You're spoiling us Blair! I didn't even know you read our mod posts, let alone would pop in and answer a question like that from another conversation. 

Thanks for the heads up!

Strike craft are ship specific entries in the entity files, assuming tie defenders are research locked and the executor isn't already full, you could copy the locked tie defenders as a new asset, add it to the executor, and remove the research lock.

If it's already full of strike craft, you'll have to do more work.

That's fair enough. I usually spam them to function as carriers so I worry less about what they prioritise, and I suppose I hadn't really considered how powerful a 50% damage reduction really is.

Yeah, that was actually the original reason I set them to autocast, over and above the irritation of having to upgrade manually. I have no idea how to grant the AI a "default option", as you said, so this is all I can do for now.

Your explanation for the functioning of the spare parts ability is also sound. I just wondered whether or not it was there by design or lack thereof, since it seemed so inadequate in comparison to the substantial healing abilities of the Alliance, and indeed the vanilla Sins factions. But it makes perfect sense that the Empire is mainly concerned with their smaller ships and crew dealing damage as opposed to their long term survival.

Thanks very much for your help, I'll try and attempt this now. I never thought of creating an entirely new file.

Good luck with the future releases!  

Edit: Oh dear, I created/copied a new version of the defender squad called "Squad_ING_EmpDefenderExecutor" with no research pre-requisites, and replaced the Interceptor squad with it in the Executor's fighter menu. Then I added the new defender version to the entity manifest. 

Now when I load the game it crashes, even after reverting all of my changes...what have I done?!!! 

Should probably post this here. TL;DR, a new update is coming out soon, and please vote for Interregnum on Moddb for mod of the year!

Seasons Greetings to all Modders Everywhere,

December is always one of the most exciting months for me, and this year it is unusually busy. We have months worth of updates to release to the Enhanced 4X Mod and Star Wars: Interregnum, rumors of new patches for our game Engine, Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion, and of course the ever important Mod of the Year contest (almost enough to make you forget there is a new Star Wars movie too!). So without further delay, here's what you can expect from us over the following month.

Enhanced 4X Mod version 1.8

The Enhanced 4X Mod (E4X) is more than just the core framework used by Star Wars Interregnum. On its own it is one of the most ambitious and well thought out expansions for Sins of a Solar Empire available. Yet over the last year or two, E4X has largely taken a back seat as I worked to bring Interregnum to life. Updates were thus fairly small and designed to keep the mod running smoothly and efficiently, rather than adding new content.

That will all change this month with E4X 1.8. So whether you are fighting your battles in the universe of Sins of a Solar Empire or the Galaxy Far, Far Away, here are some key changes and new features you can look forward to.

1. New Planets

It has been over two years since a new planet type has been added to E4X, and I'm pleased to announce 1.8 will contain more than one! Exactly how many will be in the eventual update may depend on time, but expect to see some more teasers like this on the E4X page. Also, I can say that several of these new planets boast quite substantial resource income... at least in one category.

2. Starfighter Rebalance

The 4X genre got its name from four words. Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate. E4X was created to try and improve the base game mechanics of the first 3 "Xs", since Sins of a Solar Empire already handled the Exterminate part so well. As a result, the mod largely kept the combat system intact, only adjusting imbalances and broken gameplay mechanics.

E4X 1.8 will begin to change that, starting with perhaps the most persistently difficult units to balance, fighter craft. E4X already changes strikecraft substantially, but until this point most changes were designed to fight lag by reducing the number of fighters in the game at any one time, rather than changing the game balance itself.

The change is a simple one with vast implications; all strikecraft, both fighters and bombers, will now use the fighter armor type. This means that "flak" or antifighter frigates will now be a hard counter to both forms of strikecraft. Before, the only real counter to bombers was fighters. However, with large swarms of fighters, this did not always work in reality. 1000 fighters would eventually defeat 1000 bombers, but the difficulty in effectively targeting so many units usual means that much of the fighters' damage would be wasted and the bombers would cause substantial damage before air superiority was achieved. With bombers now taking heavy damage from flak frigates, an adequately defended fleet with a mix of both fighters and flak should be a much tougher target for bomber spamming.

3. Resource Ratio Adjustment

I try to keep up with user comments and Let's Plays of my mods, and one thing I've noticed in quite a few of them is actually an unresolved issue from Vanilla Sins. In 95% of games, the player is short of the crystal resource, while often well stocked in credits and metal. The black market of course helps players purchase any needed resource, but that costs money to use and slows the player down.

