[MOD] Variety and Rebalance Overhaul (VRO) 4.x

[Shuulo]

IIRC, Q is from the X-Rebirth ship mod.

XRshipack changes other factions and Xenons jobs, increasing number of ships, with some bad luck it can hurt other factions, its not VRO thing.
VRO is tested for each major patch with 3-5 overnight SETA games (usually 2 in-game days) to see how universe develops to make sure its stable, any major mod like XRshipack can change this.

[Newinger]

IIRC, Q is from the X-Rebirth ship mod.

XRshipack changes other factions and Xenons jobs, increasing number of ships, with some bad luck it can hurt other factions, its not VRO thing.
VRO is tested for each major patch with 3-5 overnight SETA games (usually 2 in-game days) to see how universe develops to make sure its stable, any major mod like XRshipack can change this.

Yes, I know. Currently using an unmodded X4. I was just posting in regard of Halpog's post and your answer to it, to give a hint from where the Q might come.

[Halpog]

ok, i will take a look in this , because this are the only 2 mods i use after all, nothing else. i thought the ship pack is from VRO ( i mean belongs to vro )...
anyway thnx for the hint

[Shuulo]

ok, i will take a look in this , because this are the only 2 mods i use after all, nothing else. i thought the ship pack is from VRO ( i mean belongs to vro )...
anyway thnx for the hint

i can see where that confusion can come from, but XRshippack is made by different person and he balanced it for VRO with his patch as he sees fit, I have no influence on this.

[Halpog]

ok, i will take a look in this , because this are the only 2 mods i use after all, nothing else. i thought the ship pack is from VRO ( i mean belongs to vro )...
anyway thnx for the hint

i can see where that confusion can come from, but XRshippack is made by different person and he balanced it for VRO with his patch as he sees fit, I have no influence on this.

yeah, u where completly right^^ the OP xejon came from XR ship pack...i removed it and testet it within 2 nights of sinza^^
iam sorry that i blamed VRO in the first

[Godis]

VRO also edits Xenon ships, right? I suppose the Xenon ships nerf mod, that reduces Xenon ships hulls and shields is incompatible then?

[Scoob]

Hey Shuulo,

I've been playing a Vanilla game the past few days to help out during the Beta - my first time in a while - and I've noticed something interesting regarding the balance of Capital Ship shields in VRO vs. Vanilla.

In my current vanilla game, I gained my usual mixed batch of captured ships - several Corvettes, some Frigates (aka Corvettes with S-Class landing pads) and a couple of fighters - nothing special. Each of these is equipped with pretty low-end weapons, as I've not unlocked the better stuff yet. Nothing unusual here, however, what got me thinking about VRO's balance was when I started engaging Capital ships with the intent on boarding them.

In VRO this plays out thus:

- I'd use my personal ship - usually a Corvette of some kind - to manually neuter the Capital ship. I'd go for SCA Behemoths and Phoenix.
- In quite short order the target ships Engines are disabled and I'm taking out turrets.
- With the turrets gone, I bring down the targets shields, if they're not down already, and chip away at the hull.
- I keep at this for a while, forcing as many of the Crew - especially any Marines - to bail.
- Only now to I bring in my Marine-carrying ships and commence boarding.

In vanilla it plays out like this:

- I'd use my personal ship - usually a Corvette of some kind - to manually neuter the Capital ship. I'd go for SCA Behemoths and Phoenix, as before.
- In quite short order the target ships Engines are disabled and I'm taking out turrets.
- With the turrets gone, I start to try to bring down the shields, and this is where things go very differently.
- Using my personal ship with the same basic equivalent weapons I have early on in my VRO game, I simply cannot do enough damage to beat the shields recharge rate.
- I bring in additional ships to help - namely my Boarding squad of three Minotaur Raider Corvettes - and I can still barely keep ahead of the shield's recharge.
- I bring in even more ships, multiple Corvettes, a Frigate and a couple of fighters. Only now am I slowly able to bring down the target's Shields more quickly than they recharge, but it's still slow.
- Capital Ships, particularly the Phoenix over the Behemoth due to its extra main shield, are REALLY resistant to large amounts of lower-tier S and M-Class weapons. I actually really like this.

