[MOD] Crystallis Ship Module Expansion

[Guilliman88]

***********************************************************
NEW: Fighters, Bombers, Shield Capacitors, balance changes.
************************************************************

126 new ship modules, weapons and technologies, 8 new ship sections with aux slots, new advanced science ship
Compatible with version 1.4.1+, and all DLC

This mod adds a lot of new ship modules as well as extra levels of existing ship modules and weapons. This mod is savegame compatible as well as mod compatible with every mod out there.

The following have been added:

Ship Sections

• 2 new corvette ship sections +aux slots
• 2 new destroyer ship sections +aux slots
• 2 new cruiser ship sections +aux slots
• 2 new battleship ship sections +aux slots
• new advanced science ship (more slots)

Technologies

• 3 new techs to help speed up Physics research.
• 3 new techs to help speed up Engieering research.
  Gradually they will appear and boost your planet research by 9% each.
  These techs are required to not slow down the game too much with the many module
  techs this mod provides.

Science Ship Modules

• Deep Space Science Lab I-V (+shield +discovery, +surveyspeed, -fail chance)

Ship Modules

• Armoured Thrusters 1-4 (+ speed, +armour)
• Psionic Thrusters 1-4 (+ speed, +shield hp)
• Crystallis Ship Sensors 6-10 (+ sendor/weapon range + tracking)

Utility Modules

• Crystallis Reactors VI - X (+ ship power)
• Crystal Armor VI - X (+ armour, +hull regen)
• Phase-Shields VI - X
• Force-Fields VI - X (Militarist, Collectivist, Xenophobe)
• Psionic Barriers VI - X (Spiritualists)

Ship Crew Utility Modules

• Robotic Ship Crews (robotics)
• Psionic Ship Crews (psionics)
• Clone Ship Crews (cloning)
• Purifier Ship Crews (Xenophobe)
• Alien Ship Crews (Xenophile)
• Volunteer Ship Crews (Individualist)
• Civilian Ship Crews (Pacifist)
• Slave Ship Crews (Collectivist)
  (+ship damage, +hull hp, +shield hp, +armor %, +unique stats per ethos)

Auxillary Modules

• Crystal Plating II - V (+ hull %)
• Crystal Targeting Matrix I - V (+ weapon accuracy, tracking and damage)
• Crystal Tissue I - V (+ hull regeneration)
• Ship Hangar Bays 1-5 (+ strikecraft damage and flightspeed)
• Shield Capacitors II - III (+shield regen)

Weapons

• 2 new Lasers: Positron and Anti-Matter
• 2 new Plasma cannons: Phased-Plasma and Chrono-Plasma
• 2 new Energy Lances: Tetryon and Polaron
• 2 new Disruptors: Resonant and Muon
• 2 new Disintegrators: Improved and Matter-Energy
• 2 new Arc Emitters: Vexed and Concerted
• 2 new Cloud Lightning: Resonating and Luminous
  
• 2 new Missiles: Isokinetic and Chroniton
• 2 new Swarm Missiles: Typhoon and Hurricane
• 2 new Torpedoes: Cobalt and Tricobalt
• 2 new Energy Torpedoes: Anti-Proton and Quantum
  
• 2 new Railguns: Tri-Gaus and XV-88
• 2 new Kinetic Guns: Kinetic Cannon and Kinetic Howitzer
• 2 new Autocannons: Thunder and Thor
• 2 new Mass Accelerators: Ultra Cannon and Omega Cannon
  
• 2 new Point Defense: Mercy and Emperor
• 2 new Flak: Flak Array and Flak Barrier
• 1 new Fighter Tier
• 2 new Bomber Tiers (final tier is dimensional unlock after salvaging/unlocking unbidden dimensional weaponry tech)
  
  Each new tier improves the weapons base damage by 20%
  Some weapons already have new graphical firing effects,
  others are still being developed

Techs
All modules have their own technologies. Some are rare. Tier 6 to Tier 10 modules come after their vanilla variants and techs, so these are very much late game technologies.


The AI, Fallen Empires and Crisis events will make great use of these new and extra level modules. So expect a harder game! Modules are fairly balanced. Temporarily disabled this feature for balance and compatibility reasons with patch 1.3.0+ of the game.

KNOWN ISSUES
** Some modules do not correctly apply their stats to the ship builder UI. This is an issue with the game and ui that I cannot fix myself.
** Auto-upgrade doesn't work with my modules, presumably this is somewhat weirdly hardcoded
** Auto-complete will not always give the best module layout.


For other modders:
All my techs are prefixed with tech_c_techname
All my other files/code are prefixed with C_modulename/componant/etc

Please dont forget to rate my mod and have fun!

