Thanks for your comment MrPicklesAndTea!

You know, with all the blocks that becomes available now for this new faction, balancing things is not easy. Either I do not touch anything and some block become completely useless or I do my best at tweaking stuff. Right now, for hull/armor block, I took 3 different approach:

1 - Have the most powerful hull/block have P value. This make them unlockable (at reasonable price) and limit their usage on designs.
2 - Balance the 3 different attributes namely; durability, density and regenrate.
3 - Change some of the shapes for variety.

Like you said, the Sentinel amor block are the most powerful. I took the P value path to balance them... Should I nerf them a bit?

About the terran "Hull" block: Yes, they are the ones that are hard to balance. I reduced their regen speed. Left durability and density untouched. They are the most protective block available from the start... I have an idea for the upcoming v1.2 update: Give them back their fast regen ability but increase weight to compensate. Since we now have access to all thrusters, the increased weight might not be such an issue. You need to take the path of "better thruster" should you decide to focus your designs on "Hull" block.

As for the redundancy in some block, I decided to change some shapes a bit for variety. I see this new factions as "reverse engineers": They analyze the structure from other factions and replicate the material used not necessarily the shapes...

Weapons are untouched. I do not intend to adjust them right now.

Thrusters, well, I decided to focus on name change to describe what they are good at: sturdy, reinforced, heavy duty for high health ones. Booster for those with a timed boost when they get activated. And some other naming for those with strange/unique properties like light weight or fast regen.

Factory, generator and shield: I mostly tweaked the shapes and P value according to their power,

Solar panel: I never really used them a lot but I figured they were perhaps too powerful when you get full access to all block... So i reduced their R production capability and increased weight so they become mostly usable on station design.

Tractor beam: They are now mandatory to increase pickup range as factory and containers no longer attract.

Containers: I decided to aim for shape variety. Yes, they have a P value but should be very easily obtainable from the start. At least for the smaller model.

If you have ideas. Please, tell me! I do not want to "nerf" stuff unnecessarily but, like I said, why have all parts if some, by default, are just not useful at all? The goal of this mod is to have a "rough" start: No premade ships, very limited starting block. You have to work and think ahead to upgrade. Kind of like "to analyze and replicate this block, we need resources". Start by gathering R and converting them to C at the stations. Then start your unlocking strategy: Should I aim for better weapons or hulls? Should I focus on mobility or on energy production? R farming with the seed planter? Those are possible path you can take when starting up...

Thanks and I am listening to your suggestions!

Right now I'm suffering from caffeine difficit so my reply is going to be not really* brief:

The upside to this faction is that you can use the best blocks in the game, there might be a need for minor balance changes and fixes to what the game already messed up, but this is what I imagine is the upside to this race. The downside has to be something else, I feel you can double or triple or quadruple the research cost for things as-is without the slow start and get rid of some of the nerfs, or decrease their effect. Making all the good things bad or normal really takes away what makes this faction really good.

You know those, what I remember as, brightly colored blocks with almost no health? Could you make it so they repair faster, maybe be less weight. I look at them and imagine them as shield blocks, something lightweight and regen fast but fragile. I'm not specifically thinking 0.1 regrowth for a normal square, but as it stands it is trully a useless block to have at about 10 health and 0.6 seconds regrowth.

Do you need to add a P value to something so you can add it to research cost? If so then I'm in a bit of a predicament on what to say now. But whatever the case, I don't think storage should have a P cost, storage in this game has always heavier then most blocks and have less health. Adding a P cost makes having storage makes it kinda suck.

Out of curiosity, how often do you use shields? I usually make heavy ship with a lot of hull and I don't want to have to spend 500p-1,000p on hull in an 8,000p ship.


So for the terran hull, Hhmm... Increasing weight would be the first thing I think of. I don't really know, I get it that you don't want something strong to be available at the start. I would say increase the weight and regrowth slightly(Or decrease the regrowth, as it is currently). The Terran Armor isn't specifically great by default, but it is pretty strong.

OK, caffeine fatigue and thinking is really catching up now, I just wanted to mention the bees thrusters are ridiculously expensive when it comes to P cost. The only thruster that was any good that I could get early on was a dark matter thruster that turned out to be too huge and therefore not good.



I understand you want a slow start, but making it so that the only things you can get is bad makes the end game slow as well. There needs to be good things. Perhaps you can just give us the good hull parts, and add a higher research price tag to the "overpowered" weapons, thrusters and whatnot, but don't increase the P cost of them. Because when a good thing has too high of a P cost it stops being good. We can start off with good hull, we just won't have anything else that is any good. It would still be quite hard early on if you only have 3p and 4p guns no matter what and don't forget just one good gun isn't going to do any good, a good ship needs 3 good guns(Or 2 good ones, one decent one) and that is more in research. I unlocked the terran plasma, a pretty good gun. But for all the good it did me without other guns, not much.


*Edited "far" to "a bit" after typing so much.
*Edited "a bit more" to "not really" after typing a lot. I think the fact that I need caffeine right now is actually making me keep put instead of doing other things. I haven't made 2 text walls in a row for years.

Hi MrPicklesAndTea!

I had a large dose of caffeine, so, right now, I am rather on an overdose! ;)

First off, to clarify something you were wondering: yes, to have a part locked it need to have a P value. 1 P value = 100 C to unlock (providing you use the S.S.S. Super Slow Start mod, 10 C without...). There is currently no way to specify a "research cost" outside of this method...

Secondly, while some locked items may have P value, keep in mind that 100 C to 1000 C, which is the cost of most armor (including the best one) and containers, is very cheap. You can pretty much start unlocking those after 5 minutes of play if you wish too. And that is with the S.S.S. mod active!

