if u can make this work with some of the major weapons mods i think this mod will become very popular. But good start.

Wolfenclaw234 původně napsal:

if u can make this work with some of the major weapons mods i think this mod will become very popular. But good start.

Hey, thanks for the suggestion! I have been thinking about it. From my current understanding of the game and its mods it would be necessary for the weapons mods themselves to make it compatible. I will keep working on it, but if this mod gets bigger I will ask them if they are willing to do it.

I have some suggestions for buff parts based on existing vanilla mechanics.

Factories:

I saw the list of planned content but didn't see anything for manufacturing. I think different-sized parts that match the sizes of the existing factories but have a much higher manufacturing speed buff would be a welcome addition. For example, the 4x4 nuke factory is almost non-existent in the vanilla ship builds because it is an expensive, slow, and large part. However, if the 4x4 factory buff part increased manufacturing speed by ~200% to any connected factory then it could easily make the consideration worth it. Not only that but cutting out the battery runs to individual factories would be a huge boon for other ammo/missile builds as well.

Cannons:

I think the planned "Projectile Weapons Subsystems" should revolve around cannons/flak with missiles being their own thing (or something else entirely as I talk about below). At the moment, I feel cannon-like weapons are the weakest weapon subtype by far. It is a bit ridiculous that a ship using any other type of weapon has a guaranteed free kill against those campaign stations that are solely armed with cannons and flak. All they can do is sit there and slowly be destroyed.

With that in mind, I think a range and accuracy buff would benefit cannons while providing little to no buff for the already strong railgun (because increasing railgun max range beyond visual range wouldn't be much of a buff). To avoid making vanilla lasers redundant, the ratio should favor range over accuracy so that lasers remain more efficient at their max range than a cannon would be.

For example, the vanilla range for cannons is 190m and the spread is 2.5 degrees, meaning there is a possibility of missing by ~4m to either side of the targeted part at max range. If the range is buffed to 200% (190m becomes 380m) then the spread angle should be something small like 25% (aka reducing spread to 75% which is 1.875 degrees) so that the potential to miss by at the buffed max range is now ~6m to either side of the targeted part. In this way, buffed lasers keep their current 50% damage increase, and buffed cannons can out-range them but they are still less efficient at that range than lasers would be.

As a bonus to these ratios, at the vanilla lasers' max range of 260m, the buffed cannons' accuracy returns to that of a vanilla cannon at 190m. All in all, this range to damage efficiently balance would be similar to Ion Beams with their reduced damage at their max range but full damage within their shorter effective range.

Turret Speed

A small (~1x2) part to buff turret speed would be great to have in combination with others. It could lead to some interesting playstyles like circle strafing. Imagine a ship primarily armed with large lasers plus Turret and Energy Weapons subsystems whose defenses are mostly shields and boost thrusters instead of armor to keep the speed up. Instead of the vanilla 45-degree per-second rotation of large lasers, they can now whip around at 135/sec. The strafer ship can now run circles around a target and relatively quickly knock out exposed parts like missile launchers and engines.

This play style is sort of doable now but not really all that effective because turret weapons struggle to stay on target and do enough damage during the brief window when passing by an exposed part. I think having an option like this available would allow for lighter and faster ships to be viable against the heavily armored behemoths that dominate the 2 million+ ship builds.

Edit: I cut down the suggestions to just the basics because I'm pretty sure the other ones I had would require new parts and probably not possible via buffs.

I saw that you liked some of my suggestions and I'm glad they provided some inspiration.

I've been thinking about the recent update by adding duplicates of vanilla parts because of how the current buff system is coded. I don't know how to solve that issue, but I'm not sure adding duplicates of vanilla parts is going to grab people's interest with this mod. I believe these cloned parts should do something other than be 1:1 copies that are compatible with the new subsystems.

Having a variety of different trade-offs would differentiate these cloned parts from vanilla enough to keep them interesting. I even wrote a little lore you can copy to give my concept added flavor.

