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

[ahmedoo]

1. Missing second option. I thought that I have enough scrap to buy sme upgrades but there aren't any of them:
http://zapodaj.net/b5c8639242d41.bmp.html

Yep, cause you don't have a sensor system to upgrade.

Of course, all me.

[el Rago]

Hi all

first of all a big thnx for Sleeper for the mod. Cant imagine FTL without it now . It is only too bad I have only recentcly discovered this game and the comunity.

I am not sure if this is brough up already, but there is a crash of FTL for a certain hazard beacon. As soon as I get out of hyperspace, the game crashes. No messages are reported or nothing. I get directly dropped to windows. The game does make a save, and I can reload it and dont go to that beacon. As of now, I was able to go around that, but eventually I might be cornered and I will not be able to escape, thus screwing my game.

the only mods I have are the CE related (sans infinite loot, that one hangs slipstream), disable fleet (although wihout it, I had it crashing too), The Potential, and other ship mods that are just made by myself (custom layouts, no real mods so to speak) and hires shielsds, although thats my last addon, and I had the game crashing b4 installing it.

any clues?

[jman514]

AP shots can't be blocked by Zoltan shields due to some changes with AE. You'll have to watch out for your crew when encountering them.

Ah well, thanks anyway, I'll try to be more careful.

[stylesrj]

Excellent mod, love what it's done for the game and really makes each playthrough more unique than ever (although I wish I could encounter AI sectors more often. So many runs, and I always seem to encounter at least one quarantine sector after I've swapped out medical for clones).

I don't know if this has been brought up, but I'm wondering. Do or should the unique Artillery of each ship count as a "This is a ship of the -Faction name here-"?

I know the Federation Cruiser's Artillery counts as a Federation Cruiser, so could it actually work for the other ships? Mantis Artillery means Mantis Ship, Slug Artillery, Slug Ship. Lanius Artillery...

I don't like having to carry Mantis Pheromones around if I want to cut apart innocent civilians with my swarms. That's an augment slot being used up when something much cooler could be used instead (or even have room for plunder).

[Sleeper Service]

Artillery weapons can not be checked in events until they are installed, so unfortunately it won't work that way, you'll going to have to keep those faction augs.

I am not sure if this is brough up already, but there is a crash of FTL for a certain hazard beacon. As soon as I get out of hyperspace, the game crashes. No messages are reported or nothing. I get directly dropped to windows. The game does make a save, and I can reload it and dont go to that beacon. As of now, I was able to go around that, but eventually I might be cornered and I will not be able to escape, thus screwing my game.

I'm aware that there are still some crashes on beacon loads, but I have not yet found out what happens there. The problem seems to be buried deeper behind events and lists. Can you specify a little more where you encountered the crash? Any information about the beacon you have would be helpful, knowing the sector name would also be good. If you are truly stuck at one point you can jump around till the fleet takes over the beacon in question. Not a great workaround game play wise, but that will at last allow you to continue your run.

[el Rago]

Thnx for the reply Sleeper.

I will now be on the outlook for when and were, but it is always a purple nebula (not the acid one).

it does happen both on the contested space as well as the "official" map. One thing though, why is it that at times I cannot choose the sector I want to go to? I am speaking of the 10 fuel gates.

would it work if I also gave you a copy of my continue.sav?

[Sleeper Service]

Hm its all good. The problem on the general nebula list has been reported before, but I just can't deduce what causes it.

Unfortunately you will never be able to choose your sector when exiting from deep space. Thats a hard-coded thing that can't be changed. If you travel from a normal sector to another one the sector map will appear as usual.

[Estel]

Artillery weapons can not be checked in events until they are installed, so unfortunately it won't work that way, you'll going to have to keep those faction augs.

Yea, but the faction artillery could be checked AFTER it is installed, so he could sell faction-specific augments once he obtain artillery. Not ideal, but would still help to allow more diverse play styles, so if it's not too much hassle to code, +1 here.
---

So, I've finished candidates for CE's main menu background I say "candidateS", because, after finishing the first one from preview - which I think looks great on it's own - I've detected small issue with how main menu options composite there. The small nebula (galaxy) is so bright, that it makes buttons hard to read. So, I've decided to use a tuned version of the same hubble background, but it doesn't solve the issue completely. Because during "development" of this, I've, finally, educated myself about using layers properly I had planet, moons and fleet layered, so I thought "why not check totally different hubble images?", if doing so is just few clicks away? I made something like 20 background, discarded the one that looked worse than original, and as a result, here are nine candidates, of which 3 are variants of the first background:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/gyx41 ... ainbow.xcf (Updated - now my favorite one)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/v29c9 ... 38/red.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/xrdpg ... /tones.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/kta88 ... urated.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/rj8pq ... /green.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/y9lz6 ... purple.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/e1amo ... rained.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/lq57b ... _base2.xcf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/21sb6 ... native.xcf

[strike]I'm really not sure which one looks best[/strike] (Update: The "rainbow one definitely looks best in-game ), so why not put all of them here and let you (Sleeper) decide which one you think fits CE most? Sorry in advance While selecting, keep in mind that it looks better in-game, when there is dark/toned background on the place occupied by menu items.

