RAKK Community Balance MOD v1.01

My first official release is out. I'll bet there's some issues in here still, but I think I got most of them.

Many thanks to Kitkun. Saved me a lot of hassle with balancing the caps.

To anyone reading this, you're here because the released version of Sins is NOT balanced. This mod is purely to address balance issues and at least bring the game closer to ideal balance. I'm not going to claim that I fixed all of the balance issues, but I believe that I got pretty close.

When I mentioned that I wanted to take a stab at balancing the game, I immediately had a plethora of messages in my private message folder. Some had suggestions. Others were asking to work together on the mod, and to those people, I meant no disprespect by no not repsonding immediately.I want this mod to be more of a community effort. So i've started by balancing the game in ways that are either overwhelmingly needed or with such little tweaks that no one will get in a twist about.

My thanks go out to Kitkun and Kyogre12. Thanks for the jump start guys. I hope you guys stay involved with this.

To the guys who have asked to work together, you're going to have to understand something about how I work. I'm very slow to trust the work of others when we're doing the same project. I get stuck on my own way and if I don't get my way, I tend to go off on my own. I get that this is childish, but for something like this mod, I'm willing to listen, but it needs to be damn convincing.

No one has to play this mod, but I hope the community does. If we can get the community to rally around this mod or any other balancing mod out there, this game could take leaps and bounds.

I'll work with people. I'd rather have this mod be a communal effort than just me.

This mod will use Occam's Razor: The Simplest Answer will be the right answer.

You will need WinRar to unzip the program. At least that's what I used and the mod worked. To install the mod you need to take the folder and copy it to

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.03

Vista: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.03

>>>The MOD (Fixed)<<<

>>>THE MOD W/O Hotfix (Just in case you want to do it yourself)<<<

Balances

Ship Stat Adjustments:

Scouts:

The Scouts needed adjustments. With the way the game is set, the Advent scouts are ungodly strong, the TEC scouts are in the middle, strong, good enough to take out Illums, but still weaker than Advent, and Vasari scouts are extremely weak.

I set the balance marker here at just a little weaker than the current Advent Scout. I made TEC scouts do a little more damage but be a little less tough than its counterparts. The Advent scout has had it's health/shields nerfed slightly. Vasari is in the middle in both cases. This is creating variety in the units. The Advent unit is more of a meatshield capable of doing significant damage. TEC scouts are not as tough, but do more damage (not much but enough).

Vasari has been adjusted so that they're as tough as TEC scouts but don't do quite as much damage. They can capture neutrals. When you see the Vasari stats, you're going to go "holy crap, Amish, that's too much". Look at the Advent scout. It's entirely counterable and I've only made the Vasari scout compare to that.I swear, all I did was balance the numbers. I'll gladly show you the numbers if you would like to see them, but take my word for it. Vasari scouts were pathetic in combat.

Also, it's worth noting in the old state of balance scouts CAN beat light frigs. I've fixed it so they no longer do.

Ship Dynamics: The scouts all work as anti-lrf now, so Vasari has gotten some love. Advent and TEC haven't changed too much overall. 

• Tec Scouts - Toughness increased by 8.5%. DPS increased by 10%.
• Advent Seekers - Toughness decreased by 8.2%.
• Vasari Navigators - Toughness increased by 63.2%. DPS increased by 12.5%.

 Basic Assault Frigates (AKA Light Frigates):

The light frig stats are actually only slightly changed. I fixed it so that there's a better balance in dps among the ships. Most of the stats here didn't even change. I wasn't aiming to change the light frigs significantly through the stats of the unit.

I kept the Disicple and Cobalt pretty close in stats. I kept the skirmisher close in toughness, but I lowered it's dps slightly. This is because the ship gets reintegration, so it needed to reflect that. The nerf isn't much, but the Cobalt and Disciple do more dps.

I gave these ships a +25% damage bonus against heavy armor. This puts the anti-heavy bonus at 175%, or +75% damage when attacking heavy armor. Effective eh?

Ship Dynamics: Overall, the toughness of all of the ships has been balanced. The DPS has been adjusted to a ratio of about 2 dps per ship slot as opposed to the previous stats. The Skirmisher was upped to 12.5 dps. I felt a 10% nerf in dps was necessary because this ship gets reintegration. Ironically, I still upped its damage from regular sins.

