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

[Russian Rockman]

Huh, well look at that, you're right!!! Something must have been interfering before, but I see it now. i also checked the xml files and saw a slightly longer introduction in the comments. I'm guessing Sleeper didn't use this because it was too long and got cut off?

[Sleeper Service]

Maybe you could put an option at the beginning of the Last Stand to return to deep space in case you want to play Sector 8 difficulty in Deep Space. Another neat thing would be if you could give an option to return to Deep Space after beating the Boss in the 1st and 2nd Stage and come back later. The resetting of the Boss could be explained by "Time Travel" or by just saying the Boss will be able to repair the damage by the time you return. The reason for this would be because you could make the Boss really insanely hard then, but people could leave and come back if they don't think they can beat the next stage. Infinite CE has a much lower sense of "urgency" than normal FTL.

That whole time travel stuff would seem a little forced to me. In the current version, sector 7 should already spawn enemies as strong as in vanillas sector 8. I didn't test that though, maybe let me know how it currently plays.

[Mr. Mister]

You could even try and incorporate some of Advanced Battle System's stuff. Namely, I think the Flagship's third stage could do with a lv4 insta-recharge teleporter, specially if it starts without oxygen.

[Russian Rockman]

I was joking about the time travel stuff... (Notice the silly face...). I think that would be dumb. But I was serious about adding an option to continue on in deep space after reaching sector 8. If you just added it to the event at the beginning you would have to choose before even hearing what Tully has to say or being told you've arrived in the Last Federation Base. Thus, no time travel necessary. Another way would be hearing what Tully has to say and changing his speech to say maybe you could go player your arsenal in Deep Space before the flagship arrives. Then you'd have to hear the same thing going back though. It would be nice to play in the 8th sector still and get the scrap rewards that are sector 8 from the harder enemies. It would also be nice in case somehow someone got bumped to the 8th sector when they wanted to keep going (although I think that problem's been fixed).

And I do kind of like the idea of being able to flee the Boss if you're "losing" technically and try again later, just because it's a tiny bit more difficult now... Like if you're at 25% hull and can't get repaired, but just beat the firs stage you could get an option to continue the pursuit or flee and come back later. Of course there are issues with this... Like it seeming "time travel" esque. However, if this were the case you could make the Boss super hard so that people start fighting it, go WTF!!, then get an option to go back to deep space after thinking (maybe I'm not ready for this after all). This isn't really necessary though, just a thought, trying to make something useful out of my discovery. I think you should put a Deep Space option at the beginning of the Last Stand though

While Advanced Battle systems is cool, I'm pretty sure Sleeper won't want to integrate that. It's not quite enecessary either and whatever then enemy could use the player can too. I think it would be cool to have the Boss have 5 shields or an instant teleporter

[Sleeper Service]

Yeah, but apart from the slightly increased reward, going from boss fight to infinite would change very little. Don't get me wrong, the discover that infinite looping in the last sector is possible is pretty mind blowing. It could also be used in classic IS. Sectors could progress as in CEI, but instead of towards the federation base, you can decide to jump to the galactic center or something. Arriving there (Sector 8) could just throw you back into deeps space with max enemies and rewards...

That endgame rewards get to high is already a little problematic anyway. I tried to ramp up the difficulty to max before sector 8 now, if that works nicely than this whole final-stand-deep-space workaround is not really necessary. I like that the player still has to be fully committed to the boss fight this way. It also preserves the feeling of urgency that is present during the last stand. This whole boss-approaches-base thing would be kind of odd if it becomes completely meaningless by enabling the player to effectively reset the sector. Of course, you could find reasons and text work workarounds for all that. But it just seems unnecessary.

Further boss upgrade are considered. But 5 Shield on the boss actually does not seem to work, tried that for CE before. Another strange thing about that flagship I guess...

[Mr. Mister]

I was thinking you could use Stromby's Assault Frigate model for a neutral ship encounter on the Last Stand's entry beacon, with the ship appearing on-screen after you have the admiral/whatever on the phone.

I mean, if you lose once the flagship can destroy the base, then there must be something important there, right? You could equipp it just with effectors so it looks like it's the communications mother nodule of the federation fleet, so it would make sense if its destruction would throw the federation fleet in chaos without it necessarily being an assault flagship like the Rebels'.

[Russian Rockman]

I get what you're saying Sleeper. The higher scrap rewards in sector 8 might be a little too high and unbalancing. If you've already gone through all that trouble to make sector 7 enemies sector 8 difficulty then that's the important thing. And I understand what you're saying about the sense of urgency. Just for some reason I was picturing the Infinite Final Battle as just one of the few Federation bases left rather than the only one. But when you commit to fighting the Boss and ending you're infinite journey it should be a major decision.

Something that is kind cool is that it is technically possible to go to the Secret Sector after beating the Boss like a lot of people have asked for. But you can't do it after beating the third form because the game just ends. You could do it have stage 1 or 2 though. Unless it's possible to make the Boss surrender... Not suggesting anything. Just pointing out that the only thing preventing going to Infinite Deep Space after beating the Boss is that there's no text when beating the 3rd stage...

[Sleeper Service]

I was thinking you could use Stromby's Assault Frigate model for a neutral ship encounter on the Last Stand's entry beacon, with the ship appearing on-screen after you have the admiral/whatever on the phone.

I mean, if you lose once the flagship can destroy the base, then there must be something important there, right? You could equipp it just with effectors so it looks like it's the communications mother nodule of the federation fleet, so it would make sense if its destruction would throw the federation fleet in chaos without it necessarily being an assault flagship like the Rebels'.

Like many player ships, it would not even remotely fit the enemy window. You wouldn't see much of the ship or its weapons.

Something that is kind cool is that it is technically possible to go to the Secret Sector after beating the Boss like a lot of people have asked for. But you can't do it after beating the third form because the game just ends. You could do it have stage 1 or 2 though. Unless it's possible to make the Boss surrender... Not suggesting anything. Just pointing out that the only thing preventing going to Infinite Deep Space after beating the Boss is that there's no text when beating the 3rd stage...

Yep, it the boss would have a ship event many things could be done. But it looks like this is never going to be possible.

[Mr. Mister]

You could just put it sideways. You won't be battling it, and it would look like it's really talking to you.

[Russian Rockman]

Stromby's assault frigate could work as an alternative Boss though for any mod that puts you in the shoes of the Rebels rather than the Federation.

You could just put it sideways. You won't be battling it, and it would look like it's really talking to you.

Not sure that would even make it fit. It would be cool though to have some kind of cool Federation Station or "Flagship" for the Base.

By the way... I'm sure this is not on your list of things to do at all Sleeper, but the stations are so AWESOME and I would be very very happy to see more than 1 design for each faction station. Would it be possible to make another station design for each faction or at least a couple more human variants since they are the most common? Perhaps a more militarized variant. Or a prison one with POW's you can free.

(By the way there's another CE achievement idea. "Find the Hidden Asteroid Station" Rock and a Hard Place. )

EDIT: Just remembered. Sleeper, about the 5 shields thing, are you sure that wasn't just because the player shield limit was set to 8 bars? I know ships like the Scarab which make cloaking power max 0 makes all enemy ships start with an immediately broken cloaking system. And I think if you lower the player limit it is the same for all enemy ships. What I'm saying is maybe giving the player access to 5 shields would make the Boss able to use 5 shields. It's entirely possible that it's hard coded somehow though. Also, why is it only possible to give enemies 3 augments an what happens if you give them more? Is that a hard codes limit for all ships?