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

[Sleeper Service]

(By the way there's another CE achievement idea. "Find the Hidden Asteroid Station" Rock and a Hard Place. )

EDIT: Just remembered. Sleeper, about the 5 shields thing, are you sure that wasn't just because the player shield limit was set to 8 bars? I know ships like the Scarab which make cloaking power max 0 makes all enemy ships start with an immediately broken cloaking system. And I think if you lower the player limit it is the same for all enemy ships. What I'm saying is maybe giving the player access to 5 shields would make the Boss able to use 5 shields. It's entirely possible that it's hard coded somehow though. Also, why is it only possible to give enemies 3 augments an what happens if you give them more? Is that a hard codes limit for all ships?

I have to make some icons for these achievements some day.

The thing is that normal enemies totally can have 5 shield bubbles, independent from how mucht the blueprint allows. Giving enemies more that three augments has not been tested yet. If that works it would be something to consider.

By the way... I'm sure this is not on your list of things to do at all Sleeper, but the stations are so AWESOME and I would be very very happy to see more than 1 design for each faction station. Would it be possible to make another station design for each faction or at least a couple more human variants since they are the most common? Perhaps a more militarized variant. Or a prison one with POW's you can free.

Indeed, not on any list so far. But can be considered if the typ C ships turn out to have some great new designs. And if I find a lot of spare time.

[Russian Rockman]

Oh no! What if they CAN have more than 3 augments what have I done!

Indeed, I think the type C ships might give you more to work with. I just love the stations. I mean they're the iconic loading bar of CE. Also, has anyone noticed in the latest advanced edition update that the images have a pirate colored Red-Tail for the player...

[aaaaaa50]

You could test the augments thing for enemies by making rock plating be %25 and putting four on a ship. If it works then it should be invincible as long as the crew isn't killed.

[Russian Rockman]

You could also do it on the Boss which already has 2 other augments.

Anyway, found a bug. On Infinite Space I jumped into a new sector and it didn't give me any options for the entry beacon. instead it went straight to the minelayer drone text. Not sure why.

Also, fount the sun event that says prolonged "anti-matter" bombardment has caused the core of the planet to become unstable. Can anti-matter cannons be a weapon?

[Cloudmoon]

I also have been having the minelayer drone text whenever I visit any deep space sector. Even if I don't have a drone bay. Even if I don't have any drone parts.

[Russian Rockman]

Here's the problem. In events.xml.append.

Code: Select all

<event name="START_BEACON_DEEP_SPACE">
   <text load="START_BEACON_DEEP_SPACE_TEXT"/>
      <modifyPursuit amount="-5"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="weapons" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="shields" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="medbay" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="oxygen" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="doors" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="engines" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="pilot" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="cloaking" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="drones" amount="100"/>
      <status type="clear" target="player" system="teleporter" amount="100"/>
   <choice hidden="true">
      <text>Continue...</text>
      <event load="CE_DRONE_MINELAYER_FLEET_DELAY"/>
   </choice>
</event>

I think it should say <event name="START_BEACON_DEEP_SPACE_LIST"/> instead of <event load="CE_DRONE_MINELAYER_FLEET_DELAY"/>.

Anyone should be able to change this themselves until Sleeper can fix it.


On another note, one thing I've noticed when playing CEi and Infinite Space is that weapons which cost ammo are much more powerful because, since you have unlimited scrap technically, you can afford to buy all the ammo you need. Also, if you don't use missiles you will eventually end up with a TON, so then when you do get a missile weapon you have nearly unlimited ammo. If you could figure out a way to balance this that would be great. You could make some of the missiles and bombs cost more than 1 ammunition maybe?

[Estel]

I'm in the middle of Infinite run - so far, so good. Noticed this minelayer bug few days ago, but wanted to post complete bug-hunting results from that session - well, it turns out to be longer than expected, so I'll better post it ASAP though (at the end of this post), or someone is going to further rob me from my bug hunting glory (joking, joking...).

Coming back to the run, though - good job at bumping the difficulty, Sleeper! I'm doing it with pretty strong ship (Federation Cruiser B), and so far, I'm "just" managing to tie ends together. Sure, I haven't got any incredible weapons (apart from starting dual laser and pathetic leto missile, I got Big Bomb after some time - which replaced Leto - and 4-sec reloading Ion in sector 4, that is it about usable weapons), but I've managed to put pretty nice overall loadout (Heavy Drone II - saved for drone system in the middle of playthrough - Hull Repair Drone, and later, a Focus Beam Drone. apart from that, bought long-range scanner - later replaced by engineered sector scanner - and engineered drone manufacturer).

Just FYI, I did it with my self-imposed playstyle - up to sector 3 normally, then Deep Space for three sectors, and going straight to 6. So far, I'm in 5 sector, and enemies are giving me quite hard time, sometimes. Rewards seems lower, too - or is it just a placebo after playing truce-breaking slugs, now switched to blow-them-only ship? Summing it up, so far, so good Expotential system upgrades are working great - accessible at first, then going more and more punishing (in a good way). I thought about making the base (lowest) prices higher a little - by 20% or so, of course expotentially affecting further upgrade costs - but I'm not sure if it's necessary.

