FTL Captain's Edition 1.308/Inf 1.301b/EL 1.308

[PaladinGreco]

Ok, ran into a problem. This enemy wasn't difficult to defeat at all, but there was no way to deal damage to the Shield System on this enemy. I didn't think to take the screenie until there wasn't enough HP left on the enemy to take a demonstration shot with the Pike Beam, so that's my failing. However, the shield room on this enemy acts like an empty room... or a room with an Encased System that just happens to live there. No [RESIST] text messages appeared during the fight, so it did not have a Titanium System Casing... that or the text glitched out and never displayed, take your pick.

Screen Shot Link

[aaaaaa50]

So I know the latest version is a little bit 'work in progress', but I gave it a spin yesterday anyways. Using the alternate DA-SR 12, I made the decision to sell my Titan missiles for the new Fire Focus beam. The Fire Focus is one of those super-short beams that can only hit one square of one room, but in exchange it had three shield piercing, a guarantee of setting that square on fire, and one system and one personnel damage. Its charge rate is 14 seconds, which is reasonably slow, especially compared to the faster pace that can happen in CE combat. For comboing with the not-a-glave-beam, I basically just used it to ping a system damage so I could survive long enough to beam them. Since apparently every enemy I met had three system bars in their shields, (And what's up with that? If it's not just RNG messing with me than it's making early sectors much harder than they should be.) I couldn't take their shields down very well and usually enemies fixed up too fast to get good damage out of the not-a-glave-beam. Getting tired of being shot up and concluding that the run was probably doomed, I sold the not-a-glave-beam to buy a shield system, leaving me with just the Fire Focus beam, because why not?

To everyone reading this, give a guess as to how hard it might be to kill crew with only the Fire Focus beam. Now picture disabling enemy weapons with it so you don't die. I learned the hard way that one system damage and one lone tile of fire is quickly dealt with by any enemy crew that isn't mantis before the Fire Focus beam can recharge. I found an enemy with a one-shot laser and mini-beam, and sat around until my weapons guy reached level 2 while micro-ing the placement of the FF and my stealth so I didn't take damage. (I took some damage anyways.) I was then able to slowly reduce a system to zero, but it wasn't fast enough to have more than one tile on fire at any time. But I still wasn't able to kill any crew at first, since they would run to the medbay when they were near death and the ship had enough people to run around and keep the fire from spreading. Also, it was a level 2 medbay. I ended up doing the most ridiculous amount of micro I've ever had to do in FTL, just to shuffle enemy crew around to the point where that measly 1 crew damage would be eventually be enough to kill one of them all while trying to keep my ship powered and undamaged. Eventually the enemy went from four humans, to three, to two, and then one. That last little pixel man tried and failed to contain the fire, then ran to a corner of his ship. I stopped firing and let him sit there while the fire slowly spread across the entire ship. And then I repeated all this again with the next ship. And the next. And the next. And the next. I don't know if there's a word for feeling both intense frustration and satisfaction, but it's... memorable.

I did find a dinky little Burst Laser Mk. 1, and eventually in sector 5 I lucking to a shot that sold both the BL Mk. 2 and BL Mk. 4 which I traded in everything (including the accursed FF beam) for, then proceeded to just shoot everyone to explosive death. Still, a small, dark part of me wishes I had found a second FF beam instead.

So basically, I think you should probably tweak the little evil thing a bit. Maybe just an extra crew and/or system damage would make it a little more effective by itself and with other weapons.

Also, I did a quest chain from the corporate faction that involved hunting multiple pirates, and the reward was supposed to be some kind of "Ultimate trade good" but at the end of it I didn't get anything. I'd try and find it but honestly the event lists are a little terrifyingly large.

[PaladinGreco]

Also, I did a quest chain from the corporate faction that involved hunting multiple pirates, and the reward was supposed to be some kind of "Ultimate trade good" but at the end of it I didn't get anything.