The crystal resource was designed as a rare commodity primarily used for research. Yet research is so important to the early part of the game, you will almost never have enough of it unless you start next to several Ice planets. The next version of E4X will make this a bit less of a problem thanks to a variety of changes.

• Your starting Terran planet will now have two crystal asteroids in addition to two metal. This should make early game resource ratios much more even.
• A number of unit types have had their crystal costs reduced or eliminated, while their metal costs have been increased. This includes Antifighter frigates, Carrier Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Envoy Cruisers, and Siege Frigates.

The end result of these changes is that crystal will be less of a pain to get, metal will be more useful, and you'll need to use the black market less.

4. Skybox Shuffle

When E4X was first ported to Rebellion, it had among the best collections of background skyboxes, thanks to its incorporation of the Infinite Space planet mod. In the years since however, the quality of skyboxes used by the mod community has increased dramatically. As such, four new skyboxes have been added to the mod to bring it up to modern quality expectations.

However, adding more skyboxes has a noticeable effect on the game's RAM usage, as skyboxes are typically among the largest image files used in the game. To improve efficiency, all but three of the skyboxes currently in E4X and Interregnum have been removed (this includes Vanilla skyboxes). Not to worry though, if your favorite skybox was removed and you do not mind the extra ram usage, a new minimod will add them all back in, giving you an impressive 16 backgrounds to choose from.

Interregnum Alpha 3.1

The new Star Wars Interregnum content we've been working on should be less of a surprise, as we've been teasing them over the last few months. Usually we only update the mod to add a new faction, but since our new Graphical Lead ERock72 has started, it seemed wrong to make you wait for Beta 1 to get so many good graphical changes. In short, 3.1 is all about polish and immersion. Major improvements have been made to the AI, entirely new models have been added and other improved, numerous units and abilities have been tweaked in response to feedback, a few new abilities have been added, and a group of UI fixes and additions all await you in Interregnum 3.1. Oh and of course you get everything mentioned above for E4X. What a bonus!

Mod of the Year

Hopefully all of the new additions above have gotten you excited about the work we've done this year. If so, please take a moment and vote for our projects for Mod of the Year. While we gladly welcome support for both the Enhanced 4X Mod and Star Wars: Interregnum, we are mostly focusing our efforts on supporting Interregnum, simply because as a Star Wars mod it has a greater fan base and stands a better chance of going far into the contest.

If for some reason you're still not motivated to hit that vote button, I'm pleased to announce that my yearly attempt to bribe you has also returned (I suppose it is a holiday tradition of sorts now)! Depending on how well Interregnum does in the contest, I pledge to do the following things.

• Interregnum makes the top 100: An in depth article will be created detailing a new force that will be making an appearance in Interregnum Beta 1. Hint: it is NOT the New Republic (though they will also be added then).

• Interregnum makes the top 5 or an Editors Choice: The Eclipse Super Star Destroyer will be added in a future update, as a rare special unit.

• Interregnum wins Mod of the Year for its category: I'll publicly commit to adding a 5th new playable faction to the mod, to be released after the New Republic.

If any of these things appeals to you, please take a moment to vote for these mods. And please remember to come back a week from now for the second round of voting!

Last but not least, please enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate this year, from the mod team.

-GoaFan77, Ahobgoblin and ERock72

Mind if I look over those skyboxes and use them for DS? Would be nice to update the backgrounds.

Everything looks great in the new version so far (although the new skyboxes you added seem to be a lower resolution than any in v3.0...?), but there is one major new thing that I noticed: the debuff for the empire when losing a planet has stopped happening for me. I made sure to disable any of the minimods in case they were conflicting with the new version, with the same result. I haven't tried reinstalling yet.

Some other issues/suggestions unrelated to the new version:

Thrawn's "Artistically Done" ability is still locked from being able to be autocast, and so people will have to fire it manually in a battle unless they know how to edit entity files. The ability does function well when it is set to autocast, I might add.

The AI when playing as the Galactic Empire (and possibly Warlords as well) has a tendency to eradicate local militia around a huge amount of planets without colonising any of them. On the "Core Worlds" map I had a Galactic Empire AI ally with ~7 planets that had been cleared without being colonised for well over half an hour. I'm not sure whether or not the AI is perhaps confused about how to use the disposable sentinel landing craft?

One final thing, the VSD II's "screening" ability doesn't really perform as it should, in that the VSD II usually just targets itself with the damage reduction buff. I simply added the constraint "NotSelf" and set it to autocast on a capital ship with shield damage, and it started to be utilised in battle in the way that I think it was intended to, i.e targeting nearby capital ships taking damage.

