[MOD] Ship Rebalance Mod ver 0.59 [30/08/2009] + 2 COCKPIT PACKS + Alkeena's BSD!!!!

[sorrow_13th]

you removed PBE from HCP's turrets right? maybe you've forgotten to mention this in the readme file

[OOZ662]

I'm all for inclusion of the hangar mod. I loved that feature in XTM and that scripter seems to be thinking it out rather than just letting everything dock everywhere. You may wish to wait until it's in a final stage, though...currently it's stated as BETA.

[Alkeena]

I was planning to add this:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... sc&start=0
a lot more "balanced" hangar mod.
and please don't say no.

Yay BSD \o/

M6's turrets have always been futile against M3s and bigger ships imho.... maybe I can look into it to make them more dangerous.
I removed the HEPT compatibility to have more agile turrets... HEPTS are rubbish at killing small ships.

They were always rubbish in my experience because they never burned through the shields to actually do any damage before the target was out of the firing arc. By the time the target was reacquired it almost certainly had regenerated what shielding it actually had been stripped....My solution in X3R? Mass Drivers--hits well and the damage, although small, stays with the target until it can be picked up by another turret somewhere down the line. Might be a little frustrating to use against the player and doesn't really fit with all of the M6s, but it certainly made my M6 turrets effective =)

Yeah, I'm not arguing with your reasoning and this isn't an issue with your mod ... it's and issue with using CMOD 3 with your mod. Lasers do less damage with CMOD 3 so you notice the shield upgrade more.

well... the TL are supposed to last like a big ship... Cmod3 changes the time that ALL ships last under fire, so it is not a problem at all...

Real life comparisons are always a bit dodgy, but oil tankers and container ships won't stand up to even a WW2 era military patrol boat ...TS/TP/TL are all effectively civilian ships that have paid some minor head towards the dangers of the day, not military vessels with some extra cargo space to spare...At least imho.

[Alkeena]

so:
-M1 will regain Capital guns compatibility, but maybe on different turrets than Vanilla (for example, the Shark can have the front guns doubled and only them able to shoot capital guns)
-M1 weapon generator will be rised to about double the Vanilla amount (and about a half of a M2) to use the big guns effectively
-M1s will lose the "bonus hangars" I added them. (10 less ships on each M1)

what do you think? Am I gone crazy? Or you think it is cool?

This looks alright, just be careful that you don't completely displace the M2. I'd look at a balanced point that still has a Carrier + Fighters loose to an M2 in a knife fight. The carrier should have to use its speed and ability to project firepower via its fighters (and bombers with bomber and shuttle docking installed =D ) to beat an M2...Maybe equivalent to or a little better than an M7 in straight up combat?

For me really the capital weapons on carriers are more about range--PPCs allow them to peck at things without getting into knife fight range. If an M1 is anything, it's not a knife fighter in my mind =)

[Alkeena]

I'm all for inclusion of the hangar mod. I loved that feature in XTM and that scripter seems to be thinking it out rather than just letting everything dock everywhere. You may wish to wait until it's in a final stage, though...currently it's stated as BETA.

I'm the one responsible for that hangar mod (there's actually already a mod called hangar mod; so I prefer to call it Bomber and Shuttle Docking, BSD for short, to differentiate them). To my knowledge it works completely as advertised, the only reason it's in beta is because I haven't run EXHAUSTIVE tests. Trust me, I've done a lot of testing (at this point probably 15-20 hours worth) but that doesn't even begin to touch the number of possible docking permutations that can arise.

Solution? Kick it out the door and wait for complaints to come rolling in...

So get playing and tell me what's wrong so I can fix it

(But also don't forget to stroke my ego and tell me what you like occasionally so I can keep up the will to maintain it )

Also, if Someone Else does decide to include it please remember to post about it in the BSD thread itself. I don't use this rebalance mod (at least at the moment) and so may not follow this thread closely enough to see every issue you would complain about with regards to it =)

[OOZ662]

The support issues brings me to an interesting thought.

BSD is integrated with Gazz's Turret Fix and Draffutt's Player Bug Fixes.

SRM is integrated with Draffut's Player Bug Fixes and provides modified versions of two cockpit mods and one (soon to be two?) trail packs.

SRM will (hopefully!) integrate with BSD.

So, wouldn't it be easier to make one thread for support issues? The common user that piles all these mods together is going to have no idea where a problem comes from. A single thread with guidelines on how to tell the "support staff" exactly how the "supportee" has which of the mods installed that all the authors could watch would be more simple, IMO.

[Chealec]

HOW many guns has the KM2 got now!

in theory that should be the same number as vanilla...

... are you sure - comparing the TShips files yours has 6 guns per mount whereas vanilla has 3?

