This mod is based on personal needs for specific ships to fill in gaps I experienced when playing Starsector. Initially it was a personal project, but since I receive much precious help on the forum, I figure it would be nice to publish it.
The theme:
Starsector has some inspiration in Battletech universe, which is a dystopic sci fi setting where there is plenty of technology but nobody understand it or is able to emulate it. This inspired me as I was thinking that there was lacks of ships filling several role in faction. I was also inspired by the many blog posts about the history of the sector.
I wanted to create ships based on needs of each faction, but which are limited by their actual ability to design new ships. This means that most of them don’t have fancy ship system or they have a specific role and are not always able to cop with vanilla ships.
Recap
• 41 new ships
• 5 skins
• 18 new weapons
• 3 new stellar systems with 7 new markets
• Luddic faction expanded
Aim of the mod
• Add several ships for more variety in specific role currently lacking in vanilla (scout, science vessel, high tech light carrier…)
• Give more flavor to Persean League and Luddic Church fleets by adding ships specific to these factions.
• Balance number of ships designs according to tech level (i.e. more low tech frigate and mid tech capital), as well as some new weapons
• Forgotten weapons and ships found in lost space or sometime used by salvage company
Disclaimer
• I never done spriting before, some of the ships are kitbashed and other are build from scratch. While I understand there is always room for improvement, my interests ar shifting after more than 4 years of modding and more of playing Starsector
• I did the best to balance ships with vanilla, but if someone think a ship should be nerfed or bousted, he is more than welcome.
• English is not my first language, I did my best but there will probably (certainly…) remains typos in texts. Many thanks to all the forum users who provided help at some point to correct descriptions in this mod.
• Many ships have a similar role to ones you can found in Disassemble Reassemble mod by AxleMC131 (most notably the Revenant and the Hoplite). It was not intended, as I’ve already draw prototype of ships before knowing this mod. In fact I suspect that AxleMC131 created his mod with the same premise than me : filling in gap in available ships in vanilla. I suggest playing this mod with Disassemble – Assemble as they both share similar aims : news ships to fill in vanilla gaps.
Acknowledgment :
• To AxleMC131, for giving advice for spriting and giving motivations by its mod DisassembleReassemble (that you should try!)
• To King Alfonzo, for giving a nice tuto on « greebling »
• To Sarissofoi, for refusing to play anything without a description
• To DiM, Plantissue and BladedQueen for screening every descriptions for spelling and syntax errors
• To Sundog, for pointing the way and giving courage to dive in the realm of Java compilation
Low-tech
Asp:
Last-resort bomber
Maringuin:
Kinetic support bomber
Pyrphoros :
Pirate frigate
Huntsman :
Luddic Church and Hegemony Support gunship (upgraded sprite)
Ballista :
Missile Destoyer
Wardlaw:
Q-Ship
Cossack:
Escort carrier
Adjudicator:
Hegemony and Luddic Church Patrol/escort cruiser
Opportunity :
Pirate (and shadowy neutral) converted heavy cruiser
Starblazer :
Converted carrier
Luddic Church
Fulk:
Knights of Ludd defense frigate (upgraded sprite)
Templar :
Knights of Ludd missile destroyer
Bogomil:
Knights of Ludd artillery destroyer
Hammerhead (CGR)
Knights of Ludd destroyer
Era (LC)
Converted carrier
Cathar :
Knights of Ludd heavy cruiser
Middle-tech
Ethon :
Interceptor
Velite:
Mass produced PL frigate (and pirate version)
Herder:
Light carrier
Nitassinan:
Patrol destroyer (converted tug)
Wagner :
Neutral line (or light) cruiser and pirate version
Charon:
Dropship and pirate carrier
Trajan:
Midline battlecarrier
High-tech
Rosatom:
Combat auxiliary frigate
Pyrrhocorax :
Try-Tachyon support destroyer/light carrier
Minos :
High-tech defence destroyer
Formica :
Assault drone carrier and its suspicious-looking wings
Apex:
Combat carrier
Civilian
Dove :
Courrier and scout
Traverse :
Civilian freighter
Chondrite:
Tri-Tachyon freighter
Copernic :
Science vessel (support ship) and Hegemony auxiliary vessel
Foundation :
Salvage cruiser and its helping hands
Era :
Factory ship
Makeshift weapons
Common archeotech weapons
Log
And you are right, DaRa aims (just like SWP) to fill in certain niche roles that the stock game seems to be lacking ships for, as well as adding some unique content that perhaps other players or modders had never considered before.Now, do bear in mind that I have not played or even downloaded your mod yet, but I thought I’d give some immediate feedback, as useful resources per se.
First and foremost, if you aren’t already on it, don’t forget that Starsector has an “unofficial” Discord channel were a large portion of the community gather to discuss the game, including basically all of the big modders. It’s a great place to discuss ideas, hear direct feedback and also learn techniques and skills for modding in general.
(Relevant link:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11488.0 )
Second, I notice that a few of your ships share class names with ships from other mods. This is generally bad practise, and can often cause confusion for players and sometimes – worst case scenario – game crashes, when two mods are using the same file names for two different ships. To avoid this, there’s a helpful database of ship, weapon, faction, hullmod, system, etc. names used in most mods. If you come up with a name for a ship, it’s always a good idea to check there first and make sure it’s not already used.
