Love the mod, ships look great!

I do however have a suggestion, maybe put the high energy tag on the large hard-points. The Osaka, Syn and Asgard have this tag as well. This would be more inline with the whole Terran high energy deal and allow the use of weapon mods that use these restrictions to make the Terran weapons race specific.

Originally posted by Hillmizzle:

Love the mod, ships look great!

I do however have a suggestion, maybe put the high energy tag on the large hard-points. The Osaka, Syn and Asgard have this tag as well. This would be more inline with the whole Terran high energy deal and allow the use of weapon mods that use these restrictions to make the Terran weapons race specific.

This is on the to-do list. If this works it would be a good addition indeed. I will have to test it first for any issues that might arise in vanilla, especially when the AI is building the ships. If it turns out there are problems with that feature on unmodded save I am considering an option of making it as a separate compatibility mod.

Originally posted by SimonPlaysGames:

This is on the to-do list. If this works it would be a good addition indeed. I will have to test it first for any issues that might arise in vanilla, especially when the AI is building the ships. If it turns out there are problems with that feature on unmodded save I am considering an option of making it as a separate compatibility mod.

Understood, it is on the vanilla versions of the Terran cap ships so I can't imagine it would negatively affect anything (But I don't know ♥♥♥♥ about modding soo...). Although, after looking I am not sure why as none of their vanilla large turrets require it....

Originally posted by Hillmizzle:

so I can't imagine it would negatively affect anything (But I don't know ♥♥♥♥ about modding soo...)

Adding or removing the tag works like a checkbox-option at the end of the day, so no, it won't have an impact on anything else.
As for why no L-turret actually requires High Power we can only guess. Could be an oversight, perhaps there were some more turrets planned but scrapped before release of CoH.

Cruisers are a concept that's been lacking in the X universe for a long time, so I'm glad to finally see them even if it is only in a mod. There are a couple of things that bug me about the ships themselves though:

1: We're in space, and these ships' firing arcs are badly unbalanced. I suggest a more even distribution of firepower between the top and bottom. It's especially bad with the Miyagi, which is almost unarmed underneath. These are not water ships.

2: The Kagawa is badly lacking in M-class turrets. I think you were probably trying to slip it into the Syn-Asgard design philosophy of ships, but I really wish you wouldn't make it -quite- that bad. The Terrans seem to have moved away from that paradigm; maybe make this their effort to move into the old ATF range of heavy hitters without being quite as horribly top-heavy.

3: It looks a bit like you might already be planning to do something like this, but just in case you're not, I'd like to request some destroyer forward guns; maybe give the Miyagi three of them, the others 4-5 and the Kagawa... I dunno. Maybe something special; some cut-down version of the Asgard's lance beam. Or maybe add another class, parallel to the Kagawa, where you do that, sacrificing all the L-class turrets and, relating to item 2, leaving it with just an increased number of M-class to deter fighters.

4: The engines are under-shielded. I recommend giving the Miyagi at least two more M-class shields over the engines, giving the medium ships one or two per engine, and giving the Kagawa either three per engine or a pair of L-class shields.

5: The turrets are even more severely under-shielded. I suggest one shield per two medium turrets and two shields per large turret; this is the ratio you see in the Osaka, for example. Right now, between the engines and the turrets, these ships are just begging to be disarmed and disabled. In fact, it's so bad I can't even bring myself to build one. I'll keep it though, and see if you maybe address some of this in an update. :P

@Nameless Thank you for taking the time to point those things out. Those are indeed some very valid points you raised! These weaknesses are there, though I must say they are there by design. I see how by just looking at them without context they might seem like unnecessary flaws. The balancing is an ongoing thing with this mod and everything is most likely not final, so much can change. At the start especially one must practically guess at what will be balanced with things that will come much later. The things you listed are examples of my guessing. Let me address them in more detail:

1. This is very much true! The bottom (and bottom-back) is the weakest, least protected approach vector for the ships. Not only that, if you attack from this angle you will be able to go straight for the main shields. My fear was that with TER faction the many turrets will create a ship with no weak side. This was done to counter-act it.

2. Yes! Again this is on point. Being aware that there are L turrets that can be effective against S and M ships (and for performance reasons) I gave gave Kagawa a small amount of M turrets. My logic was that it would force the player to either sacrifice some turrets for anti-fighter combat or depend on escort ships to deal with them. Again, not to make it super-powerful.

