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

[Russian Rockman]

Well just because in FTL you're kind of a lone wolf. You never get help from anyone. The entire fate of the galaxy rests in your hands and your hands only. You start out in the far reaches of the galaxy far from the last remaining Federation base and you have to race across the galaxy to get there. There's nothin wrong with the remaining Federations ships helping you out when you get to the Final Battle or in Federation Sectors though, but anywhere else it's usually just up to you.

By the way I just realized it is possible for the AI Boarding event to happen twice. God Forbid...

[Estel]

Had nice (although ended per-emptively, due to my mistakes - price of playing when tired) run in Bulwark, with only Ifrit (purchased in sector 1 for whopping 100 scrap) as weapon and nano repair bomb (sector 2) but supported by (self-engineered on board) ammo manufacturer. Flopped in sector 7 - just after acquiring Heavy Effector and auto laser - due to losing boarders stupid way and insisting on fighting some OP enemies, when it wasn't worth it (turret with Heavy Ion 2, , some two lasers, heavy ion drone, halberd drone, focus beam drone, cloak lvl 3 - namely). Should have show middle finger and run, it wasn't worth any amount of scrap Without doing such mistakes, could have win without much problems - ifrit is really amazing.

Anyway, here are bugs discovered:

1. I'm glad that my idea with rationale for being unable to break truce after receiving slave got implemented Sadly, it seems that it's called from wrong situations, too:
http://s14.postimg.org/67wwho0vj/slave_ship.jpg
As you can see, it was after killing whole enemy crew. I got the "worse" random result, with "burnt bodies in hold" and one slave recovered from ship's wall. After freeing him, the thing visible on screen was my only "reward" Nothing for looting/scraping ship. Not to mention that enemy crew wasn't in position to jump away, kind of
(Severity: Medium)

2. Enhanced Vanilla event with "Mantis war camp not far away" always got option to shot a missile, which guaranteed fight with mantis ship. It still does, but wrong event text is called - player is presented with one belonging to "try to get away while you can, but get caught and have to fight, anyway" (you try to get away, but are spotted and sirens go off, etc. Nothing about rocket and planetary defense shotting it down). (Severity: Minor)

3. Life support on radiation zone's husks seems to be working happily:
http://s7.postimg.org/jwxwhuug9/ghosts.jpg

And yes, those red dots detectable by slugs - moving into "positions", BTW - looks kinda silly. Not that it's game breaking thing, but it would indeed benefit to put them into "hidden" room, if possible.
(Severity: Minor)

4. I just run into 3 stores in Engi space, all "natural", not event-spawned:
http://s1.postimg.org/dte48mxlb/3stores.jpg
No idea if it is normal? I recall reading, that 2 stores for friendly, and 1 for hostile sectors is max OK. Or, "pirated" stores add to it? One of the stores in Engi space was "trapped" by pirates - this time, no fight with ship, just boarders. (Severity: Medium or "It's a feature")

5. In some nebula events with auto-ships, sensor still got reset (aka- starts to work) after fight. It should affect much, but thanks to it, I was able to notice fire that was creeping through empty room towards my shields, and put it down. Without it, I would surely miss it (I know, oxygen level - but as said, I was tired ), and it would result in nasty surprise during next (also inside nebula) fight. So, I assume that in rare cases, it can have real impact on results (Severity: Minor)

Cheers,
/Estel

[Nider_01]

Some tooltips for cristal weapons aren't correct. They says that weapons have chance to start fire when they have breach chance instead

[Delphi]

Just to confirm that this isn´t a big coincidence: Is there anyone else for whom the targeting jammer is non functional, even if the event outcomes state, that it disables an enemy weapon? I had this happen dozens of times. Can anyone cross check this with the slug A ship?

[The Captain]

4. I just run into 3 stores in Engi space, all "natural", not event-spawned:
http://s1.postimg.org/dte48mxlb/3stores.jpg
No idea if it is normal? I recall reading, that 2 stores for friendly, and 1 for hostile sectors is max OK. Or, "pirated" stores add to it? One of the stores in Engi space was "trapped" by pirates - this time, no fight with ship, just boarders. (Severity: Medium or "It's a feature")

No, it's normal: civilian & Engi sectors have 2-3 stores.