In essence, Capital Ships in vanilla are a far tougher target for boarding or killing than they are in VRO when the player only has lighter weapons at their disposal. Sure, I'm not bringing the right tools (weapons) to the party, and things would likely go far quicker with Plasma weapons and turrets on my Corvettes and Frigates, as well as Plasma on the Fighters. However, it's how the same equivalent low-level weapons in VRO are all I need to crack open a Capital ship alone, whereas it takes a lot more effort in Vanilla.

With this in mind, I wonder how VRO would play out with increased shield recharge for L and XL shields? The feeling that these larger ships can basically shrug off attacks by many lighter - primarily anti-fighter / Corvette - weapons is pretty cool I thought.

Obviously your mod your rules, but I was really surprised how things played out here, and how much I enjoyed needing to bring a mixed fleet of lightly-equipped ships to bring down this Phoenix, and the Behemoth before it. While I neutered it fairly easily, the survivability of Capital Ships in Vanilla impressed me. Sure, I'd still win, but there's time for other ships to come to their aid - which is nice when it's a player Capital Ship that's assaulted by lighter vessels.

There was a time when VRO's Capital Ships felt like total tanks against lighter weapons vs. vanilla, but vanilla has been much improved in this regard.

What do you think?

Scoob.

[Shuulo]

Hey Shuulo,

Snip
Scoob.

I was thinking about it as well.
The thing is, in vro fighter shields do not have recharge delay, and so making anti- fighter weapons do less damage will make fighter fights more prolonged, though maybe it's not a bad thing either.
Or, how do you feel if shield recharge delay will be back for small shields? But like much shorter delay than vanilla. E.g. 3 sec for mk1, 2 sec for mk2 and 1 sec for mk3 shields (in general)?
Increasing shield regen for capitals is a bit more difficult as they tend to be more survivable in oos with this, to the level of being invincible unless overwhelmed.
Sure this needs more tests.

[Shuulo]

VRO also edits Xenon ships, right? I suppose the Xenon ships nerf mod, that reduces Xenon ships hulls and shields is incompatible then?

Have no idea how it's implemented, but yes, most probably it's not compatible. Xenon balance in vro is completly different from vanilla though.

[Scoob]

I was thinking about it as well.
The thing is, in vro fighter shields do not have recharge delay, and so making anti- fighter weapons do less damage will make fighter fights more prolonged, though maybe it's not a bad thing either.
Or, how do you feel if shield recharge delay will be back for small shields? But like much shorter delay than vanilla. E.g. 3 sec for mk1, 2 sec for mk2 and 1 sec for mk3 shields (in general)?
Increasing shield regen for capitals is a bit more difficult as they tend to be more survivable in oos with this, to the level of being invincible unless overwhelmed.
Sure this needs more tests.

I'm personally not a fan of shield recharge delay and balance in general for lighter anti-fighter weapons seems great in VRO, except when it lets me bring down a Capital Ship's shields a little too easily. With the changes 4.0 brings to OOS combat, would an improved L and XL-Class Shield recharge rate still be as problematic OOS?

When testing this purely in-sector, it does seem to be all about that L and XL-Class Shield recharge rate. During my observations of regular Fighter vs. Capital Ship OOS, in VRO groups of fighters seems to quite readily be able to wear down the larger vessel's shields, so perhaps there's some room for recharge improvement without making them too powerful OOS?

I guess, once 4.0 is released, playing around with some revised values and seeing how things play out in light of the new OOS combat changes is as good a place to start as any?

Thought: Perhaps increase recharge of L and XL-Class shields, keep lighter Fighter / Corvette weapons the same but buff the heavier weapons that are intended to be used against larger ships? In Sector these weapons would struggle to hit faster moving targets, assuming a slower shot-speed, so are only really useful vs. big / slow ships. Plus OOS seems to work out the likelihood of a shot missing fairly well now, so balance might be maintained.

Something to tinker with. I'd be happy to play test any proposed tweaks you make, and see how they play out in my VRO game.

Scoob.

[Shuulo]

This will be released on steam and Nexus few minutes before COH drops, so you can play VRO from the start with new DLC.

