OP+ Contents and Changes
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Revision as of 23:38, 15 May 2011
OP+ 4.1 Changes
Orion Pirates: TOTAL REBOOT
The pirate ships have all been recreated from an templating system of my design.
- Pirate ship Templates
- I entered, from SFB SSDs, all the base pirate ships I want to use. These ships are mostly weaponless, in their pre-configured form.
- Weapons and Systems reference
- I coded the various allowed weapon costs and arcs based on SFB Annexes for option mounts:
- Annexes #8B and #8H
- ie: plasma with Swivel cost more than plasma without! Different arcs
- ie#2: systems in mounts possible!
- I coded the various allowed weapon costs and arcs based on SFB Annexes for option mounts:
- I then spent weeks creating tons and tons of replacement pirate ships, all with ACCURATE BPV, arcs and weapons for their region of space!
- under test coverage!
- far more accurate!
The pirates are now accurate, complete and are far closer to accurate SFB rules. The majority of them are better than they used to be.
Ships from Module X1R (X-Ship Reinforcements)
More Official Full X-Ships!
- Advanced Technology War Cruisers (and variants)
- Advanced Technology War Destroyers (and variants)
- Advanced Technology PF Tenders and Carriers
Partial X Refits
Module X1R also provides very useful rules to do Partial Advanced Technology upgrades to any ship still in service. This counts as an extra refit for ALL ships in the game. These refits were put into place programmatically based on rules provided by ADB. I also re-used some of the previous X-Ship conversion rules for upgraded weapons and systems, as well as BPV costs.
The following systems get partial upgrades:
- Phasers
- APR power
- Drone Racks
- Plasma Torpedos
- Batteries
- limited distruptor upgrades (ranges only)
Ships from Module R11 (Support Ships)
Module R11 provides a few interesting classes of ships: support ships. ie:
- Fast War Cruisers
- Transport Frigates
- Heavy New Heavy Cruiser Scouts
- Light PFTs
- Pods for Tugs: Scout, PF transport, fighter resupply
Ships from Module R12 (Unusual Ships)
More ships!
ie:
- Heavy War Cruisers experiments and prototypes
- Battle Frigate variants
- Various and many odd ships
No-fighter refit eliminated
No one liked it. It served no purpose. ... so I got rid of them. I also merged in the 'F'ighter refits: if the ship gets them, then the ship gets them without any other options.
ie:
- most/all Y180+ Lyrans will all be carrying PFs.
- Heavy War Destroyers
Shiplist swapper
I've included a shiplist swapper for those who are reluctant to switch away from OPPlus 4.0. In some cases, the concern is completely valid: uninstalling OP+ 4.0 will blow away customizations, such as custom models, etc.
To be able to do this, I've changed things so that all files install to opplus41/ instead of just opplus/. That means the OP+ 4.1 installer isn't overwriting OP+ 4.0.
Why a program? Why not a batch file?
The program fetches the install location of SFC:OP from the Registry. That means that if you installed it in D:\my_games\SFCOP\ , it will still work. Additionally, it asks for administrator privileges, just in case.
Where is it? How do I use it?
It's in the start menu, with links for OP+ 4.1.
See: OP+ 4.1 ShipList Swapper NSIS source code
Tugs as Freighters
Cargo-bearing tugs are now in the 'F'reighter class of ships: frees up room for more ships and allows for some interesting Convoy Raids.
Planets hardpoint fixes
- Work done by: Tus-XC
- Suggestion by: Dizzy
It's a sweeping fix. What is involved is that the shiplist for all the planets with weapons are redone and then the models themselves will have to be rehardpointed. The hardpoints are currently located anywhere from 5 to 7 range above and below the equator on the physical planet model itself, which obviously causes point defense weapons not to fire because if a ship approaches the equator, the point defense weapons are too far away to fire.
Make note that any weapon that ignores a fire arc should not be used on a planet as firing through the planet mesh occurs and the resulting sound collision from that fire is quite annoying. Below you will see the planet fire arc where HW1 is the front of the ship. HW1 stands for heavy weapon hardpoint 1 and is the 1st heavy weapon column in the shiplist. PH11 stands for the 11th phaser hardpoint and corresponds to the 11th weapon column in the shiplist.
- The Yellow arcs should be Ph3 hardpoints which should be present on ALL planets.
- The Blue are the Ph4's which should be standard on all armed planets.
- The Red should be heavy weapon hardpoints that should be on all armed planets.
- The Orange should be optional heavy weapon hardpoints.
- The rest shaded grey should be only used for homeworlds.
- Ph1/2's should not be used on planets as it would give the planet too many defensive phasers.
I do not remember testing to see if a planet can make use of defensive tractors vs drones. I think they do, and I would give
- all planets 6
- homeworlds 12
I am fuzzy on the artifex program and do not remember specifically which planets are referred to as colony world, core world and homeworld. If there are other designations artifex uses that the scripts and the map match up, it would be easy to simply use the existing planets as a reference and arm them from the stock taldren template using the fixes I have made.
-- Dizzy,
http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163390750.msg1123020912.html#msg1123020912
OP+ 4.0 Changes
Enhanced Shiplist
5 columns were added to the end of the shiplist (it's a text tab-delimited database). Since they're outside the range of the columns used by the game, they are ignored. However, mission scripts can use them by using a modified version of MagnumMan's ShipList API.
You can get this Enhanced ShipList API [/sources_and_utils/#api here].
The added columns are:
- Enhanced Class Type -- Much like the already established ClassTypes, these have been expanded to cover many other hull types.
- Role -- Defines the ship's role. ie: Escort, Carrier, LineShip, ...
- Secondary Role -- Same data as Role. Used because some ships have muliple roles.
- Xtech -- A column dedicated to describing what level of technology. Currently has very little.
- ProductionAvailability -- Describes how much a ship of a class was built. NONE, UNIQUE, .. to MANY.
