Distant Worlds - Conquest: Frontier Wars (Human Faction DLC Campaign) – Release!

[ChrisGb]

IMPORTANT NOTES:
THIS MOD IS AN EXPERIMENTAL PROOF OF CONCEPT AND LITERALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH EVERYTHING
I tried very hard to playtest for bugs or unintended side effects but could not play until late game so please be lenient and I appreciate every kind of feedback.

This game is meant to be played as human ONLY.
Independents recommended on Rare or Very Rare
10x10 Sector recommended to be able to appreciate the vision behind this modification.
Pre-Warp
FIXED RESEARCH PATH MANDATORY
Personally I have all Research visible for compare and check stats. See what I need for situation.
All other races are flagged playable to be able to access them thru the editor in game when things get weird or for balancing reasons.
Generate the 14 races/empires thru [Add New Empire] tab so you have one of each for proper diversity.
I personally always disable all victory conditions and time limits and enable all event lines.
THIS GAME NEED TO BE PLAYED ON MANUAL SHIP DESIGN AND MANUAL HULL UPGRADE as it messes with the internal DW2 automatic upgrade system and it would cause unwanted side effects in the upgrading and refitting of ships and stations if left on automatic.
I did warn you so do not come whining about there being a bug with this. There is not!
Only use:
Latest Design for Hull (Design Name)
Hull Upgrade: manual – except for some civilian ships like Mining & Passenger. I personally always preserve all 3 different Freighter sizes.
Retrofit: manual – optional automatic for some – you should know what you do and how it works
You still can generate ships with [Add New] though and then fine tune them as often previous components could be preferable – newest not showing all components from all families.

THERE WILL BE NO UPDATES FOR GAME BETAS TO THIS MOD BUT ONLY FOR MAJOR RELEASES OR EXPANSIONS! Mod Version Number = Game Version Number!
I will expand the concepts of this modification around future expansions especially Shakturi and maybe other Race DLC etc.
Not everything I wanted to do is done but I do not intend to fall for “feature creep” and never get things done like so many games and mods nowadays who come along with big announcements then deliver a bucket full of hot air or get abandoned cause it was too much to chew.
One should not make big announcements before having to show something real.
The mod is perfectly playable at this point and thus it should be played.

This mod is Matrix and Nexus ONLY. If you see it on STEAM Workshop or any other site it is stolen and I kindly ask you to let me know so I can get the User deleted from Steam or the mod deleted from whatever other site it is hosted on.
I own the GOG version with all expansion’s only.

Introduction
Playing humans is your preferred way of playing Distant Worlds 2 !?
Have you ever carried out deep space fleet operations vs your archenemies far away from your borders or home colony’s but were bogged down due to logistics, repair or refit problems after an indecisive battle?
While your enemy starts repairing and refuelling his ships at his shipyards your fleet sustained important damage and is stranded in the middle of nowhere far away from home in dire need of repair and fuel but has nowhere to go except from crawling all the way back home ?
This is going to change now!

Conquest: Frontier Wars is here to fulfil your desire for more epic feeling military campaigns and more in-depth military and civil construction while at the same time trying to set the frame for some memorable and epic Frontier Wars.

CORE CHANGES
General
I’m not really a fan of full re-balance mods. I call my approach to modify games Vanilla Plus so I only change stats if they are directly related to the goal or vision of the mod.
I like to preserve as much vanilla experience as possible while only trying to add some new elements here and there.

Chapter 0 Hyper Drives
Even for big games (10x10) FTL travel seems too fast/too far/too early so both stats have been reduced (mostly) proportionally thru all drives except rebalance of early ones as races need to reach next stars in order to be able to expand.

