[MOD] New Ship Classes & More

[CaptainX3]

NEW SHIP CLASSES & MORE
This mod adds new ship classes to the game and makes a few other tweaks and additions. These changes affect all vanilla playable races in the game.

LATEST UPDATE: JUNE 07, 2016
- Removed armor buff from Flagship for balance purposes
- Fixed the research projects so that the Dreadnought is required to be researched before the Flagship
- Added a research project for the Advanced Zero Point Reactor
- Added a research project for the Battlecruiser
- Added a research project for the Light Carrier
- Added a research project for the Battle Fortress
- Added Friendly Ship Aura Component: Shield Recharge Field (30% shield recharge)
- Added Friendly Ship Aura Component: Integrated Fleet Network (30% firing rate)
- Added Friendly Ship Aura Component: Enhanced Targeting Field (30% weapon damage)
- Removed modifications to the space monster strike craft, they were too powerful
- The Fortress and Battle Fortress stations can now be placed closer together (Build Block Radius changed from 110 to 75)

WHAT THIS MOD ADDS & CHANGES
- Battlecruiser: Larger version of the cruiser with the same stats as a cruiser but more weapons.
- Light Carrier: A cruiser-sized carrier featuring a 4-hangar central section.
- Carrier: Featuring an 8-hangar central section and a few extra weapons.
- Dreadnought: Massive ship with a huge weapons arsenal amd optional hangar section.
- Flagship: Largest ship type with very heavy weapons and a very high cost (See Readme).
- Battle Fortress: A larger and more powerful version of the Fortress, for heavier enemy fleets.
- Advanced Zero Point Reactor: More power at double the cost of the regular zero point reactor.
- Advanced Assmebly Yards: Spaceport module that speeds up build time for the new classes.
- Friendly Ship Auras: 3 new friendly aura components added for use on the Flagship.
- New research projects added for all of the new ship classes.
- Fortresses and Battle Fortresses can now be placed closer to each other.
- All military stations now include an optional 6-hangar section.
- All ships are scaled realistically.
- All strike craft squads now have 8 fighters each instead of 4.

FILE CHANGES
This mod was designed on version 1.1.0. It changes the following files (other mods changing these files may be incompatible):

- common\component_templates\00_strike_craft.txt
- common\country_types\00_country_types.txt

Any mod that doesn't change these files should be fully compatible.

THE OFFICIAL README
Before using this mod, it is HIGHLY recommended that you read the official readme posted in the Discussions section. There is very important information in this post about the changes this mod makes, and information that you will NEED to know. Below is a direct link to the post.

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/683230077/350532795339491044/

RECOMMENDED COMPANION MODS
The following mods are compatible with this mod and are highly recommended downloads for the best experience.

- Beautiful Battles: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682776251
- Crystallis Ship Modules: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690350384
- Epic Explosions: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=692492543
- Enhanced Terraforiming: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683262202
- Border Patrol: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684395490

KNOWN BUGS
The weapon & hangar bay counts in the ship designer are not correct. The game calculates these on its own and I don't know how to fix it. It's a cosmetic bug only, the correct number of slots are present on every ship section.

When placing a Battle Fortress in a system, the model seems to be missing while in Placement mode. The station model looks normal after it is placed. I'm not sure how to fix this yet, but I'm investigating.

DOWNLOAD LINK

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683230077

 

[JamesBai03]

a guy called Shadowclaimer on the forum has the similar idea of adding more ship classes, maybe you guys should work together.

 

[CaptainX3]

We've talked to each other and helped each other a couple times, but I'm not going to interject myself into his project without being invited LOL. I'm just continuing to do this mod and listen to requests and such.

 

[Caekdaemon]

I don't suppose you could find a way to not alter the spaceport modules file? I ask because I use the more spaceport modules mod alongside this and I'm afraid it could end up being incompatible

 

[CaptainX3]

I don't suppose you could find a way to not alter the spaceport modules file? I ask because I use the more spaceport modules mod alongside this and I'm afraid it could end up being incompatible

I want to try to do this, but I'm not sure. Basically, I'm just setting the spaceport modules for cruisers and battleships to speed up construction times on the new classes like they do on the vanilla classes. However, when I try to make my own spaceport module file, it creates new modules instead of overwriting the old ones, and I can't figure out why. I could easily create new modules, but I'd hate for people to have to take up an extra module slot just for the new classes... but it could easily be done.

