1. Is it possible to bring back some vanilla features like system orbit lines, bigger stars in galaxy view, ship trails etc.? ( ❗ Addon Patches)
2. Is it really necessary to use the required mods "ACG Icons UI Addition" and "UI Overhaul Dynamic"?
3. Why are Starnet AI and Glavius AI mods not recommend to use with ACG anymore?
4. Will there be a compatibility patch for NSC2 in the future?
5. Why don't you split this mod up into tiny parts?
6. Can we get a graphics-only version of this mod?
7. Why have defense stations been removed?
8. Why are ships moving slowly during battle?
9. You want to continue playing your old save-game with a previous version of ACG? ( ❗ Legacy Versions)
10. Can we get a look into all your changes on components in more detail?
11. How have missiles been changed?
12. Can you increase ship disengagement chance? Why is it so low?
13. Are there certain ship roles for the ACG shipclasses?


Yes. With those ❗ submods i.e. addon patches you can revert some of the changes that i made with ACG. Load those mods after ACG. If you see them having an outdated mark you can safely ignore it

Bring Back Vanilla Hyperlane Visibility in Galaxy View ... no longer necessary since ACG does not adjust hyperlane visibility anymore
Bring Back System Orbit Lines mod
Bring Back Subtle Ship Trails mod
Bring Back System Border Names and Arrows mod... abandoned since it became redundant after jump gates have been introduced as a new feature of ACG
Bring Back Bigger Stars in Galaxy View mod
Bring Back Vanilla AI
Bring Back Vanilla Strikecraft graphics ... without turrets = better performance
Bring Back Vanilla Module Icon Frames ... only use this with Stellaris 3.13 or below, do NOT use this with Stellaris 3.14 or above
Bring Back Vanilla Grid Planetary Buildings Background


No, you do NOT have to use the "ACG Icons UI Addition mod". This mod was created to separate a lot of redesigned icons from the main mod in order to enable you with the choice of using them or not. If you do not want to use the "ACG Icons UI Addition mod" then just ignore the "required" message and do not activate it. The main mod works very well without that addition. Having said that i still highly recommend to use it together with ACG or at least trying it out since i think it's much more immersive than vanilla icons.

And no, you also do NOT have to use "Ui Overhaul Dynamic mod". ACG also works without UI Overhaul Dynamic.
With the most recent update of ACG you now have to use UI Overhaul Dynamic together with ACG because ACG received a lot of UI Improvements and Reworks that are dependent on UI Overhaul Dynamic being activated as well.



Starnet AI was working well with ACG in the past but in 2.7.2 there were some incompatibilities and issues leading to a bad AI progression when using both mods together. So i decided to rework, optimize (for ACG) and include the most important parts of Starnet AI into ACG and merge it with the already existing ACG AI. As a result the ACG AI was able to cover everything around warfare.

Since Glavius AI mod did not include warfare AI but was rather focusing on economic AI i made several tests checking how both mods would work together. My results were clear:
When using ACG (with the new AI update) together with Glavius AI i was having a much better AI experience. That's why Glavius + ACG were recommended to use together.

Unfortunately Glavius did not update his Glavius Ultimate AI mod after launch of 2.8.0 and because some parts of his code are outdated and would cause issues i can't recommend to use Glavius Ultimate AI together with ACG anymore.

That's why i decided to include economic AI improvements with ACG myself. From now on ACG will have it's own AI covering everything. Should Glavius return sometime in the future then i might include some parts of his mod or make ACG compatible again.



NSC2 is not compatible and there are no plans for a compatibility patch.

There are fundamental differences between ACG and NSC2. With ACG i always tried to think about the consequences of each new content addition => what's the effect on performance/balance/immersiveness etc. my thinking and therefore what ACG covers is going beyond what NSC2 covers and is often highly conflicting with NSC content.

