I've created this thread now that my desire to slow down the real time combat part of SotS 2 has now turned in to a mod that covers ship movement and weapon/turret modifications.
Aim of this Mod
This mod was created out of my desire to slow down real time combat so I could micro manage my fleets more easliy and make use of the fact that each ship has left, right, top & bottom armour values for each section. In its vanilla flavour, SotS2 combat seemed to happen too quickly to be able to effectively make use of this new feature. What I was after was something more akin to a WW2 surface fleet encounter where positioning your ship in relation the the enemy was just as important as how many guns you had.
What This Mod Does
a. Ship Movement
Essentially ships now no longer handle like sports cars. I've adjusted all the acceleration stats for all the races ship sections to give them a slower more realistic movement apart from battle riders/cruisers and drones. Bearing in mind that sometimes these ships need to cover large distances in a battle their forward speed values remain the same - it'll just take a little longer to reach top speed.
b. Turret Tracking
In addition to slowing the ships movement down I have also adjusted turret tracking speeds. PD remains super fast to track missiles, but other turret sizes are suitably slower. Large turrets will now struggle to track fast/close targets and maneuvers such as "Crossing the T" become very important for letting large weapons get a bead on smaller ships.
c. Weapon stats
While making this mod, I also felt that the weapons in SotS2 were a bit bland. They're all reasonably good at everything and because there was little difference between plasma/fusion tech, laser tech or projectile tech you could easily choose to specialise in one area and not really feel at a disadvantage. Hopefully the new weapon values will rectify this by giving each tech an obvious focus.
Projectile Tech
These are now the long range hitters. Their range has been increased considerably. They are more accurate (although at range they're still pretty poor until you've got AP or HEAP rounds) and they do consistant damage no matter how far the target is. Projectile speed as also been increased so it no longer looks like you hurling rocks at enemy ships!
Plasma/Fusion tech
This is your close in, knife fight weaponry. Massively powerful at close range (a standard plasma bolt round is nearly as powerful as a heavy driver round but in a medium turret) but is only good for a seriously short range. A broadside from a cruiser packing soley this tech can make a real mess, but only if it can get close enough.
Laser tech
This mod only changes the laser bolt weapons. Beams and phasers all seemed pretty good as is. Laser bolts are extremely accurate at all ranges, but only do good damge in the short to medium range. Long range shots will pretty much always hit but will deal little damage. Laser bolts also make reasonable PD against torpedos and planetary missiles (sometimes they even get lucky with normal missiles) so they're a good all rounder.
Torpedo Tech
Torpedos are now much more powerful (dealing around twice the original damage), but only at range. They excel as stand off weapons and are most useful in the opening volley of an engagement or at the end to destroy fleeing ships. Used close in they deal very little damage, but at range "KABOOM"!
01/04/2012 Verson 0.2 update notes
This is a rebalance of laser, projectile and cannon weapons and includes updates to the crew, supply and energy requirements for each weapon to make more thought required when designing ships
Laser Weapons
Still the most accurate all rounder. Damage has been increased to reflect changes in the other weapons and due to their increased power requirements. Accuracy has been reduce slightly at long range as they were a little too good at shooting down missile. Their armour penetration is poor, but they fire so quickly and with such accuracy that they'll nibble away armour faster than you might think!
Cannons (Plasma, Fusion and Anti-matter)
This is where most of the changes take place. These weapons do close in damage and overall they are now much more accurate. Plasma weapons burn more armour and have an AP bonus. Fusion does less armour damage and losses the AP bonus, but gains a critical hit roll and does more structure damage. Antimatter has the best of both with an AP bonus, critical hit rolls and further increased damage but suffers due to energy requirements.
Projectile Weapons
Mainly just crew, energy and supply changes. These weapons require the most supply and crew so expect to be using camel and caravan modules a lot if your not going to equip any other weapon type. These guns are now highly inaccurate at close range and their projectiles knock ships less (although it is still present to a certain degree). They are more accurate in their optimum range band. They do the most armour damage of all weapons. Standard projectiles knock chunks out of the surface of ship armour, AP digs deep holes and HEAP digs a hole then explodes!
