FTL: Captain's Edition - A Review

[Squishybrick]

OMG lol, I just found another hilarious scenario..

I'm running a lanius ship, that has no oxygen supply.. So, naturally, I pick up a ton of hitchhikers. 3 mantis, and one human.

And with my cloner, I just get to hear crewmates constantly dieing and coming back to life, a hellish fate worse than death.. Infinite death..

Even worse, because of the challenge mode I'm using, I'm not allowed to buy the oxygen system, so they really are just stuck that way forever.

But that's not the funny part..

I run into the scenario where I've happened across a civilian vessel who's life support is failing, and the option to "flood oxygen into thier system"
appears. I HAVE NO OXYGEN SYSTEM..

I click it anyway, just to see what would happen, and it WORKED.. Apparently the game/mod wasn't prepared to handle a situation where you
wouldn't have oxygen in that specific scenario, so it ignores whether you have it or not.

I flooded something in that ship, but it was the opposite of oxygen.. Teehee~..

The crew of the cargo ship is glad to breathe some clean non-existent air. "thank you captain. I can't beleive we got ourselves into this.
let's hope we get to a settlement quick." They offer a small compensation, before realizing that you had no oxygen to spare, and had
flooded their ship with the cold vacuum of space, and thus promptly died.

+22 Scrap


Also, I had my first crash with this mod, on the same run. I bumped into a zoltan ship on the 6th or 7th sector, and
did my usual "oxygen hack" strategy, when the game froze. Here's the details in case the mod-maker is curious. The crash happened
somewhere around the time I started hacking their oxygen, and their shots were hitting my shields. They were using a burst bomb,
and a burst lazer mark IV and the crash seemed to happen exactly when the third bomb exploded on one of my systems.

Hazard Zone: Asteroid Field
Lanius Cruiser Type A

Weapons (Fully upgraded)
Burst Lazer Mark IV
Salvaged 3-shot charge lazer
Incendiary 2-shot charge lazer (the red kind, whatever it's prefix was called)
Blank slot

Drones 0/2 (weren't using them)
Repair Drone
Anti-missile drone (uses burst missiles to shoot down missiles)

Shields 6/6 (2 bubbles, was charging the third)
Engines 1/2
Clone Bay 1/1
No oxygen system
Backup Battery (fully upgraded, wasn't in use)

Augments: Backup DNA Bank, Hazard Siuts, and Space Rations (I think that's what they were called)
Crew: 3 Mantis, and 2 engis

[Biohazard063]

Looks like you finally learned how the CE experience works.

Hi, I'm one of those old veterans at CE that mr_easy_money mentioned. Also used to be a modder myself.
Been Let's Playing CE before AE was a thing and have beaten CE hard difficulty on camera 2x. He was right about it being cancer...

So as I was saying, you figured out how it worked. Yes, your first few runs will be filled with a whole sense of wonder matched only by the amount of times you'll yell unfair, OP and all that other jazz. A giant roller coaster of ups and downs, of wonders and worries if you like. Eventually, the ride smooths out though, and you learn how to cope with the new mechanics. You learn to categorize the new weapons, augments and drones and have your likes and dislikes. My biggest gripe to this day are the mine launchers. Don't like them on my ship, hate them on the enemy ship as well. Yet I won't sell one if I have an empty weapon slot. In that way, every weapon can have it's use.

One of the bigger things one has got to come to terms with is that indeed, it will be more difficult to scrounge together a weapon setup that suits your needs. And whilst that can be annoying for CE beginners, coming from AE knowing that getting a full array of lasers is only a matter of patience, you do start to appreciate it later on. To learn to think differently.
And that's just one example on where CE does that.

In any case, there is no denying that CE ups the overall difficulty. And heck, Sleeper said it himself on the thread. It's something that can be seen on the flagship itself, but also by arming more enemies with a variety of augments. The bigger drain on fuel, etc.. But you wouldn't consort to mods if you weren't looking for something else. And you wouldn't be looking towards overhaul mods if that something else wasn't a new challenge.

