I've updated the graphics (by splicing up the some Jelly and some Auto ships and learning lots from other peoples mods) so the ship has it's own graphics now. I'll keep updating as I go.
Links to screenshots
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xwjoqecc8zfkbi/Shot1.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oeppyhw495rsdoh/2013-01-22_00007.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9q3k4dar5cufp9q/2013-01-22_00010.jpg
Using the Cryonic Pulse weapon :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eiozqtn2d6ve6iw/2013-01-22_00013.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/34yj5n63jmo4ui2/2013-01-22_00015.jpg
Introduction
The Nexus Robotic Salvage Cruiser is a Engi ship designed to work without a crew. It is a originally a repair, refitting and salvage vessel which has been sent on a desperate mission by its creators. It replaces the B Engi ship. In fact in many ways it's just a refit of that in an attempt to make it more interesting.
Download
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qygftzo2jznwean/The%20Nexus.ftl
Features
- The Nexus is controlled by an AI. This means it works like the other enemy AI vessels in the game, all count as manned, Oxygen is not needed and it cannot be 'killed' by losing any crew members which join (or are generated. See below).
- The Nexus is unshielded initially. It is slighter tougher than other ships and comes with a Repair Arm to counter this. In some scenarios you will be in serious trouble however; unmanned enemy ships + beam weapons + drones + an asteroid field isn't nice for example.
- You start without a Medical Bay. Since you are crewed by an AI augmented with holographic crew a medical bay wasn't deemed necessary by the designers of the ship. You can of course purchase one in a Store.
- The Nexus is armed with Radiation based weapons, a system disabling cutting beam and a "wrecking" drone designed to disable systems and cause hull breaches. It has no initial direct damaging systems, relying on disabling ships and killing the crew via its Radiation weapons and suffocation.
- The version included uses a Thoron Radiation weapon (see details below) used to disable, purge and cleanse enemy ships. It also uses a cutting beam to dissect enemy ships and a Nanite Repair bomb to repair hull damage.
- The Nexus has a unique feature : Holographic Crew (a la Red Dwarf). At the start of the game you gain 3-5 Holographic 'Ghost' Crew. At the end of every sector you can choose to bring another holographic crewmember online. These crew can repair, man stations to gain experience or go on boarding attacks. They do not need Oxygen, however they are quite puny in a fight (Rimmers don't make great fighters). The teleporter was added to give an option for dealing with unmanned ships early on, at the cost of one of your holo-crew.
- The ship will function quite happily without its holo-crew. It will even slowly repair damaged systems without them or the System Repair Drone if it is taken offline. However you won't gain Station Experience if you are unmanned.
Slug Bomber
*New* I've changed the Slug B ship to a bomber which uses an array of new bombs and a small Disruptor.
Other bits and bobs
I've also added the following new weapons and drones. In most cases I've simply copy and pasted the FTL entries and reused the FTL graphics. I hope to add unique graphics (eventually, I've had a look and the radiation weapons use recoloured ion blasts for their 'bullets' ) :
- Gamma Radiation and Thoron Radiation weapons. Gamma Radiation does Personal Damage but nothing else. It's pretty much a anti-bio laser burst. It can pierce 1 layer of shields. Thoron Radiation Weapons do Ion and Personal Damage.
- Disruptor Weapons do Ion and Hull damage. The beam version of this was borked so it's been disabled. The Disruptor Drone may still be OP (he's very, very slooooow).
- Plasma Beams do Hull Damage and start Fires. There is one ship plasma weapon and one Plasma Beam Drone which is slower than normal beam combat drones (but a pyromaniac).
- Plasma Bombs combine all the fun of a Fire Bomb and a Crystal Lockdown Bomb in one. They do no direct damage.
- Cutting Beams do System Damage only. They also have a high breach chance, but that doesn't work with beams. The 'Cutter' Drone uses a Cutting laser instead which does breach.
- Nanite Hull Repair bombs do exactly as you'd expect, expending a missile and repairing your ship.
- Cluster Breach Bombs fire off 3 times, doing personal damage and having a good chance of causing a breach. These are evil in 2x2 rooms.
- The Cryonic Pulse Weapon fires a freeze beam which can severly damage crew, lock down a room and cause light system damage. This weapon is not yet balanced.
I've finished the game on Easy with this ship but as noted above the lack of a shield can make it frustrating early on. Disable them before they disable you is the motto, if you start losing systems things can go bad very quickly. With regards to balance not having to worry about oxygen gives you a big advantage against boarders and fires, so I don't know if the ship removes too many of the frantic, interesting times which FTL can put you through
All feedback welcome. As I said a lot of this was just me messing around but hopefully I've avoided making things too overpowered and haven't made the game uninteresting when playing this ship
Thanks to thashepard, Kieve and alextfish for feedback (and your own great mods which I've been playing and dissecting to see how things work and why mine was broken so much) and BrenTankage for the play throughs and bug reports.