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

[aaaaaa50]

That reminds me of this awesome ship:

Still one of my favorites, because you never know what loadout you'll end up with. From here.

[snowhusky5]

The fed medevac (and maybe other layouts of that ship design) have the right weapon slot a little off. When the wep is activated it's floating away from the ship, and deactivated it looks like it's activated, except without the fancy lights.

EDIT: btw, do you just lose the game when you surrender to a rebel space station? I kinda wanna try, but I'm worried...
Also, the rebel space stations rightmost weapon mount is also off a little

[Sleeper Service]

My defense drones don't seem to want to shoot down the slow boarding drones sometimes...

This is intentional, boarding drones are considered missiles in Vanilla as well.

The fed medevac (and maybe other layouts of that ship design) have the right weapon slot a little off. When the wep is activated it's floating away from the ship, and deactivated it looks like it's activated, except without the fancy lights.

Yeah I tried t fix that. Some mounts look correct in the editor, but are off ingame. Don't know what's causing this. I'll look into it again.

EDIT: btw, do you just lose the game when you surrender to a rebel space station? I kinda wanna try, but I'm worried...

I would be worried as well. Maybe on day you will be in a situation (most crew dead, already clear that you can't beat the boss on this run etc.) where surrender would make sense. Then you could try I guess. Maybe they have mercy with you.

That reminds me of this awesome ship:

Yes I'm pretty sure that was one of the first mods that introduced that concept. Both of zaratustras ships feature really innovative concepts there.
Thinking some more about trade goods I started to consider implementing a (very) basic trade system. It will work a little like in Freelancer. Trading the different goods could happen almost entirely within costume events that would come up before the shops and will be different for each sector
The good itself will have only their loot value as <cost>, which will be pretty low across the board and reflects the lowest (aka worst) selling price of the commodity. Buying them will always happen in events, which allows full control over actually buying prices. Still you will never be able to by a commodity cheaper then its pure <cost> sell value. Just selling something at a shop will always yield little return, but is still all-right for offloading loot and freeing up cargo space.
If you want to sell stuff with profit, you have to sell the goods within the trade events (blue option). In trade event the shops will make you offers for your goods, if they are interested in them. They pay you an advanced and then ask you to unload the cargo at the shop to get you full payment. The player is informed that not selling the aug here breaks the trade system and is basically cheating. That is kind of out of game, but right now the only way to get around the fact that there is no way to remove augs from the player within events (the stasis pod research event does that, but its hard coded).
In the end the player will be rewarded for transporting goods from certain sectors to others. Knowing which faction offer and demand which goods will help to maximize your profits. Piracy plays into that as well, letting you acquire goods for free.

Let's see how it could look ingame:

You play the kestrel, which is giving you a lot of cargo space available from the beginning.
The Federation has to survive at all cost! You decide to revert to piracy to finance your escape from the Rebel fleet. You destroy a defenceless merchant ship and receive Consumer Goods (sells for 10 at shops).
<!-- The goods that are found at each sector will be randomized, but acquiring goods that are common and sold in the sector will be more likely -->
You get to a shop. They offer Food Rations for 18 (sells for 15 at shops) and Consumer Goods for 12 (sells for 10 at shops)
<!-- This is an event. These prices are just examples right now. They will be slightly randomized, but always above selling value -->
You don't get a blue option for sell your own Consumer Goods, because this shop is not interested in them.
<!-- Trade events will never buy what they sell -->
You buy Food Rations for 18.
<!-- Player will be reminded to make sure that he has enough cargo space -->
You get to have a look at the ship equipment afterwards. You sell your Consumer Goods for cheap to have enough money to buy a weapon.
<!-- This happens in a regular shop window now. -->
You reach the exit beacon and jump to a pirate sector.
You reach a shop.
Trader offers to sell [one of about 20 other trade goods].
<!-- This is an event again. -->
You get a blue option to sell Food Rations for 40.
<!-- Pirates have little economy or agriculture, they are in demand of this commodity. Types of goods, offer and demand will all be lore friendly. -->
You take the deal and receive 25 as advance. You are asked to transfer the goods to the shop to receive full payment.
<!-- Player is asked to sell the aug at the shop. There is a reminder that not doing this breaks the trade system and is considered cheating -->


Limitations:
-Selling requires player corporation, cheating and breaking the trade system is possible every time you sell stuff in events. Just cooperate ok?
-Player has to be sure that he has space when buying, else he has to leave an argumentation behind
-You can't buy and sell during the same event?
-Profit can't be balanced according to difficulty, trading gives the same profit on easy and normal, offsetting the balance a little?

[snowhusky5]

some of the starting 'tips' are glitched. apostrophes and possibly other special characters seem to do it, the text around the apostrophe just spazzes out every frame, moving the text after it. The one about personnel damage and the exotic ships one both have it, probably some others as well

Also, when I take out an 'elite cruiser' at the exit beacon (according to the event text)(the vanilla ship sprite, not the massive one) by boarding it and killing the crew, I don't get a popup window giving me 1 fuel and saying 'time to go' or whatever. Also, the rebel fleet is not delayed at all, even though the second window, when the ship appears, says it will. Not sure if it works if you blow up the enemy ship.

