Zanitas & Lazarus

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Androgeos
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While chatting on IRC some time back and looking through all the active tickets on trac (what was I thinking?!), I brought up the subject of the Gaian Demolition Cannon and Lazarus Shield Generator when Wolfy and Star Weaver were present. We had quite a few rounds of lively discussion (which also included a bit of raging), so I decided to have a fling at rebalancing the GDC and Lazarus while waiting for George to actually implement his adjustments.

Initially, the rebalanced GDC and Lazarus were added to the bottom of the XML file for Descendence, but I eventually decided that they should just be placed in a separate XML instead. At the same time, I remembered one particular complaint about how a lower-level Lazarus would fit somebody's bill and began to consider making a new shield generator that has the same traits as my rebalanced Lazarus, except at a lower level.

Star Weaver also griped about how the ICS' Quantumsphere Disintegrator sounded like a staple gun, despite it shooting an ultra-destructive globular sphere that can instantly vaporise most unshielded ships, and how the game might have a better feel if some of the weapons sounded different. This motivated me to create something that was ultimately a little more than just a rebalance of the GDC and Lazarus.

The final thing I needed to do was find a nice name for the mod. Star Weaver suggested "Andro's Balance Tweaks", but I wanted something a bit more flowery, so I did a Google search on the term "Lazarus". As it turns out, one of the Lazaruses in olden times was a Persian martyr who died alongside another martyr named Zanitas, so I used the latter as the name for my new shield generator and named my mod after both.

The primary purpose of this mod is to rebalance the Gaian Demolition Cannon and Lazarus Shield Generator to make them practical, usable items. Secondary purposes include giving some weapons new sound effects and increasing the durability of some weapon projectiles. The modified weapons also have their dock screen images changed to new ones made by DarthGeek, with any modified Iocrym weapons getting their own set of dock screen images he made specially for them.

Most of the major things that this mod adds to the game are listed below:

Zanitas Shield Generator (new item)
  • - Level V
    - 11000 value
    - 2200 mass
    - Uncommon
    - 40 HP
    - No type resistances or weaknesses
    - Recovers 3 HP every 12 ticks (15 HP/sec)
    - 5-tick delay before beginning recharge from 0 HP
    - 90 MW power use
Lazarus Shield Generator
  • - 140 HP
    - No type resistances or weaknesses
    - Recovers 10 HP every 10 ticks (60 HP/sec)
    - 4-tick delay before beginning recharge from 0 HP
    - 580 MW power use; 25 MW idle power use
Gaian Demolition Cannon
  • - Easy install
    - 15d6+235 ammunition
    - +200 value per charge
    - graviton:20d12 damage
    - Level 1 shatter effect - scuttles targets with a mass below 50
    - 320 MW power use when firing
    - 140 MW power use when not firing
    - 60 bullet HP
    - 36 bullet duration
    - Flare effect upon firing
    - Can be recharged using PM/pm912's Player Ship Drones 6 mod (not included)
Ares Plasma Archcannon
  • - Level 1 shatter effect - scuttles targets with a mass below 50
    - 40 bullet HP
Quantumsphere Disintegrator
  • - 60 bullet HP
    - Impact sound effect
A list of all the changes and additions that this mod contains is included within the mod's ZIP file on Xelerus.

This mod is not designed to be a very drastic modification to the vanilla game like the way Descendence is shaping up to be. Rather, it was meant to add a bit more feel into the game, as well as to (hopefully) reduce complaints about some of the little things that George won't be fixing for the foreseeable future.

NOTICE: As of 3 October 2013, I've decided to upload two different versions of this mod. The Stable version is the original upload that will be updated less frequently and will run on the latest stable release of Transcendence. The Development release is a new upload that contains the most updated version of this mod but may only run on development versions of Transcendence. As per any mod release under me, the download page for both will state the API version used, as well the minimum version of Transcendence required to run them.

