Volt_Cruelerz

About

A lot of people complain about the state of the balance of the game due to various reasons.  I am one of them.  For this reason, I made a mod that reworks or buffs the underpowered units of the game in an attempt to make them better and nerfs various overpowered units.

Not one of the things I have in here is something I believe is something that could not be in some form effectively integrated into the game.  I am also basing many of these things off the extensive discussions and tests myself and others have had on the subject.  I do not claim perfection, but I do claim a great deal of effort and I would hope improvement.

This mod is not about making cool new additions.  This mod is about one thing and one thing only: balance.  While some in the community feel that the game has intrinsic problems, I believe that without fundamental changes to the gameplay itself, this game can be balanced.  The objective of this mod is to balance as objectively as possible the races, factions, ships, and abilities of the game.

Download Structure

As this mod expands, if files are given in text format, it will result in slower loading times.  As a result all the files are given in binary for easy of loading for beginner users but advanced users can simply click on ConvertBinToText.bat to run ConvertData to look at the files in text format.  The needed files for this process are included in the GameInfo folder itself for your convenience and needn't be relocated to function.

Reuse

As this mod has expanded, there have unfortunately some changes that have had to be made which modify the entity.manifest, thereby prohibiting the use of it with any other mod that modifies that file.  If you truly wish to combine this mod with another, you will have to take the custom entries in the entity.manifest of one of the mods, add it to that of the other, and drop the files from one mod into those of the other.  In other words, if you already know how to do the above, it's a piece of cake.  If not, there are resources around the forums to help get you started on modding.

If you are releasing your own mod and wish to incorporate either Rebalanced Races: Rebellion or Rebalanced Races: Diplomacy...

• If incorporated in its entirety, please cite the mod's name and myself in your credits and I would preferably like to receive a PM at some point prior to the integration as I might be interested in helping you.  
• If not in whole and no modifications requiring entity.manifest changes are added to your mod, I'd ask to be in at minimum a "Special Thanks" category.  
• If not in whole and a modification(s) requiring modification to the entity.manifest is added, I would like to ask that I be included in your credits list.
• Artwork reuse is restricted due to the fact that it is the work of Axxo2 and not myself

Credits

Yarlen: Incoprorated Yarlen's hotfix mod for Rebellion 1.03.  Available individually here.

Axxo2: He did the artwork for the logo/loading screen

NOTE: fixed the startup crash of 1.6.  My apologies for the inconvenience.

Rebellion Changelog From Default (as of Rebellion 1.03)

-ADVENT-

Radiance Battleship: port and starboard laser batteries now deal anti-light damage and can target SC; also there are two port and starboard bank targets.  This allows the Radiance to better deal with bombers and corvettes in rush situations.

Deliverance Engine: the DE now captures all culture centers at the target planet, assisting the primary effect of dominating culture.  Depending on user preference, the centers could either be left up to torment the previous owner or scuttled for resources for the user.  See this thread for details.

Guidance: AM changed effect from 10%/20%/30%/40% on ability cooldowns to the same effect on both ability and bombing cooldowns.  This is likely a temporary change until something better comes along or I make this do something else entirely.

Clairvoyance: spawns culture at a power of 0.0/0.8/1.6/2.4 at the target planet, allowing players to increase their odds of having an advantage at a planet when attacking and can be used to cement a cultural advantage in culturally contested wells.  This can also be used early on to culture-bomb your opponents as an Advent Loyalist, handicapping their economy and thus military.

Detonate Antimatter: damage rate buffed from 12/14.9/17.8/20.7 to 16/21/28/35.  For some unknown reason, DAM was nerfed by Starclad between Diplomacy and Rebellion, so I buffed largely to undo this unknown nerf.

Vengeance: The target ship now deals 8%/16%/24%/32% bonus damage for the duration.  This does apply to titans.

Domination: Due to various mechanics added in Rebellion that outshine Domination, it has been buffed to have a guaranteed conversion of the target frigate and will also convert 2/3 other nearby frigates if fleet supply for them is available.

Animosity: This ability now synergizes with Ruthlessness for a late-game synergy between underused units.  When the Radiance is within the radius of Ruthlessness, Animosity is amplified to deal a DoT of 8/12/16/20 DPS to afflicted units.  Though this may seem excessive when paired with Malice, consider that at the same point in the game, you will likely have a Coronata or Eradica, both of which have very high damage abilities that work well with malice.  In addition, Animosity now also increases damage dealt to afflicted units by 2%/4%/6%/8%.  Fixed a longstanding bug regarding buff application.

