Pre-Balance Check ( pt. 2 )
Hello again, everyone.
Looks like we have a healthy mixture of opinions and thoughts about the power level of the mod thus far. The majority of you agreed that the mod is more on the powerful side of the spectrum while also bringing up interesting points and level of understanding on the matter. So here's another question for you to choose that'll decide the future of the mod;
Are you okay with the current power level?
Here's my answers to selected posts that may hopefully bring some light to the topic of the day;
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Q: Super Capitals are the reason why the UAF is powerful, are they not?
A: Correct, I personally think they're overpowered by default simply for the fact that its a fictional fifth ship class in the game. This is exactly why they will be unavailable to the player for the most part whenever the story comes out in the future, hopefully. Fear not, everything in the mod will be available to the player at some point - they just have to earn them or use external means to bring them in and have fun in their own ways.
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Q: The UAF have excessive amount of capital ships, and they're more suitable for combat than vanilla counterparts.
A: That is true, there's no doubt the Aurorans have both general-purpose and specialist ships for any situations they may encounter. Unfortunately there's no real ways to limit specific type spawns or distribution for the faction. If you wish to understand more, you may check out these .csv files ; DEFAULT_SHIP_ROLES and SHIP_DATA.
What I disliked about default_ship_roles is that it affects both fleet spawns and market availability at the same time, thus preventing me from crafting a more believable roster and fleet diversity. Surprisingly, there are no rarity stats for the ship_data despite it existing in weapon_data too. These are what ultimately drove me to create the Keycard Shop, a tool for me to basically say;
"These ships are for players, not the faction to use openly."Alas, I also think its better to have more cruiser and capital classes because late game saves tends to evolve into big class brawls eventually. This may differ depending on your Starsector sandbox experience.
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Q: Isn't it alright if the UAF to be good at something and bad on the other?
A: That's what I thought too. This may sound a bit controversial to some people but it is by lore and design as well ( despite the lack of them in-game );
In order to understand the next following bits, you must think and see as a faction. Not a player as they typically gain access to all weaponry and ships from all factions in-game. They also have the ultimate ability to customize their loadout and ships as they see fit. A feature that factions simply don't have. They're only able to use variants crafted by and for the faction. UAF by design, is a faction that utilizes traditional means of firepower such as ballistics and missiles. This means, there will be no public usage of highly advanced things that you may typically found in both modiverse and vanilla. Hence why you see multiple 're-skins' of ship systems and weaponry.
There are special exceptions however that may exist in the form of collaboration or quest lines. At least in my eyes, they did not violate the theme of the faction so long as the faction doesn't openly or use them en masse.
An interesting fun fact, UAF ships are also created based on my understanding on how AI behaves in-game. This was brought up and reinforced by a fellow patron in the previous post. That's why you don't really see me do broadside ships often, most are just variations of angry triangles!
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Q: Why are UAF ships and weapons runs hot and expensive to use?
A: In a way, that is my way of balancing them in return for the performance they provide. Every time I craft a new weapon, I will check both my mod and the vanilla's WEAPON_DATA for stat comparison. See if I could find the equivalent of what I crafted and work from there. This however comes with a noticable downside;
If my weapons runs hot, I have to compensate by making my ships run colder. This indirectly buffed my line-ups as the player ultimately have the freedom to use whatever they want. This may discourage them to use native weapons and instead, go for a more efficient build. The snowball effect continues on from there basically.
So, this is where the popular overpowered / unbalanced arguments spawn from. In my years of modding, I ultimately realize its impossible to please everyone. There will always be someone ranting about something at some point and words do travel around faster than light.
I could just nerf my weapons, sure but it'll be at the cost of my own and my fanbase's fun in return for pleasing the minority that may or may not even play the mod to begin with. So, should I do it? No. I have made my mind about that a long time ago.
This doesn't mean I ignore people's opinion and feedback, I still do balance changes frequently every time I play the game.
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Q: Why is Semibreve so powerful?
A: It is by player definition, a 'nuke'. A weapon that literally deals AOE damage to everything in its wake. That's why I use that word exactly. It may feel powerful because of how we make the weapon. The visuals, the sound effects, the damage, everything. It's unique and stand out compared to everything else.
Will I nerf it? No, I already nerfed it hard several patches ago. I see a lot of people enjoy using it too, so why would I ruin their fun?
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Q: Why are UAF missiles reloadable when the vanilla doesn't by default?
A: Because it doesn't make sense as to why you can't reload missiles in combat. I understand from the balance perspective but I don't like it. So I offered the alternative.
They are reloadable but painfully slow to replenish. This way, you can still run out of ammo if you carelessly use them.