[sorrow_13th]

maybe my game has problem, i read in the changelog that HCP's new steering rate is 5.2, but in my game it's steering at 7.2 rpm

[sorrow_13th]

ok not only HCP but all other M6s in my game have different turning rate from your changelogs. I'm new to mods and therefore i don't know if there are still other problems
one more thing, i can't install the mod as a fake patch, that method does not work (there are no changes in the game), only when i put them in the mods folder and select mods when the game start then the mod works, but with differences from what i read in the changelog. Any ideas?

[@fon]

@@fon: Was it like this in the "test mod" you tried some time ago too?

Yes, but I assumed that's because it's a test mod.

Try with the 0.57 or previous versions if the issue persists

Checked 0.57: Mammoth is in place of the Adv.Eclipse

[Chealec]

ok not only HCP but all other M6s in my game have different turning rate from your changelogs.

IIRC turn rates in-game are something of a lie... the values given are those in the TShips file which don't actually match up to what you see in-game.

I think the TShips values are for the computer (using srads or something for measurement) whilst the units used for measurement in-game are somewhat different... and they're not even constant between versions of 'X' - the turning rates quoted in X3R are about double that of TC but the actual turning rate is the same.

[sorrow_13th]

thanks for reply, but as i said, i had problem with this mod since the installation phase, so i just wonder this "difference" is because of the original x3TC itself or becaus of my own problem would you mind checking your game to see if there is any differences. thanks

[draffutt]

@@fon: Was it like this in the "test mod" you tried some time ago too?

Yes, but I assumed that's because it's a test mod.

Try with the 0.57 or previous versions if the issue persists

Checked 0.57: Mammoth is in place of the Adv.Eclipse

@someone else
this is because for some reason in your mod/changes when you look up the adv eclipse in the t-file. the ID lists it as:
ships\patch2_ships\argon_M3_plus_scene

instead of this:
SS_SH_A_M3P_ADV_P

[someone else]

@sorrow_13th: whooo! not a problem at all. I had lowered the number of max rudder tunings while raising the base turning rates so your HCP is now "overtuned". I did that because the AI spawned with too low rudder tunings to be effective. You can just "sell" the tunings to an Eq dock (strange but true) and you will be fine. The AI ships will be killed/respawn after some time without the overtuning. The M6 class is the only one that has this "issue", on other ships I have tried to avoid this annoying habit. And the PBE absence is just a bug. fixed now.

@@fon: ok, thanks for answers... I'll have to look more into it for the Q... I'm at home now so I can test myself. I have already found out and fixed the Adv. Eclipse problem. For now the Q will return to use the Vanilla Model until I find out what's up.

@Chealec: I should have removed that... omg! fixing now.
btw, the turn rate you see in game is the average of Yaw and Pitch values in the Tships, and each steering extension adds 10% of the base value. Excel is useful here to do some calculations and display instantly the correct max turning values.

@OOZ662: THIS is the thread for support issues... because to add something I need to tinker with it, and I may make some mistakes. If the "reported bug" is not from my "tinkerings" I'll report the issue to the mod's creator. I already did something similar for the Draffut's Bug Player fixes. I'll probably do the same with BSD.
btw, Gazz's turret fix wasn't included in the official Patch 1.4?
And yes, the next version will have a B trail Pack.

Real life comparisons are always a bit dodgy, but oil tankers and container ships won't stand up to even a WW2 era military patrol boat

Real life comparisons are not good imho.
This game works differently than real life (very very differently).
You pointed out one of my modifies was based on a "dodgy comparison" I made between a Real Carrier and a M1.
Now I see that M1s are NOT meant to be the same as a Real Carrier, they have big guns and are smaller and faster than the "destroyers" M2, while a Real Carrier is the slowest ship in a fleet, the biggest, and the most dangerous (due to air strikes) while its weapons are not very powerful.
So making a comparison and forcing the M1 to become Real Carriers is a FAILURE, it just becomes a cripple because it wasn't a Carrier in the first place.
The same goes with TLs... a ship like a TL does not exist in the real World... Oil Tankers and Container ships are more similar to a very big TS than to a TL.
TLs here follow the general rule that "bigships should not die so easily" because the proliferation of enemies makes them too easy to kill (imho).
And the same goes for TS/TPs "Civilian ships should have a decent defence to ensure survival".... Ever tried to take a "protect convoy mission"? you must Instant-kill the enemies because when they open fire the TS lasts 10-20 seconds before going boom.

Here the TS still goes boom because it cannot defend itself but lasts enough time to let you do something to help it. This is true for OOS too, most people use TMs for UTs because the TM has 2-3 x 200mj shields and is faster.
Not to mention the enhanced usefullness of the TPs in boarding operations.. more shields = a PPC is no more instant death.