Now, the "fun" part:

Tested version: FTL Captains Edition 1.104b.ftl + CE Infinite Addon 1.004.ftl

Bugs:
CE "Base":

1. As someone mentioned earlier, defense drones keep shotting at explosion animations, which means shotting at UI prompts, too. Original reporter haven't seen anything bad about it, but, after testing it with Heavy Defense Drone playthrough, I strongly disagree. It makes Heavy Drones (the ones that shoot lasers, too) almost completely unusable in any firefight that involve many laser shots (burst lasers or auto lasers) - not due to amount of blasters blazing, but due to explosion UI prompts themselves. Sadly, it's not hard as in "fair hard" - it feels "hard" as in "because it's broken". One can time enabling drone power perfectly, but it still won't shot down that Heavy Ion/Artillery Laser/Titan Swarm/Ares Rocket/whatever important, because it will shot at UI prompts from shots forgotten long ago.

Now, this is a hard one, as (I think) everyone loves UI prompts. I've thought about it for a long time... As I presume, it's not possible to make UI prompts appear *during* laser shot flight, right? It could be easily explained as our computer already calculating where shot will impact - laser shots are so fast, that it wouldn't allow to unfair empty room of crew like with bombs (and laser shots are hitting shield most of the time, anyway), but if it's not possible, then...

Then I think that removing UI prompts from fast shotting lasers (and those only) is only one way to go. Sure, I love those UI prompts, but choosing between seeing "Warning: suppressive fire"/"Warning: multiple impacts" or having Heavy Drones working as they should, I think the latter is more important. Of course, in my proposition of solution UI prompts for rockets stays (although, I would consider removing them for burst-firing rockets), and I think it would be a problem for extremely slow firing lasers (Artilleries, etc). Obviously, it's 0 problem with beams or bombs. I would just suggest making Ui prompts for those a little shorter (it's still frustrating when your drone shots at UI prompt of artillery laser 2 seconds after it perished on shield - one whole second of UI prompt would be enough, I think).

So, summing it up, i think that best recipe for fixing it is:
*remove UI prompts from burst (including dual) and auto lasers, where applicable
*shorten UI prompts for other lasers where it exist
*remove Ui prompts from burst rockets

This way, I think, we retain Ui prompts where it is really cool and important (effectors, bombs, most rockets, beams, very dangerous lasers), while still having Heavy Drones useful during intense combats.
(Severity: Major)

2. Meet another one of this "blow-up-in-seven-seconds" auto drones. Took a picture of this fella:
http://s7.postimg.org/l8qvylgu1/break_something_oh_shit.jpg

FYI, it's the one that states "you hurt me, stop before you break someth... Oh shit!". It started charging FTL *after* my last barrage of dual lasers - as you see, they're barely loaded 2/3 now, and it announced "jump imminent" a while ago already (I shot rocket at it in panic, which hit, but wasn't enough, as seen on picture). I estimated it - again - as 7-8 seconds from event text to actually blowing up.
(Severity: Minor)

3. I remember, that this quest have blue option for fire bomb:
http://s29.postimg.org/cp42totet/big_bomb.jpg

As you notice, I had Big Bomb there - I think it should blue'd, too. After all, there is this other quest (Giant Alien Spiders), where we use it and nearly blow up a whole station - so such big payload should be enough to blow up those fuel tanks as good, I think. (Severity: Minor)

CE Infinite:

1. Rebel fleet started to chase me (on-screen) after exactly 3 jumps in sector 3 - intended? In Deep Space, it seems to be correctly delayed. I'm reporting it just because you've answered, last time, that delay in normal sector as big as in Deep Space is intended.

2. If we encounter rebel fleet in exit beacon and decide to jump closer to Federation coreworlds, it doesn't allow us to choose next sector where we jump (just put it into one randomly). If it's modding limitation, it could use some hinting in event text - like, that we jump where the long-range relay was set already by someone before us, due to rebel fleet on our tail. Currently, it speaks about feeding fuel and doing "necessary preparation" anyway, which doesn't imply so much haste, that we can't choose where we're jumping

3. There was no shop in this Deep Space sector:
http://s29.postimg.org/og9kliuhx/no_shop.jpg

Intended?

Suggestions:
CE "base":

1. Reward for first part of Fed quest in Fed sectors is still a little sad. For destroying lead cruiser in rebel detachment, I got something like 30 scrap - and that while reading about "taking bones of many ships here", not only destroyed cruiser. Funny enough, 2 beacons later I destroyed other (weaker) cruiser, which gave me 2x ~45 scrap+things (spending more time at beacon to collect it). I just seems too nerfed reward for such climatic quest.

Cheers,
/Estel

[Russian Rockman]

I have been playing an Infinite run with the classic Kestral and I have a crew of 8 humans. I have not gotten any other alien creatures from any event. Was this changed for Infinite or am I just getting extremely unlucky?

Also, since I've been playing CEi I've been getting a whole ton of events I've never seen before. It's Awesome!

And good job with the balance, it does seem much more challenging. I ran across a Zoltan ship with 4 shields in sector 3 I think. I can see how Advanced Battle Systems would work here now, but its not really necesary.

[Estel]

And good job with the balance, it does seem much more challenging. I ran across a Zoltan ship with 4 shields in sector 3 I think.

Same here, but it was Zoltan station. Had a pleasure of blowing them up As for all humans, hm, I got other races during my run with latest version, so I bet on RNG. No surprise you're like WTF, never seen anything like that before

/Estel

[Russian Rockman]

I actually kind of like having an all human crew on the Kestral. I might just keep it like that all the way until the end. I've never done that before. I was thinking WTF though.

Anyway, I tested giving the Boss more than 3 augments in base CE and it didn't work. I just added 4 Rock_Armor to its current set of Augments and it didn't seem to resist any hull damage. It may be a hardcoded thing for the Boss, but it does not seem like giving ships more than 3 augments will work after all...