BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

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Dire_Venom
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby Dire_Venom » Mon Jun 19, 2017 3:27 am

Some very cool ship mods!

They certiantly presented me with some challenging (but fun) runs.
Dealing with the longcooldown on some of the weapons was pretty brutal imo.

+1
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PR0T05T33L
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby PR0T05T33L » Wed Aug 16, 2017 2:50 am

So I just dropped these in to Superluminal to have a closer look at 'em and I've spotted a few problems.

For the Bulwark, the triple Rock Plating might be a bit much. The door room's image goes outside the room and in to the next. You also made the Clonebay and the Medbay separate rooms when they should probably share the same room. And I'm really not a fan of that 1x1 room; simply rearranging the rooms and switching to different room images should eliminate the need for that.

For the Ram, I really don't like the rooms in the crates and once again, the 1x1 rooms, which, by the way, go outside the boundaries of the ship's actual walls. The triple Titanium System Casings are far too much; one should be enough. And two Engies and two Sys Repair Drones might be a bit too much repair speed, especially if the systems will only rarely be damaged. I'd suggest switching one drone out for an AP Drone.

You mentioned the Supercharger's gibs don't work; to me, it looks like you just never set them up. Once again, the Medbay and Clonebay are separate rooms when they shouldn't be. That one extra arm on the ship's left side is a little odd-looking and the bizarre positioning of the piloting room is even more odd. The twin FTL Recharge Boosters might be a bit much; making the engines level 5 to start with might be a better idea, but maybe that's just me.

None of these ships have thumbnail images for the ship menu, the placement of the ships on the screen are inconsistent and I spotted a couple of spelling mistakes throughout the mod. Although it's not really necessary, setting aside a room on each ship for artillery would be a nice bonus for people using Captain's Edition. Fortunately, I can fix up almost all of these issues myself on my own copy, but I'd suggest making the changes yourself on the main version.

All that being said, these ships look pretty sweet and their custom weapons are interesting. Once I'm done fixing up the Supercharger, I think I'm gonna try out these ships.
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mr_easy_money
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby mr_easy_money » Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:57 am

PR0T05T33L wrote:For the Bulwark, the triple Rock Plating might be a bit much.

you might not have noticed the complete lack of shields, but yeah, three rock platings mean an immediate 120 scrap start. you could make the sell value of rock plating less and that would mitigate the issue.

For the Ram, I really don't like the rooms in the crates

I agree, that doesn't really make any sense... unless the cargo is actually just a bunch of rooms :P
I will say that the vast amount of rooms does make for better security once you upgrade doors
The triple Titanium System Casings are far too much; one should be enough. And two Engies and two Sys Repair Drones might be a bit too much repair speed, especially if the systems will only rarely be damaged. I'd suggest switching one drone out for an AP Drone.

the triple titanium system casing does seem a bit much, and it seems like it was trying to emulate the BWI Bulwark except with system protection instead of hull protection, but unlike the Bulwark, it isn't necessary here.
the drone system doesn't seem necessary either, given the titanium system casing benefit and the two Engi, repairs can be done quickly. the one weak front seems to be enemy boarders because of the isolated doors, but that appears to be the challenge, and you've got a crystal dude to back you up.
Once again, the Medbay and Clonebay are separate rooms when they shouldn't be.

they can be separate if they want to. there are a number of ships that make use of this, but yeah, they can be in the same room since one replaces the other, and usually it feels natural -> remove medbay, then put clonebay in its place. though maybe you could think that putting clone bay in a different room will change the strategy or it feels better there or something.
Although it's not really necessary, setting aside a room on each ship for artillery would be a nice bonus for people using Captain's Edition.

would be nice, but remember that you have to specify which CE artillery, or make your own. it addresses a smaller audience, but if you're up for it then by all means go for it.
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PR0T05T33L
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby PR0T05T33L » Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:29 am

mr_easy_money wrote:
PR0T05T33L wrote:Although it's not really necessary, setting aside a room on each ship for artillery would be a nice bonus for people using Captain's Edition.

would be nice, but remember that you have to specify which CE artillery, or make your own. it addresses a smaller audience, but if you're up for it then by all means go for it.