As you might notice, in all backgrounds except the original "main_base2.xfc", I've changed the big planet composition to remove the "empty part" in upper left corner - I think now it's look more coherent with itself, and with spirit of current CE image (although, original version is here too, in case you think otherwise). In the last file, "main_base2-alternative.xfc", everything is layered separately (fleet, planet, moons, background...), so you may edit every part separately, if you think something could be better. As for other files, If you decide to go with one of them, but would want to edit something out, I can re-create fully layered version clone in something like 5 minutes (using backgrounds sitting on my disk and layers from "main_base2.xfc", so just say a word. (Update: The "rainbow" one is now fully layered, and include FTL CE logo + all other text).

As for fleet - You were' of course, right that satellites will get blurry again when rotated by something else than 90 degrees - I've tried various automatic options, but they all looked fubar, so I decided to edit them pixel-by-pixel by hand. Separately for every rotation variant. Then I decided various size and "depth" variants of satellite image would make it look more natural (following your point about it's being main federation base, I thought that there would be many satellites protecting planet and moons itself, far away, with "mobile" fleet visible closer to viewer). So, I resized satellite, creating 2 additional, smaller and smaller versions. Of course, they looked FU and BAR afterwards, too, so edited them both by hand and darkened them. Did the same with rebel station (which, guess what, required editing by hand for every variant all the same). I wasn't satisfied with the fleet images present in game files (one ship was way too big, other were available only on darkened variant), so I re-created them for all sizes I needed - thanks FTL gods, none required editing pixels by hand. Anyway, here is my WIP file with all things that required pixel-by-pixel editing, + [strike]FTL CE and copyright texts[/strike] (=Update: + all text layers. Background is transparent, (Update: and layered and positioned correctly) so everything is ready for copy&paste, is anyone find it useful: (Update: It got replaced by "CE menu background maker kit", which have everything layered and contains absolutely every part one need to create own FTL CE background menu image of of anything)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/8oqmo ... er-set.xcf

As for fleet - I wanted to follow your idea about main Rebel base + main fleet present here ATM, so I made sure that it REALLY look like most military secured place in the galaxy. Even on this side of planet and moons, countless ships, satellites, and stations are visible closer to planet, + of course, on close-up plane, we have fleet ready to start it's blitzkrieg run. In my opinion, it adds the CE's "harsher galaxy" feel - it looks both awe-inspiring and "This is the place that I don't want to see close-up" way.

OTOH, if you decide that I've overclouded fleet nonetheless, feel free to disintegrate few ships and, overall, modify it as you see fit - every image is "all rights granted" for CE. For everyone else that may want to use them - Creative Common latest, so feel free to do so, as long as you give credits - to hubble , sanmoku for planets and moons used in CE, and some of them to me, for putting the pieces together. Everything took only like 8 hours of non-stop work yesterday, and 4 the day earlier I know, I suxx at this - but, what is inspiring, I actually gained much experience with graphic editing and pixel-art, even doing this sole mini project. Kudos to Sleeper, for supporting, maintaining and expanding CE continuously for those years, which as I imagine, took like n+infinity times more than the smallest piece I was honored to do here. Hope it's up to the task, at the end...

Cheers,
/Estel

// Edit

And construction satellite works nice already, can't wait to see it finished in-game!

// Edit 2

[strike]In case you have problem deciding, after look at them again, today, I think that my current favorite is "rainbow", closely followed by "green" - considering how they compose with all text and in-game menus.[/strike] Update:) "Rainbow" one looks best in game, and composes heavenly with FTL menus added. If in doubt, go for this one, I say

[KittenOverLord]

No that's not what I mean i'm sorry I should have made myself clear the sector end it does not give me the option or anything i did not see in the basic CE but I may be missing something.

[RAD-82]

Thnx for the reply Sleeper.

I will now be on the outlook for when and were, but it is always a purple nebula (not the acid one).

What ship are you using? You mentioned that you have The Potential installed, but you didn't say if you were using it. The Potential (or any ship that has more than 30 power) cannot go into ion storms. The Potential removes ion storms from vanilla events, but there may still be some CE nebula events with ion storms.