Official Paradox Forums thread for mod discussion:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-crystallis-ship-module-expansion.938210/

 

[Guilliman88]

Update 5-11-2016


Changes:

Complete naming overhall of the following modules:

• Crystal Armor
• Shields
• Crystallis-tissues
• crystallis-targetting matrix
• armor plating
• hangar bays

This to make them more unique in name and feel less boring.

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• Ship crews are now cheaper in mineral cost.
• Early Psionic Thrusters shield bonus reduced. Now provides 50/100/250/500 shield bonus instead of 200/300/400/500. This to balance early game a bit.
• Ship crew stats lowered slightly to 4/8/12% (from 5/10/15%)
• phase-shields/Psionic barriers/force-fields balance pass; lowered shield values, especially the high tier ones. Crystalline shields are base, psionic shields have 20% less shield hp but 20% more regen. Hardened shields have 20% more shield hp but 20% less regen. Regen values normalised across size.
• Removed reactor damage bonus as we have new weapon tiers now.
• Modules and weapons should now be nearly ordered under their vanilla counterparts! No more scrolling up and down so much!

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New stuff:
[*]3 new physics technologies to help you speed up physics tech research. As my mod adds MANY new techs for each component it was starting to slow down overall progression a lot.
[*]3 new Engieering technologies to help you speed up Engineering tech research.
[*] 2 new Lasers: Positron and Anti-Matter
[*] 2 new Plasma cannons: Phased-Plasma and Chrono-Plasma
[*] 2 new Energy Lances: Tetryon and Polaron
[*] 2 new Disruptors: Resonant and Muon
[*] 2 new Disintegrators: Improved and Matter-Energy
[*] 2 new Arc Emitters: Vexed and Concerted
[*] 2 new Cloud Lightning: Resonating and Luminous

[*] 2 new Missiles: Isokinetic and Chroniton
[*] 2 new Swarm Missiles: Typhoon and Hurricane
[*] 2 new Torpedoes: Cobalt and Tricobalt
[*] 2 new Energy Torpedoes: Anti-Proton and Quantum

[*] 2 new Railguns: Tri-Gaus and XV-88
[*] 2 new Kinetic Guns: Kinetic Cannon and Kinetic Howitzer
[*] 2 new Autocannons: Thunder and Thor
[*] 2 new Mass Accelerators: Ultra Cannon and Omega Cannon

[*] 2 new Point Defense: Mercy and Emperor
[*] 2 new Flak: Flak Array and Flak Barrier
[/list]

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[Guilliman88]

Updated for patch 1.1 with some adjustments (see second post change log).

Currently in the works;

• English copy localisation files to other language versions of the game don't end up with weird String names instead of text for my mod modules.
• Testing changes that allow AI, scourge, unbidden and fallen empires to have/spawn ships with my ship modules making them a lot tougher late game. You already seem to have a chance to discover this tech from researching Fallen Empires wrecks.
  
• Also testing a slight tweak to Fallen Empires ships so they can hold a few more modules so they aren't a pushover late game.

For near(?) future;
Thinking about new types of propulsion modules. Less speed but provides armour bonus or shield bonus?
Thinking about LARGE slot only "reactors_of_some_name". Massive boost weapon damage at a large crystal cost (1000/module) but rare/hard to get tech for it. Super late game.
Looking into what exactly determines how research is gotten from wrecks. Potentially future additions can be locked behind wrecks from crises and fallen empires.

 

[Guilliman88]

Properly updated the thread. Also important stuff below!
-

IMPORTANT save game compatibility - regarding ASIMOV patch 1.2

Hello everyone,

The next update of my mod will coincide with the next game patch (patch 1.2) coming later this month. Also known as the Asimov patch. (or a bit later if they don't do a beta)

With the Asumov patch I will also be updating my mod with changed underlying file/naming restructuring.Meaning, if you have save games your modules will disappear from your ships. You will still be able to play fine, but you'll need to put the modules back in your ships designs in the ship designer and upgrade your ships for them to return. Technologies will also be reset because of this. You'll, unfortunately, need to research them again before you can place your missing modules back.

An additional side effect because of this is Fallen empires ships and crisis ships that have already spawned in save games will have fewer mods (and this be substantially weaker).

This is something I've been meaning to do but didn't want to do in a random update. This is also a once type of thing. I also know a lot of people will start a new game with the patch so this is definitally the best time to do it. I am deeply sorry if it causes a lot of frustration but it had to be done.

