I have not modded AE content yet, so play vanilla. It won't take long to do, I've gone through the .xml editing process already, but I'm focusing on other things to start.
The only ship modded for this so far, is Kestrel A. All the other ships work, and they've had their hull points changed, but not setups or anything. They may be very OP or very weak. I'll get to them shortly, just again focusing on fewer things at a time.
With that said, here is the mod, .ftl file for slipstream (it only replaces blueprints.xml, but this is currently intended as standalone)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6seporzazb5i5ja/LLL.ftl?dl=0
The intention of this mod is to give a total different feel to the game, unlike vanilla or any other mod. Of course that doesn't mean superior, just different for the people who would like a change to freshen up the game
.Overall the goal is to make it much more hectic. Ships more potent offensively on both sides, ability to use more drones, boarding, weapons. More breaching, fires, and stuns, niche weapons are better at what they do.
Probably the single biggest change, is the player's ship is no longer tanky. Shield and Cloak systems are now capped at 1 (may increase to 2, but at high cost, for late game). Your ship's hull points now range between 8-13. Since the health bar segments do not accurately scale to these, here is a reference.
Zoltan Ships - 8 health
Kestrel + Engi + stealth ships - 10 health
Mantis, Crystal, Rock ships - 11 Health (However Rock Plate is 30% ignore, so rock has most effective health)
Slug Ships - 12 health
Federation Ships - 13 Health
However, other defensive assets have been improved. Almost every ship will start with either a defense drone, hull repair drone, Repair Arm (buffed) so on. Basically, you are assisted on attrition, but you will not be able to take much heat in a battle. You'll have to take down or disable the opponent quick.
Cooldown of weapons have been squeezed into a 9-14 second window(1 weapon is at 15). This should make battles more hectic, and combat progressively more explosive as the game progresses. Battle plans will have to made quickly at the start of battles.
Weapons cost 5-30 scrap. Generally, 5 per laser/ion damage, or 'tier' of missile. Bombs and beams start higher, at 15 or so, and reach the cap of 30. While this makes weapons more accessible, it also decreases the scrap from selling weapons by a ton. I hope to encourage the player to keep a variety of weapons on hand, and allow them to change up their strategy more, through buying at shops. Fire, Breach, and Stun are much more common.
Here are the details of all the weapon changes
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Single Laser - 11 cooldown
Dual Laser - 12
Triple Laser - 13
Quad laser (was 5 shots) - 14
Basic laser power req is linear with shot amount, each hit has 40% fire. The custom dual lasers has 11 cd instead of 12, but -20% fire chance.
Single Heavy - 12
Dual Heavy - 13
Heavy Pierce - 12
Heavy lasers now do only 1 damage, but have 60% fire + 60% stun, 10% breach. Heavy Pierce is reduced to 30% fire + stun. Again, power req. is linear with shot amount.
Ion 1 - 8, 1 Ion DMG, 30% stun, 10% Fire, 1 power
Ion Heavy - 9, 2 Ion DMG, 70% stun, 20% Fire, 2 power
Ion Blast II - 5, 1 Ion DMG, 20% stun, 3 power
Ions have lower cooldowns than almost any other weapon type. They've had stun and fire odds buffed. The ion blast 2 is lower on statuses, and thus more specialized for ion damage to shields + systems.
Leto Missile - 9, 40% for all statuses, fire/breach/stun
Hermes Missile - 10, 70% for all statuses, 2 damage, 2 power
Pegasus Missile - 11, 2 dmg + 30% all statuses for each missile, 3 power
Breach Missile - 12, 100% for all statuses, 3 damage, 3 power
Artemis Missile - 12, 20% all statuses, 2 dmg, 1 power
Missiles are now slightly lower cooldown than lasers, as well as having higher odds for statuses. This should make them more appealing to the player. Most player ships will be starting with way to cope with enemy missiles, such as a defense drone, or a repair drone to patch up between nodes.
Mini Beam - 10, 30 Length Beam, 1 DMG, 20% Fire, 1 power
Pike Beam - 11, 140 Length Beam, 1 DMG, 20% Fire, 2 power
Halberd Beam - 12, 90 Length Beam, 2 DMG, 40% Fire, 3 power
Glaive Beam, - 13, 80 Length Beam, 3 DMG, 60% Fire, 4 power
Beams have had their cooldowns and fire chances buffed, but also have had their beam lengths reduced. Balancing will be done by further decreasing the length, no chance of dodge is already a great asset.
Dual Hull Smasher -14, 2 Shot, 2 DMG, 0% Fire, 50% Breach, 2 power
Triple Hull Smasher - 15, 3 Shot, 2 DMG, 0% Fire, 50% Breach, 3 power
Hull Smasher Laser - 14, 110 Length Beam, 1 DMG, 50% Breach, 3 power
Hull Smasher Missile, 12, 1 Damage, 40% Fire, 40% Stun, 100% Breach, 1 power
Hull Smasher weapons now specialize in breaches, and actually have 0 hullburst, which I thought was a pretty messed up mechanic. The lasers also do 2 damage instead of the typical 1. But their cooldown is 2 higher than the base lasers. If too strong, an increase to +3 CD could work. The Hull Smasher Laser may be the king of breaching, with 110 length and 50% breach. If it is too weak for 3 power, the length may be increased (or power down to 2 and other stats decreased). I may nix the Hull Smasher missile, and instead use it as an AI only weapon with custom stats.
These are all the non-conventional weapons, meaning no normal/ion damage (exception being ion bomb). They've all been made much faster on CD, so they get to act first. The plan is to make them especially useful for a mixed strategy, i.e. boarding.