Ruthlessness: now applies a buff to friendly capitals, causing them to deal 8% bonus damage.

Telekinetic Push: Increased range from 4200 to 4200/4700/5200/5700 to help deal with alpha-strike damage as pointed out by the MP community.

Martyrdom: damage increased from 250 to 650 and now stacks infinitely

Unity Mass: base damage reduced from 1000/1500/2000/2500 to 900/1300/1700/2100 and modified to remove 150+2.4/2.6/2.8/3.0 AM per ally nearby.  Also fixed an bug from RR:R 1.3

Fury of the Unity: changed from 10% to 4.5%/9%/13.5% and also added 1%/2%/3% mitigation in culture and increases culture spread rate by 5%/10%/15%

Culture Research: now properly blocks Phase Missiles via Yarlen's mod

-TEC-

Kol Battleship: autocannons now deal anti-light damage and can target strike craft

Gauss Rail Gun: AM cost increased to 65/70/75/80 from 50/55/60/65, removed speed debuff, added passive regeneration disable, now passes through targets, and changed duration to 20/35/50/65 seconds from 10/10/10/10

Adaptive Forcefield:  made passive and nerfed to 3%/11%/19%/27% from 15%/23%/32%/40%; fixed a graphical bug from RR:R 1.3

Incendiary Shells: now stacks 2 times instead of 3 and reduces shield regeneration/healing to the afflicted target by 10%/15%/20%/25%

Radiation Bomb: area of effect increased from 1200 at all levels to 1200/1500/1800/2100 and DPS increased from 7/13/18/24 to 8/14/20/26, allowing the Marza to better combat corvette spam

Demolition Team: AM cost increased from 85 at all levels to 105/100/95/90.

Salvage Operations: when target is not boarded, hull absorbed reduced from 10%/15%/20%/25% to 4%/10%/16.5%/25%; boarded hull absorption is unchanged.

Elite Crews: prevents target ship from being disabled from non-ultimate disables

Hardened Defenses: moved to Tier III

Starbase Compartmentalization: moved to Tier V

-VASARI-

Kortul Devastator: pulse beams now deal anti-light damage and can target strike craft

Kultorask: forward PM damage increased from 150 per volley to 170

Wave Researchables: now affect the damage output of Pulse Waves

Phase Missile Swarm: increased target count from 4/7/11/14 to 6/8/11/14, leading to more use at lower levels, encouraging players to invest the initial point.

Phase Out Hull: Removed the heal/damage functionality; on friendly units does not disable regen or sublight movement and also increases linear velocity by 300%/455.3%/577.6%/600% and linear acceleration by 550%/766.7%/983.3%/1100%.  Also decreases angular thrust by 25%/45.1%/63%/85.3%.  When used on friendly units, buffed from 6/8/10/12 seconds to 8/10/12/14.  Unchanged duration on enemy units.

Subversion: When used against an enemy planet, now applies buff to neighboring enemy planets as well

Dissever: now applies to capitals, titans, and starbases

Desperation: stacking count changed from 15 to 60, duration changed from 10 at all levels to 10/12/14/16, and cooldown effect reduced to 1%/1.5%/2%/2.5% from 1%/2%/3%/4%, giving the Vorastra better performance in larger battles.  Applies AoE buffs via Phase Missiles and Waves due to the weapon type change of the Vorastra in Rebellion 1.03

Micro Phase Jump: after completion of the jump now increases the Vorastra's rotational thrust by 33%/55.3%/77.6%/100%

Microphasing Aura: buffed from a 20%/30%/30%/35% chance per 4/4/3/3 seconds to a 20%/30%/30%/35% chance per 3/3/2/2 seconds

Regenerative Hulls: Increased regen from 50%/100% to 75%/150% and also gives 2 armor points per level

Energetic Pulse Charging Researchable:  now properly buffs damage of Pulse Guns, Pulse Beams, and Pulse Waves

Armor Restoration: moved to empire tree, no longer requires other hull upgrades, requires all trade upgrades, and requires Enemy Relations.