Taking out one of the big cruisers, not on the exit beacon, does work however.

[Sleeper Service]

Ah ok I messed around with these events a lot. I'll probably have a bugfix release up soon, before I release the next content update, to get this stuff working first.

For the trade extension (TE_) I finished the trade goods blueprint and the price balancing so far. There will be 22 different kind of cargo.

[Torchwood202]

For the trade extension (TE_) I finished the trade goods blueprint and the price balancing so far. There will be 22 different kind of cargo.

So will trade goods be strictly made to be augmentations? Is it possible for it to be a weapon or drone that does nothing but selling it?

[Sleeper Service]

I think the goods will always be augs. I like the idea that the aug slots also represent your ships cargo space. This way the player mainly has to balance cargo capacity and aug use. While technically possible, having goods as different assets (weapns, drones) would make things kind of convoluted and incoherent.

Just did a test-run with the first modified store event. Works as intended.

[Nevill]

Hello there. Long time lurker here.

I tried the mod the other day and what I saw was enough to prompt me to register and write this post. The mod looks very promising, and I would love to play it when it is finished. Though to be true, I've got mixed reactions about the new ideas so far.

Here are some points I wanted to ask about or comment on, based on the first 2 hours of playing, in no particular order.

1) The idea of battlestations looks neat on paper - a large space object that sacrifices mobility for armor and (hopefully) firepower. Unfortunately, it does not quite work. Space stations in the first sectors are woefully underpowered - they rarely have anything more than a single shield and two power bars in the weapons section. I have encountered stations that were equipped with just a heavy laser, or an ion blast and a simple laser. Once a single shot damages their weapons system, they are sitting ducks, but I still have to plow through their bloated HPs. There is no challenge, no fun, it is simply tedious. I was bored to death while I waited for Kestrel's Burst Laser MK2 to recharge over and over again. Imagine doing that with Engi Type B. Yikes!

(Some of them did not even have O2 module. Were they fully automated? The station in question only had 2 systems: weapons and shields. How should a mantis, or a rock, or a slug cruiser even deal with these? Nibble on them with basic lasers for 1 hp at a time? At least normal stations can be boarded... I hope. Didn't try that yet.)

Increasing a danger level of battle stations would go a long way to actually making these encounters meaningful. Equip them with 3 to 4 weapons (maybe more, if the game engine allows that), or have them always use drones (those would make a lot of sense to have on a space station), especially since the mod introduces a variety of new drones that make life very hard for a player. Equip them with repair bots, or some augmentations (do these work on enemy ships, I wonder?). Of course, starting ships might have no way of dealing with such an overwhelming power, which is why it might actually be a good idea to move these kinds of encounters to later sectors altogether.

This might all be random chance, but I've noticed that these types of encounters occur a little too often. In the first sector I have fought 4 stations, compared to only 2 ships.

2) This is a minor nitpick. I've noticed that the mod adds a space station model on the right when encounering an appropriate event. Again, this seems like a good idea on paper, but I had 3 random events (I mean peaceful ones, that did not require fighting) with stations in the very same sector that had me fight 4 of them, which brings the total of these encounters up to 7 out of 11-12. This wears out the novelty of seeing a station model really fast.

Vanilla game portrayed peaceful encounters only by text, and I can see why they chose to do so.

3) Is there a list of the new weapons/drones and what they do? I am particularly puzzled by a Light Defence MK II drone - it looks like it combines abilities and the cost of a Defence MK I drone with the speed of a Defence MK II one. What would be the point of having Defence MK I then (unless it is no longer in the game)? Also, I've noticed that the animation of this drone looks weird - it moves fast when on a left/right side of the ship, but slows down when it is on top/bottom side.

4) There are several typos here and there. Regrettably, I did not take notes. I only remember one, because I caught it on a screenshot, where "IDed" is spelled as "IDyed".

5) I had an encounter with an aggressive AI with a superiority complex, that tried to surrender. I accepted the surrender, but it turned out to be a ploy to stall for time. The AI did not seem to receive any advantages whatsoever (I did not depower my weapons as the text said, and neither it powered - or repaired - its own), so I wonder if there were any? And if not, why is there a choice?

6) It is easy to see that the new weapons were introduced with some sort of balance in mind, to give players a larger variety of tactics to choose from. Unfortunately, sometimes it produces unforeseen consequences for the AI. I observed 2 extremes by the 3rd sector:
a) An enemy ship was given a Halberd Beam and a light laser with 3 shots, that were comletely unable to pierce 2nd level shields. Generally, placing a beam weapon on a ship without any means to pierce shields does not look like a good idea to me. Vanilla game had them alway accompanied by anti-ship drones, or regular lasers, or *something*. Naturally, there were cases in vanilla when these complementary weapons were still not enough to breach through the shields, but, well, at least they tried.
b) An Engi ship with an Ion cannon that makes 2 shots in rapid succession, a single-shot laser, and THREE drones. One of them a missile one, the others were probably equipped with light lasers. I'd say that for the 3rd sector, it is a bit over-the-top, and that comes from a player that thinks there were no over-the-top difficult fights in vanilla (not for starting 3-4 ships, anyway). I guess it might be that the light laser drone only costs 1 power bar, so the enemy deployed 2 of them (it is reasonable for an Engi ship in the 3rd sector to have 4 power bars in drones), but man, did it hurt. Dat breach chance on light lasers.

