[MOD] GSB Balance Mod - v0.32

This is perfectly and easily doable. This line in the race file:

name = “something”

The line gives the name that will be used as reference to your race in different files. The modules will then need this line:

restricted = “something”

Note that this line is optional so you will only find it in race specific modules, also you will still have all of the “normal”/non-restricted modules.

While I don’t have any direct suggestions, I found a way to make an interesting weapon (not sure if it has already been done). The weapon I have deals 52 dps with 42 shield penetration and 24 armor penetration. So, overpowered? it comes with a draw back, it only has 0.1 in tracking speed. Whille I first thought it would just give it a low accuracy it proved to be a bit more then just that. It was not able to land a single hit on moving targets even on slow cruisers (only extremely slow). However when its target stopped moving it had a hitrate of roughly 50 % (so 25 dps).

Great idea for a weapon, any ship designs that do not use engines will be easy targets

In regards to the restricted weapons, while you have the right idea the problem is the race “something” will also have access to the original weapons as well (the ones we are trying to replace, for example you will have the quantum blaster and the new and improved quantum blaster.)

At the moment there is no easy way to stop a modded race having access to the standard files . . . . unless . . hmm . .

Pinky, are you pondering what i’m pondering ?

But why would we need solar powered flashlights Brain?

Anywho, are you pondering me getting off my ass and fixing my module restriction script to not break everything?

If you want Kemp i can send you my manually created files which dont break everything . . from there you could reverse engineer a script to create them automatically . .

In the meanwhile i have an idea that might be crazy enough to work . . needs to be tested though

::Edit::
Nope too crazy to work . . i thought that i could create something that would override the original weapons without replacing them.

Glad you like the idea, so do I

I did note that the normal/non-restricted modules still would be avaible.

About the scripting part, I should be able to make a package with all modules having a restricted for each race, if that is what you are talking about.

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Doh, so you did - sorry i missed that. I was too distracted by the weapon suggestion

Kemp has written a script that generates the files however he says that it needs tweeking
I have manually generated the files, it works, but its a manual process.

Both processes changes the original files which is something that we want to avoid . .

No worries, and I take the distraction as a good thing.

So you changed the modules for all of the races manually o_o? Must have taken a bit of time.

Yeah, what we want to achieve doesn’t seem to be possible right now.

Nah, i cheated and used a perl script

My script just needs tweaking to leave one copy with the original internal names. The game shouldn’t care if a pre-created Nomad ship has Fed items (for instance), so it should solve the problems with missing modules. Just need to find a bit of time to make the change and test it.

In my notepad now. Probably good against any immobile formation, but is it really better than a cruiser laser (46 dps before accuracy) ? I’d probably keep my CL : better DPS and more versatile. Maybe with a bit more range and more damage…

Well reading all your posts i just thought about another solution

1. Use the “restricted” command to restrict all the base modules to the core + DLC races (hopefully one of your scripts can do this)
2. Create a “Balanced” version of each race, and giving it access to the balanced modules

In that way one could play the original and balanced version on the same GSB installation

I don’t know how much it would affect other mods, but it seems to me that for some of them, it would be an improvement rather than a problem. In many mods (Legios and StarBlazers come to mind), the author have created new modules to cover everything, and base modules are not intended to be used so I’m pretty sure the author would be happier to have it this way. For other mods (UniT for instance), as i understand it, it would require to add the core modules that the mod is using as restricted modules of the mod race.

I suppose it would give more freedom to modders -everyone would be free to create a race without any legacy modules from the core game, at the expense of a little extra work -very little if we have a simple tool to have all those “restricted” lines written.

An other problem is that the race selection screen would be a bit cluttered…

But well, I’ve never created race mod, so maybe the method i’m proposing is completely unworkable…

That’s exactly what my script does There are very few mods that intend to use the base modules in a new race.

I understand the stack penalty (this 0.97 stack effectiveness right ?) but i don’t understand this “module penalty”. Do you mean the way average armor is calculated (more modules = lower average armor) ?

True. It might not be worth it to use tanks anymore. But I’d say that right now Tanking is a tactic that is too easy, with too much payoff per credit invested. And it really participates to one of the major issues with this game, which is that there is no incentive to move. There are multiple reasons for this : the power of mass MWM and plasma, the huge cost of engines, but i think that tanks are part of it.

