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

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

Postby Sleeper Service » Thu Jun 06, 2013 4:50 pm

(OP last updated: 04.02.2018)

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So yeah, they are talking about mods. I think it's awesome what people did and Captains Edition is crazy.
- Justin Ma

[...] It is a massive mega mod, a huge compilation from various modders that have managed to create a brand new FTL experience.
- Total Biscuit

But my favorite modification so far is easily the Captain's Edition. It's a vast array of subtle tweaks that, as far as I can tell, just make the game better.
- Matt Lees

Captain's Edition is an excellent mod and I commend everyone who worked on it.
- Vinesauce Vinny

Oh my god, Captain's edition is amazing. I've been playing it for quite a long time now, it's quite a challenge and also really makes the game much more interesting, with greater story depth, item variety, different playstyles, trade, more music (the CE extra music addon adds such a good extra soundtrack, even feels like FTL-style) it's so interesting.
But it is a very serious challenge. stronger and more diverse enemies, different types of sectors, changed loadouts (which can be reverted with an extra addon on the CE page), and especially fuel management. doing long range jumps (as in jumping to the next sector) takes more fuel if you wanna stay in time with the fleet.
- Luigigames on reddit

Captain's Edition was exactly what I needed to really revive the spark that the game had for me! ...then again, I also now get my ass handed to me, but I rejoice in the fact that I'm once again faced with choices that are difficult to make and have a lot of impact on the game. It is a good bit more difficult, is (relatively) balanced, and is quite lore-friendly (things don't seem out of place beyond the occasional typo), but do note that the extra content and randomization means there will be more circumstances where you could potentially have very unfavourable odds for survival.
- HornplayerKC on reddit


Mandrake wrote:I just signed up to say 'Thanks!' for this incredible mod. It's awesome. :) Do you take donations via Paypal perhaps? I'd love to send you a few dollars.

Enjoying you free game content? Want to show your appreciation and support my work?
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What does that even mean?

You can also support CE by participating in our collective effort to spellcheck the mod texts. That is done through a public git repository.



Troubleshooting
(Please read through this section in case you encounter a problem with CE)

Mod manager crashes:
Follow the instructions here. Also Make sure you have the latest version of SMM installed.

Modded game crashes upon starting up:
First make sure you observed the load order shown bellow the download links (you have to drag the mods into the right order within the mod manager window to establish your load order.)
If the crash persist: Reinstall FTL or verify its game data with steam. Delete the content of the /backup folder of the mod manager or delete the entire mod manager end extract it anew (do not override the old mod manager, crashes can be caused by pre AE backup files in SMM that will not be removed this way).
If crashes persist: Read through the last pages of the SMM thread to see if anyone had similar problems and how they got fixed. Sometimes the download is faulty, so re-downloading the mod might also be an option.

Mod manager freezes while processing the Endless Loot Addon:
If you have a 64bit system, make sure that you have the 64bit version of Java installed. If it still does not work or if you have a 32bit system, find out (aka use the search engine of your choice) how to extend Javas heap space. Running the mod manager with extended Java heap space might or might not fix the freezes for you. There is a chance that a future version of SMM will be able to handle EL more reliably.

Game crashes/freezes after or during the loading screen when having the Endless Loot Addon installed:
Your FTL does not have access to enough memory in order to cache all the images EL adds. The solution is to allocate more memory to FTL. You can do this in various ways depending on your OS and personall preferences. Some ways might involve using third party software. Use a search engine to find out how to allocate more memory to FTL and EL might work. If that is too much trouble consider not using EL.

Better Planets and Backgrounds causes crashes together with CE:
A few people reported problems with version 1.3.1. of BPaB. But version 1.2.1 seems to work for everyone, so you can consider switching to that version of BPaB.

Black squares / pure black backgrounds with Better Planets and Backgrounds installed:
Make sure that you use the BPaB compatibility patch and double check if your mods are in the right order. (Check the mod load order template below the download links.)

A lot of textures are missing/glitched.
Make sure that you have the required resource/texture packs installed. Captains Edition requires the CE Resource Pack. Endless loot requires the EL Texture Pack.

After taking the "emergency fuel" option the fleet gets double jumps all the time.
This will happen if you hit restart after taking that option. For some odd reason, the added fleet pursuit carries over to the new game. Going back to the hangar and restarting the run from there will fix this problem.

Game crashes upon jumping to a beacon/sector or upon choosing an event option:
Please report the crash in the thread. If you want to help out even more, then provide as much information as possible (screenshot?; sector name?; event type: open space?, nebula?; in case you had scanning augs: hostile present at beacon?, hazard present at beacon?) Remember that you can still continue your run with AEs crash save most of the time.



Changelog
(complete version history can be found in the SMM mod description/mod appendix file)

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CE Update 1.308
- Nano Repair Blast II now repairs 3 hull/system damage, but requires 2 missiles to be deployed
- Changed some tips to reflect recent changes to the trade system

CE Resource Pack 1.308
- Added some more missing sounds that where removed with the FTL update

CE Endless Loot 1.308 for CE and CE Endless Loot 1.308 for CE Infinite
- Removed left-over animation data causing a visual glitch on the hangar screen

CE Update 1.306
- Removed warning portion from player artillery tooltips
- Fixed some bad syntax

CE Resource Pack 1.306
- Removed old fonts causing glitched text

CE Endless Loot 1.306 for CE and CE Endless Loot 1.306 for CE Infinite
- Implemented current changes from main CE

