Get it Here!
I literally only used it in one line of code though.
I was bored one day, and decided to try to put together a halo-themed UNSC faction mod.
Lore (If it matters): A UNSC colony fleet was heading towards a new planet when it passed by small, derelict Forerunner Halo. When some of the researchers attempted to probe it, it activated what little energy reserves the construct had left to catapult the fleet through time and space to the edge of Persean sector. As it turned out, the ringed-shaped construct was not a Halo, but instead a dimensionally displaced Domain gate.
Gameplay:
The defining feature of UNSC ships are their Magnetic Accelerator Cannons – enormous coilguns spanning nearly the entire length of the vessels. These cannons are able to fire at great range and deliver considerable damage, at the cost of a low rate of a fire and considerable flux usage. Their strategy is to stay at range and pound enemies with their MAC’s and long-range missiles – should the enemy attempt to close the distance, UNSC vessels will often find themselves with few options to fight back effectively. Their length and few PD emplacements make them vulnerable to attacks from the side.
For the most part, their mobility ranges from average to below average, their shielding is weak, and flux reserves are unremarkable. However, their armor is especially resistant to EMP weapons, and their narrow hulls and shield arcs allow for easier dodging of incoming projectiles when facing the enemy head on. Whether it’s having an entire squadron delivering a devastating alpha strike, or having a few ships providing fire support from the second lines, these vessels may (or may not) be a valuable addition to any enterprising captain’s fleet, provided they can get their hands on one.
Features Thus Far:
- A unique UNSC Faction
- 8 New Ships (Not-screen accurate in size)
- 2 New Fighter Craft
- Some unique weapons, mostly built-in.
- Nexerelin Support (For both Corvus and Random sectors mode)
- Commissioned Crews Support
- Weapon sounds and music ripped straight from the Halo games.
- Starpocalypse Support
To do:
- Learn how to sprite – all current models are rather rough edits of 3D models from the Sins of a Solar Empire Mod “Sins of the Prophets.”
- Continue to balance (perhaps a complete redesign of the gameplay).
- Add more ships/weapons/fighters.
- Custom Portraits?
The Ship Roster:
- Sabre-class Fighters – A pair of high-cost, powerful strike fighters with a pair of auto cannons and light anti-armor missiles
- Longsword-class Bombers – Fitted for strike missions, this enormous craft barely fits in a conventional hangar. It’s shielding and built-in flares allow it to survive bombing runs where it launches its array of anti-ship missiles.
Frigates:
- Mako-class Heavy Corvette – An older vessel in the fleet, this small warship is relatively undergunned, but possesses an exceptional power plant and armor plating for its size.
Destroyers:
- Paris-class Heavy Frigate – This oversized frigate lacks armor, but makes up for it with adequate mobility, allowing it to fire its MAC at enemies from flanking positions, or serve as powerful escorts for larger ships.
- Charon-class Support Frigate – It loses most of the combat capability of the Paris-class in exchange for sizeable cargo holds, making it a must for long expeditions. It’s smaller MAC allows for it to provide adequate firepower in a pinch.
- Strident-class Light Frigate – One of the newer models in the UNSC register, this nimble ship comes with a small hangar bay, a faster-firing, more efficient MAC, and a newer, high-efficiency shield array.
Cruisers:
- Halberd-class Destroyer – Halberd class is equipped with dual-barreled MAC’s and heavy Titanium-A armor, allowing it to shield smaller vessels while providing a sizeable punch.
- Punic-II Class Battle Carrier – The original Punic-class was an enormous carrier that served reliably in the UNSC fleet, but due to the lacking resources of the Persean sector, UNSC leaders made the decision to downsize the design. The Punic-II packs a pair of hangar bays, and like all other UNSC ships, a MAC.
Capitals:
- Halcyon-class Cruiser – The older cousin of the Marathon-class, this heavily armored cruiser is equipped with an upgraded MAC fitted with power recyclers and extra capacitors, allowing it to fire multiple rounds in rapid succession.
- Marathon-class Cruiser – An enormous cruiser used to command fleets, this ship sports superior flux and shields compared to the Halcyon-class, as long as having the same rapid-fire MAC of its predecessor. However, its more complex systems significantly increases deployment costs.
Changelog (Of Released Versions):
Acknowledgements
Enjoy, and please leave your feedback!
Thank you so much. Seeing this really made my day. I hope you add the covenant ships as well!
I’m honestly not sure how to add Covenant ships into Starsector and have them be particularly unique on a gameplay level. If anything, I could try making a special Vayra’s Sector bounty involving a Covenant ship if I ever figure out how to work with that.
i will do some digging into covenant tech to see if i can come up with some ideas
really the biggest issue i foresee (not much of one) is the sheer size of the ships compared to UNSC ships
having them at all would be unique from my stand point
i will do some digging into covenant tech to see if i can come up with some ideas
really the biggest issue i foresee (not much of one) is the sheer size of the ships compared to UNSC ships
Well, for this mod at least, I threw canon sizes out the window. The larger UNSC ships would’ve probably taken up the entire screen, and the covenant supercarrier would probably take up the entire battle map. I just chose to arbitrarily scale ships to Starsector sizes for gameplay purposes.