Also, noticed you started playing with sM PK, keep in mind that you're not really meant to be using sM PK insurrection when also playing with CE. Been there, done that, and whilst it does work, it sort of makes the flagship hellish. I suppose since you're using the vanilla flagship, I guess it doesn't matter too much.

Well, as they say "gl;hf" with your future runs.

[Squishybrick]

This will probably sound petty or just funny, but I don't like how I can't be a wingman for my mantis..

Every time I get the event where the mantis wants me to find him a mate, it's either just a battle, or I end up missing the quest marker
entirely..

I want him/her to get jiggy with another mantis and have them lay eggs in my cargo bay and hatch a cute adorable baby mantis and watch it grow up
on my ship, damnit! XD

I always genuinely feel bad when I miss that chance, if it can even happen in the game.

Also, I never got over the difficulty curve of CE, the smpk+CE-Remix+Insurrection mod bundle I have keeps the difficulty at just the perfect
level where there's still the occasional "Oh hey, you're doing pretty good.. It'd be a shame if you suddenly got spammed by rockets and half your
crew died in a battle with a FUCKING DRONE" moments, but they happen just infrequently enough that I consider the game "basically fair".

Though the second biggest, maybe even THE biggest reason I like the mod bundle, is the weapon variety. I am a serious nut for variety, and
weapon variety is my absolute addiction.. TF2, Hitman, ShellShock 2, Terraria, basically any kind of game that has a massive variety of weapons to use,
I will instantly fall in love with, and this mod bundle gives me that. Weapons from both smpk and CE, along with modified variants like energy missiles,
incendiary, hardened, tactical, elite, overclocked, and the like, make an already-nice mod 10x more fun for me.

I was initially woo'ed by the prospect over 1000's of weapons promised by the infinite mod from CE, but having to play CE on its own was not worth
it.. CE's just a bit too hardcore for me.

As I said before, I like to provide my own challenge in place of the lack of one, and the little .txt file I have provides me with that. Here's what
just a few of my "Challenge modes" look like.

ADVENTURER------------------- [Behavioural]
[Never Sell Augments]
[Never Buy Weaponry, use whatever you get]
[Never Buy Drones, and never sell unless your systems are full]
[Buy the first system(s) you can afford]
Weapon Switching: Yes
SubSystem Priority: Low
Crew Priority: Low
Shop Enter Quota: 50

TRADER------------------------- [Behavioural]
[Only upgrade systems to accomodate weapons/drones]
[Buy anything and everything you can from shops, from least expensive to most]
[Only upgrade shields if you have over 100 scrap, and are at the start of a new sector]
[Always participate in buying/trading events, taking/giving as much as you can]
Weapon Switching: No
SubSystem Priority: Very Low
Crew Priority: Very Low

COWARD-------------------------- [Challenge]
[Always accept/attempt bribe-related events to avoid battles]
[Always surrender to slavers]
Weapon Switching: Yes
SubSystem Priority: Medium
Crew Priority: Medium

PIRATE------------------------- [Tactic: Boarding]
[Buy a Teleporter ASAP]
[Never Buy Additional Systems]
[Never Buy Weaponry, use whatever you get]
Weapon Switching: No
SubSystem Priority: Low
Crew Priorty: Extreme

HOT-ROD--------------------- [System-Based: Engine]
[Upgrading Engines to max at highest priority]
[Buy FTL Charge Boosters if you see them]
Weapon Switching: Yes
Crew Priority: Low
SubSystem Priority: Medium

I have many more, and each one I record victories with whichever cruiser I was using at the time.

[mr_easy_money]

Though the second biggest, maybe even THE biggest reason I like the mod bundle, is the weapon variety. I am a serious nut for variety, and
weapon variety is my absolute addiction.. TF2, Hitman, ShellShock 2, Terraria, basically any kind of game that has a massive variety of weapons to use,
I will instantly fall in love with, and this mod bundle gives me that. Weapons from both smpk and CE, along with modified variants like energy missiles,
incendiary, hardened, tactical, elite, overclocked, and the like, make an already-nice mod 10x more fun for me.

