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. This involves strengthening or weakening the various ships so that every last one of them is moderately effective at a high level of play. It is not at all suited for Star Control's main game, nor melee against the cyborg. Balance may be the goal of the project, but many adjustments have been made for the sake of aesthetics or continuity. Many of the changes listed here are still experimental and may be reversed later. The mod itself will be released to the public at some indeterminate point in the not-so-distant future.

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

Androsynth is widely recognized as the most overpowered ship in Star Control. All that is required to fix that is to price it up to 18 or 20. Nevertheless, a few situational tweaks found their way into the code. I hope no one minds! It's pretty much the same as it was in vanilla UQM, except for being ineffective against shield ships.

Point value raised from 15 to 20.

Blazer form will now leave a visible trail.

Ship mass lowered from 6 to 5. This does not affect the blazer form, which has its own mass.

VUX limpets will no longer attach to this ship while it is in blazer form. This does not change the outcome of Androsynth vs. VUX much at all. It was silly that the blazer could wipe out Orz marines but not VUX limpets.

The Guardian's facing angle will reverse if the ship collides with a planet or shielded enemy while in blazer form. In other words, the ship will bounce off either of these things. This lowers Androsynth's effectiveness against Yehat, which has been intended as a counter for Androsynth. It will be much less likely for a blazer wedge to occur if Yehat's shields can bounce Androsynth.

Blazer collisions will now charge the Utwig's absorption field the same as any other weapon. This was done for consistency's sake.

Arilou Skiff

Chain teleportation seemed to be quite unpopular when I asked around the Star Control fan community, so an overhaul of Arilou was necessary. Rather than scale down the price, I scaled up the ship's capabilities. Arilou remains just as helpless against Shofixti and Ilwrath as before, but now it can take down many of the higher value ships. Less of a time sink and much more fun, or at least I'd like to think so.

Point value remains at 16 for now.

Teleport wind-up time increased from 5 to 8. The visual effect has been adjusted to work with this.

Teleport cooldown has been increased from 2 frames to 7 frames.

The laser will be unable to fire during teleport cooldown.

Laser range decreased from 100 to 84.

The Skiff has been given two different teleportation functions. The offensive teleport is triggered by pressing "Up + Special", while the defensive teleport will kick in when the Special key is pressed in absence of the Up key.

Offensive teleportation will move the Skiff to a point that is directly forward from it based on its facing angle. The exact distance varies somewhat, so be careful.

Defensive teleportation will move the Skiff to a random location that is always a long distance away from the Skiff's opponent. Remember to take your finger off the accelerator if you want to escape.

A safety measure has been added to Arilou's teleportation function which moves it to another random location whenever it appears within solid matter. There is no longer any benefit in teleporting repeatedly for minutes on end, so the threat of teleportation-related death is no longer necessary for game balance.

Chenjesu Broodhome

Chenjesu is currently being worked on to become the prime Ur-Quan counter. Changes will be appended later.

Point value lowered from 28 to 22.

Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

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

Chmmr Avatar

The Chmmr's tractor beam is a little disappointing against the heaviest ships in vanilla UQM. To increase its impact, all of the heaviest ships have had their mass dropped by one point.

Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

Druuge Mauler

Druuge is considered one of several "must-haves" for vanilla melee, yet I felt it wasn't really worth more than its default price. With Mycon and Arilou available as a viable fleet additions, more than one optimal counter can be used against Druuge. The ship's core characteristics were left alone as I didn't think Druuge could be made more fun than it already is.

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

The default Earthling is already balanced and fun. I left it alone for the most part.

Point value raised from 11 to 12.

Point-defense laser no longer fires upon planetary bodies.

Ilwrath Avenger

Originally I began to tinker with Ilwrath because a frequent sparring partner of mine had figured out how to consistently trick the ship's auto-turning capability that kicks in whenever Ilwrath attacks while cloaked. I think I might have gotten a little carried away here, but the new Ilwrath does seem to fill the same niches it did in vanilla UQM nicely.

Battery size decreased from 16 to 12.

Energy recovery rate diminshed to a rate of 4 energy per 8 frames rather than 4 energy per 4 frames.

The Avenger will now be visible to its pilot while cloaked. It will appear as a deep blue silhouette.

Spontaneous re-facing towards opponent will no longer occur when an Avenger fires its hellfire spout while cloaked.

Cloaking Device energy cost set to zero. Cloaking/decloaking has a negligible effect on the Avenger's power supply within vanilla Star Control 2. That remains true here.

Cloaking Device has been unbound from "Special" and bound to "Down".

