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

[Zerazar]

I think EL just basically appends all these prefixed weapons into the game (and if you notice sometimes when playing EL you'll just find the base weapon without prefix)

Yikes, I actually thought it was done by some sort of scripty thingy. I wanted to tune the rarity on most of the weapons so I get more of the weapon types I find fun. Guess I'll see if I can figure out some clever way to do it or just drop it.
Thanks for the input

[meklozz]

I think EL just basically appends all these prefixed weapons into the game (and if you notice sometimes when playing EL you'll just find the base weapon without prefix)

Yikes, I actually thought it was done by some sort of scripty thingy. I wanted to tune the rarity on most of the weapons so I get more of the weapon types I find fun. Guess I'll see if I can figure out some clever way to do it or just drop it.
Thanks for the input

Unlike the randtrel/random flagship stuff, I don't think the generator is available.

I could see two or three ways to go about something like this:

- Make another mod which will use the slipstream advanced tags - this would be fairly limited, but you could, for example, find all missile weapons with rarity 4 and set them to 3, or make all the weapons that can start fires rarity 1, or something like that. Slipstream has a file called readme_modders.txt in its folder, though it would look something like this:

mod.ftl\data\blueprints.xml.append (and a few other files like dlcBlueprintsOverwrite.xml.append or dlcBlueprints.xml.append):

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<mod:findComposite>
   <mod:par op="AND">
      <mod:par op="OR">
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>1</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>2</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>3</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>4</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>5</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>6</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>7</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>8</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>9</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="fireChance">
            <mod:selector>10</mod:selector>
         </mod>
      </mod:par>
      <mod:par op="OR">
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="rarity">
            <mod:selector>1</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="rarity">
            <mod:selector>2</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="rarity">
            <mod:selector>3</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="rarity">
            <mod:selector>4</mod:selector>
         </mod>
         <mod:findWithChildLike child-type="rarity">
            <mod:selector>5</mod:selector>
         </mod>
      </mod:par>
   </mod:par>
   <mod-overwrite:rarity>1</mod-overwrite>
</mod:findComposite>


I'm actually a little surprised this works, with multiple mod:par levels, but it does. I thought some more annoying stuff would be necessary to exclude rarity 0'es and such.

- Go through the EL files with an xml editor or a search/replace thing. You could probably find weapons based on partial names more easily (with the above method, you'd need the names. which should be manageable, but bothersome), but it could be a problem to stay up to date on EL, and you'd have to find and figure out the tools, possibly get into more details of xml.

[Sleeper Service]

In early version of EL it used to modify rarity of all gear, but that didn't really work out that well. I still don't feel like I really understand how rarity works, but when bad prefixes decreased rarity and good prefixes increased it that lead to a situation where stores had significantly more bad prefix weapons over all. Also from what I can tell, assets of the same rarity compete with another for slots that get rolled that rarity. So in the earlier builds if felt like low tier weapons with good prefix made higher tier weapons less likely to appear as well. I felt like I was stumbling in the dark there, so I left rarity largely untouched in later builds.

@: mr_easy_money: If you want to take a closer look at what each prefix does exactly and which conditions have to be met for it to apply you can have a look at the EL prefix file we use to generate the mod:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/722 ... efixes.xml
I'm open for suggestions regarding improving the descriptions. But what one can do there is somewhat limited by the fact that there is so little space on the item cards.

[mr_easy_money]

I'm open for suggestions regarding improving the descriptions. But what one can do there is somewhat limited by the fact that there is so little space on the item cards.

my main source of inspiration for changing the descriptions is how weapons with prefixes in Augmented Weapons for Insurrection go. they don't tell you exactly what stats are improved, but rather they say in a general sense how the weapon is changed, by editing the base weapon description. here is an example:

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 (Base weapon)
<weaponBlueprint name="BEAM_LANCE">
   <type>BEAM</type>
   <flavorType>Standard Beam</flavorType>
   <title>Lance Beam</title>
   <short>Lance Beam</short>
   <tip>lore_BEAM_LANCE</tip>
   <desc>An upgraded standard-issue beam weapon. Good range and average strike speed.</desc>
   <tooltip></tooltip>
   <damage>1</damage>
   <sp>0</sp>
   <fireChance>0</fireChance>
   <breachChance>0</breachChance>
   <cooldown>12</cooldown>
   <power>2</power>
   <cost>50</cost>
   <bp>7</bp>
   <rarity>3</rarity>
   <length>100</length>
   <image>beam_contact</image>
   <launchSounds>
      <sound>beam1</sound>
   </launchSounds>
   <weaponArt>beam_lance</weaponArt>
</weaponBlueprint>