My only wish is that the game would eventually have a new parameter in the WEAPON_DATA, where we can establish limited amount of reloads before it just stops until the next battle. But alas, its not my game.
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Q: Do you balance from vanilla or modiverse perspective?
A: An interesting question. The UAF began with balancing versus the vanilla. If we're lacking in something and the setting forbid it. We come up with an alternative option for the faction, it doesn't matter if its powerful or not so long as its there.
Whether you believe it or not, I don't balance my mod against the modiverse. That will inevitably cause an arms race between modders and I don't want to be any part of it. I'm pretty comfortable with the faction being out there in the middle of nowhere. It stands true to the lore that we do not originate from the Persean Sector.
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Wow, I'm surprised you survived the wall of text. Congratulations!
I hope you understand that these questions are just generalization of what I see in that post. I apologize if I misunderstand something and I hope it also provided some clarity! Feel free to comment down below if you have anything to say. I'll be reading through them as usual.
Comments (38)
just as a recommendation you should probably tell people that your mod is deliberately designed to be shall we say on the more powerful side of things yes I know that will cause some people not to download the mod who otherwise would have but well those people exist in every community if I offend I apologize but I needed to say this I personally do not care about balance
Hey Milky, just wanted to say: I agree with your stance on balancing 100% and you're awesome for prioritizing fun and the majority over the concerns of a minority who can freely fork/alter the mod at their own discretion.
Heya milky, love your mod, but I found a pretty severe bug, not sure where to post it so if you could tell me where I can report it that would be great.
On reloading missiles. Early submarines couldn't reload their torpedoes without surfacing, and some couldn't reload at all without being in port. With improvements to the launch tubes, they could be reloaded while submerged, but doing it during combat was heavily discouraged as any malfunction at all would typically result in the loss of the ship and everyone inside.
Looking forward to getting back into this
The ONLY thing I think that you could take a look at is the effectiveness of their Anti Missile Missiles (I forgot their name, they do an AOE explosion that deletes missiles). I think they are too effective for their cost and number of uses. Seen one or two of those weapons delete entire Pegasus MIRV salvos reliably. I think they have slower sustained rate of fire than other PD, but all the most dangerous missiles come in salvos, making it kind of a perfect counter. Though more extensive testing is required? I don't claim to have perfect math here. Other than that single weapon, I think UAF is really well balanced compared to vanilla. Excluding some unique ships or specific player builds (which can't/shouldn't be balanced for imo), I was able to use vanilla fleets against them to great effect and using their ships did not feel like an instant-win button at all. Granted, I also do not like to mix and match UAF weapons on vanilla ships or vice versa. I imagine some combos there might be broken, but who cares, honestly. Generally though, the faction is really fun to play and really fun to fight against, which is honestly the most you can ever hope for I think. I may not be an active member of your community, I am just a long time lurker and I really look forward to the next update. This whole project is very impressive and honestly I think what you've cooked up is really beautiful. Thank you for all the hard work you did to make it happen!
I think the mod is in a good place as it is right now. You take into consideration voices of the community for the balancing but you can never perfectly balance something and please everyone. No matter how much you would try to balance it you will always find something in the whole game to make it OP or even something from another mod to make it OP. If you think that the current balance is ok, and the feedback from a great majority of your community says that it's also fun as it is why not keep it? If others feel that some aspects are too strong they can adapt it on their own, it's not like the files are locked or encrypted, every player can adjust it individually for their game and to their liking
This poll shows you that most people love the mod as you make it, Milky. Ignore the dissenters and do what you want.
The problem with balance is that in player hands not even vanilla is balanced. There are quite a few ships that aren't bad in ai hands, but if you put a sweaty player in the cockpit are like: "Oops, I soloed an entire fleet." P. S. I don't envy you having to try balancing reloading missiles. If the reload is too slow you might as well not bother; too fast? You're now drowning in missiles. And worst of all, somehow the two are overlapping.
Overall i've been enjoying the mod, yea occasionally things can feel powerful, but when you run half a dozen faction mods with there own ships and equipment like me, the UAF feels perfectly balanced too me. I still get killed or suffer losses when i take on crazy odds without carefully considering my options or tactics. Overall, i dont have any real complaints about the mods current balance, it feels like its in a good place to me. If i'm running vanilla ships, i dont ever worry about taking on UAF ships cause they aren't without weakness that i can exploit with the vanilla arsenal. [Especially with lasers ;)]
I look at it from a lore perspective. Aurorans did not go throught a Collapse like the perseans so their stuff is a bit more robust. The isekai stuff and the Battle of Aurora might have wreaked some havoc with them but they still retain their techbase and industry. Even if they're not as advanced as the Domain they are quite balanced with above (persean) average equipment and small empire.
