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This mod is the official balance mod for the Endless Space Gaming Discord channel.

Check the full list of changes: https://github.com/captaincobbs/ESG-Mod/wiki/Changelog

Changes since 1.3.1 - https://github.com/captaincobbs/ESG-Mod/wiki/Changelog#version-14

Overview

Academy Rework

The ships of the Spear and all Academy ships in general now have obvious crippling weaknesses, and Academy fleets including the Spear start much smaller in general. They have no plating defense and no kinetic slugs, as well as focusing on energy weaponry, and mounting bombers and bomber-boosting modules instead of guns in some slots. This makes them very weak to small attacker missile spam, while the bombers let them still be somewhat useful through midgame. The Spear should be killable while alone if you counter-build it, while still being useful if you bring your own military along.

All the roles of the Academy have been given passive bonuses to buff less useful roles and keep the Spear role relevant into lategame. The Librarian can research techs one stage higher and gains a large amount of hacking speed, the Master of Dust can make many diplomatic deals for free, the Vault Keeper has an increase to their influence bubble increases, and the Spear has a small fleet damage boost per military era.

The Academy will no longer siege or blockade neutral systems or colonize new systems, and has much less powerful fleets in the earlygame.

Behemoths

Economic Behemoth modules have been reworked. They no longer provide any Science or Dust, but increased flat Food and Industry bonuses. The upgraded module no longer provides any FIDS percentage bonuses, instead providing -5% industry cost on structures. This stacks up to -75%, and does not affect Wonders. This should make the use of Economic Behemoths more interesting, as they make setting up new colonies very quick, but you have to move them to the frontier thus exposing them to attack. If you leave them sitting on your home system, they quickly stop being useful.

Military Behemoths now have targeting weights and the Focus trait, and all Behemoths are now stackable within fleets. They will now focus-fire with the rest of your fleet rather than spreading their fire randomly across the whole enemy fleet, and be properly targeted by the enemy while within a fleet. This should make them quite a bit more useful. Ion Wave now costs 25 of each tier 2 and tier 3 strategic resource to fire, as Juggernauts are now actually useful for their guns and because you're generally using Ion Wave to kill strategic-equipped fleets, so a small strategic cost is appropriate.

Behemoths other than Citadels are now scrappable, so if you really want to get rid of one you can.

Factions

Vodyani Leeching and All Must Provide modules other than the starting ones have been nerfed, to reduce their explosive rate of expansion past early-game. The essence cost of Arks is slightly cheaper earlygame but scales up faster, for the same reason. Leeching modules now also provide significant essence per CP destroyed in battle, encouraging you to risk losing them in combat. Means of gaining essence other than leeching and Ark modules have been buffed, such as the Essence Tribute Minor Faction diplomacy action, Alms for Essence, and Word of the Saints pacific conversion. Vodyani now have doubled law upkeep, as it was previously very cheap due to their population mechanics. Their new trait, Divine Indifference, reduces both base planet FIDSI and Happiness yields, nerfing their production slightly while making them less punished by colonizing high unhappiness planets that they cannot terraform. Their questline has also been greatly reworked, with the Rebellious branch in particular being almost entirely replaced.

Hissho mining probes other than the starting ones have had their FIDS percentages significantly reduced. Red Blade Assembly has been significantly nerfed, and their unique damage module can no longer be stacked.

Lumeris begin with buyouts, have an inherent 15% buyout cost reduction and their colonization cost is no longer affected by inflation, as well as Trade Companies in general being significantly buffed. Their quest reward laws Pay It Forward and Safer Streets have been changed to automatic bonuses, along with numerous other changes to their questline. Jenes now has a Dust Ruins anomaly, and they start with Xenobiology instead of Rare Earth Foams.

Horatio's starting planet now starts with a Komatite Volcano anomaly (+4 industry per pop) so he can actually build things earlygame and take advantage of the first Ecologists law, and he starts with Pulsos and Bhagaba minor faction pops instead of Zvali. One of the defense slots on their attacker has been changed to a defense/support slot. Splicing outcomes have been generally buffed, and their questline has been greatly reworked.

Unfallen Vineships have had their movment and vining speed buffed, their production cost reduced, and Unfallen Scouts have an additional support slot for another engine or probe so they can more easily find other factions with which to make peace. They also start with a Molten Springs (+3 industry and +2 dust per pop) anomaly, for much the same reason as Horatio. Rather than starting with the Planetary Landscaping tech unlocked, they start with Xenolinguistics, as there is zero reason for them to start with basic food production buildings given their major population traits and their home system. Unfallen quest weapon modules have also been buffed and they receive +2 approval per tier of (any population's) population collection bonus they unlock.

Umbral Choir's quest rewards have been greatly overhauled, with all laws being converted into automatic bonuses, and, Burning Metal, in particular, now providing significantly less additional hacking speed on enemy nodes (while still greatly increasing transit time between nodes). Their unique module, the Overcloaker, has been similarly nerfed as it was far too powerful. They have a new Ghost Crew trait, massively reducing their ship's maximum manpower capacities while also massively reducing the crew damage they take in battle. Sleepers and Umbral Shadows now provide manpower, to offset their severe manpower issues in lategame.