CE Update 1.305
- Pulled most of FearTheBlaziken's 1.6.x related changes into the main mod
- Pulled recent spellchecking changes from github
- Cut hangar animations (no longer functional with current FTL version)
- Adjusted trade goods sell prices to give you the full pay immidiately (since no honor system selling is required anymore, trade goods are removed automatically now)
- Trade goods sell values are more likely to sway in your favor now and can sway upwards more
- Increased the chance of stores having a cargo teleporter in most sectors
- Custom player artillery store price reduced (now 80)
- Naginata Beam now has a small fire and breach chance
- Pernach and Maul Beam breach chance increased
- Hull Beam II breach chance reduced
- Kestral C now start with it's hold full of Looted Bounty
- Engi B now starts with a haul of Raw Asteroid Ore
- Zoltan C now starts with a shipment of Beacon Parts
- Changed Stealh B starting loadout back to Naginata
- Stealth B now start with a shipment of Small Arms

CE Resource Pack 1.305
- Added some missing sounds that where removed with the FTL update
- Removed some assets that interfere with FTL 1.6.x

CE Endless Loot 1.305 for CE and CE Endless Loot 1.305 for CE Infinite
- Implemented most changes from main CE

CE Resource Pack 1.302
- Further reduced volume of flashbang explosions

CE Infinite Addon 1.301b
- Fixed mod desc and folder hirarchy

CE Update 1.301
- Pulled recent spellchecking changes from github
- Fixed bad text list in a rare Zoltan surrender event
- Fixed cargo teleporter pirate store event handling Small Arms trade goods incorrectly


(Consult mod description in SMM for the full change-log)


"The mod is too hard/not fun/frustrating!"
(My answer to that is directly inspired by my brothers and sisters in spirit that are making X-Com Long War. When I read their stance on these statements I felt like we are basically trying to do the same things with our mods, hence the following is a semi quote.)
I made this mod because I love vanilla FTL. I saw opportunities within the engine for much deeper strategic and tactical play and a greater variety of problems to throw at the player. When someone tells me it is too hard, there might be any of three things going on:

1. The player hasn't adapted to the changes in the mod and expects their suboptimal strategies to succeed. There are experience CE youtubers you can watch to get the hang of things. You can also consult the CE wiki to get some hints on how things work.

2. The player's definition of fun is different from mine; they expect the game to provide them easier situations or make solutions more clear. In this case the player should play an easier difficulty setting or simply play other mods or vanilla. Captain's Edition isn't for everyone. Also:
We wanted [FTL] to have around a 10% success rate even if you know what you’re doing. That was the goal in terms of difficulty.[...] We definitely wanted the atmosphere of the game to be that you feel like it’s a suicide mission, but that you just might win. It’s the sort of state of mind that doesn’t appeal to everybody, but if you can see that as a challenge, a high goal that you might not achieve, then it can be appealing.
- Justin Ma

3. The mod really is unreasonably hard (or bugged in a way that makes it too hard) and should be changed. Specific feedback about the situation and how you attempted to address it helps; broad complaints about difficulty in general are way less likely to induce me to make any changes.



================= Torrent With All CE Components =================

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magnet:?xt=urn:btih:240dc5ff4df6e8515f2fb6ecce11c249f489bfd8&dn=FTL%20Captains%20Edition%20All%20Components&tr=http%3A%2F%2F9.rarbg.com%3A2710%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fannounce.torrentsmd.com%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt.careland.com.cn%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fexplodie.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fmgtracker.org%3A2710%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.best-torrents.net%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.tfile.me%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.torrenty.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker1.wasabii.com.tw%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F9.rarbg.com%3A2710%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80%2Fannounce
(no risk of download corruption, but might not always be seeded)
Read the descriptions of individual components bellow before using this.



======================= Download Links =======================


Download CE Resource Pack 1.308 (MediaFire) For FTL 1.6.X

This includes all the textures, audio files and other asset that are required for Captain's Edition. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Best loaded before the Captains Edition base mod.


Download FTL Captain's Edition 1.308 (MediaFire) For FTL 1.6.X

The base mod. Fully AE compatible. Designed to be played on easy/normal difficulty. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Requires the CE Resource Pack. If installing the mod or running it causes any problems please read through the troubleshooting sections at the beginning of this post.



Download CE Vanilla Player Ship Loadouts Addon 1.261 (MediaFire)

Reverts changes that CE makes to player ship loadouts (Classic and AE) and re-equips the player ships with their original gear. CEs custom player ship loadouts are mainly designed as a showcase that teaches you aspects of CE. You can use this addon if your prefer playing the player ships with their classic loadouts. Requires the Captain's Edition base mod. Has to be loaded after Captains Edition to work properly. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager Has to be loaded after most other addons of CE to work. Check the load order template below.

Download CE Vanilla Portraits Patch V2 (Dropbox)
Optional. Reverts changes that CE makes to crew portraits. Courtesy of Russian Rockman. Has to be loaded after Captains Edition to work properly.

Download CE Generic Sector Names Patch 1.3 (Dropbox)
Optional. Reverts changes that CE makes to sector names and adds generic names for CEs new sector types.

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Download CE Infinite Addon 1.301b (MediaFire)

Optional. This turns FTL into a semi endless sandbox game, much like the original Infinite Space mod by DrkTemplar. It also supports all the regular Captains Edition features and AE. Provides a less harsh and more relaxed CE experience at the beginning, with gradually increasing challenge in later sectors. If this interests you, I highly recommended to read the detailed descriptions of this sub add-on at the end of this post. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Requires the Captain's Edition base mod. Has to be loaded after Captains Edition to work. Check the load order template below. If installing the mod or running it causes any problems please read through the troubleshooting sections at the beginning of this post.