Bursters have also been redone. Their huge impact blast has been reduced so ships aren't sent flying. The standard burster explodes into 20 Mass Driver rounds, but seeing as the Modded Mass Driver rounds have a much longer range than before I have changed this so that it explodes into 20 Plasma Rounds which have a much shorter range. Looks pretty as well
01/04/2012 Verson 0.3 update notes
Fix sniper rounds knocking ships around too much
Laser damge has been reduced as they were just way too over powered with their mega accuracy.
Projectile weapons have been made more accurate at range as they were still missing more often than hitting.
Fusion torpedos now do way less structure damage but still loads of armour damage. AM torps remain as ship killers
Drones now maneuver more slowly (same top speed) but have a much longer mission time (range). Large combined fleets of drones, battleriders, cruisers and DN/LV look amazing as you can now see the drones more easily.
14/04/2012 Verson 0.32 update notes
A complete redo of all the weapons as some I simply wasn't happy with the previous versions. Here's a quick run down
Ballistics
Long range weapons and quite accurate at range too. Do more damage at max range and less close up. they are still useful in a knife fight, but there are better weapons to use if that's your thing. They excel at hitting large heavily armoured targets at distance.
Energy Cannons (plasma, fusion, antimatter)
The close up weapon of choice. Limited range (but slightly longer than in previous mod versions) they do more damge the closer you are. Projectors are devastating but then you are giving up an entire section of your ship to them.
Lasers (bolts)
Lasers are now more of an anti drone/torpedo/Battle Rider weapon. Red lasers make a reasonable "poor man's" point defence weapon as it now has a double volley shot. X-ray lasers can still make a mess of a cruiser but their damage now is about half what it was before.
Lasers (beams)
I haven't quite finished these, but the idea is these will be the best anti drone and battle rider weapons to use. So they'll be accurate enough to hit those ships, but unable to engage missiles and to short range to take down torpedos.
Heavy Beams
Beams have simply had their damage increased the closer you are to the target.
PD
PD was completely borked! If it could engage normal ships it would be the most powerful close range weapon around! I've fixed that. They now do very little damage. This has resulted in all missile and torpedo weapons having their health reduced. In practise this seems to work ok, but may need to be tweaked later.
Drones
More range, more HP, less speed! Drones are now quite graceful in their attack runs and deadly if you haven't got suitable PD weapons or laser beams.
Supply/Energy/Crew
As this doesn't seem to make any difference to ships I have left it all as default for now.
14/04/2012 Verson 0.4 update notes
Just a minor update to include all the recent section updates. Now that we can launch missiles in the weapon test area I have been able to complete the laser bolt/beam updates.
Laser Bolts
To keep older tech usable (and I never really understood having red and green when you've already got UV as starting tech) I have modified them to become anti missile/drone/BR weapons.
Red lasers are now a pretty reasonable Anti Missile PD substitute as they now fire faster. But they are short ranged and weak.
Green lasers are more powerful than red and have a better ranger, but slower firing. Best against drones
UV & XRay can still take a crack at missiles/drones but are better against BRs.
Laser beams are accurate, do good damage but are too slow to take out missiles reliably. Should be great against drones & BR.
22/05/2012 Verson 0.41 update notes
Just a minor update to address slow ships so they now move a bit quicker.
Future Additions to the Mod
Revisit weapon supply usage as not 100% happy with it.
Balance ship modules to make using them have cost and ship maneuverability penalties.
Balance platforms so they are more resiliant to attack.
Look at adding new weapons (I'd like to see a small turret flak cannon!)
Installation of the Mod
Download the zip file and then extract to your steam/steamapps/common/sword of the stars ii/ folder. You will also need to do this everytime a new update for SotS2 is released.
Uninstallation of the Mod
Simply to verify your local cache through steam and it will redownload the origianl files.