Module R9 -- The Ships That Never Were
ADB released an interesting module contain prototypes, conjectural or impossible ships. Many ships are good for use in SFC, but some didn't make the cut because they were either impossible in SFB in the first place (X-DNLs) or just plain wrong (Alliance Maulers). However.. there are many interesting other ships:
- DNWs -- War Dreadnoughts -- DNs created from CLs
- DNMs -- Medium Dreadnoughts -- DNHs built from DNLs
- Coalition Dreadnought Maulers -- conjectural designs
- Prototypes, some unique ships that were actually built
4.0 Refit Spans and Revision
What I thought was a 2-year span before an unrefitted version of a ship is retired was actually 3: from the beginning of the beginning year, 0, to the end of year 2 spans 3 years. Solution: reduce the span by a year. Most refit overlaps have been thus shortened.
Additionally, I have eliminated this overlap for Y175 refits: too much junk was appearing in D2 ShipYards. The SFB data itself describes immediate refits at Y175, therefore the decision to do this was made easy.
Also, I have taken the time to review data from the SFB books and have reapplied some refits for all the races I could find. In many cases, many changes were warranted and have been applied. For example, the C9K is now far earlier than before.
Module R8 -- National Guard units
ADB has released Module R8 - National Guard Units. These units are police and homeworld protection units, usually upgraded from mothball status and refitted to current technology.
In this case, all races acquire rear-guard units to their lists, but are restricted in availability (on D2). Yes, they're kinda crappy but they could be used by scripters to make really interesting homeworld defense scenarios.
OP+ 3.4 Changes
Massive automatically detected cleanups
I've spent much time programming and detecting problems through some common-sense. This resulted in a lot of hard work, but the rewards are many.
- Weapons are valid
- Weapon arcs are valid
- Weapons with arcs don't use a reload value
- weapons with reloads don't use arcs
- number of weapons are between 1 and 4.
- UIs used are valid
- all weapons in use match UIs: no weapons placed in a spot not used by UI.
- all HULLTYPE valid. ie: "DESTROYER"
- all CLASSTYPE valid. ie: "CA"
- PLaDs are not available before Y165
This should insure high quality gameplay and any errors previously undetected.
Implementation of G4.31: trading a bridge hit for a lab
I remembered a basic SFB rule during the data entry of module R8:
- (G4.3) Lab Substitutions
- (G4.31) Control Space: A ship without labs (...) can use one of its control spaces (G2.11) as a lab.
I have decided to implement this by changing all ships with no labs but more than 1 bridge boxes: add 1 lab, and remove 1 bridge. This will *directly* affect shield repairs since that's what SFC uses. I restricted myself to units where this made sense. (ie: not on PFs.) Around 2000 ships were affected.
OP+ 3.3 Changes
Major Ship Models Review
This isn't exactly a feature, however this work took 4 months to complete. All ship models introduced by the OP+ installer have been examined, and optimized at need. This would have affected much around 97% of the ships. Also, many ship models have been created with the intent to add them to OP+. Optimizations:
- Levels of Details (LODs): All ships must have LODs where the original model's details remain intact on LOD1: closest.
- Improved break-mods: All ships will have break-mods with all the pieces looking complete. This took most of the 4 months to do. However, when a ship blows up, a player won't be looking through a piece and see the other side. A damage texture will be shown.
- Also, the break-mods usually won't be based on the main LOD. That would be a waste of resources and may lag the game.
- Many More Models: Where appropriate, models have been created to represent a class of ship which was misrepresented previously.
Strings.txt Tweaks
Strafer has taken it upon himself to review the names of ship classes and correct them. This took him about a week to do.
For example, a Lyran HDW would be listed as a "Heavy War Destroyer". Now it's listed as a "Top-Alleycat Heavy War Destroyer". There are many such changes, especially within the Gorns. Go take a look.
OP+ 3.2 Changes
Fighterless Casual Carriers
In SFB, all carriers are shown with just its base BPV. Unless noted otherwise, fighters are *extra*. Of course, it doesn't make sense to have a dedicated carrier without fighters, but it *does* make sense to allow not having to pay for them if it's optional. This affects many Hydran ships, as well as some others through the shiplist. These ships will be recognizable by the 'n' appended at the end of the ship designation. These ships will be marked as "R"estricted. These ships shouldn't appear on the D2 since that's not how it works for there.
ie:
- The stock shiplist's H-SUI (a Taldren invention) costs 161 BPV.
- The OP+ H-SUI costs 167 BPV (stock fighter price leveled with other races).
- The OP+ 3.2 H-SUIn will cost 155 BPV and will have no fighters. Nothing is put in place to replace the fighters. The fighters are just not there: the player simply didn't pay for them.
More ISC fighter corrections
Some ISC .III fighters come out before the .II fighters. Dates have been fixed. From:
I-Restitution.II 11 I-Writ.II 15 I-Tort.II 17 I-Caveat.II 17 I-Restitution.III 15 I-Writ.III 11 I-Tort.III 11 I-Caveat.III 15
To:
I-Restitution.II 11 I-Writ.II 11 I-Tort.II 15 I-Caveat.II 15 I-Restitution.III 15 I-Writ.III 15 I-Tort.III 17 I-Caveat.III 17
YLA adjustments to older ships within Advanced Era
As a D2 campaign progresses into the advanced era, whether it's online or single-player D2, there seemed to be a LOT of left-over ships that haven't been phased out when they really really should be out of the picture.
Adjusting the YLAs for these ships to be around year 45 (2308), just after all races have recieved introductions for the last of their X2 units, seems like a good time to make all the excess ships disapeer and make the campaign concentrate only to what should be leftover.
