Pre-Update Balance Check

I think they're a bit on the stronger side if we compare to the vanilla (in part thanks to the super-capitals which I'm fine with being OP), and conversely they feel a bit weak if we include some of the popular mods.

I think the ship design and firing arcs are a big part of what makes UAF ships more powerful to the vanilla counterparts... To me it seems that UAF ships are designed as actual warships, while vanilla ships are sometimes very weird in that regard.

yeah, I love it being powerful

Excuse me...please put that alpha core down. You can't eat potential AI waifu!

the mod is perfect the ways it is you don't have to adjust it and make it weak for vanilla simps in order to be fun you will make the mod less fun if you nerf it thats my personal opinion and one last thing just a fan wish, please add chibi neuko's to the mod

Powerful it seem UAF weaponry focuses on balistic and missiles in large number and even have higher op cost compare to the Vanilla one. Likes other mod that give energy and beam weapon more versatility and high op cost for better usage.

Technically, UAF is powerful. That's largely because vanilla ballistics don't work very well. Not only are the guns for the UAF much more straightforward (pew pew, hit target, fairly good flux cost), but the missiles are always there, negating a big weakness of vanilla ballistics.

Overall, the balance is fine. Some things are stronger than vanilla and some weaker. What I think needs a bit of attention is some odd balancing, like the missiles with ~a minute of reload time, why make them reload at all? Similarly, the energy railguns with 700 range. Thematically they would fit better as longer range weapons rather than the odd midrange they now are.

In my opinion they are powerful because the guns are easy to use and have a good range. Maybe if you adjust the range a bit so that you need to get closer to the enemy can make the faction less powerfull. I for my part use the mod to extend the view so i can aim with full range of the guns. As for the small crafts it can be to much with how much you can put in one capital carrier. I also use the semi breves alot but maybe you can put them in quest rewads instead of buying them even it good that you put them in the extra shop. And one more question, how can i get that adorable picture up there?

I'd say they are about neutral, they do have some weapons that are definitely above the power level of similar weapons... and no I am not talking about semibreve or the smaller nuke. I am talking more of things like the MLRS which is way more versatile and useful than most other missile weapon of it's class. But then you get weapons that in no way justify their cost, which a lot of the energy weapons in UAF I feel fall under this category. I mean I think that's fine, they are good with certain things and not with others. Ship wise feels the same, some of the ship are definitely amazing like Rillaru II (SP) which is probably one of the best fast battleship while others are so bad for both the AI and in manual that they are almost never worth the cost.

Neutral when sticking purely to UAF weapons and maybe borderline powerful when using vanilla guns (or other mods) .

I'd Say neutral and Powerful. Like not OP but quality over quantity kind of way. They can be hard to fight but they can easily be beaten by large quantities of ships but for the unprepared oh man. I love it tho!

I have to agree with a lot of the other posts, overall the UAF is currently in an OK position ballance wise. Yes their ships (pound for pound) are quiet strong, but they are expensive, so you can't run as many of them as other factions. And lets not kid ourselves, in 90%+ of the cases people are not running a Vanilla+UAF game and most other mod fleets are also stronger then Vanilla ones, so thats fine. Outside of their fleet however the UAF is relatively weak, compared to other Factions. In a "non-randomized" game they tend spawn in an area with poor resources and since they are generally "pacifistic" (acording to Nexarelions diplomacy system) they seldomely expand and if they do, have trouble holding on to their new stuff (at least when the player is not helping them).

I'd say it's relatively neutral depending on what weaponry you have and what ships, if we're talking a full fleet of Auroran ships then most of the time they'll be able to outclass most of the vanilla factions. It's also depends on what weaponry they're using.

