Hello Spacers!
For the end of the year we have what is probably the most major minor update we've ever released. This update is the product of months of iteration and public testing with our community on the public test branch and we're happy to finally bring it to the live build. The goal of this update is to increase OSP build diversity substantially, which meant it had to be done holistically in one big update. Feedback we've received since the release of the Protectorate Update has centered on the fact that the faction was being carried by only a few strong builds without much room for variety due to weak alternative options, and this was depressing player interest in playing the faction when compared to AN.
I want to thank our internal testers as well as the broader community, who have been playing hundreds of games on the test builds and providing feedback, for helping complete this huge rebalance. There are a ton of changes, so let's get started:
Big Guns
First, the C60 has been removed due to its near-redundancy with the C65, and the model has been re-used for the new C90 600mm Cannon. This new cannon is specially designed to be used on the Cargo Feeder hull. It has two completely new ammunition types associated with it: HESH (High Explosive Squish Head, for attacking heavy targets) and Bomb Shells (for attacking groups of small ships). The Bomb Shells are a unique type of ammunition which is time-fuzed and is designed to detonate in the center of large groups of small ships, showering them all with shrapnel.
We've also made lots of minor tweaks to the OSPs other guns, rebalancing cost, health, damage threshold, autoloader sizes, etc. The C53 has also been split into two new weapons: the C53 (with half the autoloader capacity and lower DT, able to fit on small mounts) and the C56 (with all the stats the C53 had previously, but restricted to large mounts only). Plasma has been tweaked a little bit as well, making its damage falloff curve apply to armor and also inverting the curve so damage remains high at close ranges but falls off more rapidly at the end.
Hull Changes
On top of getting a new exclusive gun, as well as a resized forward mount to fit it, the Cargo Feeder hull has had its armor increased to 48cm and been given 2 additional small module sockets. The Tug has been tapped by the nerf bat a little bit in terms of speed and removing a hull modifier that was accidentally leftover from early testing, but has been improved with a modification to the model fixing the firing arcs of the top turret.
Alliance hulls have also been touched a little bit. The Vauxhall has received a slight nerf to its lateral thruster power, making it more difficult to dodge every incoming round when bow-on. The Sprinter has been given some intrinsic buffs to sensor sensitivity and positional error, giving it more of the edge a warship deserves when facing off against OSP clippers.
New XL Compartments
Three new extra-large compartments have been added for the OSP to take advantage of in their MN and LN builds. They are the Citadel Magazine (more HP and DT, but less storage capacity, Damage Control Complex (A DCC, Large Locker, and Workshop all rolled into one), and a Jury-Rigged Reactor (provides some additional power while also turning your ship into a bomb). The Large DC Storage has also gotten one repair team added, where previously it had none.
Missiles
Certainly the most controversial change of this patch will be the removal of OSP's access to EO seekers. The ability to faction-lock individual missile components was a piece of functionality from the Modular Missile Update that got cut due to time constraints, and so the Protectorate Update released without being able to filter certain missile components from them. With access to EO, and the lack of Alliance softkill for that seeker type, OSP missiles arrived at a boring local optimum of EO + Decoys with very little variety. Now, AN softkill is back on the menu and test games show much more missile build diversity.
It's not all bad news though. Rocket Containers have been both buffed numerically and improved mechanically. They've been split into two variants with 6 rockets and 12 rockets and are now able to lead their targets with their submunitions. The smaller variant is great for mixing in Container LN salvos, and the larger variant is great as a sidearm for Bulker LNs on their weak side (and the Bulker has gotten an additional base programming channel to facilitate this). Additionally, rocket containers are now susceptible to triggering on chaff and active decoys.
Two long-standing WAKE seeker bugs have been fixed as well. WAKE validators will no longer validate targets from more than 22.5 degrees forward of the target's beam (cost has been adjusted to reflect this), and a kinematics issue has been fixed that now allows these seekers to properly follow the target's wake trail and reliably hit instead of veering off at the last second.
The CM-4 missile body has been buffed with an increase in top-end speed and maneuverability, an additional seeker/support slot, and their component discount now also applies to terminal maneuver costs. Unfortunately this speed buff pushed containers over top of the HEKP min-velocity threshold and HEKP containers would be problematic to say the least, so that warhead has been locked to Alliance-only as well. Container Bank Launcher ejection delay has been cut down to only half a second between missiles, enabling much tighter salvos as well. These are all the changes for now, but we'll be taking a more in-depth look at Container Liner balance in the near future.
Point Defenses
All missiles now have a new mechanic called "wall thickness". This allows us to tune different PD types for different missile categories. Any PDT which does not beat the missile's wall thickness will do half damage, doubling the time it takes to kill it. This means flak-maxing is no longer the optimal PD setup, and a more diversified set of weapons will improve your chance of raid annihilation.
The P60 Grazer has had a long-standing issue of every weapon in a formation going for the same missile and then having to wait to cool down. To resolve this the weapon has gotten "budget deconfliction" by converting it into a single-frame damage burst. This means the first weapon assigned will kill the threat before others have a chance to fire, saving their burst for the next threat.