This one are for you folks who like to turn a D2 map to a single colour, whatever that colour is for your race. ;)
Hullclass and Hulltype reclassifications
Ships have been reclassified into their appropriate lists based on their weight (without pods) and # of engines. No, not BPV. Affected are many ships throughout the shiplist.
ie: Simple relocation example: F-NCM The F-NCM was listed as "NEW_HEAVY_CRUISER" within the CL list. It has a movement cost of 1 and ~30 warps. I've moved it to the CA list with the other NCAs.
ie: Major adjustment example: HDWs. The HDWs were listed as "WAR_DESTROYER" mostly within the FF list. They have a movement cost of 2/3 and ~24 warps. They've been moved to the CL list, reclassifying them as "LIGHT_CRUISER". They are, after all, heavier than a WAR_DESTROYER.
More freighters for all races
I've added many many freighters, for all races.
- repair freighters (large and small)
- exploration freighters (large and small)
- troop transport freighters (large and small)
- all freighters for pirates too.
- I've never heard of illegal operations that didn't have some legal front with legitimate operations.
Civilian Freighters for all races. (with new model)
.. and yet more freighters...
- Free Traders (for everyone)
- Free Traitors (for pirates)
- Free Trooper and Tanker (Marines-related units)
- Federation Express
- The Federation Express is a __CIVILIAN__ service. They have their own fleet of courier ships.
Armed Priority Transports
Another freighter variant. The APTs are fast, small, and neat little military couriers. All races used these. (with new model)
System Activity Maintenance Stations (SAMS)
Think as these as small platform stations. These are also used as a kind of listening post in far away systems where other tasks are needed, such as a research station above a planet. For these, I've created a model based on the xdp (Defense Platform) which should do nicely.
Note: They can have various base augmentation modules installed (Hospital, VIP quarters, cargo, sciences, etc..)
Note: Also, similar to the SAMS, I've added a N-CPL Civilian Commercial Platform which also uses the new model.
Civilian Base Stations
Much like the other Base Stations for all races, most/all races had civilian base stations. These did not have ph4s, and other mount points have some i lesser weapons.
X1 and X2 Bases
In some cases, I had to more or less feel my way around in the dark to create proper bases for all races in X1 and X2 era. I just didn't seem right that all races had bases of all kinds from beginning to late era, then when Advanced arrives, all's there is a X2-style SBX. Well. I renamed all the SBX to XSBs and added the following:
- BSX - X1 base stations
- BSXF(or P) - with Fighters/PFs.
- XBS
- XBSF/P
- BTX
- BTXF/P
- XBT
- XBTF/P
- SBX
- SBXF/P
- XSBF/P
Mobile Bases
All races used these as temporary repair and resupply stations during an offensive, or when a base was lost.
Its construction involves 2 specially-made habitable pods that tugs can carry for the center portion of the hull. These pods are accompanied by 4 normal-sized pods installed around. These 4 pods could be just about anything that fits, but normally would be some cargo pods, a repair pod and maybe something else (light battle pod? CVL pod?). Finally, 2 base augmentation modules are installed to fill in the blanks.
A convoy of tugs would normally be sufficient to build this base and set it up.
OP+ 3.1 Changes
ISC Carriers now have same ratio of fighters
To smooth out the fighter payloads on ISC carriers, the 2/3rds rule for SFB->SFC fighter payloads has been applied to all ISC carriers. I've been told the 1:1 ratio for the carriers have been preserved to compensate for fighters that had no heavy weapons. Well.. Check out the next entry on this page..
ISC fighters now have increased hull/armor
To compensate with the reduction in fighter numbers noted above, the hull hit capacity on ISC fighters has been improved by 20%. In a group of 4 fighters, that is a tremendous improvement in survival.
Non-X2 MIRV loadout variants added
In a push to make SFC more SFB-like, conversion rules have been thought up to allow non-X2 ships to be equipped with MIRV racks. Such a conversion would increase the BPV of the ship by 20 BPV.
Conversion requirements: SFB rules are percentage based on the # of drone spaces on racks. Since that cannot be applied to SFC, the # of racks, themselves is instead used for the count. MIRVs, or MW in SFB, are of a "Limited" type of drone, and has corresponding percentage rules. The percentages are the following:
- 10% of drones on non-Mirak/non-Kzinti, non-X ships can be of the "Limited" type.
- 20% of drones on Mirak/Kzinti can be of the "Limited" type.
- 20% of drones on X ships can be of the "Limited" type.
That means that on a non-X, non-Mirak ship, you need at least 10 droneracks to apply the conversion. (There is actually 1 ship that qualifies: Z-WAxDN1.)
On Mirak or X1 ships, each 5th rack can be converted to a MIRV rack, if the number of drone spaces on the ship is preserved. Usually, that means 2 B-racks become 1 MIRV-rack and 1 A-rack. (Each MIRV drone is similar to the double-space MW drone from SFB. Since a MIRV rack has 4 drones per reload, that means the rack is HUGE, sporting 8 drone spaces per reload. The B rack only has 6, so something has to be done to compensate)
ISC PPD ships have PPD mountpoint splits
ISC PPD mountpoints have been splits, much like many other weapons have been with this change.
Romulan Modular Dreadnought variants
The Romulan Modular Dreadnoughts have been populated in with their many compatible and SFB-complient variants. That's a LOT of available dreadnoughts for the Rommies, now.
The modules used are per SFB rules, and originate from the various SparrowHawk and SkyHawk configs. Some modules have been specifically mentionned as illegal,such as the mauler or J PLaS modules. Others are incompatible to the current game.
Dreadnoughts, with modular configs:
- R-DMH, DemonHawk: 2 SparrowHawk modules, 1 SkyHawk module
- R-OMH, OmniHawk Light Dreadnought: 2 SparrowHawk modules.
- R-MGH, MegaHawk Dreadnought: 2 SparrowHawk modules.
OP+ 3.0 Changes
Ship Models
Models have been gathered and selected for use with OP+. In fact, they're included in the main package of the project. There is also a no_models version for those with no bandwidth or those who want to install their own sets of models.