If you disagree with something try to explain why you dislike it and say something that is better for you, if I like your ideas (and the people here too) I can add it to the Mod.
I'm a bit sturdy though


now, back to M1s:
In Vanilla they look like a "flagship", multi-purpose mobile base able to kick some big enemies but unable to level sectors without employing fighters. They look like a light M2 with some hangars.
So they should become effective multi-purpose crafts. Fun multi-purpose crafts.

some proposed changes:
-raising laser energy and regeneration to make them able to use the guns effectively (doubling the Vanilla amount)
-making some ships able to do something different from others depending on their race's filosophy:
--Shark gains 8 Capital guns front but cannot use Capital guns on the sides (following the Thresher and Ray's example of "big guns on front")
--Teladi M1... no idea.
--Raptor is ok as it is regarding turret placement (its side turrets shoot on front enemies too)
--Zeus can use PPC on front and sides but the side turrets go down to 2 guns, will be able to mount PSG everywhere. Use them at your own risk
--Colossus.... no idea.
--Terran M1s get back the side batteries with PSP... no ideas on a better "feel" for them.
-- Xenon J... mmmh... side PPC? 8 guns on each side...

this modify should mantain the number of Capital guns at about 8 on most M1s, but placed in a more "creative" way.

("gun" here stands for "gun mounted on a turret", of course)

p.s. fixed the Khaak M2, the PBEs on the side guns of the HC and HCP, the Adv. eclipse issue. Xenon Q model will return Vanilla, but it is only a "visual" change... turrets will work as stated. Just its down cannons won't look good. Until I find out what's up with it. If you want you can redownload the fixed version.

[Lancefighter]

my python is somehow ruined again..
i installed the newest version of your mod, and started up x3tc, to find that.. it can only mount capital class guns on front/right/left turrets now
i might as well have stayed in my brigantine at this rate.. at least that thing could launch boarding pods.

[someone else]

I thought that the back turrets with capital guns were too much...
I raised its speed to 80 and its manouverability to 2...

why you say "ruined"? please explain why you used it and how... if you convince me I can mod it again.
I'm a bit unsatisfied by it too but I dunno what I can do.

[sorrow_13th]

thanks for the explanation someone else now i can use your wonderful mod without any worries, xenon P are no longer sitting duck and it make sense why it is so damn hard to cap xenon ship, because their ship is now really GOOD one
one suggestion: i'm planning to use your mod with IR mod and i want to own OWP , so i think you should lower OWP stats, BUT make them available for player to buy, this will make the IR mod more fun. I know there are other scripts to allow player to buy OWP, but with "your stats" and "their prices", OWP would be unbalanced, so it's better you include this in your mod. thanks

[sorrow_13th]

the idea about selling optimization back to equipment dock does not work it's ok for me since i'm going to start a new game, but i think you should include this issue in the changelog, thanks

[someone else]

huh. in my game I did that... and worked, whatever. I'll write something about that in the changelog. The option that always works is using Cheat package scripts to remove them.

on OWP discussions... making them available at shipyards is script's work... but the price is modifiable only with a mod. I'll surely have a look at the prices.

the modifies I made on OWP were based on theory... i never tested them against an enemy, so if you use them I can get your feedback and so I can refine them.

glad to see you like the Xenonz.

p.s. anyone has nothing to say about this?

now, back to M1s:
In Vanilla they look like a "flagship", multi-purpose mobile base able to kick some big enemies but unable to level sectors without employing fighters. They look like a light M2 with some hangars.
So they should become effective multi-purpose crafts. Fun multi-purpose crafts.

some proposed changes:
-raising laser energy and regeneration to make them able to use the guns effectively (doubling the Vanilla amount)
-making some ships able to do something different from others depending on their race's filosophy:
--Shark gains 8 Capital guns front but cannot use Capital guns on the sides (following the Thresher and Ray's example of "big guns on front")
--Teladi M1... no idea.
--Raptor is ok as it is regarding turret placement (its side turrets shoot on front enemies too)
--Zeus can use PPC on front and sides but the side turrets go down to 2 guns, will be able to mount PSG everywhere. Use them at your own risk Rolling Eyes
--Colossus.... no idea.
--Terran M1s get back the side batteries with PSP... no ideas on a better "feel" for them.
-- Xenon J... mmmh... side PPC? 8 guns on each side...

this modify should mantain the number of Capital guns at about 8 on most M1s, but placed in a more "creative" way.

("gun" here stands for "gun mounted on a turret", of course)

[sorrow_13th]

i'll try the owp, but at the current stats you gave them, in vanilla it is surely unbalanced, but with IR or anything else that boost our enemy, then it maybe ok
one more problem: would you mind checking the cockpit of the nova prototype? have just capped one, a good m3 but the cockpit is screw up. i know you have done something to the cockpit, cause i use x models 3D viewers to compare vanila and your mod, and IN x models your mod display the cockpit correctly, but IN game, it's still wrong