A new option has been added to the defensive missile doctrine section of the editor, allowing AMMs to be launched only against hybrid, conventional, or all types of incoming missiles. Additionally, the non-PDMSL PD settings have been added to the Gameplay Settings menu, allowing you to get default values the same way you could already do for PDMSL.
Finally, AMM phantom damage will be a thing of the past. Many new players struggled to understand why their AMMs seemed to do an extra 5HP of damage to targets compared to what the warhead should do, and this was due to the destruction effect of the missile body itself, which has been removed from the SGM-1 body and added directly to the Blast Frag warhead. AMM performance will be unchanged, but damage values reported in the editor will be correct.
New Ranks
When I first set the experience values for the CDRE rank I figured no one would reach it for a long time. I was proven wrong almost immediately, and so to give these most passionate players something new to strive for there are now three new admiral ranks. Your gained experience after reaching CDRE will be retroactively applied and you can promote to the new rank immediately if you're eligible.
This news post is extremely long and there are still lots of other minor tweaks and bug fixes. Check them all out in the full patch notes below.
See you in the battlespace,
- The NEBULOUS Team
Changes/Features:
- Increased Cargo Feeder armor to 48cm (was 40).
- Added two new small (2x2x2) module slots to the aft section of the Cargo Feeder.
- Moved Cargo Feeder default radar installation socket to Module 6.
- Increased size of Cargo Feeder Mount 1 to 6x12x6 (was 4x10x4).
- Reduced Tug clipper max speed to 26m/s (was 30).
- Removed Tug clipper -20% discreteweapon-recycletime intrinsic hull modifier.
- Added +20% sensor-sensitivity and -15% sensor-maxposerror intrinsic hull modifiers to Sprinter corvette.
- Added 1 additional missile programming channel to Bulker Line Ship hull.
- Reduced Vauxhall Light Cruiser lateral thruster power to 80% (was 90%).
- Updated Tug model with elevated mount 2 pedestal and removed front arc restrictions.
- Slightly increased size of colliders for all OSP rotating radars.
- Increased Bulker LN max turn speed to 1.3 (was 1.0) and angular motor force to 750 (was 600).
- Removed C60 Cannon.
- Added C90 Cannon.
- Added new ammo types 600mm HESH Shell and 600mm Bomb Shell.
- Increased C30 Cannon autoloader capacity to 24 (was 16).
- Reduced C30 damage threshold to 20 (was 40).
- Reduced C53 Cannon autoloader capacity to 8 (was 15), HP to 300 (was 350), damage threshold to 20 (was 40), and cost to 10 (was 15).
- Added C56 Cannon, with same stats as previous C53, with much larger socket size required.
- Decreased T20 Cannon point cost to 10 (was 15).
- Decreased T30 Cannon point cost to 20 (was 30).
- Decreased cost of all 100mm shells to 1 point per 250 rounds (was 1 per 100).
- Changed the way burst shells report max damage potential in the stat card and battle report, to make stat card more accurate and reduce ridiculous 1000% damage done. Actual underlying damage numbers are unchanged.
- Proximity-burst shells now report their damage potential as damage * ray count.
- Timed-burst shells now report their damage potential as damage * ray count * 5, which assumes average of 5 targets in range.
- Timed-burst shells now only report 1 hit per shot, regardless of how many individual targets were hit.
- RPF and Bomb shells now show fragment counts in their stat card.
- Added falloff to plasma component damage matching armor damage falloff over flight time.
- Updated plasma cooling color change curve to more closely match damage falloff.
- Increased rate of plasma armor and component damage falloff and decrease max range damage to 25% (was 50%).
- Increased T81 plasma cannon autoloader capacity to 8 (was 4) and increased recycle time to 5 seconds (was 4).
- Re-tuned plasma damage falloff curve to be more gradual at the start and sharper at the end.
- Decreased RL36 time between cells to 0.25 seconds (was 0.5).
- Decreased R-2 Pirannah rocket HP to 8 (was 15).
- Split CM-4R into 6 rocket (CM-4R6) and 12 rocket (CM-4R12) variants. Existing builds will revert to the 6 rocket variant.
- Increased CM-4R* trigger range to 2.25km.
- Added 0.1 seconds between each submunition launch for CM-4R* Rocket Container.
- Added lead calculations to submunition launcher for CM-4R*.
- Rocket containers will now have to shift their velocity vector to point at the target before they can release submunitions.
- Rocket containers will now trigger on chaff and active decoys.
- Added ability to lock missile modules to specific factions.
- Beam seekers with conical scans will keep the beam centered directly forward for 1 second after entering the search mode.
- Locked Electro-Optical seeker and HEKP warhead to Alliance faction. OSP missiles with these modules will silently fail to install them, though you will notice a point drop.
- Added an additional seeker/support slot to CM-4 container missile body.
- Removed ability to add support modules to the warhead slot of the CM-4 body.