Don't get me wrong. The mod authors of NSC2 have done a great job on their own but i had good reasons to choose SCX (just Carriers + Dreadnoughts) instead of NSC2 for ACG, because in my opinion:

a) NSC2 is not balanced at all
b) ACG implements features like each turret = one weapon. that would be impossible with NSC because they give ships more weapons than turrets
c) ACG carrier and dreadnought ship designs and looks are completely different from NSC2
d) ACG implements several performance improvements. Those adjustments would never be possible with NSC2 due to their ship section design
e) ACG implements features like making all graphical effects visible => that's highly conflicting with NSC2 because due to their ship design it would most likely cause the engine to crash if you use NSC2 together with ACG during huge battles
f) ACG implements different ship behavior than NSC2
... etc.

I hope for your understanding :)


No, this mod will never be split up. This mod is an overhaul project and i had good reasons for working on an overhaul project instead of many tiny modular mods, that claim to be "compatible" with each other.

In my opinion it's sometimes a huge mistake to think that splitting mods up into many tiny parts in order to let users try to combine all of them like they wish. That sounds good in theory and i wished it would work with Stellaris. But it's not working out well in reality - at least for many huge parts of the game incl. the biggest parts that ACG covers.

Why?

Because the code and files of Stellaris are all highly dependent and connected with each other and content that is added to the game by one mod author might not be consistent or balanced with content that another mod author adds even if there is no direct code overlapping.

In addition more than once i saw mod authors add things to their "small compatible modular" mods that had nothing to do with their mod's content mentioned in their description and caused bugs once used with other mods. You would be surprised how often there is code in some mods that has literally no place in it.

And if you thought "oh i might just take those compatibility patches" then be aware that they are often not sufficient if you use a lot of mods and some comp. patches can also cause issues other mods that they are not directly made for or related to.

I started working on this mod because i was tired of having an inconsistent, imbalanced and buggy experience caused by combining a lot of small and modular mods with each other that claim to be "compatible" but are in fact only pseudo-compatible.

I wanted to have more content in the game and i wanted to have a better more immersive graphical experience but at the same time i wanted it to be a full, balanced, consistent, immersive experience without bugs caused by incompatibility. That's what you get with ACG.

You may prefer another gameplay experience or just don't believe me => then try to use other mods than ACG, good luck with combining all those modular and "highly compatible" mods!

On the other hand if you are a bit like me you may like the quality gameplay experience that ACG creates :)


First please read the answer to the previous question since it is highly related to this one.

Regarding this question: no, this mod is an overhaul with all adherent advantages and disadvantages and i had good reasons for deciding to create an overhaul.

Apart from that many non-graphical changes lead to the graphical experience you see in game/videos. Take f.e. the cinematic combat behavior or range or speed or damage adjustments etc. those adjustments were done for graphical + balance purposes both and a separation would lead to a deterioration in quality.

And last but not least: even if i thought it is reasonable and properly feasible i would not have time nor want to maintain that many submods besides compatibility patches.

Hence you can either use it as overhaul or i would recommend to use other mods. I hope for your understanding :)


1. Because the AI was not using them (vanilla stellaris issue) and modders can't make the AI use those defense platforms
2. Because the overall design was bad (unbalanced)

So AI not using such a feature basically leads to a "human-player"-only feature in game which in my opinion is like a cheat. Besides defense stations are bad designed anyway. Most of the time they would get destroyed easily and they aren't worth their investment and take ages to build. Only if you play like full turtle defense then they might be useful.

But it's still not fair to have a tool that the AI does not have or does not use which leaves AI controlled starbases super weak compared to human players if they focused on max turtling. With vanilla starbases are not meaningful in my opinion. ACG is not only about graphics but also about a smooth, balanced and challenging gameplay => therefore i tried to improve AI as much as possible, removed exploits from the game and improved content where i felt it's necessary

When i removed defense stations i knew i had to implement some compensation. So starbases received huge reworks/buffs. They are far more powerful than in vanilla with more hitpoints, shields and armors but they also cost more - it's a fair compensation for not having the option to invest in defense stations. It's simply a better design in my opinion. Offensive modules like gun batteries/strike craft modules etc. have also been improved but also cost more.

