Just finished my first run run with CE infinite, done in Slug A. It was really awesome experience! I went to sector 3 normal way, then at its end, jumped into deep space. Left there for 3 sectors, blazed through 4-6 (5 was hazard sector asteroid field), got 2 deep spaces from there, rocked 7, went for another 1 deep spaces, and decided to finally give flagship some lesson, before I manage to max my ship out and feel like "cheating".
TIP: Hull Repair tool and Fuel Recycler are deep space's best friends. Especially early, when we're facing constant fuel problems (Run out of fuel twice). And those lovely free time to repair whole ship at deep space's entry sector could indeed get nerfed by possibility to meet guards there. Although it really seemed like jumping somewhere faaar away, where we have all the time in the world to fix whole ship, it's quite OP.
Indeed the whole feel is different - those "contested" sectors add a nice touch of meeting the unexpected. It's more "relaxing" - boss was a walk in the park even though i self-imposed a restriction of not touching its weapon slots. Hoever, the most demanding deep sectors were those two first after sector 3 - I think I got few ideas how to balance it more, especially later in game, where smashing every enemy single-handed while drinking tea and doing shopping list gets a little old. I've encountered some bugs, too - both "base" CE's and related to Infinite - AND got some questions. Putting all of this at the end of the post, in organized way:
Tested version:
FTL Captains Edition 1.102b.ftl +
CE Infinite Addon 1.0.ftl
Bugs:
CE "base":
1. Breaking truce as Slugs resets effect of enemy hacking our vessel's systems. It could be explained as fact that they've shut down their hacking device while surrendering, but it's little odd, that they don't re-activate if, after being betrayed. I haven't had chances to test if effects of player's device on enemy ships are reset, too. (Severity:
Medium or "wanna be a feature").
2. If we meet slavers and have advanced teleporter, we may manage to free all slaves before fight, gaining additional crew member for 100% if succeed. Then, later in a fight, we may either get a:
a) Slaver's surrender, where they offer us a slave
b) Finish their crew, freeing one or all slaves again
c) blow them up and still get to save one slave and get him as crew-member
Even leaving alone fact, that all of those seems contradictory with freeing slaves before fight, it allows to get (especially easily, if we have a boarding type ship, which usually have teleporter lvl 2) a two crew members from that single event, + scrap. IIRC, making unable to break truce with slavers was reasoned as "unbalanced" for the same reason (and indeed, getting 2 crew+members + scrap seemed unbalanced).
(Severity:
Medium)
3. Bounty hunter's ship cloaks immediately at start of the fight, even though event text stated that it just de-cloaked. It's strange, as I remember that you have fixed it already, and indeed fix was working (meet bounty hunter few times already, and it never acted like that). (Severity:
Minor)
4. This slug station would love having option to attack it, pirate way
:
http://s28.postimg.org/c9xeee1zv/slugs_unnatacable.jpg
(Severity:
Minor)
5. This dude here lacks shield bubble:
http://s2.postimg.org/q9xrbhs6v/bublele ... _inter.jpg
6. No engineering options here, despite having two of them in different empty beacons with same loadout:
http://s4.postimg.org/6ym9rnzrf/no_engineering.jpg
BTW, got this event in deep space sector entry IIRC (for sure "somewhere" in deep space), and event text was lying a little (entire sector *wasn't* experiencing plasma storm).
(Severity:
Minor)
7. The asteroid-belt type hazard sector states (in event text) that rebel fleet will have trouble traveling trough this sector. Hoever, it advanced at perfectly normal rate (not reduced, like in nebula). (Severity:
Medium)
CE Infinite:
1. Meeting rebel fleet at beacon exit disables possibility to jump into next deep space sector - no matter if we're at normal sector, or already in deep space. Furthermore, it doesn't show normal sector selector - just choose one of available routes randomly. Last but not least, it mitigate need of using 10 fuel cells to jump - we just jump like normal, for 1 fuel.
I really hope that this can be fixed, but if it's a moding limitation, it would love some lore-babble explaining inability to run further into deep space and, especially, the lack of high fuel cost (something about so many cruiser sized FTL fields making it easier to jump far distances?)
(Severity:
|Major)
2. Upon entering last beacon of deep sector, we're *given* a free fuel cell. Is it intended, that traveling deeper into space is free? (you aren't suggesting, that we travel there at impulse engines?