I have played many of the more broken mods and UAF is in a nice spot where I can put them in no matter what and they never are a problem only fun and helpful, their ships enrich the experience and bring some needed balance. So I would say that there are no nerves needed
you already know that nerfs are not needed in this mode cause it will just ruin it so i assure you the mod is precfect the way it is so now you can drop the update for the players without anymore delays this update took more than long enough even passed the supossed to be the timeline were the mode had to be released and i don't mean to rush you but the more time you take the more people are gonna loss intrest here
With all due respect, I'm okay with people losing interest in the mod so long as it means peace and quiet for me to work on my passion project... but I do understand your concern and its been a haunting issue in my head everyday.
The mod is good as it is. I remember first time i let Persepone pilot her ship she blew up most of enemy fleet by herself aswell as 89% of my own fleet. since then Semibreaves are banned in my fleet :)
I find that the large number of capitals that the uaf tends to use. often leads to fight where yes to uaf ship dominate... until they get outnumbered by very fast but small ships as the uaf equivalents suffer the same flaws as their larger sisters. Weak armor high cost and very easy to emp into submission. this often leads to having to very carefully consider how to deal with large fleets without loosing my pricey uaf ships. And for those that say uaf op. No kidding buddy the base game factions are what left of a dying or dead empire they dont even know how alot of the things they have even work. The uaf doesn't suffer that flaw they know how their own stuff works and alot of their tech and ways to make said things are still on hand. They can still make nano forges without any outside help. that alone places them very high on the totem pole of tech in the sector.
For balances , nerfs, etc. I say do those last. I always thought it would be better to finish the UAF first and balance things once they are all there.
I feel that the UAF is okay with being liltte unbalanced with them not being from the Persean sector and therefore they might have a different level of technology and an overall different perspective from the rest of the sector. I am not sure if you agree with this or not but none the less I love the mod keep up the work <3
On the semibreve point, I’d say they honestly feel like wave motion guns from Space Battleship Yamato: an opener capable of wiping half the enemy fleet in one blast, but exclusively capable of being fielded by a select few ships and really only fired once, all of which while looking, sounding and feeling so damn beautiful and powerful
The mod is justifiably powerful, it is a powerful adversary to the hivers and approlight, and also an end game goal to defeat, i always set the settings to all out war on everyone to see the chaos issue.
I think it goes without saying that the UAF has some of the most attention to detail I've ever seen from any mod in Starsector, and your determination to at least make it "balanced" in your eyes empowers you to craft a fantasy that we all sorely want to experience. I enjoy the UAF for what it is, a quirky little isekai faction with a semi-serious backstory and some absolutely splendid design that allows for near-Ace Combat levels of carrier jousting.
In the end its a game. Peopel who are happy complain less and people who aint will scream at you. The vote even showing that you gyus do everything right. Its a game, games are suppose to be fun. If it would be multiplayer, the rules would change. But in truth, all is fixable and enjoyable. This is a 11 year old project and the complains wont stop, no matter how much one bends or adjust. Be happy with what you have, be amazing. You all doing lovly work
When it comes to the Semibreves while they're amusing weapons the AI rarely uses them effectively, Minibreves tend to be far more practical because they behave like a pretty typical anti-ship missile, just with a larger AOE. Honestly, I've modified the Semibreves and Minibreves to ignore fighters ("collisionClass":"HITS_SHIPS_ONLY_NO_FF", , because there's no way to signal to the AI to hold fire if there's fighters in the way. Added a bit of homing to them since the AI doesn't really aim them effectively at the distances they're told is suitable to shoot from as well as larger initial arming times just in case. The Semibreve is a weapon that gets much more value in the players hands because they can take advantage of the big AOE it has to best effect, whereas AI ships don't really care if the missile is hiting a solitary enemy of a cluster of ships.
I may be the one with the unpopular opinion hear me out here; I enjoy power fantasies like any other but it gets to a point where being so op gets in the middle of fun, it gets trivial. misiles are already powerful in the base game, their mechanic is simple but fun. Powerful weapon with limited uses, its duty in any ship its plain obvious and complements well where every other weapon has infinite ammo. The omega missiles which all have very powerful technically infinite missiles come with the drawback of huge flux costs.
