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

[The Captain]

Hey, I actually got to the Crystal Homeworld Sector! I think an encounter there might not have given me the reward. I rescued a civilian ship from a pirate. I didn't read the postfight dialog box, but I thought I was supposed to get a weapon? I checked my inventory, as I already had four, but there was nothing. (But I could be wrong.)

In chatting with my Crystal dudes, early in the game I got a Crystal Burst Mk II, which I hadn't run across before. Three power! I thought about selling it, but never did, though it took me a while to get it going. Also got a Heavy Crystal Mk I from one of them, and I had both weapons at the end, along with two Hull Smasher Lasers Mk II.

Extremely successful run, though my two-star Zoltan weapons officer got killed by artillery in round one. I maxed reactor, shields, weapons, cloak, teleporter, medbay, piloting and doors; had L7 engines, L2 O2 & sensors. I had the advanced targeting computer and shield charge booster. I was given a mapping computer in sector 7, used it to find the sector 8 store, where I sold it. Also had a burst scatter defense drone for the first time - very fast! - and a heavy antiship drone mk II. Also first time in round 3 I had my doors disabled, so had to fight a few fires in drone control and doors, so not serious.

Finished with 28 HP.

[Sleeper Service]

Anti cloak augment is considered. Not sure if it should be the Subspace Scanner, cause this one is already pretty useful. But its a possibility.

No sure what I'll do with the Clone-Lab in AE. Might just become obsolete.

[Estel]

Just as a thumb-up - I really admire rockman for designing such clever idea to actually use cargo room for cargo goods. Apart from (probably) tedious writing process, I'm all for making it work that way - well, for me, using cargo for cargo goods is *more* intuitive, and using dummy weapons as trade good is no less intuitive than dummy augments.

On a different note, I think that AP drone in phase 3 is actually good thing o keep - despite lack of oxygen, wihout AP drone it's pretty easy to kick flagship's butt with boarding rocks, Mantises and teleport 2+, or AIs. AP drone gives and element of uncertainity, complicating calculations of "when I need to pull them before they suffocate" and "how many system bars they can destroy before I pull them off". Sure, one can sill place one boarder in designed demolitions position, and one just room ahead, to keep AP drone busy, bringing it back to pure calculation work - but it's better than completely defenseless (against boarders) flagship, that just don't have oxygen.

/Estel

[MightyKebab]

I've come to the conclusion that the Flagship battle should be nerfed down atelast a bit.


I mean, how many times do i have to get to the last sector and be interrupted by the flagship's constant cloaking ability, and then have an entire fleet's armanents target my ship? It adds to the challenge, but it's overly challenging. This may prevent the boarding strategy a little but that means the fight just gets linear and impossible if you lack the ability to use the right strategy :/ I'd still like the fleet artillery to be in as it would make sense, but I wouldn't want it to be targeting me right off the bat. I instead, suggest that after the flagship took a certain amount of hull damage(5-10) You would get a surrender-like event indicating that Admiral Tully ordered his squadron back in because they took too many casualties, and that the fleet artillery will be engaging the player. By the time flagship takes 5-10 hull damage chances are it's shields would most likely be almost completely destroyed as players usually go for it first. This means the fight would be easier with the default fleet artillery timing. To balance this, you'd need to create a faster-charging fleet artillery alternate(i.e Capital Fleet Artillery) so that you can give the player more emphasis on finishing off the already weakened flagship.

[slowriderxcorps]

I've come to the conclusion that the Flagship battle should be nerfed down atelast a bit.


I mean, how many times do i have to get to the last sector and be interrupted by the flagship's constant cloaking ability, and then have an entire fleet's armanents target my ship? It adds to the challenge, but it's overly challenging. This may prevent the boarding strategy a little but that means the fight just gets linear and impossible if you lack the ability to use the right strategy :/ I'd still like the fleet artillery to be in as it would make sense, but I wouldn't want it to be targeting me right off the bat. I instead, suggest that after the flagship took a certain amount of hull damage(5-10) You would get a surrender-like event indicating that Admiral Tully ordered his squadron back in because they took too many casualties, and that the fleet artillery will be engaging the player. By the time flagship takes 5-10 hull damage chances are it's shields would most likely be almost completely destroyed as players usually go for it first. This means the fight would be easier with the default fleet artillery timing. To balance this, you'd need to create a faster-charging fleet artillery alternate(i.e Capital Fleet Artillery) so that you can give the player more emphasis on finishing off the already weakened flagship.

As far as I'm aware, it's impossible to program the flagship to trigger any sort of event mid-battle outside of the crew-cull event.

[Russian Rockman]

@Estel Thank you so much for the compliment and support! When I finish the current project I am working on so might even change the trade system myself to really see how it works.

@MightyKebab I think Sleeper actually made the Artillery fire slower a while ago. At least the last few times I've played the game I have easily been able to kill the first stage of the boss long before I even saw the artillery target my ship at all. I was even playing as the Stealth A the other day and the only viable Shield negating weapons I was able to collect were 2 fire bombs and then I got 2 Rockmen in Sector 7. I was able to fire bomb the flagships shields and cloaking and then board with my Rockmen and destroy both of those systems before the artillery even targeted my ship. So if I was able to do that with such a strange tactic I really don't think he artillery needs to be nerfed at all. Also in case you didn't know, as soon as you hear the BEEP BEEP WARNING of the artillery you can either cloak or put all your power into engines to "dodge" it. So really it should not be a problem at all.

[Mr. Mister]

Hey, I realised that the BA showcase image doesn't have the new crystal weapons. Is it to avoid spoilers, or you just forgot?

Also, from Bio's video, a blue mantis interceptor seems to have a weapon mount attached to the wrong debry part. It could be slowy's fault though.

[The Captain]

IMO once the boss jumps, the artillery has no spotter, so you should no longer be targeted. Also, does it have to be one shot, one kill on Zoltans?

[Mr. Mister]

Once UI promts appear, those PDS shots will be fired, because in fact they've already been fired regardless of what the UI says: what you're seeing is basically the pre-detonation animation of a telebomb.

EDIT: Also on Bio's video, a Rebel Defender at 53:20 has its artillery weapon (the triple heavy alser) mounted on the the right wing, with a normal weapon mount on the center. They're should probably be swapped along with the system rooms.

[Russian Rockman]

IMO once the boss jumps, the artillery has no spotter, so you should no longer be targeted. Also, does it have to be one shot, one kill on Zoltans?

Now that is kind of a good point. I'm not sure the artillery should do crew damage. It seems more to me like it should have a high fire and breach chance instead. That's what the sMPK is for though.