Previous Changes
Executable Installer
Thanks to NullSoft's NSIS, I now have an easy-to-use installer for this project. People usually have problems installing the shiplist properly, if they're to have any problems at all. Here's a nice screenshot:
This will have much greater implications in future versions of the shiplist, since I've always wanted to have 2 versions of the shiplist downloadable: 1 with models and 1 without. Aww well, you'll see when I mean when/if I do it.
Installer FAQ:
- Does the installer back-up the current shiplist files?
- Yes.
- Where are these files backed up to?
- In "opplus\backup" under your SFC:OP directory. The files in "opplus\" are the OP+ shiplist files themselves. Future OP+ versions will have more within this directory structure.
NCA-class Variants (from SFB module R10)
The coming of the New Heavy Cruisers meant cheaper effective replacements to the dwindling numbers of the venerable heavy cruisers. It's only common sense to also replace variants of said heavy cruisers with new heavy cruiser variants.
NCAs, NCFs, NCMs, NCCs, etc.. a whole array of NCA variants have been added to the OP+ shiplist in version 2.2, from SFB module R10.
CVP Patrol Carriers (from SFB module J2)
With no heavy weapons, these CWL-variants come with 12 fighters, based on 18 in SFB. These carriers are to be respected, despite their size. All fighter-based races recieve them.
CVD Interdiction Carriers (from SFB module J2)
Also with no heavy weapons, the Interdiction are modified CA-sized ships. their SFB version have 24 fighters, which gives them 16 in SFC. Basically, all races can have "H-CAV"-like ships now.
Implementation of the new arcs in patch 25410
7 new arcs have been implemented in OP Patch version 2.5.4.10. These are:
- FALX/FARX -> FAL/FAR + right down rear
- LSRF/RSLF -> LS+RF / RS+LF missing arcs
- RRP/RLP -> Rear plasma arcs good for some tugs and HDWs.
- LR -> L+R arc used on the Hydran Fire Support Pallet
Also note the fixed LWX arc in SFC:OP 25410. It's been restored onto ships that use it as of OP+ version 2.2 .
"Real" Armed FRDs from SFB
The "Real" SFB-like FRDs have been added instead of the stock FRDs. These have weapons, usually 2 heavy weapons, 2 ph1/2s and 4 ph3s. They're not overly armed, but they should dismiss the "fodder" reputation the FRDs have in SFC.
PF Acceleration changed to 15
Briefly said, the PFs were accelerating as quickly as a normal ship, which I found wrong. I changed it to the SFB standard of 15 per turn for all PFs and Interceptors.
Heavy Weapon mount splits
Many ships have been improved by splitting some number of weapons into many separate weapons. This will allow for different settings among the groupings, and more pseudos for the plasmas. Effectively, the affected ships seem more complete this way.
LWX arc workaround (arc fixed in 25410)
The LWX mount is simply broken. It is an arc which encompasses LS+RR. The closest replacement is the LS arc itself, since it overshoots by 10 degrees both in front and at rear. That means the LWX is only 20 degrees wider than the LS arc.
All ships with weapons which have the LWX arc, or HAD the LWX arc but have been replaced by RX or RAL/RAR arcs have been changed to LS/RS arcs.
NOTE: In OP 25410, the arc has been fixed, so restoration in the OP+ shiplist 2.2 has been applied.
Basic Hydran fighter KillerBee.I change to 2 BPV
BPV stands for "Battle Point Value" but what it really means is "how good a ship is in a fight." .. with that in mind, all the stock Hydran 1 BPV fighters have been increased to 2 BPV and the carriers have recieved appropriate BPV increase.
Hydrans, don't fret. While the carriers are more expensive, upgrading to a better fighter will be cheaper.
Ships with drones and special sensors will have 12 Drone Control
This was a good idea. I increased the DroneControl by 6 on any ship with both drones and special sensors. This will help out some drone cruisers which include these special sensors in their design for exactly that task.
NOTE: This works to a max of 12 DC only. Ships that have 12 DC already will remain at 12 DC. Sorry, buggy game.
Year Last Available date changes
A massive revision of the shiplist resulted in an across-the-board change of YLA dates. Expect ships to become unavailable when playing single-player or online D2 as refitted versions of ships replace the unrefitted ones.
ie: The F-DN is introduced in 2248. It will disapeer in 2274, making way to the F-DN+ which is a major overhaul/refit of the ship. The F-DN+ appears in 2272, and will disapeer in 2277, making way to the F-DNG. The F-DNG appears in 2275 and remains for the rest of the game.
This is a major shiplist change introduced in version 2.0 of the shiplist.
Y175 drone refit and reloads changes
Around 2275, all empires have come through with new technologies allowing already-existing ships to improve their ordinance through a minor refit. The Y175 refit increases the number of available dronerack reloads, improves some AMDs and even allows better droneracks to be installed altogether on the various warships.
Many additional ships were added as a result of the 'fleshing out' caused by Y175 refits. These will be marked with a "R" code appended to the ship's codename. These refits involve upgrades from Drone-A racks to B or C-racks. All racks that had just 1 reload prior to 2275 will now have 2, and some that had 2 now have 3. ADD6s become ADD12s in most cases.
In some cases, it meant splitting the ship into 2 separate entries: before and after Y175. Appropriate BPV adjustments have been made. Specifically:
- 1 BPV for A-rack -> B-rack (1 reload to 2, change to B racks)
- Usually ADD6 before Y175, ADD12 after Y175.
- 1.5 BPV (round up total) per ADD6 -> ADD12
- ie: 3 BPV for 2 ADD6s -> ADD12s upgrade
- 0 BPV for A,B,C,G-racks already in place. (reload upgrade only)
- CX racks should have 3 reloads.
- C racks on X ships
- GX racks should have 3 reloads.
- G racks on X ships are really like B racks with 2 reloads. In OP+ 2.2, the GX racks have been replaced by B racks with 2 reloads on player demand. In versions 2.0 and 2.1c, the GX racks are G racks with 3 reloads
There are exceptions. For example, all the D5s came with ADD12s even before Y175. I did not bother making sure post Y175 had the best technologies available to them.