Download CE Additional Music Addon 1.301 (MediaFire)

Optional. Adds a custom soundtrack for CEs new sector types. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Requires the Captains Edition base mod. Has to be loaded after Captains Edition to work. Check the load order template below.


Download CE Additional Music Infinite Compatebility Patch 1.0 (MediaFire)

Provides improved compatibility between CE Infinite and the Additional Music Addon. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Requires the Additional Music Add-on and the CE Infinite Add-on to be installed. Has to be loaded after those mods to work. Check the load order template below.


Download CE Additional Music Youtuber Patch Patch 1.0 (MediaFire)

Removes a track with unclear licensing (might cause copy right strikes on youtube.) You need this if you make let's plays or stream the mod. Requires the Additional Music Add-on to be installed. Has to be loaded after this mod to work. Check the load order template below.



Download EL Texture Pack 1.27 (MediaFire) Powered by rannl content generation

These are the textures required for the different flavors of the Endless Loot Addon. Best loaded before Endless Loot.



Download CE Endless Loot Addon for CE Infinite 1.308 (MediaFire) For FTL 1.6.X

Powered by rannl software. Optional sub-addon for CE infinite. This introduces procedural content generation to FTL and currently adds over 9000 (!) weapon, drone and enemy variants to the game. Details at the end of this post. Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Requires the EL Texture pack, the Captain's Edition base mod and the CE Infinite Addon. Has to be loaded after Captains Edition and the addon to work. Check the load order template below. If installing the mod or running it causes any problems please read through the troubleshooting sections at the beginning of this post.



Download CE Endless Loot Addon for standard CE 1.308 (MediaFire) For FTL 1.6.X

Experimental. This does the same as EL for CE Infinite, but is compatible with regular CE. Please note: An EL version for regular CE has been requested several times, so now there is one. But the broader range of great and garbage gear that the Endless Loot Addon creates was never really intended to be used outside the sandbox of CE Infinite. Use at your own discretion. ;)
You can also use this version with CE Infinite. That will disable exponential growing ship upgrade costs and prevent deep space elite enemies from spawning. Infinite gameplay can become boring quickly that way IMO, but this has been requested, so here is a way to have that...
Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Requires the EL Texture pack and the Captain's Edition base mod. Has to be loaded after Captains Edition and the addon to work. Check the load order template below. If installing the mod or running it causes any problems please read through the troubleshooting sections at the beginning of this post.



Download Non-EL Enemy Loadouts Addon 1.26

Highly recommended. This prevents enemies from using procedurally generated gear. The amount of EL gear is unevenly created for the different weapon class and EL gear on enemies will generally offset the game balance. Enemies with EL gear will also be highly unpredictable.
Install with Slipstream Mod Manager. Has to be loaded after the Endless Loot Addon to work. Check the load order template below.



Download Flagship Randomizer 1.x for AE, ACE or ACE Infinite

A small program that randomizes the flagship by combining a huge amount of different layouts, systems, weapons, drones and augments. It can create a large range of unique boss fights for FTL. Do you consider yourself an experienced FTL player? Have you beaten the flagship so often that the fight has become almost trivial for you? Are you looking for a new challenge? Then the Flagship Randomizer might be for you. Read the details in the sub-thread.



Download The Rand-[trel/orus/asio/wark/a Monster/prey] v0.10.x for AE, ACE or ACE Infinite

Another program by rannl that randomizes player ships by combining a different layouts, systems, weapons, drones and augments. It can create a large range of unique player ships for FTL. Are you looking for a new twist on the vanilla ships? Then this might be for you. Read the details in the sub-thread.



Capain's Edition uses some images from sanmonkus great Better Planets and Backgrounds mod in certain events. It is recommended to use this mod alongside CE for coherency. And also because it looks simply fantastic. :)
Better Planets and Backgrounds has to be loaded before Captain's Edition in order to work correctly with it. Note: Since 1.2 you will need this compatibility patch in order to make CE work correctly together with Better Planets and Backgrounds:
Download CE BPaB Compatibility Patch 1.0
The patch has to be loaded after Better Planets and Backgrounds and Captain's Edition in order to work. Check the load order template below.

If you want to see more of your new enemies you can use kartoFlanes nifty Expanded Enemy Window 1.1 mod.


Mod Load Order
When you patch the mods in via SMM, not loading mods in the right order can cause various problems (visual glitches in some events, crystal sector spawning instead of deepspace).
Therefore you have to get the mods into the right order, simply by dragging them around in the mod manager window. In the end, your load-order should look like this:

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|   Any non-ship not-CE-related mods you are using
|   Better Planets and Backgrounds
|   CE Resource Pack
|   FTL Captain's Edition
|   CE BPaB Compatibility Patch
|   CE Additional Music Addon
|   CE Infinite Addon
|   CE Additional Music Infinite Compatibility patch
|   EL Texture Pack
|   CE Endless Loot Addon for CE Infinite
|   or
|   CE Endless Loot Addon standard CE (never use both)
|   CE Non-EL Enemy Loadouts Addon
|   CE Vanilla Player Ship Loadouts Addon
|   Extended Pursuit Indicator x2/x3/x5/x24
|   Random Flagship
|   Rand-[trel/orus/asio/wark/a Monster/prey]
V   Any ship mods you are using


Obviously this list does not imply that you have to use everything that is listed here. Read the descriptions below the download links and the detailed descriptions in this post and decide which CE experience you are looking for. Then use only the mod components that are relevant for you.

