Tryptic's Mod now under construction

posted on February 2nd, 2014, 11:44 pm

I am pleased to announce the beginning of a new mod, designed to hold us over until 4.0 arrives by tweaking the balance of many ships and adding a handful of unusual mechanics. Naturally I started with the Romulan race and I'm currently working on the Borg. The most common ships like the leahval I left untouched, but there are a number of ships that are rarely used for various reasons, often because players can simply do better with the core set of ships.

My goal for the Romulans was to make a warbird start more viable, as well as bolstering their midgame and allowing them to transition up from staryard to warbird yard. In general, I made warbirds stronger in certain roles but harder to spam. I also reduced the cost of refits built directly from the yard but increased their build time. Finally I modified their turrets so they can be decommissioned for their full mineral price, which means that with prefine components they can be built and decommed indefinitely.

For the Borg smaller ships, I have made the regen module cost more and grant much higher passive regeneration to allow them to return to combat more quickly. Once again I'm leaving the more common ship configurations mostly untouched and working to make the less common ships more distinct. When I get to cubes I want to make some of them cheaper than the current cubes but weaker, so they can be used more often. Also, Assimilate avatar will be a little better at fighting with conventional weapons, hopefully while still capturing ships. Full blue beam assimilators have their supply cost greatly increased to limit the exclusive spamming of these ships.

If you have any ideas for this mod, things you'd like to see changed or ideas you want me to try out you can post them here or catch me on teamspeak sometime. I don't have as many plans for the other races as I do for Romulans and Borg, but I will at least make the special mixed tech ships more available for example. The goal isn't to be perfectly balanced but to make it interesting again for people who feel like they've played every good strategy there is. At least while we wait for V4 to descend in all its glory

Also, I am using only mechanics that are easy to change, based on the way the game is coded. Things that are easy to change include ship hitpoints, weapon rate of fire, build costs and tech requirements, and modifying existing specials. Things that are harder to change include weapon damage, modifying passives, and adding new special abilities.

posted on February 4th, 2014, 8:31 am

Things to at least consider Fed-side...

• Sabres could probably stand to become a little harder to spam. Increased build time, cost, cost of special research all could sort that.
• Nova has several options -- make it sturdier to reflect being a Chassis 2 ship; swap tech tree locations with the Intrepid; or the supply cost on the special should be removed along with the supply bonus granted at the officer ranks.
• Up the supply cost for building Starfleet Command to 100 or 125. Make the cooldown on Warp-In 300 seconds.
• If at all possible, make Galaxy and Ambassador take 2 warp-in slots.
• Canaveral and Norway could do with help, but no idea what.
• Chassis research could be cheaper, but slower; double the time in return for reducing the cost by 1/3
• Avalon should be cheaper on Supply. 50 is prohibitive -- a Risner Fed can get far more mileage from three Akiras.

posted on February 4th, 2014, 5:53 pm

waw, nova i agree...

not a thing more... , with your changes fed loose every time...

this changes should be as far from start of the game as posible. further in the techtree - the better.

i thing is important to save initial balance of races. but tweaks middle or late game aspects.

posted on February 5th, 2014, 12:09 am

I definitely like some of these ideas, but I'm not sure about others. Let's talk

Things to at least consider Fed-side...