[Estel]

Something more from bug's department:

1. There is this station, where we can buy 3-6-12 fuel, or try to get some for free. If the latter is chosen, and station get banged, they offer to give whopping 3 fuel (and nothing else) as surrender tribute. Sadly, after accepting their offer, there is no option to break truce

Same might happen with "station filled with hundreds repair drones" that offer repairs - suspecting being tricked on inability to trick them, I just killed them all (Severity: Medium)

2. During this event:
http://s28.postimg.org/gp45h3qy5/subspace_scanner.jpg
...we may use sub-space scanner to locate enemy's ship. I got message about getting subspace image of them and being able to localize attacker's ship, but sadly, nothing happened. I just got boarded as usual, without any further event text or ship to fight. (Severity: Medium)
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Now, not a bug, but idea - today, for the first time, I got convinced to trade my untrained (as it was 2nd jump) slug to bounty hunters, for scrap and Burst Laser Mark III. Betrayed crewmember "wasn't at ease with this decision, but bounty hunter already transferred prize". Then, my poor fella turned violent, and BH crew got amused by turn of events, wanting to see live camera fed of murdering him, which they got.

Now, considering that they have already transferred scrap, couldn't be there an option to attack them *and* simultaneously fight rebellious (sic!) crewmember, for those mad destructoid captains? I'm not asking for option to betray them for slugs (get scrap, run/fight back), as it could get a little unbalanced for situations, when they offer weapons (although, most of the times, they just offer some scrap), but at least possibility of killing their smirk from they faces would be great.

Cheers,
/Estel

[The Captain]

D'OH! 1.1 crash, jumping to 2nd sector Junction Tau Beta (or something like that).

[Mr. Mister]

Sleepy, I think I know why the developers disabled events on nebula exit beacons: because the event is called after the exit beacon flavour text. The "strange behaviour" in question is that if the event is a plasma storm, then the background will change AFTER you proceed from the exit beacon text ebacon and load the event itself.

Doesn't matter that much though.

[Delphi]

Hi Sleeper. Sorry for this wall of text, but I had some ideas after reading that you might implement an AI Avatar blue option for AI Ship encounters(great idea btw.). This got me thinking, and I think I have some ideas to flesh out the race disctinctions a bit more. So, what do we currently have?:

There are currently 4 race specific ship augs, that simulate something like race morality:

Rockmen Ship: Rock Armor = Piracy is accepted. Also has a very usefull effect, as well as other usefull blue options.
Mantis Ship: Mantis Pheromones = Piracy and Slavery is accepted. Has an additional effect but no other blue options.
Slug Ship: Slug Repair Gel = Piracy and Betrayal is accepted. Has an additional effect but no(?) other blue options.
Zoltan Ship: Zoltan Shields = Advanced Diplomacy. Has a very usefull additonal effect, as well as other very usefull blue options.

I was thinking of ways to expand on this. There are some problems, since the the other ships don´t always have one exact faction specific aug (like Engi A & B), or that the have no faction specific augs to begin with(Kestrel, Stealth Cruiser etc). But I think there is a way to implement this for at least 3 more ships:

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Shiptype: Crystal Ship

Identified by: Augmentation: Crystal Vengeance

Ease of implemention: This one is pretty straight forward, since Type A and B ships have this aug.

Things to keep in mind: Afaik there is also no other way to aquire the crystal vengeance aug since the crystal dialog option for it was removed. This would guarantee, that no other ship will get the crystal options.

What would the crystal options be: To be honest, this is the hardest one. Since the crystal ship are already more than powerful, this shouldn´t be a big game changer, like piracy or anything else. This also wouldn´t fit with the lore, since the crystals seem to be more pacifistic and isolated than for example to rock people.

My current idea would be to give them a special option which would have a medium chance to prevent event driven boarding. The option could be something like this: Use your Crystal Vengeance system to lockdown your complete ship.

Why have this option: I think this option would fit the lore. Crystals seem to be able to grow, Lockdown is a race special ability, crystals are isolated from other species and even have lockdown weapons).

Relative strength: Since event driven boarding is not that common the option would have limited use, but it can still be usefull when such an event occurs. This would not really overpower the crystals any further.

Possible Problems: I can´t think of any.

