Skalgrim Mod: The Big Overhaul

[[VI] Skalgrim Fellaxe]

One of the major changes planned for the 2.3 version (and I am going to need feedback on this) is what I call the Big Overhaul. People having played the mod for a long time might have noticed that the balance have been suffering and that the game-play has become very fast unless less weapon damage + more hp submods are applied. The reason for this is a power creep situation since the mod never originally was intended for titans, massive battles and the sheer crazyness the mod brings. I've tried to keep things in check by increasing cost and survivability for Titans, but personally I am not happy with the current state of the mod. So thus, the Big Overhaul: The goal of which is to do a major re-balance across the factions with the goal to A: Slow down combat, increase survivability of larger ships while B: making Titans more stand out, less common and more hard hitting.

My tentative plans for this, and do note it will need lots of testing, centers around re-doing weapon damage, armor stats and changing the classes of the ship rosters. We are going to be adding several new kinds of weapons, since JohnZotack has managed to not only create custom turrets but also can swap projectiles and sounds around between them so now is as good a time as any for this. Weapon damage will be lowered substantially across the board - meaning weapons will do about 50% less damage. Armor values will be lowered based on a class and function system with standardization based on Faction, Class, Function and Lore. For instance all ships will have a much lower rear armor, and escorts will have the lowest armor values with the armor values being increased per increased class, so LC will have more armor, C will have more up to Titans and Mega Titans that will be the most heavily armored. Then based on the ships functions there will be bonuses and negatives applied, if its a "fast" ship then it will have less armor but gain a speed bonus. Certain ships will based on lore have especially tough armor or shields etc. General movement speeds will be lowered, but special abilities like full ahead will get buffs so that you can still haul ass when needed. This will then follow the price of ships, so that much like the current version cheaper ships will be more plentiful than larger ones. However, the classes will also be rearranged as they do not function as intended with the addition of not only titans but also mega titans.

Escorts and LC will stay the same, but C and BC will be merged into the Cruiser class, since these are the most similar. GC will take the current BC slot and BS/BB will take the current GC slot since many factions will have access to more variations of battleships and some get access to heavy battleships or venerable or even "archeotech" variants. The current BS slot will be reformed into a Titan class, in which the player will find all the titans, since there will be more subclasses of these ranging from "light" titans, titans, heavy titans, dreadnoughts and mega titans. The classes will also get reworked bonuses and stats that will affect their assualt skills, number of charges to weapons, and critical resistance - but also cost. While most classes will stay the same in cost, titans will with a few exceptions be seeing a generally large price increase. This will result in fewer titans on the field, but will also mean that when they are present they will represent a larger threat level and have more survivability than before. Mega Titans, since we are reworking many of them, will become even rarer and more powerful than before meaning they represent entire fleets of power combined into a single ship for the factions that have access to them. Further details about the Big Overhaul will follow, but I think that this will be a good thing for the mod in general, making it a bit slower, increasing time to kill, but also giving more incentives for placement and positioning or striking the enemy in the rear or hitting just right with torps or skills. I do want to hear about what you guys think though.

[Brackman]

Sounds like some nice changes with the survivability, i gotta admin i killed the vengeful spirit withhin 20 sec of opening fire on it, far better survivability sounds lovely

[Subtle Butt ( >ω<)っ ♡]

Have you tried condensing the game more into a formula? Like for example using tabletop values and converting those into what the rough statistics of the ship classes would be relative to each other. As for the gameplay, it really boils down to Lanchester's law. Anti focus fire mechanics could be considered but I think a big issue is that only flagships can use abilities and get upgrades at least in MP. I do have a couple more ideas on how to slow it down, such as deliberately making all non-ordnance weaponry weaker/less accurate, etc but ultimately, if you have a massive battle, focus fire and lanchester's law will cause a ship to die really fast regardless.

[Lord Admiral Revol]

My initial reaction was rather negative, but thinking about it I think I'm coming around to it.

At first, I didn't like the idea of merging cruiser and battlecruiser categories, but honestly, there is not THAT much of a difference between them. Honestly, the best would be if the titans could be shunted into their own category, however, if it was that simple, I'm sure you'd have done so already. The battleship category right now is really crowded with both battleships and titans. So in short, I agree, that is good.

I'm not too sure I mind the current baseline time to kill. I say that, because right now if I don't have enough points for something with punch, I can create a massive squadron of lance equipped escorts, and do all sorts of shenanigans with silent running positioning, then switching to lock on target for the increased range. 8 Firestorms introducing themselves out of the blue with a salvo, then fading back into the void is a surprisingly fun gameplay (for me at least).
That being said, currently I don't think aiming for anything on the enemy ships is worth it, because they are destroyed by the time I crit. I suppose increasing the time to kill will naturally bring more crits. Oh well.