(Relevant link:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9550.0 )
Anyway, that’s all I can say from my current standpoint. Spriting is extremely hard and you’re very much a beginner, so I’m not going to judge any of your ship sprites here, but if you are looking for help in that regard, again do come to the Discord channel and ask for assistance. Basically everyone there will be willing to provide assistance – including yours truly if you happen to be in the right timezone, hehe! 
In addition, I’m currently doing my own ship pack for starsector here: https://bitbucket.org/lechibang/spiral-arms-ship-pack using sprites taken from the sprite dump thread, but it’s not currently getting anywhere just yet. Cry
Seriously, you should give it a try. Assembling the mod is not the hardest part, and it’s probably one the funniest. In my case, after playing with AxleMC131 mod, it gives me encouragment to create mine. So I took its mod folder, and start removing files and folders I knew I would not need at the beginning (sounds, weapons….). Alex did a great job at making the game easy moddable. Most files are alterable with notepad, others are .csv and pretty self explainatory. Ship files and variants are easy to create with Trylobot shipyard software. Even the error log are ok to read.
(all that I said is when talking about just adding ships to the game. This is another reallity if you want to start creating new worlds, shipsystem, crasy graphic effects….)
First and foremost, if you aren’t already on it, don’t forget that Starsector has an “unofficial” Discord channel were a large portion of the community gather to discuss the game, including basically all of the big modders. It’s a great place to discuss ideas, hear direct feedback and also learn techniques and skills for modding in general.
(Relevant link:http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11488.0 )
…
Anyway, that’s all I can say from my current standpoint. Spriting is extremely hard and you’re very much a beginner, so I’m not going to judge any of your ship sprites here, but if you are looking for help in that regard, again do come to the Discord channel and ask for assistance. Basically everyone there will be willing to provide assistance – including yours truly if you happen to be in the right timezone, hehe! Cool
Yeah, I’m starting to consider to join it. But, writing in english is something, speaking in a microphone and understanding other peolple is another thing. For the sprite, it even amaze me that I was able to try it and even publishing it. Still many things to learn, kitbashing is a little bit easier to do but not entirely satisfying….
Second, I notice that a few of your ships share class names with ships from other mods. This is generally bad practise, and can often cause confusion for players and sometimes – worst case scenario – game crashes, when two mods are using the same file names for two different ships. To avoid this, there’s a helpful database of ship, weapon, faction, hullmod, system, etc. names used in most mods. If you come up with a name for a ship, it’s always a good idea to check there first and make sure it’s not already used.
(Relevant link:http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9550.0 )
Ha! This was something I was espected to come across! Honestly I was pretty sure it would happen, but I didn’t care at the moment because :1) I’m not expecting this mod becoming a top 1, 2) I didn’t want to look for names of ships for every existing mod. I wasn’t aware of this compilation file. Will do the necessary changes. Thanks!
Yeah, I’m starting to consider to join it. But, writing in english is something, speaking in a microphone and understanding other peolple is another thing.
Oh, no one uses voice chat! 
All the discussion takes place in the text chat.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/i7mb2mo5lbzmcsk/Stop_Gap_Measure_v0.2.rar
Most notably I added 2 new ships, 3 skins, and upgraded 2 sprites, while changing names for several ships.
Also, it would be really nice if someone tried it and have thoughts on balance.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/xh8gcit7wps40ca/Stop%20Gap%20Measure%20v0.3.rar
Include 3 new ships :
-High-tech quick freighter
-Mid-tech line cruiser based on the Valkyrie
-Mid-tech light carrier identical to the Drover game-wise
3 new weapons:
-Small mid-range energy plasma gun. A salvo light pulse laser with poor accuracy
-Small mid-range flak shotgun. Fire 6 slug with a slow rate of fire.
-Small mid/long range HE gun. Slow and poorly efficient but accurate with EMP effect
You should PM a moderator and ask him to move this topic to the mods section.
Yes you’re probably right… I will wait for the next batch of stuff to be implemented (in maybe 2 or 3 days). I still have some problems wit a new weapon I made.
This one is more about fixing thing (mostly sprites) and adding lore for existing stuff.
I got a little bit distracted by doing other ships. The Ballista missile destroyer was not on my to-do list by was a great fun to kitbash from the Prometheus.
I also try (and failed) to do some kind of ion torpedo with AoE, but in the end it turns out as a mid-long-range cruise missile :
this is going to end badly for the Hammerhead
For now its a medium mount, 3 missiles package, energy dmg and high emp value. Speed of a harpoon but manoeuvrability of a Pilum. Dont use it against frigates.
As always, C&C are welcome.
Here is v0.32 :
http://www.mediafire.com/file/juwwbpp1zjpeag2/Stop%20Gap%20Measure%20v0.32.rar
-Include 2 new ships and a skin for a Luddic Hammerhead
-New samll mount for the Lotop Ion LRM
-Hull mod for Luddic ships which upgrade hull, lower supply consomption but lower speed.
-The Wagner get a new ship system, a Fire COntrol which increase its range by 20% for a short period.
-5 new ship descriptions
Thanks to mendoca for moving the thread.
Next upgrade, I want to try creating 2 new systems to increase available military market for Tri-Tachyion, Luddic Church and Neutral.
I also want to include 3 missions to allow people to discover the new ships.