[MOD]Fight Reloaded v0.50(Beta)

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 13:45

Introduction: As many players already know, the fight part of X-Rebirth isn't much fun at all. Small enemies are no match for the player and behave more like flying stones then real opponents. And big enemies can't hit the player with their turrets, because the turrets aren't able to hit fast strafing targets. And even the biggest capital ships will go down way to fast.
First I thought the AI of Rebirth is too bad to put up a decent fight. But after a look at the game files I realised that the AI from X-Rebirth is much smarter then the AI used in X³. But why are opponents so weak than?
Well Egosoft wanted the game easier to play. Especially for new players. And it seems they thought it would be good to lower the difficulty to a point where there is no difficulty at all. The Albion Skunk is much more powerful then every other ship in it's class. Even at game start the Albion Skunk has much more hull, shields and what matters most is far more maneuverable then every other ship in the game. And the weapons and rockets the player is using are far more powerful then the AI weapons and rockets. If you upgrade the Skunk the already completly unbalanced values become just ridiculous high.
It doesn't matter how good the AI is. All ships the AI can use are way inferior to the player ship. I don't know why Egosoft did this, but their balancing just totally cripples the AI.

Description: This mod is a full rebalancing mod to restore the fight part of the game. Fights are fun and exciting now. To reach this the Albion Skunk had to be adjusted, all other ships had to made stronger but more expensive. Generic missions changed to match the new balance. This mod is full savegame compatible. You can install it and play right away. To deinstall just remove it and delete the patch line in your savegame. I am still recommending to backup your savegames before installing this mod!

Changelog (Overview):
- Albion Skunk: Start equipment is much weaker
- Albion Skunk: All upgrades of the Skunk are rebalanced and more expensive
- Albion Skunk: Primary weapons are rebalanced, more focussed on their task and more expensive
- Albion Skunk: Secondary Weapons are stronger and more expensive
- AI: Secondary Weapons are stronger
- Player drones: Are much faster and more maneuverable
- AI drones: Hull x2, are a little bit faster and more maneuverable
- Shipclass XS: Hull x2, some ships are a little bit faster and much more maneuverable
- Shipclass S: Hull x2, shields are much stronger now, ships are much more maneuverable
- Shipclass M: Hull and shields x2, combat ships are more maneuverable
- Shipclass L: Hull is much stronger especially for combat ships, less maneuverable
- Shipclass XL: Hull is much stronger especially for combat ships, less maneuverable
- Surface Elements (All): Hull is much stronger
- Surface Elements (Shield generators): Shields can withstand more damage and regeneration rates are higher
- Surface Elements (Anti-Fighter Turrets): Increased range and higher bullet speed
- Surface Elements (Missile Turrets): Increased range and damage
- Surface Elements (Anti Capital Turrets): Greatly increased range and some turrets do more damage
- Weapon platform: Hull is much stronger
- Generic missions (fixed and rebalanced in 0.40): Payement is higher now and more dependent from difficulty, the same applies to the number of enemies. The notority gain is reduced
- Capital Ship Build Cost (added in 0.40): Building capital ships needs much more ressources now, espescially if you want to build a military capital ship. For that reason all capital a more expensive now and shipyards will buy more ressources

Compability: Compability: This mod is incompatible with any other rebalance mod and with mods that alters the generic missions. All other mods should work fine however.
Because there are many questions about "Improved Missiles" here is a small guide to make both mods technically compatible (thx @iforgotmysocks): http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 90#4318090 If you use both mods together you should have in mind that the new missiles in "Improved Missiles" are balanced for vanilla! Can't guarantee they will fit in "Fight Reloaded".

Known problems:
- There may be ships/weapons/etc that are too strong or too weak
- (minor)Damaged ships will keep their current hull values if you install the mod
- (minor)The new values for missions will only work for new generated missions
- (minor)The new prices for Skunk upgrades will only work for new generated traders (After one hour all traders should have the new values)

Version History:
0.10: Initial Release
0.15: Changed missions to match the new balance (see changelog)
0.30: Completly overhauled generic missions they are more sensible and fun now, upgrades/weapons/missiles are more expensive and countless small balancing changes
0.40: Fixed some syntax errors in generic mission files, added missing generic missions, rebalanced generic missions (especially payment and mission levels), fixed notority gain for generic missions, added higher costs for capital ships and some balancing changes
0.45: Fixed some bugs related to copying errors (thx @wana), Some surface elements have stronger hulls (jumpdrives, radar arrays and drone launch pads) and the Xenon K has got teeth. This mod now reached beta state
0.50: Fight Reloaded is now compatible with X-Rebirth 1.30, some surface elements have stronger hulls (Small turrets, jumpdrives, radar arrays and drone launch pads), new ships from 1.30 are now rebalanced too and many weapon changes:
Small turrets: Faster bullets and increased range
Medium and large Turrets: Slightly faster bullets and increased range
Player weapons: Slightly faster bullets and increased range for plasma canon and pulsed maser
KI fighter weapons: Faster bullets and increased range

Download: http://www.nexusmods.com/xrebirth/mods/291/?