Riftborn civilian transport ships have had their speed increased by 2, to counteract their slow movement faction trait and make the pop management critical to high-level Riftborn play less painful. Stasis Singularities cost more strategics and significantly harm the Riftborn's science, to make them harder to spam. Their Hunter's lone defense slot has been changed to a defense/support slot, allowing it to run 2 engines at the cost of being even more fragile. They also start with a Dense Atmosphere anomaly, to guarantee their starting hero's anomaly-related skills will be useful. Singularites now no longer drain all system industry for the turn (but still block the queue), as Riftborn have far too many queue-blockers for their play to be smooth.

Sophons now get their Omniscience boost when researching their ship techs, and a particular sticking point on their military quest path has been made easier.

United Empire now gains +100% influence on empire, as their main game mechanic was simply not useful enough. They have also had their per-pop bonuses buffed. Imperials now provide +1 Influence +1 Industry, Mezari now provide +1 Influence +1 Science, and Sheredyn now provide +1 Influence +20 manpower capacity. They now start with a High-Energy Plasmasphere anomaly on Raia, to smooth out their earlygame science problems. Their exploration ship has one of their weapon modules changed to a weapon/support module, and their attacker has one of their defense slots changed to defense/support. Their quest requirements and rewards have been tweaked, most notably having Scifi Design Schools now being an empire trait rather than a building.

Vaulters have been tweaked into more of a tall defensive faction that can make better use of their unique Material Expertise trait and Metafolding affinity. Their ships have had most of their dedicated support slots changed to support/defense slots, so their ships can potentially be much bulkier at the cost of movement speed and utility. The cost to use strategics instead of luxuries for system developments has been reduced, as it was so high as to be unfeasible. Their colonization cap has been reduced by 2, technologies to increase overcolonization cap are replaced with FIDS bonuses to systems while under the cap, and they have an overcolonization penalty of -10% FIDS per system over the cap. Vaulter portal building effects have been buffed, their colonization timings have been tweaked to support this, and they have unique mandatory law effects mostly relating to CP destroyed in their territory.

Cravers have new options after winning a ground battle; their Pillage action allows them to kidnap population, and their Raze option gives them a moderate amount of Influence, Science, and Dust while applying depletion points to the affected system. Their quest rewards have been tweaked to make the choices less of a no-brainer. Their main population's collection bonus III has been reworked to provide 2 approval per depleted planet, to make progressively expanding and depleting more systems a viable option. Simultaneously, planets will now deplete modestly faster, and non-enslaved minor populations will experience depletion proportionally to the amount that a planet is depleted (rather than being binary, thereby encouraging players to leave systems 1 turn from depletion with only minor populations).

Nakalim have been significantly reworked. Relics no longer produce Empire Science directly, and instead each provide a baseline of 10 science to all systems. Removed -50% science on systems. Their population production, population collection bonuses, and quest rewards have been significantly altered, and they now have several new faction-specific buildings. There are 2 new Nakalim only science improvements replacing graviton and evolution foundation, offering science based on your number of relics.

Many useless minor faction traits have been buffed, such as Bhagaba's pacific conversion resistance being changed to an influence per food trait, and Tikanan/Gnashast infantry buff traits now apply to all troop types but less so.

Luxuries

The effects of luxuries and system developments have been reworked. The FIDSI boost has been partially shifted onto the system development level itself, reducing the power difference between different luxury types, in order to make the outcome of the game less decided by who spawns with Jadonyx. System developments also provide a system vision radius increase, to better allow for defensive ship refitting, and a small amount of bandwidth, to make protecting large empires from hacking slightly easier. Manpower and trade luxuries have been significantly reworked.

Terraforming

The cost of terraforming has been significantly reduced, to make it a more viable option. Multiple toggles have been added to optionally allow free terraforming both up and down planet types, planet size terraforming, gas giant terraforming, and unique planet terraforming. Behemoth Terraformation has been temporarily disabled to prevent crashes.

Diplomacy and Politics

Laws and political parties have been reworked; all political parties now have 6 possible laws with laws unlocking earlier, and all government types have an additional law slot (max of 5), except Democracy, which still maxes out at 6. Democracy's cost reduction for law upkeep has been buffed to offset. Most of the vanilla laws exist in mostly the same form, with numbers tweaks where necessary, but many new laws have been added to balance the political parties and increase their flavor.

Laws will generally unlock earlier in the game, to enable the new tier 5 and 6 laws to unlock before the game is already decided.

Several new independent laws have been added, including enabling only incrementation of major or minor population, and new Dictatorship-only laws to enable them to scale later-game.

Federation has been significantly reworked, with the "colonization cap per politically-aligned hero" effect replaced with a flat +2 overcolonization cap, doubled benefit from overcolonization technologies, no disapproval from out-of-power representatives, and a larger reduction in SD cost.

Factions now start with a small amount of influence, enough to be able to pass a party law on turn one.

