Subset Games Forum

That looks nasty. But I was never good with weapon animations myself. Especially when it came to beams. I always thought the glow of the beam charging up was sufficient (and it was actually when I worked with custom beams)

The way I see most beam animations work is that they have one frame of charging; the charging "animation" is actually the glow of the fully charged weapon, slowly fading in. Beam animation strips have a long discharge/firing sequence, whre the glow of energy slowly leaves the tube of the beam.

A missile launcher that launches burritos instead of missiles.

You don't need to thank me for this excellent idea.

EDIT: oh and also theres this

Yeah I'm pretty much too busy with schoolwork to keep up a steadily-decreasing interest in FTL modding, but I still like drawing spaceships from time to time, and I still love the FTL universe and modding community.

Bluh.

I came up with the idea of a Lanius cutter ship, that uses the blades of the ship itself to slice enemy foes. basically it has two giant frontal prongs, which are massive space chainsaws, which rip into the enemy. they can be implemented as an artillery "beam" of sorts, where the beam-contact effect is instead art for the tip of a lanius spine slowly cutting through the enemy hull.

Mostly I just wanted an excuse to equip a spaceship with giant chainsaws, because that sounds fucking awesome

That sounds awesome. Do it!

It's been a while, hasn't it? I never did finish saying what I was going to say.

I suppose I should go over: weapons balance!

I used to like CE's vast plethora of weaponry, but at some point I realized too much of it was too gimmicky or required way too much of a specific setup/support to work properly, and were kind of gimpy in other contexts (and compared to existing weaponry).

Example: the Plasma Cannon family. A cool concept, to be sure, but kind of meh in execution.
The Fire Bomb is a weapon that pierces shields, but requires accuracy.
The Fire Beam is always accurate, but requires shield suppression.
The Plasma Cannon is neither accurate nor shield-piercing, and to top it all off it doesn't even set as many fires as its companion weapons!

As another example: the anti-crew laser family. Another cool concept, but...
Compare: Bio Beam, which does a decent amount of damage and is always accurate, although requires shield piercing.
Various bombs which do crew damage, shield pierce, but aren't always accurate.
Anti-crew lasers, which...fail to shield-pierce, aren't always accurate, and (depending on your weapon) don't even do that much crew damage?

And then the problem gets even worse when you start combining gimmicks and then you end up with stunning ion-flak or stealth minelaunchers or automatic crew-damage lasers.

The trouble with overspecialization is that it requires a lot of setup to get there--but it's unlikely that you'll ever find what will make it work, thanks to randomly-generated content. As a consequence, the only really "safe" builds in CE are: laser spam and boarding...both of which are traditional to FTL, and flexible in how you stock it. Gee, it's almost as if the most flexible builds with the least restrictions on proper prerequisites are going to be the most commonly used! And then that gets into the other problem, which is that--if you can make a fire build work in FTL, it feels awesome and rewarding; but the same cannot be said of CE's special builds, in part because the special/gimmick weapon families are kind of gimpy and weak anyway.

My idea of weapon balance would be, instead of adding so many new families, simply adding more "members" to existing FTL weapon families. There are parts of CE I really like! Like the expanded (regular) beam selection (especially the Naginata, as a heavy-damage counterpart to the Pike), the Artillery Lasers as a counterpart to the Heavy Lasers...that sort of thing. I'd leave gimmicks as one-off things, rather than attempt to turn them into a key part of the meta. (That's the thing about CE, really--it's shaped like itself. CE is balanced to be CE. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I expected CE to be balanced like FTL, and I suspect a lot of people did. I'd prefer to make a mod balanced more like FTL...)

Flak family:
-Flak I (shoots 3, like vanilla)
-Flak III (shoots 7, like the vanilla Flak II, but given a different name)
-Flak II (shoots 5, exists somewhere between Flak I and Flak III)

No ion flaks or stun flaks or plasma flaks or missile flaks or weird overly-gimmicky things (which I would save for custom ship mods, because at least I can set up a custom ship to make those weapons work more properly).

Burst laser family:
-Burst I
-Burst II
-Burst III (3 power, 5 shots, like a faster/more efficient version of the Burst III from vanilla)
-Burst IV (4 power, 8 shot salvo)

Heavy laser family:
-Heavy I
-Heavy II
-Heavy Charge (I was actually surprised when I found out this wasn't a vanilla weapon, to be honest!)
-Artillery (1 shot, 4 damage?)

Beam family:
-weapons from vanilla
-CE's Naginata Beam
-Focus Beam (only one--making an entire family of focus beams seems a bit strange to me)
-maybe? another, stronger Hull Beam. maybe.

