-Necessary nerfing, updated information to match
"With the sensors down, you spend a good deal of time staring out the window. It is, you must admit, rather beautiful here."
The man stared through the viewport, watching the spectral gas swirl around. He visited the viewport often, stopping by to look outside whenever he could. His mission was to map out hazardous space; and while deep-space scanners did the brunt of the work, displaying data readouts and starcharts, he still found it worthwhile to look at the space he was mapping. In fact, in the eight years since his mission began, he never grew weary of it.
Eight years he’d been out here, piloting his humble ship, and in those eight years he’d seen more of the galaxy than any other member of the Federation. In those eight years, he had seen fields of asteroids, spacial rifts, colossal storms of ionized lightning, and the solar flares of a dying star; in those eight years, he had seen the remnants of battle, jagged husks of ships of all races, stray missiles still floating here and there. He had seen the Federation grow, constructing more and more jump beacons in places he’d mapped out; he had seen the war rise, as more and more debris sprang up around those same beacons.
But now, with the Rebellion in full force, he rarely got the chance to stargaze any more. His ship carried data vital to the Federation fleet’s survival, and the insurgents would surely find him, even in this hazardous space…
He sighed, as he took the helm of the ship. This was the last time he’d stargaze for a while. But in this moment, at this beacon, he stared into the clouds, and he was content.
He ignited the FTL drive, and left the clouds behind. One day, he said to himself. One day he would come back. But for now, there was business to take care of.
The Uncharted
This heavy spacecraft is designed specifically to negotiate hazardous areas, using those hazards for its own benefit. It can cloak with its nebula cloud generator, and relies on stealth and armor plating rather than shield barriers.
A while ago, StylesRJ posted "The Mynah", a variant of the Stealth Cruiser that had a nifty cloaking image. Rather than simply an outline, the cloaking image was the ship surrounded by nebula clouds. I thought this was a cool idea, and as it sat in my mind, I began to think of more and more things to do with the ship. Why stop at just nebulas? Why not expand into all the hazards? Solar flares, ion pulsars, and asteroid belts were all fair game.
I asked Styles if I could use the nebula-cloaking idea for a hazard-themed cruiser, and he said go ahead. After a few days of modding, "The Uncharted" was born. It carries an Asteroid Launcher, a Solar Flare Cannon, a Pulsar Projector, and a̶ ̶R̶e̶c̶o̶n̶n̶a̶i̶s̶s̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶S̶c̶a̶n̶n̶e̶r̶.. This is mostly just to show off some of the weapon ideas I thought of though, and it should play like Stealth A does.
The Asteroid Launcher is a 1-power weapon that fires 2 asteroids every 12 seconds. Each asteroid has a 10% chance of starting fires, but can be shot down by defense drones. This is your "dual laser" of sorts.
The Asteroid Launcher
The Pulsar Projector is a 2-power weapon that fires 7 projectiles, each one dealing 1 ion damage. However, it has a wide radius, and is very hard to aim at specific systems, making its ionization pretty random--just like an actual pulsar. In addition, since this is a weapon, enemy dodge rate will reduce its effectiveness. This will likely be your shield-breaker weapon, since if a good number of projectiles land, its shields are down for the count. If you're lucky enough to sneak in another ion shot, then you can potentially ionize some additional systems--again, just like actual pulsars.
The Pulsar Projector
The Solar Flare Cannon is a 3-power weapon that fires 4 projectiles, each one with a 70% fire chance. The projectiles can pass through Zoltan Shields, but can't deplete normal shields. I included it as a simple curiosity, but I think it's possible to make very good use of it, especially on crew-killing setups and deoxygenation setups.
...not initially, though, as this cruiser only starts with 3 weapons power.
The Solar Flare Cannon
The Solar Flare Cannon and the Pulsar Projector were largely inspired by the Neural Stunners in CE; the Stunner projectiles evaded defense drones and acted over a wide range, like an actual hazard. Simple ion/fire lasers wouldn't fit the bill, but the Stunner code worked best for what I was trying to go for.
Download version 1.1 here.
Replaces the Kestrel A. Install with later versions of Slipstream Mod Manager, as this mod uses .rawappend features which don't work in earlier versions.
I know a few of the people in the stream wanted me to keep version 1.0 of the ship (which was notoriously overpowered) available for download. You can get that here.
Videos:
Vanguard of Valor Twitch Stream of version 1.0, which was hideously overpowered. Suggestions from that stream been taken into account.
Attributions:
-StylesRJ, for the original inspiration
-Sleeper Service, for Neural Stunner behavior code, and for various weapon assets
-kartoFlane's Auto Cruiser, for first showing me the Recon Scanner at work
-FTL resource library, for ship assets and asteroid projectiles
-Superluminal 2.1.0d, for ship assembly
Changelog:
v1.1:
-Increased cooldown on Pulsar Projector, removed shield-piercing effect
-Increased power and cooldown on Flare Cannon, removed one projectile
-Removed Scanners
-Removed a weapon slot
v1.0:
-Original forum upload