I just checked that particular mod though... it's compatible with mine, because that author made his own spaceport modules file for his new modules, so you're just fine.

 

[Caekdaemon]

I just checked that particular mod though... it's compatible with mine, because that author made his own spaceport modules file for his new modules, so you're just fine.

Really? Phew! I was worried there might be an incompatibility that might force me to have to choose one or the other, but it seems I'm in luck

 

[Armakoir]

Heya CaptainX3,
I'm glad to see you've incorporated the country_types file.

In terms of new ships and armies, if we want the AI to use them as well, this is seems to be the file. I'm nearing completion of Armies According to Ethos and I need to use 00_country_types as well.

Since you haven't touched armies and I haven't touched ships in country_types, would you be willing or interested in working on a compatibility patch (or whatever the best means of compatibility might be)?

Best.

 

[CaptainX3]

Heya CaptainX3,
I'm glad to see you've incorporated the country_types file.

In terms of new ships and armies, if we want the AI to use them as well, this is seems to be the file. I'm nearing completion of Armies According to Ethos and I need to use 00_country_types as well.

Since you haven't touched armies and I haven't touched ships in country_types, would you be willing or interested in working on a compatibility patch (or whatever the best means of compatibility might be)?

Best.

I'm planning on separating my code from the country types file and making one that'll be compatible with other mods. It's a bit trickier than other code because that file has so freaking many brackets opening and closing sections, and missing even a single one can throw everything out of whack, so it takes a bit more time. But I've got it on the list for my next update.

 

[Armakoir]

Cool.

That's something I need to learn how to do. Can you point to a guide or give me a tip?

(And if you're in for a treat with brackets, look at my code.)

 

[CaptainX3]

Cool.

That's something I need to learn how to do. Can you point to a guide or give me a tip?

(And if you're in for a treat with brackets, look at my code.)

Basically, all you do is write your new code, or the code you changed, by itself in a new file and rename it to whatever you want. For instance, in my mod, the ship sizes file is called 01_ship_sizes.txt and includes only the code for the new classes and nothing else. The game will load this file and the code that's in it, but it won't overwrite the vanilla ship sizes file, but instead will add to it, making it compatible with other mods that do the same thing.

Sometimes you have to change vanilla code and there's no option, and some mods can never be compatible if they change the same code. But if you're writing new stuff, you can put it in a file by itself, pretty much call it whatever you want, and the game will load it up as an addition to the vanilla code, not an overwrite. The only thing you have to make sure to do is put the file in the correct folder.

 

[Armakoir]

Basically, all you do is write your new code, or the code you changed, by itself in a new file and rename it to whatever you want. For instance, in my mod, the ship sizes file is called 01_ship_sizes.txt and includes only the code for the new classes and nothing else. The game will load this file and the code that's in it, but it won't overwrite the vanilla ship sizes file, but instead will add to it, making it compatible with other mods that do the same thing.

Sometimes you have to change vanilla code and there's no option, and some mods can never be compatible if they change the same code. But if you're writing new stuff, you can put it in a file by itself, pretty much call it whatever you want, and the game will load it up as an addition to the vanilla code, not an overwrite. The only thing you have to make sure to do is put the file in the correct folder.

That's all easy stuff at this point.

What I'm interested in learning about is modifying original code and maintaining compatibility. For example, I haven't touched the ship_data in country_types, I've only touched the army_data. But they're both under ai = { . Can I just create a file that starts with army_data = { or do I have to acknowledge (but at the same time leave untouched) ship_data and the other stuff? What does that look like?

Can I just skip everything like this?

ai = {
army_data = {
#my changes and additions#
}
}

 

[Caekdaemon]

Just curious, but will you be giving the different defense stations any love? They're a bit underpowered in the base game in my opinion, due to the lack of hitpoints, weapons and how far apart they have to the placed and their high maintenance costs, all of which add together to make them worse for defense than a small fleet, but in this mod the problem is made worse due to the newer, more powerful capital ships.

 

[Zenneh]

Just curious, but will you be giving the different defense stations any love? They're a bit underpowered in the base game in my opinion, due to the lack of hitpoints, weapons and how far apart they have to the placed and their high maintenance costs, all of which add together to make them worse for defense than a small fleet, but in this mod the problem is made worse due to the newer, more powerful capital ships.