• Tec Cobalts-DPS increased by 10.5%
• Advent Disciples- Unchanged
• Vasari Skirmishers- Toughness increased by 15.8%. DPS increased by 19%.

 Long Range Frigates (Illum FIXIN TIME!):

I changed this class pretty significantly. What I've done is used a slightly revised version of what I suggested in previous posts. Overall, I've taken LRFS and taken them to a balance where they are all just a little tougher overall than the current Assailant. For Illums and LRMS this is a 10% nerf in toughness. For Vasari, I have not made the Assailant any tougher. They come out early and can be upgraded like crazy.

This can and probably will be changed, but I feel that since I nerfed the LRFS a little, and have buffed scouts and fighters directly, that nerfing lrf's might be a bit excessive and put them in obsolescence. I want to see and hear results from people playing people before I nerf these further.

Ship Dynamics: What I've done is overall nerfed the class by 10% in toughness. Assailants are where they were. I did not touch the DPS. Only the H/S stats. I want lrfs to be like archers, so I may be nerfing their health a little bit more, but it will be slight increments, not gigantic leaps that throw things out of whack.

• Tec LRMS- Toughness decreased by 10%
• Advent Illuminators- Toughness decreased by 12.7%
• Vasari Assailants- Unchanged (needs to be slightly weaker, available so early, and so upgradable)
  

 Seige Frigates:

I haven't changed the actual ship stats, except for ship slots, which you can read below in the chart or follow in my later section on other changes. The only change here of note is I made Advent seige frigs scost 100 creds and 10 metal less than they do now. They are still the most costly seige frig, but they cost 25% more than their counterparts, which is a bit much dont ya think?

Ship Dynamics: Still frail. Fewer ship slots. 10 per instead of 14 (Which is ridiculous, devs what were you thinking)

• Advent Seige - Cost cut by 9.4% 

 Anti-strikecraft Frigates (AKA Flak):

This class was pretty varied. Vasari flak easily came in third, but I think we all know Vasari flak are still strong enough to crush fighters, so what I"ve done is set the bar just slightly lower than current Vasari flak. You'll see what I mean when you look at the stats. Overall, flak got a pretty significant dps nerf, but I think I've kept it so that flak do enough to destroy fighters significantly.

Vasari flak had to be buffed. It didn't compare to its counterparts. Buffed in health and shields, but nerfed in damage.

I felt I needed to readjust my changes here. Cykur noticed that I was nerfing flak, when instead, I should just buff fighter health. So, what I've done is instead gone in and adjusted flak to all bring about the same amount of impact as current Vasari flak. Some are tougher than others, some do more damage than others. Look below to see.

Basically, TEC and Advent have been nerfed, Vasari slightly buffed. Advent flak was unbelievably strong.

Ship Dynamics: Overall, still meaty beasts. Don't do as much damage as before so won't counter lrf's/bombers as effectively anymore, but still, overall, their role is a bit more defined now.

• TEC Garda- DPS lowered by 1.96%
• Advent Flak - DPS lowered by11.1%
• Vasari Sentinels -DPS increased by 10.4%, Health increased by 10.3%, Shields increased by 22.7% (takes up 5 ship slots, so this makes sense)
  

Carriers

I made only a small change here. The Adent carrier houses 50% more squads, but is only 25% tougher than its counterparts. I made it 50%. Other than that, no changes.

People have complained about doing this, since Advent carriers are already very very tough. I feel the same way, but not just about Advent carriers. I gave light frigs +25% against heavy armor, so they can and WILL destroy carriers.

Ship Dynamics: Overall, expensive as hell, but tough as hell too.

• Advent Drone Host - Toughness increased by 17% (they're now 50% tougher than their counterparts

Heavy Cruisers (Time to fix the Enforcer)

The Glaring weak brother here is the enforcer. It was buffed everywhere. Kodiaks and Destras remain untouched.

