[MOD] Recalibrating Protocols

[BlackAlpha]

Recalibrating Protocols v1.11
http://www.mediafire.com/?k24elllxdakyo9d


I made this mod to enhance the game while sticking as close as possible to the original experience. The goal of this mod is to tweak the game mechanics to make the game more balanced, to fix bugs, and to make some less used gameplay features more useful.

I'm always up for suggestions on how this goal can be achieved further!


Things that have changed:

- Weapons
Made low-end weapons more useful.
Mid-tier weapons are mostly the same.
Made high-end weapons more useful, usually at the expense of reduced damage for balancing purposes.
Most weapons now have a tiny chance to start a fire.
Heavy lasers have a new role as slow, heavy hitting lasers, that can penetrate 1 shield but must rely on other weapons to overwhelm shields.
Made it so more weapons can be found in shops, including some low-end weapons which could potentially be useful.
Performed many small tweaks to make all weapons balanced.

- Missiles
Missiles do not pierce shields any longer.
Missiles now cost less power so that they can be used as support/utility weapons.
Each missile has a specific role, which could include: anti hull, anti system, anti personnel, anti shield, anti missile-defense.
Bombs remain as the go-to weapon when you need to bypass shields entirely.

- Drones
Made the Mark II attack and defense drones more useful to compensate for their crazy high power cost.
Utility drones now cost less power.

- Augmentations
Made some less used augmentations more useful by boosting their effects a little bit.
Made some augmentations that aren't that useful more cheap.
Augmentations that can stack will now say so in their description.

- Rebel Fleet
The fleet takes 2 extra turns to arrive compared to vanilla. This gives you a tiny bit more time in each sector.
The fleet takes a bit longer to arrive in nebula sectors. This gives you a potential reason to go to a nebula sector.
Events that allow you to delay the fleet will now actually have a noticable effect.
Any Rebel ship that escapes will relay your position to the fleet.
Some events have higher consequences for informing the fleet of your position (the text will say so when this is the case).

- End Boss
Made him a little bit less effective in stage 2 and 3 to compensate for the increased difficulty this mod brings.

- Descriptions
I noticed some descriptions gave you wrong information, so I fixed some of those here and there.

Does this sound good to you? Then go to the top for the download link! And don't forget to tell us what you think after trying it out!


Changelog

Version 1.11
- Hull buster weapons didn't do as much damage as advertised in the description. It's fixed now.
- Drastically reduced the amount of systems a Hermes missile can take out, reduced it to 1.
- Reduced the ion damage a little bit on the Hermes missile.
- Minor balancing tweaks.

Version 1.1
- Some events have higher consequences for informing the fleet of your position (the text will say so when this is the case).
- Changed some of the dialogue text for the previous change.
- Missiles are completely redone. Each missile now has a specific role and they don't penetrate shields any longer.
- Some small balance tweaks here and there.

Version 1.0
- Initial release.

[Moosicorn]

Ehh... Seems like some nice changed but idk about how balanced this would be sounds like it would take away some diffcutly

[BlackAlpha]

Unless I accidentally made something overpowered, it shouldn't be easier. The difficulty should be fairly similar to the vanilla game. Just try it out and tell me if you enjoy it.

[Tysonclyde]

How the hell did you unpack and repack the data.dat file. I used the FTLDAT.exe but IT WONT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Grognak]

Loving the change list! I'll try it out.

[BlackAlpha]

How the hell did you unpack and repack the data.dat file. I used the FTLDAT.exe but IT WONT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've seen you post that question in many different topics and I've seen people give you the answer quite a few times. If you continue to have difficulties with modding, please create a new topic for your issue and then we'll be able to help you out. I'll post in your topic a step by step instruction manual, that should solve your problem.

[Evbomb]

Also digging the changes, downloading now.

[BlackAlpha]

Alright guys, version 1.1 is out. Check the first post for the link. It brings many new changes. Some events will have bigger consequences for informing the fleet of your location. There's also some balancing tweaks. But the biggest change is that missiles have been completely reworked.

Missiles have been changed drastically into a new system. Missiles don't simply bypass shields anymore. Like in vanilla you have Bombs for that. Instead, missiles now can have a specific role: anti hull, anti system, anti personnel, anti shield, anti missile-defense. They are now a LOT more effective in said roles because most missiles specialize in a certain area. They are now easier to use as support weapons due to decreased power costs.

The effect of this is that shields play a bigger role because they can stop everything but Bombs. This allows the player to strategize around the fact that missiles need to pass through the shield. Just keep in mind, that some missiles are pretty effective at taking out shields, including yours! So anti missile drones are still very handy to have.

Now, the role of Heavy Lasers is further solidified. It's useful to have one to get through that final shield and take out that critical subsystem. Or use bombs for that!

I think it gives you more options now and makes for more diverse gameplay.

Have fun!

[BlackAlpha]

I just released a hotfix that everyone should download. See the first page for the link.

One of the missile launchers was a bit OP, which made the game very hard past the mid game. It basically DESTROYED half your shields with each hit, that's not what I intended for that missile launcher. It happened because I didn't fully understand the anti-system weapon mechanics, but now I do and it's fixed.

Also included are some small balancing tweaks.

[Twinge]

Some odd changes here. A 10% chance of fire is not a trivial amount; Ion weaponry should not have any chance of starting a fire.

A bit of an odd change on the beam weapons making them require less power and have higher cooldowns - Glaive+Igniter is ridiculously strong, and it's even stronger here.

Fire Bomb wasn't that bad before and you gave it a *huge* buff.