Iron sectors got shielded ships with 600 Omicron firepower. Is this normal?

Yes, the shields are normal for now. I'm still considering the balance of iron sectors because people playing the regular vanilla style game are use to seeing everything there without shields. It kinda throws people off to see them shielded there. I'm working on a turret generator overhaul will will rebalance all the weapons in the game. The 600 omicon will change when I get that finished.

Originally posted by SDK:

Yes, the shields are normal for now. I'm still considering the balance of iron sectors because people playing the regular vanilla style game are use to seeing everything there without shields. It kinda throws people off to see them shielded there. I'm working on a turret generator overhaul will will rebalance all the weapons in the game. The 600 omicon will change when I get that finished.

Ok then. Mind adding Neonite to resource depots so we can make our own? It's kinda unfair to have everyone driving around shielded while I am stuck with integrity generators. Guns would also be nice.

I'm looking at putting the player in a starting ship when they begin the game for the first time. It won't be anything super special but it will get the player started.

Skyguard it is not hard to begin the game with stronger enemy. The thing is like most difficulty additions you must change your approach. With this mod you can not enter battle very soon. It is easy to get to nanite. Perhaps look for the QOL map mod that labels the galaxy map so you know just where you are going. Not had a playthrough yet where my friend is not in nanoite inside the first hour. To adjust resource spawns now would if you ask me break the difficulty this mod creates. This would remove the point of using this mod.

I understand that not everyone wants/can change how they approach things, sometimes though not every mod fits every person. I could be wrong but I think SDK is targeting those like me wanting a harder experience. We play on Insane then added "Harder Enemies" By SuperPig (note I do not know if he has it public) That was a modified version of some other difficulty mod he modded to be harder for us.

One of the things we do to get ahead is look for battles you can collect scrap from. The locals kill the enemies but collect none of the loot. So that means you can. Concentrate on as many mining turrets and salvage turret as you can find. Though we found that using guns (when you have them) works better to quickly get the loot out of the wrecks. Fighting is not always the best solution.

If you are thinking that the beginning section is a bit to hard I would reconsider use of this mod. I am not sure if it can safely be removed. I know that when you get closer to the center the enemy gets really brutal. When you get into the center you can not spend more than 5 minutes anywhere without combat.

Originally posted by Whiplash711:

Skyguard it is not hard to begin the game with stronger enemy. The thing is like most difficulty additions you must change your approach. With this mod you can not enter battle very soon. It is easy to get to nanite. Perhaps look for the QOL map mod that labels the galaxy map so you know just where you are going. Not had a playthrough yet where my friend is not in nanoite inside the first hour. To adjust resource spawns now would if you ask me break the difficulty this mod creates. This would remove the point of using this mod.

I understand that not everyone wants/can change how they approach things, sometimes though not every mod fits every person. I could be wrong but I think SDK is targeting those like me wanting a harder experience. We play on Insane then added "Harder Enemies" By SuperPig (note I do not know if he has it public) That was a modified version of some other difficulty mod he modded to be harder for us.

One of the things we do to get ahead is look for battles you can collect scrap from. The locals kill the enemies but collect none of the loot. So that means you can. Concentrate on as many mining turrets and salvage turret as you can find. Though we found that using guns (when you have them) works better to quickly get the loot out of the wrecks. Fighting is not always the best solution.

If you are thinking that the beginning section is a bit to hard I would reconsider use of this mod. I am not sure if it can safely be removed. I know that when you get closer to the center the enemy gets really brutal. When you get into the center you can not spend more than 5 minutes anywhere without combat.

I am a hardcore X fan, I played all of the games starting from the second. I like when the enemies resist, but I don't like when the game is overtly unfair. I don't want to rush to Neonite, I never do that. Because as soon as I am there it takes forever to kill anyone. I stay around the fringe for a while so I can farm ship systems so that I don't have to fight shielded enemies that take forever to kill even with the adequate weaponry.

Originally posted by Skyguard:

I am a hardcore X fan, I played all of the games starting from the second. I like when the enemies resist, but I don't like when the game is overtly unfair. I don't want to rush to Neonite, I never do that. Because as soon as I am there it takes forever to kill anyone. I stay around the fringe for a while so I can farm ship systems so that I don't have to fight shielded enemies that take forever to kill even with the adequate weaponry.

I loved the X series myself, until the abortion of a game called Rebirth lol.

I'm always open to balance suggestions. I would try the new update out and see if you notice a difference in the Pirates. They should still be a bit of a task but nothing like they were before now.

