Hi,

I tried to balance guns so each gun type within a tier is a good choice with according range strategies.

It's not a damage boost mod, it's a balance mod. I tried to solve the problems I saw and stay faithfull to the spirit of the vanilla game.

-edit- 10/02/2017 - new version, see post 3.

SimulationDescriptors[ModuleWeapon].xml

edit- mod development is in pause for a week. I have to integrate last patch & rework my values (I made same mistakes).

Main changes:

- Each weapon damage is tweaked so they are balanced to each other. Each range scenario was taken into consideration. In consequence, each weapon is a good choice to use now. No longer OPAL / Kinetic are the kings of any battles.

- Some tweaks to weapon range (nerfed Kinetics long to 25 instead of 50, nerfed Laser medium to 75 instead of 100, boost to Beam medium to 25 instead of 0).

- Shield & Hull damage tweaked (nerfed Kinetic shooting Hull nerfed from 0.3 to 0.2, nerfed Laser shooting Shield from 0.3 to 0.2)

- Non-ressource guns does now +20% crit. Additional damage from crit is taken into consideration when calculating damage (but still there's no crit in the game). Remember, it's not a damage boost mod.

- Ressource guns stay at normal crit. They are still doing the same damage as an lvl+1 non-ressource gun like in vanilla game, this makes them more stable.

- No changes to rates of fire for esthetic reasons.

4 things to remember:

- This file is designed for the preview version of Update 2. If the game is patched, you may loose the mod. I'll have to update it so it works again with the patch.

- You should backup this file before overwriting it.

- For the moment, critical hits are not yet in the game. As a result, the normal guns may seem to be weak. I will try to implement crits: this is still the beta version of this mod.

- Balance is not totally perfect as my artillery model may be wrong. If I'm right, then it's nice.

To install:

- download this 

- find the same file in [Your drive letter]:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Endless Space 2\Public\Simulation\Battles

- change its name to something you will remember

- drop the downloaded file there.

As with all xml mods, changes will appear after you load the game from desktop, then load your save.

In case of "*woops* I accidently the original file", just verify the game cache with Steam, it should reverse the file to vanilla. Attention, it will also remove any other mod you had.

Update:

I'm still on critical hits, aka creating a random generator and test its value (with only algebra : no boolean and / or random function here).

Just telling my plan, as some modder may want to know how to do this:

I've got my solution for random (Bordland C++'s linear congruential generator (link, in french) and putting a seed designed by various ship factors (like ship health) on the weapon module object, so this is random(ish) but still the player can't reload a game to replay the battle).

Then resize that random 16 bit number to a range of 0.05 - 1.

Then, just have to implement a second small trick, a sign detection based calculation aka :

1.5 - 0.5*((random - chance) divided by absolute value of (random - chance)) should output 1 or 2 if crited.

I just have to lift a zero division issue if random = chance (this is easy, playing with the range of random : could be 0.04 - 0.99 in 0.05 incriments).

I'm not sure it's the fastest thing on earth, but it should work.

---

-edit- sunday morning (29/01/2016): so, I worked almost all saturday for this mod with my magical excell sheet (Weapons - A New Hope.xlsx, previous balance is here : Weapons.xlsx).

If you want to change values for another gun, just input its line in the balance tab next to "WEAPON LINE".

So far, I re-balanced all guns & weapons (the "ressource guns are somehow era +1. Somehow. They are now stronger than era +1, weaker then ress guns era +1 and weaker than era+2). I'm testing the red values. The balance is very nice but I'm not satisfied with the low levels progress.

Now I'm testing it, I want to change some things to the support modules aswell (some got not enough attention I think).

Since the dev removed the crit, I won't put this in the game. It's possible technically to generate a random-ish value in the xml like I said, but that may become now against the spirit of the game. I could try to put effects to a crit, but that's a lot of work plus that may (will) be erased by how they want to do this in the game.

I'm still in tests today, will update in the evening.

At least I have something this I'm satisfied with. I had to change shield / plate aswell.

I may make another version with the support modules for fun.

Main benefits:

* Now with this mod, any weapon is a good choice again.

* Shields / Plate on large ships are not anymore 80% damage protection (66% is enough). Ships have more effective HP though : last ressource defense will double them vs the weapons they protect.

* Cards choice is now more open due to range tweaks (better variance in card choice).

* Power levels of weapons is around the same level of vanilla, except the weapons are rebalanced one to each other.

* Resource guns / shield / plates is better than the non-ressource guns & shield / plates of Era +1, but not better than Era + 2 (to solve "studying a gun pass an era and give access to better non ressource guns").

* Flak capacities of Kinetics are not studied. They should be better, but missiles' own HP are still OP.

Each weapon should be 10/10 in its own domain (Kinetics stay at 9/10 until I balance flak).

V0.2.5 S1 - Weapon Mod v0.2.5 S1.zip

Unzip this in [[YOUR DRIVE]]:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Endless Space 2\Public\Simulation\Battles

If you want to look what I did, 

* Balance of vanilla : Weapons - Old Republic.xlsx

* Balance of this mod : Weapons - A New Hope.xlsx

(for Excell questions, just ask. If you want to look at a particular weapon collection, just look at the line of one of the weapon tab. Say basic guns : line 16. Then go to the balance tab, and write 16 in cell L12. Then go back to the weapon tab and tweak the values.)

If you want to reverse to vanilla, just check steam files or use your backup.

Beware of patches, those does not overwrite your mods.