I've watched you grow. Your one of the few creators that put in the effort to make product that is simply award-winning in my opinion. I remember watching iron Lion for the first time it was your video I watched in astonishment in the effort you put in. You are truly a skilled individual and should take pride in your work your work is your own and you've put your own flavor on it take pride in what you did and what you've done and what you're going to do. I pray and hope only the best for you I hope in whatever creations you make moving forward are filled with joy and pride

A "relativly" short anwser would be, the frigates feel Obsecnly strong compared to vanilla counterparts, all of the nakiha-s are capable of shreding all of vanilla friagates with little contest, the november military one espeically, with its built in kinetic missles while aslo carrying 2 additional missle slots, and the dash ship system. They are however, a joy to fly, to the point i end up spending most of my piloting as a frigate leveraging my 6DP cost into dozens if not sometimes hundreds of enemy DP loss. the destroyers, and crusiers, outside of the Super Nakihas from the favonius market, are generaly underpowered die to most vanilla combat destroyers, or crusiers respectivly, with only seniraja and lilallaru as notable exceptios that outpreform pretty much every crusier they come against, albeit they have DP riviling that of Capitals. Which brings us to said capitals, as some have already stated, uaf has a lot of capitals, every single one of them mostly specialized, and as such, they will beat vanilla capitals that are more generalist, a rillaru battle crusier is better at punching down than the conquest battle crusier, and beats the conquest, reisen beats onslaught in being a, well, an onslaught, aswell as beats the onslaught in a fight most of the time, purcelyra beats the pegasus in being a missle battery, aswell as beats the pegasus in a straight fight. Same for the carriers, but that also partially becuse there is like one dedicated carrier in vanilla and 1 battle carrier. All capitals are just supperior versions of vanilla capitals, arguably, they cost significantly more DP than vanilla most of the time, but most of them trade fairly well against even in a 1v2 against vanilla capitals. the uaf fleet doctrine of carrier spam and unrelenting balllistic firepower, is also just a generaly strong doctrine. but thats just flavor. so its not something that needs fixing. A "small" footnote, something i read once on a forum. the ai in vanilla doesnt really interpret the cost of fighter wings, just the type and amount, which means if, lets say, most expensive fighters in vanilla are the warthog or xyphos, tho its a support and dosent really do as much damge, at 12, and 18 dp, and they are ballanced around that price. now in uaf, we have fighters going past 30dp, ballanced around being 30 dp, the ai doesnt interpret them as, that much of a threat, so it acts stupid thinking it can surivive "just a few fighters" not realzing those fighters can easily be compared to a frigate or 2 glued to it, and that it needs to react to them much more to survive. This is a unfixable issue, and one that shouldnt even be attempted to fix, but its worth noting might be a cause for a not-insignificant portion of the "overpowerdness" of uaf, and modded in general, fighters.

My current look on the UAF Fleet is as follows. High power per ship but suffers in numbers as they can get swarmed quite quickly. High power per ship at a high cost per ship. so i think its fine as is right now.

Id say the capitals tend to out compete vanilla capitals. I forget which but even in the normal capitals there's one with four turreted forward facing ballistic slots that can utterly dominate versus the normal power level build of mjolnir broadside conquest. Because the capitals are more focused they tend to be able to do the same builds but better. Vanilla capitals tend to be built in a way where some slots don't play towards whatever build you wanna do on the ship and you either compromise or leave them empty. Like the forward lasers on the onslaught or the back missiles on the midline capital. Imagining if you could replace those with more forward facing empty large mount slots. Do love the large slot flak.

Capitals, cruisers and most of the frigates feel pretty good to use against vanilla factions. Against modded factions they're balanced pretty well for the most part and don't need any crazy buffs or nerfs more just very fine tuning. Some of the fighters and bombers could use some extra love though

Going by the factions position outside of the core, alongside players tending to have multiple faction mods or mods affecting the player/sector based on how far they are from the core worlds (Looking at you Ruthless Sector). I personally have to say that yes, the UAF are decently strong. However if they weren't, then they would be wiped out by many, many mods out there. Or it would be much too inconvenient even trying to check the faction out due to danger around their starting zone. Of course, that all is but my opinion alongside my extensive list of mods which affect the sector as a whole~ Now sadly the faction stays in it's position even with Adjusted Sector active. For that would be quite the journey going twice the distance south or north with how I've doubled both the height and width of my own sector~ Overall consolidation of things. By itself, the mod is indeed powerful compared to vanilla. But with other mods? The UAF is on more neutral terms or slightly stronger than the mod faction average.

