I wanted to offer some thoughts on my 3 Unit mods and garner some opinions

Privateer Plus 

Privateer Mercenary fleets become buildable for all factions when the small hull size is unlocked. Additional hull unlocks reward better Mercenary ships.

I like the privateer gameplay but the tech to unlock them comes pretty late in the game.  I want to use it to harass factions as they build their empire and not after.  Also, merc ships available in the marketplace were not very good that late in the game.  Selling and buying back your own ships is  a solution, but I would like to use mercenary hulls for privateering.

On another note, I have noticed that AI will occasionally see through the privateering mask and blame me, but it doesn’t seem to happen when I’m at peace with them so I refrain from privateering anyone without a peace treaty.  It’s a bit more satisfying attacking someone you are at peace with anyway.

Assault Shuttles

Each factions receives their small support hull refit with only support modules and a new role.  Ship health is cut by 90%, but it gains a +10 move bonus and a base +30 siege power.  This ship design is ideal for invading systems.  Small hull tech unlocks the ships, and it is available to the AI.

It seems like a waste putting manpower and siege modules in my battle fleets.  The price of creating a siege only fleet is vulnerability.     A  single small attack ship could counter it.  The way I envision assault shuttles is as  troop pods with engines attached to them so they have high mobility at +10 moves.  The move bonus also tempts players into sending a siege fleet to a system unprotected. 

Glass Cannons

Each factions receives their small attacker hull refit to support a fully offensive role.  Ship health is cut by 50%, but it gains a +5 move bonus and a +80% to weapons.  This ship hits hard and dies fast.  Small hull tech unlocks the ships, and it is available to the AI.

These are a staple of space 4x games so I added them.  From the games perspective, I imagine these weapons are viewed as morally reprehensible.  The ship crews have little hope of survival.  Originally, I was going to add an unhappiness bonus to each ship built, but I already have problems balancing happiness so I didn’t try.  These ships need more testing and the +80% to weapons likely lowered.

Finally, I’m having trouble unlocking ship designs across 3 mod extensions.  Each mod unlocks ship designs through the UnlockShipDesign command in FactionAffinity but not all the designs show up.  To unlock the glass cannon ship design for Cravers I put in the line

<Command Name="UnlockShipDesign"                Arguments="Cravers_SmallAttackGlass"/>

Is there better way or should I just combine all 3 mods?  I like giving people the choice.

Wow, those look like some really cool ideas!

I like the assault shuttles the most. That is an extremely sexy idea/design!

What I have always done is just load the settler hull with the titanium siege modules, and called it an Invader or something. I sometimes have dropships in my games with extra manpower as well. But the assault shuttles seem like a really neat idea, esp if you want more early war/invasions in your games.

If I were going to do something like that for myself, I would probably give them a very slow move speed; like 2-3, actually. I don't know that they need to be so mobile, since these are all perks that go above and beyond the base game (and so it could start to feel like power creep that could break other aspects of balancing).

Sounds like you're having fun with modding. It's a wonderful, creative exercise. Keep making cool things! <3

lilyophelia wrote:

Wow, those look like some really cool ideas!

I like the assault shuttles the most. That is an extremely sexy idea/design!

What I have always done is just load the settler hull with the titanium siege modules, and called it an Invader or something. I sometimes have dropships in my games with extra manpower as well. But the assault shuttles seem like a really neat idea, esp if you want more early war/invasions in your games.

If I were going to do something like that for myself, I would probably give them a very slow move speed; like 2-3, actually. I don't know that they need to be so mobile, since these are all perks that go above and beyond the base game (and so it could start to feel like power creep that could break other aspects of balancing).

Sounds like you're having fun with modding. It's a wonderful, creative exercise. Keep making cool things! <3

One of the nice things about the ship role bonus is that it is easy to change. Just go to Simulation/Battles/SimulationDescriptors[TroopShuttle].xml and change 10 to 2-3 in the line below and you are good to go.

<SimulationDescriptor Name="ShipStatBonus1MovementTroop" Type="ShipStatBonus1">
<Modifier TargetProperty="MaximumMovement"          Operation="Addition"    Value="10"Path="ClassShip"/>
</SimulationDescriptor>

I really am enjoying modding.  These days I find myself more interested in modding the game than actually playing it.  Also, I look forward to seeing you quest mod.  Thanks for doing that it. 

Of course, love!

I know how to edit it. I think it's very helpful that you tell people how to do that, because it does make it nice for people to be able to alter things to fit their playstyle.

Well, I don't want to get in the way of you getting some more attention/feedback! So I will slip out of the thread! <3