I balanced starbases so that if you really want to turtle you can still do that. Even though there are no defense stations anymore i bet that starbases can still be more meaningful with ACG than in vanilla. If you really invest big in starbases then they will become very difficult to break for your enemies But yet they won't be overpowered and unlike vanilla the AI will also use them and defend their borders well. In my opinion this redesign leads to a much better quality and balanced gameplay experience

Usually hangar bays are less powerful in the beginning of the game because many enemy ships are reasonably equipped with PD/Flak weapons. So using gun batteries can be useful in the beginning (or missile batteries if you fully focus on missiles). It's also extremely useful to have at least a small fleet being ready to assist a starbase under attack by a huge enemy fleet => trapping an enemy fleet fighting vs a strong starbase can be a very powerful tactic with ACG.

Later on hangar bays become more and more useful. The more strike craft you have the more powerful they become and the more difficult it gets for anti-strikecraft weapons to deal with them and higher tech tier strike craft also becomes more and more important compared to low tier strike craft

In addition you can also go for the eternal vigilance ascension perk which will unlock the ultimate "eternal citadel" starbase (as compensation for not having additional defense stations) which is an improved version of the citadel - while it only has minor HP and defense buffs compared to a citadel (for balancing reasons) it comes with several ion cannons instead of just one => leading to really big firepower and a worthy ascension perk to consider.

If you fully invest in defense of starbases gun/hangar bay/missile modules and the other starbase defense buildings you will get a much stronger starbase than in vanilla BUT it won't be unbreakable. Very huge fleets can still break such big starbases (because otherwise it would be overpowered) but it will cost a lot of ships and huge losses to take down really well defended starbases and if you have a fleet assisting then it's very likely that you can survive even vs big invasions


Ship speed during combat was decreased for providing a more cinematic and immersive space battle experience to watch and enjoy combined with all the new graphical features. all ship stats (like range, damage, fire rates etc.) have been optimized and balanced for this adjusted speed (and all other changes of ACG).

When you speak about days that ships need to reach the enemy starbase then please keep in mind that one day = one tick = one second in real time. Also in vanilla ships need days to reach a target and space battles also last days and sometimes weeks in in-game time. But yes, battles take longer with ACG and really huge battles can take several minutes in real-time, therefore equaling a few months in game time. On the other hand if you watch some space battle movies or scenes then i think a few minutes for a really huge and decisive space battle is not that much when you want to watch and enjoy it.

And when ships also need longer to reach the enemy fleet/enemy starbase, this has the side-effect that it's now somewhat easier to try to help starbases or fleets that are under attack, which is very difficult in vanilla because it's so fast-paced. Last but not least this is a sci-fi game and as such it's not such a big deal if space battles last days or even months (equaling a few min in real time) from an immersive point of view in my opinion. Finally don't forget that with ACG space battles tend to become more decisive because ships are getting destroyed more likely, because they are disengaging less, while they are also more costly (resources, time) to produce. So you might have less space battles but the ones you have are more important and more fun to watch



Please find attached the most recent legacy versions of ACG and ACG Icons UI mod (sorted chronologically by date):
ACG Legacy 3.12.* pre Cosmic Storms DLC and 3.13.* (13. Sep. 2024)
ACG Legacy 3.11.* pre Machine Age DLC and 3.12.* (25. Jun. 2024)
ACG Legacy 3.11.1 Pre ACG Military Manpower Rework (10. Mar. 2024)
ACG Legacy 3.8.3 Pre Astral Planes 3.10 (5. Dec. 2023)
ACG Legacy 3.7.4 Pre Paragon 3.8 (19. May. 2023)
ACG Legacy 3.6.1 After ACG Content Expansion (12. Apr. 2023)
ACG Legacy 3.6.1 Pre ACG Content Expansion (24. Feb. 2023)
ACG Legacy 3.5.3 (29. Nov. 2022)
ACG Legacy Pre Toxoid 3.4.* (14. Sept. 2022)
ACG Legacy Pre Overlord 3.3.2 (16. May. 2022)
ACG Legacy Pre Aquatics 3.1.2 (18. Nov. 2021)
ACG Legacy 3.0.4 (15. Sept. 2021)
ACG Legacy Pre Nemesis 2.8.1 (15. Apr. 2021)
ACG Legacy 2.8.1 (18. Feb. 2021)
ACG Legacy Pre Necroids 2.7.2 (29. Oct. 2020)
ACG Legacy 2.7.2b (19. Sept. 2020)
ACG Legacy 2.7.2 (05. Sept. 2020)
ACG Legacy 2.6.2 (15. Apr. 2020)
ACG Legacy 2.5.1 (20. Mar. 2020)