I’m impressed, though i do hope you make this a faction ‘based on’, rather than ‘be’ the UNSC to but other than that, good workhaving them at all would be unique from my stand point
i will do some digging into covenant tech to see if i can come up with some ideas
really the biggest issue i foresee (not much of one) is the sheer size of the ships compared to UNSC ships
Well, for this mod at least, I threw canon sizes out the window. The larger UNSC ships would’ve probably taken up the entire screen, and the covenant supercarrier would probably take up the entire battle map. I just chose to arbitrarily scale ships to Starsector sizes for gameplay purposes.
Definitely the right move would love to see you do the same with covenant and possibly flood and the others.
I also agree that you should really take liberties to make things work, and seeing multiple instances of certain factions (covenant civil war comes to mind) would be amazing.
Really theres Too Much potential to add things lol so if you do anything at all I will be both impressed and grateful.
Oh one more thing, really enjoy using the ships. I’m about to donmy first ever YouTube Playthrough and I will definitely be grabbing at least one UNSC ship.
Excellent fire support, and top tier pd.
Once again very nice.
The “Minimum Viable Product” v0.2a update is right around the corner, when I finish setting up the custom star system for the faction for use with Vanilla or Nex Corvus-mode.
Changelog:
0.1g – “The Thiccening.“
- Added a new ship, the Capital-class Halcyon Cruiser, and more gun-focused version of the Marathon class, which heavier armor but no hangar bays.
- MAC arc reduced, but turn speed increased
- Widened the Marathon and Halcyon class so they’re no longer skinnier than Frigates.
- Gave the ‘Maneuvering Jets’ ability to the Charon since Flare Launchers suck. The Charon-class is supposed to be a downgrade to the Paris-class, but it’s not supposed to be a joke.
- Increased Flux, HP, and Armor of all UNSC ships, at the cost of maneuverability, making them slightly more effective against stations and not die to a light breeze.
- And a whole host of other small number-fiddling balance changes to give more nuance to the UNSC ships.
- Still not supported with Vanilla/Nex Corvus-mode yet (but it will be very soon!)
As usual, please let me know if there’s any bugs or balance issues that come up!
Changelog:
v0.2A – “Maximum Nonviable Product.“
- Added a UNSC home system for Vanilla and Nex Corvus mode – The Audere Star System.
- Increased MAC RoF and charge-time. Makes using it less painful, but also makes it harder to get snap-shots off.
- Starpocalypse Integration.
- Other minor balance changes.
Infinity when
That said, I have a few constructive criticisms that I hope will give you food for thought. These aren’t demands, obviously. It’s your faction, your mod. They’re just suggestions from someone who knows a concerning amount about Halo and Starsector alike.
1. Missiles. They are an integral part of every UNSC ship, the most common form being the Archer. Gleeful missile spam is a fundamental aspect of the UNSC as a faction, and seeing a nearly total lack of them was somewhat surprising. However, there are a number of simple fixes; here’s my two cents. For a solution, I’d recommend equipping every ship in their fleet with built-in Archer pods (with autoforges), growing in number the larger the ship gets. Archers should be fast but fragile, vast in number, and deal low kinetic damage (keeping with the theme of using massed Archer volleys to break enemy shields and then gutting the vulnerable ship with MAC rounds). You could also pair these with some dedicated anti-small ship missiles, either built-in or on hardpoints. (Side note, this is somewhat specific but hey, why not add it in; make Archers weak to energy damage but resistant to fragmentation).
2. Dear God, the Ramparts need a serious buff. Their rate of fire is okay, but their projectile speed is pitiful, rendering them useless against even marginally large volleys of missiles and small flights of strikecraft. Up their projectile speed and rate of fire, and they’ll be much more effective. Maybe even increase the number of mounts (or make them all built-in but lower their damage and accuracy to compensate). Also, you might consider pairing them with a medium-sized PD mount of some variety, firing low velocity fragmenting rounds to counter the aforementioned threats.
3. You nailed the fleet composition. No problems there. UNSC ‘frigates’ operating as destroyers in Starsector is perfect. Keep this theme, don’t give this faction anything smaller.
4. Increase the Sabre squadron to 3-4 strikecraft. 2 is alright, but they are very easily overwhelmed, and paired with the pathetic Ramparts, this faction simply CANNOT HANDLE even the simplest carrier spam.
5. This is radical and would be very difficult to implement successfully but; get rid of shields, factionwide. Increase both armor and hull like crazy and add some extra High-Explosive resistance to armor. Try it out and see if it works, if not that’s fine, but having a truly no-shield UNSC faction that can hold its own would be amazing.