Compatibility
Note: incompatibility does not necessary mean the game crashes, things might just not work properly.
- Outright incompatible with Balanced Arsenal, New Enemy Classes, Diversity Mod and Infinite Space; Don't use these mods alongside
- Incompatible with most enemy mods, weapon mods, drone mods or event mods
- Currently incompatible with the Corpses mod CE addon, causes crashes
- CE Infinite is generally incompatible with anything that changes the crystal sector
- Most other stuff, specially ship mods and visual mods, should work



=================== What is this anyway? ===================

FTL Captain's Edition is a major overhaul mod-compilation that aims to diversify and extend FTL's game-play on different levels. The mod tries to match the games lore, graphic style and general tone. While it adds a lot of new content, it also aims to maintain the basic balance of the vanilla game.

Wiki
Captain's Edition now has its own wiki, started by supporters of the mod.
The post you are reading right now will give you an overview of what is included in CE. But most of the time spoilers will be avoided and things are kept deliberately vague here, so that you can find out things for yourself. The wiki on the other hand, might eventually include in-depth info on all of the aspects of the mod.


=================== CE Components ===================
The rest of this post should give you an overview of what is include in the mod. This post has been edited countless times over the last two years, and it hasn't aged that well cause it is basically pieced together from stuff I wrote for certain semi-seperate components of CE after they where finished respectively. I will leave the post as it is for old times sake, but for a more comprehensive list of CEs features I recommend you read the CE wiki front page.


Captains Edition General
Captain's Edition is an overhaul mod. The following will outline what CE changes and adds on a global scale.The aspects of the mod detailed here take effect in pretty much any sector and are mostly event related.

Events, a lot of Events...
A lot of CEs content does not clearly belong to a certain component or a certain project (the mod was constructed mularly over a time of more than a year now.) There are a lot of small or big events that have been added now and then, and there is actual no exact count on how many new events there are now. It feels like a lot. :) Some general stuff that has been done with events so far:
- Distress beacons have been diversified, there are many new distress encounters
- A few highly scripted combat events have been added to various sectors
- Several new global quests have been added
- Various cut vanilla events have been reworked an re-added to the game
- Encounters with harmless civilians have been added
- All of CEs gear has been seaming less integrated into events and offers appropriate blue options
- A lot of vanilla text lists for flavour texts have been extended
- Ship destruction events gained more unique flavour texts, depending on faction (courtesy of slowridersxchorps)
- The Tips at the beginning of the game have been vastly extend to give tips about CE
- Probably more stuff that I have forgotten about...

Empty Beacons
The empty beacons of vanilla FTL, the jump nodes where nothing happens, have become quite an important thing in Captain's Edition. They are used to for a lot of other features, especially for new augments.

CE Social
Empty beacons also give you some time to chat with your crew. That is always a good option if you have nothing to do. Conversing with your crew might give you some details on their past or information on the game world. Sometimes it might even lead to hidden quests or rewards.

Player Surrender
CE will allow you to offer surrender at the beginning of most fights in which you are actively attacked. Just like enemies, you will have to offer some resources as a price. And just like you, your opponent might not accept surrender. Better make a good offer, it can save your live.

Long-Range Jumps
Traveling to a new sector is kind of a big thing in CE. While performing long-range jumps to new sectors you can decide on how much fuel you want to spent during the travel. If you are about to run out then you can always resort to your emergency reserve, but that will have the Rebels catch up with. By spending more fuel you can try to outrun the fleet.

Lore Perks and Meta Play-styles
CE tries to make the player ships of the various factions feel more unique, in a way that matches FTLs lore. A lot of the player ships get additional blue options that are related to the faction of this respective ship. Certain equipment also allow for similar distinct "secondary play-styles", that offer a way to gain resources outside of- or advantages in combat.

On-board Engineering and Meta Play-styles
On-board engineering let's you customize your ship into certain direction, in a way completely independent from your standard system upgrades. With certain gear (mostly augs), engineering options will become available at empty beacons. Your crew will be able to build stackable copies of augments you already have or new augments that supports you other gear. This needs time and more resources than simply buying the augment at shops, but makes it easier to customize a ship for a certain play style. A lot of the vanilla augments are less powerful on their own now, but offer to fully dedicate your ship to the advantages this augment holds by engineering copies of it.

All this together makes many Meta Play-styles possible. Some examples:
- Trader
- Pirate
- Diplomat
- Asteroid Miner
- Aid-Ship/Medevac
- Mine layer
- Factory Ship
- Hacker
- AI ship
- Brood Ship/Clone Ship
- Retaliation Ship
- Gunslinger Ship
- Missile Boat
- Ironclad
- Fast shield charging Defence Ship
- Drone Carrier
- Science Vessel
- Bounty Hunter
- Training Ship

Visual Diversity
A modified version of liakad's diversityMod (done by Istarune), is included in this compilation for your convenience.




Battle Stations!
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An old Federation station, taken over by pirates.
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A Lanius station, in the process of collapsing.


Captain's Edition lets you encounter and fight space stations of the different factions. They will appear in completely new events across all sectors. These distinct kind of enemies have strong hulls, but as stationary installations they usually have no engines and can not dodge. This might require you to take them on differently than normal enemies and makes certain weapons more/less effective against them.
There is one station design for each faction, all completely with gibs and cloak images, and they come in different layouts as well. There are neutral stations to encounter and you can also find a few new quests that involve fighting or boarding stations. For more details you can see the mods original development thread.