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Shiptype: Federation Cruiser

Identified by: System: Artillery Beam

Ease of implementation: This should also be pretty easy, since the artillery beam sets the ship apart from all other ships. Type A and Type B both have this system installed.

Things to keep in mind: Currently none. There are no other ships that have access to this system, and there is no way to get it.

What would the Federation options be: Since the federation cruisers can be expected to be crewed with absolute federation loyalists, it can be assumed that they would despise the rebels. So I would think of 2 additional options that can be choosen if a rebel ship surrenders to the federation cruiser:

Option 1: Take their Payment and finish them off anyway (Like the Slug betrayal option, with a chance of fail)

Option 2: Negotiate another payment (Like the Zoltan diplomatic option) and additionally get a human prisoner.

Of course these options only apply to rebel event surrenders.

Why have these options: Generally the federation is expected to condemn things like piracy, slavery or breaking a peace treaty, but these ideals might falter when they are put to the test through the rebellion. This is even backed to a certain extend by lore, since you already have the option to force the rebel ships to give up their cargo. I guess federation would call it confiscating, but rebels would call it piracy. At the same time, finishing them off would show the hatred for the rebels, and getting a prisoner would be the same as taking their commanding officer as a prisoner of war and forcing him to work on your ship(like slaves).

Relative strength: This depends heavily on the ships that you encounter. Of course there is a much greater chance to get this options while visiting rebel/federation sectors, but since humans are the most boring race anyway there is a large chance that the rebel POWs would be exchanged for other crew if possible.

Possible Problems: The question is, if there is a way to differentiate surrenders in Rebel events from other surrenders. I would guess that it is the case, because there were a lot of cases where the zoltan options appeared wrongly or didn´t appear at all when they were implemented for the first time. But that is something Sleeper can assess.

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Shiptype: Engi Ship

Identified by: Augmentation: Drone Reactor Booster aka. Improved Internal AI(CE rename)

Ease of implementation: Unfortunately this is a tricky one. The Engi Ships Type A and Type B have 2 different Augs, the med bot dispersal and the drone reactor booster(aka Improved internal AI). Since the med bot dispersal can be aquired by at least 2 events(one classic, one CE), it is automatically unfit to be used. This means only the Improved internal AI can be used.

Things to keep in mind: There are 3 inherent problems with using this aug for Engi specific options.
1. The aug is currently purchasable at stores, which would have to be disabled(I don´t think is much of a loss, since the aug is pretty useless to be honest).
2. This aug would need to be on both Engi ships(It could be added instead of the pharmaceuticals on the Type A ship).
3. This is only doable for the CE ship loadouts, it would be impossible for the classic ship loadouts addon(Which would mean that Engi diplomatic options are only available on the Type B ship with this addon).

If these 3 things can be seen as a compromise that is acceptable we have Engi the prerequisites for engi ship specific options.

What would the Engi options be: My idea for Engi options would be, to give them something similar to the Zoltan diplomatic options, but only when encountering Auto Ships(and to a certain extend possibly AI Ships?).

1. When encountering an Auto-Ship, there could be a surrender option, which has a medium chance of success, as well as a chance of giving a reward(like getting some supplies from the AI, which you have convinced to support your cause).

2. When an Auto-Ship surrenders, there should be an option, which would sometimes yield better rewards than the current surrender options and be a guaranteed success.

3. There could also be special options when encountering AI ships, but perhaps it´s best to not include this or leave such an option to AI Avatars.

Why have this option: The engi are a mechanical race and are closely related to the Zoltans. They don´t seem to have emotions which are recognizable by organic races, but they could very well be programmed to be very diplomatic with other AI Species. It´s also a great coincidence, that the drone reactor booster was already renamed to improved internal AI, since such a thing makes a lot of sense to have in an Engi ship, and would explain why only they have to ability to contact the AI driven ships. And since the Type A Ship, like the type B, depends a lot on Drones, they would also gain the construction options of the improved internal AI and can use their 3 drone Slots to the full extend.

Relative strength: Like the federation cruiser, this depends a lot on the sectors that you visit. Usually the player has to deal very often with Auto-ships, so the balancing should be done very similar to the Zoltan encounters, with a reasonable chance of failing.

