Some Observations in Thrawn's revenge

[Corey]

Was this just because it was a hero unit and normally it would work or would the superlaser need a buff to make it even more devestating?

We wanted the Sovereign/Eclipse to be powerful, but to us, making it able to one-shot any other SSD (while more realistic, considering it could crack a planet's mantle) would be a bit overboard so we went with it being strong enough to one-shot anything else, while still leaving other supers in a position where they can't be killed in one shot but are still low enough to be easily picked off.

[Yellow 13]

Still, shouldn't a superlaser one hit kill anything it can legally target? It did that in FoC, I'm pretty sure.

[Corey]

Yeah, it did that in FoC but in FoC it was only present as part of a story mission where everything was planned around that, and where the ability to destroy an SSD was used as a set piece as opposed to actually being part of the battle that you were expected to overcome.

[Yellow 13]

so a superlaser wouldn't be able to instakill an Executor class normally?

[Corey]

We wanted the Sovereign/Eclipse to be powerful, but to us, making it able to one-shot any other SSD (while more realistic, considering it could crack a planet's mantle) would be a bit overboard so we went with it being strong enough to one-shot anything else, while still leaving other supers in a position where they can't be killed in one shot but are still low enough to be easily picked off.

[Pali]

Do hero or difficulty-based damage bonuses apply to the superlaser shot?  Because I could swear I've seen Sovs 1-shot SSDs in my games, but it's entirely possible I'm simply remembering wrong.

Edit: A quick Shadow Hand campaign load allowed me to test this, and Palpy definitely can 1-shot Lusankya (playing on Admiral as the IR, no other heroes present on my side).  I do have the Balance and Flavor submod installed - did that alter the superlaser damage or SSD hp at all, Vulcanus (if you read this)?

[Vulcanus]

Do hero or difficulty-based damage bonuses apply to the superlaser shot?

Most likely yes.

Edit: A quick Shadow Hand campaign load allowed me to test this, and Palpy definitely can 1-shot Lusankya (playing on Admiral as the IR, no other heroes present on my side).  I do have the Balance and Flavor submod installed - did that alter the superlaser damage or SSD hp at all, Vulcanus (if you read this)?

No changes were made.

[solarflare]

Personal experince with the Ai active the pentastar alignment is quite aggressive

[Pali]

It should be, as should the EotH AI.  Both factions need to expand to survive.

[ElvenSithLord]

If you want and your system can handle it, this can be boosted even more by an easy edit of the xml files (open the Imperial_Civil_War\Data\XML folder, search the factions.xml and Expansion_Factions.xml files for "Space_Tactical_Unit_Cap", change the numbers, viola).  Just make sure to do it for all the factions... or, well, not, if you want one faction boosted or weakened in relation to the others (honestly had not considered doing this until now, and now I'm damned tempted to play an NR ICW with the IR having a space cap bonus against the PA and myself... thanks for causing me to write this post ).  Thrawn's Revenge gives a space pop cap of 40, but I tend to play at 50 - it gives slightly bigger battles that remain manageable, and balance-wise it doesn't shift too much in favor of offense vs defense.  60 tends to push things too far in that direction, I think, though it also somewhat weakens superships since more ships can be called in at once to deal with them.

May I ask, how to you edit xml files? What program do you use? I'm on Windows 10 and having trouble.

[Pali]

I just use Notepad.

[tlmiller]

Better IMO is download a program called notepad++.  LOTS of useful little additional features that make it better than standard notepad.

[ElvenSithLord]

After trying to figure things out, I managed to edit the files. Yay! Had to move the XML folder out of the mod folder for me to edit.

[Pali]

Wasn't familiar with notepad++, but I like it thus far.  Thanks for the plug, TLMiller.

[tlmiller]

I can't remember who turned me onto it, but it's an absolute DREAM program for doing routine editing of html or xml files.  I love that with a quick glance at the color of text you can tell if you've properly closed your section or not.

[kucsidave]

I am so glad that someone is actually able to report the issues without that superior "All you can do is this?" attitude.
for this I am really thankful for Yellow 13.
I just want to add one of my own findings.
Palpatine's Eclipse have worse autoresolve stat than an Executor. Why is that? In conventional weapon it is almost as good as them, plus haves a superlaser. I think if anything it should be the same.
I am also trying to make something that might also be interresting for the team. If my little experiment works out fine, I will let you know immediately.