Download Link
Tactial Combat V0.41 tested and working with SotS2 r21284c and includes all the latest section updates.
http://www.jimmy-a-gogo.com/tacticalcombat-v0.41-r21284c.zip
Let me know what you think and suggestions on other changes are always welcome
Aim of this Mod
This mod was created out of my desire to slow down real time combat so I could micro manage my fleets more easliy and make use of the fact that each ship has left, right, top & bottom armour values for each section. In its vanilla flavour, SotS2 combat seemed to happen too quickly to be able to effectively make use of this new feature. What I was after was something more akin to a WW2 surface fleet encounter where positioning your ship in relation the the enemy was just as important as how many guns you had.
What This Mod Does
a. Ship Movement
Essentially ships now no longer handle like sports cars. I've adjusted all the acceleration stats for all the races ship sections to give them a slower more realistic movement apart from battle riders/cruisers and drones. Bearing in mind that sometimes these ships need to cover large distances in a battle their forward speed values remain the same - it'll just take a little longer to reach top speed.
b. Turret Tracking
In addition to slowing the ships movement down I have also adjusted turret tracking speeds. PD remains super fast to track missiles, but other turret sizes are suitably slower. Large turrets will now struggle to track fast/close targets and maneuvers such as "Crossing the T" become very important for letting large weapons get a bead on smaller ships.
c. Weapon stats
While making this mod, I also felt that the weapons in SotS2 were a bit bland. They're all reasonably good at everything and because there was little difference between plasma/fusion tech, laser tech or projectile tech you could easily choose to specialise in one area and not really feel at a disadvantage. Hopefully the new weapon values will rectify this by giving each tech an obvious focus.
Projectile Tech
These are now the long range hitters. Their range has been increased considerably. They are more accurate (although at range they're still pretty poor until you've got AP or HEAP rounds) and they do consistant damage no matter how far the target is. Projectile speed as also been increased so it no longer looks like you hurling rocks at enemy ships!
Plasma/Fusion tech
This is your close in, knife fight weaponry. Massively powerful at close range (a standard plasma bolt round is nearly as powerful as a heavy driver round but in a medium turret) but is only good for a seriously short range. A broadside from a cruiser packing soley this tech can make a real mess, but only if it can get close enough.
Laser tech
This mod only changes the laser bolt weapons. Beams and phasers all seemed pretty good as is. Laser bolts are extremely accurate at all ranges, but only do good damge in the short to medium range. Long range shots will pretty much always hit but will deal little damage. Laser bolts also make reasonable PD against torpedos and planetary missiles (sometimes they even get lucky with normal missiles) so they're a good all rounder.
Torpedo Tech
Torpedos are now much more powerful (dealing around twice the original damage), but only at range. They excel as stand off weapons and are most useful in the opening volley of an engagement or at the end to destroy fleeing ships. Used close in they deal very little damage, but at range "KABOOM"!
01/04/2012 Verson 0.2 update notes
This is a rebalance of laser, projectile and cannon weapons and includes updates to the crew, supply and energy requirements for each weapon to make more thought required when designing ships
Laser Weapons
Still the most accurate all rounder. Damage has been increased to reflect changes in the other weapons and due to their increased power requirements. Accuracy has been reduce slightly at long range as they were a little too good at shooting down missile. Their armour penetration is poor, but they fire so quickly and with such accuracy that they'll nibble away armour faster than you might think!
Cannons (Plasma, Fusion and Anti-matter)
This is where most of the changes take place. These weapons do close in damage and overall they are now much more accurate. Plasma weapons burn more armour and have an AP bonus. Fusion does less armour damage and losses the AP bonus, but gains a critical hit roll and does more structure damage. Antimatter has the best of both with an AP bonus, critical hit rolls and further increased damage but suffers due to energy requirements.
Projectile Weapons
Mainly just crew, energy and supply changes. These weapons require the most supply and crew so expect to be using camel and caravan modules a lot if your not going to equip any other weapon type. These guns are now highly inaccurate at close range and their projectiles knock ships less (although it is still present to a certain degree). They are more accurate in their optimum range band. They do the most armour damage of all weapons. Standard projectiles knock chunks out of the surface of ship armour, AP digs deep holes and HEAP digs a hole then explodes!