Ship Dynamics: Should beat just about anything now. The Enforcer's dps is slightly lower than it's breatheren because of reintegration, much like with the skirmisher

• Vasari Enforcer - Toughness increased by 4.66%, DPS increased by 5%, Cost Decreased by 14.3% (These things were unreasonably expensive). Together I hope these three changes are enough to balance them out. It just lacked a little in each category. 

Strikecraft (JESUS TEC had weak strikecraft)

Odd balance here. I didn't change much. I just balanced these ships. TEC was very weak in both categories, so I buffed them.

I gave fighters a 20% toughness blanket buff. This is to help with the fact that they die too quickly to flak. In addition, I buffed all anti-strikecraft abilities by 20% to correlate with this buff.

This shouldn't have too much effect on bombers, but we shall see. They're already very tough. They may be readjusted later.

Antimatter cost of strikecraft raised by 25%.

Ship Dynamics: Strikecraft work this way now. They won't die as quickly, but they won't be replaced as quickly either. I did this so that fighters can actually stand a chance to do their job, BUT IF THEY ARE LOST, the person who destroyed the strikecraft has time to get the carriers before strikecraft are back out in significant numbers. Get it? Also, TEC just got the boost it needed to compare.

• TEC Fighters: DPS raised 10.8%. 20% blanket buff
  
• Vasari Fighters: DPS raised 7.31%, 20% blanket buff
  
• Advent Fighters: Unchanged, 20% blanket buff
  

Other Adjustments:

v.9 adjustments

• LRF Exp Tweaked: LRMS now give 20 exp per kill rather than 30. Assailants now give 30 exp per kill rather than 20. Illums still give 45.


• Repulse Firing Cost, Antimatter consumption rate, and delay time between at least doubled. It now takes 60 antimatter to activate repulse (not unreasonable in my opinion). It has a 24 second cooldown between uses. It drains 12 antimatter per second. I debated a lot of things to do here. I thought about taking cap's out of the targeting list, but if you do that, what's the point of repulse then? Here's my point. I didn't want to nerf repulse into obsolescence. Basically, I've made it so that it's in your best interest to leave the guardian in one place and let repulse run its 30 second course AS INTENDED when the devs made the ability a channeling ability.
  

• Fighter Squad/Bomber Squad Antimatter cost upped by 25%. I did this so that if you lose your strikecraft, you can't just run and remake them quickly. Your opponent will have time to sufficiently chase you down and pay for the fact that you let your strikecraft die.

• Reduced Slip Shots for Seige Frigs to 10

• Bombers get +25% multiplier against very heavy armor (LRFS are weaker, so HC rush is better, so bombers counter stronger)

• Light Frigs get +25% against heavy armor

v.91 Adjustments:

• Dead Asteroids now have a metal mine. They are no longer worthless and are worth colonizng now. A planet with no mines? I think not.
  

• I lowered the antimatter cost for fighters/bombers from +50% to +25%. I stand by the fact that fighters should take a slightly greater time to regnerate since they're free.
  

• Lava and Ice planets now will give 3-4 mines, not 2-4

• Asteroids now only provide two mines. I thought about this one long and hard. My problem was that if the asteroid has three mines, it basically brings as much impact, if not more, than say a current unmodded lava with two mines. Asteroids are supposed to be quick stops that don't yield as much but are easy to take. I may change this one, but I like it this way.
  

• You will find 1-2 neutrals in grav wells with neutrals. I've lowered the overall income of mines 43% too, BUT keep this in mind. There are no more empty neutral gravity wells. None. I've tried to add a little flavor here. Most neutrals will provide .3 minerals per second rather than .5333 by default (that's on slow, on fast you get +20% i ncome on everything). TO add a little flavor, the only neutral grav well that can get 3 mines are gas giants, but in exchange, each neutral only provides .15. There WILL be at least 1, but possibly 3.
  

• I was debating a different version of balance, but it would require someone with more skill than I. I'd like to make it so that instead of capturing neutrals, you had to build the extractor. This would also be so that instead of just taking neutrals, people would be forced to destroy yours first before taking it.
  

• I DIDN'T adjust refinery income however. Refineries will give you .08 minerals on slow still. That's per mine. Still very valuable.
  