Chapter 1 Star Bases & Stations
4 deep space fleet starbases and 2 new station versions and 1 new civilian ship version (humans)
Research and build military fleet star bases on any planet but their best position of course would be outside your borders and/or near to your enemy border -
preferably at a fuel sources for constant fuel supply - they can install Large Mining Engines !
4 new starbases:
-Fleet Supply Base: Small Spaceport with bigger hull and max size and more defensive and general bays than defensive platform. Max 1 repair yard for repair and refit!
-Fleet Maintenance Base: Medium Spaceport with bigger hull, max size, bigger gun bays and more defensive and general bays. Max 2 repair yards for repair and refit!
-Fleet Main Base: Large Spaceport with bigger hull and higher max size and more defensive and general bays. Max 3 repair yards for repair and refit!
-Fleet Star Citadel: Sector Spaceport with bigger hull and higher max size and more defensive and general bays. Max 4 repair yards for repair and refit!
All fleet bases have more bigger weapon bays
2 new station versions:
-Research and build XL Mining Stations with bigger hull and more defensive and general bays.
-Research and build Orbital Research Centers with bigger hull and more defensive and general bays. Can hold 3 Research Labs to boost your scientific efforts for the additional research needed when you
fall behind due to compact empire size and not enough or occupied research locations.
(This maybe an option for building a little taller other than to be forced to always build wide)
1 new civilian ship version
-Research XL Construction Ships with bigger hull and more defensive and general bays (you need them for more cargo bays) to enable you to build the biggest star bases in deep space.
-All human ships and stations cost a lot more steel. It feels more natural now.

Chapter 2
New concept of heavy military ships Heavy Military Ships - Special Cruiser
IMPOTANT: ALL NEW HUMAN SHIP AND BASE RESEARCH GET ENABLE BY EVENT AND IS NOT VISIBLE BEFORE
-Reorganized and redesign of the heavy ship concept in each class for some real awesome role-play.
-All heavy versions of each class (Escort/Frigate/Destroyer/Cruiser) have their own research except Heavy Battleships as they already come under Mega Capital Ships.
-All heavy versions of each ship class have bigger hulls (8-10% aprx.- yes, ships are actually bigger in game also), they have the same amount of weapon and engine bays as before but +1 to +2 defensive
and +1 to +3 general bays over regular versions and their weapon bays allow for bigger guns.
-All heavy ships have 1+ to reactive rating, a bonus to weapon range and shield recharge and -10% to speed and maneuverability and -10% to countermeasure for their higher mass and being slow
-Heavy ships now feel epic, like actual heavy´s, they are clumsier but can take a lot more beating in general.
-All heavy hulls will cost more credits and more materials to build which will result in higher maintenance cost.
-New Super Heavy Frigates - upgraded Heavy Frigates
-New Super Heavy Cruiser: Researched after Heavy Cruiser. Can be upgraded.
The pinnacle of human cruiser construction.
Increased max size & highly armoured with same weapon count as heavy cruiser but with only medium and large weapon mounts with bonuses to Weapon Range, Weapon Damage and Shield Recharge.
Super heavy cruisers are expensive pocket battleships with outstanding capability to absorb a lot of raw damage while hitting back hard.

-New ship type with new HyperDrive for roleplay.
Experimental Exploration Cruiser: bigger cruiser hull, paper armor, high ion defense, super fast, only 6 small weapon mounts, can mount survey module and long range scanner same time,
can mount oversized super long range slow new HyperDrive: Interval Pulse HyperDrive (human only).
Can explore areas of the galaxy beyond reach of other ships and either survey special targets or spy on enemies. This cruiser should not get into any fights as it only has defensive weapons at its disposal.

Chapter 3 Galactic Races -
New race concept of major and minor powers with 4 more spacefaring races now.
-Major powers: All regular playable races with their own shipset.
-Minor powers: (restricted research abilities and only build ships to a max size of either light cruiser, cruiser, advanced cruiser or dedicated carrier.
-None of the minor powers will build large civilian ships, battleships, fleet carriers, large spaceports etc. (except they steal the tech).
-None of the minor powers will build advanced Hyper Drives (except they steal the tech). >> this happend during one playtest -awesome!
-None of the minor powers will build Research Academy’s and labs (except they steal the tech).