Shared Shield Technology: moved from T6 to T8 and now requires Enemy Relations

Stabilize Phase Space: this ability now has 2 levels with the second level installing a phase drive on the Orkulus

Starbase Mobilization: now requires both levels of Enhanced Tunneling and level 2 Stabilize Phase Space

AbilityPhaseStarbaseSameOrbitbodyDebuff: Orkies around the same star will no longer disable each other.

Jump Destabilization: ships will no longer take damage leaving a gravity well through which an Orky has passed.  Via Yarlen mod.  Also due to the above changes, it now fills the slot ability4 on the Orky, resulting in the player being unable to see it.  It is still applied as normal however.

Changelog From Previous Version of RR:R (Version 1.5)

• Removed Guidance's AM usage decrease and turned it into a support/bombing ability.  This will likely either be turned into a dedicated bombing ability or support ability.  I am currently undecided.
• Buff Clairvoyance from what it has actually been (the .6 at level 1 was a typo that I kept forgetting to fix even though it was always 0.0 in the files themselves)
• Fixed a bug with RR:R's Animosity.
• Martyrdom now stacks infinitely (fixes some quirkiness with the game itself and how it process this ability)
• Added mitigation and spread rate increases to Fury of the Unity.
• Buffed duration of the Kol's regen disable to encourage the initial point
• Inverted buff to Phase Out Hull when used on friendlies regarding angular thrust
• Removed AbilityPhaseStarbaseSameOrbitbodyDebuff's primary functionality.
• Reorganized the positions of the Orkies abilities on UI
• Starbase Mobilization is now the result of a second level of Stabilize Phase Space.
• Custom loading screen by Axxo2

I'm still at a loss for Guidance in its current implementation.  Right now I'm leaning towards either what Zombie is doing (effectively a remote version of Overcharge for friendly ships) but this would take a great amount of time or a bombing toggle that would slowly drain AM from the Revelation while simultaneously decreasing the max health of the planet.  Upon de-toggling, the planet's maximum health would slowly regenerate.  The second is easier but the first could be better.  I'm open to suggestions.

Clairvoyance's effect was a longstanding typo.  It was in fact 0.0/0.6/1.2/1.8 but I had mistakenly posted it as starting at 0.6 but I kept forgetting to fix that.  I have now buffed it to give it more of an effect later in the game and to encourage players (particularly as AL) to start with the Revelation for the purpose of culture-bombing.

My redesign of Animosity had a bug which resulted in it sometimes not being applied correctly.  This has been fixed.

Martyrdom now stacks infinitely.  You see, there seems to be some weirdness with buff tick rates in the engine which appear to happen perhaps every half second.  This could previously only stack once, meaning if you had multiple scouts suicide at the same time, only one would actually damage the target.

Fury of the Unity now increases combat effectiveness via mitigation and increases culture spread rate since it is in the civilian tree.

10 seconds is not nearly enough time for regen disable to have an effect.  As such, the time was increased.

POH's buff last time around was not quite as it should have been.  I would rather this effectively allow the ship to travel through phase space, but as ships appear not to be able to change heading once in phase space, I reduced their ability to turn.  Make sure to get the correct heading before using this ability, else your ship will waste the buff on an exorbitantly large turn radius which will put you farther away from your destination in many cases.

AbilityPhaseStarbaseSameOrbitbodyDebuff is a stupid ability that was replaced with hard-coded limits.  This was the ability that caused multiple Orkies to disable each other.  Since the jump limitations, this is unneeded and effectively dead, buggy code.  It has been removed from the Orky.  I still contain it in the file because of string issues associated with Starbase Mobilization the research.  Also, the reason this ability doesn't have an in-game name is because this was the Orky's ability4 or in other words, the one that is hidden behind the upgrade management button.  Thus the devs never felt like giving it a real name.

Due to the removal of the above and changing SM to something that must be done via Stabilize Phase Space, I was forced to reorganize the UI slightly.  Jump Destabilization's effect in-game is unchanged.  That said, you will no longer see it because of what I had to do to get SM to work as an upgrade.  My apologies as this is something I try to avoid, but there was no way around it.

The custom loading screen IMO looks awesome and there will also eventually be a main menu change to go along with it.

Fixed a bug from 1.6 that would cause crashses on startup.