Regarding the lowered armour and weapon damage things, be very careful that you don't make invulnerable ships. Just please watch that like it wants to drink your alcohol.

However, if you take more ships too as feedback, a Cobra variant with extended auspex, but not with torpedoes only, instead, a prow mounted macrocannon, would be nice. And if a lance could fit in, that would be VERY nice. And for a pure torpedo boat, the Viper class could work. Apologies if I sound a bit needy, I just really like that you cater to my preferences too (I like swarms of "smaller" ships, and your increased fleet size caters to me too, not just the "i got a mobile planet" guys. But they are important too.).

[anaris]

in the era bfg is based on, battlecruisers were a mix of cruisers with battleship guns and cruisers with escort speed, and I don't think either category is clearly represented or differentiated in the game, while the actual movement speed and weapons loadouts of individual ships are readily available.

Given that this mod more or less requires you look at the details of ships as you go, I don't think merging CN and BC will present any major problems!

[FinaL]

Bestest man. Still till today!

[Cosmic Cat]

Thank you for still working on this great overhaul!

[elsimate]

Thanks for your work.

[[VI] Skalgrim Fellaxe]

Originally posted by Lord Admiral Revol:

My initial reaction was rather negative, but thinking about it I think I'm coming around to it.

Regarding the lowered armour and weapon damage things, be very careful that you don't make invulnerable ships. Just please watch that like it wants to drink your alcohol.

Yeah I'll keep a close watch on that part. My rum is sacred for modding purposes. But the point of the Big Overhaul is that it will be tested. First I'll make a standard version, since that is mostly "just" adding new ships. Then work on the changes and see what sticks through play-testing and community feedback. Work has been on the backburner over christmas/new years so will pick back up here in the coming week.

[shinden]

Hey,

I've enjoyed your mod quite a bit over the years. Since you are doing a big overhaul, I'd like to give some feedback:

I agree overall with your assessment that the game is too fast, but I also think this is probably something your users are probably used to/like. Me, I'm stoked, I want it to be slow and based on positoning. Unfortunately, I generally find it to be more about setting up torpedo volleys and placing bombs...which always makes me think "gee...why install weapons...just make the weapons bay into a full bomb bay." it's fun...but it does take me out of "battleships in space" to "point and click puzzle". Of course, thats what the original game did.

I play with the 25 hp up and 25 percent damage reduction and that seems decent enough for a while now.

I can't stand the bullet sponge stations and platforms. I long ago learned to mod the game and decrypt the unitstatsofficial to bring them back to vanilla so I don't have to deal with these things anymore. It's not that I couldn't deal with them, it's that they are in the way and just a cheap way to shave off units. its not fun, just a waste of time. sorry.

I hope something can be done about the fleet admiral skills so we can have orks/tau/eldar admirals...I know that was probably a major roadblock, but I still have hope.

I wonder if it's possible to mod the first game in a similar way...there are things I still like better about the first game, that I wish they didn't toss for this one.

All in all, even with my relatively minor gripes, your mod really breathed life into this game, glad you are still working on it.

[FinaL]

Personally I would like to see slower ship movement / rotation for every Line ship. it's okay for me to have fast(er) escorts, so they become more useful, but the Line Ships should be really lumbering, so you can finally play with ranged builds.

I also would like to see plasma bombs and stuff to be NERFED. Reduce the range of these weapons extremely. You can cheese a lot with them and it's really annoying how the AI use them.

I would also like to nerf the scanner range of all Line ships except of some special ones and have escorts to scout - It's so annoying, that you can't use stealth tactics in this game properly because the AI knows always where you are - but when they also can see you through the whole map, it makes abilities like sensorium scramble (or whatever it is called) or shooting deck nearly meaningless

And finally: I really like bigger fleets, but the maps are too small for so many ships. Maybe we can increase map size? Or reduce ship sizes?

Thanks for consideration :)

[Yoinkyz]

i think nova cannons need to be reworked.

[Franzosisch]

Will anything be done about certain chaos ships that can one shot from across the map? Or drukhari being able to board with 30 units?

[Fredetanker]

How's the mod update coming along? It's amazing how this one mod can keep a very old game relevant. Thanks for the effort, Skalgrim.

[[VI] Skalgrim Fellaxe]

Its progressing slowly. Lots of new ships created, others reworked, - still even more planned. Stat changes have been implemented and partially tested for the imperial factions, chaos and dark mechanicum so far. Gameplay overhaul is doing what I intended so it does feel a lot better to play even in early stages.

[Fredetanker]

Awesome. Looking forward to it.