[Ship] The Pinkyller

[fdagpigj]

Why this exists
Because I came up with an awesome pun for a weapon name, hullberd, a mix between the hull and halberd beams, and because the next ship gimmick that I knew I wanted to do would be possibly quite underpowered and I don't want gimmicky/underpowered ships to make up more than half of my ships, I needed to make a powerful ship but didn't quite want to do 8 advanced flaks, so I decided to utilise the custom beam idea I had.

The Hullberd beam is quite powerful, it has all the best parts of both with the only drawback being 19-second cooldown (only 2 more than Halberd) so I decided to make the ship start without normal shields instead and so I gave it a zoltan shield and made it into a zoltan ship. I was trying to think of a spicy recolour and ended up going with a dark pink because why not, at least no vanilla ships use that, and a terracotta orange for the inner parts. And I was struggling really hard to come up with a name, so I decided to derive one just from the colour and the fact that early on it plays similar to the Stealth B... or something... and then twisting it a bit. Maybe it can kill your pinky somehow?

I decided to also give it the option to do suicide zoltan boarding, and since it starts with a teleporter and nobody likes zoltan pilots, I made the pilot a mantis. An unusual mix, but it might be stupid enough to work. But mostly the teleporter is there (because it's silly and) as a backup plan in case you don't find any assisting weapon by the end of sector 2, although to be fair it's still better than Engi B...



Download
v1.1:
Dropbox
The only change since 1.0 is that it now starts with a stun bomb (and 8 missiles to go with it) as backup in case you don't find other weapons to drop shields with, or as support when boarding.
v1.0:
Dropbox
(If you need a mirror, do let me know)

Other useful info

• Replaces Zoltan B. B because I'm a lamepants and made the Camoufdage use Zoltan A, because back then I was stupid enough to think I would probably not be doing many zoltan ships in the near future
• 5 starting power (plus two zoltan).
• To keep up my trend, no room for artillery (for those of you playing with CE). I swear I'll get around to it when I compile all my ships into a pack, sometime in the distant future.
• My first weapon with self-made art! Yayisms and stuffsiclepants
• My 5th ship, and 3rd consecutive month (in Sleeper Service months) during which I make and release a ship mod. Why? I dunno, I guess for some reason I wanted to be featured on the master mod list with a mod highlighted as new all the time. Or else I just really like coming up with and realizing custom starting setups.
• Another shieldless ship with zoltan shields? What's next, a shieldless ship with zoltan shields and drone control? Hah, nope. Not next, maybe later though.
• In case you're wondering, yes, the hullberd works exactly as expected, 2 damage to systemless rooms through 1 layer of shields, 4 damage if shields are down. Half of that to system rooms.
• Has a very weak start, be prepared to face bullshit.

Showcase videos
stylesrj: (v1.0) Part 1
Biohazard063: (v1.0) Part 1
Anistuffs: (v1.1) Run #1 - Run #2 Part 1 (warning, may contain rage)

[stylesrj]

Hullberd Beam?
Heh.

That pun alone has convinced me I gotta give this ship a whirl.

[stylesrj]

So when you have a ship that needs a better gun around Sector 3, guns do not turn up and Limited Time Offer fails to work because you only find CE sectors or pirate sectors that drop boarders on your ship...
And when you have a boarding ship, enemies only seem to have Clone Bays and Medbays or be automated. So that means this ship is doomed the moment you start.

So here's my video run:


Click the picture or click here to see Part 1

[Biohazard063]

Gave this ship a play as well (vids should go up somewhere next week).

It might not come as a shock that the playthrough involved quite a bit of ranting. It's kind of my thing, but the ship provided enough fuel to keep the fire going.
The problem is that you are in really dire straights from the start. So many things can cause you to have to bend over and take a loss.
Offensive drones, beam weapons, quick fire weapons, heavy lasers, ion weapons, pulsars, ships with zoltan shields, not to mention the problems you're in should you accidentally find yourself in an ion storm. One hit on your weapons systems and that's your lot.
Furthermore, a lot of ships have 3 bars in shields even in sector 1, so even if you do manage to get a hit in on shields and weapons, chances on there will still be weapons firing at you. And your boarding crew won't be fast enough to save you either.