Hints:
- THINK before you attack something, no you can't take 10 fighters at once anymore!
- Most primary weapons are ineffective against surface elements now, use the plasma cannon or V-Crushers for small and Novadrones for large surface elements
- Civil capital ships can defend themself much better and will take more hits, it will be difficult to destroy them with the Albion Skunk alone. Using more ships is recommended
- Combat Capital ships are really tough enemies, if you attack them alone you will get killed. You need your own capital ship or many small ships to bring them down
- THINK before you accept a generic mission, take a look at the difficulty and the mission type first! While the missions up to easy are as easy as before, the ones start at medium are far more difficult! Taking a hard mission at the beginning is a really bad choice. The mission type says much more about the enemies you will meet now. Even at a hard "escort mission" you will mostly encouter fighters. A hard "Cartel Boss vulnerable" mission will spawn a whole fleet!
Very hard missions are very hard, you have been warned!

I hope you have some fun with this mod. Some feedback would be nice. Oh and by the way the Albion Skunk is still a very decent ship especially when upgraded. But it's no cheat anymore.

staniles · Post by **staniles** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 15:16

Nice, will have a look at this one ! Keep up the good work.
Could be even nicer with some harder and more rewarding fighting missions (instead of having just one or two weaks ships to blow up).

csaba · Post by **csaba** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 15:57

How is this compatible with the following mod?:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=352423

I don't really want to install another difficulty mod which has similar effects, might get stuff multiplied and end up with a ship that's weaker than an X2 M5.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 17:26

@csaba
My mod is not compatible with the mod you posted. Both mods are changing the same files. I just took a look at the diff mod. It lowers the shields and weapondamage of the albion skunk. Some fighters have higher shields and weapon damage instead. While this makes the playership weaker, it won't affect the AI behaviour in dogfights. With my mod the whole feeling in dogfights is different and much more fun than before. Give it a try

@staniles
Thx, I will do. This mod is focussed on rebalancing. But maybe later I can edit some missions too

Thurmonator · Post by **Thurmonator** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 18:19

Would this mod conflict with Improved Missiles?

If so which would overrite which?

csaba · Post by **csaba** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 19:45

Lord Morpheus wrote:@csaba
My mod is not compatible with the mod you posted. Both mods are changing the same files. I just took a look at the diff mod. It lowers the shields and weapondamage of the albion skunk. Some fighters have higher shields and weapon damage instead. While this makes the playership weaker, it won't affect the AI behaviour in dogfights. With my mod the whole feeling in dogfights is different and much more fun than before. Give it a try

@staniles
Thx, I will do. This mod is focussed on rebalancing. But maybe later I can edit some missions too

I'll give it a try after you include L and XL ships I don't seem to want to trade better dogfights for weaker capitals. Taranis and Arawn class ships are almost indestructible in that mod.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 20:42

@Thurmonator
Yes it will conflict with Improved Missiles. The one later loaded will override the other one.

@csaba
Sounds fair. I am working on L and XL Class ships

staniles · Post by **staniles** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 23:03

I've tried this mod and it becomes quite challenging now, like it !
Can't wait to see with the bigger ships

csaba · Post by **csaba** » Fri, 29. Nov 13, 23:22

So if we are on the topic of capitals...

Can I vouch for a unique AI for the Sucellus? So it points it's nose more often on enemies. Right now it doesn't do it willingly only by accident so those IHC guns go to waste and you can barely see one using it.

That would totally sell me.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Sat, 30. Nov 13, 14:37

This mod reached the Alpha State now. All ships are included and rebalanced. You can find the download and information about the changes in post 1.

Thurmonator · Post by **Thurmonator** » Sat, 30. Nov 13, 15:25

Thanks for the update .. Any chance of hopsting this on Nexus? Its free for you and adds another source of feedback and bug reporting. Just a thought. I love that site.

csaba · Post by **csaba** » Sat, 30. Nov 13, 15:57

Oh wait you made cap ships less maneuverable? They already felt like dead rocks in space.

Expect for the Xenon one that has some crazy speeds.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Sat, 30. Nov 13, 17:07

@Thurmonator
Done

@csaba
Yes I did, they are capital ships and not upsized fighters. They need to be ponderous. On the other hand this is an Alpha Version. Everything can be changed if necessary

csaba · Post by **csaba** » Sat, 30. Nov 13, 17:10

Lord Morpheus wrote:@Thurmonator
Done

@csaba
Yes I did, they are capital ships and not upsized fighters. They need to be ponderous.

Well I give it a try.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 01:45

Released Version 0.15. Missions changed to match new balance.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 01:46

Nexusmods finally let me update my file. v0.30 online: Completly overhauled generic missions they are more sensible and fun now, upgrades/weapons/missiles are more expensive and countless small balancing changes

staniles · Post by **staniles** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 20:59

Great ! Thanks

Thurmonator · Post by **Thurmonator** » Thu, 5. Dec 13, 03:00

The fights and missions are definitely tougher.

It seems that the missiles are a bit too weak though, the caps seem way stronger now.

Lord Morpheus · Post by **Lord Morpheus** » Thu, 5. Dec 13, 15:15

Sunstalkers and swarmkillers are missiles against fighters, they should work well at this task. They are not intended to attack capships or surface elements.

Dumbfires and Nova Drones should be used to destroy surface elements. If they are too weak at that task I will make them stronger but you shouldn't be able to destroy capships alone.

Bareus · Post by **Bareus** » Tue, 10. Dec 13, 17:33

Does this one works with UFO mod?