ACG Icons UI Legacy 3.1.2 (14. Oct. 2021)


even though i have very detailed excel sheets, i am not eager on uploading them for two reasons

a) i want people to explore ACG on their own without setting a min/max strategy in advance and

b) i don't know about a good format how to show it off because my excel file for weapon and utilities components has more than 46 columns and about 400 rows for weapon components alone and even more rows and columns for utilities components. maybe i am going to add some online excel links sometime in the future but i don't want to promise anything yet.


however i can elaborate on the missile changes of course. missiles have been reworked with ACG and so far i am very happy with the current state of balance. there are 3 kind of missile weapons:

1) swarmer missiles (very evasive and difficult to defend against, medium range, about 50 % shield and 50 % armor penetration, but low damage) => most reasonable against a lot of PD and ships with fighter enemies unless you have clear superiority

2) torpedoes (short range, very high damage, no armor or shield penetration)

3a) standard missiles (very long range, bonus damage against armor, medium damage, no armor or shield penetration)

3b) thunderbolt missiles (very long range, bonus damage against shield, medium damage, no armor or shield penetration)

... and yes the AI will use both types of missiles (standard and thunderbolt, as well as swarmer and torpedoes of course)

all in all: missiles are very strong with ACG. if they are not countered reasonably then you might get a huge advantage by using missiles. however every strategy has it's weakness and since ACG also introduced fighter wings and improved strike-craft generally keep in mind that if your enemy has clear strike-craft superiority and a lot of fighters available to take care of your missiles, then you might face a difficult time. having said that, you could also try to counter such a strategy again f.e. by also using several fighter wings to distract enemy strike-craft, so more of your missiles have a chance to reach their target.


the vanilla formula for calculating the ship disengagement chance is not public and there are several values in game that are influencing the disengagement chance. so it's not like if you want to modify it that you only have to change one value and that's it. besides it seems it's getting calculated by the amount of shots that a ship receives. so it's not a predetermined percentage chance if a ship disengages or not. hence if a ship receives one very high damage shot then it dies most likely but if it receives 100 small low damage shots even at the same time then ships often disengage in vanilla because of how it's being calculated. this leads to several huge imbalance effects in game especially when combined with longer lasting battles. apart from that the ship disengagement chance in vanilla is way too high in vanilla anyway in my opinion. it does not feel immersive nor does it look epic in space battles when so many ships disengage.

having said that please keep in mind that for years there was no ship disengagement chance in stellaris. this feature was just introduced after some time.

the ACG ship disengagement chance had to be set close to zero (some values are zero, some are close to zero) because otherwise it would lead to results where some ships almost always disengage. there is no way to increase the ship disengagement chance without causing issues on other topics. so if you want to use ACG then you will have to accept that the ship disengagement chance is close to zero and it's super rare that a ship disengages. in my opinion that's only making it better though because it's way more immersive and it's something really special if a ship manages to disengage.

would i want to increase ship disengagement chance slightly to make it less rare? yes i would have liked to increase it a little bit more. but like i said before it would lead to bad behavior and imbalance because just a slight increase in some cases leads to ships being able to always escape.

having said that i think this greatly reduced ship disengagement chance also has a lot of advantages.
1. space battles now really feel and look immersive with a lot of explosions instead of so many ships simply being able to disengage during battle
2. space battles last longer with ACG but they are way more decisive. so with ACG you do have less unimportant battles but instead some very important, longer lasting and more epic looking space battles. combined with my other balance adjustments and optimizations where it also takes longer and costs more to build a strong fleet, this leads to very decisive bigger battles instead of having to fight endless unimportant battles.


there are some shipclasses with very clear roles (especially capital ships and supercapital ships) and there are other shipclasses where their role depends on the stage of the game (especially main fleet ships). please do note that ship roles can also evolve over time and change depending on the chosen fitting or intention by the player. so many ship roles are not static but rather dynamic.