Possible Problems: As already mentioned, this only works, if both engi ships get the improved internal AI Aug. Which would mean that it will only work for the Type B ships, if you play with the classic ship layouts. The med bot dispersal is unfit as an Aug for this, since it can be obtained from events by other ships. I think this is the same reason why sleeper changed the rock ship quest reward from rock plating to titanium system casing.

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The other Ships: There currently is no way to differentiate the Kestrel Cruiser or the Stealth Cruiser, but for me this is fine. Not every ship needs this flavour, and one can also think that these ships have more of a mixed and less idealistic crew than the other ship. So they would simply stay the way they are.

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Other Options: Once implemented, this system allows even more ship specific options. Currently, there are already some implemented ones, like the construction options for the improved internal AI, or the ability to call federation command in federation sector with the artillery beam. I bet sleeper would come up with further options to expand this system even more.

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I hope I didn´t write all this for nothing or the idea is completely idiotic. What are the opinions of others about this? Does this make sense, or would you prefer to keep the changes to what is currently implemented?

[Sleeper Service]

I hope 1.102 will restore stability to its old high.

1.102
- Still no Testrel
- All kinds of augments now allow you to resist certain hazards and combat augments
- Subspace Scanner cost slightly increased
- Rock Plating and Titanium System Casing cost reduced
- Internal AI designs flawless System Repair Drones now
- Out-of-fuel engineering options corrected
- Crystal Sector is no longer unique
- Rock Homeworlds start beacon crystal option now correctly spawns a quest beacon instead of calling the event
- Enemy Rock ships are further distinguished by how many layer of armor plating they have now
- Fancy black holes - Now also available in Rock territory
- System resets now include teleporters
- Hellebard Beam impact now also displays and UI prompt
- Curator quest final reward increased
- Nebula exit beacon behaves like in vanilla again
- The boss will finally shut down the medbay correctly in phase three
- Husks should no longer have visible crew now
- Dead auto ships no longer reset you sensors
- Typos

As for the various suggestions:

Shiptype: Crystal Ship
Identified by: Augmentation: Crystal Vengeance

First of all: Keep in mind that the faction event options are only one way that set ships apart. Their respective engineering options also can proved unique play styles. This already features in the crystal ship.

The crystal ships are already very powerful. Giving them another perk alongside their retaliation does not seem necessary. Also the Teleporter Disruptor already has the same function. It would be interesting to implement this for the events that do not feature teleport based boarding, but these are few. Doing this with a chance based eventlist call would make it really complicated.

Any crystal perk should come with huge downsides. CE establishes at some point that Crystal Ships can change shape and function over time. One thing that was considered lately, is giving them the options to restructure parts of their hull into weaponry, basically trading damage for crystal gear.

What would the Federation options be: Since the federation cruisers can be expected to be crewed with absolute federation loyalists, it can be assumed that they would despise the rebels. So I would think of 2 additional options that can be choosen if a rebel ship surrenders to the federation cruiser.

That's not exactly how rules of war are supposed to work. Its hard to justify that your cruiser crew has a problem with piracy, but is okay with executing prisoners. The Fed cruiser allready has some blue options that focus on interaction with other Fed ships. These will still be extended and if the wingmen concept comes together nicely, will make very differentiated play style for that two ships possible.

1. When encountering an Auto-Ship, there could be a surrender option, which has a medium chance of success, as well as a chance of giving a reward(like getting some supplies from the AI, which you have convinced to support your cause).

2. When an Auto-Ship surrenders, there should be an option, which would sometimes yield better rewards than the current surrender options and be a guaranteed success.

3. There could also be special options when encountering AI ships, but perhaps it´s best to not include this or leave such an option to AI Avatars.

These are interesting, but the Engi are obviously on the receiving end of the current conflict. Auto ships make up a significant part of the Rebel fleet. If the Engi would be such technomancers, they probably have an easier time. Some of this stuff might happen for AI. The Engi ships also have very differentiated ways of specialization available via engineering.

Just to confirm that this isn´t a big coincidence: Is there anyone else for whom the targeting jammer is non functional, even if the event outcomes state, that it disables an enemy weapon? I had this happen dozens of times. Can anyone cross check this with the slug A ship?

It should work again since 1.1. Did you have sensors to check if the enemy system is affected?