All you guys, I did make one mistake. Structures are mostly invulnerable because of an unanticipated armor type. OOPS! I'll get out an updated version soon that fixes that and impements your first suggestions. If you really want to change it at home, go into the BFG mod directory, open up GameInfo, and in there find these two files:

PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALFRIGATEFACTORY.entity
PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALCAPITALSHIPFACTORY.entity

In these files change this:
armorType "VeryHeavy"
to this:
armorType "CapitalShip"
I'll email out a version to all you guys that fixes all the structures soon.

EDIT: Wow, the way it's set up now, the Repulsive is quite the capship killer. I may need to think about the statistics of that one and if I want to make WBs a bit less effective against capships. However, I must say the battles are working well. My enemy built a carnage to send against my repulsive, and it buckled like a tin can without being able to punch through the shields much at all. Cool! I think I'll try a bigger game soon so I can see if the fleet battles are what I think they might be.

Chang,
I don't know if there's any way for you to make two sins folders, that'd be cool though. It might work if you took all the 1.05 data files, copied them to another folder and switched them with the 1.1 ones before playing the mod, but I don't know if that'll work. If you rename the directory, it might still work, and probably will if you rename it before you play.

Thrawn,
There's only chaos for now, it's just an internal balance/gameplay mechanics test more than anything. It'd be excellent if you and Kiernyc could test it in multiplayer, then you could really try a fleet battle out.

Kiernyc,
In reply to your PM, yes, the battleships can liquify escorts pretty handily, but if you compare equal weights of the two, the escorts will at the very least hurt the capital ship badly. One dies, oh well, it was cheap. You can get ten Iconoclasts for the price of one Desolator, and I'm going to probably revise the support cost of the escorts so you can get more value in a lower cap fleet, but have to pay more. Right now, I fully understand, the escorts are rather expensive for their likelihood of death. Also, with the speeds not quite right, they can't really outmaneuver a capital ship, so that advantage is gone. I'm not sure why the Desolator's range is so high, that might have been a typo. Are the ranges on the other ships good? Finally, thanks for the feedback, I'll work on that first, but I might not be able to send out the second edition till next week when I don't have a phone line for bandwidth. If it's just a few files, I'll send them out.

EDIT: Just tested the Despoiler's range, doesn't seem to be off what I wanted, but I take it you think it's too much. Would you mind that large a range circle (about half the radius of the planet's, unless you saw something different) if the gravity well was bigger? I want to make ranges bigger so that ships accidentally colliding isn't as big a problem as it is in vanilla sins, and I think with the focus on small fleet tactics, we've got the free hardware overhead. Tell me what you think.

Prezo,

It's on the skydrive, grab it whenever you want.

Okay, sent. You got lucky, there are a few typo fixes in there, so now everybody gets them. Prezo, I only have your hotmail, so I won't bother, it's on the skydrive. Also, I want your opinion on fighters' build speed and shield penetrating power. Is it imbalanced or are fighters worth the cost?

EDIT: fixed the crashing if you mouse over the missile tech, that'll make it into next release. Hope you all like the mod. Another thing, DON'T blunder into a pirate base with a ship you like until I get out the next version. I forgot that I made the pirate heavy frigate a murder class cruiser when I populated the pirate base. 14 murders against anything isn't a pretty sight. Now you'll see a few cruisers in pirate fleets, but not nearly as many. I think I dropped it to a pair and about ten destroyers. You should have a chance of getting ships out of the pirate base if you're quick (and lucky).

Ok, initial response to the MOD:

-Holy cow its great!
-Wow, slaughters really move fast (I made an acheron and slaughter, watched the difference in speed, which is very big!)
-Game mini-dumps when you try to scuttle ships (i only did this once, with the cap-ship....dunno if it does it with all)
-frigate facility is too big for the cruisers lol
-All my cruisers ( no matter which one i built) looked the same. Im not sure if this was intentional or not.
-Weapons fire doesnt come from the barrels, they just come from the center of mass of the model.
-Ships turning is good, they have to go in a wide arc, which is just like the tabletop game.
-Ships that are stationary try to get their broadsides to bear, which is good, but they turn on the spot instead of moving forwards. I dont know if this can be fixed, but i think it should.
-I dont know if this was intentional, but there were no chaos escort models in there, nor capital ship models. They had the right name/price/weapons, but the model wasnt right, just normal TEC models.
-Something tells me the cap-ship factory will be too small for the cap ships, when they get implemented


And thats about it so far, I have only had one game (I didnt actually play, i was just playing around with the models, getting them to attack 'dummys') Other than the bits i have mentioned (and the fact that all the icons and sounds havnt changed, but i know this is only a test, so im not saying they should be) Its coming along great!

