Subset Games Forum

They are since AE, as long as weapon doesn't deal "normal" damage (hull one). That's why in CE, you have Zoltan-shield piercing anti-personnel lasers and anti-system rockets. Overall, Zoltan shields got considerably nerfed in AE.

I'm not sure about beams that doesn't deal normal damage (for sure they could be made to pierce normal shields, but no idea about Zoltan ones), would require testing.

/Estel

Estel wrote:

Woodledude wrote:Hmm... I'll tweak them, certainly. No experience with artillery, but I may actually make the cutter beam that at a later point...

Oh - giving this ship a a special gimmick, etc...

Side effect would be reducing the amount of "normal" weapons the ship have - etc...

/Estel

Yeah, I'm starting to like this idea. I don't think the shield piercing should be major - The hull breaches should make it powerful enough as it is, and you wouldn't expect an industrial ship cutting beam to pierce shields. As for changing up the loadout, reworking the Cutter Beam into Artillery should work just by itself, with what I have going right now.

NECRO! I updated the ship, guys! I just didn't feel good about leaving it unfinished when I had already done the work to finish it, so I'm uploading the version I was fiddling around with! Let me know if it's overpowered, I haven't tested worth a grain of salt. ^_^;

This ship is really fun to play, but also difficult in the beginning. It's like the Stealth B, but for the Lanius! I would love to include this ship as part of an event in my mod. If you don't mind m asking, may I have permission to use it?

Nice to see you back, Woodledude.

I'm not actually sure if the second artillery system is purchaseable or not. Theoretically, perhaps it is, as long as you've set the system rarity to 1. But FTL could be a little glitchy and refuse to stock it in stores, on the grounds that you already own that system. Have you tested that?

EDIT: You said that you didn't in your posts, so I'mma download this and test it out myself.

EDIT: Both of your download links lead to the same mod, which is the Fishhook without cloaking, gibs, and artilleries.

TheFallenAngel359 wrote:This ship is really fun to play, but also difficult in the beginning. It's like the Stealth B, but for the Lanius! I would love to include this ship as part of an event in my mod. If you don't mind m asking, may I have permission to use it?

Thank you very much! If you like the new version (which has been properly linked to now), then please, by all means use the ship in your mod. Just make sure to credit me, of course. And go ahead and put a link to your mod here, so I can see it.

NarnKar wrote:Nice to see you back, Woodledude.

I'm not actually sure if the second artillery system is purchaseable or not. Theoretically, perhaps it is, as long as you've set the system rarity to 1. But FTL could be a little glitchy and refuse to stock it in stores, on the grounds that you already own that system. Have you tested that?

EDIT: You said that you didn't in your posts, so I'mma download this and test it out myself.

EDIT: Both of your download links lead to the same mod, which is the Fishhook without cloaking, gibs, and artilleries.

ACK! What a silly mistake It's been fixed now, promise! Sorry it took me so long, I didn't expect the thread to get going again so soon, nor for there to be such an issue.

Ah, thank you for uploading the new version!

So I didn't have the time to see this mod to the Flagship, but I did hop around a bit in the Mod Testing Environment to figure a few things out, test some of the things I mentioned earlier.

I guess I'll just list the things I saw, then? I admit, looking back on what I've typed, I've rambled quite a bit; it's actually very little critique of your ship, but also explanations for why it happens the way it does. I actually really like your ship; I just happened to type those things first, cause there's a lot of weird stuff that happens with artillery. And, sorry in advance if I come off as a douchebag; I really don't mean to.

First off--your second artillery does not appear in shops; although, if it did, you couldn't purchase it anyway, as the Fishhook already comes with eight systems installed and can't install any more. Second of all, if your ship had no artillery to start with, you still wouldn't be able to install artillery at stores--by default, artillery's system rarity is set to 0, and taking a peek within your mod files, it seems you haven't changed the rarity.

However, you have tweaked the artillery system blueprint a little; most noticeably, you've given artillery a max cap of 6, and started it at 3. I don't know what changing <startPower> does, if anything; but at level 6, your Cutter Beam Artillery fires instantly. Is this intentional? Cause if so, this ship becomes a monster late game. Its artillery weapon is pretty powerful if shields are down (and hell, even if it can only get a partial piercing) because of its breaching, delaying system repair. Plus, 2 damage * 150 length is easily 6-10ish damage on an enemy ship, which is a lot compared to the Vindicator Beam, which I think does on average about six damage. Pretty powerful weapon to begin with, with an insane potential later on.