This is a major shiplist change introduced in version 2.0 of the shiplist.
"refit" and "refit base" changes
To improve the user-interface useability of the game, most incognito refits have been given a name.
ie, ISC ships:
- W refit: rear wing phaser3s.
- P refit: some Plasma-Gs were upgraded to PPDs.
- Y refit: some Plasma-Gs were upgraded to Plasma-Ss.
- Z refit: rear Plasma-Is were installed.
Also, to also an almost FAQ-necessary question, I added what the Monitor support pallet contains in the Refit field. I hope that helps. ie, F-MONS, Refit: Labs Hull Cargo
This is a major shiplist change introduced in version 2.0 of the shiplist.
Re-classification of some ships
SFB calls the D5 ships "War Cruisers". These are bigger than the War Destroyers the shiplist was making them pass for. All D5s have been changed to the LIGHT_CRUISER hulltype. I also changed the Romulan version of the D5: R-KDR. The R-KDP is marked as CARRIER.
Similarly, the following ships have also been reclassified:
- R-KCR/R-KCRF: from HEAVY_CRUISER to HEAVY_BATTLECRUISER
- K-F6/R-KFR: from DESTROYER to WAR_DESTROYER
- H-CHC/H-CHA: from HEAVY_BATTLECRUISER to HEAVY_CRUISER
Commando ships set to "SPECIAL"
All commando ships have been set to "SPECIAL". I investigated their seemingly overwhelming presence in missions to only find that most Taldren-originated ships and all of mine had Commando ships as normal cruisers. This should solve the problem by removing them from standard gameplay. Too bad that also removes it from the D2 shipyards, but there were too many there too anyways.
Survey cruisers removed from "SPECIAL" class
Unlike commando ships, most survey ships can actually defend themselves nicely. They've been changed back to their respective hulltypes. Expect them in battle more often.
ie: F-GSC is a HEAVY_CRUISER type ship.
Lyran ships with INTs appearing way too early
Some Lyran ships were being introduced with PFs well too early. Some, like the L-CFF, could be purchased and used at around 2265. That's 12 years before the other races can even THINK of having interceptors. I made sure no Lyran "F" or "T" variants would appear before 2276, thus balancing out their casual PFTs with the other PF-using races.
X1 Ships
During the Andromedan Invasion, new technology was developed and became available to all of the galactic forces. This was called "X-Technology" and was introduced in the form of refitted cruisers.
The X1 ships were added to the game for all the races involved. X1 ships start appearing around year 2292 and up from there. This is 10 years after SFB prototypes due to limitations of the game itself: Advanced Era does start until the 2290s.
All the X1 ships I could get my hands on were added, including those from Captains Logs I have access to. If I encountered incorrect X1 ships in the Shiplist entered by Taldren, I removed them. The real X1 ships seemed more.. .. ..appropriate: X1 ships were really more refits than anything. These replacements are quite visible in the compare.txt file as X1 ships with massive modifications. They're really replacements with the same name.
The Orion races get 3 variants for weaponry per X-ship class. I had to use my judgement for their loadouts. Perl scripting made this task possible.
Some of the plasma x-ships which would normally have Plasma-Ms have been fitted with Plasma-R in this shiplist. The charging costs are the same, and so are their ranges. Some ships have had their plasma-Ss downgraded to Plasma-Gs to compensate. When I could not compensate, I increased the BPV by 10 per Plasma-M to Plasma-R upgrade. I know it's a lot, but it feels about right.
ie: ISC I-CCX. NOTE: In version 2.2, the PLaGs have been restored to PLaSes, and the BPV increased for the PLaRs as compensation instead.
In SFC, X1 ships do not benefit from enchanced loading methods for the heavy weapons, like in SFB. There is no easy way to calculate the difference in BPV this would have, therefore no changes have been done to X-ship BPVs regarding this matter. (Blame it on the higher contruction costs?)
I've decided to ignore the errata for the X1 ships BPV. This game was designed using the pre-errata rules for x-technology and therefore should use pre-errata BPV.
X2 Dates adjustments
Once the Andromedans were repulsed, more resources were devoted to design and manufacture of new classes of ships and weapons. These are known as the X2 ships, and are nothing like the ships previously seen.
It just didn't seem to make sense to have *ALL* X2 ships appear in 2300. There should be prototype introductions, as well as creation of various other hull types. Also, not all races create ships at the same time. There is a certain pattern to this: Federation is almost always first. The Klingons and Lyrans are usually not far behind. The Hydrans, Kzinti and Romulans tend to develop technology as a later response. The ISC and Gorns seem to be tardy in their development.
The new dates for the X2 ships should reflect this. None of the X2 ships were otherwise changed.
Light Dreadnoughts
Built early in the General War, the light dreadnoughts acted as heavy fast raiders. Production ceased as heavier "true" dreadnoughts proved to be a better allocation of available ressources.
The only races I saw having Light Dreadnoughts were the Gorn and the Klingon. That didn't seem right to me as all races have them. With 45 Warps, but a movement cost of only 1.25, these "Light Dreadnoughts" needed balance, and balance was found in the SFB material: everybody's got one. The K-C5 and the G-DNL aren't alone anymore.
Early Dreadnoughts
Appearing at around 2250, early dreadnoughts were built as command ships with the weaponry of heavy cruisers, but with more staying power and energy. The technology of the day was insufficient to allow more appropriate weaponry on these massive new hulls. Most early dreadnoughts survived the General War and were converted to standard dreadnoughts.
Again, only a few races have DNEs in SFC:OP. All races are supposed to have them and they were all added accordingly.
NOTE: SFB module R7 lists the F-DN as appearing in Y148, not Y167 as listed in previous SFB modules or SFC:OP. The date for the F-DN has been adjusted and this shipclass will act as the Fed's early dreadnought.
Additional Corrected Heavy Dreadnoughts
Heavy Dreadnoughts appeared as upgrade refits to the standard dreadnoughts. Heavy dreadnoughts are to dreadnoughts what command cruisers are to heavy cruisers.