• Sabres could probably stand to become a little harder to spam. Increased build time, cost, cost of special research all could sort that.
  I don't know, sabers aren't all that good unless you spam them. I could perhaps increase their cost, then decrease their speed/increase their damage when Hyper Impulse Drive is off, so they can switch between mobility and firepower? The problem is that it would be difficult to toggle a whole fleet of them since they are always replaceweaponing...
• Nova has several options -- make it sturdier to reflect being a Chassis 2 ship; swap tech tree locations with the Intrepid; or the supply cost on the special should be removed along with the supply bonus granted at the officer ranks.
  I won't touch the monsoon or intrepid since they're such common ships and so much balance depends on them. But I could perhaps give the nova something special...like make the torpedoes fired by the special ability dogfight range and high damage... or low damage and artillery range
• Up the supply cost for building Starfleet Command to 100 or 125. Make the cooldown on Warp-In 300 seconds.
  Do you guys really want this? Most of my changes so far have been minor buffs, I haven't nerfed anything yet. But I will consider it.
• If at all possible, make Galaxy and Ambassador take 2 warp-in slots.
  I can do that, but they should get something in return. Maybe they could rank up faster?
• Canaveral and Norway could do with help, but no idea what.
  I agree, and I also don't know what
• Chassis research could be cheaper, but slower; double the time in return for reducing the cost by 1/3
  This, definitely. I think I better make Level 3 require the Eraudi yard so that players can't start on it super early to offset that increased research time.
• Avalon should be cheaper on Supply. 50 is prohibitive -- a Risner Fed can get far more mileage from three Akiras.
  On the one hand, the supply cost is important since those fighters are so useful. On the other hand, the B5 is significantly cheaper and has about the same effectiveness...how would you feel about a reduced supply cost and an increased Tritanium cost? The feds tend to have extra Tri anyway.

posted on February 5th, 2014, 5:46 am

Thanks for the response. Counter-responses below in orange, and at the bottom are a couple of new ideas.

I definitely like some of these ideas, but I'm not sure about others. Let's talk

Things to at least consider Fed-side...

• Sabres could probably stand to become a little harder to spam. Increased build time, cost, cost of special research all could sort that.
  I don't know, sabers aren't all that good unless you spam them. I could perhaps increase their cost, then decrease their speed/increase their damage when Hyper Impulse Drive is off, so they can switch between mobility and firepower? The problem is that it would be difficult to toggle a whole fleet of them since they are always replaceweaponing...
  The suggestion is based on an assertion that Dominus has made several times, that Sabre spam from two yards is too strong. I don't think all of those should be implemented, just something that would slow it down, make it pricey, or make it a bit harder to manage. Of the options, slowing it down is probably the easiest, perhaps 5 to 10 seconds extra build time.
• Nova has several options -- make it sturdier to reflect being a Chassis 2 ship; swap tech tree locations with the Intrepid; or the supply cost on the special should be removed along with the supply bonus granted at the officer ranks.
  I won't touch the monsoon or intrepid since they're such common ships and so much balance depends on them. But I could perhaps give the nova something special...like make the torpedoes fired by the special ability dogfight range and high damage... or low damage and artillery range
  The Nova is a hot mess. Way too fragile for the fleet work expected at Chassis 2, and weaponry unsuited for raiding. At the very least bump its hit points in exchange for a cost increase. Really, it should have been Mayson's Support ship and the Norway a regular Cruiser; correcting that is, I suspect, outside the scope of the mod.
• Up the supply cost for building Starfleet Command to 100 or 125. Make the cooldown on Warp-In 300 seconds.
  Do you guys really want this? Most of my changes so far have been minor buffs, I haven't nerfed anything yet. But I will consider it.
  Warp-in is a ludicrously good ability. If you want to encourage Fed players to explore different strategies, it needs to take a back seat.
• If at all possible, make Galaxy and Ambassador take 2 warp-in slots.
  I can do that, but they should get something in return. Maybe they could rank up faster?
  Perhaps for the Ambassador, but the Galaxy really doesn't need it. Those ships are already the star prizes of the standard warp-in, and the slot consumption should reflect that.
• Canaveral and Norway could do with help, but no idea what.
  I agree, and I also don't know what
  If it wasn't outside the scope of the mod, I'd say Norway should get a torpedo as a straight-up addition. It's strongest theme is as an assault vessel that's good against battleships and stations, yet it lacks the definitive weapon against those classes.
  
  Canaveral isn't actively bad, but its abilities are finicky to use. EC3M especially is a trap, as it kills the ship's real abilities in return for insufficient defence to stay alive.
• Chassis research could be cheaper, but slower; double the time in return for reducing the cost by 1/3
  This, definitely. I think I better make Level 3 require the Eraudi yard so that players can't start on it super early to offset that increased research time.
  I'm glad you agree in principle, and I agree with the Eraudi requirement for Chassis 3.
• Avalon should be cheaper on Supply. 50 is prohibitive -- a Risner Fed can get far more mileage from three Akiras.
  On the one hand, the supply cost is important since those fighters are so useful. On the other hand, the B5 is significantly cheaper and has about the same effectiveness...how would you feel about a reduced supply cost and an increased Tritanium cost? The feds tend to have extra Tri anyway.
  Increased Tritanium cost seems reasonable compensation.