I was initially woo'ed by the prospect over 1000's of weapons promised by the infinite mod from CE, but having to play CE on its own was not worth
it.. CE's just a bit too hardcore for me.

y'know you can still use Endless Loot on standard CE. it's interesting you should mention that. the first time I played CE I was like nope nope nope. then I tried out Endless Loot and at that time all I got were the crappy prefixes (and if I recall correctly, smpk only has one crappy prefix: salvaged). so then I switched over to smpk and like you similarly fell in love with the weapon variety there but then I stopped for a while.

started playing CE after a long hiatus and I'm loving the variety with Endless Loot, the number of prefixes goes way past smpk, and I don't hesitate to let the enemies use Endless Loot as well because why stop the variety. this inevitably leads to some ship fights that are even more horrific, with the enemy possessing piercing weapons, but again, this whole letting the enemy use the EL weapons is not recommended, but I couldn't resist.

yes, smpk feels more balanced maybe, but there are some hilarious things that can happen with EL in CE that I just love it. so I don't know, I like both packs in their own way.

[Squishybrick]

To each their own, I guess.

Maybe one day there'll be a middle-ground mod created, that has the variety of CE Infinite, but the eased difficulty of smpk.

Until then, I'll stick with the smpk+CEremix+insurrection pack.

Though, when looking at the actual prefixes for the mod mentioned in the wiki, I don't feel like I'm missing much.. If anything, just
a glance seems to tell me it would increase the difficulty even more, since compared to smpk, there's a much higher chance of getting
worse weapons instead of better ones, on each playthrough.. And said prefixes only seem to differ slightly than what smpk offers..
The only real differences between the variants seem to be a few new defects (increased spread), and the same improvements but in
spread-out versions, like a variant that only increases damage or fire speed, and nothing else, with accompanying defects which do the
same.

I like weapon variety, but not at the cost of additional challenge over an already borderline-hardcore difficulty from a mod..

Might be crossing the line into unsavory criticism by saying this, but it doesn't really seem like variety at all.. Just "even more challenge"..
I'm not a challenge-junky, at least not with FTL.. There are games (Doom 2), in which I will not use, but create mods that increase the difficulty
to unrealistically insane levels, AND beat them, but doom is an FPS.. I don't want a game like FTL to have that kind of difficulty. FTL,
at least to me, is a laid back strategy game.. At least, that's what I want it to be.. Through the eyes of both the creators, and CE devs, it was never
supposed to be.. But that's what I want, and smpk gives me that.. CE does not.

[mr_easy_money]

Though, when looking at the actual prefixes for the mod mentioned in the wiki, I don't feel like I'm missing much.. If anything, just a glance seems to tell me it would increase the difficulty even more, since compared to smpk, there's a much higher chance of getting worse weapons instead of better ones, on each playthrough.. And said prefixes only seem to differ slightly than what smpk offers..

sort of but not exactly. if I remember smpk correctly, the augmented weapons are generally only good (e.g. breaching, incendiary, elite) or have a good thing but balance it out with something else (e.g. high-yield does more damage, but doubles the missile cost. overclocked gives better stats, but needs more power.) or are just normal or salvaged like I mentioned. this makes smpk's loot less "RNG-heavy", which is generally deemed as more "balanced". but what is balance? more on this below (couple paragraphs down).

so yes evidently there is a higher chance of getting worse weapons, but simply because smpk doesn't really look like it has truly bad prefixes whatsoever (except for salvaged), whereas in Endless Loot there is a broad spectrum of loot ranging from good to bad in nearly all possible areas of a weapon.

The only real differences between the variants seem to be a few new defects (increased spread), and the same improvements but in spread-out versions, like a variant that only increases damage or fire speed, and nothing else, with accompanying defects which do the same.