As a side question, I'm curious about the level of interaction/cooperation between modders for this game: There is a confederation capital ship in your mod, and I'm just wondering are there plans to expand on the factions and/or ships in Interregnum? If so, then a huge amount of work is already done for you in places like the Sins of a Galactic Empire mod in the form of ship models and textures...so did you get the Providence ship from a mod like that, or was it the other way around?

I haven't seen it yet, but would any new ships appearing in The Force Awakens be up for consideration to be added to your mod, or is this timeline before the sequel trilogy?

Edit: Oh okay that screenshot and your remark about it not being covered in any sins mod would strongly suggest that you do in fact have modelers currently working on interregnum 

As I’m sure you’re all aware, this weekend is a special one to Star Wars fans. The Force Awakens represents a new hope for our favorite franchise and the first opportunity to see Star Wars on the big screen in many years.

In honor of this, and also as promised to the community by our team as a reward for Interregnum reaching the top 100 in the Mod of the Year contest, I am proud to reveal the other faction making its first appearance in our mod in the Beta 1 release.

As many of you may have suspected from the recent hints being dropped, the world of the great Interregnum will soon see the resurgence of the fearsome Mandalorians. The Raiders will completely replace the pirates in Interregnum, keeping the base mechanics but adding a level of immersion and detail to the universe. The Mandalorians will be a much more significant threat to the major factions than the forces of the Atzerri Cartel. As a result, especially in the early game, those frantic bidding wars to avoid a raid on owned territory or redirect it to a foe’s will be all the more intense.

Faction Overview

The Mandalorian Raiders represent a fringe sect of Mandalorian society. The Interregnum has fragmented the galaxy and warn down the larger powers, the Galactic Empire and the New Republic, as they struggle to counter the threat posed by extra-galactic invaders. In the chaos, Mandalore found itself in a curious position. Caught roughly between the territory of two Imperial warlords, external supervision on Mandalorian activity disappeared for the first time since the Imperial Occupation after the Clone Wars. Sensing opportunity, many Mandalorians quietly returned home, and before long, the foundries of MandalMotors and their subsidiary corporations began a production run unrivaled in recent memory.

The majority of Mandalorians accepted the leadership of Boba Fett, recently appointed as Mand'alor. The remainder, however, disagreed with the Fett’s longer term, more patient strategy. Accordingly, these Mandos acquired what weapons, vessels, and armor they could and began an independent, less focused, campaign.

Befitting the ad-hoc nature of Mandalorian culture, the Raiders employ an eclectic and unusual variety of vessels in their endeavors. In terms of vessels they produce themselves, the Mandalorians rely on a small lineup of craft produced by MandalMotors or Mandal Hypernautics, which tend to share characteristics such as reliability, heavy armor, and variety in armament. The staple vessels of the Mandalorian raiding fleet are Crusader-class Corvettes, designed to punch far above their weight class and tangle with much heavier vessels, and Protector-class gunships, an advanced variant designed for anti-strikecraft work. For truly difficult engagements, the Raiders may choose to deploy the Mandal Hypernautics designed Keldabe-class Battleship, one of the few privately produced vessels capable of tangling with an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Supporting the small line-up of home-built vessels is a collection composed of any combat-ready vessels readily available. Always a resourceful people, Mandalorian fleets often include vessels salvaged from the Clone Wars or adapted from civilian designs. Frequently seen are the Interceptor-IV frigate, a modification of the reliable Action VI Transport, and the Acclamator-I Cruiser, many of which were collected in the years after the Clone Wars.

The Acclamator-I, which primarily operates as a troop carrier, represents a commitment to a larger, significant strategic decision made by the Mandalorians. During a time in which the focus of planetary assault has shifted to orbital bombardment, the Mandalorians remain committed to the transportation and deployment of elite surface armies. True to form, Mandalorians are crack troops in ground combat, fearsome in their gleaming beskar’gam. Additionally, the Mandalorian Warrior culture is reflected by tactical choices in naval combat, which often include attempting to capture and repurpose opposing vessels.

Unit List

Capitalship (Battleship) – Keldabe-class Battleship

Named for Mandalore’s capital city, the Keldabe Battleship is a heavy, extraordinarily well armed, sizeable cruiser designed for large-scale naval engagements.

