APOGEE - Starship Combat Overhaul



APOGEE is an overhaul of Starfield's Starship combat system, emphasizing higher engagement speeds and new equipment options making for a much more intense experience.  Balancing and diversification of engines make building choices more meaningful, and a host of new weapons designed for accuracy by volume of fire will assist in dealing with enemy ships which are now much more capable of avoiding and evading incoming fire.

Installation

Requires Plugins.txt Enabler.  Install the main file using a Mod Manager, or by placing the .esm files in the archive directly into Starfield's Data folder.  Install Plugins.txt Enabler by following the instructions on its mod page, and add these lines at the bottom of the Plugins.txt file:
*AshApogeeCombatOverhaul.esm
*AshApogeeCombatOverhaul_Weapons.esm

All changes pertaining to weapons are contained in the second .esm file; you may use them separately, but they were designed explicitly to be used together.

Features

APOGEE adds a large number of features, from re-balancing to new weapons, engines, and braking thrusters.  A non-exhaustive list of these features include:

• Additive Engine Speeds:  Each engine on your ship now increases your ship's maximum speed, based on the amount of power it draws and your Starship Design level.  Better engines become available for purchase as you level up throughout the game, providing higher speed bonuses as well as improvements to their other stats.
• New Weapon Types:  New in APOGEE are high volume of fire weapons, such as Autolasers and Gatling Cannons.  Designed and balanced with accuracy by volume-of-fire in mind, these weapons will help you deal with much more evasive opponents you will be facing.
• Functional Maneuvering Thrusters:  Providing only bonuses to mobility and costing a small amount of power, braking and maneuvering engines can be found in the Engines category.  Basic versions can be found anywhere their structural counterparts are sold, but as you level up more advanced versions can be purchased from each manufacturer's unique ship vendors.
• Manufacturer Diversity:  Engine and Weapon manufactures now will feature some distinct characteristics to their products, such as higher rates of fire or bonuses to top speed or survivability.  No longer will a single manufacturer dominate as the objective best choice, you are encouraged to examine all the options and choose which components provide the most benefits to what your starship needs.
• Rebalance:  Lasers and Ballistic weapons have received a number of buffs to make them much more competitive with Particle Beams than in vanilla.  Ballistics for instance now have the highest effective range of all weapons and have reduced power costs, but have higher mass.
  

Changelog

1.1 - Update - Further engines balancing, some additional experimental engines added.  High RoF Particle Beams weapons added.  Maximum targeting range significantly increased.
1.0.2 - Hotfix/Balance Update - Panoptes Engines balance was out of whack, so other engines have been brought more in line.
1.0.1 - Minor update - Increased distance for lock on and tweaks to some engine stats.  Panoptes Ares engines upgraded to 3 power draw and rebalanced accordingly.

Future Plans

• Additional Balancing Tweaks
• Integrate APOGEE parts into NPC ships
• Adjust projectile speeds (not possible with current versions of xEdit)
• Tweak Aim Models to improve accuracy in some situations
• Additional Weapon Types
  

Credits

Creation of this mod was made possible thanks to xEdit (you can find the latest builds for xEdit and Starfield compatibility in their Discord server).
Big thanks also to gpgpgpgp and their mod Ship Combat Overhaul - Modular ESMs, which serves as a major inspiration for many of the features included in APOGEE.  I encourage you to stop by their mod page and check out their Reactors and Ship-Modules plugins, which can be used alongside APOGEE conflict free!