Hurray! Another multiplayer clone project. :)

[The_Bear]

Can you explain how the image of the race is supposed to be, in ftl they look like this:

This is the CE version but its almost the same. Is it anything like this?

[Cog]

Please refer to large post on page 18, but I suggest we start collecting ideas and listing them

Race ideas (in general):

Race advantage ideas (these would be advantages a certain race has, like how Zoltan power ship systems in rooms they're in):

Race disadvantage ideas (same idea, like how rocks move much slower):

Race reputation ideas (like the race is known as slavers, or known to smell really bad, etc):

PC character perk ideas (either abilities a PC might start with or advantages/reputations a PC gains during events, during the game, maybe on level-up, etc):

Equipment/Device ideas (these would be anything from helpful equipment like a belt that generates personal shields to alien artifacts that have special, potentially very powerful abilities, but are rare to find, possibly able to be bought from stores on occasion):

Lot of other things we could brainstorm on, but maybe the thread could concentrate on these for the moment, and they can be collected together into master lists.

If someone else wants to brainstorm ideas for other things, maybe collect those into your own lists so we can see them.

[stylesrj]

If the last suggestion, I would in particular suggest that different races not be stronger than others (like Rogue AI space is level 7 while Engi space is level 1, for instance) though maybe certain races (like aforementioned Rogue AI... I mean captain's edition AI Avatar ships, not Rebel Drone ships) might have a (potentially hidden) modifier to danger level.

Heh it must be the Xenoblade in me (or anything really in an RPG) where I immediately think "Tyrant-level enemies."
Basically you're in an area where the ships are on your own level, then you encounter one that looks like all the others except it's tougher and requires more/better guns to fight. Although to be fair, they're clearly marked as dangerous.

So perhaps a mechanic to encourage exploration and seeking out events would be is to avoid fighting every pirate within range with high-powered enemies waiting nearby.

Heck you could have "Asskicker the Territorial" in the start sector who's way out of your league but will teach you a lesson in not only just fighting enemy ships, but making sure you're not too flashy about it. Or you'll have enemy ships who'll deliberately flee into their aggro range if they take too much damage or because they're assholes who'll risk getting themselves destroyed in the hopes that you go down first (then as they get blown up, Asskicker hails you to say that you're not worth his time).

And I've got this idea on a race that probably won't require any new sprite sheets:

Androids - Replicas of Humans.
Advantages: They move faster, does more damage, more HP, no need to breathe
Disadvantages: Because they are machines and not people, they cannot be healed in the medbay, nor be cloned. They require a small amount of Scrap to be healed. They take (extra) damage from solar storms/flares and pulsars due to electronics still not being capable of stopping stellar phenomena for some reason (the same reason you still have fires onboard a high-tech spaceship. Perhaps this only affects them if they're outside the ship though.
Reputation: Outcasts. Androids are mostly sent out ahead of colony fleets to analyse the Human conditions of a planet before settlers arrive. They tend to either shut down or work menial/dangerous jobs Humans are unable to work in, so society doesn't think too highly of them in general except perhaps the Engies (or whatever they'll be called). There is an organisation hoping to get them more rights called the Sentient Engine Liberation Front...
Perks:
Partially organic: Requires air but can be healed. Cloning is still out.
Hardwired Shielding: Takes no damage from stellar phenomena
Nanobot Factory: Produces healing nanites, similar to the medbay but a lot slower. Perhaps it can be activated and it takes HP away from the android as it has to build nanites from somewhere.

[Cog]

I like it stylesrj...

Maybe instead of no sprite set needed, would just require making their faces gray or putting a slight gray tinge on all human sprites. Or are they meant to be replicants a la Blade Runner? Either way, I like the suggestion a lot.

I'd like to see dozens of alien races in the game, ideally.

In particular, I hope we see different ship atmospheres implemented, at a minimum some other type of gaseous atmosphere, but I also have the idea of a water breathing race.

A water-atmosphere ship would have the following effects...

Advantages:
-Fires impossible
-Boarders move slower, will probably suffocate, alien that's always on fire/made of fire would find boarding deadly, only melee damage possible in water
-Crew are adapted to aquatic environment and move quite quickly on their own ships
-Damaged engines/hyperdrive don't give off radiation damage so long as water is above 60% (or whatever, assuming such a thing is implemented, which I think it would be a nice touch)

Disadvantages:
-Hull breaches very serious. Water leaks out at same rate as Oxygen environment, but takes much longer for life support system to replace (as a bigger disadvantage, you have to buy the water at a store.) If the water level goes below 60% (or whatever) aquatic crew in room move slower. If water level goes below 30% (or whatever) Aquatic crew suffocate if they try to do anything but stand there (like fight, repair, activate a system etc) and their movement speed is reduced to what it would be if not in an aquatic environment. Also, boarders can move closer to normal movement rate and use ranged weapons normally, though still suffocate (that air space is water vapor, not oxygen.) If water is reduced below 10% (or whatever, I think that's the cutoff for suffocation damage even in oxygen in FTL), obviously suffocation no matter what.
-LARGE penalty to jump-weight per water unit volume

