Difference between revisions of "User:Shiver/Balance Mod"

Latest revision as of 19:13, 16 October 2021

Objective[edit]

The goal of this project is to make every ship in Star Control II's line-up worth using in competitive player-versus-player melee. To this end, the various ships have been strengthened or weakened accordingly. Many adjustments have also been made for the sake of aesthetics or continuity. The changes are quite extensive, though we tried not to stray too far from vanilla gameplay.

Credit[edit]

Shiver is the original creator of the mod. He came up with almost all of the ideas and wrote most of the code.

Gekko was Shiver's primary play-test opponent during the mod's inception. He also helped port this mod from UQM v0.6.2 to v0.7.0.

Serosis helped this mod's author get the blasted code to compile again in 2019. He did most of the work in porting the mod over to UQM 0.8, and has provided debugging assistance afterward.

Oldlaptop has been a great help in testing and debugging the mod. He has implemented many features and fixed bugs.

Elvish Pillager wrote a few bits of the most difficult code for this mod and gave significant design input. His Crazy Mod source code was a valuable reference when altering melee.

Xaionaro wrote the original retreat patch and has helped with general mod development.

UQM core team members Meep-eep, Fossil, and McMartin provided coding and debugging assistance.

Death 999 cooked up a nifty program which saved hours of work when making a larger antimatter cone for Umgah.

Gostu helped port this mod from UQM v0.6.2 to v0.7.0.

Azak has put in hours as another play-test opponent in 2019 & 2020.

Bleeding Star gave some useful design input which led to several necessary adjustments.

Links[edit]

List of Changes

Download & Installation Instructions

Ship Counter Table

Github

Difference between revisions of "User:Shiver/Balance Mod"

Latest revision as of 19:13, 16 October 2021

Objective[edit]

Credit[edit]

Links[edit]

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-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. A few minor visual enhancements are being 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.
+==Objective==
+The goal of this project is to make every ship in Star Control II's line-up worth using in competitive player-versus-player melee. To this end, the various ships have been strengthened or weakened accordingly. Many adjustments have also been made for the sake of aesthetics or continuity. The changes are quite extensive, though we tried not to stray too far from vanilla gameplay.
-==General Changes==
+==Credit==
-*The down key has been unlocked. It does not perform any function normally, but commands may now be bound to it.
+* Shiver is the original creator of the mod. He came up with almost all of the ideas and wrote most of the code.
-*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.
+* Gekko was Shiver's primary play-test opponent during the mod's inception. He also helped port this mod from UQM v0.6.2 to v0.7.0.
-==Androsynth Guardian==
+* Serosis helped this mod's author get the blasted code to compile again in 2019. He did most of the work in porting the mod over to UQM 0.8, and has provided debugging assistance afterward.
-*Point value raised from 15 to 20.
+* Oldlaptop has been a great help in testing and debugging the mod. He has implemented many features and fixed bugs.
-*Ship mass lowered from 6 to 5. This does not affect the comet form, which has its own mass.
+* Elvish Pillager wrote a few bits of the most difficult code for this mod and gave significant design input. His Crazy Mod source code was a valuable reference when altering melee.
-*Comet collisions will now charge the Utwig's absorption field like a normal weapon.
+* Xaionaro wrote the original retreat patch and has helped with general mod development.
-*Androsynth comet form will now leave a visible trail.
+* UQM core team members Meep-eep, Fossil, and McMartin provided coding and debugging assistance.
-==Arilou Skiff==
+* Death 999 cooked up a nifty program which saved hours of work when making a larger antimatter cone for Umgah.
-*Point value remains at 16 for now.
+* Gostu helped port this mod from UQM v0.6.2 to v0.7.0.
-*Teleport cooldown has been increased from 2 frames to 7 frames.
+* Azak has put in hours as another play-test opponent in 2019 & 2020.
-*Battery size decreased from 20 to 18. This lowers the Skiff's spike damage somewhat.
+* Bleeding Star gave some useful design input which led to several necessary adjustments.
-*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.
+==Links==
-*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.
+* [[User:Shiver/Balance_Mod/List_of_Changes | List of Changes]]
-*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.
+* [[User:Shiver/Balance_Mod/Installation | Download & Installation Instructions]]
-*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.
+* [[User:Shiver/Balance_Mod/Counter_Table | Ship Counter Table]]
-==Chenjesu Broodhome==
+* [https://github.com/uqm-arena/balance-mod Github]
-*Point value lowered from 28 to 22.
+[[Category:Mods]]
-*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==
-*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.
-==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 discernable effect this has is that a confusion pulse will disintigrate instantly upon contact with a 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 2, despite Supox's true acceleration delay of 0. This change was implemented for aesthestic purposes.
-*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.
-*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==
-''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.
-*Only 12 fighters may spawn at from a single ship. Ur-Quan will be unable to launch more if any number higher than 8 fighters are active.
-*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.
-*In addition to dodging planets, fighters will also evade asteroids, enemy ships, Chenjesu DOGIs and Orz Marines 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.
-*Fighters will shoot once every 18 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. Afterwards, they are given 24 seconds to return to the Dreadnought.
-*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, is 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==
-*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.
-*Limpets have been given a turn delay of 2. This causes the limpets to bob and wiggle a bit during pursuit, making them appear to be more lifelike. These are easier to evade, though the difference is minor.
-*A limpet's effect on enemy top speed and acceleration has been diminished somewhat.
-*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==
-*Point value lowered from 23 to 16.
-*Shielding at the right time will negate any Shofixti Glory Device explosion.
-*The shield will no longer trigger redundantly while it is already in effect. Previously the shield was very wasteful of energy.
-*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.