Thank you for supporting Evil Corp. Have a nice day. [/easy shot @ corporate]

And no, that's not your imagination telling you the game is out to get you... it's just out to get you for real. Sector 1 enemies have 3 shield bars on Normal difficulty. On Easy, they have 2, or so it went last time I played Easy. It really does make Normal Difficulty kinda frustrating early game. The first time I played Normal after playing Easy for a while, I was wondering if the game's creators were working on I Wanna Be The Captain as a sub title. :'D

I just had two consecutive runs into contested space. IMO, these are the most fun sectors in FTL. I like the cashing fleet events. The events in the sector in general succeeded in giving me that feeling of how dire the situation really was for the Federation in a way vanilla FTL hasn't come close to. For other players reading this thread, these contested sectors are red. If you run into one, the rewards are great, the risk is great, and the flavor is excellent.

The final battle sector is also a lot of fun now with the battle events that take place there, too.

EDIT: I have a suggestion. What would you think to adding the sector type in parenthesis next to the flavored text name of the sector? To be fair, I would think the Captain of the mission vessel, who takes the time at the start of each sector to tell you about the sector you just jumped into, thereby displaying that he does indeed know about the sector beforehand, could tell you on the sector select map what kind of sector you're about to get yourself into before you go there. If the Captain (who doesn't have a crewman sprite, so we're clear) already knows, why is this not reflected in the sector select UI? Just a thought.

If it's a matter of character limits, then so be it.

[Sleeper Service]

If it's a matter of character limits, then so be it.

Yeah it actually is. But a lot of people have requested that. I might look into it and modify the map screen to be able to display more characters and add that feature. But I must admit that I really like the added level of uncertainty. The Galaxy is big and not every Fed captain might know every place.

Also: The sectors names follow certain patterns, so experienced CE captains eventually going to be able to make accurate guesses on actual sector type.

Concerning the Fire beam: Well yeah, I consider giving it a faster cooldown, but the weapon is designed to not be viable on its own. Like the vanilla fire beam. (With which you probably would never have gotten that far in comparison.)

[PaladinGreco]

Fair enough. I can agree with that reasoning besides the limitation. : )

There was an interesting blue text event at an empty waypoint while I had a mine layer installed as a weapon. For the cost of 4 missiles, I could (and did) lay down a field of mines in the hopes that it would slow down the Rebel Fleet. It didn't, but it was a nice thought, and a waste of 4 missiles. Not sure if that's a bug.

Also, who do I send event typo/grammar reports to? Do I just post them here?

EDIT: Wild idea time: what if you could add the feature, and make it selectable in the options menu the same way people can select 'show branching jumps from navpoints' already? This might not be possible, or perhaps dangerous depending on how the code was originally written. But hey, like I said, wild idea. Might take a lot of work even if it is possible.

Alternatively, make it a mod module, and use the Slipstream Mod Loader (the players would) to enable it if they so wish. Along the same vein as the altered starting arms mod.

[aaaaaa50]

Concerning the Fire beam: Well yeah, I consider giving it a faster cooldown, but the weapon is designed to not be viable on its own. Like the vanilla fire beam. (With which you probably would never have gotten that far in comparison.)

What weapons is it designed to combo with? Either your other weapons can already get rid of a shield and a normal fire beam would always be better, or you're using its shield piercing to try and weaken them, in which case it's an effector that is way less effective. (Heh.)

On the other hand, it might just be too effective. If I'm up against an enemy that my weapons can't get through to damage, then the sane thing to do is retreat, but I sold my not-a-glave-beam because I got the impression that because of its shield-piercing and its one system and crew damage, I could solo ships with the Fire Focus beam alone... and I was right.

Of course, it would be very good with rockmen and a teleporter, but in that case it's a fire bomb that costs no ammo and can't miss.

Also, forgot to mention this, but you might want to put up a disclaimer on the OP about how 1.06 still needs a little editing. Anyone else encountered the 'test sector' yet?

[Sleeper Service]

OK, that should fixe most of the stuff mentioned. I couldn't find code problems in all the aug-immune enemies that where mentioned, but I continue to look into it.