The main reasons for this change in files/module internal naming is the following:
1) Improving mod compatibility with other mods that add reactors and various other modules.
2) Standardized naming means I can improve/expand the mod a lot quicker and with less bugs.
3) Makes it easier to cut specific modules out if you like since all added modules have their own files now.

That said, new stuff coming as well:
Early look at next update coming along side of the Asimov update.

New modules and techs:

• Armoured Thrusters, -movement speed, +armour.
• Psionic Thrusters, +movement speed, +shield hp.

Changes:

• Deep Space Science Labs II and III require Physics Labs I and II as tech pre-requirements.
• Fallen Empires and Crisis max tech level from wrecks reduced to 6.
• Crystal-Laced Targeting Matrix I - V techs are no longer rare and easier to obtain.
• Rare techs from this mod (shield, armor, hull hp, reactors) have had their rarity increased. They were a bit too common in the tech list.
• All ship crew modules now have their own techs.
• Droid crew now requires robotic crew as tech pre-requirement.
• Synthetic crew now requires droud crew as tech pre-requirement.
• Reduced the hit bonus on Crystal-Laced Targeting Matrix to prevent early capping of hit chance.
• Doubled the damage bonus on ship crew modules. This as a temporary measure until new weapon module levels are added. This should stop late game ships from being near invulnerable with level X modules.

Fixes

• Fixed UI issues in ship builder by separating modifiers into modifier and ship_modifier sections. Most stats should now show/add up in the ship builder.
• Above change also fixes weapon damage modifier so it actually works now, oops!
• AI will now use ship crews a lot more.
• AI will now use and actively research Deep Space Science Labs.
• AI will favour new thrusters over vanilla ones if they're better.
• Increased the chance AI will research new module techs above other techs. This should increase their competence against the player.

 

[Guilliman88]

Testing out some FE/crisis ship layout changes.

So yeah, this happened:

Wonder how crisis fleets are.. (testing observe run atm)

 

[Guilliman88]

Update 27-06-2016

• 
  Made Compatible with Version 1.2 of the game
  New modules and techs:
  
• 4 new Armoured Thrusters, -movement speed, +armour.
  
• 4 new Psionic Thrusters, +movement speed, +shield hp.
  
• 6 new ship sensors, +sensor range, +ship weapon range (ship sensors only for now, cant get station ones to work)
  
• 2 new Psionic crew levels
  
• 2 new Clone crew levels
  
  Changes:
  
• Deep Space Science Labs II and III require Physics Labs I and II as tech pre-requirements.
  
• Fallen Empires and Crisis max tech level from wrecks reduced to 6.
  
• Rare techs from this mod (shield, armor, hull hp, reactors) have had their rarity increased. They were a bit too common in the tech list.
  
• All ship crew modules now have their own techs.
  
• Droid crew now requires robotic crew as tech pre-requirement.
  
• Synthetic crew now requires droud crew as tech pre-requirement.
  
• Crystal-Laced Targeting Matrix I - V techs are no longer rare and easier to obtain.
  
• Reduced the hit bonus on Crystal-Laced Targeting Matrix to prevent early capping of hit chance.
  
• Doubled the damage bonus on ship crew modules. This as a temporary measure until new weapon module levels are added. This should stop late game ships from being near invulnerable with level X modules.
  
• increased the sensor bonus from psionic crew to 100%
  
• Crystal-Forged plating hull hp has been lowered to be in-line with the new base plating values
  
• Crystal-Lenzing Shield Array shield hp slightly reduced to balance with new forge-plating values
  
• New Crystallis Reactor icons
  
• New Crystallis Reactor names + descriptions
  
• New Crystalline Armor icons
  
• Improved Crystalline shield icons
  
• Improved Crystalline Forged Plating Icons
  
• Ship crew, Armor and Psi engines cannot be salvaged from wrecks
  
• Tier 10 modules and tier 5 Crystalline-plating/regeneration tissue cannot be salvaged from wrecks
  
• Improved psionic and clone crew names/descriptions
  
  Fixes
  
• Fixed UI issues in ship builder by separating modifiers into modifier and ship_modifier sections. Most stats should now show/add up in the ship builder.
  
• Above change also fixes weapon damage modifier so it actually works now, oops!
  
• AI will now use ship crews a lot more.
  
• AI will now use and actively research Deep Space Science Labs.
  
• AI will favour new thrusters over vanilla ones if they're better.
  
• Increased the chance AI will research new module techs above other techs. This should increase their competence against the player.
  

 

[LordPavel]

Fr localisation. You must change the end to .yml from .sav for use.
Tell me if everything is good or poke me when there is a update to do.

 

[Guilliman88]

Fr localisation. You must change the end to .yml from .sav for use.
Tell me if everything is good or poke me when there is a update to do.

