ShockMeSane

I realize your intentions are good, but there is no human way to balance a game of even this scale in a week with less than 5 testers Misten's original was actually fairly well balanced for space combat, though I would say the Empire probably had an upper hand once the limitless fighter spawns came in (if you played with the right tactic, which was just maxing out on Victories, standing back and beating people to hell with 16 TIE-Fighter squadrons). Anyways, I don't even care about the ground combat, just auto-resolve it when I can even be bothered to play GC, which is totally pointless because no matter how much it cheats, its so easy to defeat massive enemy fleets with a tiny force taking no casualties that it isnt even funny Best of luck to you though.

Yea, unfortunately 3 Tartans can take out an almost limitless amount of Fighters if they maximize firepower. You can definitely take out a hanger with your Y-Wings before they are all destroyed, but against a human player, you'd have to have more than 5 Squads of Y-Wings to take out a 2nd.

I've often wondered how the game would play if Fighters didn't cost population. I think I'll try it out, might actually use fighters then

Oh, and Necro, in response to a few of your points. I don't think Misten really messed with the health of the Marauder/Broadside, so they are quite fragile, especially for their cost in Skirmish. They are quite awesome at taking out fighters or damaging the Starbase if they get off a good barrage, but a Calamari/ISD can literally destroy one in 2 volleys, which is about 6 seconds, and from a considerable distance. And the Proton Torpedoes on the X-Wings are largely cosmetic. They do increase their damage output, but they do not penetrate shields or deal nearly the amount of damage that Y-Wing/TIE Bomber Torpedoes do. Just FYI, and the same goes for TIE Bombers and A-Wings concussion missles.

Just to mess around, I tripled the (game default) health on all ship hardpoints, lowered the accuracy a bit against Corvettes on the big guns (but not near as inaccurate as they originally were) and bumped their health a bit, and I found I really liked the result. Tripling from all bases (though I didn't triple Vets, they only got like an additional 150 shields/hull). I had to raise fighter damage and health a bit to keep them useful, but overall I really liked the feel of it. I also raised the pop. cap to 33 empire/40 rebellion, which was interesting, though I'm not sure how much that number actually needed adjusting in the first place! A change (that I made for testing) I definitely didn't like was increasing the shield recharge rate to 1.5 sec from 3. I messed around with the number, and felt like 2.5-3 is probably the most "realistic" feeling. I actually notice the Ion Cannons doing what you mentioned now, and am glad they aren't totally worthless . I think one change that definitely needs to go into your next version is to increase Starbase hardpoint health to reflect how much more powerful capital ships are. Me and a buddy tried it out at 900 per standard hardpoint and 1800 on the shield generator, and found that made a level 5 starbase fairly epic, but still destructable fairly quickly by 3 Capital Ships if left undefended. The last change that you might consider that I made and really, really liked, was increasing the speed of units across the board. Not a huge amount, but I think I set A-Wings as the fastest unit at about 5.4, and scaled it from there with X-Wings and TIE Fighters being equal in speed sheerly for balance issues (X-Wings still outrun them vastly with foils locked). The most important speed changes were to the larger ships. I personally freaking hate how slow and unmanueverable they are, so I basically just increased their speed AND manueverability by .4 across the board. Lastly, in line with trying to make Corvettes not suck again, and in light of the movement speed increases, I changed the Vets back to their original speed. Anyways we are having a great time playing it this way. I can see how some people might prefer the Capital Ships to be huge lumbering giants that can barely turn, but with all the pathing issues they have, we decided that they simply had to be more maneuverable, because if you have 3 in close proximity to an asteroid field and are trying to manuever around it with base move/manuever speeds... it is a freaking traffic jam nightmare on those Star Destroyers. I'll also say that even with .4 more speed and manueverability, they are still quite a bit slower and less manueverable than any other ship, but it definitely helps with some of those pathing issues.

Misten, I think the issue with the capital ships atm, is that the increase in hull strength does not scale. For example, a Star Destroyers hull was increased to 1000 per hardpoint, from 350, a 286% increase. Whereas Acclamators went from 160 to 250, only 156% increased. Especially considering the larger guns ability to hit smaller ships, I definitely see the issue. Unfortunately, building any ship other than Star Destroyer/Mon Cal is a non-viable option. Their cost either needs to be DRASTICALLY increased, or other ships ought to be brought into line. I know you mentioned increasing their costs already, so I'm mostly typing this for my own benefit Personally, I'd prefer a more happy medium, with the smaller ships-of-the-line getting a bit more of a boost, and the larger ones costing more.