So yes, a high power proton beam would seriously reduce the viability of tanking (but i bet i’ll still be used). So we lose one decoy strategy, but add some incentive to move. Battles with ships that actually move are more fun to watch, and should lead to more creativity from fleet & challenge creators.

I think it’s a pretty good trade-off. I don’t think that this change is enough to give spam / rush tactics an overwhelming advantage over long range fleets. Might be wrong though…

Good. Then i can boost it more. It still won’t be usable for competitive play, but i’d like camouflage to be more viable for “casual” play (following my “close the long range gap” idea)

In my tests pulse laser was strong, but definetely not the only option.

Note that my aim IS to force fleets to include a significant portion of their fighters armed as pulse lasers, for several reasons :

1. As the campaign showed, massing laser fighters with a small portion of rockets can break almost any fleet. It doesn’t work in (most) challenges strictly because of pilot limits.
2. Now that the fighter Torpedo is usable, it adds even more power to the “fighter” arm of the fleet. As my global balance purpose is to reduce the anti capital ships ability of fighters, I need to take back soemwhere else what i gave by making torpedo a weapon rather than a waste of points.
3. New Pulse lasers are indeed very good against fighters, but inferior to laser cannon in dps (and even worse in dps per cost). So they’re worse in antiship capacities (lower dps / cost, lower armor pen)
4. Regarding the anti-frigate role of fighters : i think it’s a shame that the only decent way to protect your frigates against the “rocket threat” is to have 14/15 in armor. A covering force of fighters should be able to protect frigates from rocket fighters. Right now if you do that, rocket fighters destroy your frigates while covering fighters are shooting in the vacuum. In GSBB, they’ll kill slowly kill the rocket fighters - which will still be able to deal some damage. And if you need your rocket fighters to survive, a covering force of fighters (slower so they’ll take fire first) will do a wonderful job. In my (admitedly incomplete) tests, rocket fighters are still a cost effective weapon against frigates.
5. The end result is a much more diversified fighter force :

• light interceptors that take out light fighters and rocket fighters (pulse lasers and no armor)
• heavy interceptors that take out light interceptors (pulse laser and some armor)
• gunboats (for the lack of a better name) that take out heavy interceptors and can later damage light cruisers (laser cannon and armor)
• attack fighters to attack light cruisers (laser cannon and no armor)
• light rocket fighters - same old antifrigate (rockets and no armor)
• Torpedo bombers that are very efficient against cruisers, ignore most fighters but get slaughtered by frigates (torpedo and heavy armor)

The best generalist fighter becomes (i think) laser cannon + armor 4/5. Laser + Pulse without armor is also very good .

You mentionned the pulse laser + rocket combination - i haven’t tried it, i’ll do that soon (with tribe hull and non-tribe, 50/50 and 80/20 pulse /rockets). If it’s too powerful i’ll have some changes to do.

So that means it’s a workable idea, both technically and for other mods ? Good.

Tanks are not the reason for not moving. Before Tribe was banned in competitive play it was still very much non moving long range spams. Tanks are only useful against missile to missile fights and frigate rushes. Once enemy ship actually moves into the 700 range tanks just evaporates. In fact, tank makes you worst against CL rushes because they tend to use of the rescuer + retaliate tag. And unlike frigates they don’t have the problem with killing the tank while getting slaughtered by dual rockets/painter.

And for another proof, while my Tribe rushes gets 1:10 win/attempt ratio at best, my Tribe missile/plasma spam had reached 1:50 win/attempt, indicating that not moving is the optimum strategy with or without tanks. The only way a slow fleet can lose to a rush is if they get too trigger happy with their long range (like 6+ MWM).

Testing of fighters

A. Fed “Armoured fightrers” vs tribe serenity

13 groups of tribe serenity “pulse+ rocket” fighters, 95 pts each c : 1.97 [19760 pts] vs
10 groups of fed “heavy fighters”, 124 pts each (laser cannon, armor 4.24) c : 2.12 [19840 pts]
Tribe fighters wins, with 55% vs 13% left

12 groups of serenity “double pulse” fighters, 108 pts each c : [20736]vs
the same group of fed "heavy fighters
Tribe fighters wins with 52% left

I was quite surprised by the second result, because i remembered clearly that double pulse used to lose vs armored lasers. So i decided to test the same designs with rebel fighters.

