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

[Sleeper Service]

Yeah, I could reproduce the described behavior. Buying artillery at shops indeed corrupts the continue save. Very odd. That might just as well screw up the entire idea of extended player artillery. Right now, I consider adding a warning to the artillery system description in shops, informing the player that save and exit won't work upon buying the system. I guess its either that or removing the player artillery entirely.

[DiplomaticImmunity]

Oh. I thought that's only my computer acting up, but if you're able to reproduce it too... awww. I absolutely love the idea of artillery system on all player ships... Maybe you can make it an "innate" system like Federation ships have, but make it a "weak" system that costs a lot to unlock (Like those 150 scrap you need to buy it) and has an absolutely ridicolous cooldown on just 1 power so it's almost unusable without buying and upgrading it. Just a random idea.

Best of luck to you, gotta stay away from CE runs for now.

[Estel]

Yeah, I could reproduce the described behavior. Buying artillery at shops indeed corrupts the continue save. Very odd. That might just as well screw up the entire idea of extended player artillery. Right now, I consider adding a warning to the artillery system description in shops, informing the player that save and exit won't work upon buying the system. I guess its either that or removing the player artillery entirely.

Maybe it's good time to contact FTL devs and ask them for fixing it in next patch? I really love the idea of player artillery, too.

OTOH, I think that without any way to fix that corrupted "continue", player artillery should be exorcised from CE Even despite fact, that I usually do full playthroughs (because on CE+Hard, you get killed early enough, most of the times, and when you actually aren't, you're too excited to stop playing ), I don't think that inability to save&quit is acceptable thing. And if we can't use it, why have it in shops, cluttering space for systems? It would be a handicap (the negative one) for players that can't buy them due to real life, as they would have less chance of encountering actually usable systems for purchase. So, thumb down for their appearance in shops with warning "it will spoil your save file".

OTThirdH, I wonder if Open Artillery guys encountered this bug? Maybe it is something, that will turn out to be fixable from "our" side? If not, the only possible solution would be some voodoo tricks with saving memory state of machine, and using that to load game, without actually using "save" option. Like, creating virtual machine just for playing FTL, and saving it's state ("snapshot"), instead of shutting down. Trivial under Linux and qemu, probably not so under windoze (although, I vaguely remember VirtualBox having such feature).

/Estel

// Edit

I finally got what diplomaticImmunity had in mind in his last post - well, if this bug doesn't happen if artillery is on the ship from the start, you could, indeed, add it to every ship, but with completely unusable stats (like, 999 seconds cooldown, calling it "artillery Stub" or smth like that), which would require the same amount of scrap that it takes now to buy it at the shop, for upgrading it to lvl2, which would bring anything usable. It take this approach anytime, instead of un-saveable game, or lack of player artillery altogether.

[fugu]

I have the EL texture pack installed, and all the latest relevant mods for CE standard, but I can't see the sprite for the Ion Flak II.

https://i.imgur.com/KxrdsWF.png

[keptick]

I came across a "weird singularity", didn't look like a black hole (well, not directly). The... thing... was guarded by a rebel heavy cruiser and I only had one health left, meaning that I couldn't destroy the rebel and take a closer look.

I'd love to know what that thing was hmmmmm?

[LordTrilobite]

For those that have suggestions for the new crew portraits. I would suggest posting your opinions in my original thread so I can see all the suggestions. I read everything, so maybe I will change the portraits if a lot of people have a certain opinion. The link is in my signature.

[Sleeper Service]

I finally got what diplomaticImmunity had in mind in his last post - well, if this bug doesn't happen if artillery is on the ship from the start, you could, indeed, add it to every ship, but with completely unusable stats (like, 999 seconds cooldown, calling it "artillery Stub" or smth like that), which would require the same amount of scrap that it takes now to buy it at the shop, for upgrading it to lvl2, which would bring anything usable. It take this approach anytime, instead of un-saveable game, or lack of player artillery altogether.

That wont work as artillery has a very much hardcoded cooldown modifier progression.

... the only possible solution would be some voodoo tricks with saving memory state of machine, and using that to load game, without actually using "save" option. Like, creating virtual machine just for playing FTL, and saving it's state ("snapshot"), instead of shutting down. Trivial under Linux and qemu, probably not so under windoze (although, I vaguely remember VirtualBox having such feature)

I kind of doubt that many CE users would bother with such stuff just to get a mod working correctly.

Maybe it's good time to contact FTL devs and ask them for fixing it in next patch? I really love the idea of player artillery, too.

Yep, sent Matthew an email. There is nothing to expect from that, as modding support is not a thing for FTL. But maybe they still find the time to look into this.



CE Update 1.214c
- Some small fixes
- Added a warning to artillery descriptions, concerning the load related crashes they cause (temporary solution)

CE Infinite 1.214b
- Changes of CE 1.214c imported

CE Vanilla Player Ship Loadouts Addon 1.214b
- Changes of CE 1.214c imported

[Estel]

I kind of doubt that many CE users would bother with such stuff just to get a mod working correctly.

Same here, even though it's easy easy and quick to use (in fact, quicker than normal saving feature ) once you set it up, initially... And can be done with Free (as in Speech and as in beer) tools. although, I guess then, suddenly, CE would become a mod for all three of us, only (You, rockman, and me ;P )

Then, keeping thumbs for FTL devs turning to be even more nice guys than they are already is our only [strike]help me obi-wan kenobi, you're my[/strike] only hope. If not than, then I guess, that sad drones from 1st post will get a companion of huge, sad artillery parts...

/Estel

// Edit

But even then, it's not all for nothing, I think - if I understand correctly, various artilleries for enemies still work, yep? It could be used to make stations much more interesting, like having few gun-points now. BTW, is it possible to put more than one artillery on the ship? It would be cool to see a heavy station with 4 artillery systems, for example.

[fugu]

There seems to be a bug with mantis ships in Lanius sectors.

https://i.imgur.com/0kXPCQt.png
https://i.imgur.com/us4osP9.png

[Estel]

Well, I gave it a long thought, and I *think* i know how artillery system could be present in CE without that dreaded save corruption, every if bug turn out to be unfixable. It could be a pain to code (but only initially, I think), but it would allow to keep this awesome feature. It require some explaining, so bear with me:

Again, every player ship would have artillery system, called "Artillery stub" or something like that. The thing is, that every single event would *disable* this system - just like now, some events disable this or that system (or few bars of it). Now, upgrading to lvl 2 of artillery would be as expensive as it's now to buy it (or even much more, as we wouldn't need to find it in a shop and have scrap at the same time - we could upgrade at any time we feel fancy, so it could be pricey, making it most expensive thing in game). The lvl 2 of artillery system would be requirement for blue-event that nullify the disabling effect - just like certain things (high level systems) nullify hacking by combat augments, or high-level engines allow to run from auto-drones, etc.

If making blue event relying on lvl2 of artillery system is not possible for some reason, it could be a augment in the shop, costing exactly the same as artillery cost now - that *must* work, as far as I get how FTL works. This option would allow to make all artilleries as good as Fed cruiser one - Fed cruiser would still be "better", as it would have artillery without need to waste one augment slot.

Now, I understand that coding it into every single event may be a pita - but, maybe not as big one as it seems? After all, you have coded combat augments into every fight possible, so this one artillery thing wouldn't be much harder, I hope.

Hope it helps,
/Estel