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I tried using your mod (version 0.23.0) and I got the same error as it seems @Jesus3747 had.

Halfling.Serialization.DeserializeException: Deserialization from source "<D:\Cosmoteer\Data\rules.txt>" failed. ---> System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> Halfling.Serialization.DeserializeException: Deserialization from source "<D:\Cosmoteer\Data\Ships\Terran\terran.txt>/Terran" failed. ---> System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: pixelSize

It seems to be caused by the the Warp_Core_Engineering part having more OperationalDoodad AnimationFiles images than Cosmoteer can handle.

Note: There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the images. The error occurs if there are more than 25 of the images in the AnimationFiles list. Removing any 5 of the images from the AnimationFiles list fixed the error for me.

Re: door symmetry: It's not that it's a challenge, it's that it actually bugs out using mirror mode. It won't let you place doors on asymmetrically placed parts. And I know about part substitution. To fix the bug, you need to make a second copy of the part with mirrored orientation and set up part substitution like the 1:2 armor slopes do.

I'm also running into practicality issues with LFCs. They do basically nothing to shieldeds and as such are only useful within the range of weapons that can drop shields. The longest ranged weapons that can potentially focus down a shield have only 2/3 the range of the LFC and 30% the range of the Mk2. There's just no point to having a dedicated anti-armor weapon that outranges the longest ranged general purpose weapon.

    Atarlost I hear you. I just struggle with the necessity of adding a mirrored version of a part for which you only ever need one on a ship. I feel it would just add unnecessary clutter to the parts menu in the editor. Maybe in the future when Walt adds more functionality options, and the Tac Center can be more than just a resource sink as part of a tech tree...

    As for the LFCs, you make some valid points. I can give them another once over. and I'm open to ideas. I just don't want it to be a matter of them being an auto-win button, so to speak. I'm trying to design my parts to have an upside and a downside. Trade-offs are an important design philosophy for me. I found a combined arms approach to be a lot of fun. Check the ship catalog I've included with the mod for the Blorg Kube. It's just a defensive test dummy. I found that straight LFCs could NOT take down the shields. Get in there with another ship fielding even just an array of Electro-bolts though... All I needed was for them to get one good hole in the shields and the LFC would rip through the hull. It was awesome to watch, and I enjoyed the challenge of coordinating attacks. Again, I'm open to ideas, but try giving them a shot (no pun intended) in some new ways. They might surprise you.

      Equalizer Thanks for helping to solve it, although I did not have that error, it was @Jared who had it 🙂

      @Jared Are you running Comoteer on a 32 bit operating system? Currently my best guess why I had an issue and other people don't seem to be is that some step in the sprite animation assembly overflows on a 32 bit system and that this wont occur on a 64 bit system.

      Equalizer Interesting, would be nice to get more info on this error so I can send it to Walt.

        I think you've generally overdone the drawbacks.

        Just as an example, I built this ship to see if I could make mixed lasers work:
        image https://i.imgur.com/GgeOUOs.png

        Then I "downgraded" it to stock:
        image https://i.imgur.com/ar6i1Ip.png

        The stock version is 9% cheaper and wins decisively. The expensive and power hungry mixed armament simply doesn't match up to stock laser blasters. And that's with the handicap of having the strictly superior plasma reactors.

        Okay,maybe the IR lasers are just bad. Let's swap them for more UVs to drop shields for the plasma blasters.

        image https://i.imgur.com/SoDVRK4.png

        Nope, The cheaper stock version still wipes the floor with it.

        The higher tech weapons tend to not be worth carrying a very expensive waste of space bridge. The iridium lasers are worth the frigate bridge, but above that? The PP1 has an iffy niche even if you're already mounting the tech buildings for other reasons and the PP2 isn't worth the bridge upgrade. The Ion Missiles don't turn out to be all that good in practice because standard missile explosions damage parts behind shields and they don't. The LFC1 costs an extra 18 tiles of very expensive waste space and I'm not convinced they're really better than large cannons for finishing ships with broken shields. The battleship stuff is just too big for shields. Here's a comparison of shielding a large cannon wall or a Vulcan wall:
        image https://i.imgur.com/ks4x1wN.png
        The stock cannon side has 50% more shields. At this length it does 11952 dps against shields and components and 5976 against structure. It has penetration 5 and starts fires. The Vulcan side does 12000 dps against shields and components and 9600 against structure. But in a fight between the two walls it's not the structure damage that would matter. It's the nearly equal shield damage and the 50% cannon wall advantage in shield HP. And even that doesn't tell the whole story. Because of their deeper hitbox the centers of the Vulcans are only covered by a single layer of shield while the entirety of the cannon wall is covered by a minimum of three layers. The cannon wall at this length is 343,600 credits. The Vulcan wall, excluding the cost of the battleship bridge, is 500,100 credits. The cannon wall is 2 tiles thicker and weighs more than twice as much, but the example thruster block is only 60,050 credits so the cannon wall can afford more than four more of them per 24 tiles of wall.

        The Vulcans are stronger, but they're only significantly stronger against armor and the inability to stack shields effectively really hurts them. LABs would fare slightly better in this sort of comparison, but require even more large and expensive tech rooms. And I'm not sure you get enough power for them through just two doors. They might have to drop in density, which would put them at approximately the same damage as the large cannons again with more range, but weaker shielding and a smaller budget for engines.

