[MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

[DrkTemplar]

Thank you everyone for your feedback!

I will fix the mentioned typos, and rebel reference from previous posts. I have plans to increase the difficulty of the Elite Cruisers, so save your games, and back them up. After the next release restore them and try your buff ships against the new ships.

I will look at some of the Adv. Tech weapons mentioned here. In most cases they are the same as the standard weapons but with lower power requirements so you can equip more. However, that could make them too powerful.

[Kieve]

Bug report!
I ran into an issue with the "Pirate Cruiser" miniboss. He didn't pick a fight with me (thank goodness), but the ship was just a black box in the target window. I did a double-check on the code, and everything seems right. From what I could tell, it was pointing to the "enemy_rebel_" set (Kestrel enemy). Didn't see anything obviously wrong there either.
Using FTL v1.03 with the Incursor Cruiser (I was adventuring with the Archon), and high-res backgrounds. Gonna keep going and hope it's just that one ship.

EDIT:
I think I figured it out. You called it "INF_SHIP_PIRATE" in the blueprints.
The problem with that is, "_PIRATE" is a special case in the hardcoding of the game that tells it to look for the pirate version of whatever you put for the img name. (Oddly enough, it's just img that's affected, layout is left as-is).
Instead of looking for "enemy_rebel_cruiser_base.png", you've accidentally told it to look for "enemy_rebel_cruiser_pirate_base.png" (and all associated gibs).
My fix* was to go through and rename each PNG, but the simpler one is simply to rename from INF_SHIP_PIRATE to INF_SHIP_REBEL (or anything else, but REBEL makes the most sense to me).
*I tried the easy way, but it caused my save to crash, presumably because it was looking for a ship blueprint that no longer existed

[3.14]

Thank you everyone for your feedback!

I will fix the mentioned typos, and rebel reference from previous posts. I have plans to increase the difficulty of the Elite Cruisers, so save your games, and back them up. After the next release restore them and try your buff ships against the new ships.

I will look at some of the Adv. Tech weapons mentioned here. In most cases they are the same as the standard weapons but with lower power requirements so you can equip more. However, that could make them too powerful.

doh.. backup...

had a ship with +glaive, +burst3, +ion bomb, +small bomb, PRE-IGNITER!!

[Apocolapse]

I am loving the mod, but for some reason when I encounter the cruiser at the beginning of an area they do not attack me and I cannot attack them?
Am I missing something obvious? I have tried attacking every star in the map, but nothing happens, and then another cruiser appears the beginning of next area and again it doesnt attack...
Can anyone help?

[Kieve]

I have to say, the challenge of facing down these Elite Cruisers and other ship-killers you come up with is the main reason I play FTL:IS. It's the challenge of knowing a scenario is winnable even when it seems impossible. So here I am with another Tales From Infinite Spaaaaaace....!

*ahem*

To this point, my favored tactic with the Archon was using dual Heavy Ions to bring the shield down, assisted by the Sunfury where needed (usually not necessary), and burning them down with the Arc Beam. The Elite Fed however, refused to play by these rules.
Their Defense II drone picked off the slow-moving ion blasts like a hungry vulture, while the ship's evasion meant even the faster volleys from the Sunfury missed frequently - at one point, all four shots whizzed by without so much as grazing their shield. Meanwhile, their array of weapons and offensive drones devoured the Archon's Z-shield, basic shields, and steadily went to work on the hull.
Clearly, a different tactic was called for...

Pushing the cloak to maximum and diverting all power to weapons gave even the Arc Beam enough time to charge. A Defense II drone can handle a lot of incoming fire, but under that single alpha-strike, it crumbled. One of the Sunfury's bursts destroyed it entirely, everything else found its mark and hit hard enough to drop the shields from 4+Z to two layers, one of them temporarily in recharge. The Archon had its opening!
To Mara's disappointment, a weapon-strategy was dropped entirely. All power now went to our Defense I & II drones, the teleporter, and medbay.

Varnas and Kirkner went in first, hitting the one critical room no one was occupying - the Feds' own medbay. Completely locked out, all they could do was bang on the door. When Varnas' lock ran down, Kirkner renewed it. Meanwhile, Slocknog and Lisandra warped into the drone room, tearing into it with a vengeance. By the time the Fed crew could finally get into the medbay, half of them (the AP drone included) did an immediate U-turn and hauled ass for the damaged drone control. The Varn/Kirk duo picked off one of the crew before being forced out by overhwelming fire. Slock and Lisa bravely held their ground until the teleporter recharged, Lisa returning on the very brink of death. They swapped places with Varn & Kirk on the pad, who then targeted the weapons room for their next Lockdown session.
And so it went. Across the battlefield, the Archon and its defensive drones weathered everything the Fed Elite threw at it. The Fed's beam-drone hit the worst, but Drake's expert hands brought the shields up quickly enough to ward off critical damage. A hit to the cloaking and drone systems nearly did us in, but the cloak cycled just that moment and bought Mara enough time to patch them both before the Feds could compound the damage.
Varn/Kirk, Slock/Lisa warped in and out, the two Crystals keeping the crew busy while the slug/mantis pair came back to demolish the door control, then ran back to the drone room to continue their sabotage.
The Feds had one more trick up their sleeve though - two at a time, they began warping into the Archon's port-side. The first landed in the drone room, which I quickly vented. After knocking a bar off my blast doors, they abandoned the airless room and broke into the medbay, where two more boarders joined them. And when the entire pylon had been vented, they ran for the pilot's room. Cy Heng quickly locked them out - two suffocated in the vented O2 room while the others warped back aboard, much worse for the wear.
...In the end, it was a long, drawn-out battle, but one by one they fell. My first plan had been to take out the systems doing the most harm to the Archon, but soon enough it became clear it was easier to just pick off the crew. Even the engi nanobots couldn't heal them up when trapped in a room with two angry crystals, a professional Mantis killer, and Slocknog the Magnificent* (as he prefers to be called). When the Fed Elite was at last floating derelict, I spent some additional drone parts to patch up the damaged hull, and let my weary boarders heal up. I've never tried to do such rapid-fire assault boarding before, and though Lisa came within a scant 3HP of death, they live to fight on.
But who knows what the next Cruiser will bring...

