or too much speed; the shields are very low for its class, but not enough for balance;

The Macana has a similar problem; too many docking pslots with too much speed.

The new ATF fighters are very powerful for a low price;

The Vidar still has its docking slot in TShips, but no updated scene file. My opinion is now that the slot should be removed, not fixed.

I see the Ocelot and the Aomori are now anti-fighter frigates, much like the Cerberus. They both look good;

The Astraeus looks good, too.

That's about it for now.

I could swap the eclipse model... although is this veering too far from egosoft's vision?

Ill check all the other things out for the next update. I deliberately made the sendai a expensive as I converted it to an m2. It was basically a light destroyer in an m7 shell. I didn't want to nerf all the ships so i thought id promote this one to an m2 and give it a boreas-esk price tag. Perhaps ill tone down the price a little.

I agree about the vidar. Ill fine tune things more in the next update. Glad my initial balancing wasn't too far off!

I wouldn't say you're veering from ego's vision, afterall, the Eclipse model was introduced by the original XTM. The current SLUG look does it injustice and I agree that it could be turned into a form of M3 special freighter/transporter.

Otherwise, awesome update and thanks for your work.

[creidiki]

Anti-fighter frigates would be far more useful if we had decent "attack fighters only" combat scripts. They can still be useful to get into battle quickly while your m2s catch up.

Well, thing is, when you have good turret scripts, they become even less use ... when you plonk MARS or MEFOS down, an M7 turret with, say, IBL/FAA/ISR/PRG will kill everything smaller than M6 faster than you can say "Fire!", and will still stomp anything larger perfectly well ... so why use a ship that can only do the former?

The damage ratio scaling is such that if you make a turret with smaller weapons but lot of them, to spec it for fighter killing, you can now stomp large ships as fast as if you had less big guns, but for less energy ... but given the damage output of M3s, if you don't, fighter clouds larger than what 'normal' ships of the class can take on will annihilate you.

So if you have bad scripts, gimped ships are weak, and if you have good scripts, they're redundant.

I'm starting to think without a major dedicated combined weapons/shields/ships rework, with scripts, sub-class ships (ships designed purely to kill stuff smaller than themselves) really don't work in X.

Given the mechanics, if you want role-spec ships, you need role-spec bonues, meaning damage reduction from fighters so you don't have to give them ridicoushields, and a way to give them extra damage against fighters and fighters only.

... well, that's my theory anyway. I've yet to see any total rebalance tackle it.

I could well be totally wrong.