FTL Captain's Edition 1.308/Inf 1.301b/EL 1.308

[The Captain]

Meanwhile, at the Rebel fleet lead-cruiser...

"We got them sir! We catched up with the Federation ship!"

I see no need for a hyphen in "lead cruiser." Past tense of "catch" is "caught."

[Mr. Mister]

Are drones meant to shoot down ion blasts? Or laser blasts for that matter... what's going on? :S

Defense drones are grouped into two tiers: Tier I shoots down asteroids and non-cloaked missiles (cloaked missiles actually are classified as laser projectyles). Tier II shoots down any other projectyles as well, regardless of type.

In CE, Tier II drones are Heavy Laser Defense, Laser Defense MkII and Laser Defense MkIII.

Boarding Drones can be shot down as well, but I don't remember if it's only Tier II or Tier I as well.

The only things that can't be shot down are Boosted Boarding Drones (You're too slow!), and usually light lasers, as they're much too fast. A good tactic to confuse them is to shoot your offensive lasers at the same time as a (non-scatter) light anti-crew burst laser.

[R4V3-0N]

tier 1 can shoot down boarding drones.

Edit:

just had an idea, maybe use the Zoltan Peace (unarmed Zoltan Fighter (what? a fighter with no weapons? what?)
or some other very poorly armned cargo ship or what ever that gives medium-high scrap but some poor moral outcomes such as your crew leaving you

eg crew: "This is not what I signed up for, I'm out of here"
also you trying to convince him in, options eg

1) bribe with scrap, (low scrap - medium scrap)
2) try to convince him/her/it?, (possible failure/ success in keeping him/her)
3) leave him/her/it be, (you lose 1 crew member)
4) [blue] slug convinces him (only good outcomes)

for the outcome of 2, I think 3 or 4 outcomes can be possible,
A) he stays, B) he leaves, C) he turns against you (or vice versa).

OR another moral outcome can be (if possible) naval police or zoltans or humans or what ever race that is the 'law' in this situation boarding possibility if it's possible after a fight. idk. Simular to outcomes of attacking civilian ships in your mod?

[Mr. Mister]

Zoltan police arriving after you commite piracy in Zoltan-controlled sectors is not a bad idea.

[azeazezar]

This was nice and powerfull.
If i had an ion weapon, or another auto, it would have been perfect...

ftl fun.png

I still took down da boss in record time so

[Mr. Mister]

Wow... I myself beat the boss with two Auto Lasers MkI and a Hull Laser MkII, but no Auto Reloaders, just a Pre-Igniter, which ironically I got tery first sector as a surrender reward, and it had to be just when I was going with an Auto Laser run.

I wonder what two Auto Laser MkII and a MkI (three MkII would be 9 power) would be capable of.

[Sleeper Service]

Well, here we go again. 1.67 did become a much bigger update than expected. Beside a lot of new ship hulls and the artillery events it also contains some new equipment again.



1.067
-Three new enemy ship/station hulls added, courtesy of 5thhorsemen, Rav3-on and Ericrumor
-Six enemy ship b recolours added, red crystal enemies by Killox3
-A few new events involving new station and cruiser encounters added
-Events featuring planetary defence weapon for all red and some other sectors added
-Minefield events for some red sectors added
-New enemy classes related to these events added
-The Rebel fleet might fire long range artillery at you in all kinds of fleet events
-Some background and planets from the Better Planets and Backgrounds by Sanmonku used for the PDS events, it is recommended to use Better Planets and Backgrounds alongside CE
-AE: One more augment added
-Global combat augment rarity increased
-Internal Effector now also triggers the blue options that the other effectors offer (?)
-BA: Four new weapons added (one bomb, one beam, two lasers)
-Maul beam needs four power now and deals only four damage
-Flail Beam now needs three power
-DE: Two new drones added
-Anti-Ship Beam Drone Mark II beam reach increased
-Hull Ripper Drone now fires the correct hull laser projectiles
-Hull Ripper Drone is now used by enemies as well
-Heavy Defence Drones is a little less rare now
-Most defence drones reload speeds reworked once more
-Experimental flagship changes re-added, boss uses augments and becomes significantly stronger in each phase now
-Flagship Laser now does two damage
-Flagship Beam now has longer reach and travels slower, much like the flail beam
-Combat augments can now be used against the flagship, allows for interesting new possibilities
-Rebel capital ships all start with a medbay now
-Rebel capital ships are general less prone to fight to the death and will try to retreat more regularly
-Starting and max engines for all Interceptor class ships increased
-Medevace, Medical Stations and capital ships all start with better life support
-Non-Rebel transport ships in piracy events will now surrender their goods more often
-Cargo ships and freighters are slightly more powerful now
-Late game stations are slightly more powerful again
-Damage from self-destructing stations and auto ships slightly increased
-Reward for destroying auto stations lowered
-Derelict wreckage rewards changed
-Rewards for all custom distress events reworked
-One more blue options for the bounty hunter event added
-Enemy Weapon lists readjusted, now use weapon type percentages similar to vanilla lists
-Pirate weapon list slightly upgraded
-Some more typos fixed, some more missing hidden="true" tags added
-Captain's Edition for Playerships Addon updated


Some comments on the Artillery/PDS thing:

-The planetary artillery works in a way that makes hard for the player to see whats going on behind the scenes. The defense sattelites that keep you constantly under fire and where mentioned early wouldnt have been implemented so elegantly, so this concept was droped for the now. Planeary Artillery might be extended in the future.