And now a couple of new suggestions...

• The Yoyodyne Nebula could use its Officer boost to, y'know, actually be a boost. Making the pop-gun phaser fire twice for a whole 1 point more damage overall (ie 2x 4 rather than 1x 7) is closer to being a net nerf. The Supply cost of the special should be looked at, too. The ship gives up 90% of its firepower for the duration, and without researching the proximity- and tricolbalt-torp specials you can only use the Precise Volley ability, and that only once. Doesn't seem a good deal for 5 supply.
• The Teutoborg could probably stand having its warp-in slots reduced to 3.

posted on February 5th, 2014, 7:02 am

• Sabres
  A build time increase sounds fine. I'll still be looking for some other advantage to give them though...
  
• Nova
  I think I'm leaning toward some sort of large offense boost, with their defense still high enough that Intrepids and Monsoons will tank for them, so they can be sprinkled into a fleet. Sort of the counterpart to the slow, defensive Akira
  
• Starfleet Command
  I would like to make other strategies viable by buffing them rather than nerfing SFC, but for the purpose of this mod I may raise the supply cost like you suggested. Or here's an idea, when ships rank up they always start at zero experience right? What if I made all of the warpins grant 100 experience so that any ship that kills one will get a rank? We can say that they were well-known ships of the Federation and killing one brings honor to your crew
  
• Norway
  That's an interesting idea about the Norway. I could add a launcher fairly easy, the only difficulty is that I can't create brand new ordinance files. So in order to get the right passives, I'd need to steal a torpedo from a compatible ship, in this case a short-ranged support ship. Perhaps I could use the torpedo from the Fed mixed-tech leahval: that would have the side-effect of the launcher getting Single Stage Energy conduits as well, as well as a handful of other inconsistencies but it would be mostly correct for our purposes.
  
• The Yoyodyne Nebula
  I hadn't noticed about the rankup, thanks for pointing that out. I agree that the special is a bit of a pain...and I just got an awesome idea I think I'll talk about it more once I know whether it's possible or not
  
• The Teutoborg could probably stand having its warp-in slots reduced to 3.
  I dunno, do you remember when it first came out and was bugged to fire an infinite stream of torpedoes? That was pretty fun
  But actually, if my idea for the Yoyodyne works, it would also be good for the Teuto. So I'll get back to you on that one too.

posted on February 7th, 2014, 2:52 am

As an aside, there may be some ideas from this thread from two years ago that might be useful. Just a shame that mod didn't go anywhere as it would have been in development for 18 months by this point.

posted on February 7th, 2014, 3:38 am

Dude, I never saw that thread. Those guys just ganged up and forum raped him for trying to help out with the community. Makes me a bit nervous about trying to do the same thing...what if I offend someone?

Still, it's encouraging to see that people at least HAD an interest in doing this, and when I talked to Dom recently he approved of the idea, although naturally the devs won't be diverting any of their time from V4. I don't think any of us wants that

Now after talking to Drone971 and a few others, I've decided not to wait any longer than I have to before I get this out to you guys. So I'll be releasing Version 1 tomorrow afternoon (Central time -6, that's evening in Europe I guess) with only the Romulan and Borg factions modified, and I'll continue to tweak them slightly as I work on the others. We already have a handful of guys (3-6) who said they would show up, and I'll be recording since it may not be fair for me to be the only one playing who knows all the changes on day 1 By the end of the weekend I'll have started a second thread listing every change I've made in detail. Look forward to playing with you guys, I'm just finishing up the new tooltips for the Cube and getting pretty excited to see what people think




nanite spheres

posted on February 7th, 2014, 3:07 pm

He didn't get "forum raped" without a reason, he received the echo from what he has started. And that was actually a mild echo.


Just keep going Tryptic. I doubt you offend anyone by you being you
I'm really curious what your first changelog will look like.