Cruisers!
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A rebel cruiser when encountered in combat

Captain's Edition aims to diversifying the Rebel fleet by letting you encounter various capital ships during certain events. The Rebel Fleet should feel even more like a proper Fleet now, a threat that has to be taken seriously. At Rebel occupied beacons you might have to face various ships (ranging from corvettes to battlecruisers) that are equally or even better equipped than your player cruiser. Fleeing will often be your best bet. The capital ships can sometimes also be encountered in Rebel Sectors, in CEs new Federation Sectors and during the Last Stand. They come in different layouts as well, again all completely with gibs and cloak image. Encountering capital ships is quite flavor heavy, most of them even have their own unique name.


A big thanks to Kieve for supplying his great Rebel Destroyer ship model. His support made it possible to extend this component of Captains Edition even further.




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Captain's Edition adds dozens of new enemies layouts to the game and has them use new tactics and sometimes distinct weaponry. You can check out the details in the original mod thread.

The new classes fill different roles and all have certain strengths and weaknesses. Some are more dangerous than others. Not all factions have access to all classes, they are distributed so that they fit the lore. Some of the new classes do behave quite different than vanilla enemies. You might have to rethink you strategy. Shields and weapons are no longer always the primary targets. Your ship and crew might have to face new dangers too and your might consider upgrading other defensive systems apart from shields and engines earlier.
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Rebel Assault Class

Some of the new enemies use new ship models, most of which have been contributed to CE by various community members. Big thanks to all of you!

CEs rare AI faction further fields various ships and stations of a completely separate, new design:
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AI Bomber





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Captain's Edition adds about close to hundred new weapons that are available for the player and for the most part to the enemies as well. The weapons are designed to fit within vanilla and it's balance. Numbers wise, most of these weapons are balanced after another already existing weapon, but differ in way that should make using them feel new and tactically interesting. Some of them have quite unique functions and uses and allow for new tactics in combat. Check out the details in the original mod thread.

The array of new weapons pointed at you can feel overwhelming at first. If you learn what weapon does what, then it will be easier to react appropriate in case it is pointed at you. Just the same like in vanilla FTL. ;)



Player Artillery


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Heavy Burst Laser Artillery, installed on the Kestrel


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[i]Verdict Focus Beam artillery[/i]


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[i]Waveform EMP while being fired[/i]

Similar to the original Open Artillery mod, CE enables artillery systems for all player ships. Various different artillery weapons have been added for all factions and they can be bought at shops like any other system. Most of the different artillery weapons match the Vindicator beam in terms of damage potential, but deal their damage in a different way that often require you to adjust your combat tactics accordingly. The Vindicator still somewhat rules them all, as the ultimate "power and forget" weapon. But the new artilleries all offer some pretty distinct advantages by themselves. Some of them do not deal direct damage, but allow you to gain a significant edge in combat through different means. Getting artillery for you ships is a high investment/high reward affair, not unlike buying cloaking.


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Captain's Edition tries to diversify drones as much as ship mounted weapons. (Drones Plus already did a a good job with that, but apparently is no longer supported.) Currently, about 40 new drones are added to the game. Some of the drones that where planned didn't work as intended, they didn't make it into the mod and are sad now.

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sad drones

Further some of the gear is considered too situational to be available in shops all the time. You might still come across this stuff on rare occasion.

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special gear



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super secret crystal stuff



CE Visuals
A lot of CE custom weapons and drones feature custom projectiles and impact graphics as well.

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some examples

CE also modifies some Impact graphics to show small, vanilla-like UI prompts (put there by your ship computer). This is mainly for flavor, but can also warn you about dangerous weapons fired at you. Weapons that leave no visual traces always feature indicators like that.

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some of CE's UI stuff

And lately CE also integrates some great crew portrait and ship greeble graphics by LordTrilobite.

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some of the new crew skins that have been integrated into main CE since version 1.2



Augments

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Captain's Edition currently adds about two dozens new augments to the game. Passive vanilla-like augments with new effects currently can't be made via xml.editing. That's why the AE augs are all dummies that enfold their potential through events. The implementation is designed to be well streamlined. This component introduced a hidden choice layer in every situation where an opponent gets hostile, allowing you to deploy your combat augs. So you finally can hack your enemies life support, disrupt their teleporters, scramble their weapon targeting and generally mess around with the opponents systems a whole lot lot.

AE's augments fall into three categories, although the lines between them are a little blurry:

Combat Augments
Can be used every time when an enemy gets hostile. Your ship only provides enough power for one of these, but with certain equipment it's possible to put together a dedicated disrupter ship that can run more than on combat aug at the same time. (Note: disrupting a system that has already been disrupted by another augment will override the effect and is not advisable.)
Some enemies will use these augments against you, but if your know their effect you can learn to counter them by upgrading your systems accordingly.

Support Augments/Production Augments
Help to gain or conserve resources and generally can help you in various not directly combat related ways. Support augments often need empty beacons to be used. Empty beacons are the places that offer no options beside continuing on, areas where you are alone and undisturbed. Starting beacons of new sectors count as empty beacons as well. Some of these augments also require other resources and some require time to be operated, which will make the Rebels advance faster.

Contextual Augments
Provide blue options in certain situation. Generally pretty cheap.


Limitations
Disrupting systems that already have been effected by another augment or the event itself is not working (overrides the first effect) and should be avoided. Using ion weapons on the system should still works as if the disrupted system bars are not there at all. Direct damage is first dealt to the disrupted bars.
The internal effector works well against certain systems and not so great against others. This is for balancing reasons. If your enemy has buffer bars, it might actually not disrupt certain systems at all. Level three sensors can help you see and predict how effective the Effector might be.