• Something else I should mention. Black holes have a metal mine in them now. I cut the income of this mine to .2 metal per second. I did this because while I think blackholes should give some income (it's an empty uncolonizable grav well that screws you if it's next to you early), it should give less because later it becomes a big tactical advantage if used right.
  

v1.01 Adjustments

• I think I managed to get it right. Magnetic clouds should have 1-2 crystal mines in them. You should be able to aquire them. I think.

• You now get a warning that you will be losing a planet to culture at 20% allegiance, not 10%. You don't have enough time to react at 10%.

• I doubled the starbase construction rate in enemy grav wells. This is primarily because Vasari starbase rushing really doesn't have a counter in the first 10 minutes, BUT, I have done something special here. The best I can figure, the 25% improvement upgrades just do -25% to the 225% default build rate penalty in enemy grav wells, so if you buy both of the 25% upgrades, Vasari starbases only get a 75% penalty in enemy grav wells. What I've done is set it so that by default, the build rate in ENEMY grav wells is 425%, but with the Vasari upgrade, you can get it at level 3 and get -250% overall with both upgrades to get it back to 175%, an acceptable build rate with the upgrades. PLZ PLZ TELL ME IF I MESSED THIS UP. 

Capital Ship Adjustments

I've included many changes from Kitkun's mod, HOWEVER, I've changed some things. Changes that I didn't agree with are in red.  I put changes that I got rid of in strikethrough.

TEC:

Kol: Buff

Guass Rail Gun: Change damage from 300/550/800 to 400/650/900, change cooldown from 6/6/6 to 6/5/4, change AM from 75/75/75 to 75/67.5/60, increase range from 5000/5000/5000 to 6000/7000/8000.

Flak Burst: Buffed 20% in damage to correlate with fighter buff.

Adaptive Forcefield: Fine as is.

Finest Hour: Fine as is.

Sova: Buff

Missile Battery: Change AM from 125 to 110.

Embargo: Change Duration from 60/90/120 to 60/120/300. Fix bug where higher levels disables the effect of stopping tradeships. (Embargo rush is good on small maps, useless on larger maps. Increased duration on higher levels takes income down longer.)

Heavy Fighters: Change Damage bonus from 10/20/30 to 20/40/60, change Armor bonus from 1/2/3 to 2/4/6. (Only affects the Sova itself, but gives the craft much more damage while making them much more durable.) (I made the change big because reall, this ability will affect 7 squads at most)

Rapid Manufacturing: Change Duration from 45 to 240, change Cooldown from 120 to 360.

Akkan: Buff

Colonize+: Fix bug where free extractors do not always spawn. Change Range from 5000 to 6000, change free extractors from 0/1/2 to 1/2/4. (Colonize just a bit sooner with increased range, and brings the bonus a bit more in line with the Vasari.

Ion Bolt: Change AM from 85/85/85 to 85/80/75. (AM intensive, gives more incentive to level it up. Only good for interrupting anyways.)

Targeting Uplink: Change Accuracy bonus from 5/10/15 to 6/12/18, change Range bonus from 8/17/25 to 10/20/30. (Allows Flak to take out SC just a bit faster and gives the longer ranged TEC ships a bit more of a boost.)

Armistice: Fine as is.

Dunov: Buff

Shield Restore: Fine as is.

EMP Charge: Change to 360-degree targeting.

Magnetize: Change to interrupt.

Flux Field: Fine as is.

Marza: Buff

Radiation Bomb: Fine as is.

Raze Planet: Fine as is.

Incendiary Shells: Allow it to stack, change Damage/Sec from 3/4.5/6 to 1/2/3, change duration from 15 to 8. (Increasing damage several times should hurt a lot.) Unchanged. This ability costs no antimatter, so really it's a matter of do you risk spending antimatter on radiation bomb and raze planet or purely on raze planet but get the passive incendiary shell bonus?

Missile Barrage: Bump up graphics more.

Advent:

Radiance: Buff

Detonate Antimatter: Fine as is.

Animosity: Fix so that debuffed ships cannot attack other ships with any weapon that could attack the Radiance. Add 2% Mitigation, change cooldown from 35 to 45. (Actually makes it useful, since as is you just give a new order.)

Energy Absorption Armor: Fine as is.