*Slocknog was my first boarder, earning his share of scars and ship kills alike. He was instrumental in the defeat of countless pirates, keeping damaged rooms from being repaired while the Arc Beam carved up the other half of the ship. He's earned his title.

[3.14]

latest loadout:
burst2, dual lasers, +small bomb, small bomb

power efficient thus didnt buy any more zoltans above 3 and still had max shields + evade.
other crew are 1 rockman, 2 mantis, 2 engi.

i jump to the next sector, beat the boss, and my quest says crashed ship on planet! sweet! no combat, easy tech!
but EVERYTIME so far this game, i either get fuel/missiles/drones/money or something on the planet forces my away party to teleport back to the ship. in other words, no +tech! thus why the only usuasable +tech i'm using is the +small bomb.

frustrating... but i guess it evens out the no combat risk part?

and the cloaked elite ship never showed at the quest location the 1st time i got that quest.

also, once, the only way to the elite ship was behind the exit. but once i reached the exit, it auto-jumped me to the next sector thus losing another opportunity at +tech.

still having a blast!
backed up my latest game. bring on the super elite cruisers!

[GreenZanbato]

Just noticed a reference to the rebels. When you defeat slavers and pick the engi as a crew member, It says something like "Verify primary objective is to defeat the rebels..."

[DrkTemplar]

@Kieve,
Thanks again for the cool story of your experience. I enjoyed reading it!

I went through the last few pages of this thread for the typos and rebel references. Hopefully got them all. I made the change in the xml for INF_SHIP_PIRATE to INF_SHIP_REBEL. I had run into this when I was testing, and I thought I changed it, apparently not.

I added the chance for fighting the Elite Cruisers in an asteroid field as well as super nova. This is going to be a negative for them as well as yourself, but should overall cause more damage to your ship, win or run. This should create a scenario where you need to repair more after those fights.

I reduced the payout for defeating the Cruiser ships. This was done to reduce the overall scrap being distributed to ships that are strong enough to defeat Cruisers, and likely don't really need it anyways.

The Stealth ship itself has been slightly weakened. Lower health, smaller crew. However, more importantly, the timer before the ship jumps away has been doubled. This was done to provide more time for people to defeat the ship. This timer may be increased further based on feedback. NOTE: Anyone that had issues with this ship spawning, you need to increase your sensors to level 2+ or have the Long Range Sensor augment. The idea here is the ship is hiding, and you need something better than sensor 1 to find it.

[Ashaira]

Just wanted to let you know i found a ship in sector 4 or 5 (of the ships you find right when u enter the sector) that seem to not have graphics. i can see the rooms and crew but the shield and ship itself are invisible. It's called pirate cruiser.

[3.14]

@Kieve,
Thanks again for the cool story of your experience. I enjoyed reading it!

I went through the last few pages of this thread for the typos and rebel references. Hopefully got them all. I made the change in the xml for INF_SHIP_PIRATE to INF_SHIP_REBEL. I had run into this when I was testing, and I thought I changed it, apparently not.

I added the chance for fighting the Elite Cruisers in an asteroid field as well as super nova. This is going to be a negative for them as well as yourself, but should overall cause more damage to your ship, win or run. This should create a scenario where you need to repair more after those fights.

I reduced the payout for defeating the Cruiser ships. This was done to reduce the overall scrap being distributed to ships that are strong enough to defeat Cruisers, and likely don't really need it anyways.

The Stealth ship itself has been slightly weakened. Lower health, smaller crew. However, more importantly, the timer before the ship jumps away has been doubled. This was done to provide more time for people to defeat the ship. This timer may be increased further based on feedback. NOTE: Anyone that had issues with this ship spawning, you need to increase your sensors to level 2+ or have the Long Range Sensor augment. The idea here is the ship is hiding, and you need something better than sensor 1 to find it.

ahh thx for the stealth ship sensor info.

and no on weakening the stealth ship! it's the hardest ship for me to kill.
i love the fact that there's a decent chance i cant kill it before it jumps. makes it more challenging.
plus i have to change up my strategy than kill or be killed like the other Elite ships.