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 (Reactive version)
<weaponBlueprint name="BEAM_LANCE_REACT">
   <type>BEAM</type>
   <flavorType>Standard Beam w/ REACTIVE Element</flavorType>
   <title>Reactive Lance Beam</title>
   <short>Lance Beam+</short>
   <tip>lore_BEAM_LANCE_REACT</tip>
   <desc>A standard-issue beam weapon with an excellent charge time. Short range and fast strike speed.</desc>
   <tooltip></tooltip>
   <damage>1</damage>
   <sp>0</sp>
   <fireChance>0</fireChance>
   <breachChance>0</breachChance>
   <cooldown>11</cooldown>
   <speed>13</speed>
   <power>2</power>
   <cost>50</cost>
   <bp>7</bp>
   <rarity>0</rarity>
   <length>60</length>
   <image>beam_contact</image>
   <launchSounds>
      <sound>beam1</sound>
   </launchSounds>
   <weaponArt>beam_lance_white</weaponArt>
</weaponBlueprint>

See how the description tells you in general what's been changed? That's what I'm getting at here. That way they feel more like they've been changed in some way, giving them some more character. Here is another example of the same weapon with the Salvaged prefix:

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(Salvaged prefix)
<weaponBlueprint name="BEAM_LANCE_RUST">
   <type>BEAM</type>
   <flavorType>Salvaged Standard Beam</flavorType>
   <title>Salvaged Lance Beam</title>
   <short>Lance Beam-</short>
   <tip>lore_BEAM_LANCE_RUST</tip>
   <desc>A beam weapon originating from the earliest days of space warfare, possibly the very first directed-energy weapon.</desc>
   <tooltip></tooltip>
   <damage>1</damage>
   <sp>0</sp>
   <fireChance>0</fireChance>
   <breachChance>0</breachChance>
   <speed>6</speed>
   <cooldown>14</cooldown>
   <power>2</power>
   <cost>40</cost>
   <bp>7</bp>
   <rarity>0</rarity>
   <length>100</length>
   <image>beam_contact</image>
   <launchSounds>
      <sound>beam1</sound>
   </launchSounds>
   <weaponArt>beam_lance_rust</weaponArt>
</weaponBlueprint>

There are a lot of prefixed weapons in Endless Loot though so this would take a considerable amount of time.

[slowriderxcorps]

'Lot' really isn't an accurate term for the sheer amount of weapon variants within Endless Loot. We're talking around tens of thousands, and that's probably underestimating it still. The reason that there were custom descriptions for the variants in Ins. is because there was much less of them to where coming up with the descriptions was actually possible without causing Modder Burnout. Even so, many of those descriptions could definitely be rewritten since a lot of them were definitely rushed due to fatigue.

[mr_easy_money]

Allright, so I'm at the point where I'm happy uploading my modified CE (mainly weapon/drone/augmentation balances with a modded Vanilla Ship Loadouts version) to be enjoyed and critiqued. Do I just use File Uploader and provide a link?

I think you probably want a response from sleeper, but here goes. It's up to you if you want to make a separate topic, but I encourage it: so that it won't get buried and you'll probably get direct replies in your topic as feedback, rather than Sleeper getting every reply. Remixing CE and publishing it is permitted under its copyright license as long as you give it sufficient credit. One of the things under the license you can't do with the content is monetize it, but there are other things too.

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another thing I was thinking of (my initial idea) was to just put a generic description of what happened to the weapon to make it like the prefix in place of the prefix description appened (e.g. Safe: crew damage -1). The problem with this is that it would make the description quite long, but maybe some brief thing could be worked out. here are a couple of generic descriptions I came up with:

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(Unreliable charge II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_UNRELIABLE">
   <type>BURST</type>
   <title>Unrel. Laser Charger</title>
   <short>unr Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. Its targeting sensors are worn out, increasing target area by 522%.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Unreliable: targeting radius +45</tooltip>

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(Wild charge II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_WILD">
   <type>BURST</type>
   <title>Wild Laser Charger</title>
   <short>Wi Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. It was tampered with to increase damage output of each projectile, breaking the targeting sensors, resulting in a 900% target area increase.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Wild: damage +1; targeting radius +70</tooltip>

Piercing is pretty simple:

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(Piercing charge II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_PIERCING">
   <type>LASER</type>
   <title>Piercing Laser Charger</title>
   <short>P Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This rare laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. Each shot can pierce one shield bubble.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Piercing (Rare): shield piercing +1</tooltip>

To be honest, I don't really like how I phrased this one:

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(Tactical charge II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_TACTICAL"><!-- K, system damage up by 1, but damage down by 1 -->
   <type>LASER</type>
   <title>Tactical Laser Charger</title>
   <short>Ta Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. In order for system damage to be increased, the hull damage output had to nullified.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Tactical: damage -1; system damage +2</tooltip>

This one is pretty generic, but is probably too long of an addition:

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(Faulty charge II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_FAULTY"><!-- K, power up by 1 -->
   <type>LASER</type>
   <title>Faulty Laser Charger</title>
   <short>f Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. In an attempt at improving power efficiency, its power couplers wore out, increasing power consumption.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Faulty: power cost +1</tooltip>

There's something off about outdated and obsolete for certain weapons, in that there is no difference, like here:

