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

[slapjd]

Hello, I have an idea for C.E. that you should consider.

It is simply a targeting subsystem. It allows you to use weapon targeting. Without it, the weapons will fire in random places (like flak A.O.E. but covers entire sections of the ship). You can still fire at will, however targeting is very weak. Upgrading this system is a counter to evasion. I don't know how much to counter it though. This could also cause some trouble with things like stealth ships (ships lacking defense) if the enemy has a targeting subsystem. And it provides a problem if it gets shot. One last feature could be that when your targeting system is down, it raises the enemies evade (maybe self-explanitory).

Thanks, slapjd

[Estel]

Hello, I have an idea for C.E. that you should consider.
<snip>

Not doable, AFAIK. We don't have access to source code of FTL itself - what you're proposing is not controlled by xml's we can edit. Funny to write "we", when it's Sleepy that does all the work

/Estel

[Sleeper Service]

Sidenote: how hard is it to define a set of modifiers and then apply it to the weapons like was done in CE?

You'll need RannI's tool for that. He is planning to release it to the public sometime soon. It would require some more lengthly explanation, so I recommend you wait for the release and read the manual. Or maybe ask RannI directly, he probably has a better grasp of what exactly can be done with the tool.

From my experience: Your concept might be possible, but the problem currently remains that a modular prefix system might produce a huge amount (10k+) of blueprints unless you put in a lot of exceptions. SMM currently can't handle that too well. ELs was planned to have multiple prefixes apply to weapons, but that was put on hold because of that. Your concept might suffer from the same constrains.

CEi features a new crystal sector type, "Ancient" or something. Upon entry, if you don't have a Crystallite on-board, you're forced to jumped to deep space.
I don't know if Sleepy placed the crystal ship unlocking quests there though.

He probably did.

Yep, crystal quest is still there. Although actually getting it might be even more difficult than in vanilla... Hard to tell with all the events around in deep space. It also depends on how long you farm early deep space. The Ancient sector has the same probability to spawn as the Rock Homeworld, so you might still not get a chance at completing the quest at all, with the added difficulty that traveling from deep space towards the Federation base does not let you choose which sector you go to. Unlocking the Crystal ship through wins with all ships is definitely way easier. This and Type C unlocks are also possible with Infinite by the way.

I made a type B engi station just for you guys.

Thanks a lot for your support! It looks perfect and will be integrated soon.

Other question? Can bombs actually be destroyed by lasers and other bombs? I've read this multiple places, but have never been able to do it myself.

Yeah I'm not sure either. I think I read somewhere that hitting a bomb with lasers before it explodes will actually destroy it, so one should avoid firing at rooms that you are about to bomb. Needs testing although the applications for this are super limited.

Are those two two cloaking drones both beam drones? Are they meant to not be able to be targeted by Anti-Drones? Could you make just couple more variants of those. A combat one, a missile one, an ion one, a light laser one, not one for every type but at least two other types?

I like the idea that these remain somewhat rare. I also love the coherency that comes with only having cloaked beam drones. Most other weapon types do break cloak, as we all know.

Since it's such a rare evet, and considering how much better anomaly_2 looks than anomaly_1, consider discarding anomaly_1 and using anomaly_2 as the only anomaly hazard background.

Some bug forces me to always have at last two images for backgrounds. I agree that it is not the most beautiful background, but I still do not want to have copies of the same files twice in the folders. If you know any free to use backgrounds that look like a space anomaly and fit the style then let me know (Color does not matter, can be re-colored.)

And one last question. What were some of the other ideas that you abandoned for whatever reason? I've always been curious about that

Aside from fully fleshed out wingmen for the Fed ships nothing got really scraped, but the concept list is also not that long right now. The whole idea of hyper space travel between sectors with additional options is kind of on the table again by the way. The ASB hazard supplied a way to finally change planet backgrounds mid-event. That might allow to simulate proper hyperspacing within an event, but needs some special half transparent images to look decent.

Further R&D news:
We actually got the visual weapon variants for EL running now. It keeps astonishing how all this items I've never seen or considered pop up in the game. We still have some problems with integrating the drone variants, but the next EL release will probably feature the visuals.


