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I. Summary:

This mod adds the new faction, Arian Empire in the Alphard system in the northwest of the core worlds, nearest the Westenesse system. The original idea for this mod is simple: I want to pilot mechs. Thus, the core ships of the Empire consist of massive Expansion Ships which resemble stations rather than battleships. They are slow and cumbersome, but all of their core modules (which you control) come with the special Panzerkleid system - which spawns a special mech you control fly around with.

In-Depth Details:
The Empire's tactics revolves mass deployment of mechs and tanks to defeat large ships. Most of their ships are slaved to larger ships and cannot carry crews, fuel or cargo. This means that any Arian fleet needs one of those to even sustain itself for a minute of travel.

These could be either the station-like Expansion Ships or the more nimble troop-carrying Dropships. Expansion Ships are slow, gargantuan, mobile fortresses (that perhaps the scale of the sprites don't give justice to) that can carry an entire army around with them. These are very expensive to run and a starting Arian player isn't recommended to jump straight to using one, as they might find themselves unable to upkeep it. Dropships come in Destroyer, Cruiser and Capital Ship sizes, which are respectively the Battalion, Regimental and Divisional Dropships. As their names suggest, they can sustain the operations of a specific sized force (or smaller), including smaller ships that can be slaved to it. There are more nuances between the two types, but as a rule of thumb, Expansion Ships are better at sustaining big fleets of smaller ships, while Dropships are better at deploying strikecrafts.

The weapon list features cannons and seemingly low-tech gear. Facsimiles of WWII era weapons such as flak cannons and rocket artillery, for the most part. This is juxtaposed by mech infantry armed with not just bolt-action rifles and hand grenades, but also high tech gear such as automatic plasma rifles and particle cannons. Just like their inspiration, the faction works well with slow, grinding warfare.



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II. Latest Update:



A. New features:

- Dropships And Troop Commanders

All dropships have a Troop Commander hullmod by default. This hullmod also automatically sets their first fighter wing as the commander unit. By default, this is the infantry commander. This, however, has an issue - the slow speed of the infantry commander can hobble certain other strikecraft builds, since they move at the slowest common speed of the entire pack while travelling to their target.

Enter theupgraded troops commanders. There are three possible upgrades:

Panzer Commander,  Luftflotte Commander and Panzergrenadier Commander. This will replace the commander slot with the appropriate type, not only fulfilling a thematic role, but also providing the squadron with a commander of appropriate speed. On top of all that, commander upgrades also give specific buffs to certain LPC types, so specializing your dropships is a good idea!

- Strikecraft Boosting Hullmods/Panzerkleid update

There is a new range of Strikecraft Boosting hullmods available with ARIA 2.0. These are like counterparts of classic hullmods, but only applied for fighters. *Note: These hullmods only apply to fighters in the ship's fighter bays. Panzerkleid are not affected by these. On the other hand, another new feature in ARIA 2.0 is that all Panzerkleids not only benefit from the ship officer's skills, but also inherit certain hullmod effects (like Integrated Targeting Unit).

- New Custom Officers and Starts (Nexerelin only)

This update includes a number of custom skills, available only to your starting partner officers, or a very special start that applies to the player character only. Please read the text in the accompanying start dialogue for more information.

- Dedicated Combat Craft Auto D-Mod Repair

All Dedicated Combat Craft now auto-repair D-mods for free if your fleet has an Expansion Ship in its roster. This ability can be toggled on and off per ship as you wish and at any time by removing the Auto-Repair ON or Auto-Repair OFF hullmods.



B. New ships, fighters and weapons:

- There is something new for every category, take a look at the promo videos above to see a glimpse of them in action. Plus, those aren't all of what's new! (just most of them)

C. Industry Change:





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III. Lore:

Just like Yuri Expedition, the concept is so far removed from Vanilla that there is no way that this mod is lore friendly. I did, however, add some internal lore regarding each ship and weapon system, because I enjoy that sort of thing. Also, Aria and Caparice share the same lore universe, so there's that.

- So, first things first: How did they get to the sector?
In the early years, around the time of the First AI war, a dimensional crack appeared in the dense, intractable jungles of Keine, of the Alphard System - a middling Persean League member with a Monarchical Polity. The crack originated from the Arian home dimension. For many cycles, clandestine operators roamed the world, blending in with the populace in part due to their natural resemblance to humans, in particular, human girls. They siphoned all information they could - human language, first and foremost, then culture, economy, technology, and military strength. All of this was in preparation for a much-awaited expansion into 'Dimension Drei' - the endless Lebensraum.

- 2.0.0:
It has been more than a year since the defeat of the Persean League's reconquest mission of Neugrunswald and the fortresses Seigfried and Fafner have both reached full operational status. The Ganymede-Kirschner Pact - a non-aggression treaty with the human polity called 'The Hegemony', is in effect. It is predicted that they will move soon to attack a weakened Persean League themselves. The Luddic Church will attempt to stir sedition among the Empire's human subjects, but they can be dealt with in due time. The army has received the newest generation of weaponry produced en-masse and shipped through the Trans-Dimensional Warpgate. It is now time for the next phase of expansion.

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IV. Known Issues:

- The Panzerkleid system might be a bit iffy if you set your flagship to autopilot (since the script checks for the ship you are piloting) - I hope to improve this in the future This has been improved in 2.0.0. Even AI piloted ships will use (quite well) the Panzerkleid systems, giving you, essentially, a free superfrigate/fighter spawn from each Expansion Ship you deploy.

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V. Incompatibilities:

- None known so far

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VI. Still to come:

- More character interactions, storywise
- New HVBs

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VII. Special Thanks:

This mod was made possible only by the generosity of the community spriters who made their works available within the Kitbash Database and the Free Community Sprite Resources. It wouldn't have done for a faction made entirely out of (not)gundams! That would have been dull (and a big pain)!

Sprites:

Free Community Sprites - Recolored/Edited
Shellster
HELMUT

Heavily Edited mech sprites
Mobile Suit Gundam: Cross Dimension

Everything else are edited vanilla sprites.

Music by Mayu

Special Character Art, Hullmods and Event Images
Microsoft Bing Image Generator

Sounds:
Taira Komori, taira-komori.jpn.org
Kyutwo
C&C Red alert sounds
Jim Rogers, Mark DiAngelo
WWII weapon sounds
Company of heroes
Super Robot Wars Alpha
Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation VS Zeon

Decals and portraits:
milihime taisen
www.peddinghaus-decals.de

Commodities, Industries, Hullmods Art:
milihime taisen
geduan
asuteroid
robert knight
aamond
u.s.m.c
h2so4
honzawa yuuichirou
sibu
ddal
ryosios
armored core
genya
androth
roke
15k
blewandwhite
shigeta satoshi
hariken
niko p
108


For help with German terms and word construction:
Nia Tahl
Xenoit

Scripts:
Black magic to remove minus hullmods if over OP by Dark.Revenant
Rules scripts by Mayu

References:
Most everything related to faction creation by Tartiflette
Panzerkleid takes control of fighter by Tartiflette

And again, a big thank you to the Starsector team, who created this wonderful game that has, by now, claimed thousands of hours of my life.

And finally, you. Thank you for trying out ARIA. I hope you enjoy it!