To be honest I agree with this so much. It would be amazing if you could build the military stations closer to each other - within reason I don't want 30 of them directly on top of each other but It was a weird balance choice paradox took and making them cheaper to run would be the ideal fix. This way you can have a few stations helping each other out in combat rather than getting zerged one by one.

And if you can't create more in a group then you just going to pretty much have to double the slots on each type of station has or create more stages for the military stations to go up through because they are certainly underwhelming

That said I've tried myself to reduce the ridiculously large build block radius and for the life of me cannot find out how. I've tried to create smaller station auras and reducing the build block radius in the ship sizes but nothing seems to work.

 

[Caekdaemon]

To be honest I agree with this so much. It would be amazing if you could build the military stations closer to each other - within reason I don't want 30 of them directly on top of each other but It was a weird balance choice paradox took and making them cheaper to run would be the ideal fix. This way you can have a few stations helping each other out in combat rather than getting zerged one by one.

And if you can't create more in a group then you just going to pretty much have to double the slots on each type of station has or create more stages for the military stations to go up through because they are certainly underwhelming

That said I've tried myself to reduce the ridiculously large build block radius and for the life of me cannot find out how. I've tried to create smaller station auras and reducing the build block radius in the ship sizes but nothing seems to work.

Agreed

I've done some more testing in game, and there is definitely a small period of the game where defense stations are useful...and it seems to be the early game, as they've got enough firepower to completely overwhelm people's fleets without taking too much damage, as is the case of defense stations, or utterly annihilate them as in the case of fortresses. But as the game goes on, they quickly become extremely obsolete - they can't be refitted with new weapons, true, but they main problem is that fleets just keep getting bigger and bigger whilst stations hit the end of their tech tree and run straight into a brick wall of capabilities they just can't get over. They just don't have the hitpoints to hold off even a "small" fleet of the mid or late game, and get completely overrun and destroyed, each and every time, with minimal losses to the attacker's fleet, which combined with their maintenance cost, gives them no real use.

But giving stations too much strength could affect the fluidity and the pace of warfare and especially hurt people who use hyperspace lanes as they'd need to take each and every system in their path when attacking an entrenched empire. So this is what I think needs to be done, in no particular order:

a) Add a new, lighter class of defense station available right at the start of the game or very early on in it. Let's call this the Defense Post or something like that; the purpose of this station is to fill in the early game lack of defensive structures that result from player's not yet having the resources to build Starports over their colonies. These worlds are utterly defenceless at this point in the game, easy prey to anyone with even as few as two corvettes and a handful of troop transports.

But the Defense Post would be fairly cheap and equivalent to two-to-three corvettes, making it possible for a player to withstand an early game assault if they're willing to spend some of the meagre resources available and constructor time on defenses, which means the Defense Post - like most military stations - is self balancing in its cost of construction and maintenance. This gives a player a new question to answer: do they spend some resources build Defense Posts to protect specific colonies from attack, spend more resources on a fleet to try and protect all of them, or pour all resources into developing the economy so they've got more materials to play with next year?

b) Add a new, heavier class of defense station at the end of the station tech tree: the Defense Citadel. By the time the late game comes around, defense stations have become horribly obsolete and are just an awful waste of resources, since most fleets at that point in the game are usually around 10k fleet power, more than any station can reach, and can destroy even a fortress under a volley of massed fire. The Defense Citadel would be a larger, more powerful fortress that would be equivalent to the Dreadnoughts of this mod (recognizing that the current platforms match destroyers, the stations do cruisers and fortresses do battleships) and better suited for the increasing scale of the battles that happen as the game progresses. This is to counteract the effect of Dreadnaught's on the balance of offense vs defense, and would also serve as a "super-defense" for critical locations in one's empire, such as the capital or a ringworld.

c) Add new techs for starbases. Fleets have two major advantages over the different defense structures right now, and they are the ability to pick their battles, which is an inherent part of them due to having the ability to move. The second advantage, and the one that grows as the game goes on, is their numbers. Players get more and more resources as the game goes on and a higher and higher fleet capacity to use it all on, even if it might cap out at 1,000 points, which lets them throw a massive amount of firepower at any problem they encounter.

