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

[Estel]

It really looks a lot like CE actually makes HARD easier once you know your way around the mod, because trade profits are static. Isn't it ironic.

Or make normal and easy even more easy, for the same static reward reason But yes, it helps a LOT on hard. Anyway, I must admit I had more luck than wits, this time. I totally forget that they want raw asteroid ore in nebulas (even though now I recall that, many months ago, much before AE, someone in-game told me that they require solid ore resources in those far-away nebulas), so I kept it hoping for reb sector. I was like WTF, when slug seller offered so much. Then, few beacons away, I got ore from pirating something, and I knew that I have to head right away to the next shop (which, luckily, I had mapped already).

Re quarantine sector - I really like that there are some (non-forced) events, where even medbay 3 doesn't offer 100% crew protection, if diseased mob rushes. Maybe med 3 + engi med nanobots does/could do in those few cases (nanobots instantly heal or wounded crew-member properly with correct medicaments syntetized on-spot by medbay 3, so he doesn't die and "after a short while stand up and join them in their (...)".

Without engi nanobots, you just learn what to avoid, like, ignore all stations asking to off-load someone somewhere, etc - and what distress is safe to respond, with medbay 3. I tyink that contributes to endi A feeling like proper medevac now (if you upgrade medbay to 3), as it can, basically, answer everything there, if I'm suspecting how engi nanobots are working there.

/Estel

[Estel]

Another supplement to bug report:

Bugs:

1. In one variant of the event where we meet civilian ship chased by pirate, the spawning ship is default rebel rigger. Severity: Minor

2. On-board sciene lab doesn't allow to conduct research, when we get "no one responds" event during out-of-fuel situations (other things,m like producing on board of socializing, shows up). (Severity: Minor)

3. Civilian with weapon system malfunctioning, miraculously get all of them working, if fight ensues after using Requisition License. Checked with guy that had burst laser and triple rocket, all of them worked flawlessly. (severity: Medium)

Suggestions:

1. Maybe I'm just unlucky with science lab, but most results of research is gaining some trade good. While not something bad per se, it would be great to have other, more diverse effects (gaining some resources from various natural and not so natural sources, rare chance to get special race crew member - like finding hibernating lanius somewhere etc). Running into hostile situations very rarely (like, awakening some auto ship, or this hibernating lanius actually sleeps on his ship buried in some asteroid field and attack us) would be nice, too.

The reason why I'm writing this, is that science-lab already occupies one augment slot, so very quickly, we just need to discard results of our research Getting trade goods out of it is superb, as far as it doesn't dominate positive results by margin of 90% or so, as it seems to be now.

Also, again, I'm not sure if it isn't like that already, but it would be great if we would get wastly different results, depending on where we are researching. So, empty and desolate ice-fields in engi space would have much higher chance of finding something hibernating there or other mysterious stuff, heavy populated/industrialized sectors would get higher chance of finding resources, and desolate sectors would more often (but not as much as it's now ) allow us to find trade goods unharvested by someone else before us (all those seeds, archaeological artifacts, etc). And so goes on.

2. In most events where we decide if to attack enemy or not (when given chance to decide), we have a glance on their ship - and weapons - before fight. But there are some events - rebels suited for cargo transport, smugglers in nebula, etc - where we see them only after engaging. That is OK, some surprise doesn't hurt. But, it would be great, if sensors lvl 3 (the ones that give us enemy weapon charge level, and full info if manned) could give us blue option ("Run a tight scan on the vessel, before deciding what to do"), that would show us enemy, allowing to attack him, or change mind. The changing mind thing would just close event window with enemy ship neutral, like surrender does.

Typo:

1. One of results from using lab, may be about discovering hovering creatures, that communicate on subspace. We get info about our FTL field being "destabilize" by what seems to be subspace screams. Should be "DestabilizeD".

Cheers,
/Estel

[Sleeper Service]

Without engi nanobots, you just learn what to avoid, like, ignore all stations asking to off-load someone somewhere, etc - and what distress is safe to respond, with medbay 3. I tyink that contributes to endi A feeling like proper medevac now (if you upgrade medbay to 3), as it can, basically, answer everything there, if I'm suspecting how engi nanobots are working there.

There are still a few more blue options that you can get there by engineering a Healing Burst as well. Just in case you ever want to go all out medivac.