Rebellion Downloads

Version 1.0

Version 1.1

Version 1.2

Version 1.3

Version 1.4

Version 1.5

Version 1.6

Future Plans: Looking into Guidance further

Diplomacy Changelog From Default

-ADVENT-

Perseverance: Omnidirectional, not channeled, reduced AM cost to 30, and allowed to stack in a limited way with the first to apply a buff yielding 25 HPS, all following that add another 5 HPS.

Suppression: reduced it's cooldown time to make it the default ability during battle of the Domina.  The order ideally will be that the Domina casts Pers, then spends the next 30 seconds channeling Suppression before casting Pers again.  Rinse and repeat.

Guidance: Increased ability cooldown from 25/25/25 to 25/30/35

Clairvoyance: spawns culture from the target at .75 culture center per level

Animosity: deals 7/14/21 DPS to those ships that are affected

Detonate AM: leaks AM into the space around the target, dealing 5.5 DPS to SC and reducing their accuracy slightly

Adjudicators: do better against single targets (and as such have been increased in cost slightly) through the addition of the FixedLevel0 ability, Sentence, which deals 200 damage to the target

Shield Projection: now endows the recipients with PM resistance of 15%

Reverie: can now be used defensively, and when used against friendly ships, it allows them to have passive regeneration as well as 2/3.5/5 SPS, 1/2/3 HPS, and 1/1.2/1.4 AMPS

Malice: target cap upped from 8/16/24 to 15/30/45 and propagation increased from 30%/30%/30% to 15%/30%/45% (this will likely be nerfed in 1.1)

Vengeance: buffed from reflecting 65%/130%/200% to 85%/170%/255% due to the fact that it has to go through mitigation twice

Ruthelessness: deals a non-stacking 3 DPS effect in addition to a .9 DPS infinite stacking DoT

Martyrdom:  damage increased from 250 to 650

-TEC-

Gauss Rail Gun: damage increased from 400/725/1050 to 550/1100/1650 and the speed detriment has been replaced with a shield mitigation reduction of 8%/12%/16%

Adaptive Forcefield: now passive, due to the fact that it does nothing to help the fleet at large and the Kol is the biggest AM hog in the game

Incendiary Shells: increased from 3/4.5/6 DPS to 4/5.5/7 DPS

Radiation Bomb: AoE increased from 1200/1200/1200 to 1200/1500/1700, damage increased to 175/350/425 and DoT length changed to 4/5/6 from 5/5/5

Targeting Uplink: all ships influenced by TU now apply a buff to their targets that increases damage to that target by .15%/.30%/.45% for 3/3.5/4 seconds; the buff stacks infinitely

Missile Barrage: changed wave interval from 1.25 seconds to 1.05 seconds

Embolden: increased shield regen from 2.5 SPS to 7.5 SPS; Embolden now also results in a linear speed increase of 15% and acceleration of 35%

Shield Restore: now temporarily increases PM resistance by 8%/16%/24% for 20 seconds

-VASARI-

Phase Missile Swarm: deals 100/150/200 damage to hull and 300/266/233 damage to shields per target to better represent Phase Missiles

Power Surge: now also increases DamageAsDamageDealer by 25%/50%/75%

Phase Out Hull: deals 200/300/400 shield damage to both friendly and allied targets, but allied targets also get a hull repair of 200/300/400

Gravity Bomb: deals 200/300/400 damage to the target in addition to current effects

Nano Disassembler: DPS increased from 25/25/25 to 25/32.5/40 but reduced it's duration from 25/35/45 to 25/30/35

Subversion: in addition to current buffs, now deals 200/300/400 to all enemy structures in the gravity well every 45/40/35 seconds

Pinpoint Targeting: now increases damage dealt in bombing by 5%/10%/15% as well as increasing bombing range

Changelog From Previous Version (1.2)

Radiation Bomb: further buffed

Diplomacy Downloads

Version 1.0

Version 1.1

Version 1.2

Version 1.3

Future Plans: Rebalanced Races: Diplomacy has been discontinued due to Rebellion's release

Disclaimer and Conclusion

I'm by no means saying that this new iteration is balanced, but I think it has many components which if integrated into the game would help matters significantly.  This is the Rebalanced Races Mod, not the Balanced Races Mod.  If you have suggestions regarding the balance of those above or otherwise included in the mod, feel free to respond in the comments.