User:Shiver/Balance Mod

I've been poking at The Ur-Quan Masters' melee engine recently in an attempt to balance combat for player-versus-player. Ineffective ships are being strengthened while overpowered ones have received a proper beating from the nerf bat. A few minor visual enhancements have been made as well. Many of the changes listed here are still experimental and may be reversed later. The mod itself will not be released into the public until some time beyond the release of UQM 0.7.0.

General changes

The down key has been unlocked. It does not perform any function normally, but commands may now be bound to it.

All ship point values have been set to even numbers. This will make it easier to build a fleet up to an exact number, rather than a fleet of 197 or 199 when using a 200 point maximum limit.

Androsynth Guardian

Point value raised from 15 to 20.

Acid bubble duration lowered from 200 frames to 190 frames.

Ship mass lowered from 6 to 5.

Comet collisions will now charge the Utwig's absorption field like a normal weapon.

Androsynth comet form will now leave a visible trail.

Arilou Skiff

Point value lowered from 16 to 12.

Teleportation will no longer drop the Skiff within close proximity to an opponent. This was implemented to prevent offensive chain teleportation, which most net melee regulars have found tedious.

Teleportation longer has any chance of destroying the Skiff by spawning it within an asteroid, planet or enemy ship. There is no longer any reason for this to occur now that offensive chain teleportation has been nullified.

Chenjesu Broodhome

Point value lowered from 28 to 22.

A photon shard will cancel out against one Kohr-Ah FRIED cloud rather than simply disappearing.

Chmmr Avatar

No changes have been made.

Druuge Mauler

Point value raised from 17 to 18.

A cannon slug will cancel out against one Kohr-Ah FRIED cloud rather than simply disappearing.

Earthling Cruiser

Point value raised from 11 to 12.

The point-defense laser no longer fires upon planetary bodies.

Ilwrath Avenger

No changes have been made.

Kohr-Ah Marauder

Although Kohr-Ah is almost entirely the same as before, adjustments to other ships will hopefully make it less powerful.

FRIED clouds have been altered to cancel out against particularly powerful single projectiles, these being the Ur-Quan fusion bolt, Druuge cannon slug, Melnorme purple pulse, Melnorme red pulse and Chenjesu photon shard. This only really affects combat against Ur-Quan, but other projectiles were taken into consideration for consistency's sake.

Melnorme Trader

Point value raised from 18 to 22.

Confusion pulse HP lowered from 200 to 50. The only effect this has is that Confusion pulses are unable to break through even one Kohr-Ah FRIED cloud.

A purple or red blaster pulse will cancel out against one Kohr-Ah FRIED cloud rather than simply disappearing.

Mmrnmhrm Transformer

Point value raised from 19 to 20.

Fixed "insta-switch" bug present in UQM 0.6.2.

X-Wing turn delay lowered from 2 to 1.

Laser range has been set to 144. It is ever so slightly longer than before.

Mycon Podship

Point value lowered from 21 to 14.

Plasmoid requires 21 points to launch, an increase from the previous 20. This is significant when Mycon is fighting against Kohr-Ah.

Orz Nemesis

Point value lowered from 23 to 20.

Added a new ability that causes all marines currently out in space to turn green and retreat back to the Nemesis. This is triggered by pressing "Special + Down". This gives Orz more flexibility in how marines may be deployed.

Marine acceleration increment increased from 8 to 9.

Marine top speed increased from 32 to 34.

Pkunk Fury

Point value lowered from 20 to 16.

Shofixti Scout

Point value raised from 5 to 8.

Glory Device damage has been capped at 16. The explosion radius has not changed. Damage is still calculated the same way as before aside from this cap.

The Glory Device can now be negated by shielding.

Currently waiting on UQM 0.7.0 for a solution to the Shofixti "homefield advantage", which makes Shofixti quite useless for any player that joins another player's game due to the way UQM 0.6.2 handles Glory Device kills.

Slylandro Probe

Point value raised from 17 to 18.

The lightning weapon's maximum range is now roughly equivalent to the Chmmr, VUX or Mmrnmhrm lasers. As you know, Slylandro lightning will zig-zag in different directions. Sometimes the ship will unleash a lightning bolt that doesn't zig-zag very much at all, giving it unusually long range. The fluctuating weapon range could be abused by firing from outside an opponent's reach repeatedly until scoring enough of these long shots to beat them. This tactic would lead to boring, unbalanced combat when used.