Thanks! I'll put it in next update. Will be one this week to lower psi/clone tier 1-2 crew mineral cost and fix a wrong icon. Might improve those specific icons as well.

 

[Guilliman88]

Currently working on next update. Will include:
* French localisation for existing modules and techs thanks to LordPavel
* Fix for hull regen tissue I icon
* Fix for Psi and clone crew mineral costs
* New Ethic dependant ship shields (only two more so far)

• Spiritualist; Psionic Shielding 6-10 -- Slightly more shield regen and less power consumption
  
• Militarist; Hardened Shielding 6-10 -- Slightly less shield regen and more shield hp

* New Ethic dependant ship crews with small bonus varieties

• Robot crew changes; if you can research robots, you have access to robot crews. These are very easy to get for Materialists.
  
• Psionic crew changes; if you can research psionic theory, you have access to psionic crews. These are very easy to get for Spiritualists.
  
• Militarist crew changes; clone crews are now militarist only
  
• Xenophobe crew: Purifier Crew - Driven Purifier Crew - Fanatic Purifier Crew
• Xenophile crew: Small Alien Crew - Medium Alien Crew - Full Alien Crew**
• Pacifist crew: Civilian Crew - Trained Civilian Crew - Experienced Civilian Crew
• Individualist crew: Small Volunteer Crew - Medium Volunteer Crew - Large Volunteer Crew**
• Collectivist crew: Small Slave Crew - Medium Slave Crew - Large Slave Crew**

Notes:
* Names are not definite, I'm not very creative. Feel free to make suggestions!
**All crews are Large slot only for balance reasons


Planned for the future
* Defence Station unique modules: (some of these might make it into next update)

• High Capacity Generators - Provide large damage boost to specific weapon systems
• Super Structure - Provide massive hull hp boost
• Super Shielding Boosters - Provide massive boost to station shield hp
• Large station sensors - Provide large weapons range

* Ethic dependant reactors
Militarist; Combat reactors -- No idea yet about stat differences (if any)
Spiritualist; Psionic Vessels (think man in tube) -- No idea yet about stat differences (if any)

* Ethic dependant sensors (though due to ship builder having limited space I might just do spiritualist and militarist sensors as the new sensors)

• Militarist; Combat sensors -- No idea yet about stat differences (maybe less sensor range but + hit chance)
  
• Spiritualist; Psionic Sensors (think man in tube) -- No idea yet about stat differences (maybe no cost and bigger sensor range and weapons range bonus)

If you have any cool ideas or suggestions for names and or other ethic unique ship/station modules, let me know! I greatly lack creativity!

 

[WyldCard4]

Howdy. Been playing with and enjoying this mod for a while, and you asked for comments and insight, so here it goes.

General observations:

-Clone crew maintenance cuts are huge, and it is possible to get negative maintenance, though I have not tested it. This might be based on my using of "new ship classes" with various much larger ship designs. My favorite use of cheap maintenance is for high end fortresses, though.
-Synthetic Crews add speed even when other crews are on the ship. Given the roleplay reason for this speed enhancement is that they can accept higher accelerations, this is pretty questionable. The speed stacking due to more Synth crews is also a bit of an issue given that explanation, in a way that stacked maintenance and sensor range is not.
-Attack speed and damage from repeatable techs do not seem to show up visibly, same with enhancement from crews. Is this a bug due to the game or mods, or something that arose randomly because I added a bunch of mods and nobody else is having this issue?

[h1]Crystallis Modules Expansion[/h1]

57 new ship modules and technologies
Compatible with version 1.2.0

This mod adds a lot of new ship modules as well as extra levels of existing ship modules. This mod is savegame compatible as well as mod compatible with every mod out there.

The following have been added:

Techs
Most modules come from their own technologies. Some are rare.
Crystal-Forged Plating II-V follows the base plating you discover from surveying Elite Crystaline Entities wrecks.

Do Fallen Empires and Invaders get the HP boosting plate without needing to find Elite Crystaline Entities? Can one get the tech from their wrecks?

Crystal-Infused Tissue I-V is an improved form of the base regeneration module from surveying crystalline entities wrecks.

I have noticed that the regen number can get pretty high, especially on fortresses or the mod "XL" or "battle fortress" stations. As it is a percentage it also ties together strongly with he +5% HP repeatable tech, which I have at times cheated myself into dozens of repetitions when trying to max gene points via repeatable mod techs and such. I am unsure if this is a general problem at all or a weird thing rising from my tendency to treat Stellaris as an ant farm.

The Crystal-Laced targeting matrix becomes available to research after researching "Combat Computers".