I do recommend to explore the ACG content yourself and finding your own usability and roles for your ships without reading the following explanations because i think it can be much more fun to explore the game without knowing everything before you even tried it out.

however there are some people who want to know my opinion and intention for the ship classes offered by ACG so here it comes:

Corvette (Main Ship)

Early: standard/base ship of the line
Early midgame: shares standard/base ship of the line role with destroyer and potentially some cruisers
Late midgame: still standard base ship of the line due to high evasion abilities
Late game: potential supporting role or potential bomber role (requires special lategame technology). Bomber role will decrease tank abilities a lot but corvette bombers are super fast and have super high damage output => very good vs enemy capital or supercapital fleets or for harassing low tier enemy starbases


Destroyer (Main Ship)

Early: first mid range weapons with upgraded tank abilities. Good to combine with corvettes
Early midgame: still standard/base ship of the line together with corvettes and potentially some cruisers
Late midgame: becomes less important due to better evasion abilities of corvettes and better damage abilities of other ships but can still be used for variety in fleet
Late game: becomes less important because other ships are more useful but can still be used for variety in fleet
[note: just like in vanilla destroyers lack significant usability in late midgame to late game. this is known to the authors of ACG but we haven’t found a way to increase it’s usability yet. Maybe we will be able to add some updates for this usability case later on]

Cruiser (Main Ship)

Early: not available
Early midgame: if available then it can be used with a variety of roles. It will add better damage/range/tanking abilities than destroyers to your fleets. It can be used for a first sniper/kiting role, an improved short ranged weaponry brawling role or as a first light carrier role with strike-craft fighter wings. However cruisers do not host any bombers but only fighters strikecraft wings!
Late midgame to Late game: once battleships become available cruisers will evolve into a supporting role. Depending on the choice, this supporting role will be either for short range/strike-craft or long range

Battleship (Main Ship)

Early to Early midgame: not available
Late midgame: the best damage output with the highest tank. Offers the best long range weapons so far but can also field decent medium/short range weaponry abilities. Good to be mixed with cruisers/corvettes and some destroyers
Late game: primarily sniper long range role

Carrier (Capital Ship)

Early to Early midgame not available
Late midgame to Late game: trys to stay out of combat and let their fighters and bombers strikecraft wings do the job. Carriers don’t have strong guns/tanking abilities though. So they are best used in combination with other shipclasses, so they can stay out of combat while other ships “take the heat”

Dreadnought (Capital Ship)

Early to Late midgame: not available
Late game: very strong tanking abilities and very strong short range weapons. The ultimate tank of your fleet. Weak against corvette bomber fleets or against a lot of strike craft or a lot of long range enemy ships. Best used in combination with other capital ships

Titan (Supercapital Ship)

Early to Late midgame: not available
Late game: got one super long range, super high damage weapon, some very short range very high damage weapons and some advanced anti-strike craft weapons. In addition it got aura abilities to either let friendly fleets benefit from positive auras or let enemy fleets suffer from negative auras. No real weakness but it can be countered by a big enemy corvette bomber fleet or huge enemy strike craft priority. Extremely expensive ship though that takes a very long time to build. You will most likely only be able to have a very small amount of those ships during your playthrough.

Supercarrier (Supercapital Ship)

Early to Late midgame: not available
Late game: the best carrier in game with advanced fighters and bombers. This ship is equal to titans but it does not offer the same aura abilities like titans do. Extremely strong from long range. Only Weakness would be huge enemy fighter amounts and/or huge enemy corvette bomber fleets. Extremely expensive ship though that takes a very long time to build. You will most likely only be able to have a very small amount of those ships during your playthrough.

Juggernaut (Mobile Starbase)

Early to Late game: not available
Late game: can build ships and has the strongest tanking abilities in game due to being half ship and half starbase. Got advanced strikecraft wings and even some very strong weapons on-board. It’s like if a titan, a supercarrier and a starbase got a big baby. Very Expensive and you can only build a very limited amount of those ships. Usually you will only see one or two of those ships in your playthrough unless you play your game for a super extended period of time. This ship has no real weakness. However maybe huge corvette bomber fleets and a huge amount of fighter-holding ships can try to take this nightmare down.