This is the main problem for starbases; they just can't keep up with the scaling up of fleets - the best way to counter this is to have a number of technologies that serve to upgrade stations in the engineering tech tree that raise the hit points of stations without affecting their cost, allowing them to engage more ships at once before succumbing to attack, or at least make the fight last long enough for friendly reinforcements to arrive. Now the game already has two of these, Synchronized Firing Patterns and Corps of Engineers, which are definitely a step in the right direction and do help extend the lifetime of stations, but are just too few to keep them relevant in the game indefinitely.

d) Add a new, ultra heavy class of defense station to serve as an equivalent to the Flagship - let's call this Fleet Command, or something along those lines. This is a little more of a personal thing than anything else, since it seems kinda odd to have a super-ship, but not super-station...but it does have a very real effect on which of the autocratic government types should be chosen. You see, the military dictatorship and the martial empire both get special, supersized versions of any ship class in the game, including the flagship itself. That's alright, because the other government types have their own bonuses that can give them some serious bonuses too, but the despotic and star empires, both of which have the ability to build a special, super starbase...don't have an equivalent to the flagship to do so. What the Fleet Command station should do is provide a bonus to ships similar to how the flagship does it, but to do it on an empire scale, to make up for how the station cannot move or join battles itself, and to be the ultimate defensive structure.

All the above together should, at least in my opinion, help fix stations and bring them in line with everything else in this mod and make them useful even in the late game They'd be incredibly useful even if they are little more than a big sack of hitpoints with little offensive capability, as that would give them the means to drag a fight out for ages...and a long fight buys time for friendly ships to arrive, especially when combined with a jump inhibitor or the like. Below are some little things I'd like to see in the mod

 

[CaptainX3]

Just curious, but will you be giving the different defense stations any love? They're a bit underpowered in the base game in my opinion, due to the lack of hitpoints, weapons and how far apart they have to the placed and their high maintenance costs, all of which add together to make them worse for defense than a small fleet, but in this mod the problem is made worse due to the newer, more powerful capital ships.

I just recently added a Battle Fortress to the mod, which is a super sized version of the Fortress, better equipped to withstand larger fleet assaults.

To be honest I agree with this so much. It would be amazing if you could build the military stations closer to each other - within reason I don't want 30 of them directly on top of each other but It was a weird balance choice paradox took and making them cheaper to run would be the ideal fix. This way you can have a few stations helping each other out in combat rather than getting zerged one by one.

And if you can't create more in a group then you just going to pretty much have to double the slots on each type of station has or create more stages for the military stations to go up through because they are certainly underwhelming

That said I've tried myself to reduce the ridiculously large build block radius and for the life of me cannot find out how. I've tried to create smaller station auras and reducing the build block radius in the ship sizes but nothing seems to work.

I'm going to see if I can figure out how to lower the build radius of stations, that annoys me as well. I haven't tried it yet but it should be possible.

a) Add a new, lighter class of defense station available right at the start of the game or very early on in it. Let's call this the Defense Post or something like that; the purpose of this station is to fill in the early game lack of defensive structures that result from player's not yet having the resources to build Starports over their colonies. These worlds are utterly defenceless at this point in the game, easy prey to anyone with even as few as two corvettes and a handful of troop transports.

An interesting idea... I might considering doing this, especially since it would help a lot in the early game.

b) Add a new, heavier class of defense station at the end of the station tech tree: the Defense Citadel. By the time the late game comes around, defense stations have become horribly obsolete and are just an awful waste of resources, since most fleets at that point in the game are usually around 10k fleet power, more than any station can reach, and can destroy even a fortress under a volley of massed fire. The Defense Citadel would be a larger, more powerful fortress that would be equivalent to the Dreadnoughts of this mod (recognizing that the current platforms match destroyers, the stations do cruisers and fortresses do battleships) and better suited for the increasing scale of the battles that happen as the game progresses. This is to counteract the effect of Dreadnaught's on the balance of offense vs defense, and would also serve as a "super-defense" for critical locations in one's empire, such as the capital or a ringworld.

Already done, called the Battle Fortress in the latest version of the mod.

c) Add new techs for starbases. Fleets have two major advantages over the different defense structures right now, and they are the ability to pick their battles, which is an inherent part of them due to having the ability to move. The second advantage, and the one that grows as the game goes on, is their numbers. Players get more and more resources as the game goes on and a higher and higher fleet capacity to use it all on, even if it might cap out at 1,000 points, which lets them throw a massive amount of firepower at any problem they encounter.

