[Ship] Lunaria's space dock

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Lunaria
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:51 pm

[Ship] Lunaria's space dock

Postby Lunaria » Mon Jul 14, 2014 11:55 pm

Hiya, first time posting on the official forums here, but enough about that jazz.

I'll be dedicating this thread to posting all ship mods I pump up, currently, at the time of originally making this post, I only have one. But more will show up as I make them! The goal for me here is to replace and redesign all of the core ships. I won't be drawing any new graphics, however, I will be modifying the available ones. Think of it more as if you got a new layout for that cruiser type, rather than a new ship!

Unless otherwise noted, all ships require AE to be ON, the game won't throw a fit if you have it off, but, well, things might get buggy if you do so.

Without further ado~

Frost Shard
(Replaces Engi A)

Image

Flavour text: "Specially outfitted by the Lanius, the Frost Shard was design for cutting down ships into smaller, and easier minable, pieces."

Design: The Frost Shard is designed around having beam weapons and cutting ships apart, in order to break shields it focuses on attack drones; That was the main gimmick of the ship. Providing such things from the start makes for a very powerful ship though, and what I am doing here is trying to make balanced ships that fit well with those in the base game. Drone system was changed to only support a single drone schematic on the same time, making the system more limited end-game. (Though, you don't have to upgrade it I suppose.) The drone recovery arm that comes with the ship can be a life saver, making the ship very economical, however, it does have a slow start.

With only two crew you will be slightly under manned for some time, furthermore, the ship starts with very little reactor power and no sensors, making the player have to spend scrap getting that and choosing what to prioritise in the early game. The ship can also be very hard to vent (Hello shield room.) should something start burning in the middle of a fight, making the ship a bit less strong in certain situations. Overall, I feel this ship can provide some quite interesting runs!

Screenshots:
[Hangar]
[New game state]

Download link: Frost Shard v1.0.ftl


The Shade & More beam weapons!
(Replaces Lanius A)

Image

Flavour text: "Modified by the federation, The Shade hosts advanced cloaking equipment. Though, RnD still haven't gotten around to giving the ship a decent reactor!"

Design: The Shade's design is what I would have wanted a C layout Lanius ship to be like. Which is, in an ironic way, more in line with an A or B layout from other ships. It hosts a medbay instead of a cloning bay for this very reason! I also wanted to make it a stealth ship, in order to bring out the sneakiness that the Lanius race keep displaying in their own sector.

As far as the details goes... I wasn't sure what type of weaponry to put on the ship nor how much reactor power the ship should start with. To be honest, I'm not too happy with the weaponry I ended up picking, but, there aren't that much weapon variety in FTL so I'm not sure what I could put on it to make it more unique. In fact, later down the line I might release a version 2.0 that features a custom weapon or something instead. I'd love some feedback on this ship so I can go back and make changes as needed!

Design for v2.0: Weaponry got thrown out of the window, and it's place I made two custom beam weapons. Both have a very slight range decrease from mini beam, charge time at 14sec and both still uses 1 power, like the mini beam. The first one deals ion damage, and the second one has a small chance of causing hull breaches. This weaponry setup is quite powerful, but it's still quite risky considering how low evade this ship has and no shields.

Design for v3.1: The ion beam was quite over powered, so I realised I had to nerf it. However, I did not want to lose the established feel of the ship! In the end, what happen was that I made the Ion Beam Alpha, which is not a beam weapon at all. Think of it as an ion weapon for hitting shields, but not much else. (It uses flak weapon mechanics!) However, I did not want to let go of the ion beam idea entirely, plus, I even picked up a few new ones on the way! So this version of the ship mod comes packed with new beam weapons too! Most of them are quite rare, and have rather specific uses. But they do fill up the space with more varied beam weapons, which is something I think have been a bit lacking. The ship also got a balance change, sensors were removed, since you have slug crew member, and Long Range scanners was added to the ship in order to make players not jump into asteroid fields unknowingly!

Screenshots:
[Hangar v1.0]
[Hangar v2.0]
[Hangar v3.1]
[Rooms Off]
[New game state]
[Room locations]

Download link: The Shade v1.0.ftl
Download link: The Shade v2.0.ftl
Download link: The Shade v3.1.ftl
(Note!: Only version v3.1 comes packed with the new weapons!)


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If you find any bugs with any of my ships, please let me know! ´:3
Last edited by Lunaria on Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:35 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Sleeper Service
Posts: 2305
Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:49 pm

Re: [Ship] Lunaria's space dock

Postby Sleeper Service » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:59 pm

Interesting. I like that it uses a pretty exotic combat concept. Using drones to deplete shields is not a tactic that the game rarely requires.

I don't think the ship needs the drone recovery arm thought. It is just as dependent on drones as Engi A and giving the best drone related aug in the game takes the challenge out if it IMO. Especially given that you can disarm and deeply disrupt enemies as soon as the pike is charged (16 seconds). This way the ship deals quicker and more controlled burst damage than the Engi A. Another reason to not improve it further with the arm.
Lunaria
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:51 pm

Re: [Ship] Lunaria's space dock

Postby Lunaria » Tue Jul 15, 2014 10:04 pm

Maybe, I could probably get away with removing it and supplying a chunk of drones from the get-go instead. Late game drones are going to be available in surplus for this ship, but due to only having one drone slot you will not be able to maximize that advantage for anything. Furthermore, providing a very small number of drones (2) at get go will make for a more tense early game, (at least on higher difficulties when enemies have more anti-combat drones.) since losing them or running out of them in battle can be a problem.

Either way, I don't think I'll do any more changes to it until I have had someone play(test) with it and provide their opinion. Oh and, also note that I am not just designing ships for experts, I'm under the impression that this ship can be hard enough to manage as-is based on the layout. But I appreciate the feedback!
Lunaria
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:51 pm

Re: [Ship] Lunaria's space dock

Postby Lunaria » Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:50 pm

A new ship mode is done:

The Shade
(Replaces Lanius A)

Image


I have updated the OP with all the info about it! =)
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NarnKar
Posts: 778
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2014 4:24 pm

Re: [Ship] Lunaria's space dock

Postby NarnKar » Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:53 pm

The Shade's level 1 cloak and lack of shields makes it similar to the Nesasio, but its starting weaponry is significantly weaker. It's...an interesting balance, I suppose, although I think it's one weaker than the Nesasio, considering you'll be relying heavily on the Artemis to take down shields for the Basic Laser, which can't take early-game enemies by itself.
Lunaria
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:51 pm

Re: [Ship] Lunaria's space dock

Postby Lunaria » Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:17 pm

Yeah, it's one of the ships biggest flaws. It was added to counter the diversity and amount of crew that the ship starts out with. Which is kind of why I want feedback, I'm a bit worried the ship is a bit too weak. :p


Edit: v2.0 is out! Made some weaponry changes....
Edit: v3.0 is out! Even more weaponry changes!