        I think this mod just needs better propulsion and shielding (longer radius, not more efficient) teched off of the main engineering and warp core to offset the bulk of the battleship guns and the internal volume tax of the tech rooms themselves.

        Equalizer Oh that might be. I'm running 64-bit on all of my machines. This could possibly be a 32-bit overflow issue, but Walt would have to investigate. I can't dig in to the C# files.

          Atarlost Wow. That is some impressive testing and calculation. Seriously, well done. I'll admit I spent most of last night working through spreadsheets in an effort to get the two engineering bays in line (they're now both definitive steps up in cost & power efficiency per tile compared to single plasma reactors), and now that I think I have that nailed down, your idea of tying upgraded shield and thrusters to them is... appealing.

          So, a couple other things. IR Lasers: their damage may not be impressive, but the ability to start fires? Wow, I've had to tone down the firestarter % a couple times in testing. Fire on a starship is a high priority. It has the effect of pulling crews from weapons (effectively shutting down systems like Electro-Bolts) with the additional advantage of damaging parts and often killing crew.

          LFC's. I need to do a "per tile" analysis of them like I did for the engineering bays. That was an enlightening (though time consuming) exercise which gave me a lot of insight into what is essentially a Cost/Benefit Analysis.

          PP's. I agree about the cost of the Bridge upgrade for the PP2's. I'm considering possibly removing that requirement, and tying them only to Plasma Reactors. Thoughts?

          Equalizer if I remember correctly I'm running it on a 64

            jfjohnny5 IR lasers may be very good at what they do, but they're no good if the shields don't drop. It was definitely the UV lasers that were failing to live up to their role in that test.

            For LFCs don't forget to count the tiles needed for the ammo supply. You can't flat build them without spaces between because the only doors are on the side. This means they're effectively a tile wider than the actual footprint in terms of facing width.

            PP2s are almost strictly better than PP1s (the firing arcs displayed in the ship builder are swapped from the description with the PP1 having the better arc) so they should require a higher level bridge than the PP1. I think with the current stats those should probably be basic and frigate instead of frigate and plasma, but I find I can't justify using the PP1 at the frigate level and don't think I'd be able to do so at the basic level either. It just isn't suited to fighting the kinds of ships I build and they're what I've been testing against. I think the PP2 would fall into the same problem.

            Edit:
            Actually, one thing that might justify the cruiser bridge is bumping the ion blaster to it. They're decisively better than electrobolts at their primary role and it's not a particularly niche role.

            I've got a big "to do" list that I'm working through, but I probably won't be able to work on the mod a lot tonight or tomorrow night, and I've made some substantial adjustments to the LFC's that I'd like feedback on. By the numbers, the LFCs are now an empirical improvement in damage per ammo spent, and their costs have been reduced to make them more competitive options as compared to cannons.

            So, I'm posting this update now. As a small bonus: new textures for Light Armor, and more Light Armor pieces to reach parity with vanilla armor options.

            Full list of changes in changelog txt file.

            Cosmoteer Plus v 0.27.0
            https://www.dropbox.com/s/ose5t966whvtvf8/jfjohnny5.cosmeteer_plus_0.27.0.zip

            jfjohnny5 changed the title to Cosmoteer Plus v0.27.0.

              Atarlost Oooo I REALLY like that idea for the Ion Blasters. Time to mess with the tech tree a bit.

                The blueprint of the light armor is still too similar to the stock armor. There just isn't enough color contrast to make the hexagonal patterning visible in blueprint mode. Could you do the pattern in the light blue used for room interior objects?

                I've been away SOOOOO long. I cant wait to see this new update!

                  Atarlost Actually, I kind of prefer the lack of pattern. I originally threw the part together to be a void fill option along with open corridors or structure. It's just... Hull. Unless I'm missing something, there's nothing else that looks like it in blueprint mode. So the lack of a pattern is its pattern, so to speak.

                  jfjohnny5 The problem is that the pattern on stock armor is in two almost completely indistinguishable shades of blue and the pattern on light armor is in the same two almost completely indistinguishable shades of blue, and the color it was with no pattern was one of those two almost completely indistinguishable shades of blue.

                  It doesn't matter one whit what pattern or lack of pattern you have if it's in those two almost completely indistinguishable shades of blue.

                  I was never even aware that stock armor had any pattern except in external view until I saw something about a new pattern in your last changelog and took off my glasses and held my face an inch from the screen.

                    Version 0.27.1 released

                    Some substantial changes to the tech tree organization, which may have the unfortunate side effect of rendering some designs "Illegal" now. Sorry about that, but the parts seem to fit in the tree a bit better now. Feedback welcome. Shiny, updated tech tree: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxgpdfgwxjwfhib/Cosmoteer_Plus.jpg

                    The other big update in this one is a deep dive on the UV Laser. I took a long look at the numbers, and think I have a good niche for it now. It's essentially a more cost and energy efficient shield-busting alternative to the Electro-Bolt, but without the shield passthrough or power drain.

                    https://www.dropbox.com/s/m343pqdxqlbsrvt/jfjohnny5.cosmeteer_plus_0.27.1.zip

                    jfjohnny5 changed the title to Cosmoteer Plus v0.27.1.