-4 more races are now actively playing a role as minor powers with very low aggression but good defenses.
-All spacefaring races are not used for Independents, this does not prevent them from being used by a game event like slave colony
This hopefully slows down/stall fast expansion and steamrolling of aggressive AI races by means of conquering a high amount of high population independents.
As there are no more shipsets right now, I had to use existing ones in a sensible way.
-Kiadian: Humanoid race (use Human shipset)
Race Tech: ShadowGhost ECM. Their ships are very hard to hit.
Max ship sizes build: Enhanced Civilian Ships, Improved Defensive Bases, Medium Space Port v1, Improved Cruisers, Expanded Troop Transports
-Wekkarus: Acquatic Race (use Ackdarian shipset)
Race Tech: Pulsed Wave Weapons (Blasters). They have a highest firepower during early game in the Galaxy.
Max ship sizes build Enhanced Civilian Ships, Improved Defensive Bases, Medium Space Port v2,
Avanced Cruisers, Dedicated Carrier, Expanded Troop Transport
-Securan: Humanoid race (use Human shipset)
Race Tech: none
Max ship size build: Enhanced Civilian Ships, Defensive Base, Small Space Port v3, Light Cruisers, Basic Troop Transports
-Ugnari: Rodent Race (use Teekan shipset)
Race Tech: Raptor Combat Targeting System, build into military ships for +50% targeting (cannot be obtained)
Max ship size build: Expanded Civilian Ships, Defensive Bases, Light Cruisers, Small Space Port v3, Basic Troop Transport

Other misc race changes:
-No independents from major races
-All reproduction rates have been reduced by average 50% as planets are filling quickly
-Disabled Dhayut “ConquerMostEnemyColonys”, hope it helps prevent early Dhayut steamroll attempt.
-Intelligence actions: Some aggressive races will execute and eat your agents if they catch them.
-Dhayut, Boskara and Gizurean are NOT fond of humans at all and they are very aggressive.
-Minors (all races really should) should maintain a lot more troops on their planets to make takeover more difficult for everybody.
-New epic ship/type design name list for human race
-Troop maintenance reduced by 1/3 for all races while increased colony garrison level and troop maintenance budget for all races
This hopefully will lead to harder conquest and more epic planetary battles.
-Research budget increased for all races to 60% (was 50%)

Planetary Facility Changes:
-Administration Centers give bonus to Colony income (10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%)
-All “Only one per Galaxy” facilities and buildings have been changed to “One per Empire” to avoid “One takes it all scenarios” when already being ahead.

Chapter 4 Engines, Shields and Reactors
Research tree filled up some blank areas with what seemed logic progression and to maintain diversity because towards the end for reactors, shields or engines there is only one choice to go.
Now the three branches (reactors/shields/engines) go until the end and maintain their differences and one cannot have them all.
I have not touched on most weapons and other areas, as the goal is not to change things for the sake of changing them but preserving vanilla play as much as possible.
Blasters should be nerved by the devs, though.
Missile damage has been increased by 20% as they were underpowered anyway and with more potent shields now they had to be buffed.

-Shields have higher differences now, being Deucalios super high strength/super low recharge (x1) and Talassos low strength/super high reload (x3) while Meridian being in the middle (x2) but no shield penetration %.
In any event, more firepower is needed now for blowing up ships which adds a new dynamic to battles.
- Shield Recharge: All shield recharge bonuses for all stations for all races have been cut by 50% to offset for OP problem with more potent shields.

-Reactors and Engines have the gaps filled towards the end also.
All branches maintain relative balance towards each other and their capabilities and values.
Be it for capabilities or they come cheaper in research

Few changes to costs in research points to be more consistent. Example Battleships should not come for 9600 but Advanced Cruisers cost 38000.

Some Race Techs have their own late versions now and do not end in the generic high tier (one for all). They will maintain their differences and specific strengths until the end.
Will expand on this for final version with all expansions released

All Improve Tech now follow the universal principle of Conservation of energy!
You cannot get infinite more power out of weapons/engines/shields without putting more energy in (for example).
You cannot build bigger ships without increasing costs and have offsets – it does not work like that
Literally all Improve Techs now have an offset to pay and follow the principle of diminishing returns.
Unlogical improvements have been removed.
All Improve Tech are limited to 6 to 10 repeats only as technology and physics have limits in real life.