Some of the Heavy Dreadnoughts already in the game didn't match the Heavy Dreadnoughts in the standard OP shiplist. Instead of removing the old ones, I've renamed the old dreadnoughts if necessary and kept them as well as adding the real ones from SFB into the game.
Renamed Taldren dreadnoughts:
- G-DNH -> G-DNHph (Heavy Phaser Dreadnought)
- L-DNH -> L-DNHE (Heavy ESG Dreadnought)
Renamed SFB dreadnoughts, added but conflicting with already existing Taldren dreadnoughts:
- F-DNH -> F-DNHadd
Imported DNH from EAW, because a problem was fixed there first:
- Z-DNH
Fast Cruisers
Mostly used as special units for reconnaissance and raid missions, these ships were seen as failed experiments from the dawn of the General War. Their increased warp power design proved unstable with the standard weaponry load of a normal heavy cruiser. Heavy weapons had to be removed, replaced instead by additional phaser array emitters.
As per SFB module R6, all races now have Fast Cruisers. Find Them. Use Them. They're fun. Note that these were usually prototypes and are normally marked as "R" for restricted ships.
Heavy War Destroyers
Smaller than previous war destroyers, the heavy war destroyers are an efficient late-war design intended as replacements for the many lost support and variant smaller ships. They tend to carry a few fighters on board for extra firepower, if their race's doctrine permits it. These ships were quite modular, allowing a shipyard to overhaul the ship to any needed variant.
The Heavy War Destroyers in SFC:OP aren't giving them justice. These ships are far superior than what the standard shiplist contains. In fact, the Fed HWD is missing 6 center warp!
SFB's R6 contains rules on how these ships are truly picked and designed. They're shown in their basic skeletal variant in the SSDs. There are still 'optional systems' mounts left unfilled, as well as Weapons Options mounts. These are known as "NWO" (Non-Weapon Option) and "WO" (Weapon Option) and it's up to the player to choose what these systems are based on available charts. The chosen system also increase the BPV of the ships.
I have created as many useful variants these ships can be 'morphed' into as possible. Most races have 3 battle configurations (the Gorn have 4). All have Commando, Escort, Exploration and Carrier/PF Tender variants. That's 7 ships added per race, much more if you count the many Orion weapon configs they may have.
NOTE: In OP+ 2.2, another variant has been added: Marine Assault. Basically, it's the maximum deployment of transporters on the HDWs, for maximum offensive effectiveness.
Tugs
Mostly used as priority military or government cargo transports, tugs are full-fledged starships with limited armament suitable for its mission. However,they are capable of carrying massive 'pods', which are not necessarily all cargo holds. Available pods vary widely. However, combat-related pods such as commando pods, carrier pods and battle pods allow the tug to actively participate in important battles.
I've added all cargo-carrying tugs variants for scenario generation purposes. The tugs with no pods are set as "Heavy Cruisers" or "Light Cruisers", depending on their size. The tugs with cargo pods attached are set as "Special", type "R", hulltype "Freighter". These will remain present in the game in case someone feels it's useful enough to create scenarios with them. They're also going to appear under the D2 if this shiplist is used.
Be careful to check the Movement Cost of the tug you wish to play. Some tugs are slow and heavy, and will not move quickly nor maneuver well at all. These restrictions are per SFB rules, and seem accurate. The slowest battle-worthy tugs in the game are the Federation F-BTV and F-CVTC. Try the F-CVTC with a full complement of 24 fighters. You'll just love it despite the slow speed (16 max?).
Tugs with self-defense pallets have not been added to the game, to avoid clutter and make room in the shiplist. NOTE: The exceptions, Hydran H-TUGsdp and H-TUG+sdp, have 8 gatling phasers (ph-G). That made them interesting ships to play. The SD Pallet added 4 ph-G 360, so I couldn't resist adding them once it was pointed out to me.
Some of the BattleTugs are vicious ships and have been rated as "Heavy Battlecruisers". In the many games I have played with this shiplist, this decision was well justified.
Casual PF Tenders
By adding a clamp mechanism to a tractor beam system, practically any ship could be adapted to carry PFs into battle.
I've added many casual carriers to the shiplist, mostly with the intent of maintaning the balance. More precisely, the Gorn and Romulans were seriously lacking in the Carrier department, so I've made some logical additions.
Note: I started off by adding any Casual PFTs with the mechlinks already drawn onto the SSDs.
- G-CCHF
- G-BCHF
- G-BBF
- R-SPJF
- R-KEF
- R-KCRF
- R-KVLF
- R-K10RF
- R-KCNF
Also, almost all large Lyran ships are considered to be capable of Full PFT duty. These ships, starting from the L-BCH to largest, will now have a "T" varient (for tender) capable of carrying a full load of 4 PFs. The original "F" designs with 2 PFs will remain available.
- L-BCHT
- L-DNT
- L-DNLT
- L-DNHT
- L-BBT
Oh.. and BTW..
I took the liberty of adding "F" PFT variants of the Lyran X1 and X2 ships.
Be warned. *EVIL LAUGH!!*
Battle Carriers
Already capable warships, the BattleCruisers and Heavy BattleCruisers are actually refittable as carriers.
To balance the BCV category, Romulans and Gorns also needed BCVs. A couple of SFB ships had to be modified from their original SSDs to fit the role. Specifically:
- R-TH (ThunderHawk)
- Normally carries 8 fighters, 2 shuttles and 6 PFs. Fighters have been completely removed to match Romulan no-PF philosophy in SFC:OP. 4 shuttle boxes have been added, increasing the number to 6. The BPV of the ship has been adjusted to compensate for the other 4 missing shuttleboxes.
- G-BCS
- Normally carries 6 fighters, 2 shuttles and 6 PFs. All fighterbays have been converted to shuttlebays. (Gorns with 8 shuttlebays are not unseen in this game.)