I have noticed the same "these modifiers do not show up" issues for Crystal-Laced targeting computers.

All the other tech follows a normal path after their normal tier 5 versions.

I am unsure about the names you chose for them. Zero Point Energy has a nice RP setting of being the ultimate, limitless energy source. Expanding on that by adding extra-dimensional energy is a cool change, but upgrades to "singularity" level feel like thematic downgrades to me. I might rework the fluff there a bit, making it clear zero point energy is involved in these processes and the upgrades are things like "drawing so much energy we make a black hole" instead of "we have a black hole we use for power."

The AI, Fallen Empires and Crisis events will make great use of these new and extra level modules. So expect a harder game! Modules are fairly balanced.

In my experience, the Unbidden and related fleets appear to be a lot stronger than the Scourge ones, though that may be due to my own button mashing ship design? Unbidden fleets can last a very long time even against lance based dreadnought and gigantic corvette swarms. I have played less with the Scourge in "I want a giant battle now" things, and they seem to concentrate their forces less and be less resistant to lance spam.

If there are any issues, let me know. I'm welcome to suggestions for more ship modules!

Hm, will discuss at the end.

!NOTE: this overwrites SOME vanilla files:
common/section_templates/fallen_empires.txt
common/section_templates/swarm.txt
common/global_ship_designs/ai_ship_designs.txt
common/global_ship_designs/extra_dimentional_ship_designs.txt
common/global_ship_designs/fallen_empire_ship_designs.txt
common/global_ship_designs/swarm_ship_designs.txt

These files only dictate what the fallen empires and crisis ship layouts are. So this is compatible with 99.9+% of the mods out there.

As a note I have never seen a visible problem, and as mentioned I tend to download anything that is remotely akin to a shiny object.

Currently working on next update. Will include:
* French localisation for existing modules and techs thanks to LordPavel
* Fix for hull regen tissue I icon
* Fix for Psi and clone crew mineral costs
* New Ethic dependant ship shields (only two more so far)

• Spiritualist; Psionic Shielding 6-10 -- Slightly more shield regen and less power consumption
  
• Militarist; Hardened Shielding 6-10 -- Slightly less shield regen and more shield hp

Interesting. Hm...

Might be super hard to do or balance, but possibly Materialists get shields that are covered by armor rating? It feels like a nice and nasty endgame tech for those who seek to master matter and the physical universe.

I think this fits best for militarists, but perhaps explosive shields that have a chance of damaging the enemy when they go down? Feels like it would cut heavily into shield regeneration.

Individualists, perhaps "artisan shields" or "exorbitant shields" that have high mineral and maintenance cost in exchange for their bonuses? Individualists do not want to die for the cause, they want to make some poor bastard die for his.

Collectivist shields, possibly special fleet shield HP/regen buffers in exchange for weaker shields overall. That might be a bit too "theme park" though.

If sticking to your idea for militarist shields, pacifist shields would invert militarist shields, slightly more shield regen for less shield HP. Maybe xenophobes get my militarist suggestion?

Xenophile, not sure what advantages they might get. The cultural preoccupations seem more about breadth than depth, being able to call on wider design patterns. Letting them research another ethic or two at a higher price is probably hard to code and harder to balance.

* New Ethic dependant ship crews with small bonus varieties

• Robot crew changes; if you can research robots, you have access to robot crews. These are very easy to get for Materialists.
  
• Psionic crew changes; if you can research psionic theory, you have access to psionic crews. These are very easy to get for Spiritualists.
  
• Militarist crew changes; clone crews are now militarist only
  
• Xenophobe crew: Purifier Crew - Driven Purifier Crew - Fanatic Purifier Crew
• Xenophile crew: Small Alien Crew - Medium Alien Crew - Full Alien Crew**
• Pacifist crew: Civilian Crew - Trained Civilian Crew - Experienced Civilian Crew
• Individualist crew: Small Volunteer Crew - Medium Volunteer Crew - Large Volunteer Crew**
• Collectivist crew: Small Slave Crew - Medium Slave Crew - Large Slave Crew**

Notes:
* Names are not definite, I'm not very creative. Feel free to make suggestions!
**All crews are Large slot only for balance reasons

I don't love clone crews being militarist only. My feeling is that plenty of society types could embrace clones as citizens, at least as much as synths are embraced. Specialized, incredibly skilled people with incredible potential, as third gen crews are described, seem like a thing individualists and collectivists would both insist are their own best thing ever.

Purifier Crew seems like it would have the most RP advantage in being willing to die so the xeno is killed. Possibly advantages based on being willing to be in unsafe ships or accept unsafe augmentation?