Spathi Eluder

Point value lowered from 18 to 12.

Supox Blade

Point value lowered from 16 to 14.

Acceleration rate increased from 8 to 10.

The down key will cause Supox to accelerate backwards. You may now accelerate in reverse and rotate at the same time if you so choose. "Special + Up" no longer performs this function. Lateral thrust remains exactly the same.

Propulsion particles will spawn from the center of the ship rather than the rear.

Reverse or lateral acceleration will cause exhaust to spawn.

Propulsion particles will spawn on a delay of 3, despite Supox's true acceleration delay of 0.

Projectile duration has been increased by one frame. The Supox's glob gun has a slightly longer range as a result of this.

Syreen Penetrator

Point value raised from 13 to 16.

The particle burst has been given an additional hitpoint, an increase from 1 to 2. This improvement makes Syreen slightly better at destroying Pkunk and significantly raises the odds of Syreen defeating Earthling.

Thraddash Torch

There is presently an entirely different Thraddash Torch in the game, but I am not happy with it in its current state. The details will be appended here when I finish creating a satisfactory Thraddash variant.

Umgah Drone

Point value lowered from 7 to 6.

Ur-Quan Dreadnought

The Dreadnought has received a massive overhaul. Rather than price it down to 20 or 18, it has received substantial buffs to its capabilities, hopefully enough to make it equal to the Kohr-Ah Marauder and Chmmr Avatar. The Melnorme Trader is intended to be this ship's natural counter.

The fusion bolt graphic has been replaced. The new bolt is roughly 2.5x the width. This makes the fusion cannon much easier to score hits with.

A fusion bolt will cancel out against one Kohr-Ah FRIED cloud rather than simply disappearing.

Fighters now deploy in squadrons of four, not two.

The fighter beam weapon will remove one crew and one point of energy from its target every time it shoots. Damage from this weapon will not charge the Utwig's energy bank if its absorption field is active.

The fighter beam weapon will connect with its target the instant an enemy ship enters firing range.

The fighter beam weapon has 64 firing angles rather than 16.

Fighter beam weapon's range has been extended from 40 to 48.

The preferred hovering spot of fighters has been extended from 30 to 44 distance away from the center of any given enemy ship.

Fighters will evade asteroids rather than crashing into them and dying.

Fighters will evade the enemy ship rather than crashing into it and dying.

Fighters will no longer die from fusion bolts they run into when making a return trip to the Dreadnought.

Fighters will shoot once every 17 frames, which is slower than the previous 8.

Fighters cost 5 energy each to deploy. That is 20 energy for a squadron of four.

Fighters have had their hitpoints increased from 1 to 2.

Fighter mass has been increased from 0 to 1.

Fighters will pursue for 12 seconds. They have 24 seconds to return to the mother ship.

Fighters are a pale yellow-green in color instead of brick red to match the Dreadnought itself.

The fighter beam weapon is light cyan in appearance rather than yellow.

The fighter beam weapon has a new, more intimidating sound effect.

Utwig Jugger

The absorption field will charge up normally during Androsynth comet collisions.

Shielding at the right time will absorb any Shofixti Glory Device explosion.

The absorption field will absorb an extra point of battery energy from Kohr-Ah spinning blades. Spinning blades do NOT inflict extra damage to the Jugger when the absorption field is inactive. This change was implemented to make Kohr-Ah easier to defeat; in vanilla UQM, Utwig is the only reliable counter to a well-piloted Kohr-Ah. Most players have found the technique required to defeat Kohr-Ah with Utwig too difficult to perform. This tweak, while being heavy-handed for certain, was necessary for game balance.

The absorption field will no longer charge up by 10 points per frame when touching a Chmmr satellite.

The absorption field will not charge up from damage inflicted by Ur-Quan fighter beams, as these beams are meant to be energy-draining.

VUX Intruder

Limpet lifespan decreased from 80 to 72.

Yehat Terminator

Point value lowered from 23 to 16.

The shield will no longer trigger redundantly while it is already in effect. Previously the shield was very wasteful of energy.

Shielding at the right time will negate any Shofixti Glory Device explosion.

The shield, being too powerful after the implementation of the above change, has also been given a penalty. After it has been active for 10 frames, it may not activate again for 2 frames. This gap is most noticeable when the Terminator is under continuous fire. Small amounts of damage can trickle through despite constant shielding.

Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger

No changes have been made.