Oh cool, never knew

Just so you know Necro, in the 1.1 realism mod, the ion cannon still disables all ships in one hit. It simply does not disable the space station in one hit unless the shields are at about 50%. It really wasn't much of a change. I've played it quite a bit, and although fun, its pointless on Galactic Conquest vs the AI because Corvettes are a little underpowered in it, and you know how the AI loves to build vetsx1billion. Skirmish multiplayer vs friends is fun though, we just don't use the superweapons.

Yea, other than the obvious graphical and UI issues, Rebellion had one other major flaw going for it. It was just too overwhelming for most of the gaming audience. I remember my friend and I both bought the game, but he wasn't a super-hardcore strategy fan. I still remember him telling me how he quit the game when a rebel fleet came to one of his undefended planets, bombarded all the life off of it, and proceeded to invade it with 1 unit. Well, for some reason (even though using the Death Star made you less popular galaxy-wide), bombing all installations and units off of a planet was actually an inspiritation to the rest of a sector in that game, and he ended up having like 2 planets going into revolt and another flat out changing sides. He quit and never played again, and who could blame him. The game was a little too unforgiving to the new-comer, even on easy. I went on to play it quite a bit, but its still a far cry from being as good as even Master of Orion 2 in my book I do agree that a with Darth that his recipe would be one for huge success, if only someone would do it!

Changing hyperspace speeds is highly relative, unfortunately. The only time I'd want them slower is in multiplayer, and even then, not much slower. I totally forgot about the Acclamator nose thing, meant to bring it up, glad someone else noticed. After further testing, I came up with a list of observations/suggestions. It is your mod, so I won't take it personally if you completely blow all this off. 1) I think you will either need to lower the cost, population value, or slightly increase the health of Corvettes. They just aren't worth building right now. They die way too fast if your opponent has 3 or more VSDs/Assault Frigates. My personal reccomendation would be to slightly increase the inaccuracy of the large weapons against them to a more moderate value, though there are many ways you could handle it. They were certainly too difficult for large ships to hit in the release version, but I feel they are just a little TOO frail, now. 2) Assault Frigates and VSDs feel too weak in comparison to ISDs and MCs now. I realize you probably did a static increase accross the board, but Assault Frigates and VSDs go down very, very quickly compared to their larger counterparts. I would either increase the costs of the two capital ships (on campaign as well, if you don't mind), OR slightly (maybe 10% each), increase their hull and shields. 3) This is a kind of off the wall suggestion, but it has to do with Ion Cannons. The ship mounted ones, that is. Right now, I feel like they just don't have much of a place in the game. They are easily the least important hardpoints on any ship, and I feel the Assault Frigate is nicely boosted by not having any. I'm not sure if its possible, but if you could increase the damage they do to shields, and slightly decrease the amount turbolasers do (not by much), AND upped shield regeneration considerably accross the board, I think the gameplay might be a bit more interesting. As it is now, a Nebulon-B can keep a Star Destroyers shields from ever regenerating with its 1 Turbolaser and 2 regular lasers. I think a small shield strength boost, coupled with a 25-30% shield regeneration boost (For all ships Frigate+) might make Ion Cannons significantly more desireable. Because they cannot disable things as they are meant to, all they do is damage shields, which collapse in most cases with 10 seconds of concentrated assault even on a capital ship. If you ever do something about land battles, which I agree are not a priority, you might want to consider either making the Turbolaser Batteries significantly harder to kill, or making them way less expensive (or both). As it stands, under no circumstance will they repel 4k worth of units, and the entire idea behind static defenses in strategy games is that they are a financially sound investment as long as someone actually attacks them. However, right now they have 3 problems. 1: A turbolaser battery is destroyed by one group of the large alliance tanks, a what, 500 investment or something? Destroying only 1-2 individual units before it is destroyed. 2: You can easily find the power generator, and on most maps are able to destroy it without ever engaging the turbolaser batteries, thus completely circumventing 4k worth of enemy expenditure. 3: Their cost is retarded. You could have a Star Destroyer or a Turbolaser Battery. In no circumstance whatsoever is the latter EVER a wise investment, especially considering that it takes up a valuable build slot on the planets surface. Anyways, just my thoughts. The main issue I see with the mod right now is that assuming a 20 population cap, 5 Star Destroyers is always your best bet of a fleet. Great job so far, keep up the good work!