The reason why I'm writing this, is that science-lab already occupies one augment slot, so very quickly, we just need to discard results of our research Getting trade goods out of it is superb, as far as it doesn't dominate positive results by margin of 90% or so, as it seems to be now.

Yeah something to consider. The thing is that this is one of these playground augments that could get expanded almost endlessly. FTL: Science; with an hundreds of unique research events in each sector type. There is some special stuff you might have missed but I might add some more. But theres just so much work I feel like putting into a single aug. If you want to write some outcomes for it be my guest. Speaking of playground augs that need a lot of design time while getting very little spotlight in game:

Combat Simulator, simulating Scenario Nr.137: "The Omicron-Tau Incident

In most events where we decide if to attack enemy or not (when given chance to decide), we have a glance on their ship - and weapons - before fight. But there are some events - rebels suited for cargo transport, smugglers in nebula, etc - where we see them only after engaging. That is OK, some surprise doesn't hurt. But, it would be great, if sensors lvl 3 (the ones that give us enemy weapon charge level, and full info if manned) could give us blue option ("Run a tight scan on the vessel, before deciding what to do"), that would show us enemy, allowing to attack him, or change mind. The changing mind thing would just close event window with enemy ship neutral, like surrender does.

There are a lot of instances where this is not possible due to the way events are structured, but its a nice idea. In the events you mentioned it should be possible.

[rannl]

For a long time I have wanted to make a "Randomized" Flagship mod. After rannl helped you create Endless Loot I realized this could be possible with his help! The basics of my idea were:
(...)
Yeah, technically this would be possible in the form of a small program that the player has to execute to generate a randomized flagship mod, pretty much exactly as you described it. I'll ask Rann what he thinks about that, maybe hes posting directly here anyway.

Thank you so much for considering this!!! I think it could be awesome. Also, I'm willing to help with that whenever I have time.

Hey guys, been a while since I posted. I'm in Israel, things are tense here right now.
To the matter at hand - this idea sounds great, I'm unsure about how this should be implemented.
The basic idea is that there is no way for a randomization of the Flagship to take place without adding some sort of external program. If there is some way to create a list of different flagship builds and let the game engine select a build from that list (as is done for all other ship encounters), then that is definitely the preferred solution.

If an external program is required, then adding a simple script which will call a program to create a small .ftl file with a random flagship build is a good solution if SMM can be run directly, without the GUI, and patch the random build in the game files using a command line executable with switches. If this can't be done then this process will be a lot more cumbersome.

The current tag modding program I built for sleepy can be used in order to generate a lot of flagship builds. I can build another small program which will select one of those builds and create a .ftl file holding it.

The downside is the fact that running FTL will take more time. However, this can also be used in order to randomize a lot more goodies for the game, such as ELs unused multiple weapon modifications (more then one prefix for the weapons). In my opinion this feature can have a lot of potential.

Let me know what you think.

[Estel]

Speaking of playground augs that need a lot of design time while getting very little spotlight in game:

Just one word: "whoa!". It looks really unique. For a second, I thought that this is part of some event, where we need to fight simulated opponent to get a reward for "destroying" it / evading per-defined number of shots, but I've realized, that it would be close to impossible to mod into game (well, enemy could shot things requiring missiles, and after "fight" we could get hull repaired, but death would be rather non-simulated, in case of failure ).

So, I guess that it is augment for usage in empty beacons, to train our pilot and engine specialist? Really nice idea. Pity, that it can't train shield staff, too, I suppose.

BTW - Ce Science (SC_) extension is really good idea, too

Let me know what you think.

I think that it is absolutely great idea, and I would use it even if it would "just" create randomize .ftl file, that I would have to patch in-game manually, before every run. Of course, making it more automatic would be great, too = if SMM doesn't support command-line, maybe it's author can be persuaded to add one?
---

In case anyone is interested, I've noticed that I forget to include smallest variants of both stations in CE-background-maker-set, so the file got silently updated:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8oqmo4uq7rs3qqh/CE-background-maker-set.xcf

While doing so, I've also noticed small mistake in my pixel-art of smallest station - nothing anyone right in their mind would notice but I've corrected it in rainbow.xcf, correcting some composition, had the chance happened:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/gyx41cbyb91oxbu/rainbow.xcf

Here is version ready to be loaded in-game (.png file inside, so Sleeper doesn't have to re-create .png just because I've tweaked something AGAIN )
http://www.mediafire.com/download/s7dvw ... placer.ftl

/Estel

[Russian Rockman]

Hey guys, been a while since I posted. I'm in Israel, things are tense here right now.