Heres a collage of images i have screen shooted,

What!? Minidumps when you scuttle? That's like the last place I'd look. The models aren't done yet, so right now all the cruisers are using the slaughter mesh and escorts and battleships don't have a model yet. Also, the emitters aren't working right on that model. It's almost entirely stable, but the weapon emiters don't work, so it shoots out its center point. That isn't in my ballpark, but I think prezo's almost done with it. Right now, it's just the gameplay present. Glad you like it, though. I'm going to look over speeds again.

Okay, I'll try to get a handle on the carriers. They are supposed to be moderately more powerful and expensive, but if they're way more powerful, that's gotta change till I get turrets in. Do remember that fighters can pierce shields, so 1v1s or effective 1v1s are going to favor fighters, and they don't directly contribute to gunnery overwhelming shields. I'll check out whether slaughters are actually firing their broadsides, because that would throw off effectiveness rather significantly. Finally, the tech has been fixed, and will be in the new version I send out in about 6 or so hours (I'm gonna be out most of the day).

Thanks for the compliments .

Well when Kiernyc and I tested online we were taking over the pirate base (we planned on fighting there). My fleet accidentally jumped there and our fleets where attacking each other. Suddenly I minidumped... In the next week I'll try to organize a game from the last autosave.

Anyways this I noticed:

-Cruiser Models pwns (I WANT MOAR MODELZ!?!?1111)
-Early game: not enough crystal or metal
-Late(r) game: So much crystal and metal and lack of money that market crashes are extremely frequent (as soon as it kinda got back to normal Kiernyc or I would crash it... and we still didn't have enough money).
-Cruisers are uber good at killing capital ships (really don't see a point in building more capital ships, might as well build more cheaper cruisers). Ask Kiernyc for more on this, most of his exploded in the Pirate base attack except for the NurgleFace... lol

Suggestions:
-Make one or two of the frigates cost no crystal!
-Make the "nuke" model a drop pod and make the "nuke" explosion the one that's lots of mini explosions (the pirate one? I forget lol. Anyway it should make it look like a very fast battle lol).
-The capital ship with the fighters is probably overpowered, might want to lower that!
-Instead of making the bombers fire 80 bombs, if you can, increase the damage each bomb does!

Anyways its awesome so far! I wish I could help besides just testing.

Also if the Planet killer going to be the "super weapon?" (like a last tier research to build it, but you still build it in the Capital ship factory) or have you just not worked out the stats yet?

EDIT: That was all with version one. Do you think the save will work with version two or should we start over...

EDIT #2: Forgot to mention but the "local militia" don't move to attack, except once they did (against Kiernyc).

EDIT AGAIN: Right now Cruisers are just about the size of Sins' Capital ships... so either you need to scale them down or scale up battleships when they come out (another reason for custom buildings )

Okay, that's more for the feedback that carriers pwn too much. I was a bit worried about that without turrets, and I'll fix that for the next version. I'm kind of perplexed about battleships being too weak. I guess you can't afford enough fleet with the capship techs being as expensive as they are. I have no bloody clue on the economy yet. I think the lack of a research tree with large costs of metal and crystal is making them too prevalent late, so that'll get fixed. I will fix the effects, just not immediately, graphics are more of a priority. I wonder which battleships kiernyc was running about with, because the despoiler is rather expensive for its role, and it's one of the ones I want to make cheaper.

I think you'll find that cap ships fare much better when they aren't first in and sucking on 11 murders' lances. That'll kill anything, and their resistance to lighter fire can't do anything about it. Your huge shield restore can't help you at all, and that's big. In a battle where you can restore your shields for over a minute, you're getting a ship with more than twice the hitpoints a cruiser would come up with for only 150% the price. That's where caps shine. I got one toasted, but my flagship serves me well in general.