Supposing I could acquire a second artillery system--your scrap exchange vent--it would follow the cooldown of the artillery system (I think RAD-82 or slowrider said this). So your flak artillery wouldn't fire with a base charge of 10 seconds; it would fire at the same time as the Cutter Beam, I think?? I wasn't able to test this for reasons I mentioned above, but that's what I've heard.

There's also a slew of additional glitches that accompany double artillery ships, even if they start with double artillery, and a glitch that goes with artillery systems bought at shops. Maybe you're familiar with them, but here they are anyway, for reference:

-the second artillery system doesn't show up on the systems bar, which means:
--you can't adjust its power input and charge rate
--it will always be powered, and always take one power from your reactor without you knowing
--the second artillery can't be upgraded
-the first artillery, although it can be upgraded, can't actually receive the benefits of the upgrade

And for purchaseable artillery: if you save+quit mid-run after buying the artillery system, the save file goes all wonky, and you need to download another mod to recover your run.

Some minor polish things: the artillery system doesn't have tooltips for level 5 and level 6, and the chargebar gets a little jacked up. You also lack a miniship image.


Some things.

For actual gameplay and other comments:
jesus how did I type out so much about artillery, why do I care so much about artillery

First of all, that's a very nice cloaking image. For the longest time I just made really crappy cloaking images; it's refreshing to see that you've made a good one right off the bat. The gibs are nice too.

I believe when I first posted to the thread, I commented on the unusual shape of the ship. Maybe I did? But compared to most of the semi-rectangular or delta-formation ships that populate FTL's universe, yours is highly unusual, but in a good way--makes it stand out, adds to the theme of cutting up things.

The gameplay of this ship seems quite unusual--a power deficiency to start with and a reliance on hacking/drone-parts as well; although, there are also some powerful crew-killing beams to back it up. It's like an odd cross between Slug A and its Anti-Bio Beam; the Federation cruisers and their powerful artillery, which play more like defensive ships; and the Engi B, with its signature lack of crew (and automated aid). Very unique; I like it. Again, I didn't have the time to take it out for a full test run, but it's very different from things I've seen so far. And I'm impressed with how many different ideas you could put in there while still keeping to the Lanius cutting theme.

NarnKar wrote:-snippy snippy-

Don't worry about it, NarnKar! That's actually a lot of useful information. I have to admit, I may have gotten a bit in over my head with the artillery systems - I was experimeting with the ship balance, and I had only really just started when I gave up on the ship a year ago. Trying to start from where I left off left me with a lot I had forgotten, and I had a rough time figuring out just what to do with the ship. So some of the edits I made were certainly intentional, but I didn't necessarily take them into account with later additions ^_^; I think I'll have to make some serious changes to make sure this ship works properly - I'll have to choose one of the artillery weapons to keep, reduce the level cap, most likely, or at least balance it out properly.

One of the main issues I have with the ship is that it takes FOREVER to deal with drones, which I don't really want. I'm still trying to find a good way to deal with that issue without overpowering the ship.

The thumbnail image thing didn't seem like a big deal, but I admit, it's been on the to-do list, and it's a bit of an embarrassing exclusion. I'm sure I can make one the same way I made the original image, I just hope I can make it look good.

As for the rest, thank you for the compliments! I personally find that the shape of the ship makes it necessary to manage crew carefully in tense fights; or at least that's the theory. Because it takes such a long time to get all the way around the ship - For example, going from the hacking drone bay to the cockpit - You have to be careful about sending your crew too far from their stations. That's partially the reason the drone bay is so far from the cockpit, and it also makes it very tense having to repair that area with just the one guy

EDIT: Working on a version without the issues you mentioned. Cannot for the LIFE of me find any of the default thumbnails. Where are they? I assume they'd be in resource.dat, but where?

I recommend not making Artillery capable of going beyond 4 bars.

Because if Artillery can be made OP for your ship, guess how the Flagship is going to react with its 4 Artillery weapons?

^ Yeah having missiles firing every 3 seconds is not pretty.

stylesrj wrote:I recommend not making Artillery capable of going beyond 4 bars.

Because if Artillery can be made OP for your ship, guess how the Flagship is going to react with its 4 Artillery weapons?

^ Yeah having missiles firing every 3 seconds is not pretty.

The Flagship, in a nutshell, likes to cheat. Going beyond the 'soft cap' (4 power) of Artillery is never a good idea, and going beyond the soft cap of any system tends to break the game.