Hero Skills

Many hero skills have been reworked. Class trees in particular have been modified to be more differentiated and provide more specialized effects, while all "on ship" admiral bonuses have been replaced with far more useful "on fleet" bonuses of a similar thematic type.

Inflation

Inflation has finally been bonked in a way that doesn't mess everything up, making it much less impactful in long games. The buyout formula has been reworked, reducing the flat dust cost to make cheap improvements less costly to buyout compared to their industry cost, and buyouts are much less impacted by inflation. The buyout cost reduction cap has been reduced to 75%, from 95%, and buyout cost reductions from buildings have been attached to their tech as empire-wide improvements. The ship selling formula has been reworked to be based on the industry cost of the ship, to prevent ships from selling for more than they cost to buyout. The hero market has doubled prices and spawn rate, making it much harder for a single player to buyout the entire hero market leaving none for anyone else.

Galaxies, Sliders, and Customization.

Special nodes have been reworked to be more interesting, having unique battle, orbit, and system effects, as well as a special effect for the Choir.

Wormhole and Free Movement technologies have been swapped in location on the tech tree. This should make early contention of the middle constellation more interesting, allow earlier cross-constellation exploration, and mitigate Twin Galaxies from having spawn imbalances in how easy it is to get to the middle.

Population stock growth amount now scales slightly with system population count to make food buildings and technologies more relevant. Options are also added to enable conversion of excess overflow food into dust and/or manpower.

Fewer 1 and 2 planet systems will be generated.

Toxic planets are now called Swamp planets and have been made less terrible.

Sliders have been added for the number of curiosities, anomalies, unique anomalies, luxury types, unique planets, and many more, allowing for an unparalleled level of galaxy customization.

A PvP hacking toggle has been added, preventing hacking outcomes other than backdoors and sleepers against major factions.

The Minor Faction amount slider has been made more granular, clarifying that it works as a multiplier based on the number of minors that the galaxy would otherwise spawn.

Modules

Weapons, armor, and utility modules have been almost completely reworked. In the base game, the combat simply did not function correctly. Plating was superior to shielding against both energy and projectile weapons, flak shut down missiles far too easily, squadrons were fundamentally broken, and there were a host of other issues. The module rework was done to make combat function as we believe was intended; shielding properly defends against energy weapons, bombers are counterable, flotilla shielding is worthwhile, and every ship size has a use. Tactics cards have been similarly reworked so useless cards are less useless and overpowered cards are less broken.

Targeting priorities have been fixed for weapons that overwrite the default targeting priorities, so that, for example, the Gjallerfire will now actually shoot at Behemoths rather than doing nothing.

Combat

Ground combat and manpower has been reworked. Invasions have been made harder in general, with all defensive manpower structures being buffed and ships carrying less manpower. (Boarding pods have been nerfed to compensate.) The defensive manpower cap has been removed while an invasion is happening, making the defender win invasions much more quickly while severely outnumbering the attacker, and also making the defender lose faster while severely outnumbered. Siege modules have had their effects doubled, making siege modules not a waste of strategics but genuinely useful.

Air Troops have had their health reduced to 150, as they were mathematically strictly superior to other options.

Targeting priorities for most ships have been tweaked to be smarter.

The AI should now build its ships slightly more intelligently, and properly use Flak to counter Boarding Pods.

The Battle Morale effect has been buffed to +10% accuracy, +5% damage, and +10% evasion for each lane that you are uncontested in.

Evasion has been reworked to calculate properly, instead of providing only half the "dodge probability" that one would otherwise expect.

Pirates have been reworked, mostly to be harder to deal with. Their infantry troops are much stronger and their deployment maximum has been increased; this buffs their ground combat and prevents pirate lairs from taking multiple turns to destroy simply due to manpower deployment constraints. Endless pirates in particular have much stronger fleets.

Buildings

System development upgrades now cost small amounts of industry instead of always taking a set turn amount, to reduce micromanagement related to the industry buffer and reduce the effect of gamespeed on how punishing it is to build high level system developments.

Building strategic resource costs have been changed to make more thematic sense (food/industry for metals, dust/science for fuels, a mix for approval/influence), increase demand for titanium and hyperium, and reduce demand for antimatter, adamantian, orichalcix, and quadrinix. Strategic costs of buildings have been normalized, so buildings that previously cost massive amounts of strategics now cost reasonable amounts and buildings that didn't cost any now also cost reasonable amounts, depending on their effects.

Bad buildings have been buffed and/or had their industry costs reduced.

ITER's cost has been changed to 15/15 Antimatter/Adamantian, as it was too easy to jump straight from building Endless Research Park to ITER.

Endless Research Park has been significantly nerfed from 15% and 20% additional empire science on loyal/devoted to 5% and 10%.

Custom Factions

Many, many, many new traits and options have been added for you to play around with, such as the ability to start on sterile planets or gas giants, the ability to start with a specialized Behemoth, Make Trade Not War which prevents war declaration, and too many more to individually list. Most importantly the trait cap of 8 has been removed so you can build a fully point-bought faction. Balancing expected for 1.7 and please see the https://github.com/wakystuf/ESG-Mod/wiki/Credits for all the people who worked on the mod!