I do intend to keep shielded ships in the starting area, but as a balance to that I've pushed back the harder waves of Xsotan to tritium and above to allow players to still get those initial resources for shields before going into the thick of things. This was to make Naonite more valuable to players in the game because honestly, it becomes just another source of income after you get past it.

I 100% intentionally made the game in all difficulty levels make you decide to either fight or run. The scale which I try and make the players do that is different for each difficulty level. The stations spawn with weapons now so you're not as dependant on the sector guard so you have more options for shelter, smartly fighting them, etc...

That being said, I normally only test the changes on Insane mode so i'm generally very receptive of feedback for lower difficulty balance changes and I will think over changes to Insane mode for a while before I consider using them or not.

So I thought I was running this mod for a while, was subbed, but found out that it wasn't activated in game... UGH. Activated it, but my save still wouldn't load the mod, and had to manually add it to the modconfig.lua. Good thing I'm smart with computers..

Anyway, finally got this mod running. I'm seeing new stations and ships and everything, looks great. BUT things take far too long to die. I went to a rando pirate sector. Not too many pirates, just a fair amount. Ghad dang it takes forever. Once I do finally take down the shields, the hull takes even longer to whittle down. I think they're using lots of integrity field gens? Finally blows up without me ever seeing a single block get removed.

And this is all on expert difficulty, just fyi.

So my final thoughts: Fun combat has an expiration time, and this mod is passing it. It shouldn't take this long to clear a sector, let alone a single ship. Also, due to integrity fields (which I just plain don't like in this game, bad game design imo) you never see satisfying explosions and block destruction, so everything becomes simple healthbars. I love tearing ships apart, but this mod removes that. I get that these ships are designed well (with lots of 'tegridy) but that seems to be a problem. The flimsy design we see in vanilla-spawned ships allows for parts to fly off easily, and over the years of playing this game, the devs have modified and balanced their ship-spawning code very well it seems. Perhaps instead of adding pre-built ships and stations, maybe expand upon the generation code? Or simply remove/replace the integrity fields, I dunno.

There's my opinions. I hope I helped.

Originally posted by Alb:

So I thought I was running this mod for a while, was subbed, but found out that it wasn't activated in game... UGH. Activated it, but my save still wouldn't load the mod, and had to manually add it to the modconfig.lua. Good thing I'm smart with computers..

Anyway, finally got this mod running. I'm seeing new stations and ships and everything, looks great. BUT things take far too long to die. I went to a rando pirate sector. Not too many pirates, just a fair amount. Ghad dang it takes forever. Once I do finally take down the shields, the hull takes even longer to whittle down. I think they're using lots of integrity field gens? Finally blows up without me ever seeing a single block get removed.

And this is all on expert difficulty, just fyi.

So my final thoughts: Fun combat has an expiration time, and this mod is passing it. It shouldn't take this long to clear a sector, let alone a single ship. Also, due to integrity fields (which I just plain don't like in this game, bad game design imo) you never see satisfying explosions and block destruction, so everything becomes simple healthbars. I love tearing ships apart, but this mod removes that. I get that these ships are designed well (with lots of 'tegridy) but that seems to be a problem. The flimsy design we see in vanilla-spawned ships allows for parts to fly off easily, and over the years of playing this game, the devs have modified and balanced their ship-spawning code very well it seems. Perhaps instead of adding pre-built ships and stations, maybe expand upon the generation code? Or simply remove/replace the integrity fields, I dunno.

There's my opinions. I hope I helped.

Honestly, I hate that I can't blow off blocks too, but I'd rather it be like that than having to go catching my turrets all across the sector. Bosses like the AI would just blow off all of your guns and that be it.

I created this to solve the Block Physics issue:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2257186322

I'm also developing a weapons mod which will be overhauling weapons for the game. That will balance out the larger ships and stations.

Originally posted by SDK:

I'm looking at putting the player in a starting ship when they begin the game for the first time. It won't be anything super special but it will get the player started.

Sorry for meddling, but if you're still looking for it - I've got multiplayer ready solution for that, in files "galaxy/server.lua" and "player/init.lua", if you wish to grab some code. ( But from your coding practice, I doubt you need that )

Since you're already working on weapons ( this game really needs that ), the only thing left to say is - thank you. You're making an awesome job here. Keep it up, and good luck.

Yeah I'm down to look at it if you don't mind passing it to me. My Discord name is Shadow Doctor K#2203 or you can ping me in the avorion discord.

A quick question regarding your pending turret changes - will this break or prevent other turret mods from working?

No clue, I'm still building it.