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(Outdated Laser Charger II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_OUTDATED">
   <type>LASER</type>
   <title>Outdated Laser Charger</title>
   <short>ou Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. This outdated model recharges slower than the modern version.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Outdated: cooldown x1.15</tooltip>
      <damage>1</damage>
   <shots>1</shots>
   <sp>0</sp>
   <fireChance>1</fireChance>
   
   <cooldown>6</cooldown>

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(Obsolete Laser Charger II)
<weaponBlueprint name="LASER_CHARGEGUN_2_OBSOLETE"><!-- K, cooldown up by 1 second, same as outdated -->
   <type>LASER</type>
   <title>Obsolete Laser Charger</title>
   <short>ob Charge II</short>
   <tip>tip_charge</tip>
   <desc>This laser weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles. This obsolete model recharges slower than the modern version.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires more shots the more it charges, up to a max of 4. Obsolete: cooldown x1.25</tooltip>
   <damage>1</damage>
   <shots>1</shots>
   <sp>0</sp>
   <fireChance>1</fireChance>
   
   <cooldown>6</cooldown>

Now, I'm not sure why the cooldowns are rounded to the nearest whole number as they don't need to be. For the descriptions, the difference in the description should be more than just adding outdated and obsolete. Here, since the cooldowns are the same I didn't really say anything, but you could say like, outdated charges somewhat slower and obsolete charges slower or something like that.

p.s. and about long descriptions. the description should be short enough so it isn't too much to read and it doesn't overfill the box (just text). I say just the text overfilling the box as everything combined (weapon stats) already overfills the store description for some prefixed weapons as some things like stun duration are cut off by the tip box.

[Sleeper Service]

p.s. and about long descriptions. the description should be short enough so it isn't too much to read and it doesn't overfill the box (just text). I say just the text overfilling the box as everything combined (weapon stats) already overfills the store description for some prefixed weapons as some things like stun duration are cut off by the tip box.

Yeah, these descriptions are cool, but most of them will break the ui. Even my shortened ones still do in some cases I think. If you'd seriously want to tackle this you'd probably have to identify the weapons with the longest base descriptions, then check how many characters can still be fitted after it and use that as a threshold for all your descriptions. I guess you could also shorten all weapon base descriptions to begin with to get a lower threshold, but that would be even more work.

I think you probably want a response from sleeper, but here goes. It's up to you if you want to make a separate topic, but I encourage it: so that it won't get buried and you'll probably get direct replies in your topic as feedback, rather than Sleeper getting every reply. Remixing CE and publishing it is permitted under its copyright license as long as you give it sufficient credit. One of the things under the license you can't do with the content is monetize it, but there are other things too.

Yeah that pretty much sums it up, its your "distro" so you should distribute and manage it, separately from CE.

[mr_easy_money]

Yeah, these descriptions are cool, but most of them will break the ui. Even my shortened ones still do in some cases I think.

First of all thanks. I think if I find out parts of a weapon (i've already mentioned targeting sensors) it will help create a better description.

For the Charge Laser II at least, the descriptions of the Wild version and the Suppression version were the only ones brimming out of the ui box (which I have fixed). This is probably due to the fact that, for example unlike artillery lasers, the charge laser doesn't start out with any special fire chance, which makes them have only a few stats, giving lots of space for text. I think for some like the artillery laser, overflowing the ui box is inevitable.
I know I was talking about generic descriptions, but maybe it should only be generic for certain weapon types (for example, charge lasers, artillery lasers, cluster bombs, each have their own set of end descriptors), which will be more work --- but I'm sick of being told it's going to be so much work because I know that there are lots of ideas in my head I haven't written down yet, and I just want to do them. maybe I'll never finish, but at least I made some attempt, at least I will have improved the descriptions a little bit, and if even the slightest bit is noticeable, then it will have been worth it.

and now I can't think straight, so I don't know what else to say, ...I have to get some sleep...

[mr_easy_money]

How come for certain weapons in Endless Loot there is no difference between the outdated and obselete prefixes and also no difference between the upgraded and advanced prefixes? (for example the Asteria Missiles) Shoudn't there be a difference because the two prefixes have different cooldown rates?

I noticed that this happens when the cooldown is an integer around 5 or so, for example, the Asteria Missiles has base cooldown of 5, and upgraded and advanced both go down to 4. In contrast, when the cooldown is a float around 5 or so, for example, the Light Auto Laser has base cooldown of 4.5, upgraded goes down to 3.8 whereas advanced goes down to 3.4.

if this is intentional, then I think that there should be a difference otherwise there is no reason to buy the advanced version over the upgraded version (would just cost more and be harder to find)

EDIT: This also ends up making the upgraded Hull Repair Burst I have the same cooldown as the base Hull Repair Burst I, which can't be intentional

[Sleeper Service]

I find it kinda weird to ask people to discuss their own mod in other peoples thread. I'd prefer this thread to remains on topic, since I'm not really interested in having to read through feedback for your distro in order to find the stuff that actually concerns me. Have people discuss your mod elsewhere please.