-I used the "PDS - Danger" sign from the Advanced Edition trailer to warn the player from all kinds of timed artillery weapons. This is for coherency with... the furure of FTL? Of course the real Rebel PDS (Point Defense System?) in Advanced Edition will probably work way different and already looks much cooler in the trailer than what was improvised here.

Everything from here on can be considered spoilers on the content. Don't read further of you want to learn yourself how to deal with the artillery events.

Code: Select all

Federation War Manual Chapter XXIV Part 30: Planetary Artillery and Fleet PDS
--- Classified Information ahead---













Planetary Artillery weapons and the Rebel Point Defence System (PDS) are devastating long range weapon that can severely damage your ship. They fire multiple shots in one barrage, pierce all shields, deal heavy damage and can also cause fires and breaches, but they also charge extremely slow. A lone cruiser should avoid getting hit by these weapons at all cost.

There currently are three type of long range artillery weapons available in the galaxy that your ship might be confronted with:

Planetary Artillery - Medium charge time, can fire many projectiles and has a decent fire and breach chance. Does aditional damage to crew.
Planetary Beam Artillery - Charges slower and fires less often in one barrage, but deals more damage and always causes breaches
Rebel PDS - Much like planetary Artillery, but charges faster.

All this weapons need a ship spotting for them to be able to acquire your ship. Naturally, the first thing enemy spotter and defence ships will do is tagging your ship for artillery fire. Your ship computer will warn you about the thread via UI prompts on your ship interface. Keep an eye on these, they update during the fight and give you information about how much time remains till your ship will be fired on. What determines if the artillery shots will hit is your evade at the moment when your ship is tagged (not exactly logical, but that's how it works; keep in mind that FTL moding has it's limits). So better get your engines powered at the beginning of the fight. You can buy yourself some more time if you cloak immediately after the engagement starts and you might even prevent the ship from tagging you at all if your vessel has some really good alpha strike capabilities.

Planetary Artillery can only fire one barrage, but usually it's not advisable to endure it's fire. Artillery strikes can also cause breaches and fires, so even if the fight looks good you might be in a world of hurt after you have been fired on. If you realize that you can not evade the incoming barrage, then you can at last prepare for it. Evacuate crew from the rooms that will be hit and have them stand by for repairs afterwards.

Only jumping away can safe your from damage after rooms on your ship have been tagged. Even if you destroy the defender ship the artillery will still be fired on you, so don't stick around. Three engine bars should be enough to charge your FTL in time. The Rebel fleets PDS targets faster than planetary weapons and you will need a quicker ship to escape their fire. After upgrading your engines further it you will be able to escape the barrages easily, but if your piloting or engines get damaged in the fighting you might still get in trouble.

Planetary Artillery pierces all shields. But the super advanced shield tech of the Zoltan prevents planetary defence weapons from locking on to your ship. That wasn't planed, but gives the Zoltan ships another distinct perk (Has been converted into a blue option to get around needlessly displayed UI promps). As long as you have your Zoltan shields equipped you don’t have to worry about Planetary Artillery or the Rebels PDS system at all, the barrage will simply miss you when fired.

[R4V3-0N]

In an event I got with a rebel cruiser (on a quest beacon, didn't take much notice of the quest because I thought it was the same ones as earlier in CE) after I destroyed the Rebel Cruiser Elite (in sector 1) I only got 1 fuel and said I had to get out ASAP before the fleet cruisers get me, when I looked at my map I was at the end of the map as I thought and the rebels were barely near halfway through the map.

Is this a bug or did I miss something and this Elite Cruiser was in a sort of small squadron (right name for cruisers?).

That and those new weapons look awesome.

[aaaaaa50]

-Combat augments can now be used against the flagship, allows for interesting new possibilities

Sleeper Service confirmed for actual wizard. I'm totally going to let my ship get smashed by the first few artillery volleys I find just to see how awesome it looks.

Oh, and you might want to edit out this line from the OP: "Combat augs will never work against the final boss, because its spawn events are hardcoded as far as I can tell."

[Dethedrus]

Using the insanely awesome Captain's Edition (1.066) I am getting an oddly persistent crash. As an aside, I have been save scumming a bit due to an unrelated issue, so this is an absolutely repeatable issue with this particular save.

Jumping from sector 3 to 4 (my only option being "Kapltzlk's Territory") produces a CTD. I see the ship wink out in preparation of the jump then the game closes.

Version = 1.03.3

Stack Trace:

1 - 0x004553ea
2 - 0x0046f4fb
3 - 0x0047c2ef
4 - 0x005a0ef8
5 - 0x0069415b
6 - 0x004010fd
7 - 0x77589f72 RtlInitializeExceptionChain
8 - 0x77589f45 RtlInitializeExceptionChain