Ion family:
-weapons from vanilla
-one phase ion
-maybe one effector

So on and so forth. I actually don't really mind some of CE's less gimmicky weapons (phase ions and effectors and anti-crew weapons for example), since FTL itself has a lot of pseudo-gimmick weapons (like the Fire Beam and Bio Beam). I just feel like making entire classes out of odd one-offs is a bit too much for me.

A Big Bomb and a big four-power four-damage missile (Ares?), and a Fire Missile are all very reasonable expansions. So is the triple-missile launcher. Maybe a Bio-bomb, too? Have one stealth missile launcher and only one stealth launcher, because I like that gimmick but I wouldn't make an entire weapon family out of it, and one 2-damage minelauncher (with fire chance, to encourage aiming it at a room rather than just blind-firing at the hull because it only does hull damage). Maybe a powerful, very fast launcher (like a faster Swarm that can hold more charges--5 second charge, 4 total charges, 3 or 4 power?) as an expansion on the "swarm missile" idea. That way, with more missiles in the missile pool, you ensure that you run into more vanilla-like weapons more often and the gimmick ones less often.

Maybe make Mini Beams available for purchase, except slightly longer charge time; just like how you can't buy Basic Lasers in stores, but you can buy upgraded versions (BL 1 or Heavy Laser 1).

AntiPersonnel lasers aren't that bad of an idea, but cut down on how many there are, and make them stack up to the Bio Beam. A basic one (1 power, 87sec, 30 crew damage--trade firepower for speed) and a heavy one (3 power, 12 sec, 30(+?) damage + some shield pierce).



I'm consulting some notes I took ages ago, and:
"cut out all the defense drones like SERIOUSLY who cares what the drone fires I just want those incoming projectiles STOPPED"
Heh...


To the end of making things as close to vanilla as possible, I wanted to do something excruciatingly painful, something I called "ratiometric/rationomic balancing". Basically, I wanted the player to have the same ratio of lasers:ions:beams:missiles:bombs, of burstdamage:singleshotheavydamage, regularweapons:chargeweapons, damaging:suppressing, 1damage:2damage,...basically any ratio I could think of. And I would make sure to add a proper number of weapons to each family so that every single ratio remained the same in the vanilla game, and after my mod was added on.

A daunting task, which is partially why I never did it.

Now, back to more story/lore-based posts.

Narnkar wrote:There's an event in CE that I think captures this feeling well, and what inspired the atmosphere behind this mod in the first place. You're fighting a Rebel Cruiser in an asteroid field, with fleet support on both sides; the heat of exploding ships warps their wreckage, Federation and Rebellion alike, fusing their scraps to the asteroids in bizarre and alien structures. CE comments: "This could be a war memorial one day".

I wanted to make a "memorial sector", sort of a spin on the Lanius "abandoned" sectors. These would be sectors very badly devastated by the Rebellion, full of debris and ruined/struggling colonies. Lots of Federation and Lanius influence, with a bit of Zoltan influence too. The Federation want to clean up the area, help civilians, and stomp out any last traces of Rebellion, the Lanius want to consume the debris, and the Zoltan would like to set aside the sector as "a sacred area" and "a reminder of conflict". They would butt heads over how to use the sector, and events would revolve around this sort of political thing. Events might include ship graveyards with the wrecks of ships still fighting onwards, conflicts with Lanius who want to salvage, battles with Zoltan who insist you leave, runins with the Federation (remember--you're playing as a rebel!)...story/text events with civilian colonies and Zoltan emissaries...shops from Federation or Lanius salvagers, or Zoltan who are selling "artifacts of conflict".

(I have a few notes about this somewhere...let me try and find them...)

Another idea I had was "energy rift" sectors. These would be sectors with giant, aurora-like rifts full of energy, which are a sacred place to the Zoltan--in my headcanon, the Zoltan have a sort of Hinduist belief that everyone comes from a "pool" of energy, and when they die they are returned to the energy from which they came. There would be only one per game (like a Homeworlds sector), each with a "Great Rift", which the Zoltan believe is their origin point. The sector would be populated with holy fighters, or the Zoltan equivalent of paladins, and a few monasteries and other settlements.

