User:Shiver/Balance Mod/List of Changes

General

• The "Down" key is unlocked. Several ships make use of it, most notably Supox with its reverse-thrust.

• Many projectiles are now affected by the velocity of the ship they launch from, pushing toward the ship's direction of travel. The magnitude of this push varies between weapon systems. In most cases the difference is subtle.

The intent here is to help forward-mounted weapons be more useful when a ship is moving toward a target and less drastic when moving away.

• When two of the same ship type fight, each ship will be highlighted by a colored reticle; green for the player's ship, red for the opponent's.

• Optional game variant: Retreat. Ships can retreat back to their fleet in Super Melee if this mode is enabled. This variant appears in the Advanced tab of the Options menu along with a few pertinent variables for the player to adjust to their liking.

Cyborg

• Chenjesu won't deploy DOGIs against Chmmr while it still has satellites up, and will engage aggressively rather than turn away.

• Orz deploys marines against Earthling.

• Ur-Quan does not launch fighters against cloaked Ilwrath.

• Utwig and Yehat use their shields to defend against the Androsynth blazer.

The Cyborg is not at all the focus of Balance Mod. Any improvements to artificial intelligence which do occur are made on a whim.

Androsynth Guardian

• Point value raised from 15 to 20.

• Ship mass lowered from 6 to 5.

• The blazer leaves a visible comet trail.

• Blazer energy drain occurs on a 9 frame delay rather than an 8 frame delay. If an Androsynth activates its blazer form with full battery, it will have an additional second before its battery is empty.

This change was implemented to keep Androsynth effective against the new, buffed Spathi, which can be played in a way that forces Androsynth to run through its entire battery trying to ram into it while dodging the improved torpedoes.

• Minimum energy needed to activate Blazer increased from 2 to 3.

Those little 2-energy Blazer hops an Androsynth pilot might perform while being chased can get pretty tedious.

• VUX limpets no longer attach to this ship while it is in blazer form.

This is a continuity change and does not affect the dynamic of Androsynth vs. VUX much at all (i.e. vanilla Androsynth still beat VUX by a landslide even while limpeted because limpets do not impair the blazer). It was silly that the blazer could wipe out Orz marines but not VUX limpets.

• The Guardian forcefully bounces off shielded enemies and planets while in blazer form.

This lowers Androsynth's effectiveness against Yehat, which is now intended as a counter for Androsynth. The bounce-off-planet behavior is for the Androsynth player's benefit as it prevents a blazer from ramming a planet multiple times in a row.

• The Guardian retains some velocity after the blazer deactivates. The ship slows down to its default top speed instead of stopping completely.

• After the blazer damages an enemy ship, it is non-damaging for a single frame (1/24th of a second).

This halves the rate of damage dealt whenever Androsynth 'wedges' into an opponent. It still wrecks things alarmingly fast when this happens.

• Blazer collisions charge Utwig's absorption field the same as any other weapon.

The super-efficient Androsynth needed to be nerfed badly. I favored a significant price increase to balance the ship rather than a performance downgrade. I made adjustments to some of its characteristics, but Androsnyth still plays very similarly to its old self.

Arilou Skiff

• Speed increased from 40 to 42.

• Laser uses 64 different firing angles, up from 16.

• Laser range decreased from 100 to 90.

• The Skiff now has two different teleportation functions. Forward teleport is triggered by pressing "Up + Special", while an escape teleport will kick in when the Special key is pressed in absence of the "Up" key.

• Forward teleport moves the Skiff to a point that is forward following its current facing. Each destination point has a small amount of vertical and horizontal variation.

• Escape teleport moves the Skiff to a random location that is always far away from the Skiff's opponent.

• Teleporter transit time increased from 5 frames to 14. Melee's camera will give away Arilou's destination early into this cycle.

• After reappearing, ship movement is disabled for 3 frames and the tracking laser is disabled for 12 frames.

While Forward Teleport was a good buff for Arilou and very fun to play around with, it was also wildly overpowered until all these small delays were added.

• The Skiff may teleport again as it is reappearing, before it materializes.