3.Yes! I mention it before, but you guessed it very well! I plan to make cruisers of each faction be better at some thing and worse at others. This is just TER being better at L turrets (firing arcs, amount) and speed, and worse at forward weapons (big OOS dps) and less M shields per subsystem. As a contrast to this I plan to make the PAR cruiser forward weapon focused and better S/M ship docking abilities ( at the expense of turret amount and and anti fighter defenses as well as speed). So while cruisers in general will be having more L turrets than base game ships, not all of them will be using them exclusively. This is something I probably should make clear in the mod description, as I see how one could come to the conclusion by just looking at the TER.

4. As mentioned above this is to make slowing down TER ships easier for other factions. with how they are now they really can kill any other capital ship with long range weapons. Most of them can even fire at the back well enough, or with little zig-zaging. My logic was that if they have weaker subsystem shielding enemies could circumvent their speed with fighter attacks and maybe a lucky L weapon hit here and there before the fast cruiser gets out of range again.

5. As above, this is to make the TER cruisers more vulnerable when staying for too long in close quarters combat and not using their speed and firing arc advantage. The intended average for cruisers is 2 shields for M turrets and 4 for L turrets and engines (modified of course by amount of turrets per group).

The balancing of even one ship may be a challenge. Balancing a lot of them by myself can be quite a daunting task at times. This is why I dearly appreciate all the suggestions and critique by the mod users who, ultimately, will end up spending much more time playing these ships than I can ever hope to have to test them in all the different, unique game situations. The final balancing of the game will be probably happening until the very last ship is added. So much may change in terms of individual statistics that it is impossible to exactly predict.

One thing I realized is maybe it would be a good idea to lay out my initial plan for the general ship breakdown and features of each faction. Having good, insightful input early on might help things go more smoothly as the mod progresses.

Yeah, all those "issues" adressed by @NameLess appear deliberate in nature in order to keep some semblance of balance.

I didn't use the cruisers much yet (because other than a test in custom gamestart I'm waiting for them to be flown by NPC so I can board them, as I usually do with capital ships).

The best roles for those ships IMO are fire support at max range of their L-turrets, transporting marines, and being a shield for rattlesnakes and weakly-defended ships. They're not main attack-ships (well, with multiphase-cannons from the weapon-pack mod they are great artillery tho).

@redeyedraven so far my testing confirms this theory. The ships feel vulnerable to S/M swarms and general up-close fighting. They do make great tanks for destroyers, especially during larger longer battles.

I can say with confidence that all the ships already in the mod (and all the ships going forward) will be getting the highpower and raceonly on some of their turrets. Testing showed no issues, and more experienced modders confirmed this should cause no issues with things like AI. From what I've seen everything is working fine and additional compatibility is worth it.

As for people using weapon mods: with railguns, the ships become extremely effective against other capital ships - to the point of being actually better at chewing through xenon Ks then destroyers and even the Asgard. And this is still vanillia with no stats overhaul. If this is something one wants with this kind of ships, then I can confirm it plays well.

As for using with things as VRO - still not recommended. Much better to wait for the next patch and have the ships be well balanced. Just plugging ships from this mod into VRO makes them: 1) huge dps dealers, 2) made out of flammable paper, 3) insanely fast (I actually saw Miyagi outrun cruise missiles).

This should give the requested compatibility to the ones that use some of the overhaul/weapon mods. Balancing is off, so I guess it comes to personal preference. Use with caution.

Originally posted by SimonPlaysGames:

@Nameless Thank you for taking the time to point those things out. Those are indeed some very valid points you raised! These weaknesses are there, though I must say they are there by design. I see how by just looking at them without context they might seem like unnecessary flaws. The balancing is an ongoing thing with this mod and everything is most likely not final, so much can change. At the start especially one must practically guess at what will be balanced with things that will come much later. The things you listed are examples of my guessing. Let me address them in more detail:

1. This is very much true! The bottom (and bottom-back) is the weakest, least protected approach vector for the ships. Not only that, if you attack from this angle you will be able to go straight for the main shields. My fear was that with TER faction the many turrets will create a ship with no weak side. This was done to counter-act it.

2. Yes! Again this is on point. Being aware that there are L turrets that can be effective against S and M ships (and for performance reasons) I gave gave Kagawa a small amount of M turrets. My logic was that it would force the player to either sacrifice some turrets for anti-fighter combat or depend on escort ships to deal with them. Again, not to make it super-powerful.

