Subset Games Forum

This mod has been merged into FTL Captains Edition. It is no longer supported as a stand alone version.

Download Version 0.95 (mixed with vanilla)
or
Download Version 0.95b (completely replaces all vanilla enemy layouts)
Install with Grognack's Mod Manager


New Enemy Classes currently adds about ten new enemy classes to the game. The new enemies use distinct tactics against you and are designed to add new challenges, opportunity and thrills to your FTL experience.
They come in the form of 33 new enemy room-layouts, evenly spread over all game factions (except crystals),
designed to fit seemingly into vanilla. Hopefully well balanced and lore-friendly.

Recommended to be used together with Diversity Mod, Drones Plus and Balanced Arsenal.

The entire mod has been created with kartoFlanes Superluminal Ship-Editor and his patient support. The editor is a great and comfortable tool that makes ship creation quite easy (creating the ships in the editor was great fun and did actually take much less time than implementing and testing them). Thanks a lot kartoFlane!

Feel free to use any of this mods assets in your own mods.

So, did I install this correctly?
New enemy classes should appear about in at least about 60% of hostile encounters, depending on enemy faction. If you get through sector one without encountering a single new ship then something went wrong.

Great looking new enemies?
So far this just ads enemy with different room layout/system configurations. They use the same hulls as vanilla enemies. This is not a graphical mod, more of a total enemy conversion.

Compatibility?
-Should be compatible with almost everything.
-Probably incompatible with other enemy layout mods and mods that alter ship lists.
-Incompatible with mods that alter vanilla enemy-blueprints. New Enemy Classes currently uses copies of vanilla enemies to even out probability of encountering the new ships (ship-lists that contained vanilla enemies didn't work as intended for me).
-Since version 1.05 Balanced Arsenal has compatibility weapon lists for New Enemy Classes. New ships that use custom weapons-lists then also get the arsenal weapons. Note that Balanced Arsenal has to be loaded after New Enemy Classes for this to work. You can adjust the load order in GMM's modorder.txt file.

I got trashed by this new xxx-class! The ships are to strong!
No they aren't! (I think...). But they do different things than vanilla enemies. You might have to rethink you strategy. Shields and weapons are no longer always the primary targets. Your ship and crew might have to face new dangers too and your might consider upgrading other defensive systems apart from shields and engines earlier.

What are the new classes and what do they do?
The classes fill different roles and all have certain strengths and weaknesses. Some are more dangerous than others. Not all factions have access to all classes, they are distributed so that they fit the lore.
Discovering the new classes and trying to deal with them successfully is part of the fun. Consider this a spoiler warning and don't read further if you want to be surprised.


Enjoy!

The new Classes:



Bombers and Assault-Ships
Aren't new but fill some gaps where it seemed fitting. Just like in vanilla bombers are pure mad offence ships that sometimes sacrifice some defence capability in return. Assaults usually have slightly better shields and hulls but don't feature entirely overkill weapon systems.





Troopships
Always equipped with teporters. Usually transport some extra crew as well and still have good defensive and offensive capabilities.

Rock Troopship





Interceptors
Much faster than fighter, but slightly more fragile.

Mantis Interceptor





Infiltrators
Always equipped with cloak system. Are slower and have weaker hulls than comparable ships.

Auto Infiltrator





Medevacs
Medical support ships, usually transporting extra crew.

Engi Medevac





Repair Ships
Slow and fragile support ships. Always equipped with various repair drones. Might also slowly repair their hull.

Rebel Repair Ship





Drone Carriers
Can deploy multiple attack drones, but cant power a lot of conventional weaponry. Slower than comparable ships.





Hunter Classes
These are modified ships that are used by bounty hunters and smugglers. Faster and generally better equipped than comparable ships. Use distinct weaponry that makes them pose a serious threat to your crew.





Barges
Slow and fragile, these mobile weapon platforms feature distinct armaments and/or equipment.





Miners
Refitted mining vessels. Not exactly combat ships, but can deploy their mining drones against you in a fight.





Exotics
Classes that are usually only used by a certain faction. Equipped with distinct weapons.

Changelog

0.95
-Some ship offsets fixed, a few might still not be centred correctly, please report that here.
(shoutout to kartoFlane for implementing optimal offset calculating for enemy ships in the last editor update)
-Drone carrier start without weapons across the board now. They also have weaker max weapon system, so they shouldn’t outgun the player so easily any more. Also should makes them more interesting.
-Troopships and Barges have their weapons systems slightly downgraded.
-Energy interceptors start with one shield bar now. Should allow them to deploy their zoltan shield as intended.

Three days after Enemy Diversity Pack, which is the same idea only by a different person.

It seems that this one has a more thought out plan for all the different class and race specializations though. Looks interesting. Added to the (admittedly long) list of mods to try out.

Imagine getting the Rock Trooper at a boarding event. On the flip side, what about running into an Energy Trooper?

aaaaaa50 wrote:Three days after Enemy Diversity Pack, which is the same idea only by a different person.

Actually kartoFlane (who made enemy diversity pack) and me have been been PMing each other about enemy variety for a while, exchanging ideas (see in this thread). As mentioned in the first post he has given great support for this project, let alone that he also created the editor that made this mod possible in the first place.

966socho wrote:Imagine getting the Rock Trooper at a boarding event.

Happened to me already during testing. Can really freak you out and things get tense. But there's always a solution...

Yup, I confirm - and it's actually way better than my mod, since this one provides much more variety
All things that I wanted to include are pretty much covered by Sleeper Service's version (and inspired by him) -- frankly, I wouldn't have ever released EDP were it not for our conversation.
Guess there's no need for me to continue working -- and it's for the better; I didn't really have the will or time to do it, anyway

Hey, just did a playthrough with this mod installed! VERY fun and interesting, gotta say! Unfortunately, due to scarce resources, I didn't go to any red sectors through the game, but I'll likely use this mod again another time.
Here's the video I recorded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMHejNpW7Zg

Sleeper Service, I have holidays. Which means no more university for two weeks. I might can make custom ship hulls if you want to.

Very interesting, i will try it!, i need more challenge to test all my trek ships!.

@ Ginger Dragon
Thank you for the video! I especially enjoyed how you shouted orders to your crew, that's exactly where the game should get you I guess. You where lucky to get the artillery early one, together with the laser that made a pretty effective combo. The vid provided valuable inputs for balancing and bug fixing as well, so more would totally be appreciated by me!

TheNewbie wrote:Sleeper Service, I have holidays. Which means no more university for two weeks. I might can make custom ship hulls if you want to.

If you are up for that go ahead, all the assets of this mod are free to use so you could create you own flavour version with new hulls. I can see how new hulls would make sense for some of the classes. In my interpretation the FTL "lore" (if you can call it that) the ship hulls are kind of chassis’s that can be filled with different tech, as shown by player ships. So new hulls could then again call for new room layouts. (Which going to have to be created anyway cause the layouts that where created here probably wouldn’t fit the new hulls.)

So, let's start drawing!