• The Skiff's teleportation function has a safety mechanism which teleports the ship again if the ship warps into solid matter. This mechanism requires enough energy to teleport again or it will not trigger.

This change was implemented because there is no longer an advantage to chain teleporting for minutes on end, and thus the threat of teleportation-related death is no longer necessary to deter players from doing so.

Vanilla Arilou depends on a technique known as "chain teleportation" to be useful in competitive PvP. It involves teleporting over and over until appearing at an ideal location to attack from (usually a 'sweet spot' where the other ship is incapable of escaping or counterattacking). Nobody seemed especially fond of chain teleportation when I asked around the Star Control fan community and several veteran players were convinced that it ruined gameplay, so an overhaul of Arilou was necessary. The new forward teleport is meant to replace that technique with something similar, yet more fun. This variant is also noticeably stronger than the underpowered vanilla Arilou.

Chenjesu Broodhome

• Point value lowered from 28 to 26.

• Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

• Photon shards are partially affected by the Broodhome's velocity.

• Shrapnel fragments now spiral outward, then back inward at a higher speed and longer duration than before. As the fragments follow a curve rather than a straight line, the spiral pattern's area-of-effect covers a similar area to the previous pattern.

This weapon's coverage and likelihood of hitting something is vastly improved.

• Shrapnel damage decreased from 2 to 1.

New shrapnel hits targets within its area of effect more than twice as often. I nerfed the damage back down to keep the weapon from becoming too powerful. Why is buffing the weapon's coverage and nerfing its damage better for the game, you might ask? Because this version inflicts small damage consistently, whereas vanilla Chenjesu's shrapnel often misses the broad side of a barn over and over.

• Photon shard detonation also releases a small shockwave which inflicts 1 damage to non-friendlies within a much smaller area than shrapnel blast radius. This effect is accompanied by a new, pretty animation.

A bit of conditional extra damage has been added to the shard explosions. This is helpful when your shard barely misses the enemy ship, or when clearing out hostile objects such as Ur-Quan fighters.

• Shrapnel no longer inflicts damage upon friendly DOGIs.

This prevents Chenjesu's improved shrapnel explosion from wiping out its own DOGIs left and right, which was a big problem during testing.

Vanilla Chenjesu is not really worth using in competitive PvP. The primary weapon's shrapnel explosion struck me as the best place to make improvements, as it was quite unreliable. The new shrapnel explosion indeed makes a significant difference in making this ship into a powerful piece of space artillery. Even so, Chenjesu's ship price still needed to drop somewhat for the ship to be viable.

Chmmr Avatar

• Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

The down-tweaks in ship mass you can find all over this change log are mostly for Chmmr's benefit. Lighter ships are more affected by the tractor beam. This particular adjustment is there just to keep Chmmr, Chenjesu, Ur-Quan, and Kohr-Ah at the same weight. The other heavy ships lost mass to give Chmmr a bit more edge against them.

• Satellite laser color changed from deep blue to an even shade of red. The old beam was so dark that it was hard to see.

Chmmr balance is pretty good in vanilla melee and barely needs any adjustment here. Many other ships are being buffed however, changing the dynamic they have against this one. Lowering ship masses was an easy way to give Chmmr a little extra push against certain ships. I'm also deliberately skewing Chmmr vs. Ur-Quan/Kohr-Ah towards Chmmr a bit more, as Chmmr is the easiest of the three 30pt ships to counter.

Druuge Mauler

• Mass driver is partially affected by the Mauler's velocity.

Druuge is considered one of several "must-haves" for competitive vanilla melee, yet I felt it wasn't really worth more than its default price. With Mycon, Arilou, and Umgah (which is a long-shot soft-counter to Druuge) becoming more competitive, there are more viable answers to Druuge than before.

Earthling Cruiser

• Point value raised from 11 to 12.

• Point-Defense Laser energy cost decreased from 4 to 3.

• Each laser strike stalls energy recovery slightly. This effect is cumulative; blasting away continuously will stall recovery for longer.

PDL essentially costs 3.5 energy this way. The battery stall gives this weapon a fractional cost.

• Point-Defense Laser cooldown increased slightly from 9 to 10.

