[Ship] Missing But Not Gone

[RocketFlash]

(Version 6!)

This strange piece of magnetic rock poses a hazard to explorers. Ships passing near slam into the rock at high speeds mutilating vessels. The crew of some of these vessels survive the violent collision, creating networks of tunnels connecting parts of the broken vessels, eventually creating a functional ship!

This is my first ship/mod I have ever created. I had a very difficult time completing the shields. Used pieces of 5thHorseman's ship design Asteroid. Any help or suggestions regarding balancing or other aspects are appreciated .

Images may differ SLIGHTLY from current version

(In case the image is cut off or cannot be displayed http://i.imgur.com/RUN5Kca.png)


(In case the image is cut off or cannot be displayed http://i.imgur.com/vb3gvTf.png)

(This ship replaces the Torus)

This ship has a focus on boarding, the medical bay is adjacent to the teleporter, making it easy to heal your crew after boarding. The Zoltan Shield makes it easier to board as your ship is protected while you are fighting aboard another ship. A laser attached to the ship also makes fighting unboardable ships a little bit easier. This ship has no sensors or door control, this is thematic and to provide a bit of a challenge due to the 4 man teleporter and weapons.

Story:
While carrying the important message for the federation, your ship soared by a large floating rock, all of a sudden the ship became unresponsive, and rapidly accelerating for the rock!
...You open your eyes, your previous crew is floating, dead in space just outside the window in front of you. Upon looking around you notice one of your crew, a Zoltan is still alive! You realize most of your hull is destroyed, having the entire stern of your previous vessel missing and only the bow, pinned against the rock remaining. Life support systems in the front of the vessel, powered by your Zoltan crew member, keep you alive until yet another vessel crashes into the rock, and another, and another. Over time many vessels crash into the rock, slowly adding to its mass. You and your only other survivng crew member slowly excavate a network of tunnels connecting other parts of other ships, locating other surviving crews of other unfortunate vessels, most of whom end up perishing in accidents. Your new crew repairs systems of these old destroyed ships, creating a large working ship! You now have a ship, a new crew, and a mission to complete. You may be missing, but you are not gone.

Starting Equipment

Crew:
-One Human
-One Zoltan
-One Rockman
-One Engi
Reactor Power:
-4 Power
Weapon:
-Heavy Ion
-Mini Beam
Systems:
-4 man Teleporter
-3 man Medical bay
-Level 2 Engines
-Level 3 Weapons
-Life support
-Basic Shielding

Download:

New updates coming soon!

https://mega.co.nz/#!X8oShJib!_7kx443An ... iDVbzon2iU
(Recomended version)

https://mega.co.nz/#!zoplzBrZ!mFmIpk-Ki ... i96PKdtjlU
(Outdated version containing sensors and door control, problems with asteroids, unobtainable systems.)

If you try it out, please send me a message or leave a comment letting me know what you thought
I look forward to your comments

[Ora_unit_SR388]

MOTHER OF ALL SPLICED SHIPS! Seriously, that actually looks kinda cool. Especially that shield, how did you make it exactly?

[RocketFlash]

How I made the shield? I took one of the default shields from the vanilla game, then I enlarged it to fit the beast of a ship. However since I enlarged it so much, it was really pixelated. I applied a couple photoshop filters then used Gaussian blur to make it not so sharp.

[aaaaaa50]

First off, that ship hull is bananas awesome. It's really sweet. You've got one real big problem though: Rooms bigger than the normal 4x4 are super fire hazards. If the doors get broken while one of those rooms are on fire it can get impossible to put the fire out. Really big rooms also kinda stick out of FTL's normal art style.

Balance wise this is a very powerful ship to start with. 4 pad teleporters are already very powerful, but this ship also has zoltan shields and a powerful early sector weapon combo. There's really nothing wrong with it, just saying it's an easier start than vanilla.

[RocketFlash]

Thank you for the reply. I have updated the ship, all rooms are 2x2 or under now. I noticed it is a pretty powerful ship, do you have any suggestions for a different weapon combo? What do you think of the layout now?

[xlandar]

This ship looks HILARIOUS, in a good way. balance wise, i would change the weapons to a weaker ion weapon (heavy ion perhaps?) and a mini beam. also, i would change the medbay to a 3 man med bay, so it's slightly harder to heal your guys and it's more vanilla. very cool idea, and for your first mod, it's pretty good! (certainly better than my first!)

[itg]

Pretty cool! As you have noticed, the ship is extremely overpowered as currently configured. You've got two or three ships' worth of starting equipment, and that's without even considering the 4-man teleporter. By the way, that teleporter alone makes the Crystal B and Mantis B the two best vanilla ships, and they don't get any weapons at all.

As for rebalancing, I have a few suggestions. These are all based on the assumption you want to keep the 4-man teleporter:

--Drop the mantis and a Zoltan, and swap the rockman for a human. The human, Zoltan, and engi are plenty to win most early battles easily, but at least it puts a tiny bit of pressure on you to find more crew. Plus, I think forcing you to use suboptimal crewmen for boarding better fits the theme of a ship crewed by random survivors.
--Drop sensors and door control. Losing sensors isn't a big deal, and it makes sense thematically. Losing doors would make fire a real threat (so you have a real incentive to buy them at the shop), and again, pretty thematic.
--Lose the ion blast II and swap the pike beam for a fire beam. Everyone loves the fire beam, and it gives you a way to get through Zoltan shields (I'm like 90% sure of that). Otherwise, it's not very useful by itself, but could be hilarious later on when you get some rockmen.

If you apply all these suggestions, I think you'll end up with a ship that's stronger than the Mantis B but weaker than the Crystal B.

Also, I might suggest making some of the 4x4 rooms into 1x2 rooms for aesthetic reasons. You know, to make them feel more tunnelly.

[tehwanderer]

Not sure if you're still working on this or not, but I just loaded this up after downloading it and the shields don't work against asteroids at all. Not even the regular shielding. Asteroids are just going right through the entire thing, and not affecting shielding.

[RocketFlash]

Thank you everyone! All comments are greatly appreciated. I am working on some updates, they should be out by the end of the day. Any other suggestions are very welcome

[RocketFlash]

Updated tried following everything people said. Let me know what you think.