B. Fed “Armoured fightrers” vs Rebel Achilles

10 groups of “double pulse” rebel Achilles fighters 123pts each c: 2.25,
Fed “heavy fighters” win : 9% left for rebels vs 81% for fed (i gave the rebels a dummy frigate so they could fight to the last man)

12 groups of “rocket pulse” rebel Achilles fighters @103 pts each c:2.56
Fed “heavy fighters” win : 10% left for rebels vs 82% for fed

Two explanations :

1. Tribe fighters are too powerful because of their HP bonus
2. Their extra HPs give them enough time to wear out the thin armour of the fighters (4.24). So you need heavier arour to fight them
3. Tribe Serenity is maybe the best fighter hull in the game - and it shows

C. Fed “Armoured fightrers” vs nerfed tribe serenity
I re-ran the tribe vs fed test, reducing the HP bonus to 80%

Pulse fight : Fed now wins, but it’s a tense fight (18% vs 36%)
Pulse rocket fight : Clean win for fed (10% vs 74%, using dummy frigate)
So reducing the HP bonus helps, but Tribe are still very powerful fighters

D. Fed “Extra Armoured fightrers” vs tribe serenity
I gave back their original HP bonus to the serenities, and made them fight against an improved fed fighter, giving him armour module 3 against of 2

So now the fed “'heavy fighters” cost 135, have a speed of 1.94 and 5.6 of armour
10 groups = 21.6k points

Vs Tribe serenity pulse [13 groups, 22.4k points] : Clean win for fed : 10% vs 91% - normal, the extra armour really helps vs pulse lasers
Vs Tribe serenity ‘combo’ [14 groups, 22.8k pts] : Clean win for fed : 10% vs 95% - this surprised me, i expected the rockets to help at least a little more than in the previous. Looks like it does not help.

Conclusions

1. Rockets don’t really help vs fast armoured fighters (however they do wonders against heavily armoured torpedo fighters). Still a very good design as it’s much more versatile…
2. Tribe fighters are (very) powerful, but armour does help against them
3. Pulse lasers are a great weapon, but fielding only them is pretty dangerous - you’ll lose the “space superioriy” battle to a more diversified force.

I suppose that the best way to counter those armoured fighters is to use pulse + laser without any armor.
edit : Just tested : Pulse+Laser win 69% to 9% vs the improved heavy lasers (equal points). So it’s a good, but not overwhelming, counter.

Of course, those test don’t reproduce actual battle conditions, where there is much more variability. Armoured fighters will die pretty fast to anti fighter missiles and cruiser defence laser. It makes those weapons more desirable - in vanilla GSB, they’re not that great…

You need some target painters whenever you use rockets. Otherwise rockets never hit and just become a waste of credits/slot.

so for every 4 groups of rocket/pulse you need 1 group of rocket/painter, set to rescuer+retaliate.

Will try later. Currently testing improved Cruiser rockets & Megaton missiles. Slowly reaching something usable.

V0.2 out. Main post updated.

