Strike Craft Diversity

Adds Fighters, Interceptors, Railpods, Bombers, Gunships, and Gatlings. Reworks Strike Craft combat completely, adds new strategic depth to carriers, and makes space battles more interesting!

Strike Craft Diversity adds 18 new components, 3 new technologies, 2 new ship sections, a new admiral trait, and a ton of improvements to Strike Craft in Stellaris.

Designed to achieve space superiority and enable strategic bombers to complete their carrier missions. Ideal for intercepting, escorting, and dogfighting. Shorter reload times, higher movement speeds, but lacks shield penetration. 600 speed.

Fighters
Jack of All Trades
2.30 sec (+25% shield bonus, +25% hull bonus)
Fighters are multirole Strike Craft that carry modified rotary flak-cannons to damage shields and hulls.

Interceptors
Point Defense
1.15 sec (+50% hull bonus)
Interceptors use precise high-powered lasers to quickly destroy mobile targets and cut through hulls.

Railpods
Alpha Strike
3.45 sec (+50% shield bonus)
Railpods are nimble and armed with powerful miniaturized railguns to overwhelm the shields of ships.

Designed to decimate capital ships of various sizes and hold their own in Strike Craft combat. Requires support to be fully effective, but given time, these assault craft can decimate enemy fleets. 450 speed.

Bombers
Hard Hitter
5.75 sec (+100% shield penetration, +100% armor penetration)
Bombers carry large payloads of heavy disruptors to devastate both capital ships and strike craft.

Gunships
Support
6.90 sec (+100% shield penetration, +50% armor bonus)
Gunships fire miniaturized shaped charge torpedoes to destroy even the heaviest and armored targets.

Gatlings
Swarm
4.60 sec (+100% shield penetration, +25% armor bonus, +25% hull bonus)
Gatlings utilize specialized shredder autocannons that are effective against both hull and armor.

New ship sections have been added to cruisers to allow them to serve as support carriers in the fleet.

Vanguard Carrier Bow – 1 Point Defense, 1 Hangar, | 4 Medium Utility Slots

Support Carrier Core – 2 Point Defense, 1 Hangar | 4 Medium Utility Slots

Strike Craft launch times have been greatly sped up and their engagement range has been increased to 300.

Rotation and acceleration of Strike Craft have also been buffed, and a general overhaul to all other stats have been done.

There is also a new admiral trait (Ex-Fighter Pilot) added back in this mod, which gives +10% strike craft damage and attack speed.

There are three tiers to Strike Craft technology in this mod (Basic, Improved, Advanced). This mod is balanced to work with ESC/ACOT even without adding the fourth and fifth tiers.

The 2nd tier is unlocked after battleships, and the 3rd tier is unlocked after titans. There’s a significant stat increase at the higher tiers, but they are more expensive.

The AI will specialize their cruisers to be carriers, meaning they will use the new hangar sections and one of 15 different combinations of Strike Craft. They will always use one type of fighter and one type of bomber, and it varies between different empires

For example, they could use combinations like Fighters + Bombers, Interceptors + Gatlings, Railpods + Gunships, etc, so you can experience different tactics in each war.

This mod is highly compatible and should work with pretty much all other mods, meaning this mod is compatible with NSC, ESC, ACOT, BSW, etc. All changes are in new files, rather than overwriting vanilla files.

This mod is also save-game compatible and can be added or removed in existing saves.

Credits go to Churumiru ShiRoZ for helping me make the icons.

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