Tried it out, really like it Misten. If I could make a suggestion for skirmish.... if there is any way you could disable the option to make Interdictors, that would be great. I don't see being able to play this mod with too many people outside of my group of friends, but when I play against the computer, I get annoyed to death that it builds Interdictors instead of Victories, and loses every time because of it. Its sad that you can easily beat 2v1 against the Empire just because of this. Also, if there is any way you could increase the cooldown on Hypervelocity and Ion Cannon for Campaign mode, that would be freaking great. The Ion Cannon practically assures that any fleet without the Death Star in it is doomed to fail with its firing every 10 seconds and effectively destroying a Star Destroyer per shot. Lastly, you might want to do something about Luke's Lucky Shot. It will one shot your shield generator, and 1 hardpoint every 60 seconds or so thereafter, and on certain maps with nebulas near the starbase, there is basically nothing you can do about this. So far, very nice. I'd wait about adding in new units until some new models show up, though, as otherwise it'll just look too lame imo I'll play some more with it and see if I have anymore thoughts.

If you can build a Star Destroyer or Mon Calamari Cruiser on any planet other than Fondor, Sullust, Kuat, or Mon Calamari, with any less than a level 4 Starbase, you are playing a modded game. Perhaps you should play the game before making blatantly incorrect statements about it.

Your best bet would be to form your own game company and acquire the liscensing from Lucasarts. I do wish the Galactic Map had a little more depth ala Rome: Total War, but its basically just an RTS that drags on for a really long. Sadly, you win the game after one major successful space battle. It's too bad, because I agree with you 100%. Rebellion was aimed at a very hardcore strategy audience, and it suffered terribly sales-wise because of it. It actually was close to being a good game, if the combat had actually been involving, fun, or non-grotesque to look at, it might have fared better. I would have loved the strategic overview had been the more important focus, but the way the game stands now, you win after the first major fleet victory, and the game just drags on for hours as a cleanup action after that. The only way the AI even attempts to make it interesting is by throwing up free Calamari Cruisers and Star Destroyers over their planets instantly roughly 30 seconds after the system is empty if you fail to take the planet and withdraw for some reason. Fortunately for the player, these are surmountable odds because I can't tell you the amount of battles that have ended like this for me: Your losses: 2x Tartan Cruiser Enemy losses: 16x Corellian Corvette 8x X-Wing Squadron 12x Y-Wing Squadron 5x A-Wing Squadron 8x Maraudor Cruiser 4x Nebulon B Frigate 2x Assault Frigates Luke Skywalker Admiral Ackbar Han Solo Antilles Dude I don't even know how the AI manages to pull off stuff like that. Its AMAZING.

Sounds interesting. The link isnt working though, so kinda hard to try it

Hey, tried it out. Corvettes seem a bit weaker against fighters, though they still rock them hard. Overall, fighters may have seemed even more worthless because capital ships were taking them out as well. Missle Frigates seemed harder to kill in general, which I didn't like at all. If you can't stop their bombardment in a timely fashion, 3 of them can kill a level 5 Starbase in about 40 seconds, so making them more difficult to destroy seems like a really questionable decision. Corvettes also don't seem any easier to kill by capital ships. Perhaps this was intentional. The Rebellion seems to have a much easier time destroying Tartans the the Empire does of destroying Corellians, though perhaps this was, again, an intentional design choice by the Devs. Other than the missle frigate issue, I had a good time with it when I could actually engage in battles. The hyperspeed is just too painful for me. I find the games default hyperspeed well suited as compared to buildtimes and the overall pacing of the game. Moving the Death Star with this mod made me pick up a book. In between every battle, every enemy hero would respawn before I could reach the next planet. I'd seriously reconsider this. Lastly, you may want to consider giving ships with shield generators increased shield regeneration to compensate for the increased power of Ion Cannons. It would A) Give Ions more to do, and B) Make targetting the shield generator more meaningful. I generally only ever target shield generators on the first capital ship of the fleet i engage, as after that the random attrition on the other enemy capital ships has lowered their shield strength to the point where it would be more beneficial to just knock out their turbolasers. Anyways, some good ideas man, I just don't think you ought to include a hyperspeed change in a Weapons Mod.