Both of the above-mentioned ships have been reduced to 4 PFs like all the other PFTs in the game.
BattleShip Carriers
BattleShip Carriers are true monsters. These flagships were heavily modified to carry large number of fighters to supplement their already vast firepower.
More BBVs have been added to the game. Specifically, the "I-BBV", "F-BBV", and "Z-BBV" now join the "H-MNV", "K-B10V" and "K-B11V".
PF-based races, such as the Gorn, Romulans and Lyrans, now have CasualPFTs for their BB classes.
The TigerHeart don't have any Dreadnoughts or Battleships. Read go check the SFC:OP manual about this.
Fast Resupply Frigates
These frigates were designed mostly as prioritive cargo transports between industrial and production centers and front-line carrier groups. Their cargo holds were specially designed for carrying replacement fighters and pseudo-fighters, as well as lodging replacement crews. In a pinch, they were also capable of acting as carrier escorts.
These are lightly armed cargo frigates used as fast freighters for carriers. The supply fighters and parts necessary for these carriers and are strategically important. Tactically, they suck, but I added them to the game anyways.
Monitors
Monitors are usually sent to defend planets, or to establish a military presence in a remote sector until a properly defended outpost can be established. They are very slow yet very powerful ships with enough firepower to induce caution within any would-be invader.
Like the above brief description states, they're slow but strong. Attacking them feels like you're charging to meet a slow yet nasty brute which has long enough arms to punch you and keep you back. Playing one is as difficult: you're slow with a max speed of 14 within SFC. Your fantastic phaser arcs will defend you nicely, but if you're overwhelmed and outmaneuvered, you're dead.
Almost all Monitors are identical, for all the races that have them. Here's a rundown of their base systems:
- Power: 27 total
- 6 Warps total, 3 on each side.
- 3 Impulse Power
- 18 APRs
- 8 Batteries
- 36 shields, all around
- 2 Transporters
- 4 Tractors
- 0 Labs
- 6 Hull
- Up to 6 shuttles
Monitors may carry a pallet. There are 3 pallets available. All pallets cost 15 BPV, fighters/PFs not included:
- Support Pallet
- 6 cargo, 6 hull, 6 lab (very useful for shield regen)
- Carrier Pallet (if applicable)
- 2 cargo, 9 fighters (12 fighters * 2/3 ratio)
- PFT Pallet (if applicable)
- 2 cargo, 6 mechlink tractors, 4 PFs (6 PFs * 2/3 ratio)
I did not enter any SCS Pallets nor the equivalent Federation Heavy Carrier Pallet. Why? The SCS pallets mix fighters and PFs. The Fed CVA pallet is the quivalent pallet but I didn't want to give them an advantage.
Please notice that I've used the Fed merchant ship skin/model for these ships. The merchant ships roughly but accurately look right for the part: big hull, with little itty-bitty warps sticking out the sides. (Compared to SFB SSDs)
Additional PFs
Escort PFs
Other PF variants were also designed. Some were to carry hypothetical fighters into battle. Others were to lay minefields. There were to be even commando and cargo-carrying PFs. But as a design proving to be much more successful than expected, the escort PFs were useful additions to any fleet.
The escort or phaser PFs had less heavy weapons, but more phasers or Plasma-D racks specially placed for defensive purposes. These ended up being cheaper to manufacture than the other PFs.
PF Variants can be found in the module K rulebook. There are cargo, commando, minelaying and escort PFs and all are official. For the purpose of this shiplist, the escort PFs sound like they've got the right scope in mind. Evidence shows that Taldren's way of calculating a PF's BPV seems to have been to put it into the game, but always letting the insertion program calculate the BPV for them, with a balance of -5 BPV, for all PFs. I've done the same for the added Lyran, Gorn and Romulan escort PFs.
Most of these PFs will never become "drone bait". When I showed strafer these ships as potential additions (from module K) and how I would do it, all he told me was "I approve".
Lyran PFL
The standard L-PFL has been added. It's just like a L-PF+, but with the transporter, t-bomb and couple of marines. I used PFLs from the other races as templates.
StarHawk PFs
Following the modular design, the Romulans also have a series of PFs called the StarHawk PFs.
Brigand Interceptors and Bucaneer PFs (TigerHeart)
Since the TigerHeart only have small ships, it's fair to increase the roster with other existing PFs the pirates would normally use. I gave these PFs weapons as per the Orion Pirate weapon option mount rules, and weapon availability due to cartel location.
The drone-carring variants are particularly effective. But since the PFs don't have their own drone control (and its passed on to the mother ships), I installed OAKDISK (and paid the BPV for it) on all PF-carrying TigerHeart ship.
Find out more about the additional PFs.
Additional Orion hulltypes and classes
Many orion ships are missing from the game. To make things interesting, I took special interest to the Salvage cruisers and their variants. You see, the SAL variants include PFTs and CVLs which the Orion dearly need in light cruiser classes.
Also, I took the liberty to review all of the current pirate entries and design additional variants based on proper SFB rules: 70% of option mounts must take weapons/systems from local empire, 20% are from the "Operation Zone", and 10% may come from anywhere. I would like to think I just made things a little bit more interesting. Look for pirate ships with variants "0". In all, hundreds of the additions may be attributed to the pirates.
Pirate fighters
In SFB, the pirates don't have their own fighters. They buy from their local empire's "black market" and equip themselves with such.
... however...
In SFC, they all have their own fighters, except for TigerHeart of course.
I took the liberty to copy fighters from the normal races to the pirate races of that region. That means that additionally to Taldren's design, they'll be able to use other fighters from their local region too. ie:
- Orion Pirates --> Federation fighters
- Korgath --> Klingon fighters
- Camboro --> Mirak fighters
- BeastRaiders --> Hydran
- Wyldefire --> ISC
Also, .. a new set of entries of fighters have been added to help some compatibility issues: "Neutral" race fighters. Normally, "Neutral" units are used in Taldren-written mission scripts for some specific tasks.