Capitalship (Carrier) – Venator-class Star Destroyer

With the unusually rapid retirement of the Venator class in the Imperial Navy, many Venator class vessels found their ways into third parties, and the Mandalorians were the most active collectors. In Mando fleets, they continue to act in a carrier and command role. Commonly deployed in support of Mandalorian Raiding parties are two homebrew fighter designs out of MandalMotors: the M3-A Scyk and the M12-L Kimogila. The Scyk functions as a versatile, light fighter comparable to a TIE series craft. Kimogilas, on the other hand, are the preferred choice for conducting bomber attacks on hard targets.

Frigate/Cruiser List

Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser – Heavy Cruiser

Crusader Class Corvette – Light Frigate

Interceptor IV Frigate – Long Range Frigate

Protector Class Gunship – Antifighter Frigate

Acclamator-I Cruiser – Siege Frigate

Firespray Class Patrol Ship – Corvette

Thank you all for your support during Mod of the Year. Please consider voting for us in the final round of voting! As a reminder, if Interregnum places in the top 5 of the ‘Upcoming Mods’ category, the Eclipse-Class Super Star Destroyer will be added to the mod, and taking first place would see us commit to adding a new, playable faction.

-ahobgoblin

Thank you for your hard work.  I hope the community got you a ticket a popcorn and coke for the movie.

However, if implementing shields actually reduces memory usage in some way, then I would implore you to implement it, once it's not an overly time-consuming task for you and the team.

If any players who bought Sins from GOG is reading this, the mod now works with version 1.83. Steam players on 1.82, no need to update yet.

Research does not necessarily imply that the ships are new. After all the mod is set in 9 ABY, basically every ship the Empire has was built before then. The main purpose is to restrict more powerful units to the late game. ISDs are more powerful than normal Sins capitalships, and as you get your first capitalship for free, it would be unfair for any capitalship that uses more than the standard 50 fleet supply to be available without research. There is really no way to make them available at the start without research and make them substantially more powerful than the Victory class.

For Imperial Capitalships in particular, you will notice they are tied to your rank. The idea is you start off as a junior command officer is charge of a backwater Terran planet. You aren't authorized to command ISDs even if you had them. As you gain in rank, you'll be authorized to deploy (build) the larger ships.

The Dreadnaught was added in later, and I wanted to tie in some ships to Civic research. Since the Dreadnaught and Venator are quite old indeed, I thought it made sense to add a civic research to modernize these ships. The armor is just to make the Dreadnaught a bit harder to rush, since needing only two labs for a Heavy Cruiser (even if one that is all health and relatively little damage) seemed a bit much.

You are forgetting this is not a total conversion mod like SoGE is. The Vanilla factions are still in the mod, and while I do have lots of things to make the Star Wars factions different, some conventions have to stay the same so that the mod stays balanced. Among them is that there is the base 16 command points, 2000 fleet supply maxed out fleet. With other techs you can get to 21/2250 as the Empire, but just by the math Sins is supposed to have lots of frigates, as these do the most damage overall.

The second is that Capitalships get a lot stronger as they level up, unlike in SoGE, and that experience is split when multiple Caps/titans are in the same battle. This means Sins seriously discourages having a lot of capitalships, because having lots of low level caps ensures they will stay at low levels and have weak stats for their cost compared to frigates/cruisers. You need to get your caps to high levels to complete with frigates on health/damage per fleet supply. The Empire has an advantage here as they are the only ones that can train their caps to level 5, but even still, building only Capitalships is typically a good way to lose in Vanilla Sins. It's best to have a handful of them in a fleet supported by smaller ships, and then as they reach level 10 (and no longer consume experience), you can add more caps to your fleet.

Finally, remember the Capitalships in this mod all have unique abilities, something SoGE doesn't have. Even the relatively similar ISD I and II can have completely different uses thanks to their different ability sets. This combined with the larger scale of the ships means Interregnum plays a bit more at a tactical level. SoGE lets you build more Star Destroyer, but individual they are less meaningful and literally smaller, and typically not worth your time to zoom in and give them direct orders (except for screenshots).

Ah, I see what you are saying now. I actually thought about it the opposite way though.

Most Sins players (E.g., me) rarely research all the capitalship slots available. Usually you only need maybe 8 capitalship slots for optimal fleet performance, but you definitely get the full 2000 fleet supply. For these players combining the capitalship/fleet actually makes them more likely to build capitalships, because they get the extra cap slots as a by product of upgrading fleet supply. And since they already have them, may as well use them.

Because capitalships also use fleet supply, I think there are relatively few situations where you just want more cap slots and not more fleet supply.