Patch 3.0
- VRO is now updated to COH DLC and it now REQUIRED it to work. All Terran equipment and ships were rebalanced for VRO.
- Mod is now updated for 4.0 systems, including reworked OOS calc etc.
- Split are getting new Viper missile frigate, with unique launchers and “Serpent nest” swarm missiles.
- Terrans are getting new light carrier Chiba.
- Terrans are getting new weapons – Electro-Magnetic Plasma Cannon, Graviton Cannon, Starburst Shockwave cannon, Point Singularity Projector. Note that Terran heavy weapons can be used only by Terran ships.
- All internal generators will be visible in UI and in wharf/shipyard that makes it much clear how they work and what exact benefits ships get from it. This will be mandatory equipment and ship cannot be ordered/ bought without it.
- Light and Heavy weapons will be clearly separated in UI now, light ones are called “Standard” and heavy – “High-powered”.
- S engines thrust was reduced by 10%, M engines by 5%, ships will still be faster than in vanilla. “No highways” mod is still recommended.
- Shield and regeneration values were a bit rebalanced, now capital ships have higher regens that makes them feel more robust. Most heavy weapons received boost to their shield damage to counter this slightly, so weapon choice is now more important depending on the targets you plan to face.
- Missile costs reworked depending more on their damage-per-capacity.
- All X3 ships, that VRO adds, received texture update and it’s now possible to use paint mods on them.
- Ion weapons will now slow down targets they hit. Weapons like Concussion generators will now push targets slightly.
- Xenon U is now not active on game start and will appear only after first 60 hours in the game.
- Numerous small fixes and balance tweaks.
- VRO wiki is updated, list of recommended mods have changed slightly, please revisit.

[bl3ek]

Thanks for V3.0. Your work is very much appreciated!

[Scoob]

Nice

Scoob.

[Starman01]

Thank you so much ! I had a hope that you manage to put it out to the same time, and you really did. You are awesome

[Scoob]

Hey Shuulo,

Do your Map Icon changes remove the "Squad Leader Icon enlargement" feature of 4.0? If so, THANK YOU! I tested my in-progress vanilla game with 4.0 + CoH and big icons were still a thing. In my fresh VRO (and other mods) start though, back to normal sized Map Icons. So nice!

Scoob.

[Sam97531]

I assume you haven't modified the Terran ships much yet if at all? The Kali, Gladius, etc dont seem to be as boosted compared to the others from vanilla (e.g. Their speed and such)

[Scoob]

Query regarding Terran Shield pricing...

I notice that the shields appropriate for S-Class ships are typically priced around the following levels:

Mk1 @ 2,500cr
Mk2 @ 21,806cr
Mk3 @ 110k cr

Considering the marginal improvement in both overall strength and recharge, they cost a LOT more due to their requirement of a lot more component materials. Is this by design or an oversight? I've never seen such a cost discrepancy before between shield marks.

Scoob.

[Shuulo]

Query regarding Terran Shield pricing...

I notice that the shields appropriate for S-Class ships are typically priced around the following levels:

Mk1 @ 2,500cr
Mk2 @ 21,806cr
Mk3 @ 110k cr

Considering the marginal improvement in both overall strength and recharge, they cost a LOT more due to their requirement of a lot more component materials. Is this by design or an oversight? I've never seen such a cost discrepancy before between shield marks.

Scoob.

this was not changed really

I assume you haven't modified the Terran ships much yet if at all? The Kali, Gladius, etc dont seem to be as boosted compared to the others from vanilla (e.g. Their speed and such)

Terran ships are quite slow, mostly due to Terrans having engines with worst forward thrust (though highest reverse thrust making their ships stop on a dime). Most important thing for Terrans are internal generators, they are usually much better than of other factions.

[Shuulo]

Patch 3.0.1
- slightly modified OOS calc to improve small ships surviveability
- fixed Pioneers starting ship lacking internal generator
- updated Russian translation
- added back functionality to provide encyclopedia entries for internal generator on new game (will require a save-load cycle on ongoing saves to work)

[Scoob]

Thanks for the update, I'll apply it for my next session.

I'm currently quite liking the balance of Terran ships - I did a fresh start, the Cadet one I think it's called - and it's fun.

Edit: Tell ya what, the "Wartime Economics" battle with the Xenon is pretty darn epic with VRO

Scoob.