Star Wars LU (SWLU) mod for X³: Terran Conflict

SWLU is a mod for X3AP Litcube's Universe 1.7.2 built from the ground-up using ship assets from Mikhail Skatchkav's Star Wars Reborn Mod for X3AP originally, and has expanded to include a bunch of assets from other sources. All ships have had their thruster effects, camera positions, and gun placements fixed or tweaked in addition to the many gameplay changes that come with LU. 250+ total Star Wars ships (counting variants) are added in addition to all ~400 vanilla/LU ships, and can be bought in special sectors. With LU, you can finally have the massive X3AP star wars space battles you have always dreamed of!

All credit for the original ship models goes to MikSka, Jeroenimo, Warb Null, and Dinoff.

Also thanks to Litcube for making LU and his extremely useful Excel editors.

And of course, credit to the SWLU team:
XenonArchitect7 - Lead Developer
Tormox - 3D model work and asset acquisition
Leytra - Texture and light map work
Purls - Main dev for 1.3.0 update and beyond
Temetvince - Scripting, Alaankwa dev, 1.3.0 support

Star Wars LU 1.3.0

Core Features:

~300 ships and variants from across the Star Wars universe and timelines, including the Old Republic Era, Clone Wars Era, Galactic Civil War Era, and Legends ABY Era.

- Full overhaul of effects, sounds, and ship compatibility for all lasers in the game to make them resemble star wars laser effects for their respective factions.

- Each star wars faction is assigned to a specific X3 faction, and their NPCs will use star wars ships except for a few exceptions where they still use vanilla ships. This will be fixed as I add more ships.

- Some ships like the YT-2400 have multiple faction variants that feature different engine color/sound and different laser compatibility.

- Some ships like the Delta-7 Jedi starfighter have many color variants available.

- Star wars themed trade goods for most wares in the game economy. You can literally start a business manufacturing and selling Admiral Ackbar Cereal or Fried Porgs, to name a few of the more ridiculous ones.

- All ships are balanced around their LU counterparts so they fit in naturally with LU's adjusted combat balance. Please message me if you feel the need for balancing updates!

- Gamestarts for each faction are available featuring a wide variety of scenarios across all difficulties. Play peaceful, start with a massive fleet, start at war with a faction, start with factories already set up, start with a billion credits, start with only a basic ship. There are 21 gamestarts in total, allowing you to play how you want.

- Ship Gallery. There is a gamestart that puts you in a secluded sector with access to all guns, missiles, shields, and star wars ships in the game along with target practice, 2 billion credits, and a god-mode ship that can use any weapon. This will let you explore all of SWLU's content in-game and try out all the ships without having to obtain them in an actual game.

- Repair ships. There are four un-purchasable repair ships hidden away in the universe waiting for you to find them. There are also about a dozen repair lasers hidden throughout the universe for them to use, but you can't buy or sell them anywhere. Your reward for finding these is a 4x repair speed from mounting four of the repair lasers. Good luck looking for these! Update: Added a command for repair ships to auto repair all ships in a sector.

- Tweaked versions of PSCO1's and Klaus11's cockpits for all star wars ships.

- NPCs fight each other according to Star Wars lore. This means you can happen across Empire/Rebel battles in the universe as well as Republic/Separatist.

- Battle Sectors: Head over to Heretic's End and Duke's Domain for battles featuring endless waves of fleets just throwing themselves at each other. Good places to get salvage or test out your fleets.

Gameplay Changes:

- All lasers have double range and duration than regular LU.

- Selling captured pilots into slavery at pirate bases has been buffed to be a viable method of making money.

- All "Heavy" lasers (PAA, TBC, PALC, FBC) have double rate of fire and half damage from regular LU.

- SCHs, PHQ, OTAS MLCC Docks, LU advanced software, Teladi/Argon trading stations are now purchasable in both Terran and Commonwealth space to allow the player to stay at war with one or the other while still being able to progress.

