Breaching the Core Full Mod Discussion

[FlessenGreendart]

Thanks muchly for that, that'll help a ton creating BTC friendly versions of my mods.

[Hammish]

Changes coming for 1.3:

Industry tree (FINALLY, amirite?)

Changes to weapon skills.  Each weapon type will now branch into two paths: damage increases (that get better as your level goes up) and utility.  Rate of fire boosts are being removed from all energy and ballistic weapons to make way for other weapon changes, these skills will be adjusted and should not affect saved games (I'm hoping!)

Some updated/new weapon sprite effects.  I want to make this mod shiny.

New weapon: Tachyon Needler.  Experimental weapon.  A cyclic version of the tachyon repeater, this weapon takes five seconds to spin up to full power as well as five seconds to come to a rest after firing.  Starts off as low DPS but ramps up to twice that of the repeater after hitting peak.  Is a substantial burden on the ship's power systems to keep charged.
New weapon: Standard Cannon.  These replace the rotary AC as a normal weapon, having slightly more punch but a slower rate of fire, especially the larger versions.  The choice for 'baseline' weapons in ballistics is now standard cannons for average performance, dual-linked cannons for two shots but twice the reload time, burst rifles for 3/6/9 shots but even longer reloads, or mass drivers with lower DPS but massive damage per shot for armor penetration.
New weapon: Naval Artillery.  This gun fires shells that do about the same damage as the mass driver but at a slower rate.  They are timed, however, and after a bit explode in a large radius.  Perfect for taking care of groups or for hard-to-hit enemies, but watch the friendly fire.
New weapon: Scatterpack Missile System.  Missed your mines?  You won't have to anymore.  Fires a warhead that deploys a minefield a fixed distance from your craft.
New weapon: Daisycutter Missile System.  Experimental weapon.  Yo dawg, we heard you like mines, so we put mines in your mines so you can mine while you mine.  The daisy cutter, when fired, will deploy a minefield at a fixed distance.  These mines in turn will split into more mines, which will then detonate a short while later.  Still playing around with this one and delaying the explosions on the sub-submunitions so it doesn't overwhelm the sound channels in the game. >.>
Revised Weapon: Rotary Autocannon.  Redone and made into an Experimental weapon, this is now the ballistic version of the Tachyon Needler; it takes the same five seconds to achieve peak rate of fire and to cool down after.  Doesn't have the power limitation of the tach but chews through the finite ammo like nobody's business.

Artemis bomber renamed to the Pan.  Now uses the Boomerang hull and will only support three missile hardpoints.  It is now frigate-sized instead of a corvette and a heavier, slower, harder-hitting craft all-around.
The new Artemis is an energy-based version of the Dionysus.  Gunboats for erryone!

[Tchey]

Thanks.

Hmmm... now you have to update everything to Alpha 0.10 !

[Hammish]

Thanks.

Hmmm... now you have to update everything to Alpha 0.10 !

Not so hard as you think really.   The only major time I had to really shift stuff around was when they added a few different variables to items and gear, and those are easy enough to spot when you try to run the game + mod on the server app and it fails the parse.

[Hammish]

v1.3 test is out and up in the main link.  I'm sure some things will still be broken but it's at least playable now and more or less like it used to be; you might just see some aspects of old vanilla equipment popping up now and again until I go over the files with a fine-tooth comb.

Added this release (since it wasn't everything):
Tachyon Needler (High DPS experimental energy weapon, energy hog, takes 3/4/5 seconds to spin up depending on size class)
Rotary AC (Changed to high DPS experimental ballistic weapon, takes 3/4/5 seconds to spin up depend on class size, chews up finite ammo quickly)
Standard cannons and Dual-linked cannons (regular ballistic weapons, fires either a single shot (average weapon) or two shots in rapid succession with twice the reload time)
Naval artillery (slightly more damage than the mass driver but much lower DPS in general, shells explode after 0.75 seconds in a wide radius)

[Hammish]

Pic of the day:



Showing off the up-and-coming revamped Artemis Energy Gunship sporting a few of Flessen's new gatling-style turret models with textures slightly modified by me.  (I'm just giving turrets more shown metal, so they look better across hulls with different coloring.)  Side note: never actually run the setup you see here on the craft, given the energy consumption on those tachyon needlers.  It... doesn't end so well.

[FlessenGreendart]

That texture looks a lot better!
Looking at that loadout, I bet the pirates'd be dead before your generator runs flat... as long as you don't mind crawling home!

[Hammish]

Pretty close thing, actually.

The needler is one of those new 'conceptual' things I'm playing around with, both in terms of a weapon with a spin-up time and a weapon that essentially allows you to 'cash in' on excess power to do better DPS.  Under peak use even the small version will drain 150 power/second to charge up, though that can be brought down with skills a slight bit.