Cleansing Brilliance: Fine as is.

Halcyon: Buff

Telekinetic Push: Does 20% more damage to correlate with the fighter buff. 

Adept Drone Anima: Change extra Drones from 1/2/3 to 2/4/6.

Amplify Energy Aura: Fine as is.

Anima Tempest: Change from 30 drones to 60 drones. (Six extra squadrons worth. A real tempest there.)

Progenitor: Mixed

Colonize+: Change Cost reduction from 20/40/60 to 20/35/50, change cost reduction duration from 360/360/600 to 300/450/750. (Blasphemy, I know. This ability is insanely awesome as is. This allows you to still get a good bonus, and can wait a bit longer if you don't have the cash already.)

Malice: Change target cap from 8/16/24 to 12/20/28.

Shield Regeneration: Change shields restored per second from 37.5/50/62.5 to 37.5/47.5/57.5. (Another awesome ability. Ready the flames, plz.)

Resurrection: Fine as is.

Rapture: Fine as is.

Revelation: Buff

Reverie: Fine as is.

Guidance: Fix Autocast to not target ships with no active abilities. Add 3/6/9 AM recharge.

Clairvoyance: Start with Autocast off.

Provoke Hysteria: Fine as is.

Vasari:

Kortul: Buff

Power Surge: Change Shield recharge bonus from 75/150/225% to 300/600/900%, add 40/80/120 Wave damage.

Jam Weapons: Change Range from 3500/5000/7000 to 6000/7000/9000.

Disruptive Strikes: Fix to apply from Pulse Beams.

Volatile Nanites: Change debuff range from 2000 to 2500, change damage upon death range from 1000 to 1250, change damage upon death from 150 to 200. (A bit more useful against large fleets.)

Skirantra: Buff

• Increased DPS to 31 dps from 21.

Repair Cloud: Fine as is.

Scramble Bombers: Kill this ability. (Move it to Lasurak or something.) Replace with an ability that allows the Skirantra's Fighters to slow enemy strikecraft by 8/16/24% and slow regeneration by 30/60/90%, allow the Skirantra's bombers to apply this to non-strikecraft. 

Microphasing Aura: Fine as is.

Replicate Forces: Change from 3 copies to 10 copies. (Much more useful in smaller groups.) I felt 10 would make the skirantra deisrable.

Jarrasul: Mixed

Colonize+: Change Duration from 240/480/720 to 240/360/600,  add 1/2/3 extra constructors. (Building structures really, really fast for a short while. Not like you're going to take this over others often.)

Gravity Warhead: Fine as is.

Nano-disassembler: Change Armor reduction from -2/-4/-6 to -1/-3/-5. (More blasphemy. This ability just eats ships as is.) I didn't change this, but I wanted to highlight this. SInce I balanced the game, I felt this ability actually deserved the nerf. Assialants don't suck ass as much any more.

Drain Planet: Fine as is.

Antorak: Buff

Phase Out Hull: Change Duration from 6/8/10 to 16/20/24, allow sub-light engines to stay active. (Allows it to be used more defensively. Facilitates hit and run attacks.) 

Distort Gravity: Add 100/200/300% rotation rate, change phase jump interference negation from 100/100/100% to 33.3/66.7/100%, add 25/50/75% phase lane destabilization negation, add 10/20/30% phase jump antimatter cost reduction.

Subversion: Change build rate penalty from 50/100/150 to 100/200/300, add damage over time to amount to 8/12/16% of planet health and 5/7.5/10% of population, change AM from 100/100/100 to 100/110/125, change cooldown from 75 to 150, remove stacking. (Powerful now. For damage, remember that it's over 5/7.5/10 minutes.)

Stabilize Phase Space: Fine as is.

Vulkoras: Buff

Phase Missile Swarm: Change to fire Phase Missiles with 15/30/45% chance to bypass shields. (Again, more a bug fix.) 

Deploy Siege Platforms: Change AM from 100 to 80, change cooldown from 55 to 45.

Assault Specialization: Fine as is.

Disintegration: Change damage from 200/sec to 120/sec, change heal from 187.5 to 120, change to bypass shields. (960 damage/heal in total.)