Personally, I think the Mother Sun Plasma Thrower goes perfectly with the Type A's cargo and Rockman crew.
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randomness5555
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby randomness5555 » Fri Aug 18, 2017 11:46 pm

Righty ho, hello all! I've taken the feedback in, and have done a few tweaks/fixes. First, the Supercharger's gibs now work, and the cloaking sprite should also now work. The Superchargers mutant cargo arm wasn't supposed to be there, so I've taken that off. I agreed pretty much entirely with Proto on the balance ideas for the Ram. One titanium coating now, not three and one AP drone and one repair instead of two repairs. The Bulwark's going to stay on 3 plates. It's the only defense it has at the start when playing vanilla (note terrible engines as well so you're not going to dodge much, along with the obvious no cloak or shields). I'm not personally worried enough about the Medbay/clonebay being in different places to change that, think of it as a weird quirk of the ship. As for the single square room, well, the lore reason can simply be that the crew crawl through the hollow inside of the cargo clamp. The inconsistent ship placement? Well, not too worried on that atm, but it's something I'll fix later on when I make some thumbnail images at some point. As for the spelling errors, I'm happy to fix them but you'll have to point me to exactly what I spelt wrong because I can't find them.

And actually, you hit the nail on the head mr_easy_money when you said the Ram was supposed to be emulating the Bulwark because at first, it was actually. However, while it was hard to knock out it's systems, it simply wasn't durably enough to last and I had to give it shields. I don't quite know why I never thought to re-balance after that though. Oops.
Lastly, the artillery. I'd be happy to kit them out for artillery, but having not played an enormous amount of CE I'm not really sure what my options are, is there a list anywhere as to how they all work, or do I need to take it apart to take a look myself?
(Thanks for taking an intrest folks btw, I'm sure it's all down to Bio's vid but I'm simply happy it got any attention at all! Glad you like the graphics too, I spent a few days on the Bulwark's original sprite and it seems it paid off!)
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mr_easy_money
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby mr_easy_money » Sat Aug 19, 2017 1:35 am

randomness5555 wrote:Lastly, the artillery. I'd be happy to kit them out for artillery, but having not played an enormous amount of CE I'm not really sure what my options are, is there a list anywhere as to how they all work, or do I need to take it apart to take a look myself?

there is a wiki page on CE Artillery here: http://ftl-captains-edition.wikia.com/w ... _Artillery

also, you might want to update the images on the first/main post so that everyone can see the new changes without having to download the mod, throw it in the SMM mods folder, go to SMM and patch it in, then boot up FTL to see them.
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PR0T05T33L
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby PR0T05T33L » Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:20 am

I've noticed the naming of the weapons is inconsistent: Ionized Laser 1, Capacitor Laser I and Capacitor Beam I. For the first weapon's description, you spelt ionizing as 'ionising'. I'd change the description for the C. Laser to "A low-power laser that uses high-voltage capacitors to store energy, allowing for four shots at the cost of a long charge time." and the description for the C. Beam to ''An interesting beam weapon that charges slowly for greater overall power, using large capacitors instead of a generator.". In the description of the Supercharger, you misspelt powerful. I'd also hyphenate stripped-down.

When I edited the Bulwark, one thing I did was add an extra 10 hull points to offset the removal of two layers of Rock Plating. I also gave it CE's FTL Fuel Recycler augment, so even though repair costs will be higher, buying fuel won't be an issue. I do, however, need to use the Full-Hull HUD mod with it and I wouldn't be able to use this ship without Captain's Edition. The Supercharger's second FTL Recharge Booster could be removed and the engines could be boosted to level 5 to compensate. The 'mutant arm' is still there in the gibs, by the way.

Speaking of gibs, the gibs on each ship spin a bit too much, don't really move far and none of the weapons are linked to them. Some of the room images across all three ships are still blocking doorways. A lot of the other stuff I mentioned still stands. And I found a certain something in the files of V6 that doesn't seem to be working. Did you fix that up for V7 or are you still working on it? Are there going to be Mark II versions of the weapons added to the mod at some point?

If and when you go to add CE artillery to each of the ships, if you install Captain's Edition, then open up Superluminal, all the CE stuff will be in Superluminal.
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mr_easy_money
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby mr_easy_money » Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:36 pm

PR0T05T33L wrote:For the first weapon's description, you spelt ionizing as 'ionising'.

this isn't a misspell -- it's 'ionizing' in American English and 'ionising' in British English. to me, I just alternate randomly between the two because such a difference is meaningless when you've got players of your mod from all over the world.
randomness5555
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby randomness5555 » Sat Aug 19, 2017 10:06 pm

Correct once again, as you can probably guess I am indeed English so as far as I'm concerned, it's spelt correctly.
tsgaerospace
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Re: BWI Bulwark/The Ram/Supercharger

Postby tsgaerospace » Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:36 am

the only thing that i find truely annoying is the missing "container" on the bulwark...