*[save-game compatible]

*update for 3.0.4

Bigger Update
[save-game compatible]

>>> BALANCE
*reworked missiles, torpedoes and swarmer missiles
=> torpedoes are now short range, high damage weapons with a damage buff vs hull, good in close combat (stats have been rebalanced)
=> swarmer missiles are now medium range, solid damage weapons with a damage buff vs hull, penetration values and with special evasive abilities (good vs a lot of PD/strike craft)
=> missiles are now very high range weapons with good damage application and with two different types of missiles => one anti-shield and one anti-armor (instead of just one type)
=> improved balance of all kind of missiles/torpedoes by reworking tracking, range, retargeting range, cooldown, evasion and damage application and progression values
*reworked laser cannons
=> improved balance of stats (weapons got a buff overall)
*reworked hull design upgrades for ship classes: previously T1 and T2 upgrades only added hull hitpoints => from now on they add less hull hitpoints but also armor hitpoints and partly shield hitpoints. this leads to a better balanced hitpoint variety
*reworked disruptors: they don't have armor/shield penetration anymore but they do have massive anti-shield weapon power (their role changes from anti-hull to anti-shield), their cooldown was decreased i.e. they got buffed
*auto cannons are now anti hull weapons with no penalty vs shields and a small penalty vs armor
*kinetic artillery does have a more varied bonus/nerf vs hull/shield/armor with a focus vs hull and shield. damage of kinetic artillery was reduced by increasing the cooldown of those weapons (overall kinetic artillery was somewhat nerfed for better balance)
*energy torpedoes cooldown was decreased i.e. their damage was buffed and their buffs/nerfs vs shield/hull/armor are now more varied/balanced with a focus on hull and armor
*PD and Flak do have a small windup timer now leading to a small random factor in battle. further optimized damage/cooldown and other stats. flak does now have a slightly higher range than PD
*plasma weapons are now anti hull weapons and they don't have any buffs/nerfs for armor/shield

***overall each weapon category: missile, energy and kinetic does have some advantages/disadvantages but from now on they have some more variety. so f.e. you can can find energy weapons that are good vs armor, hull or shield and not only one of those anymore. so you can (but you don't have to) spezialize more and better in one weapon category without the total need of using other weapon categories. however some weapon categories still have some special advantages, so it still makes sense to diversify
***weapons are now more balanced than before i.e. long range weapons deal less damage or have other disadvantages, while short range weapons deal a huge amount of damage and/or have other advantages
***each weapon category (energy, kinetic or explosive) has some kind of short range and long range weapons and each weapon category has some special advantages/disadvantages to consider

**the time difference between battle event is starting and actual combat is starting was slightly reduced in order to reduce the waiting time when both fleets move towards each other. having said that, there is still plenty of time in order to send reinforcements etc. before the real battle starts
**range buff of target uplink computer starbase building was slightly reduced from 35% to 30%

>>> NEW CONTENT
*new long range missile type "thunderbolt" (anti shield) introduced, which is intended to be used with the already existing standard long range missiles (anti armor) => you can choose the type of missile with the best bonus vs your enemy (a new advantage of missiles)
*added 5 new missile focused ship sections (2 for destroyers, 1 for cruiser, 1 for battleships and 1 for dreadnoughts)
*new laser beam large-slot weapons are now available for research after researching battleships. those new energy ship weapon components (combined with other energy weapon components) are intended to be a viable short range alternative to kinetic weapons (like kin. artillery) in late game and provide more variety among weapon components. those laser beams have a much smaller range but they deal much more damage and have far better accuracy

>>> AI
*improved AI choice for components by adjusting weights

>>> GRAPHICS
*added new missile graphics for new anti-shield "thunderbolt" missile type (blue colored effects vs orange colored anti armor missiles)
*reworked and improved missiles and swarmer missiles graphical effects
*slightly improved missile trail effects
*laser cannons: improved graphical hit effects (more realistic orange explosions and additional subtle smoke effects)
*slightly improved/rescaled XL tachyon and energy cannon hit effect

>>> PERFORMANCE
*increased cooldown and windup time for some weapons and compensated this by increasing damage (overall DPS stays the same). the reason for this adjustment is primarily to help increase performance and give some relief to the engine in order to compensate for improved/more detailed graphical effects for other weapon components

>>> COMPATIBILITY
*added icons for built-in compatibility with Fatherland: Colonial Empires mod

... thx to all the constructive long-term feedback that i received by many dedicated ACG mod users who inspired this update

*ACG was fully updated for Stellaris 3.0.3

*[save-game compatible]

*extracted the "no terra incognita" feature which made galaxy colors visible and as s side-effect also made whole empires instead of only some parts of those empires visible once contact was initiated. if you want to use the previous version with no terra incognita then please check out this new mod, which includes the extracted code: No Terra Incognita

*[save-game compatible]

*removed some unnecessary code for better compatibility - does not affect gameplay

*[save-game compatible]

*added code to make galaxy colours visible (replacing grey dark galaxy colours for terra incognita). this was done because EG* Galaxy Colours restored (a mod i previously used) became outdated recently. so i added my own code into ACG which is a nice addition to the ACG content

*[save-game compatible]

*i always disliked that strike craft fighters and bombers sometimes look more like a civilian shuttle than real strike craft with turrets. so i updated all graphical models for fighters and bombers for arthropoid, avian, fungoid, humanoid, lithoid, mammalian, molluscoid, necroid, nemesis, pirate, plantoid and reptilian graphical shipsets and attached small, subtle projectile turrets to fighters and small missile turrets to bombers with immersive scaling and location for those turrets. i did not add muzzle/shooting effects to those turrets though because this would lead to a performance deterioration. but at least strike craft does now look like real strike craft and not like shuttles anymore (just my opinion). most of you might not recognize this change unless you zoom in very much but i do have an eye for the small things as well, and i wanted to change this for a long time :)

*[save-game compatible]

*optimized fighter-strikecraft scaling of the nemesis shipset in order to be more in line with other ACG-fighter scaling

*[save-game compatible]

*updated some personalities in order to remove code that could cause errors

*[save-game compatible]

*star eaters previously did not get the same speed-debuff other ships receive once a space battle started. this was fixed. now star eaters get the same speed-debuff

... thx to FlyingTaurus523 for pointing this out!