On a semi-tangent, it's really interesting to think about Zoltan and the energy weapons used in war. Zoltan are made of energy; so are laser bolts and ion projectiles. The laser weapons in FTL are, in a way, firing pieces of Zoltan themselves--the human equivalent would be a weapon made of muscle, that shot bones and blood. On the one hand, it's almost terrifying to think about; but on the other hand, it's like the Zoltan are quite literally putting pieces of themselves into everything they do and every fight they make. Perhaps war and peace are sacred to Zoltan because of this. Perhaps the life of a Zoltan is dedicated to worshipping the energy that gives them strength. Perhaps Zoltan aren't just endless pacifists. Perhaps they fight not because they want to defend or they want to smite justice or they want territory or they enjoy fighting; perhaps they fight simply because taking action is sacred in and of itself (the concept of "karma yoga" or "the path of action", from the Bhagavad Gita (or my poor recollection of it)). Perhaps they take their weapons as extensions of themselves; perhaps their greatest weapons are considered holy artifacts due to just how much energy they output. I vaguely recall a big focus beam in one of my notes being named "The Arm of Creation"...

Another idea I had were rock-related sectors. I talked trash about CE in my last post, but I really do enjoy CE's interpretation of Rock religion--how fire and the sun are sacred motifs in Rock culture, yet how the caste system is extremely strict. [s](This is something I need my notes on, because I remember writing much more about this...pity I don't remember what I actually wrote.)[/s] The core of Rock religion is "spirit", or, "the will to act", or "the drive and motivation for greater things that mere survival, that spark of life and creativity and wonder that makes someone human". It's a bit hard to describe, exactly, the "human spirit". But in any case, that's what Rocks believe in: spirit. To them, spirit is represented by fire, which is why fire weapons and solar areas are so important to them. (Their religion closely resembles Alcatism, which is a religion from another fictional world of mine.)

Rockmen believe in testing their spirit frequently, and have highly ritualized procedures regarding tests of spirit. Among these are, in particular, tests about fighting and combat, which is why Rockmen are so combative. The Rockman religion isn't inherently bad; however, years of corruption among the higher officials have made it oppressive and cruel, instead of enlightening and free. The upper castes are effectively using these trials to subjugate the lower castes, exiling people they don't like and labeling them "weak of spirit", instead of being fair and just rulers and paragons of a noble spirit.

To that end, the Rock religious sectors would be full of religious activity, both for and against. You'd run into those affiliated with the Rockmen central authority, those who are trying to overcome their trials, and those who are rebelling against their masters. And plenty of solar flares.

Another idea I had were "stellar nurseries", places with lots of nebula, where -- well -- where stars were born. These would be nebula sectors, but populated by Zoltan and Slugs and Rockmen (as opposed to just Slugs). Zoltan are there because of the beauty of the place, as well as the creation of stars; Rockmen would be there based on the sacredness of the stars and suns and fire in their religion.

Those were the only ideas I had from a long, long time ago (back when I was still heavily into FTL). Off the top of my head, I thought of rebel refugee/outlaw sectors, mixtures of Rebellion and pirate, among other things; but I haven't put as much thought into that as the rest of my sector ideas.

Now, for endgame content. This post is describing what would have been the final chapter of my total conversion, "The Stars are Beautiful". Discussion of TSaB starts here.

You reach Sector 8, the Federation Coreworlds. [FTL - Federation] starts playing.

The Federation Flagship is based on R4V3-0N's design, here: http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 130#p87548

R4V3-0N wrote:

I forget the weapons on the left and right wings, but I do remember the one in the center: the Federation's prized Vindicator Beam. (Albeit slightly nerfed in length and shield-piercing, probably, to prevent it from stacking too much damage too quickly.) Again, I need to consult my notes for complete info on this. I scribbled this all down on a piece of paper somewhere, but I think I left that back in my hometown (and I'm at college now so I can't really access it easily).

The first phase is codenamed "Assault" (I think it was Assault, anyway). This is a phase primarily focused on direct combat abilities and firepower; much like the first phase of the Rebel Flagship, the Federation Flagship's main methods of attack will be its weapons. It has Cloaking to support its offense, and it has Hacking (which is kind of a weapon all on its own).

The next phase is codenamed "Swarm". This is a phase primarily focused on the drone-swarm power surge. The flagship loses one of its wings, and activates a drone system. The drone system has 6 max power, allocated to these four drones (in this order): a 2-power beam drone, a 2-power combat drone, a 1-power beam drone, and a 1-power combat drone.

The final phase is codenamed "Surge", and is easily the most difficult of them all. It's focused on overwhelming your ship with a whole bunch of lasers and crew launched all at once, as a last-ditch maneuver. In addition to the laser power surge, it has a Teleporter, and sends all of its crew in on a suicidal abandon-ship boarding mission; it has Mind Control to turn one of your crew against it, and it has a backup drone system that launches a one-power Ion Intruder and a one-power Boarding Drone. It also has a crew of 2 repair drones (a one-power and a zero-power model) that patrol the inside of the Fed Flagship. (This backup drone system only has three power, so it'll be easier to take offline--the third power bar is to keep both the 1-power and 0-power repair drones active at the same time; if you destroy the last power bar you deactivate both repair drones at the same time.)

