Finem Hostium - Minimalist Combat Balance 9.0 - Nova

FINEM HOSTIUM

Minimalist Combat balance mod 9. 0 - Nova

IMPORTANT NOTICE - From next mod iteration (2. 1 version) Boron DLC will be required due to influence list dependencies. If you don't have the expansion, you can remove the related changes from /libraries/influenceconfigurations.xml (strings after ion_distrupt_l). In addition to this, you have to remove the relative string from content.xml as well.

Introduction

This is my personal attempt to change vanilla balance by modifying weapons/turrets parameters only.

As previous iterations this mod is a collection of proposed and shared changes that I collected from Reddit, official forum and Discord.

The main objective is to make most underpowered weapons a valid alternative to best choices and to shift balance towards a better distribution of damage across all ship classes, trying to make it possible to win without the usual (abused) tactics.

As a side effect, most of changes will help M ships to overcome the fighter/bomber supremacy - most of anti-S tools have been buffed to adequate levels.

Mod has been tested for several gameplay hours during Beta (dogfights, small group skirmishes, fleet wars, carrier vs bases etc., carrier vs carrier etc.). It still needs more testing but in my opinion most of added changes look balanced.

Higlights

- Fixed underperforming weapons

- Minor/major turret buffs

- Minor corrections to missiles

- Minor Xenon buffs

- Sniper weapons rework

- Major balance pass

- Main Battery tuning

CHANGELIST 2. 1d

Weapon

- Muon Disintegrator: angle -25% - new Muon is basically a green laser, so I think it's perfectly legit to give it more accuracy for flavour. Now it can be considered a sidegrade to Plasma, with lower damage and DPS but higher accuracy and speed

- Thermal Disintegrator: projectile speed from 2200 to 2500 (+14%) - I did some AI calculations, roughly 50% hit chance against a target of the same size (S/M) at max distance, +6% more accurate

- Ion Atomiser: heat from 450 to 650 (+44%) - with base heat the atomiser can complete 4 firing cycles for AoE flak damage plus distruption effects (nerfed as well, see below). Hands down one of the most overtuned weapons in the game

- Phase Gun: heat from 240 to 320 (+33%) - like most of Boron weapons, you don't have to care about heat levels, this will reduce the potential sustained DPS a bit, but in normal fights you won't even notice it

- Phase Cannon: heat from 300 to 400 (+33%) - same as above

- EM Gun: damage from 110/70H to 64/46H (-46%/-34%), heat from 350 to 600 (+71%) - blatantly overpowered weapon, better than Ion/