Well, that is it for now. Will play further and see how it goes.

[snowhusky5]

Hello there. Long time lurker here.

*snip*

Well, that is it for now. Will play further and see how it goes.

1: usually space stations aren't that common, you probably just got unlucky
2: in vanilla you saw the ship graphics for ships that were out of fuel/had a ftl malfunction, even though you can't fight them, so I think it makes sense to have space station graphics for the events that have a peaceful space station.
3: I think that's a bit strange too - the light defense drone mk 2 is seemingly objectively better than the defense drone mk1 objectively (except it costs 10 scrap more, but that's nothing)
4: there are definitely a lot of typos
5: I've tried it a few times, and surrendering to AIs seems to be useless - they don't give you anything. The only reason you'd do that is if you somehow got the surrender offer while it is still powerful enough to hurt you, which you usually don't
6:there's not really much the mod can do about enemies not being able to hurt you, except not letting them have light lasers/etc. And yes, missile drones are real asses.

side note, I just recently had an encounter with an enemy with a ion blast mk3 and another good ion weapon and a heavy laser. I finally got to use the strategy of putting 2 zoltans in the shield room so no matter how much they ioned me, I always had 1 bar of shields to stop the heavy laser, effectively turning what would have been a hard fight into one that is real easy

[Sleeper Service]

Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback! I actually have very little time to play the mod, so I really depend on that.
I will implement some of your suggestions in the next updates. Concerning your points:

@ 1) Now as you say it I have to admit that I totally agree on most of that. I feel the same as you when fighting them. Yet again I mostly tested on easy. You play normal I guess? Stations definitely need some empowerment.

(Some of them did not even have O2 module. Were they fully automated? The station in question only had 2 systems: weapons and shields. How should a mantis, or a rock, or a slug cruiser even deal with these? Nibble on them with basic lasers for 1 hp at a time? At least normal stations can be boarded... I hope. Didn't try that yet.)

Auto stations and to some degree Federation stations that have been hacked have no O2 System, just like Auto ships. Boarding ships can deal with these just like they can deal with other auto ships: By fleeing, by getting weapons or by tedious and dangerous quick boarding manoeuvres.

This might all be random chance, but I've noticed that these types of encounters occur a little too often. In the first sector I have fought 4 stations, compared to only 2 ships.

How many playthroughs did you do with the mod? Because I usually encounter 2 too 3 stations per sector. If indeed more station encounters than that are happening, their probability might be lowered. Right now one third of hostile encounters involve stations.

Of course, starting ships might have no way of dealing with such an overwhelming power, which is why it might actually be a good idea to move these kinds of encounters to later sectors altogether.

That has been implemented to some extend by giving certain stations min and max sector values.

@ 2)

Vanilla game portrayed peaceful encounters only by text, and I can see why they chose to do so.

I guess that’s really up to everyone’s personal taste. Some vanilla events include ship displayed for flavour just like that. Sometimes the station displayed actually can be engaged via certain options and outcomes.

@ 3) Is there a list of the new weapons/drones and what they do? I am particularly puzzled by a Light Defence MK II drone - it looks like it combines abilities and the cost of a Defence MK I drone with the speed of a Defence MK II one. What would be the point of having Defence MK I then (unless it is no longer in the game)? Also, I've noticed that the animation of this drone looks weird - it moves fast when on a left/right side of the ship, but slows down when it is on top/bottom side.[/quote]

I intentionally give no informations at all on the mod equipment, as I believe that letting the player discover tactics and uses off the stuff is part of his or her fun. (Spoiler: The difference between Light Defense MKII and Defense MKII is that Light Defense MKII can't shoot down enemy laser fire.) I noticed the animation problem, might be caused by its movement speed it? No idea how to fix that though.

@ 4) constantly working on that, it's still a beta though.

@ 5) Explaining what I had in mind for the AI surrender would take the fun out of it. Part of being successful in FTL comes from knowing what is the possible outcomes of events. I leave it to players experience how the evaluate taking AI surrenders. It's also part of their characterization as eccentric supercomputers.

@ 6) FTL compleatly randomizes enemy weaponry. So the mod never place any weapons on enemy ships, It just makes them available to them. As you pointed out: there are also encounters in Vanilla where enemy ships have no chance of dealing any damage to the player at all. I also encountered ships in vanilla that completely overpowered me. In my opinion that's cool, cause it really makes the player consider if fleeing is the more economical option in a fight and adds another layer strategy.

but man, did it hurt.

Exactly, that's how Vanilla FTL feels to me, that part of the fun and that's how I want the mod to feel.
I still might lower the breach chance on enemy light lasers though.