Trade Extension (TE_)

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Captain's Edition adds a very basic trade system to FTL. Currently there are about fifty different trade goods in the mod. Trade goods count as augments and use up cargo space (aka augment slots.) They can be bought and sold in trade events at each shop you visit.
Different sectors supply and demand different commodities. Shops usually don't buy the goods that are available in the respective sector, but transporting goods to other sectors nets profits. If you know where a certain cargo is in high demand and plan your route through the sectors accordingly, you can make good scrap without your ship into more danger. But be careful: Your Rebel pursues will not rest while you negotiate prices and load commodities. Trading takes time and makes the Rebel fleet catch up faster with you. The main advantage of trading is that it removes risk. Profits might turn out smaller than from scraping enemy ships, but trading does not put your ship into danger.


Limitations

-Player has to be sure that he has space when buying, else he has to leave an argumentation behind or sell one to the shop and loose some money
-Right now, you can't buy and sell during the same event
-Profit can't be balanced according to difficulty, trading gives the same profit on all difficulties. It was originally balanced to fit into normal mode. It is actually more lucrative in hard mode, since you gain less scrap from all other regular rewards.
-Trading cheap goods is usually only profitable early on, cause combat rewards scale up significantly. Again, because prices and profits are can only be set to fixed values.




Sector Extension

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Captain's Edition gives you eight new sector types to explore. Currently included are Hazard Sectors, Federation Controlled Sectors, Civilian Coreworlds, Industrial Sectors, Quarantine Sectors, AI Controlled Sectors, Auto Sectors and Pirate Homeworlds. The new sectors are designed to follow certain themes and should feel like a distinct area to travel to. Each offers new challenges and opportunities. The majority of these sector's events are custom made and with the CE Additional Music Addon you can even get a custom soundtrack for these sectors.
To make your journey more unique, Sector Extension also includes a few hundred custom names for each sector type, randomized on each play through. In time you will realize that these names follow certain patterns. These indicate to which kind of sector you are actually traveling.

Due to all the things CE changes,the range of difficulty when comparing sector types is somewhat greater than in vanilla FTL, also when comparing, let's say, only hostile sectors among another. I can give a vague impression on the difficulty progression, mainly concerning damage potential to ship. Its all situational of course, there is no real fixed progression. So here is the relative difficulty of CE sectors types, from easiest to hardest:

Civilian Coreworlds
Quarantine Sectors
Civilian Sectors
Engi Controlled Sectors
Uncharted Nebula
Industrial Sectors
Auto Sector
Zoltan Controlled Sectors
Pirate Controlled Sectors
Pirate Homeworlds
Mantis Controlled Sectors
Slug Controlled Nebula
Rock Controlled Sectors
Hazard Sectors
Rebel Controlled Sectors
Federation Controlled Sectors
AI Controlled Sectors
Last Stand



Hazard Extension

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Captain's Edition adds nine new hazard environments to the game. Initially the concept was derailed a little and lead to the implementation of planetary artillery events for some factions. The Rebel fleet might also target you with these weapons if they catch up with you.

Planetary Artillery PDS and the Rebel Fleet PDS are devastating long range weapon that can severely damage your ship. They fire multiple shots in one barrage, pierce all shields, deal heavy damage and can also cause fires and breaches, but they also charge extremely slow. A lone cruiser should avoid getting hit by these weapons at all cost. Events that feature this weapons strive to create tense deadline fights.

Minefields where also added in HEs first phase.

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Mines ahead!


Since 1.08, HE also features various purely environmental hazards for your to deal with and explore. Most of them are connected to the new sorts of nebula that are featured in some of the new sector types. These are just a few examples of what you can encounter:


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Icefields far away from active stars. The absence of background radiation makes cloaking useless here.


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Remember: Don't let the nano-bot cloud eat your ship!


And finally...

CE Infinite

The optional CE Infinite Addon lets you roam the galaxy freely. This is no part of main CE, its a separate Addon that changes the game quite drastically and you'll have to consider if you really want that.

In CE Infinite, you don't have to worry much about the Rebel fleet and can travel endlessly through space. But at any point you can decide to take on your mission again and try to get closer to Federation base. Again, this addon makes some pretty profound changes to how the game and CE feels, much like the original Infinite Space mod did. However, it also does some things differently than the orginall Infinite mod.

Unlimited Contested Deep Space Sectors
CE Infinite gives you a choice at every exit beacon. Do you want to continue to roam the depth of space or do you want to pursue you mission and head towards the Federation base? If you like to, you can indefinitely travel deep space and become a powerful pirate captain, a wealthy trader, a diplomatic peace keeper and/or many other things. Deeps space regions are contested between the different factions of the game, almost all events from regular FTL and CE can happen there, giving them a great variety of encounters. But they are also far away from major trade centers, so stores will be more rare there. Enemies will also scale up significantly in later sector levels. Surviving deeps space will be easy at first, but can become desperate struggle for survival in the late game.