- Added CM-S-4 body with support slot replacing warhead and a small combination support/warhead/seeker slot at the front.
- Increased CM-4 and CM-S-4 engine speed upper bound to 275 m/s (was 225) and maneuverability upper bound by 50%.
- Reduced cost of WAKE validator to to 0.5 points (was 1).
- Increased CM-4D1 Decoy Container (Shuttle) speed to 54 m/s (was 40).
- Decrease Container Bank Launcher time between launches to 0.5 seconds (was 1.5).
- Removed 5hp explosion damage from Blast Frag destruction effect and increased Blast Frag warheads component damage to 70 per increment (was 60). AMM damage done will now be consistent with displayed values.
- Ship main engines will now remain detectable by WAKE seekers for 15 seconds after emission stops.
- Missile body cost discounts now apply to terminal maneuver costs.
- Missile decoys will now only launch when the missile's velocity vector is within 7.5 degrees of the PIP.
- Increased TLS-3 HP to 350 (was 175).
- Increased Large DC Storage DT to 30 (was 15).
- Added 1 repair team to Large DC Storage.
- Increased Boosted Reactor rare debuff chance to 25% (was 10%).
- Added Citadel Magazine compartment.
- Added Damage Control Complex compartment.
- Added Jury-Rigged Reactor compartment.
- Removed hull-linearmotor buff from CHI-7700 drive
- Removed hull-turnrate and hull-angularmotor debuffs from CHI-9100 Long Haul Drive.
- Added 20% hull-linearmotor buff to CHI-9100 Long Haul Drive.
- Increased power output of BW2000 Drive to 2000MW (was 1500).
- Changed P60 'Grazer' PDT to fire a single 75 damage pulse with 3cm armor penetration and 7 second cooldown time.
- Increased P60 'Grazer' PDT power requirement to 1500 (was 750).
- Added new "wall thickness" parameter to missiles. Hits from PD which does not meet or exceed wall thickness will only do 50% component damage.
- SGT-3: 2.5cm
- CM-4*: 2cm
- R-2: 1.5cm
- All Mine variants: 2cm
- All other missiles/rockets: 0.5cm
- Reduced flak burst armor penetration to 1cm (was 5).
- Increased 15mm Sandshot armor penetration to 3cm (was 1).
- Increased Blast Fragmentation warhead armor penetration to 4cm per increment (was 2).
- Increased Blast Fragmentation EL warhead armor penetration to 6cm per increment (was 2).
- Added general PD settings block to game settings menu allowing players to set default PDTRT, PDDCY, and PDZNE.
- Added new option to missile defensive doctrine block to discriminate based on hybrid vs conventional missiles.
- Increased EA99 Active Decoy cost to 8 (was 4).
- Decreased J360 jammer cost to 75 (was 100).
- Increased Bulwark Huntress radar power draw to 2000kW (was 1200).
- Added 4x burnthrough capability to Bulwark Huntress radar, with 33% probability of receiving 50 damage.
- E50 Blackjack dazzler can no longer be grouped with other jammers.
- Added purple detection indicator when a ship has been hit by a BRN sweep.
- Increased aperture size of R400 LRT to 100 (was 70).
- Weapon groups for fixed weapons which have all members destroyed/disabled will now still aim at their intended target instead of clearing their aim point.
- Moved mod dependency list above mod description in the mod manager window.
- Using the "Auto-Sort Load Order" button in the mod manager window will now allow you to automatically subscribe and download missing dependencies.
- Jammers and Illuminators will no longer stop radiating when assigned to a new target within 45 degrees of the previous one.
- Added player fleet prefix to the front of their name in the deployment screen.
- Abbreviated damage summary lines for ship items in the after-action report so they stay on one line.
- Changed "Team Move Speed" stat name to "Repair Team Move Speed".
- Update fluff blocks for Parallax and Frontline radars.
- Added 3 new admiral ranks above CDRE.
- Increased brightness of all red shell tracers.
- Updated starter fleets.
- Added winter theming to Pillars, Caltrop, Nyx, Canyon, and Tumbleweed.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed Tug camo offsets not being randomized per ship.
- Fixed plasma component damage spreading being far less than it should be.
- Fixed ships not obeying a hold heading order if they had a fire order with no aim point due to destroyed weapons.
- Fixed some missiles falling out of their ideal evasion path being unable to regain it due to a counteracting drive and missing the target.
- Fixed validating WAKE seekers validating targets from all aspects instead of just the stern aspect.
- Fixed targeting WAKE seekers frequently veering off target at the last second.
- Fixed reactor blooms missing some armor segments of ships at strange angles.
- Fixed reactor blooms doing less armor damage than they should.
- Fixed multiple ships within the same comms jamming cone being able to communicate with each other and thus not being determined to be isolated from the larger network.
- Fixed remaining armor thickness division being applied to munitions which ignore incidence angle.
- Fixed Bullseye and Pinpoint not being able to lock bloomed signatures from outside their normal range.
- Fixed ungrouped weapons on the same ship multiplying reported ammo counts when holding shift.