Finally, I decided to have the S.S.S. mod made available outside of Reassembler because some people where complaining about the increased cost of locked block and the fact that you need a small amount of R as well for researching. It is impossible to please everyone... You seem to like the increased cost. I do too.

I do use shields. The thing is that, the way the A.I. is programmed in Reassembly, you cannot compete with it when it comes to aiming precision. An example of that: suppose you have a very fast light armored ship. Against a human opponent, you would get an advantage because of your speed and ability to evade but against the A.I. you get no advantage. The computer will find the perfect firing solution within a fraction of a second and you are pretty much done unless you are accelerating or decelerating. I remember teleporting out of reach of a "Red" ship just to end up being instantly vaporized by another one within milliseconds of reappearing and they are supposed to have "bad aim"!

So, you need strong hull or shields (or both) to survive a direct battle with an enemy ship. That's a fact: Forget about fancy combat maneuvers!

Which lead me to talk briefly about letting the super-humanly effective A.I. do the "talking" for you: Building a fleet. You don't need 50 ships in your fleet. A fleet of 15 to 20 well designed vessel, that you rebuild as you battle is going to be enough unless you fight massive opposition like an OP agent. If you fight on your own, well, that is where you are going to need something huge and... well, probably expensive in P points.

Now, the most effective armor (Sentinel "Armor", "Endoleptium" and "Exothanum") cost, at max, 6P per pieces when scaled at max size. Some quick math: Let's say your hull/armor budget for a huge ship is 1000P. That's 1000 / 6 = 166 pieces! At maximum part size! I doubt you need that much part to have a decent ship... Not too mention that a 8000 P ship is going to be overpowered no matter what.

But I get your concern: If you decide to build such a ship, you have the right to! And you have the right to fight alone too... Originally, in the vanilla game, you could add as much hull/armor as you pleased without spending P points on it. This is no longer the case. I consider this a downside to this faction.

About weapons: Cheap guns (below, what, like 30 P?) are not going to help you much. True. Even if you have 15 of them on your ship... Again, most "OK, but not that great" guns are available for 1000C - 1500C. And the decent one starts at 2500~5000C (providing you use S.S.S. otherwise, that's 10x less).

About nerfing: I need to clarify a few thing here. I did not nerf any guns. I did not even change their P value! I really only reduced the effectiveness of solar panels. As for the playable factions hull/armor, the only thing I changed beside adding P value, is the Terran Hull regrow speed. And I am going to revert that in v1.2. I will increase weight but give them a 32 regenRate. Originally they were at 30. This will be done. So this starting hull part will be quite as good as it was. As for the unplayable factions armor block I actually made them better! The "Spikey Plants" and "Borg" block are the best examples: "Chlorotanium" have super fast regrow and "Beryllium-Strontium Alloy" features ultra light weight.

About thrusters: Yes the "Bees" thrusters are the best ones. They have the highest thrust to weight/size ratio of all the thrusters. So, naturally, they are on the top of the "P Pyramid".

Unless you have checked the block data, must players are not going to be familiar with something that will be made clearer in v1.2: The "Boost" bonus. You do not see this data when looking at thrusters block in game but it is there for a few ones. The "Bees" maneuver thruster are the best example: They have a 8x "boost" bonus that last 1 second. That's why they are good at maneuvering your ship! Past that 1 second, they fall back to the value shown in game. Example: you see in game 7.5k thrust but they output 60k for the first second.

A few other thrusters have this property also and they are going to be named "Booster". I will add a description in v1.2 showing the boost bonus and duration. Note that such a booster worth 10P can be obtained earlier on for 1000C (with S.S.S...) and features 2.5x boost for 2.5 seconds and act as decent and inexpensive forward propulsion (30k, 75k for the initial 2.5 seconds) when beginning. Again, here, I did not nerf any thrusters. I tweaked some P values most notably for the "Bees" variety.

OK, so, the statement: "Making all the good things bad or normal really takes away what makes this faction really good" is not true in my opinion. You get an upside: All blocks and then some. And a downside: Most block are research-able but not available from the start and some have increased P cost compared to the default factions one.

This is a matter of personal preference and analysis of course.

So, having increased research cost (3~5x range? Currently at 10x with S.S.S.) seems OK with you but you would prefer not having any increased P requirements. Currently, containers have a low P requirements. 2P for the smallest 50 R one and 20P for the biggest 1000 R one. There is a 10x P scale between them but a 20x R scale. And that's not true that they are heavier than most block. Their density is set at 0.05 which is half the normal 0.1 default density...

I will look into making another "Slow Start" mod... Maybe, "M.S.S." Moderately Slow Start: Removing R requirements for block unlock and reducing the 10x cost to 5x. I cannot please everyone though... That's a fact! =)


The philosophy of this mod

"You start small, with no premade ship and limited blocks. Struggling to survive earlier on relying on evasion, with the teleport ability, but eventually gathering enough R and C to start your "upgrading strategy", which might differ from player to player. You have access to "farming" with the seed planter for 1500C (10x less without S.S.S...). Things might cost more (if you use S.S.S...) but farming and gathering can turn the tables. "Hard mode" when starting, yes, but unlimited potential..."


Planned in v1.2 update:

- Change Terran "Hull" regenRate back to normal+2 but increase weight.
- Increase "Composite Panel" regenRate to above normal.
- Offer better description hinting at each block characteristic.


Phew! That was a long post. But that is surely one of my trademark. That or the caffeine rush! ;)

Thanks for your comments and interest in this mod.

You're welcome.