I'm not sure what caused the minidump. Try to repeat it once or twice and see what happens that instant, please, that'd be a huge help.

I think that the second version will work with the first's savegames, a few oddities may be introduced, but they should work fine.

The scaling will be good once we get the new models in for all things. Can't wait. The planet killer and all the armada ships except the grand cruisers (no room for those, and the repulsive is a much cooler ship anyway) will get put in when I'm not exhausted.

Fixed the "rebels" problem, and I will make them a bit more threatening once I get the IN up and running (their escorts are more the style of unaligned bands, and generally better). The problem was with the iconoclast, not the planetary militiae.

Finally, Nurgleface is an epic name, I think I might make it one of the possible chaos cap names, and I just added all the names from the rulebook, and I think that I'll need to get creative. Suggestions welcome. Right now there are two names there for the lulz, Nurgleface and Lord of the Flies (I haven't read the book, though, but it sounds nurgley).

Prezo, if/when you see this, please give me another email account, hotmail seems to hate attachments with a lot of subdirectories.

Try the "Bloodface". Or "Khorne's Ecsatsy. "Ravager", "Pillager", "Bloodsoaked Slaughter". "Blood Orgy", "Blood Ocean". "Emperor Protect Us, It's CHAOS!"

Most of those names are good, I don't think chaos wants the false emperor to protect them =p, but I actually went through them last night.

The alpha is still closed, it should open up soonish though. Prezo, any idea when I can get a battleship and escort model with working (not necessarily perfect, just not crash-inducing) emitters, and also my reading is correct that once we get all the obvious sins IP out of the way, there's no problem with the IP restrictions?

And eldar names are gonna be as bad. How're you liking the mod now? (me promises me is going to fix bombers for the next revision, it's just gonna take time I don't have). Also, do you guys think they aren't powerful enough or are still good against full capships, which have the turrets to suppress them? They are the best counter against escorts, which don't have the turrets or armor to resist them well, so it's rather unsurprising that they'd do well in cleaning up escorts. Try a full fleet battle and see if they do as well (if you haven't already), will ya? I fixed pirates so they don't have the capship killing fleet of doom.

Okay, good to hear. I think for you I'll add a thousand cruisers to the pirate fleet. =p

Some ships that are cheaper say they do more damage then more expensive ships. (Like comparing Slaughter and a Hades.) I'm guessing these are different weapon damage types. It turned out their fighting was pretty much equally matched. It really is impossible for 2 cruisers alone to kill each other (is this a good thing?).

I made a bunch of video clips of the battle but windows movie maker made me angry and everything was exploding so forget that for now lol.

EDIT: Ah yes, in big engagements, Battleships explode so fast you don't if realize you ha them. Maybe this is because cruisers prioritize them defaultly or idk but either way they pop like poppin' corn!

The Acheron had 1600 HP due to a typo, and it got changed to 1200, but the ships in your game had 1600 because they were in an old save. The current HP is saved without looking at the maximum. Also, that paint scheme is epic win, I'm glad that's what i'm giving my ships (with gold on the raised trim). Crimson is cool, but Thousand sons are awesome. Next mod gets slaanesh textures, I think. And the bits are good, ships do have a lot of mechanical giblets, after all, and it really looks like a battleground. I'm glad to see our work is working so well.

Do you have any idea which map was entitled String not Found? I know I fixed two of those.

Lance damage does 3x as much, and ranges factor into prices, so that causes a lot of the oddities with price/firepower.

I think that battleships might be prioritized, and when you're playing with that many ships, one hit kills are possible. I don't know how to fix that other than doing something drastic. I think that if you somehow make your ships more experienced, that should help considerably.

I think that if I cut the WB damage scaling against battleships and increase it for AC but drop the overall damage, that should do relatively well. That's the next balance try I'll make.

Finally, I polled the ever helpful crowd at the Specialist Games forums for their opinions on actual truly balanced prices, and I'll try those out in the next revision, which you can expect in a little bit, probably this night.

Also, are fighters as gloriously overpowered in fleet battles as against frigates in militia toasting duty?