just wanted to know is distant stars was compatible with maelstrom or not

If you Guys have the time could you make a mod with only the Dreadnaughts and new planets.. Otherwise i love your mod.. super great ships.. Thanks for your Work

SUPER nice mate and thanks Again for your mod..

Hello everyone!

I would like to give my opinion about the mod I think I like the most, but there are still things that bother me much. Maybe many of these things were mentioned before, I apologize for them. I haven't played much full games with the factions so maybe some of the problems may not occur again, I don't know.

Let's get started.

1. New races: i really like the idea of the 3 new races but they are far from balanced even rigth now, but it seems it is going in the right way compared to the previous versions. TA is far from fair with the cheap and early trade centers, it is the human who should have more income in the early stage, not the harder AI-s to somewhat compensate their income bonus. It seems overpowered, but not as much as in previous versions i admit. Norlamin is great in many fields. Both races have the same problem the Advent had, the mines. I have seen several times Devlons and the other building meteor and crystalline mines and I only laugh at them and kill them without any difficulties. Please remove mines or change something that were done to te original Advent.

2. Planets: more than half of them are awesome looking and I enjoy colonizing them, but the stats, maybe most players enjoy having brutal incomes after half an hour of playing, because colonizing two or three new planets, but it kinda ruins the game for me. Having 10+ crystal income from one planet is not fun for me. I had to reduce the incomes in the files, and this way they are not so unbalanced. More resource asteroids are better I think than asteroids with 300% rate (and their original extraction rate is double of the normal) to make a planet heavy crystal or heavy metal planet. Maybe others like it, but I think it needs some refinement. Also for the bonuses, they are exaggerated, extraction bonus for the already increased extr. and 200 or 300%, it is too much. Also for the trade income and culture spread bonus. Planets have way too high populations, I think they should be compared to the original planet types, I'm glad the Dyson doesn't have 5000 pop as it was some time ago. The Hi Tec colonization is great, but even with this, the high technological planets are strange, and their pop increase research is exaggerated. And one more thing, the research for the giant planets' moons also increases every other planets' pop, maybe it's intended, I don't know, but it should be corrected. In the file it says to increase only the given type, Invalid, and it is connected to the Giant type (is it?), so I couldn't fix it for myself? This problem also occurs with the Sins+ mod, and also for the giants.

3. Titans and Dreadnoughts: biggest disappointment for me, I like the dreadnoughts' look (the Ashlaria needs some changes imho), these ships are the main things of the races, they are leading the fleet, anything is concentrated around them, so they should have been worked out more. The weapons on the dreadnoughts are not using the new weapon types (Draumilus), and the wrong weapon type is associated with the cannons on it. Wawe cannons never looked like a human cannon. The new 4 titans are not awesome like the original 6, I waited to see them shining in a big battle, but they do not, the weapons on them are far from spectacular, double lasers from the gauss placements on the double Sova? Why not big lasers? (I  like the look of the mega carrier). The abilities OMG, placing total wrong abilities on it, was it intended? frontal abilities on a ship that goes broadside? I hope it will be changed. And pls add some original abilities, (but I think they will be added in the future (and I hope so)). And the abilities taken from the original six, many of them look extremely strange, e.g. the domination and the unity mass. I hoped to see at least the new titans worked out in a better way, because they are the focus of their races, but left me unsatisfied.

Many dreadnought ability lev 3 does something unexpected, they only increase one stat, not the intended two, but it was mentioned before.

4. Starbase: maybe it was a problem occurring only for me, but it was strange to see an Advent starbase exploding, for some seconds the TEC starbase can be seen? It was strange. I have seen it several times.

5. Capitals: I really like the rotating part of the TA colonizer, it is genious, just like some Norlamin ships. BUT the norlamin siege capital does not seem to fire many weapons, and the abilities worth nothing for me. Nothing to attack or harass an enemy ship or planet, or helping out at least one of my ships? The culture thing and the pop growth increase is somewhat good (culture, why does it cost resources?), but they will not make me buy that ship again.. And the lev 4 of the abilities, but someone before me mentioned this.

This is my personal opinion of my favourite mod, I would like to thank you for all your work on it I'm awaiting the next version with the Replicators, but I hope they won't be overpowered.

This is the theme for the TA capital in general ... fighter orientated. The Devoln carrier cruiser is relatively cheap with an ability for producing fighters rapidly.Nevertheless I will consider your suggestion

I agree that there could be some overall refinements ...

I've played some more battles after my previous comment so I think I will continue.

