Would it be possible to balance the weapons and armour more in line with ESC/Guilli's?

Much thanks for this great mod! I was just wondering why some MAC guns are scripted as 100% armour penetration and 100% extra armour damage. How would it be able to damage the armour if it completely penetrates armour? Unless enemy ships have some armour hardening, either of the bonus would seemingly be useless.

Originally posted by General Secretary:

Much thanks for this great mod! I was just wondering why some MAC guns are scripted as 100% armour penetration and 100% extra armour damage. How would it be able to damage the armour if it completely penetrates armour? Unless enemy ships have some armour hardening, either of the bonus would seemingly be useless.

What MAC weapons are you referring to? The super mac series? If so, then that is an error on my part. I probably missed changing that percentage when I went back to remove the penetration bonuses from the MAC weapon components.

Originally posted by MasterYoung:

Would it be possible to balance the weapons and armour more in line with ESC/Guilli's?

I'll look into it since I use that mod too, but no promises on all of the weapon components being fully balanced with that mod.

Originally posted by force728:

Originally posted by General Secretary:

Much thanks for this great mod! I was just wondering why some MAC guns are scripted as 100% armour penetration and 100% extra armour damage. How would it be able to damage the armour if it completely penetrates armour? Unless enemy ships have some armour hardening, either of the bonus would seemingly be useless.

What MAC weapons are you referring to? The super mac series? If so, then that is an error on my part. I probably missed changing that percentage when I went back to remove the penetration bonuses from the MAC weapon components.

I checked your script and here are the components defined with extra damage and complete penetration against the same defence type:

1. "UNSC_MARK_V_HEAVY_COIL"
2. "TITAN_UNSC_SERIES_8_MAC"
3. "UNSC_MARK_X_SUPER_MAC"
4. "UNSC_SHIVA_NUCLEAR_MISSILE"
5. "UNSC_HYPERION_NUCLEAR_MISSILE"

My suggestions of further balancing for major MAC weapons (X and T slots):
1. To consider Stellaris convention, e.g,, kinetic type does not have extra armour damage;
2. To encourage use by more-or-less matching the current meta component in vanilla (arc emitter with full penetration).

Halo wiki says the orbital MAC gun could "putting a round clean through a Covenant capital ship", I believe this could be the upper limit for in-game MAC component definition, for example:

T-slot MAC: 100% shield & armour penetration, 100% extra hull damage;
X-slot MAC: 100% shield penetration, 50% armour penetration

Of course damage values could be reduced to make it less OP: For instance, you could reduce Mark X Super-MAC (X-slot) damage from 4000 to 3000, so that the max penetrated damage is 3000 * 50% = 1500 (roughly matches that of arc emitter).

Originally posted by General Secretary:

Originally posted by force728:

What MAC weapons are you referring to? The super mac series? If so, then that is an error on my part. I probably missed changing that percentage when I went back to remove the penetration bonuses from the MAC weapon components.

I checked your script and here are the components defined with extra damage and complete penetration against the same defence type:

1. "UNSC_MARK_V_HEAVY_COIL"
2. "TITAN_UNSC_SERIES_8_MAC"
3. "UNSC_MARK_X_SUPER_MAC"
4. "UNSC_SHIVA_NUCLEAR_MISSILE"
5. "UNSC_HYPERION_NUCLEAR_MISSILE"

My suggestions of further balancing for major MAC weapons (X and T slots):
1. To consider Stellaris convention, e.g,, kinetic type does not have extra armour damage;
2. To encourage use by more-or-less matching the current meta component in vanilla (arc emitter with full penetration).

Halo wiki says the orbital MAC gun could "putting a round clean through a Covenant capital ship", I believe this could be the upper limit for in-game MAC component definition, for example:

T-slot MAC: 100% shield & armour penetration, 100% extra hull damage;
X-slot MAC: 100% shield penetration, 50% armour penetration

Of course damage values could be reduced to make it less OP: For instance, you could reduce Mark X Super-MAC (X-slot) damage from 4000 to 3000, so that the max penetrated damage is 3000 * 50% = 1500 (roughly matches that of arc emitter).

Thank you for your suggestions. I agree with you on the penetration values for larger MACs. However, full 100% shield and armor penetration might be too much. I may use it for the Ion Cannon class due to the power of orbital MAC platforms, but for ship-mounted T-slot Super MACs, I would reduce it to 75% or 50% but keep the 100% extra hull damage.

Anyway, I'll try to integrate some of these values into the weapon components in the future. Thanks again.

I know this isn't exactly "weapon balancing" specifically, but I have to say, a lot of the armies you produce with this mod are a lot more powerful than the vanilla ones, and in regards to the ships, as I mentioned in my previous comment, the weapons are pretty powerful, even with the increased power usage...

I pretty much built up the strongest fleet in the galaxy in like ~50 years completely without trying, like a small group of corvettes was already reaching thousands of power just using the UNSC weapons and armor.

I love the mod but it feels almost a bit cheaty, maybe it will balance out late game, but not so far

for reference I am also using starnet AI so the AI is decidedly more competent than vanilla, the poor buggers just can't compete

I can't give any specific suggestions because I'm not a modder and have only played with this mod for like 70 ingame years so far but what I can say is that everything about it strikes me as a bit too powerful right now


for reference, here is my main fleet in 2272:

https://i.imgur.com/6zA9G37.png

every single empire in my vicinity is pathetic compared to me

but I am also playing on ensign because I dislike giving the AI unrealistic bonuses, so maybe this would be more fair if I was playing on the hardest difficulty (it's never been this lopsided for me using vanilla or vanilla-balanced empires in the past)

https://i.imgur.com/SZ3Jk4d.png <--- another fleet pic

and a couple example ship designs:

https://i.imgur.com/stjrr9I.png
https://i.imgur.com/RsMLhXl.png

i am using some other mods but nothing that buffs my fleets, it's all just this mod. In my humble opinion just about *everything* needs to be toned down like 25-50% for it to be even close to balanced, from my current POV

also I haven't even put MAC guns on my ships, i'm literally just using the spitfire batteries and autocannons

edit: I just put macs on my ships and now it's even more powerful ;D

basically level 3 railguns showed up pretty much right before I got mark II light macs and lets compare shall we:

first, the macs: https://i.imgur.com/OTP2HF1.png
second, level 3 railgun: https://i.imgur.com/WnkqGhF.png

now I can see that the mac gun has an 8 second cooldown compared to only 2.9 seconds for the railguns, but the ENORMOUS difference in power makes the vanilla weapons immediately obsolete and not worth using by comparison, IMO

also, for reference, the armor I am using is Titanium-A; the one you start with at the beginning

someone may argue that fleet power doesn't really mean much but I absolutely steamrolled the first two empires that rivalled me at the start with pretty much zero effort

Definitely don't take this as a dig at your mod, I love it for a militaristic-themed human playthrough so far, but it's very very powerful to me compared to vanilla