I shall challenge you on this claim, because this makes it sounds like prefixes will only increase one thing, like fire chance or breach chance like, which do indeed exist just like its similar smpk prefixes, but then it sounds like something like high-yield or overclocked type things don't exist in endless loot, to which I will use the following prefixes as examples: heavy, pulse, support, EMP, shrapnel (which technically is incorrect; should be called frag), supercharged, unstable; each which have good things, but have something negative along with it. there is evidently also a "high-yield" prefix here.
-
I will conclude that just by saying that since smpk's pool of prefixes is small, it does indeed make it easier to balance. Endless Loot has, well, endless loot, making that much harder to balance.

I like weapon variety, but not at the cost of additional challenge over an already borderline-hardcore difficulty from a mod.. Might be crossing the line into unsavory criticism by saying this, but it doesn't really seem like variety at all.. Just "even more challenge"..

oh it's variety all right, but challenge too. probably too much variety but somehow I enjoy that. sure it adds more challenge because you can find bad weapons... but you can still find good ones too. on top of that too much variety I leave the enemy ships with those weapons, making it unknown what to expect from encounters just because of the broad spectrum of loot. is it "balanced"? perhaps not. but smpk doesn't have that full range of variety. is that a good thing? possibly. ultimately, it's up to the player.

I'm not a challenge-junky, at least not with FTL..
...
I don't want a game like FTL to have that kind of difficulty. FTL, at least to me, is a laid back strategy game.. At least, that's what I want it to be.. Through the eyes of both the creators, and CE devs, it was never supposed to be.. But that's what I want, and smpk gives me that.. CE does not.

and that is fair. people generally tend to have different ideas what 'balance' means to FTL. I don't know if there will ever be a definitive balanced mod because what people expect from the game is different. at the same time, if such a thing could exist, it would need people from all corners of FTL.

-
smpk, though, is not to be trifled with, just like vanilla. smpk's flagship in my eyes is probably a bit harder than CE because of the layout changes such as the shield room not connected to piloting and you can't cheese the defense drone (there is a counter-measure, right? Right???).
I haven't played smpk in too long so I can't quite recall if normal has the artilleries connected, but I think in general the two flagships are pretty similar actually. smpk has balances, but so does CE (that annoying artillery beam. annoying but I wouldn't have it any other way). I believe both mods have combat augment capability, and I know for a fact you can use it in CE at least on the flagship.

CE really is something else, but so is smpk (here i go again). love both mods in their own strange ways, but I think you've got me to want to play smpk again. maybe not, I don't know, really tired, haven't really been feeling playing FTL for the past few days, so burnt out

[Marinealver]

I think the problem Captian's Edition has is a similar problem Advanced Edition shows. Is that more stuff starts to dilute the item pool in the random generator. The end result is a lot more mismatches. However it is hard to get an algorithm that tweaks the randomness based upon what your ship is equipped, (like getting a back up DNA bank for your Medbay). So more might not be better for random generators.
I think the way Advanced Edition get past this is to front load weapon drop probability in the first couple of sectors. That way it gets you an idea of what to look fore in the later sectors before you reach the boss.

However my biggest complaint is when they start throwing in so many options that it goes beyond the window. Need to add a scroll or reduce the options.

[mr_easy_money]

However my biggest complaint is when they start throwing in so many options that it goes beyond the window. Need to add a scroll or reduce the options.

sorry, not sure what you mean by this... oh! are you referring to 7 or so blue options which overflows the UI box at second to max font size, which happens like so:



the problem with blue options is that this'll only happen if you have these ones, so adding another page, while cutting down the options in this case, will make it look like it suddenly cuts off for no reason after just a few. increasing the font size up will make it even more unwieldy, thought the game probably sets the limit at the lowest possible font size.

now really the best thing to do would be to create a menu that loops -- having them all on one page without looping lets you see all your possibilities at once. unfortunately, looping only works in the ship events... hmm I wonder why it only worked for deadCrew and not something like escape. could just spawn in a ship and set the escape timer to something incredibly fast, wait and then spawn the event. could then chalk it up to something like getting the computer ready for the changes or whatnot.

