Switching the Nagi to a Maul (first shot wrecks the weapons room so you're not being continuously pummelled by return fire while charging up for your second shot) or pairing up the Nagi with a 1 power missile (missile takes out the shields so the Nagi can one-shot sector 1 and 2 enemies like the Vanilla Stealth B) could definitely work. I also don't think it would be such a bad thing for two ships to start with focus beams. Plenty of ships start with regular ol' beams and both the Kestral C and Lanius B start with Flak Is.
Another alternative for the Stealth B might be to introduce a new weapon that's basically a "fun-sized" Glaive. 3 damage on 3 bars, but a very short trail (35 px?). This could be paired up with a missile for vanilla-style one shot of early enemies after taking out the shields (since 9 damage across the 3 rooms you'll generally be able to hit) while only using 4 weapon power instead of having to having to bump the starting weapon power of the Stealth B up to 5 as would be required for stylesrj's suggestion.
As for the Zoltan B, the Pernach always struck me as a very mediocre weapon, so perhaps you could simply buff its damage output to 3 or, alluding to the old loadout you described (and I do also like the idea of giving it a nerfed version of said old loadout), pair it up with one Hasta? Or replace the Pernach with a two damage, two power "fun-sized" Halberd.
I dunno how viable these "fun-sized" beams would be from a balance perspective, but you do already have the Hasta in CE, which is a one power "fun-sized" Pike, so it's a thought at least.
Sleeper Service wrote:Actually the forum does not seem to acknowledge me editing the thread since I became moderator a year ago. I did edit the OP quite few times since then, might just be a forum bug.
Huh. Cool.
Sleeper Service wrote:Oh and on the topic of unavoidable crew deaths: I do agree that those are questionable from a design perspective. Although part of the deal there is that they are to some extend avoidable by choosing to not go to the sector types where they are present and treat them as part of the risk associated with their respective sector type. But yeah, I understand that they might seem unfair at times, so a while ago I made the No Traitor Patch for some guy on redit, feel free to use that. To some extent they are there to keep players on their toes even when everything plays out fine, this comes into play in CE Infinite especially.
Well I'll grant that I was talking more about the traitor event rather than the plague events in a quarantined sector. Of course, even those events are somewhat arguable, but with a quarantine sector it
does sort of come with the territory, as you say. I will certainly use the No Traitor minimod from now on when playing CE, though. Thankyou. It definitely was that one event in particular that really grinded my gears...
I'm assuming I'd want to install No Traitor dead-last after all other mods and patches?