• Point-Defense Laser no longer fires upon planetary bodies.

• Point-Defense Laser ignores its own outgoing missiles for the first 10 frames of their duration.

• Fixed a defect present in vanilla UQM: Point-Defense Laser will no longer inflict 2 damage per strike against Umgah while that ship's antimatter cone is active.

The default Earthling is already balanced and fun. It has been left alone for the most part.

Ilwrath Avenger

• Point value raised from 10 to 11.

• Top speed increased from 25 to 26.

This allows Ilwrath to catch Earthling with less difficulty during pursuit. Due to some quirk of the game's engine, you can sometimes get in a situation where both ships will be moving at full speed in the same direction, and the Ilwrath will not gain any ground on Earthling until they turn around and try to chase Earthling from another angle.

• Battery capacity decreased from 16 to 12.

• Energy recharge delay increased from 4 frames to 6 frames.

Battery size and regen have been reduced to mitigate the new additions this ship has received.

• Hellfire velocity increased from 25 to 32. This increases the weapon's range, which is still fairly short.

• The Hellfire Spout has be redesigned to fire in three separate directions (forward, left diagonal, right diagonal) to give the weapon better coverage. The two diagonal flame spouts have a low rate of fire, so it's still best to attack your opponent head-on when possible. Diagonal spouts draw additional battery power as they fire. They do not activate when attacking with a depleted battery.

What are the diagonal spouts for? Toasting dodgy ships that slip past your front spout. This makes a world of difference against Arilou, and is advantageous against short-range attackers such as Androsynth and Pkunk.

• The Avenger is now visible to its pilot while cloaked, appearing as a deep blue silhouette. A side effect of this is that the cloaked Avenger will show up on screen when two players go head-to-head on the same PC.

• Spontaneous re-facing towards an opponent no longer occurs when an Avenger fires its Hellfire Spout in a cloaked state.

• Cloaking Device energy cost decreased from 3 to 2.

Balance Mod Ilwrath has received the royal treatment. Originally I began to tinker with this ship because a frequent sparring partner of mine had figured out how to consistently trick the ship's auto-turning capability (that thing that kicks in when a cloaked Ilwrath attacks) to miss its mark. I might have gotten a little carried away, but the new additions are quite fun and the ship fills the same roles it once did in vanilla melee.

Kohr-Ah Marauder

• Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

• Buzzsaws are partially affected by the Marauder's velocity while the primary weapon button is held down.

• Buzzsaw energy cost increased from 6 to 7.

These things are stupidly effective and this change should force Kohr-Ah players to ration out their energy more carefully.

• FRIED cloud hitpoints decreased from 100 to 6.

Individual FRIED clouds can now be neutralized with enough firepower, though they will still melt every projectile they meet upon contact.

The small downtweaks to Kohr-Ah's weapons should help rein it in. This ship was a just little too good in vanilla UQM.

Melnorme Trader

• Point value raised from 18 to 20.

• Both Melnorme weapon systems are partially affected by the Trader's velocity.

• New feature: Holographic Targeting Aid. When toggled on, the Trader sends out holographic tracers which replicate its primary weapon's firing path to help its pilot aim better. This feature is only detectable to its pilot. Press 'Down' to toggle this feature on and off.

Melnorme is known to be difficult to play and this aim-assist feature mitigates that.

• When a blaster pulse is suspended in front of the Trader, it will now break down correctly when hit by massive burst damage.

This is a continuity tweak. In vanilla melee these had to lose all their hitpoints twice over in an instant for them to break down. Previously, a carried red pulse would inexplicably withstand another Melnorme Trader's in-motion red pulse rather than cancel out with it.

• Confusion pulse hitpoints lowered from 200 to 50.

What does 50 damage? Kohr-Ah FRIED, at least when it connects with another player's projectile. I gave Kohr-Ah--which has received some nerfs--a new minor advantage against Melnorme.

• Confusion disables the other player's "Down" key for its duration.

Melnorme has been priced up slightly due to its strong all-around performance at high level play. This remains nearly the same ship as before, even with the targeting aid.

Mmrnmhrm Transformer

• Point value raised from 19 to 20.

