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Signature Weapons [3.12]

This mod aims to increase the individuality of empires while maintaining the highest possible level of compatibility with other mods and without changing how weapons work. All it does is make the first technology in every line of weapons into a rare technology, but upgrades to that type of weapon are still normal technologies. This reduces the number of different weapons a typical empire has, but allows you to keep the weapon types you do have up to date. And of course you can eventually still research them all, if you want.



The follow technologies are now rare:
- Arc Emitters
- Autocannons
- Disruptors
- Kinetic Battery
- Mega Cannon
- Particle Lance
- Plasma Throwers
- Proton Launchers
- Space Torpedoes
- Swarmer Missiles

Other weapon technologies remain normal technologies. All empires will have access to lasers, missiles and railguns, but other weapons will be rarer now. Upgrades remain normal technologies too, so once you add a weapon to your arsenal you shouldn't have trouble keeping it up to date.

Additionally AI empires will choose one out of autocannons, disruptors, plasma and swarmer missiles as their signature weapon and will not research the others. The choice is based on the empire's preferred weapon type and available rare resources.

This also helps the AI in a roundabout way, by forcing it to focus on a smaller number of weapon technologies. AI will normally try to research all new weapon types, regardless if it'll actually use them. But with this mod it should only research weapons it will actually use.



The mod also introduces a few other changes:

• All weapon technologies except point defense weapons are now among the least common and most expensive technologies of their technology tier (subtier 3).
  
• Point defense weapons are now among the most common and least expensive technologies of their technology tier (subtier 1).
  
• The Space Torpedoes technology now requires the Fusion Missiles technology.
  
• The Kinetic Battery technology now has the Railguns technology as a prerequisite instead of the Advanced Railguns technology.
  
• The Kinetic Artillery technology now has the Advanced Railguns technology as a prerequisite instead of the Gauss Cannons technology.
  
• The Proton Launchers technology now has the UV Lasers technology as a prerequisite instead of the X-Ray Lasers technology. AI empires should only research it if they favor energy weapons.
  
• The Neutron Launchers technology now has the X-Ray Lasers technology as an additional prerequisite.
  
• Giga Cannon, Tachyon Lance, and Focused Arc Emitter are now tier 5 technologies instead of being tier 4. I felt the X weapon upgrades showed up too quickly after researching the basic variants and this delays them a bit.

This is a gameplay altering mod and as such it will prevent you from getting achievements.

The mod replaces only two files:
1) .../Stellaris/common/technology/00_eng_weapon_tech.txt
2) .../Stellaris/common/technology/00_phy_weapon_tech.txt

It will be incompatible with any mod that also edits these two files, but should be fully compatible with all the mods that don't. It may also be effectively incompatible with a mod that dramatically alters how weapons work since the AI weights aimed to help the AI rely on certain assumptions, such as that missile weapons ignore shields. Finally, it may be partially compatible with some mods that edit the same file if you load it after the other mod.

Specific popular mods:
1) New Ship Classes 2 (NSC2) - fully compatible
2) Balanced Space Warfare - compatible if loaded after BSW (placed lower in load order)
3) StarNet/StarTech AI - compatible if loaded after StarNet/StarTech (placed lower in load order)



I would be grateful if you could rate the mod with either thumbs up or thumbs down. If you rate it with a thumbs up and you really enjoy it, please consider also marking it as a favorite. If you like this mod you might also like one of my other mods.

I also created a Discord server[discord.gg]