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ACI-Rival

This is a faction mod which utilises modded weapons for its encounters and MES for behaviours. There are no scripts used to create behaviours outside of the dependencies. The original ship designs are creations from K_medlocks Ares Combat Industries collection. Any potential issues within this mod are solely my responsibility as the creator and maintainer of the behaviours within.

*Play on a dedicated. Peer to peer does not perform too well. I really REALLY recommend a dedicated if you use this mod. We use this mod with very little performance/lag issues despite the size of some encounters. Grid cleanup is really the only issue until I can somehow make these things despawn after defeat sooner.*

*Use a sync distance of at least 12km to cover all weapon ranges. Some Northwind weapons have extra shell range if manually aimed, going out to 12km. The recommended 12km covers the extra distance gained by manually aiming. There are also the M-1 Torpedos from Mexpex Homing Weaponry, which have a max range of 10km. Some behaviours will utilise the max range of weapons so a sync distance of sub 10km will cause issues for some npcs.

*You will overcome everything at some point but don't worry, more encounters are to be added.*

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*There is a win condition against this faction. Which is to destroy the ACIM Command Vessel. This command vessel will only spawn after 500 (Recently changed from 300, will likely change again at some point.) ACIM grids have been defeated. If this command ship is destroyed then it will disable all ACIM spawns, eliminating them from the game. It is a "you win" function.* (Though it is not a complete encounter atm, it mostly just serves a purpose. Destroying it will end ACIM. It is in a very basic state. I will update this when the encounter is finished completely.)

There are conditions that must be met before ACIM command will spawn, outside of the general defeating of 500 ACIM ships.
The conditions for the ACIM Command to spawn exist as the defeating of specific encounter signals.

These here will be the names of gps markers and the spawning conditions that must be met in order for them to spawn. There are only these two clear requirements at present.

Space - ACIM - Praetor Class - Wyoming (II) - (2500 Min threat, 75 ACIM space grids destroyed. Destroy remote block. Causing a retreat will not be considered a clear of the encounter.)

Planet - Crashed Taurus Transport (II) - (500 Min Threat, 75 ACIM planetary grids destroyed. Press a button on the bridge. Destroying the remote block before a condition is met will not clear the encounter.)

There will be more requirements in future.

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*Encounters scale with player threat. I have recently discovered (Thanks to TheFinalEvent97IsLaggy On Discord) that you can add or subtract threat from the calculations used by spawngroups that use threat levels as a spawn condition. Think of it as a means of modifying difficulty. This here is the command.
"/MES.Settings.General.ThreatReductionHandicap.Value" Modify "Value" to the desired number.*

ACIM begins the game as a neutral faction. Spawns that trigger an event which makes you an enemy with ACIM will begin at 150 threat. Player threat only.

If you are new to the concept of threat within MES then this link has more information. https://gist.github.com/MeridiusIX/52fbf5679e67107a8cf37706205b5812

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This mod does not cover all environment types. You will find minimal encounters on low atmo or lunar environments. Mainly Space and atmospheres/gravity similar to Earth have the majority of spawns. So I recommend using this mod alongside other encounter mods to fill in the gaps.

ACIM has a resource called Intelligence Points. This allows spawns within a player known area which is designated by a recon grid or installations that have detected you. Player known area spawngroups are meant to be more threatening than all other spawn types. Alongside a passive background generation of IP/SIP, installations, probes and ground vehicle groups will also act as generators. 20 ACIM IP is needed to spawn a player known area spawn group. The IP is not consumed, it only enables the spawn.

Grids now deduct ACIM IP when their remote block is destroyed, enough weapons or power are taken out, or all relevant control seats (Generally just those on the bridge) and cockpits are made non functional. The amount deducted is based on the class of ship or spawn type. Are the classifications arbitrary as heck? Yes. Destroying ACIM grids is the only way to reduce IP. Aside from the chat commands.

The ACIM IP for space and planets is separate. IP for Planets is simply called IP whilst for space it is called SIP.

These are the new commands to check ACIM IP with MES.

/MES.Debug.ChangeCounter.ACIM-Intelligence-Points-Space.0
/MES.Debug.ChangeCounter.ACIM-Intelligence-Points.0

Also some ships use shield shunting. I apologise for the shield shunting messaging spam. Hoping the devs of Defence Shields remove that message when used by enemy ships at some point.

I have a test group for space that only spawn by chat command. These are both groups that are present within the faction spawngroups.

/MES.Spawn.SpaceCargoShip.Admin-Only-Test-Group-1
/MES.Spawn.SpaceCargoShip.Admin-Only-Test-Group-2
/MES.Spawn.SpaceCargoShip.Admin-Only-Test-Group-3

-Added a means to reset ACIM to 0. It is a small grid that will appear for a few seconds, do the work then despawn. This is an admin only spawn command.

/MES.Spawn.SpaceCargoShip.ACIM-Reset-Everything

*Advice. Don't put your whole game in a single grid. Enemy weapons are used at max range and there is a basic level of tactics used by spawngroups. It is more than likely that you will lose grids and the things you love. :(.*

Thank you to Lucas for MES
Darkstar and his colleagues for Defence Shields.
Also for Weaponcore.
Mexpex for homing weaponry and the previously used MWI collections 1 and 2.
Aryx for the previously used Aryx Weapons.
Nasty Jack Starlight for Northwind Weapons and its associated vanilla weapon replacer.
And of course K_Medlock for the original ship designs.

Extra blueprint contribution credits:
Xanther for the Orbital Cannon.
Lique for the ACIM Air Base.

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Recommended Mods.

The Northwind vanilla weapon replacer. I originally had it as a requirement for this mod but it had some issues so I dropped it. It got an update though so I certainly recommend it. Some ships/behaviours were designed with it in mind.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2760750653

Nanobot Build and Repair System.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857053359

Defence Shields. (Enemies will use shields if you have this installed. Though not critical, some behaviours utilise shields more than others.)
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3154379105

WC Handweapons.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882369004&searchtext=handheld+wc


*TLDR* ACIM passively builds resources over time in the background and through assets like outposts, probes etc. They will spawn attack fleets at your location once their resource counter is high enough. Destroying their assets lowers this counter, so your base won't be attacked. Turtle too long and they'll get you eventually.