Civilian Crews feel like they'd have lower maintenance as a core advantage. Things are run more efficiently, error can be tolerated more, discipline is relaxed. If clone crews keep a distinctive lowered maintenance, civilian modules might lower building costs or be very cheap by themselves compared to other crews.

Planned for the future
* Defence Station unique modules: (some of these might make it into next update)

• High Capacity Generators - Provide large damage boost to specific weapon systems
• Super Structure - Provide massive hull hp boost
• Super Shielding Boosters - Provide massive boost to station shield hp
• Large station sensors - Provide large weapons range

One thing I like about clone crew spam for stations is that it makes the battle stations feel like cities in their own right, full of the diversity of your empire or your non-diverse ethos standing proud as they work alongside psychics or synths. (Speaking of which, increased speed may be flawed as a universal bonus for a module to put on stations.)

* Ethic dependant reactors
Militarist; Combat reactors -- No idea yet about stat differences (if any)
Spiritualist; Psionic Vessels (think man in tube) -- No idea yet about stat differences (if any)

Hm...

Materialist reactor might increase armor or HP, showing a mastery of materials and physics? Maybe regen in addition to or instead of that to show the same thing.

Xenophile makes me think a sentient energy being is the reactor, a citizen of your empire who is employed generating power. Maybe lower maintenance for that?

Spiritualist psychic reactor might increase attack speed, with energy beginning to be siphoned to where it will be needed.

Pacifist reactor, perhaps increased speed/evasion? Militarist combat reactor seems like it would always count as "excess power" for bonuses for some reason.

Xenophobe reactor, perhaps the fanatical "my life to end the xeno's" leading to leaking reactors that harm the health of the crew in exchange for superior power or efficiency, or lower cost?

* Ethic dependant sensors (though due to ship builder having limited space I might just do spiritualist and militarist sensors as the new sensors)

• Militarist; Combat sensors -- No idea yet about stat differences (maybe less sensor range but + hit chance)
  
• Spiritualist; Psionic Sensors (think man in tube) -- No idea yet about stat differences (maybe no cost and bigger sensor range and weapons range bonus)

Xenophile, hm, imagining the sensor difference comes from multiple crews and ways of thinking being applied to the data. Maybe faster attack speed again, taking advantage statistically more often? Increased hit chance might fit that better, maybe swap faster attack speed for the militarist advantage, keeping the reduced sensor range for militarist. Faster attack speed due to configured combat sensors, shorter range and more detail to show chances to strike.

If you have any cool ideas or suggestions for names and or other ethic unique ship/station modules, let me know! I greatly lack creativity!

I hope this helps. Thanks for the great mod!

 

[Guilliman88]

-Clone crew maintenance cuts are huge, and it is possible to get negative maintenance, though I have not tested it. This might be based on my using of "new ship classes" with various much larger ship designs. My favorite use of cheap maintenance is for high end fortresses, though.
-Synthetic Crews add speed even when other crews are on the ship. Given the roleplay reason for this speed enhancement is that they can accept higher accelerations, this is pretty questionable. The speed stacking due to more Synth crews is also a bit of an issue given that explanation, in a way that stacked maintenance and sensor range is not.
-Attack speed and damage from repeatable techs do not seem to show up visibly, same with enhancement from crews. Is this a bug due to the game or mods, or something that arose randomly because I added a bunch of mods and nobody else is having this issue?

Are we talking about the ship builder ui not showing weapon damage correctly? that's an issue with the game itself. In space (when hovering over a ship or inspecting it) should show the correct calculated damage and/or bonuses

I don't love clone crews being militarist only. My feeling is that plenty of society types could embrace clones as citizens, at least as much as synths are embraced. Specialized, incredibly skilled people with incredible potential, as third gen crews are described, seem like a thing individualists and collectivists would both insist are their own best thing ever.

Purifier Crew seems like it would have the most RP advantage in being willing to die so the xeno is killed. Possibly advantages based on being willing to be in unsafe ships or accept unsafe augmentation?

Civilian Crews feel like they'd have lower maintenance as a core advantage. Things are run more efficiently, error can be tolerated more, discipline is relaxed. If clone crews keep a distinctive lowered maintenance, civilian modules might lower building costs or be very cheap by themselves compared to other crews.

Good things! I haven't looked at the stats of crews in detail now that I added a lot more. Currently in my latest test build all crew types have unique bonuses. I'm also having a major hard time preventing some crews from showing up in other ethos. I either allow a small chance for crews to show up for everyone or crews tech doesn't show up at all if anyone picks more than one ethos type. This is so annoying . That said, clone crews are available to everyone that researches clone tech. You're right about that, limiting it for the sake of giving militarist something unique doesn't really feel right. Plus militarists already have a bonus chance to get different shield tech atm.

