FTL: Hard Mode Expansion
This idea came about from a thread involving the possibility of mutinies. I then spitballed this into Hard Mode. In a nutshell, Hard Mode is actual, realistic, and deadly. Surviving will be a pleasant surprise. This idea does not significantly alter or change the game, just adds a few things to better represent a hard core space simulation.
tl;dr Hard Mode tries to kill you.
Possible suggestions for things to be included in Hard Mode:
1) Slaves might mutiny.
There are many options for 'rescuing' slaves. Any slave that doesn't "willingly" join your crew will have a possibility of mutinying against you. So the events where slaves eagerly or gladly join your crew doesn't affect this. Those options where you buy a slave, beam slaves to your ship, or force them to work for you, does affect this mutiny option.
When Hard Mode is active, they'll be a mutiny meter underneath the Evade and O2 meters. It'll default at 0%. Each slave on board your ship increases it by 10%. Each loyal crew member (i.e., not a slave) on your ship reduces it by 5%. If a slave gains proficiency in a system, the percent is reduced by 5% per star. If at any time slaves outnumber loyal crew, the meter will double.
When checking your crew screen, loyal members will be "crew" while slaves will be "slaves". This means you can dismiss slaves if you don't want to risk it.
Chance of mutiny occurring - that is, when the calculation is run to determine if a mutiny takes place. I'm a little torn on this. I'd say at least once per sector there should be a chance for mutiny (randomly determined at some point during the sector). Other options are every FTL jump (seems to high for me); every 3 jumps; twice per sector; others.
When it does occur, it can occur immediately after a jump (Mutiny! The slaves are seeking to gain control of your ship!), upon being attacked (The slaves join forces with the attackers in hopes of gaining their freedom!), or upon destroying an enemy ship (The slaves on board you ship seize the opportunity to gain their freedom!). If a mutiny is successful, all slaves become hostile (as if you've been boarded).
This means a very vibrant and fluid situation at all times. You'd be tempted to keep slaves on your ship to they learn subsystems (reducing their mutiny chances). However, when you teleport to an enemy ship with loyal crew, the chances of slaves gaining a majority on the ship increase (meaning mutiny chance doubles). So you'd be tempted to use slaves as boarders. Likewise, you'll send slaves into risky situations first (to reduce chances of loyal crew being killed off). But, say, a slave human being sent into combat instead of a loyal mantis means a judgment call you'll have to make.
2) Weapon power backblast
If your weapon subsystem is hit while a weapon is firing (NOT charging), you take power damage. So it a Burst Laser II (2 power) is firing and your weapon subsystem gets hit, it will take 2 power levels of damage that will need to be repaired.
Obviously, some weapons such as missile systems fire very quickly would avoid this easier than, say, beam weapons and higher level burst weapons. Bomb weapons tend to have a small firing window, so a small chance of this occurring. So you'd have to make smart decisions regarding which weapons to keep (and when to fire them).
Note that this would ALSO affect enemy ships, meaning there would be tactical decisions in when to fire.
3) Venting atmo
Basically, when you open external airlocks and vent atmosphere, you'll cause some decompression and move crew.
If a room is vented by external airlock, when the room turns yellow anyone in the room would move 1 square toward the external airlock.
This means if someone is in an external airlock and you vent, you'll blast whoever is in it into space (insta death).
If you open the external airlock and several rooms as well, you'll shift crew (and hostiles) around. Can be used to separate attackers, save your own crew, pull hostiles out of certain rooms, etc. Note that it only occurs when the room turns yellow (no O2). So there'll be a risk of suffocation if you're trying to save a crew member with 5 health.
Likewise, if slave mutiny is a possibility, you may start repositioning slaves prior to jumps or even during battles in external airlocks, so if a mutiny does go down you can solve it faster. But this would mean that they might be out of position if you get boarded, or need fast repairs, etc.
4) Smart venting by enemies
Basically, enemy ships (or some enemy ships) will have external airlocks. And they'll use venting to fight you when you board them. So, obviously, don't teleport into an external airlock.
5) O2 bomb
This would be a new weapon (possibly only for Hard Mode). Bomb system, 1 power, short charge time (8 or 9 seconds?). No damage whatsoever, but upon detonation will fill 8(?) squares to 100% oxygen. Used to rapidly repressurize a room, or deal with enemy venting. You can keep pumping air into a room or two using this weapon.
Useful for ensuring fires burn longer in enemy ships (or your own), or buying suffocating crew more time (either on your ship or on another), or aiding in repairs (if you have a breach or your doors are locked open) (although if your doors are locked including external open this would buy you seconds at most).
Possibly: if deployed in a room with fire, any fire in that room will instantly double from the oxygen boost). So can be used to not only make fires burn longer, but can help them spread faster as well.
6) Bridge controls power transfer
The bridge is where everything happens. So if the bridge goes red, you can't transfer power between your subsystems. This would give an incentive for people to upgrade their bridge to help prevent this. It also makes the bridge slightly more important.
This might be too hard, even for Hard Mode, though.
7) Flaming engines
If your engine is on fire and you FTL jump, the engine will explode (go red and do 1 damage) immediately after jumping.
This is rather self explanatory.
8) All hands brace for impact!
Enemy ships might try to ram you. This will occur very rarely.
This will occur right as an enemy ship is taken to 0 hull. The ship's rooms will disappear and the explosions will start - however, a popup event will occur. Something like, "they are trying to ram us and take us with them!". At which point you'll have 3 options: 1) Evade! (auxiliary power to engines), 2) Brace for impact! (auxiliary power to shields), 3) Intensify forward firepower! (auxiliary power to weapons).
Each functioning power bar in the option chosen will be used in determining if the enemy ship collides with you, and if so, how much damage done. So hypothetically, if your engines, shields, and weapons and completely redlined and dead, you'll take, say, 10 hull damage, plus random breaches, fires, and subsystem damage. Conceivably, you should be able to avoid this if you've upgraded one system of them enough. So, max upgrades on one of the systems would allow you to not get hit (if you choose that option). And anything in between will vary in damage.
Once you select the option, the enemy ship will then have the exploding animation, and your screen will shake as you take damage.
Possibly: allow cloaking to completely avoid this. If you have cloaking you'll get a blue option that allows you to avoid the incoming ship.
Also possibly: ramming can only occur if the enemy ships has functioning bridge and engines. If they are damaged, reduces chance of successful ramming and (if so), reduces damage taken.
Also possibly: slightly increased chance of occurring if it's a Mantis ship that you're fighting.
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Those are the idea I came up with, obviously there's more options, and these I just came up with off the top of my head. Also, I guess there'd be another 25% increase in score for flying in Hard Mode.
On a final note, given the work and extra things going into this, I would suggest making this an expansion pack (aka DLC). Somewhere between $3-5 would seem right. I'd totally get this to see if I could survive. It would be awesomely hardcore. And I think FTL needs something like this