Ill be as concise as i can. The UAF is strong bordering overpowered, and theese are my reasons to belive so: but first, What do you the creator want for your faction? If you want it to be more interesting and meaningful then the problem with the UAF is that everything that is commonly good/strong is too available for purchase and makes it so you get to engame really quickly. / If you want it to be fun, then its in a really good place, the quick access to all the powerful ships and weapons allows you to have fun experimenting and doing some crazy fleet spam builds. Making it so the only culprit is the player for killing their own fun (by going all semibreves as an example. The run ends once you have that) / My next point is the doctrine vs the available ships. The way it is now capital spam is the most effective and least complex playstyle where i could just start a battle and go get a drink, cuss i know the ai will for sure brute force win most battles. Im not saying nerf the cap ships nooo, what im saying is that the incentives to use a variety of other ships isnt enough. If you want the UAF to be more fighter focused then add a noticeable buff to other ships when fighters are deployed with ships getting a bigger buff the smaller ship class they are.

I personally like the balance they are currently in. Yes they are strong against vanilla options but not overpowered. Is also not too strong that you can breeze through some of the challenges some mods brings. For example I still get rolled by abyssal fleet if I’m not careful XD

Depends, by itself it's really strong against the vanilla faction, but against other modded factions its pretty balanced

When considering the UAF alone as the only modded faction in the Sector, it's decently powerful against most of the known factions, especially on the carrier and fighter wings they field, the supercaps and the renowned Semibreves. But when we start to factor in the other modded factions, it's actually rather balanced out and the pros and cons become more apparent when comparing the UAF against other contenders of the Sector. Semibreves and the supercaps are sure to be pointed out as OP, but it should be noted that even with those, they are NOT end all/be all. Even those weapons and ships can be overcome by more powerful ships the mod list has to offer. Alot of people tend to forget that and only point out the nukes and supercaps as a point of being too OP, when in reality, you could build a cap that can handle Solvernia without issues and deal with the Semis effectively without getting blasted into space dust. Overall, I believe the UAF is in a good place where it's at with it's current and upcoming ships/weapons. Especially since they aren't native to the Sector or it's dimension/universe to begin with.

i would say that i really love UAD PD weapons especially weiss and tryiya CIWS weapons cause it just feels so good when you see PD weapons shoot down missiles and not feel too OP cause if there're too many missiles they can't shoot them all

Once you add other modded factions (which most people would anyway once you already embarked on this path), I think its in a pretty good place. Plus, it's not like you can't use UAFs weapons against themselves either.

For my two cents the UAF ships, weapons and fighters feel powerful when combined all together in a fleet action. Can the other factions compete with them? Yes, but it's a battle of attrition to a degree. But a UAF battlegroup belt it's lonesome can get whacked when unsupported. Don't know if my rambling thoughts help or not.

My favorite weapons are Tonya rail guns and hexorias I just finish stuff with minibreavs now, don't even use semis anymore. Ships are strong, the new destroyer is amazing, 3 medium slots on a 300 top speed ship with decent armor and jets ai controls it really well.

It's powerful, yes, but when I'm against, e.g., Legio Infernalis, it feels just about right.

This won't be a review of the faction but how I played the faction. I always seem to gravitated towards Rillaru SP2 and go for Edge weapons with fire rate boosts from hullmods and alterations from other mods. If I give AI the same ship and build I see it struggle to apply pressure or to fallback to vent I know for lore reasons you gave it maneuver jets instead of a phase skimmer but the ship system seems to be a bit meh for what's supposed to be cutting edge design. Regardless, I always go for that ship if I don't start with one. Not sure if that says anything about the faction earlier/smaller ships or just my personal playstyle. After getting 2/3 anchors and 1/2 capital carriers is when I feel like the fleet is able to hold its own but the ones that end up doing the job are the 2 carriers and my Edge build Rillaru. Maybe the prefit options for other ships aren't good or are just balanced. It does feel like I end up capital spamming with some cruisers as support, as the smaller ships just end up blowing up against other smaller ships from focused fire so either the faction lacks a bit stronger destroyers or cruisers I cannot tell. But at the end the fleet I assemble is able to hold out against hegemony retaliation fleets, league blockade, appro-light, apex design collective, bultach and a bit against AI fleets and it's modded ones. I did struggle against Knights of Ludd special system ships tho. If I have anything else to share I'll edit this post. The only time I fought against UAF is during the deserter bounty and what I've noticed is that in a group UAF is strong but if you isolate the ships or pick off a powerful one, the whole group starts falling apart.