Was thinking about how you could replace water environment. You can't store H2 and O2 gas... that would be less dense than water I'm pretty sure. These kinds of ships might have a hull breach repair augmentation or maybe just be designed with a lot of room volume to fix low water level rooms by opening doors and letting it equalize. The total water volume on the ship should be tracked carefully to avoid wasting water due to round-off errors, especially if you have to buy the replacement water at a store (which I think is reasonable for the advantages.) If their life support system can generate water, it should do so very slowly.

[stylesrj]

Well you could have them look like people or even have them with exotic colours. Why should an android be Caucasian? Why not give it green skin and blue hair?
Although Humans could technically do the same thing with all the genetic engineering going on.

What might set them apart is a symbol or something on the top of their sprite so at a glance you can see if the Human's an android or a Human (although that's sort of going into Androsynth territory...)

[stylesrj]

Another idea that might be possible is "subsets" of a species.

Instead of making lots of aliens with their own sprites and powers and such, we could just narrow them down to a sort of "main body" and thus not complicate the game too much

Humans - Regular, Super (Genetic engineering or cyborg), Android
Sapient Robots - Support, Combat, Maintenance
Elementals - Earth (Rockmen), Energy (Zoltan), Air (adds air), Fire (self explanatory really), Crystal
Scavenger (Lanius) - Metal, Oxygen (takes away oxygen)
Chitinous Species - Mantis (good at combat damage), Spider (good at combat speed), Beetle (good damage reduction), Fly (good evasion)
Slugs/Telepaths - Regular, Super, Psilord

Now you have a game of trying to find the best loot with the best stats (like playing classic X-COM and trying to find soldiers with a high psionic potential)

[NarnKar]

Thanks!
Where can I find your ships?

Also, since you wanted to be asked first, can I use this images?
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 303#p89303
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 561#p88561
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 200#p88200
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 902#p87902
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 878#p87878
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 951#p84951
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 912#p84912
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 645#p83645
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 273#p87273
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 340#p85340

You have permission to use all of those.

I have a mod hub in my signature--it's not quite up to date, I think, but it has some of the completed mods I've made.

[Cog]

I think even I could create a race sprite, so that probably isn't necessary. Not sure about Zoltan/Rock connection or Lanius and Oxygen scavenger connection making sense that the sprites would look the same.

A list of races I'd like to see, some more than others:

-Sentient Robots (don't have to be sapient but could be, different from Androids in that they don't look human at all and come in different shapes and sizes)...maybe like the Engi
-Rogue AI/Holograms (what about an augmentation or ship system that lets you revive a dead crew member as a hologram like in Red Dwarf)
-Androids (whether replicant slave-race, Rogue AI that built themselves bodies like their creators or built by another alien race for unknown reasons)
-Aquatic race, whether fish, mermen/mermaids, or (probably) other
-Acid-bleeding monsters like in Alien... increased combat ability. Probably unlikely to become crew NPCs (though maybe in rare circumstances)
-Energy being that can provide free power to a system, or something like Zoltans
-Overly large alien that moves slow, has high HP, melee attacks slowly for big damage, blocks off 1 block wide corridors and can't fit through normal doors, also would be good if they could push things in front of them, like could push people into an adjacent room that's in vacuum, for instance.
-An alien that has some physical form that is always on fire or an energy being that is something like a fire elemental...may have phoenix like ability to respawn after death.
-A pacifist species (won't fight in crew combat) alien that has powerful telepathic/empathic abilities (different from slugs), and possibly an activated pacify ability. Might heal all crew in room (including enemies, as a weaker version) Will not work on ship with following alien
-Enemy of previous race, also having ESP-abilities that can perform telekinetic attacks through walls and some other abilities (teleport, shapeshift, become invisible, but a combination that isn't game-breaking, along with significant disadvantages)
-A tiny, perhaps bird-like race that can fly (can ignore certain hazards like maybe slime trails from slugs, acid pools from Alien-type race)
-A creepy/monstrous eyeless race that can't use sensors (even if installed) but can see on their ship through hearing (sonar) and can sense heat and/or life from enemy ships. Ignores cloaking and invisibility. They may smell awful also. Boarding their ships may result in occasional stun effect from nausea or vomiting. NPC crew on your ship won't stay in the same room with them.
-A beetle or bug-like race that is immune to radiation, and can see ultraviolet and x-rays with their vision. Probably move faster than normal and can't repair as quickly (because they don't have hands, you see...) but probably not better at combat.
-A symbiotic race that doesn't live for very long (short enough that in a normal game they would die), is born pregnant and becomes mature very quickly, and gains advantages from working together in the same room. The reproduction rate outpaces the die-off rate. Also possibly furry and cute
-A benevolent (inverting trope) slug race that leaves slime trails behind it that slow movement, along with other advantages or disadvantages for flavor, probably including immunity to mind control (if it exists in the game.) (imagine a socialize option where they say something like: "No captain, we slugs would never think of cheating someone in a business transaction. Where did you hear such a malicious rumor?")
-A composite symbiotic alien, composed of x (perhaps 5) different parts that walks together as one creature, but in combat splits up and attacks separately. (imagine talking to them and the voices all speak in unison)
-Some sort of humanoid-shaped species known for taking slaves (I'm thinking use Batarians as inspiration)
-A big stupid jellyfish (probably not )
-An enemy only (possibly Boss fight,) EXTREMELY dangerous xenophobic, silicon or metal or something-based alien species that doesn't need to breathe, absorbs oxygen (if it happens to be present,) is immune to stun and acid, maybe has a local teleportation ability, has a chance to stun on combat damage, can go into a frenzy (activated ability) for a brief period of time, doing like 10% more combat damage and attacking 20% faster, and finally decreases the cooldown of the frenzy ability by x seconds every time they kill an alien not of their own species...