Once you defeat them, you unlock the "neutral" ending. And the credits roll.

But, if you kept the Rebel Captain (your player character) alive, you can activate a hidden blue option when you enter sector 8. Doing so, you can tap into a hidden radio channel and talk with a Federation crew manning a Kestrel--specifically--the Kestrel that defeated the Rebel Flagship so long ago. They explain that they're dissatisfied with how the Federation is treating ex-Rebellion soldiers; part of the rebel forces came from the Federation after all, and plenty of them were misguided; yet all of them are being very harshly treated. The Federation is becoming more and more like a police state as it tries to squash any last traces of the Rebellion, and is monitoring communications and censoring/eliminating those who disagree with Federation policy. They've heard of your arrival, and they want to protect you as you meet with the Flagship.

It's only at sector 8 that your intentions are revealed: you wanted to travel all this way just to see the Flagship and the Federation Command, for a chance at mercy. Like many other Rebel soldiers, you were not tried when the war ended; you and a good chunk of them were immediately exiled to the edge of the galaxy and left there, damn-near permanently stranded and without any way to get back, and left with only minimal resources. You just want to talk to High Command and explain that not every rebel is a truly bad person, and to beg for a chance to live in peace in the core worlds.

If you've kept the Rebel Captain (your player character) alive to this point, you can activate a dialogue tree at the first phase of the Flagship fight. Navigate the tree correctly, and the Federation Flagship Captain accepts your pleas for mercy, and lowers his weapons. A pacifist ending is achieved. The requirements are partially like CE's hidden pacifism one--have a decently upgraded ship ("We could destroy you, if we really wanted. But we do not want to. We are not here for that...")

If you didn't get the correct dialogue, you get the standard ending; but, with one change. During the final phase, the Kestrel comes to your aid, readying an ASB that fires on the enemy flagship. Now that they've seen that the Federation High Command won't back down on their rampage, they're willing to help you destroy it...

If the Rebel Captain has died, then you never get any of that exposition--the rest of the crew is just flying towards the Core worlds for their own personal motivations, which are never stated in the game (to allow the player more freedom in imagining them). Then, you automatically fail the pacifism check, and the neutral fight begins.

Alternatively...

There are a few plot-related augments, whose original names elude me--something like Cipher Plates, or Rebel Codes? These are semi-rare augments, each with a different lore snippet about the Rebellion. But carry three different ones and keep the Rebel Captain alive, and upon entering sector 8, you can activate a secret "vengeance" ending. Your motivations are revealed, but turn out to be different: this is for all the rebels, your brothers in arms, that the Federation killed. You won't give up so easily, and you're going to those Federation bastards down.

You use your Rebel Codes in three consecutive blue options, activating them one after the other. Once they're assembled, you gain a lost piece of Rebel technology--I haven't decided what it is. Perhaps a lost weapon? I was also thinking that maybe you find the Rebel Flagship AI (represented as an augment), and allow it to be a part of your brain (since the Rebel Captain player character is half-cyborg, if you've been reading all the lore posts).

In any case, the event text for the Federation Flagship itself is also changed--you use the technology you've gained as a blue option, and the Federation realizes that your intent is violence. You either use a lost weapon to damage them; or, you use the Rebel Flagship AI augment to completely disable the Fed Flagship's systems. Either way, you blow them to smithereens and earn your revenge.

And the credits roll.

Ship idea:

-an old salvage platform, looking like a crude square of scraps with an engine roughly welded to the center-back hastily modified for FTL travel; maybe two smaller ones on the sides, painted with worn/fading Civilian colors. It has several claw attachments and boom cranes at the front, with which it does salvaging, and a square cockpit towards the front (that looks more like a control tower--you know, since it's a platform

Type A has a "rocket punch" attack that acts like bombs, with special punching animations; or, a flak-like weapon with shield-pierce and insanely fast fire rate, and special impact animations to make it look like it got hit by a lot of punches
Type B has modified the claws to be kind of "swarm lasers" or "claw cannons", sending two bursts of five lasers (note to self, make sure this works?) at the enemy ship
Type C has modified claws to be more like ripping tools: chainsaws and welding beams, mechanically speaking beams or bombs with shield pierce, lower damage, but higher breach rate

an dey got hull lasers

I came across this gorgeous lego ship just now and thought "I really really want to sprite that"

then I realized I had no time for it, and I thought "well I want to sprite it anyway"

then I realized that nearly all my mods are concept-based, and that I didn't have any concepts for this mod in mind.

Ah well.