Most of the UAF ships are pretty weak but make up in firepower alone when only comparing the normal class ships which is a fair tradeoff. the super BIG capitals you have are pretty fairly balanced when compared to other modded faction's super BIG capitals. Just wish the Roria Esvernia had a lil more flux cap or vent rate ;-; full EMP weapons no worky without popping overload XD, usually run all flak cannons on it since the built in Edge Type 4s eat enough flux as is. No but really the faction is pretty balanced by itself (without player influence) since the player and maybe some nuke ships appear from time to time with some over the top loadouts.
build in weapons are something special wich i really enjoy. even if its a non unique weapon, it just makes ships different and provides a certain style or way to play it. about balancing...i am no hardcore player min-maxing anything. just trying to have as much fun as possible. with my playstyle uaf is strong and more fun than other factions, unique in several ways, but its as challenging as playing other modded factions. i dont see any problems that need to be fixed. super capitals....yeah...wow. love it..... the mod itself....just awesome starsector itself is a very good game, finished or not.. with this mod...thank you so much for the effort you put it and all the people helping you with. looking forward to the new patch! really excited for new ships (Nonayen wuhu). keep up the awesome work and i really hope you have as much fun in creating this mod and the artworks as much as i enjoy playing it.
something I wonder is if it would be possible to tie missile reload to similar to what fighters use, with missile availability and reload speeds becoming difficult the lower the % I'm mostly thinking a out loud in a general sense for missiles overall, personal I love your mod regardless of missile balancing from modders or devs
I'm not sure what everyone else's opinion is on this, but I would like to see some more "built-in" weapon modules on smaller ships, or variants of existing ones with some.
Regarding missiles, I always wondered why they didn’t have a similar mechanic to fighter replenishment. So you have X salvos ready and if there is room in the magazines then your ship starts fabricating more, but as the battle goes on it takes longer and longer to fabricate another salvo. No clue how or even if such a mechanic could be coded but it makes more sense to me than the current ‘missile run out, bombers are infinite’ setup.
You and me both, perhaps it's not too late to go to Alex and suggest this idea to him?
The UAF are in an amazing spot, it focuses on fun, and thats all that matters. I think your only question should be how can i make it more fun? Also i wouldnt worry to much on balancing vs vanilla but rather balance against the UAF itself, players will always optimuze the fun out of a game and pigeonhole themselves into a single way of play. So, the harder you make it for them to find that meta build the more freedom of expression theyll have, equaling more fun. The powerscailing so far vs vanilla is good though. If anything id buff all non capitals a bit. And for the super capitals.. this might be a hot take but i honestly dont like the way theyre balanced, theyre too costly in terms of maintenance and crew, and dont have the daka to make it a better option than just capital spaming. The novelty dissapears fast with supercapitals and they end up just stored and never used agian.
I don't think it's a big problem if a faction is stronger than vanilla (but not 1 million shield/hull/flux for a frigate kind of stronger), especially for the unique ships, given that they're, well, unique - it's completely fine to have them them on the stronger side. The rest of the ships are in an okay spot, in my opinion - they have their strengths and their weaknesses, and are close enough to vanilla balance already. And since you can't possibly balance your mod around every possible ship/weapon combo from every possible mod, and you already have your own lineup of weapons, it's fine to balance around those, be that vanilla level balance or stronger than that.
I think what you're doing is great, I have only used Solvy once and if anything ever happens to her the sector burns. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing what you concoct next.
For balance, I think it's best to just follow your own vision. It's quite hard to get an accurate sense of what the general mod fanbase would want (answers here and on other forums are going to be biased in one direction or another intrinsically). These kind of mods are rarely used by themselves and mod balance itself is very subjective. It's impossible to get balance right for everybody, so just do what you think aligns best with your vision.
Only issue with UAF would be that Semibreves is too easily accessible and spammable. The strength and impact is fine, but we should limit how often it can be used. Wonder if you can code it so it requires external ammo to use, and make that expensive. Even Super Dreadnoughts are balanced due to requiring 60m to buy and costing a ton of CR each battle, Pucyrellas and Persephone has no such limiter. Could also balance by making it cost 100+ DP to deploy and use Ziggurat levels of CR and repair time so we need to be strategic about which battles we deploy it because wasting it for a battle we didn't need it for punishes the player when the next battle would benefit from it.
I don't think this can be implemented, but it would be very cool.
Wow, I don't remember many "devs" would go through the trouble of summarizing and answering the people like you Cy and UAF team, When it comes down to your question, it's just pure fun playing for the UAF, the gun blazing dakka dakka, the sounds, the art, nukes flying above ur hear then accidentally hit a rock instead of enemy ships, etc. Imagine Cy, UAF team can go full throttle without any limitations in the game engine xD how amazing would that be. Will be waiting for your full release, and don't hesitate to call us for Beta testers 😁
Yep, we love the dakka, big boom, sound effects, art and music. We are here to support the UAF :D