3.Yes! I mention it before, but you guessed it very well! I plan to make cruisers of each faction be better at some thing and worse at others. This is just TER being better at L turrets (firing arcs, amount) and speed, and worse at forward weapons (big OOS dps) and less M shields per subsystem. As a contrast to this I plan to make the PAR cruiser forward weapon focused and better S/M ship docking abilities ( at the expense of turret amount and and anti fighter defenses as well as speed). So while cruisers in general will be having more L turrets than base game ships, not all of them will be using them exclusively. This is something I probably should make clear in the mod description, as I see how one could come to the conclusion by just looking at the TER.

4. As mentioned above this is to make slowing down TER ships easier for other factions. with how they are now they really can kill any other capital ship with long range weapons. Most of them can even fire at the back well enough, or with little zig-zaging. My logic was that if they have weaker subsystem shielding enemies could circumvent their speed with fighter attacks and maybe a lucky L weapon hit here and there before the fast cruiser gets out of range again.

5. As above, this is to make the TER cruisers more vulnerable when staying for too long in close quarters combat and not using their speed and firing arc advantage. The intended average for cruisers is 2 shields for M turrets and 4 for L turrets and engines (modified of course by amount of turrets per group).

The balancing of even one ship may be a challenge. Balancing a lot of them by myself can be quite a daunting task at times. This is why I dearly appreciate all the suggestions and critique by the mod users who, ultimately, will end up spending much more time playing these ships than I can ever hope to have to test them in all the different, unique game situations. The final balancing of the game will be probably happening until the very last ship is added. So much may change in terms of individual statistics that it is impossible to exactly predict.

One thing I realized is maybe it would be a good idea to lay out my initial plan for the general ship breakdown and features of each faction. Having good, insightful input early on might help things go more smoothly as the mod progresses.

Ok, well if you're doing all of this on purpose and don't plan to change any of it, I think I'll just unsubscribe. :( Sorry, but I really don't like the ships this way. They just don't seem to be worth building. The weaknesses are too severe compared to existing ships.

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Ok, well if you're doing all of this on purpose and don't plan to change any of it, I think I'll just unsubscribe. :( Sorry, but I really don't like the ships this way. They just don't seem to be worth building. The weaknesses are too severe compared to existing ships.

I am sorry to hear that but I get it. Maybe consider checking out the mod later on, as more ships with different characteristics will be added, or even after the final version has been released and the balancing process has been finalized.

Originally posted by The Nameless:

They just don't seem to be worth building. The weaknesses are too severe compared to existing ships.

What exactly do you want or expect from this mod though? Another heavy destroyer? Another Asgard or another easylife ship? Those cruisers are different but IMO not inferior at all. Neither in vanilla, nor with added stuff from other mods.

The cruisers have several mounts for large turrets along their hull, and more than the typical destroyer. They can easily broadside as their placement allows to have pretty much all of them go ham on your target when passing it.

No main-batteries is not really an issue IMO, especially on AI-controlled ships. The XR-shippack (which is also very popular) also has quite a number of ships omitting main batteries, and they still work.
As long as you are attacking their flanks or rear, you will be able to hold your own against most destroyers.


If you have b**ls of steel you can also use KungFury's Weaponpack and install Multiphase-cannons. Against anything non-terran you will gain a huge range-advantage, which comes in handy in a universe full of proton-autocannons and plasma-artillery.

Those cruisers actually excel at using that specific weapon, due to being able to kite other capitals.

As with vanilla weapons... Paranid L plasma would be way to go for a kiting doctrine.

After 'acquiring' some of the presents the terran intervention-corps keep sending me, I noticed that the outer layer of the hull disappears when being very close to the model.

Tested only on Yamagata for now.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2650303504

Originally posted by redeyedraven:

After 'acquiring' some of the presents the terran intervention-corps keep sending me, I noticed that the outer layer of the hull disappears when being very close to the model.

Tested only on Yamagata for now.

Yup, I was able to replicate that bug in my game. I'm adding it on the to-do list. Thank you for reporting it!

Originally posted by SimonPlaysGames:

Yup, I was able to replicate that bug in my game. I'm adding it on the to-do list. Thank you for reporting it!

You're welcome.

I think it might have something to do with the model's LoD? There are also a few spots where I was glitching through while in space-suit, but that's happening with some vanilla-models as well... especially when they're in travel-drive (the "ship-gravity" only works when it wants to).

I was out of the loop while the ToA and 5.0 were getting published. Are there any issues that arose from the introduction of those in regard to the ships in this mod? My initial testing showed nothing yet, but if someone knows of any issues a tip would help a great deal.