Namely:
- N-SH (Shuttles)
- N-PE
- N-IE
- N-HE
- N-AE
- N-PM
- N-IM
- N-HM
- N-AM
- N-PL
- N-IL
- N-HL
- N-AL
Note: the Syndicate (Gorn) and Prime (Romulan) cartels don't get local fighters. There are no local fighters to use as these empires have PFs.
Additional WYN hulltypes and classes
I went through the SFB material here and stuffed the shiplist with as many WYN ships I deemed appropriate. I put in the Auxiliary conversions, as well as the other donated or captured ships found.
Please note:
I didn't put in any Orions because they would inherit engine-doubling if I put the ship under any Pirate race. The WYN do not have engine doubling. I didn't bother with the WYN fish ships. At that point, you may as well give them their own race.
Here's a list of the WYN Ships in the OP+ shiplist, thanks to yet another perl handy-dandy script I wrote for myself:
K-WG2 - FF K-WG2+ - FF K-WE4 - FF K-WE4+ - FF L-WPBC - FF L-WPBCF - FF L-WAXPFS - FF L-WLDD - CL L-WLDD+ - CL L-WLDDP - CL L-WLDDR - CL L-WLDDF - CL L-WPBB - CL L-WPBBF - CL L-WAXBS1 - CA L-WAXBS2 - CA L-WAXBS3 - CA Z-WAXC1 - FF Z-WAXC2 - FF Z-WAXC3 - FF Z-WAXCC - FF Z-WAXCC+ - FF Z-WAXCV1 - FF Z-WAXCV2 - FF Z-WAXCV3 - FF Z-WZFF - FF (See note: *) Z-WZFF+ - FF (See note: *) Z-WZDF - FF (See note: *) Z-WAXCX1 - FF Z-WAXCX2 - FF Z-WAXCX3 - FF Z-WFZX - FF Z-WDW - CL (See note: *) Z-WAXBC1 - CA Z-WAXBC2 - CA Z-WAXBC3 - CA Z-WAXB1+ - CA Z-WAXB2+ - CA Z-WAXB3+ - CA Z-WAXBV1 - CA Z-WAXBV2 - CA Z-WAXBV3 - CA Z-WAXCVA - CA Z-WACVA+ - CA Z-WAXDN1 - DN Z-WAXDN2 - DN
NOTE: * Not all above ships are new. Some were already in the OP 25410 shiplist. No WYN ships previously in shiplist have been removed. All are entered with the first letter "W", with HullClass "SPECIAL".
Adjustments to existing ships
The H-IC (and H-IC+) has 40 fighters in SFB.
Taldren's 2/3 fighters rule was broken for this ship, equipping it with only 16 fighters. Strafer wanted this to reflect the real power this ship is under SFB, so was modified to carry 24 fighters in SFC:OP, the 2/3 limit. The BPV was adjusted, don't worry.
The earlier versions of the R-KVL were added
They're listed as the R-WVL and the VUL+. These are equivalent to the eras the R-WE and the R-WB+ appeared. Try them. They're fun. Their BPV was increased to compensate for "cheese" factor and abuse, much like the R-KVL in the 2525 patch. We based our calculations from the latest SFB material containing the Vulture class: Y1, Early Years.
weapons moved to visible mountpoints
Some mountpoint manipulations have been done to allow use of previously 'hidden' weapons. With EagleEye Software's ShipEdit editor, it was a simple matter of browsing through the entire list, and move things around a bit. ie: merge weapons of same type and arc here.. shuffle mountpoints there..
Also, some ships will appear with X-Ship UIs to allow all weapons to be useable/targettable. ie: F-BTV
Note that for PFs, the editor was useless for viewing mountpoint locations. I had to figure out where the mountpoints were on my own. Please note that any phaser mounted on a HeavyWeapon point (mounts 1-10) will NOT charge the phaser capacitor. Let me share that information now:
The Federation F-DN is now considered an Early Dreadnought
Its year of availability and retirement have been adjusted to 2248-2275. The F-DN+ comes out in 2272.
X1 and X2 dates have been changed
- Existing X1 ships' intruduction dates joined the other added X1 ships at around 2292-2297.
- X2 ships have been 'staggered' to emulate prototyping and introduction of the various ship classes. It didn't make sense to have all X2 ships appear at once at 2300.
shipnames, refits and base refitclass fixes
Some shipnames, refits and base refitclass were entered incorrectly in the shiplist.txt file. These changes are easy to spot with the compare.txt file. This is just a cosmetic change to allow proper strings.txt and shipnames.txt coverage.
Basic pirate fighters have been changed from PM to PE fighters
This will allow "early" carriers to carry "early" fighters. ie: the SAL carrier variants "CVL" and "LVS".
Many ships from module R7 have been entered incorrectly.
They've all been revised (or added at all for that matter). R7 is called "Dreadnoughts at War" and covers the various yet unmentionned DNs and variants for the various races. For more information, please visit the sections about Light Dreadnoughts, Heavy Dreadnoughts and Early Dreadnoughts.
TigerHeart's "CV" is a DN
TigerHeart's "CV" class has been moved to the DN class despite the fact that it's not a DN. Why? They don't *HAVE* a DN and that caused some problems for some multiplayer games on Gamespy and Local LAN.
Some carriers had insufficient or no deckcrews.
Fixed.
Some drone-equipped ships had insufficient drone control
Fixed.
B10 fixes
The B10 series weren't entered properly. The KBB UI did not have sufficient weapons slots to cover the entire ship. However, the KDN class does work fine for these ships and was adopted as the B10 variant UI. The Romulan K10R variants seem to be fine.
Shiplist Limits
Taldren has been kind enough to raise the limit of ships to 128. That's 128 ships PER hull class PER race. Believe it or not, I had well filled the previous limit of 64.
ie: There can be 128 Lyran frigates, 128 Lyran Light Cruisers, 128 Lyran Heavy Cruisers, etc.