-
oh and technically there is a scroll, but not exactly the type of scroll you had in mind... reduce the font size

[Marinealver]

Yup that would be it.
I think one aspect they could do is clean up the socialize section in empty spaces. Maybe like socialize from captain (piloting) to station such as engines, weapons, sensors. Depending on what race both captain and crew manning that station there will be at most 5 blue options. But again that would require an overhaul I'm sure there are more pressing issues to be working on.

[Squishybrick]

I was just wandering through a few sectors doing more challenges, when lo' an behold, I still can't get away from
"just plain stupid" hard difficulty of even the mod-pack I am using..

Nano-bot clouds..
Or as they should be called-
"Hey, remember that one system you never upgrade? Prepare to instantly lose the entire game because of it" sectors..

Jesus christ on a cracker, is NO mod/modpack safe from even just a little player-trolling difficulty? I was almost settled in, I was
having fun, and then that happens..

As an official reviewer once said, yes, FTL is a roguelike, it's supposed to be a game you don't expect to win, or, one you expect
to lose at almost any point, but the problem with that being the game's average play-length is very long, so when you do inevitably
end up in a "Hey, remember that one system you never upgrade? Prepare to instantly lose the entire game because of it" sector,
7 sectors in after an hour or two of playing with a fully-decked out ship and high spirits, just watching your entire crew die without
you being able to do a single thing about it, has a heavily-multiplied psychological effect as compared to if the exact same thing
happened, but only after 15 minutes of invested play..

What is it with this game that you people just don't seem to understand? Am I some sort've alien life-form standing in a crowd of
wierdos who've somehow adapted to the thick poisonous cloud of difficulty and I'm the only one asking "why are my lungs burning?", and
the only answer I ever seem to get out of you is either "hey if it ain't your cup of tea, go away", or "Don't worry, it stops hurting after
you cough up enough chunks of your own lung"..

This isn't normal.. Okay?.. OKAY?.. Seriously, this is not normal, this is not what you, ANY of you, should be aspiring towards..
This isn't just hardcore difficulty, this is basically and almost quite literally, just negative reinforcement in its purest form.. When I think of someone
who plays and beats something this hard, I don't think of a normal human being, I think of someone who's got a mental defect.. A
lack of key receptors in their brain that prevents them from being discouraged by painstaking odds, and I just imagine "how does this person
function in daily life.. How do they, if at all, differentiate odds of success from a daily task to a life-threatening procedure?.."

Maybe I'm over-thinking it, but there HAS to be something wrong with someone who can just "take" negative reinforcement and not even
flinch.. It could possibly be considered an upgrade, or a special ability, but it comes at a cost, and I don't like thinking of someone missing an
integral part of themselves just so they can play unfairly-difficult roguelikes without going insane..

If the game was just "hard", that'd be fine.. Like, if it had no curve balls, no catches, and was just very highly difficult from start to finish, that'd
be one thing, but no, FTL mods always seem to have the same BS system of simulating difficulty by "diddling the player".. No matter how prepared
you are, there's always something that can still pop up which just does the equivalent of a 10 year old you're playing chess with pee'ing on the chess board, and then smacking your face with a wooden paddle while you're chained to the chair, before tipping over the board, smirking at you, and leaving.

That's not "you losing because you weren't skilled enough".. That's "the game being a bitch".. I don't like bitch games.. If you do, I pity you..

And I can't just patch in a "remove another bitch-game feature" like I did with the one that made the flagship vanilla, because the modpack I have
is just a bit too densely packed to allow another one, and even then something tells me there isn't a "make the "instantly-lose-the-game" nanobot cloud sector go away" patch/mod..

Tell me I'm wrong, criticize that I never upgrade oxygen systems, remind me that it was my choice to play this game which I've had a love/hate relationship with for years now, let me know all about how much fun "you" have with the game, do whatever you like.. It won't change the fact that my opinion of those
who create mods for this game has now gone as sour as year-old milk..

There, I've ranted enough..