- Corporation HQs are now purchasable throughout the universe near the actual ones. They are basically cool-looking equipment docks.

- 25% of all pirate ships (not from missions) will be randomized from all ships to emulate the effects of ship piracy. This makes pirate encounters more interesting.

- Added civilians, traders to the Yaki (Old Republic) and beefed up their economy.

- Added "Recon" patrols to all factions that venture around the universe.

- Made many of the suns brighter in key sectors to allow for more ship visibility.

- NPCs mostly don't care if you kill other factions in their territory now.

- SETA on the space suit. Yes, this means you can repair while in SETA.

- Many other countless changes and tweaks to LU

LU Overview:

For the uninitiated, Litcube's Universe is a massive overhaul of X3's core mechanics focusing on massive combat, automation, performance, and simplicity. More information on the official wiki: Litcube.xtimelines.net

Some key takeaways of LU are:
- Many new automation systems for freighters

- Very low rate of fire for all guns to allow for massive fleet battles. I know a lot of people don't like this, so there is a patch to restore the vanilla combat balance on the SWLU discord.

- Massive overhaul of the mobile mining system to make it a true passive income cash explosion.

- Many superior logistics scripts to their vanilla and bonus pack counterparts, such as couriers and TUG.

- All ships everywhere have a chance to bail, not just ones in combat with the player. So this means you'll find abandoned ships all over the map, all the time.

- Automated salvage.

- Working and seamless autojump functionality for all ships.

- Built-in bounce scripts. This means fighters don't suicide into stations, and ships don't crash into each other. You can literally tell 200 fighters to attack a solar power plant without any losses.

- Sector-wide advanced satellite range.

- Automated and improved fleet mechanics, ship outfitting, and organization.

- The Omicron Channel Virus (OCV), a faction of assimilators that gradually takes over the galaxy at a very slow pace. They are the final boss and end-game goal.

- The Phanon Corporation, a rival company to the player that will purchase assets, make money, and harass the player. It's up to you to put them in their place.

- Countless other quality-of-life adjustments, such as SETA not disengaging when you move the mouse or navigate menus.

Official Expansions!

If the standard SWLU map isn't immersive enough (It's the classic X3 map), then there are two separate expansion packs for SWLU that incorporate entirely new maps. Check out the "addons" tab here on ModDB.

- Galaxy in Chaos: Original map set in the Star Wars universe. You will see familiar sectors that align with all the Star Wars planets in their proper locations. This map centers around the Galactic Civil War, with large Imperial and Rebel territories with countless border skirmishes. All-new game starts too. It is generally a bit harder than SWLU. Created by Argonaut0201 (aka Rice Vessel).

Add-On Mods Available!

There are many add-on mods and scripts available for SWLU, and these can be found on the SWLU Discord. Note that LU, and SWLU by extension, are highly incompatible with most mods for X3AP. Thus, there are only certain mods that work with SWLU.

Some noteworthy ones:

- SWLU Edition of Improved Races 2: Makes the factions fight over territory and conquer sectors. The player can also get in on this and capture territory. I don't recommend this for your first playthrough.

- "Mothership Mod": This mod allows you to use any capital ship as a mobile shipyard. Build equipment, items, ships, and repair docked ships. This mod is still in development and testers are needed.

- Vanilla balance: A lot of people don't like LU's slow-firing "shotgun" lasers that are too fast to dodge. I get it. This small patch will restore Vanilla's combat balance, with faster-firing and slower lasers to bring SWLU back to that classic X3 feeling.

- MARS for LU: Many expansions for Litcube systems, such as MLCC. There is a list of ones that work with SWLU on the Discord.

- Smart Turrets, Salvage Commands, Mineral Courier, Mk.3 Improvement Reloaded, Satellites Monitoring, and Marine Repairs: These mods make the game just a little easier and can vastly improve your quality of life. I don't recommend going crazy with add-on scripts for your first playthrough, because you can easily overwhelm yourself with game features.