1.061
-AE: One more support augment added
-Several ships immunity to combat augs removed
-Internal Effector can now disrupt the enemy weapon system correctly
-Several minor event corrections
-Starting beacons, except the first beacon of the game, now also count as empty beacons; this adds a reward factor for finishing a sector and allows for more predictable augment use
-Beacons with Federation fleets in Fed sectors now also count as empty beacons
-Repair bombs reworked, they no longer can repair systems; makes them more boring, but less glitchy
-Heal Cluster Bomb reworked to be more effective when targeting your own ship
-Bounty hunter ship now finally holds fire in the beginning of the event?
-Bounty hunter now escapes via a fixed timer
-The sun in the DISTRESS_SUN event lost its magical property to heal you and now deals damage instead, like intended
-Energy AI ship from pirate list removed (hopefully before anyone notices that it has no hull image for that...)
-Trade union now pays their dues


Sidenotes:

Please continue to report if combat augs are not available against certain enemies. Ditailed sector and event descriptions help track down the culprit events.


Limitations of the combat augments:

Disrupting systems that already have been effected by another augment or the event itself is not working (overrides the first effect) and should be avoided. Using ion weapons on the system should still work, but might ionize the disabled system bars first and make the ion weapon ineffective if your can't chain ion hits.

Combat augs will never work against the final boss, because its spawn events are hardcoded as far as I can tell.

The internal effector works well against certain systems and not so great against others. This is for balancing reasons. If your enemy has buffer bars, it might actually not disrupt certain systems at all. Lvl three sensors can help you see and predict how effective the Effector might be.

[jaml96]

trying out the 1.062! i just installed 1.061 2 minutes ago... i have played captains edition since 1.052... will post screenshots soon. to get them up faster i will use some cheatsy cheatsies

[Sleeper Service]

trying out the 1.062! i just installed 1.061 2 minutes ago... i have played captains edition since 1.052... will post screenshots soon. to get them up faster i will use some cheatsy cheatsies

Uuuh you where faster than me. So, about that thing: while finalizing 1.061 I threw a few glances on the flagship xmls. Seems it was originally designed to have a weapon system in phase three. Seems it also has weapon mounts set, although I have no idea where they physically are. I seems some break off with the wings during the different phases. Bottom line: The Flagship might easily be randomized. So, there now is an experimental build of CE that features a randomized version of the flagship.

1.062 (experimental)
-Rebel Flagship randomized
-Some Mantis now use the "invasion" boarding tag; let's see how that works out


From the OP:

[new] Are you an experienced CE player? Do you take the Flagship down with ease? Than help beta test CEs new randomized Flagship component and play through FTL Captain's Edition 1.062c (experimental).
Feel free to post your screenshots and experiences with the modified boss fight in the thread. CE can't thrive without your feedback!



I guess some hints of what you will be up against would be appropriate this time. I have no idea if this all will actually work though. Spoilers ahead, don't read it if you want to be surprised.

Code: Select all

<!--- CLASSIFIED DATA BELLOW --->


















-Generally, you should still be fine if you have what generally is considered minimal boss requirements: lvl 6 shields, lvl 6 engines, cloak, maybe defence drone or teleporter; with a boarding ship you might need more defence
-Currently hard to say how this all playes out for boarding ships, might make it harder for them
-Systems can vary in strength, although they should end up similar to the configurations of the different phases in vanilla
-The flagship will have additional weapons, controlled by a dedicated weapon system
-The Flagships defensive capability will increase with each phase
-Phase I: Beefed up offensive capabilities, was the most boring phase after all; Flagship will always have additional (low tier) weapons; Flagship will have one or two drones
-Phase II: Drones randomized, mostly unchanged as it was the strongest phase
-Phase III: Flagship will have backup weapons, defensive capabilities further improved.

EDIT: Most stuff didn't work out. Testing suspended.

[jaml96]

That MIIIIIGHT be broken. the artillery places were empty and the only offensive means were the power surges.