Chapter 4.1
New or enabled components
-Repair Yard: Human only. Has very low ship build but high repair rate. Size 80. Fleet Bases cannot install Construction Yards.
-Interval Pulse HypderDrive: Human only. Experimental, very big size, very slow, very low energy use but ultra long range. Can only be installed on Experimental Exploration Cruiser
-Supercharged Talassos Shields: All races. High tier Talassos shields.
-Overcharged Deucalios Shields: All races. High tier Deucalios shields.
-Impulse Engine: All races. High tier Acceleros engine successor.
-Quantum Engine II: All races. High tier Quantum engine successor.
-Fission Reactor: All races. Lvl 4 of same component.
-Proton Engine: All races. Lvl 4 of same engine.
-Muon Fusion Reactor: All races. High tier Fusion Reactor.
HyperQuantum Reactor: All races. High tier Quantum Reactor.
Vector Engine: All races. Lvl 4 of same engine.
Plasma Blaster L: Boskara only.
Energized Supra Hex Armor: Gizurean only.
Shadow Ghost ECM: Kiadian only.
Super Dense Block Armor: Mortalen only.
Pulse Wave Cannon S/M/L: Wekkarus only.

Chapter 5
New Game Music compilation. Optional.
The base game music is not the real forte of Distant Worlds 2. I admit it is irritating me.
I compiled and edited a more relaxing compilation of new game music for all situations fitting the game.
This is not a compilation of already known and famous movie or game music !
It is entirely optional though, you can grab it here. Try it out and let me know.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AOyYkZ ... sp=sharing
Installation: Download, unzip, rename your music folder in Distant Worlds/data to backup_vanillamusic (or whatever you consider) and copy the music file into data > done!

Chapter 6
Playing as other race or even as a minor - for the curious and for the challenge
If you want to play a full game with any of the other races you need to replace the ShipHulls_Human.xml from the mod with the vanilla ShipHulls_Human.xml. and it should work normal with the changes that apply to everybody and with the 4 new spacefaring races. The human specific tech events for enable ship and base research only trigger when Humans = Player.

Chapter 7
Installation

Installation: Download Mod, unzip and copy into Distant Worlds 2/mods
If you have more mods installed already you need to add ConquestFrontierWars to the json file already present in your mod folder so the mod shows up on the main menu Modifications tab.
DISABLE ALL OTHER MODS - MANDATORY !!!
Check it and [Close] that window – the game will reload now the files

Release v.1.2.2.0
May 1st, 2024
Chris G.

[ChrisGb]

4 more of the Distant Worlds races are competing now as minor powers. They no pushovers like independents though.

1. KIADIAN Humanoid race (use Human shipset)
Race Tech: ShadowGhost ECM. Their ships are very hard to hit.

[ChrisGb]

2. UGNARI
Ugnari: Rodent Race (use Teekan shipset)
Race Tech: Raptor Combat Targeting System, build into military ships for +50% targeting (cannot be obtained)

[ChrisGb]

3. SECURAN - Humanoid race (use Human shipset)
Race Tech: none
Max ship size they can build: Enhanced Civilian Ships, Defensive Base, Small Space Port v3, Light Cruisers, Basic Troop Transports

[ChrisGb]

4. WEKKARUS - Acquatic Race (use Ackdarian shipset)
Race Tech: Pulsed Wave Weapons (Blasters) - highest firepower during early game in the Galaxy!

[ChrisGb]

SHIELDS - REACTORS -ENGINES
All lines completed with their own versions and balanced towards each other and race specific ones if applicable

[ChrisGb]

REPEATABLE TECH IMPROVEMENTS NOW HAVE LIMITS AND OFFSETS

[ChrisGb]

HUMAN SHIP & BASE CONSTRUCTION
All new ships and bases become only availbale by event and are invisible before

[ChrisGb]

Frigate size comparison Fleet Frigate vs Heavy Frigate


Frigates Research and ship stat changing on upgrading

[ChrisGb]

The galaxy is more alive than ever

[ChrisGb]

NEW HUMAN HYPERDRIVE
Very low energy use, very low drive speed but ultra long range
Experimental - huge in size
For use with EXPERIMENTAL EXPLORATION CRUISER
Big cruiser hull, paper armor, high ion defense, super fast, only 6 small (size 19) weapon mounts for PD, can mount survey module and long range scanner same time, can mount oversized super long range slow new HyperDrive: Interval Pulse HyperDrive (human only).
Can explore areas of the galaxy beyond reach of other ships and either survey special targets or spy on enemies. This cruiser should not get into any fights as it only has defensive weapons at its disposal.

[ChrisGb]

Deep Space Fleet Supply Base MK-I (smallest of the new fleet star bases)

[LordMM]

This looks really interesting - Great work !!