• X-Form turn delay lowered from 2 to 1.

This gives Mmrnmhrm better results against flanking ships in particular. Teleport-backstabs from the new Arilou are a threat to the original X-Form, and this change prevents that.

• Laser range set to 148, very slightly longer than before.

Someone figured out Slylandro could hit Mmrnmhrm from beyond range by a smidge, which needed a solution.

• Missiles are partially affected by the Transformer's velocity.

This adds some speed when the X-Form is moving toward an opponent and subtracts it when moving away. The missile kiting strategy should be a bit less one-dimensional this way.

• Missiles traveling above normal speed slow down as they turn away from their launch angle.

• Y-Wing acceleration increment decreased from 10 to 5. It is still rather fast, even at half strength.

Mycon Podship

• Point value lowered from 21 to 16.

Vanilla Mycon is grossly overpriced. My preference to solve this was to drop the ship's price rather than improve its characteristics. The rationale here is that Mycon is the only ship which can heal during combat, which puts it at a higher risk of breaking the game if given upgrades. I also feel that Mycon is pretty fun the way it is.

Orz Nemesis

• Crew count increased from 16 to 18.

This change was added more recently. Too often Orz would lose so much crew taking out Ur-Quan that Earthling or Thraddash could snipe it afterward.

• Howitzer is partially affected by the Nemesis' velocity.

• Top speed increased from 35 to 36.

• Marines lead their target by a longer distance during pursuit.

• New feature: Marine Recall Signal. When used, all marines currently out in space turn green and retreat back to the Nemesis. The signal is triggered by pressing "Special + Down".

With Androsynth's price raised to 20, Orz has become much more viable. Nevertheless, marines have been improved in a few ways because vanilla marines are underwhelming at high level play, sometimes being more of a liability than a weapon.

Pkunk Fury

• Respawn chance begins at 80% and drops by 18% per respawn.

• 'Nitwit' returned to the insult repertoire.

The Fury's respawn ability has been tweaked to make Pkunk less random and generally more effective. You won't see 10+ respawns anymore, but it will respawn more often on average.

Shofixti Scout

• Mendokusai dart velocity decreased from 96 to 84.

• Mendokusai darts are partially affected by the Scout's velocity.

• Energy recharge rate slowed; recharge delay increased from 9 frames to 11 frames.

These dart nerfs impair Shofixti's ability to win fights without its Glory Device.

• Glory Device damage is halved.

The Glory Device is still a threat to many ships despite being nerfed so heavily. It is an effective finisher of many enemies when they are heavily damaged, particularly if they are short-range fighters.

• Glory Device inflicts extra damage vs non-ship objects. It can still break Chmmr satellites if they're close enough.

• Glory Device is negated by Yehat and Utwig shielding.

• Ship's central hotspot moved closer to actual center.

This helps Arilou's tracking laser connect with this ship. The weapon has accuracy problems when a small ship's hotspot is off-center.

Shofixti needed a serious beating from the nerf bat. It was far too deadly in a wide variety of circumstances for 5 points. Furthermore, since the game is designed for the Glory Device-user to choose its next ship second following a mutual destruction, a kill from the Glory Device yields a strong advantage of picking a counter ship in response to the opponent's next ship. The new Shofixti is indeed relatively weak, and being the cheapest ship in the game, it's about where it should be.

Slylandro Probe

• Point value raised from 17 to 18.

• When fighting against Chmmr, Mmrnmhrm, VUX, or Yehat, the lightning weapon has a maximum range cap that prevents this ship from out-ranging those opponents. Capped lightning also has a slightly longer attack duration, which mitigates some of the impairment caused by this range cap.

The variable weapon range could be abused by firing from beyond an opponent's reach repeatedly until scoring enough long-shots to beat them. Against ships such as Chmmr, this exploit could lead to boring, unbalanced combat.

• Lightning seeks out enemy ships regardless of whether they are cloaked or not.

This change keeps Slylandro effective against the new Ilwrath, which has better weapon range and can see itself while cloaked.