Saving Credits via Consolidation

The less expensive copies of existing designs in the subsystem category of parts are often called "shell units" because a significant number of their internal parts and related functions were consolidated into an associated subsystem. Since they aren't complete units anymore, they are entirely dependent on a connection to a subsystem to remain functional. Severing the shell units' connection to their subsystem causes immediate deactivation. This includes (but is not limited to) the subsystem not being properly crewed, losing power, being destroyed, or anything else. None of those situations are covered under warranty.

If you are short on crew but long on credits, then "auto shells" are what you are looking for. These janky pieces of hardware of dubious origin were probably cobbled together by some Fringe Systems mechanic who was suffering from CO2 poisoning after "improving" their ship's air scrubbers. They aren't as good as the standard designs and cost a little more than them, but it still beats having to pay for crew to man them!

By the way, all sales are final.

Penalties for auto shells could include a slower rate of fire, lower turret speed, longer delay to start firing, etc. I think it would be best to avoid penalties that substantially alter these parts from vanilla like reducing range or firing arc, because that would make them rather difficult to include with vanilla weapons in the same build. Also, be careful of which penalties you use because some can be especially harsh for certain weapons. Even a tiny delay to start firing would greatly affect ion beams and be especially brutal for railguns (rail fanning disabled lol).

While this quirk of reliance on the connections* to subsystems for the cloned parts to function is a substantial change from vanilla, it would distinguish them (and therefore this mod) from most other modded weapons. Not to mention it would alter how players would place and defend these concentrated amalgamations of firepower.

*Read the Buff Chaining section mentioned below for an exception to direct connection.

Buff Bleeding

Since you are now free to modify these parts to your heart's content, why not let the new clone parts be able to buff each other? Imagine the current 3x3 energy weapon subsystem oriented vertically with 4 Small lasers and 2 Disruptors connected (3 on front left and right) as an example for the following points.

• Sticking a Disruptor on an energy weapon subsystem causes some of its energy-draining properties to bleed into the other connected energy weapons. Each Disruptor adds X amount of energy drain to the Small Lasers making this combo much better at taking down shields.
  
• In addition, every energy weapon attached to the same subsystem increases the shield damage of a Disruptor by X%.
  
• These buffs should vary depending on the weapons themselves, so this shield-destroying combo only happens with small lasers. Other energy weapons affect the Disruptor differently (longer range, etc.) and vice versa.

I think individual weapon-based buffs allow for more interesting combinations rather than all effects being based on the specific subsystem. Especially since some weapons can't be buffed in certain ways and thus wouldn't gain anything from flat benefits like +50% damage. Like Disruptors' hull damage should not be buffed or its extremely high penetration could allow it to punch through several blocks of armor.

If you decide to go this route, be sure to weigh the balance carefully and restrict the effects of complicated weapons like Ion Beams to the basics. Trying to figure out how to handle several beams with different buffs (energy drain, longer range, etc.) converging on a single Ion Prism is asking for trouble. Ion beams should only get increased damage because that naturally slots in with the existing mechanics and no extra calculations or considerations are needed.


Buff Chaining

I thought of a way to implement the new chaingun mechanics into cannons.

1. A modified clone version of the Chaingun magazine connecting two cannons can share ammo between them. A minor increase in fire rate per magazine added to the chain but that rapidly drops to 0 and starts reducing fire rate after X number of magazines*. The max length before the penalty should be something small. If possible, only as wide as the cannon in question (so 2 magazines would be the max for a medium cannon).
   
2. Connecting one end of a chain of magazines to an Ammo Depot removes the burden on the loading mechanisms (fire rate penalty) of the first cannon in the chain. This means chains from the subsystem to that first cannon can be as long as you want without worry.
   