The ships are perfectly fine. The weapons are fine. The faction on a strategic scale was overpowered last time I played, but I recall they are loosing some planets in the next update so I think that issue has been fixed. The real problem is the ludicrous abundance of high value loot the mod adds, to the point I would often find as many UAV blueprint packages as every other type of package combined.

Now, for me, I would say the UAF is OP, since you have the solutions for every fleet composition except for Phase. 1. Since from Frigates to Super Capitals, you have at least one very effective ship that tends to trump everything else. Solutions ? Have special hullmods for uaf ships, making their shields and armor to receive more damage. Justification: UAF is an alien tech faction, using high tech to cosplay its low tech core. I think, lore-wise, their armor and shield knowledge should be lower than the Persean sector, making its effectiveness worse. With future research projects to remove these hullmods. 2. SEMIBREVES (yes, even the smaller ones) should be a privilege, with its own quest line or research requirements, make them very limited. Or some special cases like special ships, I know it's the player choice to use it and all, but it's like :" once you go Semibreve, u never go back". Solutions: Already stated Justification: I and I see many others overused Semibreves (and lore-wise I believe it to be something really special, not this common) 3. Make the culture with Carriers feel more ... special ? Lore-wise, UAF loves Carriers as shown in its doctrine. But then, we have many other OP choices to choose from that is simply more effective Solutions? 1. Make UAF carriers is a must ? Well I'm not liking this idea, but, we can twist this as, when in ur fleet composition, if more than 120 dp is carrier(only uaf ships), u activate a unique UAF buff for carriers 2. Have fighters of UAF ships have their own unique AI (well, how can you fight like the Persean sector fighters when u're alien). Or make the AI more exclusive, only unlocked when using UAF commanders 4. In the end, after some thinking, I can see that UAF maybe only on the powerful side, since they don't bother anyone in the sector. But with their OP fleets, making them a mid-end game target. But at around that time, the player sheer numbers and support fleet will easily wipe the floor with them. Problem ? -> OP when playing as UAF, but not that much difficulty when playing against them Solutions 1. Have the UAF lose the trait that made them an introvert after a while/ after several hostile actions or after a special event (with or without the player actions) that the UAF has successfully improving their technology to a point that they no longer afraid of what is outside (since they love AIs, also goes well with point 1 of my comment) . Effectively making them a real threat if you want to mess with them, and not just a mid-end game target 2. UAF Special Exploration fleets with the purpose to re-discover the Sector after several attempts (lore-wise, and UAF failed miserably). Well, this is just normal expedition ? The catch is, with UAF, everything will be fine and dandy if away from Core Worlds atleast 10LY, if closer -> a. (If not UAF commission) everyone will immediately form a invasion group to said planet, and raid fleets to Aoi. To response, Aoi send everything they have for AI War 3 b. (If UAF commission and owned Governorship) special crisis occurred, where your planet and other planets of UAF will be visited by everyone periodically, chances for some to be friendly to visit the resort (give meaning to the resort and the resort visiting fleets, and not just for making money). But some will be deadly, with huge invasion fleets to deal with a potential Alien threat Well, that was a long read, thank you if you did manage to read it all. Thank you, and I really love what you're doing CY and UAF team

A lil powerful but not too much IMO, most weapons are amazing and can fit everywhere, but they aren't TOO strong, they hit just right

As stated already, UAF had good PD, missile and rail weapons, but they don't have anything for phase and beam weapons. In terms of fighters, they're amazing, but expensive in credit and OP cost which makes them balanced. Overall, UAF is a pretty good mod.

The faction has its pros and cons!Amazing Point Defence and missile and Rail weapons but no Phase and Beam so i wouldnt call it overpowered plus..I love UAF!😆