I’m definitely looking forward to the future of this mod, keep up the good work! I hope these suggestions give you some ideas, or at least make you consider some different possibilities. Good luck!
- Forgot to spawn the UNSC star system for Nex Corvus mode (woops). It’s fixed now.
- Slight buffs to the Rampart, also fixed some of the audio issues (its weird echo).
- Added a new UNSC weapon – the Goalkeeper PD Chaingun.
- Some modifications to the firing arcs of the Paris and Halberd front small mounts for better PD coverage.
As a fan of Starsector and a borderline Halo scholar, I love the idea behind the mod, and its implementation so far is pretty good. The MACs are virtually perfect. You pretty much nailed them in every aspect, apart from the projectile speed. You might want to consider increasing that a bit, they are coilguns after all.
That said, I have a few constructive criticisms that I hope will give you food for thought. These aren’t demands, obviously. It’s your faction, your mod. They’re just suggestions from someone who knows a concerning amount about Halo and Starsector alike.
1. Missiles. They are an integral part of every UNSC ship, the most common form being the Archer. Gleeful missile spam is a fundamental aspect of the UNSC as a faction, and seeing a nearly total lack of them was somewhat surprising. However, there are a number of simple fixes; here’s my two cents. For a solution, I’d recommend equipping every ship in their fleet with built-in Archer pods (with autoforges), growing in number the larger the ship gets. Archers should be fast but fragile, vast in number, and deal low kinetic damage (keeping with the theme of using massed Archer volleys to break enemy shields and then gutting the vulnerable ship with MAC rounds). You could also pair these with some dedicated anti-small ship missiles, either built-in or on hardpoints. (Side note, this is somewhat specific but hey, why not add it in; make Archers weak to energy damage but resistant to fragmentation).
2. Dear God, the Ramparts need a serious buff. Their rate of fire is okay, but their projectile speed is pitiful, rendering them useless against even marginally large volleys of missiles and small flights of strikecraft. Up their projectile speed and rate of fire, and they’ll be much more effective. Maybe even increase the number of mounts (or make them all built-in but lower their damage and accuracy to compensate). Also, you might consider pairing them with a medium-sized PD mount of some variety, firing low velocity fragmenting rounds to counter the aforementioned threats.
3. You nailed the fleet composition. No problems there. UNSC ‘frigates’ operating as destroyers in Starsector is perfect. Keep this theme, don’t give this faction anything smaller.
4. Increase the Sabre squadron to 3-4 strikecraft. 2 is alright, but they are very easily overwhelmed, and paired with the pathetic Ramparts, this faction simply CANNOT HANDLE even the simplest carrier spam.
5. This is radical and would be very difficult to implement successfully but; get rid of shields, factionwide. Increase both armor and hull like crazy and add some extra High-Explosive resistance to armor. Try it out and see if it works, if not that’s fine, but having a truly no-shield UNSC faction that can hold its own would be amazing.I’m definitely looking forward to the future of this mod, keep up the good work! I hope these suggestions give you some ideas, or at least make you consider some different possibilities. Good luck!
1. Yep, custom missiles are planned. I was trying to think up a unique MRM that would be distinct enough from the Harpoon (and the other modded MRM’s already on the market), but your idea seems like it’s worth a try.
2. The Ramparts definitely are undertuned, yes. Balancing them is slightly wonky, since as it stands they’re just slightly better light autocannons. I wanted to make them more of a weapon that serves as a decent anti-ship weapon, while working as a mediocre PD weapon. To make up for this, I tossed in a new “dedicated” PD weapon that should make up for this.
3. Good to know!
4. Yeah, I’ll definitely play with the numbers on the Sabre. I wanted to keep their squadron size small to make them seem “elite,” or at least to justify their exceptional hull and shields.
5. In my earliest release, this was actually the case! As it turns out, it is absurdly difficult to balance around this, after all, Hounds are jokes because they don’t have shields. Originally, the “UNSC Hull Construction” hullmod had upwards of 90% EMP resistance, but even this wasn’t enough to save it from getting chewed up by a High-Tech station’s Tachyon lance. In the end, I chose to slap on the shields for gameplay reasons – otherwise they’d have no chance against Orbital Stations or any other foe that might outrange them.
Adding on absurdly high EMP and HE resistances gets a bit sticky since there’s probably a lot of edge-case interactions that might get screwed up. Also, as written in some modding guide somewhere, fighting an enemy with absurd amounts of armor isn’t fun.
Thanks for the feedback, and please let me know if you have any more – anything is appreciated! I’m currently erring on the side of caution by trying to make everything slightly undertuned (since I’ve only playtested with myself so far).
I have most of the non-faction mods so it might be a conflict rather than a bug but regardless, do you know what’s going on? I’d really like to try your mod.