now with
content may differ
This mod has been merged into FTL Captains Edition and will no longer be supported as a stand alone version.
Download Version 1.2
or
Download Version 1.12b (Contains some weapon related custom events, but might conflicts with event mods. Recommended to use Captains Edition instead)
Install with Grognack's Mod Manager
Want new weapons from the start? Then use:
Balanced Arsenal for Player Ships Addon 1.2
(equips all player ships with BA weapons and DE drones, has to be loaded after Balanced Arsenal to work properly.)
Balanced Arsenal currently adds 29 new weapons and 8 new drones to the game, all of them with custom models and animations.
Among them are five beams, five missile launchers (mostly multishot variations), five bomblaunchers, seven lasers, six ion weapons (three of them electronic warfare devices that work quite differently), four combat drones and two defence drones.
The aim here was to create stuff that fits into vanilla, both visually as well as from the side of balance.
Most of the sprites have been created from existing FTL images. The missile launchers are heavily inspired by the variety mod. Its a great mod and I recommend using it alongside. You might also want to use Drones Plus by karmos, to get even more drones.
Also feel free to use any of this mods content in your own mod.
Did I install this correctly?
If Kestrel Layout B has an "Old Laser" among its loadout then yes. If you use the addon all player ships should have BA weapons.
Compatibility?
Should work with almost everything. The b version conflicts with event mods.
-Since version 1.05 Balanced Arsenal has compatibility weapon lists for New Enemy Classes. The 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.
How do I get the weapons?
Just play through the game and they going to show up at some point. There is a chance that they are sold at shops. But beware: They are also added to the weapon lists of the different Factions, so enemys will use them against you which should add new challenges. Weapon distribution was meant to be lore friendly (Rocks get more missiles, Engi going to use the ion Stuff and so on). The weapons come in all tiers and can appear in any sector (well no crystal stuff so far though).
Are the weapons really balanced?
Well I hope so. Numbers wise most of them are balanced after another already existing weapon but differ in way that should make using them feel new and tactically interesting. With some stuff like the beams and the electronic warfare devices I'm not completely sure. I'm always open for any balancing suggestions.
So this is just new weapons that do old things?
To some extend, looking at numbers yes. Lasers fire, missiles surpass shields and beams beam. Still each of the weapons was designed to feel unique while used. The mod also includes some weapons that can fill quite different roles in combat and hopefully offer you a new experience, allow for new tactics etc. Some examples:
Light Laser Mark II
Anti personal laser that pierce hulls but cannot damage ships structural integrity or deplete shields.
Fires 3 shots that damage crew but cannot deplete shields. Slight chance of breaching.
Alternative to the bio beam.
Effector Mark II
Electronic warfare device that can continuously disrupt systems with a combination of hacking routines and magnetic field generation.
Does no damage but continuously tries to disable up to 2 bars of the system it is directed on. Surpasses shields.
They are quite rare and can only unfold their full potential with a qualified weapons chief and maybe an automated reloader.
Artillery Laser Mark I
Artillery lasers causes even more destruction than heavy lasers and can pierce right through weak shields.
Fires 1 shot, causes 4 damage with good chance of fire and breaching. Ignores 1 shield.
Pretty useless against dodging targets. Also require support fire to deplete shields.
Anti-Personnel Drone Mark II
Fast drone that attacks enemy crew with a light lasers. Deals more damage than Mark I.
Ideal to soften up resistance before your borders move in. Bad for killing single crew members as you can not control where it shoots.
I can't handle this!
Remember that there is an autofire key (default is left control?) that lets you turn on autofire for a certain weapon. Some of the weapons (Effectors and Autolasers) are pretty much designed to be autofired.
Is there more?
If you use the b version then some of the weapons can trigger custom blue event choices (counterhacking!).
What to come?
I'm pretty much done with this thing and work on a new project now. Still there are a few weapon ideas that are not implemented yet (high tier scrambler missile launchers that can't be targeted by Defence Drone I and have more complex animations than standard launchers).
Enjoy!
Changelog
1.2
-Contend: Drone Extension component added, adds eight new external drones (of which two are for defence) and four flavour variants of internal drones to even out probabilities
-Balanced Arsenal for Player Ships Addon updated to support the new drones
-Asteria missile launcher removed from standard weapon list, was not intended to be in pirate hands
-Hull weapons removed from standard weapon list, should fix crashes on enemy spawns
-Some spelling errors fixed
-Scythe Beams charge glow fixed
1.12
Balanced Arsenal for Player Ships Addon 1.0 released.
1.12
-Enemy version of the Light Laser should no more be acquirable by the player
-Small Fire Bomb values changed to distinguish it more from vanilla fire bomb
1.11
-Artillery lasers pierce shields again Some other values adjusted to distinguish mark I and II a little more from each other.
-Kestrels Old Laser fixed (silly to mess up the indicator that identifies the mod as correctly working while everything else in the mod actually works correctly, isn't it?)
1.1
-Content: two beam weapons and three bomb-launchers added.
-Balancing: Artillery lasers no longer pierce shields
Light lasers got their projectile speed increased, they pierce on shield now and have slightly higher breach chance.
-Some weapons renamed to keep coherency with vanilla weapons
-Some glow added to modded and vanilla bombs to make them look like they are charging/overloading when they are being launched/detonated.
1.06b
-Some spelling mistakes in event files corrected
-Cleaned up stray Zoltan event-file, other files with tilde (~) will be left in the mod cause I'm not sure if they might have some function on other platforms/in Linux itself. They do no harm.
1.05
-Minor fixes
-Compatibility weapon-lists for New Enemy Classes added
1.0
-Content: five lasers and two ion weapons added
0.86
-Custom events are now only included in a separated "b" vesion of the mod. Therefore the main release of the mod will no longer conlict with event mods. Use the b sides if you have no other eventmods installed.
-ba_ suffix added to all of Balanced Arsenals assets to ensure further compatibility (just in case any other mods have a MISSILES_FIRE... )
-Effectors reworked, I didn't quite entirely understand how ion damage works. They should now do what the description says, but became actually less effective, therefore they have been rebalanced as well.
-Content: two new bomb weapons
0.85
-Event scripts cleaned up.
-Spelling rechecked.
<!-- Shoutout to leycec for the detailed feedback. -->
0.82
-Audio directory fixed.
0.81
-Ion beams removed. Metzelmax was right, they don't actually work.