Firefly-class Serenity Mod

[Acharne]

So, a while ago I had been looking on here for a good Firefly mod. Spaceship game, Serenity is a spaceship, I'd assume I would find at least half a dozen makes of the thing. Dead wrong. I found two. And no offence to the creators, but they were not enough for my taste. So I began making my own. And after almost a year of working on it (with about 10 months of hiatus inclusive), I'm posting it to the community. Not because it's finished, but because I need suggestions.

While the ship itself looks amazing (courtesy of CanisD), there's a few things I still need to work on:

*Ship Gibs
*Possibly Custom Interior (which would look amazing for fans of the show)
* Balanced starting equipment (weapons/stats/etc)

My chief concern is the latter however. While what I currently have does the show 'some' justice, I want to be balanced gameplay-wise as well. So, for that I'm looking towards you: the community. Any input you can add, any suggestions you have, in all honestly you can change the file yourself as long as you run it by me before publishing (and give credit where do of course). And thank you all in advance who contributes to the feedback!

Acharne

Serenity: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/iy4wehy2uj1pqle/Firefly.ftl?token_hash=AAGOyVsyJOT6urOgFtxTJmX-7ukJLAKnMig_U_LzDMXU4A&dl=1

And a few pictures of my beautiful girl:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4p88yhkpy75bh ... refly1.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n33lemtyv9say ... refly2.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2guhx7yj50zn ... refly3.png

Stay shiny.

PS: Current weapons (none, other than use of teleporter) are again only temporary. This is not a finished mod. I'm just posting looking for suggestions on which direction to go.

[al244098]

Serenity? I could have sworn I heard that name before. It also had something to do with a firefly.

[UltraMantis]

I've edited the image links in the OP. The [img] tag only works with direct links. Alternatively you can upload images to your post and set them to be included in the post (option appears once you upload attachment).

Here is the link to the unfinished Serenity/Firefly mod by NomZ: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=16941

[5thHorseman]

Serenity was my first attempt at modding. I did horribly, as we all do in our first attempts at anything. I've always in the back of my mind considered going back and taking another shot but hopefully with this effort I won't need to

The main problem I have with Serenity in this game are thematic. She doesn't have weapons in the show and technically had a huge cannon mounted for a bit in the movie but I'm not sure I want to fly THAT Serenity for 8 sectors

I also never found a layout I liked, mostly because the ship is 2-storied. You can get around that a bit by putting the lower deck stuff on the right side (ie, the bottom of the screen) but I was just never happy with it in my attempt. I even tried to make the layout "from the side" and liked it better, but of course it still looked top-down so meh.

I like your layouts, though I'd try to get rid of that 1x1 room. Dunno where your teleporter is but maybe put it in one shuttle and the other shuttle could be doors. The medbay should be near the engines (It's essentially under them in the show) IMO but otherwise I like your layout. It's surely interesting looking at the routing you must take to get around, or air out the ship!

[Acharne]

Apologies for not putting it in earlier; the Firefly replaces the Red Tail, so for those of you who don't have it unlocked yet...

[Shokkou]

I've been thinking of ways to make custom ships that fit thematically with their source material and this is one of the ones I've been thinking of. Here's what I came up with to make a flavorful Serenity:

Human x8

Anti-Combat Drone x1 ("Cry baby cry.")

Piloting x1
Sensors x2 ("I read it as an older model... Trans-U.")
Doors x2 ("Seal off everything that leads below decks!")

Weapons x0 ("Damn yokels can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it.")
Engines x5 ("Wash? You gotta give me an Ivan.")
Drone Control x1
Medbay x3 ("Doctor knows his trade, I'll give him that.")
Oxygen x1

Reactor x10

Distraction Buoys x1 ("Make your mother sigh. Engaging the cry baby.")
Scrap Recovery Arm x1 ("We move these in. Double time.")
Mind Shielding x1 ("You just... talk plainly.")

Weapon Slots x2
Drone Slots x2

No Mind Control or Cloaking, and it'd make sense for players to refrain from swapping the Medbay out for a Clone Bay. The drone and Distraction Buoys aug are AE specific. Mind Shielding is specific to Captain's Edition and could be replaced with Long-Range Scanners to make it compatible with unmodded AE. The drone and Distraction Buoys could be replaced with a Defense Drone Mk I and an FTL Charge Booster, respectively, to make it compatible with vanilla FTL.

For the layout, I would squeeze Piloting down into a 2x1 and put Sensors above it. Put a door in the back of the new Sensors room and put another one connecting it to Piloting via the front. Drone Control could go in the space between Doors and Piloting. Hacking could go where Sensors are now. Shift Oxygen over to get rid of that 1x1 space. I like 5thHorseman's idea of putting the Teleporter in a "shuttle," which could be shown by putting it in the lower room adjacent to Oxygen. Backup Battery could go in the room just above Weapons.

I'm not sure whether this setup would be OP due to the full crew and maxed Medbay at the start or under-powered due to the lack of Shields, Weapons, and Teleporter. In any case, with no way to engage hostile ships at first the player would be forced to trade aggressively (in Captain's Edition) and/or try their luck with events... and everyone knows what happens when you depend on luck. You end up on the drift. No fuel, no prospects... begging for Alliance make-work or towed out to the scrap belt.

[Korvin]

I had to change some stuff in it fot Adv Edition.

http://degree1978.narod.ru/111/MyFirefly.ftl

I liked the idea not having weap system at the start, and changed rooms layout more close to the movie.