"Tense" is putting it mildly. My best wishes to you, your family, and your country!!!

I don't think Slipstream should have any problem implementing the randomized flagship files. I think that a program could easily randomly pick from a list of possible flagships and events and such. Ideally it would be awesome if we could combine different factors such as different layouts, events, hull images, weapons, augments, systems, etc... To achieve true randomization with many possibilities like EL. The only problem then would be balancing to make sure the difficulty of the flagship is the same. If we could make slightly. different versions for easy, normal, and hard that would be really awesome.

[rannl]

Hey guys, been a while since I posted. I'm in Israel, things are tense here right now.

"Tense" is putting it mildly. My best wishes to you, your family, and your country!!!

I don't think Slipstream should have any problem implementing the randomized flagship files. I think that a program could easily randomly pick from a list of possible flagships and events and such. Ideally it would be awesome if we could combine different factors such as different layouts, events, hull images, weapons, augments, systems, etc... To achieve true randomization with many possibilities like EL. The only problem then would be balancing to make sure the difficulty of the flagship is the same. If we could make slightly. different versions for easy, normal, and hard that would be really awesome.

Thanks for your wishes RR. Kind of you to say so. Hope to see peace for all here in my lifetime.

Weapons, augs, systems and weapons variants can be built using the tag modding tool.
Layouts (being txt files), events (being vastly more detailed) and images would have to be built by hand, but incorporating sets of all those as different flagship build groups wouldn't be a problem.
All that would be left is a tool which would select one group and store it in a .ftl file, patch said file using SMM, and finally run the game.
Note that this should not be done every time the game is run, only when starting a new run (keeping a constant flagship build for every single run).
In other words: use the FTL random flagship tool every time you start a new run and want to meet a different end game flagship scenario.

Sleepy, you give the word and I'll start putting things together.

[Sleeper Service]

I'd probably opt for a preset pool of weapons the flagship could use, some unique premade weapons beyond what the tool can generate. There is is also the question if it would be possible to telegraph to the player how the flagship will be equipped, by actually letting him look at the secret data upon game start. I think all this can be done, I'll send you a mail and we can discuss the details.

So, I guess that it is augment for usage in empty beacons, to train our pilot and engine specialist? Really nice idea. Pity, that it can't train shield staff, too, I suppose.

Yeah I had it deal "simulated" ion damage, but restoring a shield after ion hits does not give shield XP. You'll be able to train weapons, close combat and repairs in separate sims though.

I also updated the naming suggestion thread, in case anyone wants to contribute names for the upcoming auto controlled sector.

[kartoFlane]

if SMM doesn't support command-line, maybe it's author can be persuaded to add one?

SMM already supports command line input though I'm not too familiar with it...

Anyway, in order to run SMM in CL mode, open up the command line in the manager's directory, and execute the following command:

Code: Select all

modman -h

...to list available commands, etc. If it doesn't work, then try the following:

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java -jar modman.jar -h

Now that I think about it, it could be possible to create a CE installer script that would install mods in the correct order... Would save some people some trouble, I suppose.

Edit
Though now that I think about it it'd be rather useless given the modular nature of CE and many of its optional features...

[rannl]

if SMM doesn't support command-line, maybe it's author can be persuaded to add one?

SMM already supports command line input though I'm not too familiar with it...

Anyway, in order to run SMM in CL mode, open up the command line in the manager's directory, and execute the following command:

Code: Select all

modman -h

...to list available commands, etc. If it doesn't work, then try the following:

Code: Select all

java -jar modman.jar -h

...

Thanks for the heads up KF.
Though SMM can be run from the CMD, it seems like the patch option reverts to the vanilla data, then patches in the specified mods. This is a problem since, considering the modular nature of CE, all possible combinations of CE mods should be supported and repatched, and only then can the modded flagship patch be applied. This is both extremely cumbersome to handle and will also take a relatively long time (considering that all the user wants is just to generate a random flagship).

If SMM can support patching a mod without reverting to vanilla then this plan is solid, otherwise it seems like it'll be quite a hassle to use....