Slylandro was consistently devastating in vanilla melee. With Spathi adjusted specifically to counter this ship, and Supox getting stronger and cheaper, pricing Slylandro up much higher than this small increment seemed unnecessary.

Spathi Eluder

• Point value lowered from 18 to 16.

• The front cannon now fires three projectiles forward in a slight spread. Projectile velocity is lower than before. This weapon consumes 3 energy per shot and has a 5 frame cooldown.

• Front cannon is significantly affected by the Eluder's velocity.

• Torpedo speed increased from 32 to 40.

• Torpedo duration reduced from 30 to 25.

• Torpedo initial homing delay removed. The weapon is more responsive against enemies at short range as a result.

Spathi has been repurposed to act as a destroyer of flanking ships. This has been achieved by improving the ship's torpedoes. Once considered to be a poor fleet addition in PvP, this ship can now take on the dreaded Slylandro. The new front cannon is a step up from before, but it is still relatively weak.

Supox Blade

• Point value lowered from 16 to 15.

• Crew count increased from 12 to 14.

• Battery size decreased from 16 to 12.

Supox's sustainable attack duration has been reduced a bit to compensate for its improved mobility and flanking potential.

• Gob projectile is partially affected by the Blade's velocity.

• Gob projectile is wider, making it easier to score hits with. The new graphic appears barely different from the original.

• The "Down" key causes this ship to accelerate backwards. "Special + Up" no longer performs this function. The Blade may now reverse-accelerate and rotate at the same.

I added the "Down" key to melee specifically to make Supox's reverse thrust ability more intuitive.

• Reverse acceleration leaves an exhaust trail.

• New ability: Directional Boost. The Blade propels itself very fast in a given direction for a moment, then decelerates back down to its conventional top speed. Boost costs 6 energy and stalls battery regen while active. To activate, press 'special' plus any directional keys. Boost replaces the sideways thrust ability.

Sideways thrust is only marginally useful in PvP. It's better against the AI; so many ships will chase straight after you, letting you shift into just the right angle to strike an opponent that can't hit back. This doesn't happen much in PvP, so I don't feel bad replacing the ability with a better one.

Supox has been overhauled to behave more like a flanking ship. The original, while interesting, had no real niche before.

Syreen Penetrator

• Point value lowered from 13 to 12.

• Particle blaster is partially affected by the Penetrator's velocity.

• Maximum crew capacity lowered from 42 to 32.

• Siren song energy cost increased from 5 to 8.

• Siren song cooldown increased from 20 to 22.

• Siren song potency decreased from 8 to 6.

• Siren song potency against other Syreen Penetrator vessels is set to 2.

This was done to make the outcome of a Syreen mirror match less arbitrary. Both ships calling and gathering each other's entire crew while hurling shots at each other got pretty silly, usually leaving the winner with a lot more crew than they started with.

Vanilla Syreen was thought to be overpowered, though not tremendously so. The siren song has been toned down somewhat for the purpose of pushing the ship into the role of a medium-low value ship.

Thraddash Torch

• Crew count increased from 8 to 10.

• Ship mass decreased from 5 to 4.

• Battery capacity decreased from 24 to 16.

• The Mark VI Blaster has been transformed from a long range "plinker" to a set of short range, rapid-fire guns. The new projectile has 72 velocity, and a duration of 10 frames, and a cooldown of 3 frames. Two projectiles fire at a time, consuming 2 energy per shot. A new sound effect has been attached to this weapon.

• Blaster shots are significantly affected by the Torch's velocity.

• Afterburner will consume 2 energy per 3 frames of afterburn, lowering energy consumption.

• Afterburner flame puff hitpoints increased from 1 to 2.

• Afterburner flame puff duration increased from 48 to 60.

• Afterburner flame puff fade animation starts earlier and occurs more gradually.

Star Control's most broken ship has been given much attention. The original Torch out-ranges most other ships with its blaster, and has a higher top speed than anything due to its afterburner, which allows the ship to slowly and painfully pick apart most opposition. A revamped blaster fixes this problem. The new Torch is now somewhat flimsy, yet fast and versatile.

Umgah Drone

• Ship mass increased from 1 to 2.

• Antimatter cone substantially increased in size.