6. I noticed that the heavy cruisers are totally OP, giving them the best capital ship abilities of TEC and Advent? The Cleansing Brilliance and the Missile Barrage? They are not even using these types of weapons. I hope it is under further development

7. The next problem I forgot to mention in my previous comment, the utility cruisers. Why don't they have abilities coming with them? Why only researchable stuff? And for the Norlamin, isn't it too powerful to give Madillax scout cruisers Domination? Or the Skylark 2 module infiltration (maybe it's ok though, but far better ability than the original 3 races utility cruisers have, except Vasari Stilakus). And one more thing about the Skylark 2, they are completely useless against Vasari and TEC, because the ability says target must have shields. Maybe the original 3 will be replaced in the future by the new 3 races? I'm following this mod for a long time but I don't remember this.

8. Rebel and Loyalist, I don't really remember much original research for them, everything is taken from the vanilla factions. I hope they will get more unique in the future.

9. Light frigates don't have any abilities but have antimatter, for what? They should be given something I guess, but not the Advent Vasari TEC abilities.

10. Cosmic Ray collector, great device, but the research for increasing it's efficiency is not working (or does something I couldn't find?), it is intended to increase the resources given, and the pop growth etc, am I right? And the other, I was like yay great I can build many of them in a grav well, but after completion it seems useless, the effects don't stack, am I supposed to build only one per planet? I don't really understand the logic of this structure.

11. Vasari Loyalist tech tree, increasing high-tec planets population, these research objects are under the civ lab and the strip mining icon, but even if they weren't I would not research them, because they increase the population of everything, so the same problem as the giant moons research.

12. Norian Dreadnought Shield Enhancement ability seems to do nothing, it doesn't increase the shield point of anything.

13. Pacts: complete mess, they are not even listed in the right order of the relations needed, and nothing unique, I know they are not the most important part of the game, but it is somewhat annoying that there aren't even unique icons, colour and normal order. I'm talking about the manage pacts part, the research is fine, new icons etc.

Thanks for the feedback ...

Being the sole developer means I have to prioritize my time and development. Stability and content are high on my list. Also it means that my insights into game play can be quite blinkered, as I don't have the time to note alot of the interactions of the new features ... at least over a short time frame. So feedback from players is important for the improvement of this mod.

The Mines-

This has been done by limiting the total number of mines on most planets and stars

The new Planets-

I agree and can change the number of hi tec planets on maps in general ... and reduce some of the bonuses

The Norlamin Siege Capital -

Yes, this capital is a planetary defense ship, no overly useful for offense. Good for front line work when you are over-running enemy planets and they are still harassing you

The Dangerous Asteroids -

There is a contradiction in these two statements. The dangerous asteroids slow the acquisition of the high value planets so you can't  develop to quickly. They are an initial buffer against early development ....also it makes the valuable planets hard to get,

I have no problems with the DA's, they have been substantially reduced in the recently releases.

The Heavy cruisers -

They have much reduced ability strengths compared to the capitals ... and they use their abilities consistently

The Skylark 2-

This was implemented so that the Skylark 2 can't takeover certain structures like Dread and Titan factories ...

The Cosmic Ray Collector -

They should stack ... I will look into it

The Norian Dreadnought -

Thanks for letting me know ... will look into it

The Pacts -

Thanks I will look into it

I must correct myself, the self repair ability, I noticed the second level reduces antimatter cost, but still I think this is not worth the research as it takes much resources and changes almost nothing.

Cheers mate thank you for your hardwork

R4 seems to have some bugs concerning buff-auras. Tried out Norlamin yesterday and the energy weapon cooldown aura (Jelmi Colony Capital Ship) stacks up to 90% (should be 22%) which makes any Norlamin fleet totally OP. I also noticed that some of the planet abilities have the same behaviour (f.e. 160% to hit instead of 40% and 75% weapon cooldown instead of 25%). You might wanna look into this

Except from that i like the changes you did - especially the dreadnaught nerf and speed improvements for titans/dreadnaughts. The new races are still OP i think, but its gettin a lot more balanced...

Hi Malanthor,

The Replicators are glad to be back in the battle ....

I really like this mod.  The TA are fun to play with the swarm of strike craft.  I play TEC mostly otherwise and they are kind of similar.  I do have one issue with this mod enabled.  The Vasari Loyal Titan and the Advent Loyal Titan both have missing textures.  If I disable the mod the textures return.  Any idea what's causing this?  Also, I'm playing a game right now that I keep getting mini dumps.  I'm playing TEC REB VS the 3 original races Loyalty.  It keeps mini dumping but not exactly at the same exact time.