[Ship][AE] Auto-Cruiser 1.01 & Auto-Constructor 1.0

[kartoFlane]

Thank you all for the praise, I was afraid the slow gameplay would make it too boring to handle

After watching 5thHorseman's playthrough, I figured that there's not enough incentive to keep Saren alive I've decided to remove the system repair drone from initial loadout, since this way you'll only have him to take care of breaches.

Also improved the laser drone's speed ever so slightly, to make it a bit less frustrating. I really like Horseman's tactic to unpower the drone right before it shoots, even though I did not plan for it

Since the ship is intended to be drone focused, I've modified drone control system blueprint to add two additional levels, up to 10 max. Also streamlined the upgrade costs for the system to be [level - 1] * 10.

[Madhax]

Beat the game on normal with this, version 1.0, last night. Sweet ship!

I let Saren die immediately and played the whole game fully automated. I love the emphasis on drone combat, something I'm always reluctant to try, even with drone-heavy ships, due to lack of drone parts. Starting with a repair arm is huge. I wound up deploying two anti-ship drones and one defense drone towards the end of the game, finally earning me the three-drone achievement that I hadn't realized that I hadn't gotten yet.

The hull-slicer laser is inspired design. Having such a high breach chance without hull damage often enabled me to win through asphyxiation and, once I got sensors level 2, direct crew damage. It felt like how Slug A's bio-beam focus should have worked (I dislike that ship).

I glanced over the 1.1 notes and I felt I should mention: I was very energy-starved the whole game. Being able to never power O2 helped in this regard, which won't be possible if Saren is necessary. And I don't know if I'd ever be able to put TEN power into drone systems while still having enough to power weapons, shields, and engines to endgame levels. Just a thought for balance.

[kartoFlane]

Glad you've had success with the ship

I glanced over the 1.1 notes and I felt I should mention: I was very energy-starved the whole game. Being able to never power O2 helped in this regard, which won't be possible if Saren is necessary. And I don't know if I'd ever be able to put TEN power into drone systems while still having enough to power weapons, shields, and engines to endgame levels. Just a thought for balance.

Well, it's not possible to allow the reactor to be upgraded further than the current in-game limit, sadly.

However, you don't have to keep engines powered all the time -- that's why the ship is energy-starved early. This forces you to constantly shuffle power between engines and life support (since neither of them really has to be powered all the time) to weapons and drones.
That's what I mean when I say the ship requires a little bit of creativity

[dalolorn]

Glad you've had success with the ship

I glanced over the 1.1 notes and I felt I should mention: I was very energy-starved the whole game. Being able to never power O2 helped in this regard, which won't be possible if Saren is necessary. And I don't know if I'd ever be able to put TEN power into drone systems while still having enough to power weapons, shields, and engines to endgame levels. Just a thought for balance.

Well, it's not possible to allow the reactor to be upgraded further than the current in-game limit, sadly.

However, you don't have to keep engines powered all the time -- that's why the ship is energy-starved early. This forces you to constantly shuffle power between engines and life support (since neither of them really has to be powered all the time) to weapons and drones.
That's what I mean when I say the ship requires a little bit of creativity

Well, a ship could be built to have a reactor that's more powerful than the upgrade limit, but have very little gear to show for itself - just something to defend it against early ships with lvl 1 shielding, and to let it fly.

[5thHorseman]

Well, it's not possible to allow the reactor to be upgraded further than the current in-game limit, sadly.

Well, a ship could be built to have a reactor that's more powerful than the upgrade limit, but have very little gear to show for itself - just something to defend it against early ships with lvl 1 shielding, and to let it fly.

You're both correct. You can give more than 25 power to start, but if you give less than 25 power to start there is no way to allow for upgrading past 25 power.

(self-plug) my still-favorite of my own mods does just this: The Potential.

I may have to dig into this mod's files to see how to increase a system's total power, because I've always wanted to give The Potential the ability to have 12 weapon and 12 drone power.

[dalolorn]

Well, it's not possible to allow the reactor to be upgraded further than the current in-game limit, sadly.

Well, a ship could be built to have a reactor that's more powerful than the upgrade limit, but have very little gear to show for itself - just something to defend it against early ships with lvl 1 shielding, and to let it fly.

You're both correct. You can give more than 25 power to start, but if you give less than 25 power to start there is no way to allow for upgrading past 25 power.