This is the main problem for starbases; they just can't keep up with the scaling up of fleets - the best way to counter this is to have a number of technologies that serve to upgrade stations in the engineering tech tree that raise the hit points of stations without affecting their cost, allowing them to engage more ships at once before succumbing to attack, or at least make the fight last long enough for friendly reinforcements to arrive. Now the game already has two of these, Synchronized Firing Patterns and Corps of Engineers, which are definitely a step in the right direction and do help extend the lifetime of stations, but are just too few to keep them relevant in the game indefinitely.

Another interesting idea... adding new techs can be extensive due to the heavy coding, and having to add images to the interface and so forth, but maybe I can add new levels onto the existing techs to help with this.

d) Add a new, ultra heavy class of defense station to serve as an equivalent to the Flagship - let's call this Fleet Command, or something along those lines. This is a little more of a personal thing than anything else, since it seems kinda odd to have a super-ship, but not super-station...but it does have a very real effect on which of the autocratic government types should be chosen. You see, the military dictatorship and the martial empire both get special, supersized versions of any ship class in the game, including the flagship itself. That's alright, because the other government types have their own bonuses that can give them some serious bonuses too, but the despotic and star empires, both of which have the ability to build a special, super starbase...don't have an equivalent to the flagship to do so. What the Fleet Command station should do is provide a bonus to ships similar to how the flagship does it, but to do it on an empire scale, to make up for how the station cannot move or join battles itself, and to be the ultimate defensive structure.

And yet another interesting idea...I like the idea of a Headquarters station in the same realm as the Flagship. I'll add this into the "Possible Features" list as well!

I don't get to visit this site as often as I do the mod site on Steam, and I now have the discussion forums set up for suggestions, bug reports, etc. Those of you out there who have ideas like this are very welcome to post there. I'm always looking for new features and further improvements.

 

[CaptainX3]

That's all easy stuff at this point.

What I'm interested in learning about is modifying original code and maintaining compatibility. For example, I haven't touched the ship_data in country_types, I've only touched the army_data. But they're both under ai = { . Can I just create a file that starts with army_data = { or do I have to acknowledge (but at the same time leave untouched) ship_data and the other stuff? What does that look like?

Can I just skip everything like this?

ai = {
army_data = {
#my changes and additions#
}
}

As it turns out... no.

I tried to do this with my 00_country_types file and the AI completely ignored my changes unless I used the entire file. I tried to truncate the code to only the stuff I changed, but the game wouldn't read it at all. If someone out there knows how to edit this file and maintain compatibility, let me know, because I haven't had any luck at all. As it stands now, my mod changes this file.

 

[CaptainX3]

MOD UPDATED!

 

[Zenneh]

Continuing the discussion about Stations - I finally made them have tiny build range oddly enough I have no idea what was stopping it before, all i did was create a fresh mod and it accepted the changed with the same code and everything x_X

That said stations are in a poor spot of balance.

Running down their weaknesses:-

Late game they are useless - they won't survive 1 volley and instantly die - Particle lances are the criminals here I think. But lets face it when 1000 fleet capacity lands on your face you aren't going to do anything.
Their effective HP is lower in equivalent fleet power - a fact not helped that they can't evade but the attacking ships certainly can.
Their Sensors are as good as any ship.
They have less armor compared to battleships and dreadnoughts.
Minefields are weak as hell and their other utilities are matched by any other capital ship.
They can't have admirals giving them attack rate/defensive buffs.
Any component they can have the enemy fleet could have.
and finally to top of this they are more expensive than their mobile counterparts.

When you look at these downsides it has they are a grim sight to behold.

After playing around with other mods and finding other balances I liked the tweaks Improved space battles (doubled hp and and added armor), stations a lot. That said I can see your concern with Hyperlane nations getting the short end of the stick with improved stations if you had to fight a Deathstar every system.

In the end the only way to truly balance this crud is to limit station placement even more but to rectify every other weakness they have. Make it so that the very top tier defense fortress/citadels can only be placed in systems with a colonized planet or frontier outpost (If this is even possible) but become such powerful things that you should be thinking twice about trying to take them down. While the lighter stations can be placed on the uncolonized realms as either to slow fleets down by dragging them to center of the map or for their additional sensor range.

 

[Caekdaemon]

Just wondering, but could you make a compatibility patch for this mod? It's just a recolor for the regular mammalian ship types that swaps the lights from blue to red whilst darkening the hull, and it looks absolutely gorgeous and I bet a flagship with that color set would be even more so

 

[CaptainX3]

I'll take a look at that mod and see if I can make them compatible. If I can, I'll release the patch on Steam... watch the Steam page for updates.