Fire Beam - 8 , 50 Length Beam, 0 DMG, 100% Fire, 1 power
Bio Beam - 9 , 60 Length Beam, 45 Crew DMG, 2 power
Small Bomb - 7, 1 System DMG, 45 Crew DMG, 50% Fire, 20% Breach, 2 power
Breach 1 Bomb - 8, 2 System DMG, 45 Crew DMG, 30% Fire, 100% Breach, 3 power
Breach 2 Bomb - 9, 3 System DMG, 60 Crew DMG, 100% Fire, 100% Breach, 4 power
Fire Bomb - 6, 30 Crew DMG, 100% Fire, 2 power
Ion Bomb - 8, 3 Ion DMG, 20% Fire, 70% Stun, 3 power
Heal Bomb - 5, heals 65 crew health, 2 power
Lock Bomb - 6, 3 power
The 3 traditional bombs now suck up a lot of power, but do a lot more crew damage, have higher status %s, and have exceptional cooldowns.
Triple Crystal -13, 3 shots, 1 DMG, 10% Breach, 40% Stun, 1 Shield Pierce
Heavy Crystal - 12, 1 shot, 2 DMG, 30% Breach, 70% Stun, 1 Shield Pierce
Heavy Crystal 2 - 14, 1 shot, 4 DMG, 70% Breach, 90% Stun, 2 Shield Pierce
Crystal weapons have the same cooldowns as their laser counterparts, with lower fire but some breach and stun. Might end up increasing the CD by another second.Drones are now intended to be a core part of the game, necessary to use by most player ships (and a starting system more often). I think Drones add huge variety to the game, but they were generally unnecessary. Here are some alterations.
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Defense Drone 1 - 1 power, 15 second cooldown between shots(so far the cooldown seems to work as intended, no way to cheat around it)
Defense Drone 2 - 2 power, 7.5 second cooldown between shots
Combat Drone 1 - 1 power, significantly reduced firing speed. May reduce even more.
Combat Drone 2 - 2 power, double firing speed of Combat drone 1. Fewer drone slots taken, fewer drones consumed. May reduce speed to balance these benefits (so two Drone 1's would be more raw power)
Anti-Boarding Drone - 1 power
Boarding Drone - 2 power
Repair drone, indirect buff through much higher rate of breach + fire. Will start on many ships.
Price of supplies in store:
Fuel - 4
Missiles - 2
Drones - 4
Almost all ship systems have been decreased in cost, and do not scale up so steeply. Augments are similarly dirt cheap compared to before (again, this also means less loot scrap for the player). And as stated before, Shields and Stealth are capped at 2(1 shield bubble) and 1. Door power is capped at 2, of course it can still be buffed by an operator.
Augments have also been greatly changed, usually buffed, but not always. Here's a list (note again that AE should not be played yet)
Crystal Shard - triggers on 30% of hits. 2 shots 1 damage each, 70% breach, 100% stun.
Rock Plating - 15% to 30% ignore hull damage
Crew Stims - 25 - > 40% speed buff
Drone Speed - 25 - > 80% speed buff
System Casing - 15 -> 40% ignore system damage
Repair Arm - buffed to 5% scrap reduction, from 15%
Scrap Collector - nerfed to 5% scrap increase
Auto Reloader - reduced from 10% to 5% CD reduction
Pre-Igniter - cost from 120 to 160
Recharge Booster - 25% to 50% FTL charge increase
Drone Recovery - cost at 60, now potentially the best scrap source
Shield Recharge Booster - buffed to 30%
Here is the state of Kestral A at the moment.
http://i.imgur.com/sAgeMzM.png
10 hull points
Starts with 4 engine to give better dodge to start, may increase even more
Starts with drone system(2 power)
Starts with repair drone, ship repair drone, and boarding drone.
starts with boarding system(1 power)
Weapon power decreased to 2. Starts with Basic Ion, Single Laser, Bomb 1, and Artemis
Starts with Shield Recharge Booster and Adv. FTL Navigation
Starts with 7 Humans. I hope to make player crew die more often, but this is mostly to enable boarding early. Enemy ships will be made stronger soon, to compensate.
The next big step is an overhaul of the enemy ships to make them more focused and better at what they do, and thus requiring less of a "one size fits all" player strategy. Enemy boarders will be more aggressive, gunships will be more overwhelming and thus require a quick assault or disabling of their systems. Enemy beams will be synchronized on cooldowns with lasers, or beams will be taken out altogether if that can't be done.
Another future implementation is to make the fights in the different sectors drastically different, requiring different strategies to meet the challenges. i.e.
6+ mantis boarders in Mantis sectors, making Asphyxiation not as plausible as a defense against boarding. Pushes the use the buffed bombs that can target friendly rooms. Note dead crew is easier to replace.
Rockships way more durable making conventional weapons a hassle, asphyxiation or boarding preferred approach
Zoltan gunships with tremendous firepower, requiring boarding or selective system destruction (not as solid on this yet)
Slugs with more fire spam, mind control, hacking etc., similar to slug home nebula
Human and Engi balanced threats like now, with Engi emphasis on drones. But tougher.
I'll be posting day to day changes in the thread in the "Mod Development" forum, so if you want to significantly take part in balance and feedback, that could work better. But all feedback and ideas are welcome here!(or if anyone wants to get involved that would be welcome, I do intent to change much more in the future, events, new weapons/drones/augments, so on
).viewtopic.php?f=12&t=26261
I definitely like the idea of the weapons have more fire and breach effects, I'll have to see how having only about 10 hull works...
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