My biggest issue right now is that in late game you might end up with 12+ crew modules hogging the bottom of the ship builder module list. That's a lot of scrolling

One thing I like about clone crew spam for stations is that it makes the battle stations feel like cities in their own right, full of the diversity of your empire or your non-diverse ethos standing proud as they work alongside psychics or synths. (Speaking of which, increased speed may be flawed as a universal bonus for a module to put on stations.)

I put in some station only modules and had to remove them. There's a bug that causes auto-complete ship designs to receive station only modules when the tech is researched. There's also the issue of station only modules showing up in the ship builder when designing a ship (but you cant manually put in the station only modules on a ship). I'm planning to write a major bug report on that once the devs are out of holiday. Alongside a big list of ship builder ui and module modding changes suggestions. I also really really want a tag to make modules unique on ships so you can only have one per ship. That would fix a lot of issues I have with AI and balance.

Speaking of the module stacking versus unique. I'm aware stacking the maintenance reduction bonus is thing, and yes, it can go 'negative' causing ships to produce minerals and energy instead of costing it. Especially with bigger ships mods. Right now I just trusting people to not abuse it in SP/MP (for those few that do play MP with it). If you min/max it's easy to break the game. But that can be said of a lot of mods. This is also why I really want a unique = X (number!) tag for modules)

I could make station only crew versions, BUT only after they fix that bug and hide station modules when selecting a ship. Ship builder UI module clutter is becoming a big issue with my mod atm and I'm not sure how to deal with it.


There's a lot of testing to still do right now. I also really like your other suggestions but won't look at them in depth until the current batch of new modules is working right and balanced. Takes around 4-5 hours per test run. I simulate games with AI only in fastest speed. Most of my modules are late game tech so it takes the AI a while to get there. Plus I have to make sure the crisis events aren't too overpowering or underpowered. Same for Fallen Empires. I have to also occasionally speed trough the tech tree as a player (thank god for finish research command) to see if the tech that pops up is actually selected and researched by the AI. One of the things I try to keep a close eye on is that AI empires research the new modules in a decent timeframe so the player doesn't feel like he's outpacing the AI on fleet/ship power. Game has to remain challenging, especially late game.

And in case you wonder just how much time this all takes :

 

[WyldCard4]

Are we talking about the ship builder ui not showing weapon damage correctly? that's an issue with the game itself. In space (when hovering over a ship or inspecting it) should show the correct calculated damage and/or bonuses

Ah, thanks! This was probably not the place to ask about that, but thanks for answering.

Good things! I haven't looked at the stats of crews in detail now that I added a lot more. Currently in my latest test build all crew types have unique bonuses. I'm also having a major hard time preventing some crews from showing up in other ethos. I either allow a small chance for crews to show up for everyone or crews tech doesn't show up at all if anyone picks more than one ethos type. This is so annoying . That said, clone crews are available to everyone that researches clone tech. You're right about that, limiting it for the sake of giving militarist something unique doesn't really feel right. Plus militarists already have a bonus chance to get different shield tech atm.

Personally I like the RP of clone crews. It feels properly science fiction to have ever stranger forms of life filling up the baseline of your empire's functioning.

My biggest issue right now is that in late game you might end up with 12+ crew modules hogging the bottom of the ship builder module list. That's a lot of scrolling

I tend to get a ton of scrolling anyway due to many mods. Stellaris's UI seems a bit unwieldy for extra scrolling overall.

I put in some station only modules and had to remove them. There's a bug that causes auto-complete ship designs to receive station only modules when the tech is researched. There's also the issue of station only modules showing up in the ship builder when designing a ship (but you cant manually put in the station only modules on a ship). I'm planning to write a major bug report on that once the devs are out of holiday. Alongside a big list of ship builder ui and module modding changes suggestions. I also really really want a tag to make modules unique on ships so you can only have one per ship. That would fix a lot of issues I have with AI and balance.

That sounds excellent.

Speaking of the module stacking versus unique. I'm aware stacking the maintenance reduction bonus is thing, and yes, it can go 'negative' causing ships to produce minerals and energy instead of costing it. Especially with bigger ships mods. Right now I just trusting people to not abuse it in SP/MP (for those few that do play MP with it). If you min/max it's easy to break the game. But that can be said of a lot of mods. This is also why I really want a unique = X (number!) tag for modules)

Okay then. Glad to know that.