Stable version at Xelerus.de
Development version at Xelerus.de
Last edited by Androgeos on Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:57 am, edited 4 times in total.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
RPC
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Nice job Androgeos!
I'll download it and add it to the Succession Extensions list when I have the time.
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I don't want any sort of copyright on my Transcendence mods. Feel free to take/modify whatever you want.
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Ttech
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oh awesome must download this and add it to my list of extensions.
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Androgeos
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This mod was re-uploaded to Xelerus.de at 28 downloads on 23/08/2012. Here are the changes in this update:
  • Added both variants of the Flenser Relativistic Cannon.
  • Corrected a minor spelling error in the Quantumsphere Disintegrator's description.
Last edited by Androgeos on Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
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Androgeos
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This mod was re-uploaded to Xelerus.de at 47 downloads on 07/10/2012. Here are the changes in this update:
  • Replaced dock screen images of all edited weapons with new ones made by Shivan Hunter/DarthGeek.
  • Gaian Demolition Cannon damage type reverted to antimatter.
Last edited by Androgeos on Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
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Androgeos
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This mod was re-uploaded to Xelerus.de at 52 downloads on 11/10/2012. Here are the changes in this update:
  • Added the Positron Lancer.
  • Added the Xenophobe Ion Lancer.
  • Renamed moonshot.wav to spaceblaster.wav.
  • Added "Ark of the Lost Raiders" to the Xenophobe Ark's list of possible names.
Last edited by Androgeos on Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
RPC
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- Added "Ark of the Lost Raiders" to the Xenophobe Ark's list of possible names.
Sweet! :D
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Der Tod ist der zeitlose Frieden und das leben ist der Krieg
Wir müssen wissen — wir werden wissen!
I don't want any sort of copyright on my Transcendence mods. Feel free to take/modify whatever you want.
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Androgeos
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This mod was re-uploaded to Xelerus.de at 56 downloads on 13/10/2012. Here are the changes in this update:
  • Gaian Demolition Cannon Flare fire effect lifetime increased to 10.
  • Added the Penitent Cannon.
  • Added Oracus HARASS Power.
  • Updated dock screen images of all edited weapons to Shivan Hunter/DarthGeek's latest version.
  • lancerion.wav replaced.
Last edited by Androgeos on Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
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Androgeos
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This mod was re-uploaded to Xelerus.de at 195 downloads on 02/10/2013. Here are the changes in this update:
  • Xenophobe Ark updated to reflect the changes in the latest version. fireRateAdj reduced to 36 (increased from the previous version of this mod).
  • Positron Lancer lifetime increased to 48.
  • The following weapons were updated to reflect the changes in the latest version:
    - Plasma Cannon (damage)
    - Sunflare Cannon (effect)
    - Mark III Howitzer (effect)
    - Katana Star Cannon (value)
    - Fusionfire Howitzer (damage)
    - Heavy CLAW Cannon (effect)
    - Ballista Cannon (effect)
    - Flenser Relativistic Cannon (effect)
    - Dual Flenser Cannon (effect)
    - Mark I Howitzer (effect)
    - TeV 9 Blaster (effect)
    - Hanzo Blaster (effect)
    - Dual TeV 9 Blaster (effect)
  • Mod now uses API version 14 in order to reflect changes made to the latest version of Transcendence.
    WARNING: This mod now requires Transcendence 1.2 Beta 1 or later to run.
  • Established a prefix system for all UNIDs and renamed all UNIDs accordingly.
    WARNING: This breaks all save games started with an older version of this mod.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
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Atarlost
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I would have uploaded as a new mod since 1.1 is still the stable version of the game and still uses API 12.
Literally is the new Figuratively
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Androgeos
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You mean like this?

It's a good point, actually. Not everyone knows there's a beta version, since the stable version of the game is indeed still 1.1. I've also labelled the mods to prevent ambiguity.

This wouldn't really be a huge issue if it were a mod that adds new features, such as Descendence or Raptor, but since Zanitas & Lazarus is supposed to be an "enhancement" for vanilla data, compatibility with stable releases is more important.
[10:42] <Katami> TTECH: IT SEYS "ONCE YOU ENTAR A EYSTEM HAHAHAHAAHH~~~!~~~!<3<3<3
[10:42] <Katami> ~ROLLL 1D100 L0LL0LL0LL0LHAHHAHHAH!~!!~~:-):-):-)
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