(self-plug) my still-favorite of my own mods does just this: The Potential.

I may have to dig into this mod's files to see how to increase a system's total power, because I've always wanted to give The Potential the ability to have 12 weapon and 12 drone power.

I might refit the Dominator - decrease its system efficiency in exchange for boosted total power. Also considering doing the same for my modified version of the Sovereign.

[5thHorseman]

Random.org has smiled upon you! I played your ship again after the retooling. It's not all up yet, only the first episode is live but you can check it out here.

I'd like to say your incentives to keep Saren alive were well heeded by me but... well... maybe you should just watch.

[kartoFlane]

@Horseman
I've been watching that oxyen level trickle down, but I still laughed
Saren's one unlucky guy, getting trapped aboard a ship alone, and now's getting tortured/abandoned/killed all the time

[Estel]

Hey there, kartoFlane! I just had my first run with your ship (which, incidentally, was also my first run with custom ship ever) and I liked it very much. Really nicely done! I especially loved the RP element of being ships' AI instead of regular Captain. Not to mention challenging, but interesting gameplay with this infernal beam ( infernal unless you're attacking pesky slugs ships with their Slug Gel, that is - but it's still fun to smash them ).

As you may guess, I was playing it with Captain's Edition, which as I've noticed is even recommended by you for this ship. Thus, I've come with very simple technical change, that would make playing it with CE even more fun. As you probably know, CE introduced faction differentiation, which, for some ships, focuses around piracy. Now, your ship replaces Engi A, which makes it quite probable that our crew will deny order to attack civilians (even if we don't have crew, actually!), or get upset, at best.

Now, for some reasons, Auto Cruiser with his little sinister AI seems to me like a thing that wouldn't have problems with piracy or betraying enemies that have surrendered (Rebel AI ships in CE break surrender truces too, pretty often). So, I would suggest that your ship could replace Slug A/B instead of Engi's. AFAIK, it would also require to give player and augment that is tagged as characterizing slugs in CE (dummy Stolen Tech could be used for that purpose I think - players could still sell it, or keep if interested in pirating).

I would make ship over-powered - especially, that forcing surrenders in CE require dropping enemy's hull levels to very low values *without* killing its crew beforehand, which is extremely hard in Auto Cruiser - but would make it definitely more sinister The only thing that was a letdown during playing this, is that my re-purposed rebel AI was unlikely sensible to Civilian's suffering

Cheers,
/Estel

[MightyKebab]

Hey there, kartoFlane! I just had my first run with your ship (which, incidentally, was also my first run with custom ship ever) and I liked it very much. Really nicely done! I especially loved the RP element of being ships' AI instead of regular Captain. Not to mention challenging, but interesting gameplay with this infernal beam ( infernal unless you're attacking pesky slugs ships with their Slug Gel, that is - but it's still fun to smash them ).

As you may guess, I was playing it with Captain's Edition, which as I've noticed is even recommended by you for this ship. Thus, I've come with very simple technical change, that would make playing it with CE even more fun. As you probably know, CE introduced faction differentiation, which, for some ships, focuses around piracy. Now, your ship replaces Engi A, which makes it quite probable that our crew will deny order to attack civilians (even if we don't have crew, actually!), or get upset, at best.

Now, for some reasons, Auto Cruiser with his little sinister AI seems to me like a thing that wouldn't have problems with piracy or betraying enemies that have surrendered (Rebel AI ships in CE break surrender truces too, pretty often). So, I would suggest that your ship could replace Slug A/B instead of Engi's. AFAIK, it would also require to give player and augment that is tagged as characterizing slugs in CE (dummy Stolen Tech could be used for that purpose I think - players could still sell it, or keep if interested in pirating).

I would make ship over-powered - especially, that forcing surrenders in CE require dropping enemy's hull levels to very low values *without* killing its crew beforehand, which is extremely hard in Auto Cruiser - but would make it definitely more sinister The only thing that was a letdown during playing this, is that my re-purposed rebel AI was unlikely sensible to Civilian's suffering

Cheers,
/Estel

Just saying,Piracy friendly factions use their faction augments to get by the crew problem. I.e If you have Mantis Pheromones, Rock Plating or Slug Repair Gel you can engage in piracy all you like. I do that all the time on the custom pirate friendly ships that I have.