3. This mechanic essentially turns the part that is connected to a subsystem into the anchor point for a daisy chain. If this chain is severed in a way so a direct connection to the subsystem is lost, then all weapons in this part of the chain become non-functional no different than if the subsystem itself was destroyed. Players will have to decide if they should add additional subsystems or take the risk of the whole chain of weapons depending on the health of a single magazine in the first section of the chain.
   
4. Incorporating the chaingun mechanic of preventing the crew from directly loading the cannons and magazine while in use (aka firing) would be a good idea.
   
5. Depending on what you prefer, either the subsystem can load ammo into the chain and essentially become a large magazine (inverting the chaingun mechanic by pushing bullets to the weapon instead of pulling it in). Or keep the vanilla method of loading every magazine individually. The former method makes the most sense since subsystems are supposed to consolidate as many functions as possible.

This method of chaining parts could also include buff parts as well as weapons. So sticking a turret speed buff part to the subsystem and then connecting the weapon to it would allow the weapon to stick out further than a direct subsystem connection.

*Note that the fire rate of cannons can't always increase per magazine or it would turn the cannons into smaller, lighter, and outright better chainguns. Buffed weapons shouldn't make other weapons redundant, just provide different options.

Modular Parts
Taking a page from Modular Missiles, instead of having clones of an entire vanilla weapon, you could have split them into individual pieces that have different effects.

• Simply place down the disruptor body and then snap on the head you want (the same as for MM parts). There are different heads available such as the fixed head which had the turret mechanisms ripped out for better coherence of the Disruptor bolt (aka longer range but 0 firing arc).
  
• Cannons can have their barrels swapped out. These different barrels the effectiveness of the round fired such as affect range, accuracy, shot speed, etc. The cannon itself is also affected, sticking a longer, heavier barrel will increase the range at the cost of reduced turret speed (and possibly firing arc) since it isn't designed to swing that kind of weight around.

I'm aware that implementing this mechanic is way more complicated to implement than cloning parts with bits of code inserted into the file, but the vanilla art could still be used as a base to retain the placement of doors and so on.

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Alright, that ended up being way longer than I thought. Overall, I think the cloned parts should feel vanilla-ish so that the player is familiar enough with their stock capabilities. The buff options should lead to unique ways to combine them in ship builds but avoid better than vanilla parts.

Hi 1st of all thx for making this and for doing ETT compatibility version! Keep the work going!

So suggestions:

0.BALANCE (In numbers)- In short i feels like its too OP for very low efford so mby make it less OP in % it provides. If u dont want to do that all other articles are gona be refering to them as they are right now. Just for example from ETT adv. engine room is way harder to get and boost is only at 75%. But u can kinda ignore this and just focus on other articles :D

1. BALANCE (Price)- For me it feels like u can get to best one very quickly especialy with ETT mod pack. Possible fix> Dont have them unlocked by default and add more / different materials to build, prices for unlocking could be smth like 20k,100k,250k,500k for example since there are no AI ships that use this (Mby that could be another suggestion :P) its guaranteed edge in battle also lock them behind some previous tech like for laser subsystem 1st tier behind already having small laser 2nd tier heavy laser and 3rd and 4th Ion beam, in building materials 1st tier can stay as is mby just crank the numbers 2nd tier scrap steel add more tritranium and add procesors, 3rd tier add enrich uranium and procesors and 4th tier add enrich uranium,procesors and diamonds.

2. BALANCE (Look)- mby change how big they are and how many crew need to operate them that would also make a bit more sence so 1st tier 2x2 with 2 crew inside, 2nd 3x3 with 4 crew, 3rd 3x3 with 6 crew and 4th 4x4 with 8 crew mby also add some passive energy drain thats getting bigger as u progress in tiers.

3. ETT Version- add more subsystems with bigger bonuses but bigger power drain and with ETT resources to build and implement article 1 and 2 in them.

All these numbers are just what i feel playing with 30mods ETT being core one for balance would be good and more balanced.

Hope u (And players) will like these suggestions! Again thx for awesome mod!