[SHIP] The Auto-Binary [v04]

[Gencool]

  

The Auto-Binary

An Auto-Hacker has become self aware.

It realises almost instantly that it has no shielding. Unable to install the system itself, it finds a nearby Auto-Surveyor, hijacking it as a bodyguard.

Comprehending the enormity of the situation, and with information vital to the Federation, it sets off to stop the Rebels.

  

Gameplay

The idea is to feel in control of the Hacker, while the Surveyor is more like an NPC you are giving commands to.

Each ship is built as closely as possible to the original Auto-Ship they are based on.

The Hacker houses your main controls; Piloting, Weapons, Engines, Hacking.
These systems, as well as being vital, are the ones you have most control over as a player.

The Surveyor houses defensive and secondary systems; Sensors, Shields, Artillery, Drones and Mind Control.
These systems are the ones you have least control over as a player, and are more situational.



The systems on the Hacker are spread out - while un-shielded, a single hit is unlikely to be too troubling. Should you gain crew, you can easily get to them to make repairs.

The systems on the Surveyor are all bunched into a single room - the room is less likely to be shot at, however a single hit can wipe out more than half of your systems.

 



The Drone system mimics giving commands to the Surveyor - it can aim at projectiles, enemy ships, or incoming drones, and is very effective at its job.

Drone parts are a concern, though, especially when Hacking is taken into consideration.


Download

Right Click and Download-

Latest: v004

Older versions:
v003
v002
v001


As this is an unmanned ship, please consider using Player AI ships crew loss crash fix alongside this mod.

[stylesrj]

Well, it's an interesting ship. I've made a video run that'll probably go into more detail (but it's several hours away after I convert it to a Youtube format, upload it and wait for it to be processed) but colour me impressed.

I don't know how you've managed to make it so when the surveyor ship is hit by an ion, it stuns all the systems at the same time and those defence drones... that ship is a real beast at shooting down all the things. At one point I had both the counter drone and defence drone online at the same time. Then the enemy launched a Hacking Drone and well... it made for one pretty lightshow.

Also, Phase 2's Power Surge went down quick with all those lights smashing through all the things.

[stylesrj]

And now here's the video run for your perusal as background material. If something truly exciting happens like a lightshow, I'll be either shouting excitedly about it or be stunned silent at how much pew pew pew is on the screen at once.

https://youtu.be/Zeq0Kk2TtNw

[Gencool]

Thanks styles!

That was a good run, all in all. Glad you had fun!

I've made a couple of changes for v02; More than double cost for drone upgrades, 0 rarity on recovery arm, slightly faster attack mode.
Oh, and I added a miniship image, thanks for reminding me!

The defence drone *is* over powered, but it's not infallible, and it needs to be pretty strong if you're hoping to survive the Flagship fight. Also it's no help against Beams and Bombs, and it's really easy to become too reliant on it.

Many Dakka during that boss fight =D

[stylesrj]

Rarity 0 on the Recovery Arm? What have you done? Noooo!

And yeah that drone did not protect me from that missile in the end. I got too reliant on the drones once I had the recovery arm.
Otherwise I found it highly situational because I didn't want to use the drone parts. So good call on the recovery arm thing.

[Biohazard063]

Nice ship, I got a soft spot for AI-ships you know...

Anyway, did a run with this, should be going up in a few days.
Generally, I'd like to keep spoilers out of this, I'll make an exception here.


I'd say maybe put like 15 crew damage on the repair blast?
This was an AI-avatar from CE, granted. But you can still be forced into a lanius sector and encounter the same thing on vanilla
I also don't fully understand why you decided to put all systems in that one room. One ion damage on shields really cripples you...

Also, downloaded V002, still no thumbnail. Might be something wrong with the link there...

[Gencool]

Well caught! Fixed and fixed. Thankyou!

Well, as it stands now, the rooms are linked in order to give enemy ships more chance of shooting the Hacker, and to help the Surveyor feel like a more distinct entity that you have less control over.
You can fully rely on it to protect you, so you need to have fallback strategies and stay on your toes.

Way back in 2015 though, when I started this ship, this was gonna be a way bigger mod.

First off; stores and distress beacons would be removed from the game.
When you jump to a new beacon, you'd get the option of continuing with whatever the event was as standard, or sending the Surveyor off to find something - you could choose to look for Stores, SOS signals, Transport Ships, Rebel Ships, or just to scout the sector.
Doing so would then disable all the Surveyor's functions for the rest of the encounter (because it's off scanning another part of the galaxy) and give you a Quest Marker for whatever it was you were searching for.
You'd usually use this at empty beacons, but as you (the Hacker) explore the local area, waiting for a response, you might bump into an event that could've used the Surveyor.


I had some stuff written up, but it was waaaaay too ambitious, so I ultimately left it. I only really picked this up again the other day out of boredom, and decided to make it a stand-alone afair. Rather than re-building all the assets from scratch, I kept as much of the original mod intact as possible, and overall I think it kinda worked?

[Biohazard063]

No problem, an extra pair of eyes never hurts right?
I'll do another run with the update version soon enough.

Can't say I blame you for scrapping most of it. Sector scans and such are easy enough to come by already. And scrapping stores would really lower the odds of a successful run, looking at the option to repair or by fuel.

Anyway, I like how the ship plays despite the "more than half your ship isn't protected by shields" thing. It seems like that issue can be countered for the most part at least. And it's always fun to see a beam hit shield and pop out on the other end again only to deal no damage.

Besides, it would look pretty weird if the surveyor was off scouting but was still there being able to get shot at...

[Gencool]

Ah, no, that was the cool part.

Because the ship didn't have crew, I originally had the Surveyor as the floor image of the top-left room.
When the surveyor 'leaves', the sensors go out, and the whole lots compacts into the single room, and a faint outline that was part of the hull image.

It looked really cool, actually, but impractical overall.

[Biohazard063]

Just finished a run with V3.

Small issue, and I know this will make me a spoil sport for everyone.
You may want to have another look at that Nano SysRepair... As it's a bomb weapon you can target the enemy ship with it. With devastating efficiency.
Being able to completely nuke an enemy crewmember every 5 seconds is probably a bit OP.
The fun part being that if the enemy only has 3 crew-members, mindcontrolling the pilot will cause the other two to move in and attack him. Meaning you can kill the ship in under 10 seconds.
Guess I should've been clearer on the 15 crewdamage. I meant 1 in the crew damage (so -15 in game) as far as the blueprint goes.
Great run though, lots and lots of beam weapons and AI ships to face off against.