[Hammish]

BTC 1.4 released in the main link.  It might require a restart, sadly.  Trying to limit them!  But the changes to the tech tree to add in everything desired ended up being substantial.  The major trees are now:

Engines, a tree for maneuver, a tree for speed/escape, and a tree for gearing
Hulls, a tree for each size class
Weapon enhancement, a tree for each type (misc stats on turrets)
Ammo enhancement, a tree for each type (damage)
Turret mechanics, a tree for max size normal, max size experimental, and turret tracking
Engineering, a tree for reactor tweaking, a tree for mining, and a tree for gearing
Defenses, a tree for shields, a tree for armor, and a tree for gearing
Radar, a tree for gearing and a tree for raw increases
Social, a tree for trade margins, a tree for repair, and a tree for rewards/persuasion.

New mining class to go with such things!
New models, ermagerd!  The gatlings look great.  Also threw in the initial versions of the rocket packs and the long-barrel guns, though they are still being tweaked.  All Flessen's work.

All that is left before Version 2 now are to finalize some weapon tweaking and models, do the rest of the boost modules, finish two last hulls (based on the boomerang and yamato) and then rebalance the hulls.  (The speed penalty will be dropping on larger hulls, making them more viable.  They will still turn like damn bricks, however.)  I may also start showcasing some of the work I'm doing with hull texture reworks to easily identify mark versions.  I'm hoping that getting your first Experimental-class gear will not only bring power but AWESOME LOOKS.

[Samui]

Seems it didn't work with 1.10.1b =(

When do you think you can release 2.0? Approximately ofcourse.

After October 4-th, I can spend more time on translations, now to busy even for VE testing =( I think, I should wait for your mod release and translate everething in one shot then =)

[Hammish]

I'm hoping that 2.0 isn't too far off, probably a few weeks.  I'll do a test build for it and toss it up on here, then probably make v2.0 the actual 'release candidate' for when everything with Steam is finished up and added down the road.  Right now the major stuff to be done that will affect translation is just to get the last few hulls in along with the remainder of the weapons (MRMs, mines, and the capital laser and missile system).  I'm pretty happy with the skill tree currently unless I go deeper into the mining or trading aspects at some point, just numbers tweaking on the rest, and I'll continue to update models for projectiles and the like as I find/request ones I like, but none of those will actually affect the .xmls.

Also, 1.4.1 uploading to dropbox now, should be available in about 5 minutes and should be compatible with 1.10.  Just had some issues with quests since they took the topic folder and gave it the 'ol subfolder treatment.

[Lurler]

A little note - I kind of feel bad about compatibility with experimental versions. These versions are just that, experimental, they are not really supposed to be actually played or having mods based of them. I would rather suggest waiting for stable releases...

[Hammish]

No need to feel badly about that, Lurler, at least in this case.   The only reason the last few patches have broken the mod (or probably most mods) was just based on you guys making the XML folders a bit more clean and putting in subfolders for ease of locating stuff.  Stuff like that almost never is going to be reverted when you head up to a stable version, so I figured sure... why not?

Now, if I was messing around with stuff that you were just introducing or have said changes are coming to (like autopilot or the Xen storyline/unlocks, respectively), then I'd be more wary of messin' with experimental stuff and would probably hold off.

That said, you bring up a good point and it wouldn't kill me to keep two links and two versions up on my dropbox, a newest candidate for release versions and any current experimental builds I toss up.  There has to be a reason why I keep a record log and a file log of previous versions, right?

[Hammish]

First look at the reskin work for the Banshee/Athena hull in BTC.  It's a bit dulled-down in terms of colors and has caution stickers on it as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke, as this is going to be the Civilian version and thus a training ship.   I also added in a few other extra details like egress/fueling ports and the like for a bit of eye candy when you're in port.  The version I'm working on for more advanced versions uses multi-coloring and is shaping up well, and there will be versions for the pirates to use sporting the Jolly Roger.

This picture also shows off two new varieties of turret skins, the basic ballistic and the focusing box for certain energy weapons.  Most of the turret changes are along the same lines as the hulls: made color-neutral so they look nice on all hulls, with a few extra small bits of bling thrown in like high-voltage warnings and the like.

Edit: Here's the first look of the blinged-out Athena Experimental.  Mostly I tossed it out to show off three more of the newer weapon models.  From left to right along the top, the dual-barrel box turret, the rotary turret, and long-barrel cannon for artillery and other big guns.  Credit to Flessen again on all of the model changes, I'm just touching up the basic skins from AT on my end.

[Lurler]

These new reskins of the ships look gorgeous!
Though that loooong barreled turret, it looks kind of strange