[size=150]Major changes[/size]
1. Gameplay

• Cruiser rockets become useful due to much improved dps (Fire interval from 950 to 750, Weight from 109 to 102, Damage 19 to 22, Speed from 0.48 to 0.55) Pretty good weapon against most cruisers (especially shields), quite bad against frigates (not so precise). Very strong scramblers is a problem, moderate scrambling is possible to overload.
• Megaton missiles have now much better damage potential (Speed from 0.12 to 0.16, Fuel reduced from 2200 to 1300 (misses hurt less), Damage up to 80 (from 60), Decoy release range to 300, Min range down to 250 (from 300), Max range reduced from 750 to 700). I reduced their tracking to compensate(0.6 to 0.4). Rushing cruisers & frigates blow them up, cruiser with speed less than 0.15 (rough estimate) are vulnerable.
• Cruiser missiles slight improvement (range to 1300, speed 0.15 to 0.17). Decoy missiles updated to match
• Fast missiles minor improvement (reduced fuel, increased range to 950). I think it’s enough to make them a valid choice over MWM
• Frigate torpedo : speed 0.17 to 0.22, min range 280 to 110, damage 22 to 26. Does pretty well as a support weapon (empire wpn platform), or as a “kamikaze” weapn (fast frigate, shoots next to cruiser). Tell me if you think it’s overpowered now. I feel not, as they’re still very vulnerable ships.
• Frigate missile shield piercing to 27
• Phasor cannon 2 is now a heavy anticruiser weapon (0.5 tracking, high dps and armour piercing, salvo weapon)
• Proton beam : kept the ‘tank’ killing ability, but reduced damage - following 123’s comments. We’ll see what it gives.
• Shield stacking to 0.93

2. Installation :
Thanks to Kemp’s script, GSBB now no longers require a separate install folder. Now it will add the 4 ‘balance modded’ core races to your standard GSB game, keeping all the original races as is.
Caveats :
a. Will overwrite the core modules (data\modules). Careful if you have modded them.
b. NOT compatible with most race mods (design screen won’t have access to core modules)

More details in the included readme file.

Download from the main post

Change log of V0.2

Instruction on how to make race mods compatible can be found in the readme (it’s very easy). So hopefully everything will be compatible soon.

Roadmap for v0.3
x Check the fighter issue mentionned by 123stw
x Quantum blaster (still pondering over the ideas that came out in the thread)
x Frigate plasma might need a little something
x Repair modules - currently mostly useful on tanks (only the amor repair). So need some buff
x Fighter hull costs
x Include ‘balance mod’ version of the dlc races
x Try to rebalance armor (This is a very good idea) [right now armor is not worth its cost AND opportunity cost, except in long range war]
x More incentive to move [a few ideas that need more testing]

I welcome comments about the new changes (and the one should be making)

Also regarding the nex installation procedure. Any problem ?

Question to the readers : while browsing the forums, i felt that the community’s consensus over Tribe is that reducing their HP bonus to 80% is considered as a reasonable nerf. I’d like to implement that for next version. Any comments ?

Just a note on the installation instructions:

1. It’s my understanding that a lot of the new races introduced by the community don’t actually need the core modules.
2. modules_backup isn’t needed, that’s the original modules in case something bad happens and you want to go back to how it was.
3. I’d prefer that every mod didn’t include the full set of restricted modules. It’d be better if there was a link to obtain them (i.e. just treat it like any other mod that your own mod depends on). It just invites conflicts if everyone redistributes them (particularly if something changes and no one can figure out which are the most recent).
4. If someone creates their own mod-specific copy of the core modules then it would be better to include them in their mod’s modules directory rather than pushing them all into the core modules directory.

Not meaning to criticise how you’ve done all this (your mod is something that I’ve felt we’ve needed for a long time), but I thought I’d strike while the iron is hot, and make sure that people get this right before we end up with a huge mess

It’s my fault for not including better instructions on how to go about using the restricted modules really.

Thanks for your feedback Kemp.

Well, of the four mods i’m currently using

1. Ancient uses mostly core modules, except for a few weapons - Not usable
2. Starblazers frigates & cruisers are usable, but not fighters (no moded engines / power) - Half usable
3. Unit is mostly usable, but is still using a few core modules (fighter engines, some shields, a few weapons) - Mostly usable
4. Legio behaves better : doesn’t need core modules, remove all the mess - it appears as Eich planned it - More usable

Others i don’t know, but i’d guess it’s as mixed as those.

I hadn’t thought about a centralized distribution of the “restricted files”. I didn’t want people to have to mess with installing python & unlocking all the modules. I had included modules_backup in case people want to uninstall, but it’s actually not needed right ? They would just need to delete the mod i suppose…

The more i think about it, the more you’re right about the centralized “restricted files”. Would it be possible that you prepare and maintain such a file ? That’d be great. It will bring us closer to have some kind of “modding standard”.

Right, that’s why i did it that way. I also renamed all the components names (adding gsbb_ suffix), so it’ won’t create conflicts.

Thanks for your comments :).