Player Controlled Difficulty Scaling
Whenever you decide to travel towards the Federation Base at an exit beacon, you will progress one sector, the same as a regular vanilla FTL sector jump. Enemies will get stronger, also in the adjacent deep space regions. So it's always up to you how difficult the game will get, you can increase the difficulty by jumping to the Fed base, or have it remain the same by jumping to deep space. If you grind many deep space sectors, your ship upgrades will make you a dominant force after some time. But rapidly increasing upgrade cost will also make it more difficult to progress effectively. Fights might also become less challenging overall. Traveling towards the Federation base on the other hand will not only increase enemy strength, but also increases scrap rewards, (just like the vanilla sector progession.) The system is no unlike that of regular open world RPGs or MMOs. It is completely up to you when you want to proceed to the next sector lvl and therefor increase risk and rewards. If you progress too fast enemies will soon outmatch you, but the increased fuel cost of travelling to the Fed base will prevent you from going all to fast.

Slow Upgrade Progression
Ship upgrades generally cost much more in CE Infinite and they get exponentially more expensive. You will be forced to travel towards the Federation base if you want increased scrap rewards to keep up with the rising costs. But again, if you advance too fast, enemies might overwhelm you.

Limited Rebel pursuit
With CE Infinite, the galactic conflict you are involved in is not gone. The addon just implies that it happens on a much greater scale. The Federation base is extremely far away and the events that happen while you travel there could happen during months or even years. The Rebel fleet still pursues you, but will generally catch up with you much slower. And space is limitless - There is always another fringe region you can run to, the Rebels can't look for you everywhere immediately at once.

Full CE support
All the above features of FTL Captain's Edition are also included in CE Infinite. All the gear is available to you and enemies alike. Advancing towards the Federation base will lead you to a random regular sector, it might even be one of CEs newly introduced sector types. The contested deep space sectors you can travel to will feature an extreme wide array of events, basically almost all events that are included in CE. Only very location specific events, like the ones from Quarantine or AI sectors are not included. Even trading is still possible, deep space stores will be random and only available once per sector, but there is a high chance that you can sell the goods in the next sector. The static rewards and slow fleet progression makes trading even more profitable in CE Infinite. Engineering is also more effective, since it remains cheap in comparison to regular ship upgrade.

Some Surprises
Even if you grinded your ship into a powerhouse, some enemies in the later sectors will still be able to take you on. All enemies that can only appear after certain sectors have been beefed up for CE Infinite, so don't get too careless. Further, jumping towards the Federation base requires a lot of fuel, providing a constant side mission for you (Gather that fuel!). If you get stranded and the fleet should catch up with you after all, then the Rebels you face will be even more vicious than in standard CE. If you advance to sector 7 deep space, you will continuously face well equipped enemies. But the high scrap rewards will eventually let you max out you ship. Its still up to you if you want to complete you mission. Should you decide to travel to sector eight you will face a slightly stronger Rebel Flagship than usual.

And on top of that...

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The CE Endless Loot Addon introduces procedural content generation in FTL. This addon for CE has been made possible entirely by the efforts of rannl, who programmed the tool that generates the content. This is how the tool looks at work:
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Awesome! Just add some blueprints and prefixes, and viola: Thousands of variations!

The tool uses a technique similar to what is done in classic and current loot based games, like Diablo or Boarderlands. Each base weapon and drone can have various prefixes applied to it. Prefixes alter certain stats of the item for the good or worse, resulting in a broad variate of gear. A very broad variaty actually, we are talking thousands and maybe even ten thousands of items once we get multy-prefix support to not overwhelm SMM with the sheer amount of blueprints.

Each item, even if it based on the same base weapon, behaves and plays slightly or vastly different than another. Weapons and drones might be outdated or upgraded, modified for special roles or striped of certain functions. All these changes are also reflected in the price and rarity of the item and weapons and drones will appear visually different with certain prefixes.

But the Addon does not just broadly diversify gear (weapons and drones that is), it also does the same for enemies. You might encounter hostiles that are already damaged, or have additional armor plating. Ships might be out of ammo when engaging your, or they might be on resupply duty, carrying additional missiles and drone parts. Enemy crew might be decimated by previous engagements with other forces. Enemy ships might even be refit to perform better in a certain area, or they might be equipped with specialized augments for certain purposes.

The procedural generated content addon produces in a wider range of good and bad gear than regular CE. It also makes enemies way more unpredictable, unless you play with the sub-addon that inhibits enemies from using the the gear (which is what I generally recommend.) This addon makes the game more rich, but also more random. It is mainly designed to be used with CE Infinite. The sandbox environment of endless play is, in my opinion, where it works best and feels most natural.




Known Issues
-Drones can't target incoming swarm missiles efficiently
-Start and exit beacon that happen to be placed within new nebula types will still show regular nebula, can't be changed
-New Nebula types might still randomly contain regular nebula beacons
-Also see limitations of Trade Extension and Augment Extension above

Integrated Mods and Assets

FTL Captain's Edition currently includes the following stand alone mods, assets and projects:
-diversityMod (visuals only) by likad, modified by Istarune
-Rebel Destroyer ship model, originally from Turning The Tide by Kieve
-New Enemy Classes, by Sleeper_Service (thats me)
-Balanced Arsenal by Sleeper_Service
-Engi pirate ship models by kartoFlane
-Asteroid Station ship model, based on The Asteroid by 5thHorsemen
-Federation Light Artillery ship model by R4V3-ON
-Rock Brawler ship model (recoloured), originally by Ericrumor
-Red Crystal enemies and weapons by Killox3
-Federation Ambusher ship model by Cyk0
-Mantis Minelayer ship model by R4V3-ON
-Part of the sM Polish Kit by: slowriderxcorps
-Almost all of Tweevlies Typ B enemy ship hulls
-Various Engi Typ B and C ship model by R4V3-ON
- Typ C enemy hulls by iiiyyylll
-Event Ideas/events/flavour texts by: Snowhusky5, Estel, rannl, KJ4VO, r2d2go and many others
-ELs procedurally generated content by Rannl
-ELs visual variants by Rannl
-Detailed Crew Portraits Graphics mod by LordTrilobite
-Revised version of the Letze Reise Cruiser by Lemmonade
-Target Practice ship graphic by TaxyService

