Pre-Balance Check ( pt. 2 )

Hello again, everyone.

Looks like we have a healthy mixture of opinions and thoughts about the power level of the mod thus far. The majority of you agreed that the mod is more on the powerful side of the spectrum while also bringing up interesting points and level of understanding on the matter. So here's another question for you to choose that'll decide the future of the mod;

Are you okay with the current power level?

Here's my answers to selected posts that may hopefully bring some light to the topic of the day;

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Q: Super Capitals are the reason why the UAF is powerful, are they not?

• A: Correct, I personally think they're overpowered by default simply for the fact that its a fictional fifth ship class in the game. This is exactly why they will be unavailable to the player for the most part whenever the story comes out in the future, hopefully. Fear not, everything in the mod will be available to the player at some point - they just have to earn them or use external means to bring them in and have fun in their own ways.

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Q: The UAF have excessive amount of capital ships, and they're more suitable for combat than vanilla counterparts.

• A: That is true, there's no doubt the Aurorans have both general-purpose and specialist ships for any situations they may encounter. Unfortunately there's no real ways to limit specific type spawns or distribution for the faction. If you wish to understand more, you may check out these .csv files ; DEFAULT_SHIP_ROLES and SHIP_DATA.

  What I disliked about default_ship_roles is that it affects both fleet spawns and market availability at the same time, thus preventing me from crafting a more believable roster and fleet diversity. Surprisingly, there are no rarity stats for the ship_data despite it existing in weapon_data too. These are what ultimately drove me to create the Keycard Shop, a tool for me to basically say;
  
  "These ships are for players, not the faction to use openly."

• Alas, I also think its better to have more cruiser and capital classes because late game saves tends to evolve into big class brawls eventually. This may differ depending on your Starsector sandbox experience.

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Q: Isn't it alright if the UAF to be good at something and bad on the other?

• A: That's what I thought too. This may sound a bit controversial to some people but it is by lore and design as well ( despite the lack of them in-game );

• In order to understand the next following bits, you must think and see as a faction. Not a player as they typically gain access to all weaponry and ships from all factions in-game. They also have the ultimate ability to customize their loadout and ships as they see fit. A feature that factions simply don't have. They're only able to use variants crafted by and for the faction. UAF by design, is a faction that utilizes traditional means of firepower such as ballistics and missiles. This means, there will be no public usage of highly advanced things that you may typically found in both modiverse and vanilla. Hence why you see multiple 're-skins' of ship systems and weaponry.

  There are special exceptions however that may exist in the form of collaboration or quest lines. At least in my eyes, they did not violate the theme of the faction so long as the faction doesn't openly or use them en masse.

• An interesting fun fact, UAF ships are also created based on my understanding on how AI behaves in-game. This was brought up and reinforced by a fellow patron in the previous post. That's why you don't really see me do broadside ships often, most are just variations of angry triangles!

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Q: Why are UAF ships and weapons runs hot and expensive to use?

• A: In a way, that is my way of balancing them in return for the performance they provide. Every time I craft a new weapon, I will check both my mod and the vanilla's WEAPON_DATA for stat comparison. See if I could find the equivalent of what I crafted and work from there. This however comes with a noticable downside;

• If my weapons runs hot, I have to compensate by making my ships run colder. This indirectly buffed my line-ups as the player ultimately have the freedom to use whatever they want. This may discourage them to use native weapons and instead, go for a more efficient build. The snowball effect continues on from there basically.

  So, this is where the popular overpowered / unbalanced arguments spawn from. In my years of modding, I ultimately realize its impossible to please everyone. There will always be someone ranting about something at some point and words do travel around faster than light.

• I could just nerf my weapons, sure but it'll be at the cost of my own and my fanbase's fun in return for pleasing the minority that may or may not even play the mod to begin with. So, should I do it? No. I have made my mind about that a long time ago.

  This doesn't mean I ignore people's opinion and feedback, I still do balance changes frequently every time I play the game.

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Q: Why is Semibreve so powerful?

• A: It is by player definition, a 'nuke'. A weapon that literally deals AOE damage to everything in its wake. That's why I use that word exactly. It may feel powerful because of how we make the weapon. The visuals, the sound effects, the damage, everything. It's unique and stand out compared to everything else.

  Will I nerf it? No, I already nerfed it hard several patches ago. I see a lot of people enjoy using it too, so why would I ruin their fun?

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Q: Why are UAF missiles reloadable when the vanilla doesn't by default?

• A: Because it doesn't make sense as to why you can't reload missiles in combat. I understand from the balance perspective but I don't like it. So I offered the alternative.

  They are reloadable but painfully slow to replenish. This way, you can still run out of ammo if you carelessly use them.

  My only wish is that the game would eventually have a new parameter in the WEAPON_DATA, where we can establish limited amount of reloads before it just stops until the next battle. But alas, its not my game.

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  Q: Do you balance from vanilla or modiverse perspective?

• A: An interesting question. The UAF began with balancing versus the vanilla. If we're lacking in something and the setting forbid it. We come up with an alternative option for the faction, it doesn't matter if its powerful or not so long as its there.

• Whether you believe it or not, I don't balance my mod against the modiverse. That will inevitably cause an arms race between modders and I don't want to be any part of it. I'm pretty comfortable with the faction being out there in the middle of nowhere. It stands true to the lore that we do not originate from the Persean Sector.

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Wow, I'm surprised you survived the wall of text. Congratulations!

I hope you understand that these questions are just generalization of what I see in that post. I apologize if I misunderstand something and I hope it also provided some clarity! Feel free to comment down below if you have anything to say. I'll be reading through them as usual.