@ Mr. Mister: Get well soon!

[rannl]

Sidenote: how hard is it to define a set of modifiers and then apply it to the weapons like was done in CE?

I'm considering doing a weapon rebalance where the base weapons are nerfed down a bit, and but with a larger set of positive modifiers, so that they're basically two-piece puzzles(or more, if that's feasible).

For example a burst laser III(IV in CE) might be nerfed down to 2 power, 3 shots, on a 15 second timer. And then we might have modifiers like +2 power, +2 shots, x1.25 cooldown to bring it up to the current power level, as one of many, but it might also get something like +1 power, +2 fire chance, -1 hull damage and result in a 3 shot fire starting weapon that only damages system and crew.

Or an artillery laser IV might be reduced to 2 power, 3 damage, 1 shield pierce, 1 breach chance, and then you might end up with a +1 power, -1 damage, +2 crew damage, +1 shield pierce mod, and have a 3 power weapon that does 2 damage, with 2 shield pierce, low breach chance and 30 crew damage.

IE: More of a composite system than a bonus/malus system.

As sleepy mentioned, the tool used with EL can do exactly what you described. If you limit the amount of mod variants you use to about 8, and allow 3 variants to work together on a weapon at the most, that's 8*7*6 or 336 weapon variants. For about 70 weapon blueprints, were talking about ~24000 weapon blueprints. This might be good with the planned SMM v1.5 release. If you've got a 64b system, you'll be able to use the current version of SMM. Keep in mind that for all the gamers with a 32b system, such a mod might not be usable.
If you want to try the tool, PM me and I'll help you out.

[Estel]

Aside from fully fleshed out wingmen for the Fed ships nothing got really scraped

Why, ah why, wingmen idea got scraped? It was absolutely freakin' awesome! I don't care if it wouldn't be integrated the absolutely super-hyper clean way - the sole idea, from roleplaying perspective, was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, even if half of it "working" would be created via even texts and player's imagination. Also, possibility to miss with wingmen doesn't concern me, too - after all, they're humans(or other spacefaring races ), so they might miss on their attack vector. Actually, I like the idea of wingmen support as something that is "generally, try to take of this system/lower their shield", not something guaranteed.

@rannl
What about releasing your awesome work to the public, without need to PM directly? Have you considered releasing it as GPL (or LGPL, for that matter)?

/Estel

[rannl]

@rannl
What about releasing your awesome work to the public, without need to PM directly? Have you considered releasing it as GPL (or LGPL, for that matter)?

/Estel

It's still a WIP/prototype. I want to clean up the code a bit and provide a decent user manual.
There's still a file resource checker feature which is pretty raw.
But if there is an actual demand for the tool, I'll wrap something up as a LGPL and share it.

[Sleeper Service]

Why, ah why, wingmen idea got scraped?

But the autonomous ASB does the same thing so much more elegantly... Well you never know, maybe it still gets implemented at some point.

[Russian Rockman]

@Estel So I'm guessing all you would need to really do if you want to use the wingmen idea is replace the text for the auto ASB and the requirement with just having the FED artillery.

@Sleeper Beams don't break cloak? I thought they did... I was thinking that the other drones could work like the recon drone, going in and out of cloak. I agree that cloaked drones should be very rare though.

[Saizew]

@Sleeper Service

Something that caught my eye when you have to decide whether you take a decent amount of loot or "making another sweep of the debris":

moreLoot3.jpg

It seems to me, that the 2nd option ("Ignite the FTL drive ... ") in most cases offers the better deal.
Haven't checked the files, which other events (beside jump delay) are "chained" with the 1st option. Maybe you could take a look, whether I was extreme lucky (This happened at least the last three times I got this event, and I remember a lot more where this scenario happened) or if something is screwed up wth the odds there.

[Sleeper Service]

Not sure what you mean here. You are aware that option 1 shows the additional scrap you'll get right? The decision to jump on and try you luck with an unknown beacon involves greater risk. Overall the advantage/reward/risk decrease from second sweeps is pretty good IMO. I take them more often than not.