Special Thanks to:
The creators of the game, its still awesome!
liakad, for the Diversity Mod
karmos, for Drones Plus
Kieve, for supplying his Rebel Destroyer ship model
Snowhusky and Estel, for their event ideas
kartoFlane, for the Subliminal Ship Editor, the Error Checker and his help with early and late testing; without his tools CE could never have grown that big and run that stable
solarion for his support with spell-checking
slowriderxcorps for his support with spell-checking and for the effort with his sM Polish Kit mod and the CE integration
5thHorsemen, R4V3-ON, Ericrumor and Killox3 for contributing their ship hulls
Sanmonkus, for allowing to use his great backgrounds and planets
Jep, Joshklement, Masterplayer 1337, CaptainLordAvalon, kartoFlane, mict5pn for their help with spell checking on github
rannl, for writing great flavour texts and in general investing so much time as a co-writer
Tweevle, for supplying a lot of great type B enemy ship images
Russian Rockman for his great graphic tweaks of various visual assets
KJ4VOV for all the time he invested in professionally spell checking the mod
KeronCyst for more help with spell checking
rannl for the countless hours he has invested into the tool that made EL possible and his great support for the mod in general
iiiyyylll for his typ C hull images for enemies
LordTrilobite for his supplying Detailed Crew Portrait Graphics mod
Lemmonade, for his awesome Letze Reise pirate cruiser
All the modders out there that keep experimenting with FTL, a lot of CEs features are inspired by other mods
Everyone who has posted bug reports here to help making this run stable

Enjoy!

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The above work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. All assets of this mod, besides third party ones which are not created by the author, are free to use for other modders, as long as they use them for non-commercial purposes and are willing to share their work alike.

What's next?
We are basically done with developing CE. This means we don't plan on any major content updates right now, but we are still supporting the mod and try to fix any bugs and typos that are reported. Some of us have been working on a stand alone game for some time.
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That didn't work out in the end.

I also made a fast paced jet-combat roguelike in which you fly the best jet in the galaxy and do sword fighting in mid air.
It's called Hyperspace Dogfights and you can get into the public beta on itch.io!

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Now with Discord channel!

Cheers!
Stefan Widany, aka Sleeper Service
Last edited by Sleeper Service on Wed Nov 19, 2014 12:16 pm, edited 497 times in total.
TheNewbie
Posts: 138
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2013 9:56 am

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby TheNewbie » Thu Jun 06, 2013 5:02 pm

:shock:
Torchwood202
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2012 4:10 pm

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby Torchwood202 » Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:14 pm

This....is....GREAT! FInally, a good massive overhaul that has a chance to be updated! I hope for new events?
Thunderr
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun May 19, 2013 9:09 pm

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby Thunderr » Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:29 pm

Sounds awesome; I'll have to give it a try!
speedoflight
Posts: 660
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:08 am

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby speedoflight » Thu Jun 06, 2013 10:52 pm

Nice. Is this the same mod as the space stations alone?? if yes, could you just make a ftl version only with the space stations?? since i already am experimenting with my own events and i already have a seriosluy weapon modded content, i will be only interested in the new enemies..
My currently mods / wips ->
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Sleeper Service
Posts: 2305
Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:49 pm

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby Sleeper Service » Fri Jun 07, 2013 12:32 am

speedoflight wrote:Nice. Is this the same mod as the space stations alone?? if yes, could you just make a ftl version only with the space stations?? since i already am experimenting with my own events and i already have a seriosluy weapon modded content, i will be only interested in the new enemies..


Hm all right, I will see what I can do. But there is no way to really implement the stations without creating new events for them, as vanilla events wouldn't fit them at all. I merged my mods into a compilation so I don't have to support and update three or five different mods in the end, but I can see how that isn't perfect for everyone.

Torchwood202 wrote:I hope for new events?


As said, right now the stations all have unique events to spawn them, all with textlists that contain three to ten flavour texts. Some neutral events have been added as well and there are three new quests. I really want to do much more new events, but making them work and testing them is really annoying (all this hours :x ). There might be more in the future. First I want to be sure that this is running stable as it is.
UltraMantis
Posts: 2141
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:17 pm

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby UltraMantis » Fri Jun 07, 2013 12:41 am

Wow!

Kudos, that is a monster job!
Report spam using the handy Report Button Mod.
Thunderr
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun May 19, 2013 9:09 pm

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby Thunderr » Fri Jun 07, 2013 1:12 am

Could you ask karmos if you can bundle drones plus in with CE? I think lots of people won't install drones plus and then get errors, and subsequently complain to you. It would also make installation easier, because one file is always better than two.
agigabyte
Posts: 551
Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 1:59 am

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby agigabyte » Fri Jun 07, 2013 1:24 am

There should be a playable rebel cruiser. Maybe replacing Fed cruiser type B?
Thunderr
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun May 19, 2013 9:09 pm

Re: FTL Captains Edition 0.95 [open beta]

Postby Thunderr » Fri Jun 07, 2013 1:35 am

Just got an interesting bug, I went to a new beacon and before I fought an auto satellite, it gave me this file name of the text that was supposed to go in the filler text box: BS_AUTO_SUICIDE_EVENT_TEXT.