Bursters have also been redone. Their huge impact blast has been reduced so ships aren't sent flying. The standard burster explodes into 20 Mass Driver rounds, but seeing as the Modded Mass Driver rounds have a much longer range than before I have changed this so that it explodes into 20 Plasma Rounds which have a much shorter range. Looks pretty as well
01/04/2012 Verson 0.3 update notes
Fix sniper rounds knocking ships around too much
Laser damge has been reduced as they were just way too over powered with their mega accuracy.
Projectile weapons have been made more accurate at range as they were still missing more often than hitting.
Fusion torpedos now do way less structure damage but still loads of armour damage. AM torps remain as ship killers
Drones now maneuver more slowly (same top speed) but have a much longer mission time (range). Large combined fleets of drones, battleriders, cruisers and DN/LV look amazing as you can now see the drones more easily.
14/04/2012 Verson 0.32 update notes
A complete redo of all the weapons as some I simply wasn't happy with the previous versions. Here's a quick run down
Ballistics
Long range weapons and quite accurate at range too. Do more damage at max range and less close up. they are still useful in a knife fight, but there are better weapons to use if that's your thing. They excel at hitting large heavily armoured targets at distance.
Energy Cannons (plasma, fusion, antimatter)
The close up weapon of choice. Limited range (but slightly longer than in previous mod versions) they do more damge the closer you are. Projectors are devastating but then you are giving up an entire section of your ship to them.
Lasers (bolts)
Lasers are now more of an anti drone/torpedo/Battle Rider weapon. Red lasers make a reasonable "poor man's" point defence weapon as it now has a double volley shot. X-ray lasers can still make a mess of a cruiser but their damage now is about half what it was before.
Lasers (beams)
I haven't quite finished these, but the idea is these will be the best anti drone and battle rider weapons to use. So they'll be accurate enough to hit those ships, but unable to engage missiles and to short range to take down torpedos.
Heavy Beams
Beams have simply had their damage increased the closer you are to the target.
PD
PD was completely borked! If it could engage normal ships it would be the most powerful close range weapon around! I've fixed that. They now do very little damage. This has resulted in all missile and torpedo weapons having their health reduced. In practise this seems to work ok, but may need to be tweaked later.
Drones
More range, more HP, less speed! Drones are now quite graceful in their attack runs and deadly if you haven't got suitable PD weapons or laser beams.
Supply/Energy/Crew
As this doesn't seem to make any difference to ships I have left it all as default for now.
14/04/2012 Verson 0.4 update notes
Just a minor update to include all the recent section updates. Now that we can launch missiles in the weapon test area I have been able to complete the laser bolt/beam updates.
Laser Bolts
To keep older tech usable (and I never really understood having red and green when you've already got UV as starting tech) I have modified them to become anti missile/drone/BR weapons.
Red lasers are now a pretty reasonable Anti Missile PD substitute as they now fire faster. But they are short ranged and weak.
Green lasers are more powerful than red and have a better ranger, but slower firing. Best against drones
UV & XRay can still take a crack at missiles/drones but are better against BRs.
Laser beams are accurate, do good damage but are too slow to take out missiles reliably. Should be great against drones & BR.
22/05/2012 Verson 0.41 update notes
Just a minor update to address slow ships so they now move a bit quicker.
Future Additions to the Mod
Revisit weapon supply usage as not 100% happy with it.
Balance ship modules to make using them have cost and ship maneuverability penalties.
Balance platforms so they are more resiliant to attack.
Look at adding new weapons (I'd like to see a small turret flak cannon!)
Installation of the Mod
Download the zip file and then extract to your steam/steamapps/common/sword of the stars ii/ folder. You will also need to do this everytime a new update for SotS2 is released.
Uninstallation of the Mod
Simply to verify your local cache through steam and it will redownload the origianl files.
Download Link
Tactial Combat V0.41 tested and working with SotS2 r21284c and includes all the latest section updates.
http://www.jimmy-a-gogo.com/tacticalcombat-v0.41-r21284c.zip
Let me know what you think and suggestions on other changes are always welcome
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