An alternate fire setting for the Hellfire Spout has been bound to "Special". Alt fire will shoot in three different directions in front of the Avenger at a slower rate. Energy cost has been scaled up significantly. Alt fire's damage output is lower but the coverage is much better.

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.

Buzzsaws have been altered to always knock out Mycon plasmoids regardless of their current state. Higher energy plasmoids still eliminate buzzsaws just as before.

Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

Melnorme Trader

Melnorme was inteded as the prime Ur-Quan counter, but complications have appeared during testing. Current status: inconclusive.

Point value raised from 18 to 20.

Confusion pulse hitpoints lowered from 200 to 50. The only discernable effect this has is that a confusion pulse will disintigrate instantly upon contact with a Kohr-Ah FRIED cloud.

Confusion pulse will temporarily disable the other player's "Down" key in addition to its usual effects.

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

Mmrnmhrm Transformer

I made the Mmrnmhrm even more effective against flanking ships than it already was by speeding up the X-Wing's turn rate. Not much else has changed.

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

Mycon was a fun ship the way it was before, so rather than giving it a tune-up I slashed its price. The nerfs related to Mycon vs. Kohr-Ah are there to make a tedious match-up more straightforward. Vanilla Mycon was never a proper Kohr-Ah counter, though it did lead to some very boring fights.

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.

Kohr-Ah buzzsaws have been altered to always knock out plasmoids regardless of their current state. Higher energy plasmoids still eliminate buzzsaws just as before.

Orz Nemesis

Pricing this ship down and raising marine speed may not have been such a good idea. The new recall feature was a must, though. More testing is needed here.

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

Lots of people gripe about this ship's respawn ability. What's the problem? If someone wants a wildcard on their team, who am I to say they can't have it? With that in mind, I have lowered the Pkunk's price without adjusting any of its stats. The Fury has somehow become a soft counter to the new Ur-Quan due to the way fighters respond to the triple-mounted minigun -- they will fire on flak whenever they see it, allowing Pkunk to charge right into a formation of fighters and unload with impunity. With fighters being almost entirely mostly useless against the Fury, it can put up a very serious fight against Ur-Quan.

Point value lowered from 20 to 16.

Shofixti Scout

Nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf. One more overpowered ship put back in its place. Nothing to see here folks!

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 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

Being one of the most dreaded ships in vanilla UQM, many people are not going to appreciate this ship remaining mostly the same. I might raise it up to a cost of 20 points later.

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.

The lightning weapon has been altered to seek out cloaked enemies.

Spathi Eluder

Spathi is pretty bad against opponents that don't chase it. I did what I could to make it worth using. If it ends up being too effective for 12 points, I might raise it up to 14 or possibly apply a few small nerfs. Melee could use a cheap flanker.

Point value lowered from 18 to 12.

Supox Blade

Some pretty dramatic changes were made to this ship, but even purists should be able to appreciate these. This Supox is reasonably close to the original in practice.

Point value lowered from 16 to 14.

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 2, despite Supox's true acceleration delay of 0. This change was implemented for aesthetic purposes.

Syreen Penetrator

Syreen is a difficult ship to predict in vanilla UQM. Although it was priced at 16 for some time, it has been dropped to 14 now that it can be properly countered by Thraddash.

Point value raised from 13 to 14.

The particle burst has been given an additional hitpoint, an increase from 1 to 2.

Siren Song effectiveness against other Syreen Penetrator vessels has been diminished considerably. It will hypnotize up to a maximum of 2 crew rather than 8. This was done to make the outcome of a Syreen mirror match less arbitrary.

Thraddash Torch

Star Control's most broken ship has been given much attention. The afterburner has been upgraded, while the primary weapon has been replaced with something entirely different. The primary weapon's range is limited, so this Torch must move close to its target to engage. Testing has shown that the new Torch is effective against Syreen, while fairly weak in most other match-ups.

Every other afterburner flame will cost zero energy. In practice, the afterburner's energy cost has been cut in half.

The afterburner now has a delay of 1, which means that it will trigger once every other frame. A ship's "energy_wait" jumps up to maximum whenever a ship uses energy, so this does not make the afterburner more energy efficient. Napalm area coverage is improved at the expense of density.

Energy recovery rate has been increased from 1 energy every 6 frames to 1 energy every 4 frames.

Afterburner acceleration boost has been decreased from 12 to 10.