)
3. Rebel fleet have exactly the same delay at the start of sector in in normal ones and in deep space. Intended? If it's modding limitation, then pity, as having them advance normally in regular sectors, and start *muuuch* later in Deep Space would add nice to the feel of hiding under the rock somewhere away
Suggestions:
CE "base":
1. I really loved meeting working Crystal ship in asteroid belt hazard sector and enjoyed fighting with them, especially, that I did everything to kill it's crew without destroying the vessel (which wasn't easy in my circumstance there). Thus, the effect of succeeding was a major let down - regular "killed their crew" event text, scrap reward and absolutely regular weapon. Sure, I suspected that capturing Crystal vessel won't necessary buy me a VIP entry to crystal sector
but something more characterized would be nice there - like, finding a CRYSTAL weapon on the board, that our chief engineer manages to successfully adapt for our ship. Especially, after seeing all those shiny crystal weapons shotting at me
2. We have our lovely betraying slugs. Then, we have those (often) betraying AI ships, that sometimes join us, sometimes shot at us, sometimes give us map, and in the most irritating outcome, just shut down leaving us with nothing.
I think it would be nice, if our slimy pals could betray the betraying AI - shot it down in all of those cases, except for the one where AI join us. It could even contain same chance for being unable to break truce with AI, as during normal ship encounters
CE Infinite:
1. Like other, I was shocked initially, upon seeing upgrade cost prices. Until I realized, that only their "entry" cost was increased, while further upgrades cost almost the same - increased by the same raw amount of scrap, as it was in vanilla. So, if in vanilla, lvl 3 of some system was 50 scrap more expensive than lvl2, it is still 50 more scrap expensive in Infinite.
Indeed, it hurt balance quite a lot in later sector (6, 7) - upgrading systems was very fast, and costs were not scary at all, even when doing deep sector only *once* - it's amazing, how much edge repeating a sector only once give us (we progress, enemy difficulty level does not). So, ironically, entering deep space at sector 7 was easier than doing the same at sector 3. Ironically, high level systems seemed super-cheap, while low-levels had very expensive feeling. I'm pretty sure that lack of exponential increase of upgrading cost is responsible for it.
I think that every next level of system should be more pricey using the same % formula that was used to calculate "base" price in Infinite - if the system is 4x more expensive in Infinite than in base, next level price difference should be 4x increased, too. Example:
Some system lvl 2 cost 80 scrap in vanilla, and got boosted to 320 in Infinite. Said system's lvl 3 was 40 scrao more expensive in vanilla (cost of 120 scrap), so in Infinite, price increase should be 160 scrap - making it 480 in infinite.
This would allow to *decrease* "entry" price for systems (they're quite overpriced for low levels, now), but high-level upgrades would still be challenging to get, even for seasoned deep space, truce-breaking, scrap-magnet pirates
---
Generic questions:
1. Have you differentiated prizes for killing enemy crew weapons as opposed to boarding (if it would it be even possible)? It may be placebo effect, but I feel like getting better rewards when exterminating enemies via Bio-beam, than when killing them in boarding operations, with my crew on their ship.
2. Is it still possible to get into Crystal sector while playing CE infinite? Also, it is possible to meet Zoltan's scientists and/or derelict crystal ship in Deep Space? I got crystal's pod in normal sector, but I'm almost sure that I meet Zoltan's scientists in Deep Space, before. If I'm correct, the most chances-boosting way of unlocking crystal ship would be to achieve crystal pod and grind Deep space 'till we meet scientist and get crystal member, then hope, that on normal sectors we will have rock ones
3. I got one quarantine-like beacon in deep space - the empty one with "huge bio-hazard warning" on it. And it wasn't feeling out of place! I think that meeting quarantined planets with quarantine events in Deep Space would be a nice touch (just like in any civil sector we can meet "planet of great beauty" sending looped quarantine warnings) - after all, small outbreaks + quarantine fleets could happen in any beacons. Also, it would pose a greater risk to our crew, as we may not be prepared (Medical system lvl 2/3) for plague while traveling Deep Space.
Same apply for other "special" events, like meeting AI-avatar controlled rogue ship or even occasional small nano-cloud in the nebula out of the blue (indicating, that this sector may once become AI controlled one?), just like we meet some random regular nebulas in AI-controlled sectors
Cheers,
/Estel
But I haven't crystal crew to test it...