• Turn speed slows while the Drone's antimatter cone is active. In this state, turn delay is 9 instead of 4.

• Battery capacity decreased from 30 to 24.

• Retropropulsion will consume energy for every other consecutive zip, halving energy consumption.

• Retropropulsion speed decreased from 160 to 120.

The new antimatter cone is a big help for the Umgah Drone. Initially, the larger cone was too powerful, and the ship's turn rate had to be messed with to compensate. Changes to retropropulsion were applied to make the ship easier for less skilled players to control, though Umgah remains one of the more challenging ships to play as.

Ur-Quan Dreadnought

• Ship mass decreased from 10 to 9.

• Fusion bolts are partially affected by the Dreadnought's velocity.

• Fusion bolts use a wider sprite, roughly double their previous width.

Wide projectiles are easier to land hits with.

• Fusion bolt duration increased from 20 to 21 frames.

• Fighters are given a much longer timer of ~22 seconds to return to the Dreadnought before expiring once their attack duration is over.

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

• Fighters fan out from each other if they are too close together.

• Fighter beam weapon has 64 firing angles rather than 16.

• Fighter beam weapon connects instantly with its target.

• Fighter beam weapon range is extended from 44 to 52.

• Fighter attack cooldown increased from 8 to 14.

This may appear to be a harsh penalty at first glance. The vanilla Ur-Quan fighter is heavily impeded by firing angle limitations, a delay between firing and scoring a hit, and a likelihood of eventually crashing into the enemy ship and dying. With all of these flaws rectified, this change is needed to keep the new fighter beam under control.

• Fighters will not attack a shielded enemy ship.

This makes Utwig--a ship which already excels against Kohr-Ah and Chmmr--less effective against Ur-Quan.

• Fighters are a light shade of yellow-green in color rather than brick red to match the Dreadnought itself.

• New Feature: Point-Defense Turret. This module periodically fires a low damage, super-accurate homing projectile at nearby enemy ordnance. It only fires on smaller threats that it can potentially stop such as Earthling missiles, ignoring larger objects such as Kohr-Ah buzzsaws. Being strictly a defensive countermeasure, this module does not fire on enemy ships. The turret consumes 2 energy per shot and has a cooldown of 22 frames.

This provides the Dreadnought with a small measure of protection, which the other 30-pt ships have (satellites, FRIED) and Ur-Quan needs to remain effective at that cost. No more Dreadnoughts losing half their crew chasing down Earthling, or being hard-countered by Mmrnmhrm missile spam.

Ur-Quan has received a massive overhaul. Impressive as it may seem at first blush, the original Dreadnought becomes seriously underpowered for its cost as player skill increases. Rather than price it down to ~20 pts as Ur-Quan is likely worth in vanilla melee, it has received substantial buffs to its capabilities to bring it up to the level of Kohr-Ah and Chmmr. While the changes may initially seem extreme, #uqm-arena regulars agreed that drastic adjustment was needed to keep it at 30 pts. Lowering the point value of this ship was not desirable for thematic reasons; the Ur-Quan are the Big Bad of the series and deserve a top-tier ship. This ship's intended hard counter is Orz, for anyone wondering. The space marines have enough hitpoints to withstand a few shots from the turret and climb aboard. A few other ships can achieve varying degrees of success against Ur-Quan as well.

Utwig Jugger

• Point value raised from 22 to 23.

• Crew count increased from 20 to 22.

A small boost to help Utwig tussle with Kohr-Ah. This should be fine, as more crew gives minimal advantage versus Utwig's counters (limpets, confusion, mini-missile spam).

• Maximum battery size increased from 20 to 24. Starting energy remains at 10.

This improves effectiveness against Kohr-Ah and Chmmr, while having a negligible effect on all other match-ups. As Utwig is the primary counter to Kohr-Ah, I am attempting to fudge the odds in Utwig's favor as much as possible so that less skilled players are able to win that match-up more frequently.

• Absorption field charges up normally during Androsynth blazer collisions. It will also bounce the blazer backwards.

• Absorption field negates and absorbs Shofixti Glory Device explosions.