Now that I think of it, that last kind of reminds me of Tholians from Star Trek. Unintentional, but could still work.

But he could call the project JamP...

Just another multiplayer project... in the vein of tons and tons of open source projects that append ja to the beginning of an acronym describing their program, meaning "just another"

[NarnKar]

I took the demo for a spin today, and here are some notes I have about it.

I don't have any friends and I didn't really plan on playing multiplayer, so for now I''ll load up the client.

Ship editor. Seems promising, although slightly clunky.
>Dragging the shield bar and ship bars work, but my mouse's scroll wheel only scrolled the ship-hull selector.
>There's no undo/redo log on ship editing. That's fine for now.
>So if I use the "empty space" option, then crew can walk between two "halves" of a ship, hmm? I'll try that out...
>Door/wall behavior is slightly wonky. If I click on a wall with the Door tool, then I can turn that wall into a door; however, this works even if there isn't a wall there. For example, I clicked one of the exterior walls of a room to erase it. Then I used the Door tool to click that empty wall. Nothing showed up. However, when I used the Wall tool to click that erased wall, the wall reappeared--along with a door, too.
>It's kind of hard to select particular elements, such as doors and rooms. Have you looked at Superluminal's UI? I find Superluminal's UI super intuitive, and definitely worth taking inspirations from.
>when saving ships, you can't type in the _ symbol, even though the hulls provided use the _ symbol.

If possible, perhaps you could look into allowing users to import their own custom ship hull art, rather than confine them to the selection in the ship editor.

All right, I got a test ship named the Bumblef**cker, now let's rock and roll.

...oh, I need to connect to a server.

Never mind!

[stylesrj]

That's a lot of aliens to fill in. I guess my main issue is not the graphics but what I'm going to call the "Burst Laser II Problem."
The more you add to a game for the sake of diversity or the whatnot means you're less likely to come across a decent weapon that'll help you win it.

We don't need 50 variants of a missile launcher unless you're planning to add 50 more variants of the Burst Laser II so the chances of getting either are still the same.

Not sure about Zoltan/Rock connection or Lanius and Oxygen scavenger connection making sense that the sprites would look the same.

Well you can recolour the elemental to be brown for the Rock type or green for the Energy type.
And yeah the Scavenger seems to be a bit weak in connection but if you want to get really serious and make it FTL-esque, you're going to have to make some changes and develop a story that sets it well apart from the game... sort of like Shipbreakers tried to do before being told "Alright fine, make it set before the events of Homeworld!"
So you never know

-Sentient Robots (don't have to be sapient but could be, different from Androids in that they don't look human at all and come in different shapes and sizes)...maybe like the Engi

I think the SCP Foundation has corrupted me on the terms of sapience/sentience. They tell me a dog is sentient as it learns and does clever things but a sapient being is self-aware, goes above and beyond survival.

But yeah robots. My idea is that you can get three types of robot (different to Combat Drones). One does nothing but heals (doesn't fight), another does fighting (AP/Boarding Drone) and a third type is really good at patching up damages to the ship but is terrible at fighting (Essentially the Engies).
Heck it could be a case when purchasing a robot you can tell it what its duty will be and for a small Scrap cost you can swap its equipment out before going into battle depending on what you think you might need.

I think the idea of a bunch of chitinous species working together would make a great bad guy. The Mantis and Spiders do all the fighting while the Beetles and Flies do all the ship stuff. Of course they don't always get along and your goal could be to break up this alliance. Find Mantis Rayder, his second the Lord of Chitin and split them apart.