The mark VI blaster has been replaced with a repulsor cannon. Repulsor orbs inflict 1 damage but have a tremendous knockback effect on all inertial spacecraft. Ships struck by knockback also lose the use of their thrusters for 22 frames. The knockback effect scales down against ships with high mass. Repulsor orbs also boast a very accurate homing capability. This weapon is restricted by limited range and long cooldown. Like the old blaster, the repulsor cannon still launches medium duration projectiles from a very fast ship. This can lead to a severe artifical range increase caused by the Relativity Effect. Special restrictions have been placed to prevent this from being an issue.

The repulsor orb currently uses the Vindicator's fusion blaster graphic. This may be recolored or changed to something entirely different at a later date.

The primary weapon's annoying chirp has been replaced with the Vindicator's gun sound.

An all-new sound effect will play when a repulsor orb strikes an enemy ship.

Umgah Drone

Most players regard Umgah as the worst ship in the game. With its price rounded down and Shofixti's raised to 8, maybe people will give it a chance? Who knows. I couldn't bare to lower it to a cost of 4 because Umgah really is better than that.

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 Kohr-Ah and Chmmr. Chenjesu is currently being upgraded to act as this ship's main counter, while Pkunk serves as a decent soft counter.

Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

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 will pursue for 14 seconds. They are given 28 seconds to return to the Dreadnought afterward.

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

In addition to dodging planets, fighters will also evade asteroids and enemy ships rather than crashing into them and dying.

Fighters will no longer die from friendly fusion bolts they come into contact with when making a return trip to the Dreadnought.

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

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

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

Fighters will shoot once every 18 frames, which is slower than the previous 8. This may appear to be a crippling penalty, but there's more to it than that. The vanilla Ur-Quan fighter is heavily impeded by firing angle limitations, delayed firing and a probability of crashing into the enemy ship and dying.

Fighters will now fire upon enemy projectiles, enemy support craft and asteroids. Opposing Ur-Quan fighters sustain damage from the beam on a 1 in 8 chance. Orz marines--which have 3 hitpoints--sustain damage from the beam on a 1 in 3 chance.

Fighters will deploy in squadrons of four rather than two.

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

The seizure-inducing "spazz out" behavior that kicks in when a fighter reaches its designated hovering point has been removed; fighters no longer use a designated hovering point at all. They will instead veer away from the enemy ship when they get too close.

Fighters will fan out from each other if they move too close together.

Fighter pursuit instructions have been altered. When an enemy ship is closer to the Dreadnought than the fighter itself, that fighter will move towards the Dreadnought rather than the enemy ship.

Fighters are a light 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 Jugger is mostly the same ship as before. I did make several situational tweaks to it, the first of these being especially heavy-handed. Hopefully players will understand my rationale.

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, is necessary for game balance.

The absorption field will charge up normally during Androsynth blazer collisions. It will also bounce the blazer backwards.

The absorption field will absorb a Shofixti Glory Device explosion.

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.

Energy lance duration decreased from 10 to 9.

VUX Intruder

Limpets have been nerfed somewhat, but the new Intruder is pretty much the same as before.

Maximum battery size decreased from 40 to 30.

Energy regeneration rate increased from 1 point every 8 frames to 1 point every 7 frames.

Limpet energy cost increased from 2 to 3.

Limpet duration decreased from 80 to 72 frames.

A limpet's effect on enemy top speed and acceleration has been diminished.

Limpets will no longer attach to the Androsynth Guardian while it is in blazer form.

New feature: Immobilization. Once an enemy ship's top speed drops to 8, that ship's other movement characteristics (turn delay, acceleration delay, acceleration increment) will also hit rock bottom and the ship will become almost totally immobilized. A different "chomp" sound effect has been attached to all limpet collisions that occur at or beyond this point of immobilization to make it obvious. This feature was implemented as a time-saving mechanism; normally it would take as many as 100 limpets to negate an Utwig Jugger's turning rate.

Yehat Terminator

Never liked the old Yehat. Any player that had the shield tapping technique down could keep a fight going for a very long time. Not being a fan of long battles of attrition, I gave Yehat an overhaul. The new shield is more player-friendly, slightly less effective and dramatically less irritating. Its price has also plummeted.

Point value lowered from 23 to 16.

The shield will negate a Shofixti Glory Device explosion.

The shield will bounce Androsynth's blazer form backwards.

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

Shield energy cost has been set to 2.

Shield duration has been set to 10.

Shield cooldown has been set to 5.

Battery regeneration will not occur for the entire length of shield duration + shield cooldown + 3 frames afterward.

Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger

Although I've received a few requests to do so, there's no compelling reason to upgrade Zoq-Fot-Pik. If it were to get any any better, I would have to price it higher.

No changes have been made.