There's a lot of testing to still do right now. I also really like your other suggestions but won't look at them in depth until the current batch of new modules is working right and balanced. Takes around 4-5 hours per test run. I simulate games with AI only in fastest speed. Most of my modules are late game tech so it takes the AI a while to get there. Plus I have to make sure the crisis events aren't too overpowering or underpowered. Same for Fallen Empires. I have to also occasionally speed trough the tech tree as a player (thank god for finish research command) to see if the tech that pops up is actually selected and researched by the AI. One of the things I try to keep a close eye on is that AI empires research the new modules in a decent timeframe so the player doesn't feel like he's outpacing the AI on fleet/ship power. Game has to remain challenging, especially late game.

And in case you wonder just how much time this all takes :

Wow, yeah. Thank you for all the work. I really do like all you've done. Don't worry about addressing my suggestions at all or in any particular time frame. I am very pleased with what I already have and wouldn't want you to get too stressed about things when you're doing this for fun.

Once again, thank you for the mod.

 

[ShadowDragon868]

Honestly, as much as the crews are cool, I kind of think maybe they should be put on the backburner until such time as UI editing becomes possible and new slots on the right hand side of the screen can be made available.

Stacking crews never made sense to me, any more than the notion that corvettes were utterly prohibited from having any crew at all.

 

[Guilliman88]

Updated with new ethos unique shields and ship crews!

Spoiler: Changelog

Update 17-07-2016

• New modules and techs:
  
• 6 New 'Psionic' Shields (spiritualists only): Slightly more regen but slightly less shield hp
  
• 6 New 'Hardened' Shields (Militarist/collectivist/xenophobe only): Slightly more shield hp but slightly less shield regen
  
• 15 new ship crews; 3 for each different ethos to provide options.
  
• I couldn't make ship crews totally unique because the AI refused to use most of them. Until we are given methods to tell the AI to use modules more often this will have to do.
  
  Changes:
  
• Changed Crystal-Lenzing Shield Array 1-6 and the newly added shields to provide shield regen daily instead of monthly so hull plating isnt always a better choice.
  
• All crystalline entities now have a chance to drop wrecks with Crystalline hull plating technology. This is no longer exclusive to elites. The downside (can't prevent this) is that these entities are now a bit more powerful.
  
• The last two tiers (IX and X) of Crystallis Reactors now provide a 1%/2%/4% - 2%/4%/8% damage bonus.
  
• Ship crews have had hp and damage stats lowered.
  
• Ship crews now also provide an armour % bonus and a fire rate bonus.
  
• Ship crews now have pre-requirement techs. This was done to properly link crews with ethos choices.
  
• Small tweaks to preatorian ship layouts so they arent as overpowering with the buffs they got in the last game patch.
  
• Slighly buffed hit chance and attack rate on Crystal-Laced Targeting Matrix modules
  
  Fixes
  
• Fixed Hull regen tissue I icon
  
• Fixed clone crew 1-2 and psionic crew 1-2 mineral cost. I accidentally left those at the cost of the tier 3 crews
  
• Fixed the new sensors station version so they work on stations
  
• Fixed some localisation typos
  

Let me know if there are any issues.

 

[jordarkelf]

Fanatic Xenophobe is misspelled throughout in crystalexpansion_tech_shield.txt (ethic_fanatic_xenphobe).

 

[Guilliman88]

Fanatic Xenophobe is misspelled throughout in crystalexpansion_tech_shield.txt (ethic_fanatic_xenphobe).

Oh dear, fix coming in a few minutes. Doing another log check. Probably missed that one. Thanks!

 

[jordarkelf]

No prob. Was debugging my own mod when I saw this one in the log just now

 

[Guilliman88]

No prob. Was debugging my own mod when I saw this one in the log just now

It's crazy how such small things sometimes can slip trough. Thanks again! Fix has been deployed

 

[WyldCard4]

Due to game crashing issues and distraction I have yet to play with this, but I am really excited about it. I have been very happy to meet the strengthened base Crystals though.

 

[Guilliman88]

Glad you like it!

Mod was patched

• 
  Changes:
• Lowered energy cost of Crystallis targeting matrix
• I forgot to take out an experimental technology to increase planet building speed (crystallis growth something). For now I'll just keep it in. The reasoning behind the tech originally (and for personal use) was to simulate advanced 3d printing techniques and self growing/repairing materials. This would lead to a vastly decrease in building times. I lowered to construction speed from 15% each tech to 10% each tech. If people don't like the tech I might remove it in a future update, let me know.
  
  Fixes
• I noticed I forgot to include the crystallis armor in the workshop and thumbnail pictures. I added them in and upped the count from 77 new modules to 82 new modules. Armor was never removed, I just forgot to take new screenshots of them.
• Fixed typo error in xenophobe ethos requirements for purifier crews