• Absorption field no longer charges up by 10 points per frame when touching a Chmmr satellite. Although this was clearly a bug, removing it admittedly does not make much of a difference when Utwig and Chmmr are fighting as Chmmr satellites still rapidly charge up a shielded Utwig's battery with their frequent laser strikes.

• Energy lances are partially affected by the Jugger's velocity.

Utwig is best known among veteran melee players as the killer of 30 pt ships which is itself easily countered. I've increased its price to make it less of a "must-have". Additionally, the new Ur-Quan is no longer a viable target for Utwig. Nerfs to Kohr-Ah and some subtle buffs to Utwig should make the Utwig vs. Kohr-Ah match-up more approachable for non-expert players. Various changes aside, Utwig remains very similar to its vanilla counterpart.

VUX Intruder

• Point value raised from 12 to 13.

This ship's price raise coincides with Utwig's, which is widely considered VUX's favorite prey. Also worth mentioning is that Yehat has been made competitive in this mod, giving VUX more potential targets in a serious match.

• Ship mass decreased from 5 to 4.

This gives the ship more 'bounce' when colliding with large ships, which helps it get away from Utwig after warping in right next to it.

• Battery capacity decreased from 40 to 36.

• Energy recharge rate improved; recharge delay decreased from 8 frames to 7 frames.

• The maximum distance an Intruder will spawn from an enemy ship is reduced, improving its "ambush" capability slightly. As before, VUX Intuders will rarely ever get the drop on an opponent which is already in motion at the start of combat.

• For each limpet deployed, energy recovery stalls slightly. This effect is cumulative; dumping an entire battery's worth of limpets will stall recovery for longer.

Limpet energy cost has been scaled up (2 to 2.2) to match the ship's faster battery.

• Limpet effect on enemy top speed and acceleration is diminished slightly.

• Limpet color adjusted from green to turquoise.

This makes limpets more visually distinct from floating crew during Vux vs. Syreen matches.

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

• New feature: Immobilization. Once an enemy ship's top speed is reduced 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. It would normally take as many as 100 limpets to effectively shut down a ship's turning capability. Fights where a VUX has already won will end faster as a result.

VUX limpet nerfs are there to add some granularity to how impaired a ship is as it picks them up. Ships which are doomed the moment they pick up a single limpet (Utwig, Yehat) in vanilla UQM still are, while others put up a better fight. The laser is more usable due to increased energy recharge, making VUX play less one-dimensional.

Yehat Terminator

• Point value lowered from 23 to 18.

• Top speed increased from 30 to 32.

• Acceleration adjusted to build up more evenly toward the Terminator's new top speed.

• Twin pulse cannons are partially affected by the Terminator's velocity.

• Shield negates Shofixti Glory Device explosions.

• Shield bounces Androsynth's blazer form backwards.

• Shield no longer triggers redundantly while it is already in effect. Previously the shield system was very wasteful of energy if its button was held down.

• Energy recharge stalls while shield is active.

• Energy recharge stalls for 8 frames after shield deactivates, as well. This effect is non-cumulative.

• Shield energy cost is 2 and duration is 7 frames.

• Ship's central hotspot moved closer to actual center.

Vanilla Yehat was never very much fun in net melee. Any player familiar with the shield tapping technique could keep a fight going for a very long time. The new shield is more player-friendly, less powerful, and less irritating. The ship's price has also plummeted as even the original Yehat was not worth its cost. Changes to weapon relativity have occurred across the board and Yehat in particular benefits from this, as its strafing gravity whip attacks are more effective.

Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger

• Price raised from 6 to 8.

• Top speed increased from 40 to 42.

• Scattergun is partially affected by the Stinger's velocity.

• Tongue length increased. The difference can only be discerned when the camera is fully zoomed in. All hit detection in Star Control is done based on full-zoom sprites whether you see them or not, so only the largest tongue image set was altered.

To increase the ship's power in general and usefulness against Mycon in particular, the Stinger has been given a few uptweaks accompanied by a price increase. In vanilla UQM, ZFP was nowhere near as good as the less expensive Shofixti. Stat changes between the two ships have hopefully evened things out a bit.