I really think this ship needs an extra weapon, that alone would make it (personally) lots more manageable in the early game. Taking a hint from the Adjudicator which has the leto to take the shields down should it be needed. The Adjudicator has a shield system of its own to begin with though. It doesn't have to be something big or flashy, something like a small bomb or ion blast would be perfect if you rather not give it lasers or missiles (which I wouldn't go for either).

Having the extra weapon means the 3 shield bars wouldn't matter anymore as you will be able to take out the shield with the backup (or at least the 3rd shield bar should you decide on a leto) but also would mean that 1 point of damage isn't the end of the line.

Other than that, the weapon this comes with is indeed something unique and rather potent. I can imagine it being able to do quite a number on the flagship for instance. I like it.
So for me, this ship lacks a second weapon, if it had that, it would've been great.

So when you have a ship that needs a better gun around Sector 3, guns do not turn up and Limited Time Offer fails to work because you only find CE sectors or pirate sectors that drop boarders on your ship...
And when you have a boarding ship, enemies only seem to have Clone Bays and Medbays or be automated. So that means this ship is doomed the moment you start.

CE allows you to make basic lasers at empty beacons, so if you're stuck with empty weapon slots and 30 scrap, there's your way out. It's often not great, but with this ship, probably a more than valid option.

[fdagpigj]

I really think this ship needs an extra weapon, that alone would make it (personally) lots more manageable in the early game. Taking a hint from the Adjudicator which has the leto to take the shields down should it be needed. The Adjudicator has a shield system of its own to begin with though. It doesn't have to be something big or flashy, something like a small bomb or ion blast would be perfect if you rather not give it lasers or missiles (which I wouldn't go for either).

You're probably right. I didn't want to copy the Adjudicator too much though, so I opted to go for boarding as the gimmicky plan B instead of the Leto. I suppose a gimmicky and very slow solution to a serious and quick issue (esp. on what I intended to be a non-gimmicky ship... in hindsight I should've swapped this and my next upcoming ship) wasn't that great. But I think a small bomb (or especially ion blast 1 or a basic laser) may be too good, since they would guarantee a shield layer dropping (given they hit), so if not a Leto, then... pretty much the only thing I can think of would be a Stun Bomb, which yes, drops their shield, but is crap enough otherwise to probably not be too powerful, while as a bonus can also help with boarding if you're careful.

Having the extra weapon means the 3 shield bars wouldn't matter anymore as you will be able to take out the shield with the backup (or at least the 3rd shield bar should you decide on a leto) but also would mean that 1 point of damage isn't the end of the line.

The Adjudicator only has 3 starting weapon system power. Would I need to up it to 4 for this?

[Biohazard063]

You're probably right. I didn't want to copy the Adjudicator too much though, so I opted to go for boarding as the gimmicky plan B instead of the Leto. I suppose a gimmicky and very slow solution to a serious and quick issue (esp. on what I intended to be a non-gimmicky ship... in hindsight I should've swapped this and my next upcoming ship) wasn't that great. But I think a small bomb (or especially ion blast 1 or a basic laser) may be too good, since they would guarantee a shield layer dropping (given they hit), so if not a Leto, then... pretty much the only thing I can think of would be a Stun Bomb, which yes, drops their shield, but is crap enough otherwise to probably not be too powerful, while as a bonus can also help with boarding if you're careful.

The problem being your boarding crew isn't going to deal much system damage though... so a stun bomb might be a nice way to bridge the gap between having a beam weapon that shreds hull on one side and having a teleporter on the other one.

The Adjudicator only has 3 starting weapon system power. Would I need to up it to 4 for this?

The fact that the Adjudicator only has 3 bars of power isn't too bad, since you do have a shield layer to protect you when your zoltan shields gives out. Meaning having to wait some time for a next volley generally won't be too bad. Since you will have taken at least one weapon out.
Having the teleporter probably means you'll be able to survive if you had to spend your first bit of scrap on a weapons upgrade. So keeping it at 3 is probably fine.