Subset Games Forum

Hello Sleeper. Thanks for the updates for your awesome mod

I have been reading some posts about the idea to have artillery count as faction identifier (great idea by the guy who came up with it). The downsides are, that there is no way to guarantee that you will get artillery, and also the implementation is hacky, and it leads to the save problem.

So here is an idea of mine(disclaimer: I dont know anything about the way ftl is coded, and this idea could be utter facepalm).

The way I think artillery can be used to tell the ships apart lies in the fact, that every artillery has some kind of weapon class, which can be recognized by events. My question is: Is it possible to add such a weapon class to other systems? It wouldnt even matter if this "pseudo" weapon would be unusable (that would even be the best way), all that matters is, that you could use this system to tell the ships apart by this imaginary weapon. There are 3 systems that could work with this: Engine, piloting and reactor. Every ship has these systems because they are needed. So if this would work, you would have a way to tell every ship appart, even the layouts.

Now you might say this idea is retarded on so many levels, and that it surely will not work, but did anyone ever try it? This might be the encased systems of AE, something that is not supposed to be in the game and is discovered by accident. Perhaps you could take a look at this idea, if you are bored. And if it doesnt work feel free to laugh about my naivity

Best regards.

There's a problem with the animation of the A. Effector (black square on enemy ship):

http://zapodaj.net/ca5be6f43a9f7.bmp.html

And I looked recently on first page and in the BA description where weapon images are shown and some weapons are missing f.e. Baton Beam (this yellow beam) and it is used in Kestrel C.

OK, so I have finished absolutely final version of my for-CE menu background image (from my favorite background variant):
http://www.mediafire.com/download/gyx41 ... ainbow.xcf

It got all things placed and layered properly, including all vanilla and FTL text, fixed to be pure-white, with properly created glow (thanks for the tip, Sleeper! Extremely useful). This is how it looks in game:
http://s17.postimg.org/guvhssyp9/ce_menu_estel.png

I must say I'm goddamn proud how this one turned out. I just LOVE how it composes, background looks like created directly for this one purpose (while, in fact, it's hubble image). I have no idea which one (if any ) Sleepy decide to use, but for sure, I'm going to stick with this one.

Considering, how much time I had to spend recovering some embedded part of images, I've decided to make it easier for others, and also release "CE menu background maker's set" - .xcf file with everything you need to create your own FTL CE background. Literally EVERYTHING is layered, and, furthermore, positioned correctly in layers for FTL's menu image size, so really all you need to create your own background is actual background image + pasting few puzzle pieces from this maker's kit:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8oqmo ... er-set.xcf

It contains my pixel-by-pixel edited versions of CE stations, resized and corrected versions of vanilla fleet ships, and absolutely all texts CE uses currently, text itself and glow in separate layers. Glow is uniform between different text, the latter is corrected to be pure-white, without the shift-to-red from old CE's background, as I haven't found any reason why it was like that, in first place. For your copy&paste pleasure BTW, Sleeper - I noticed that CE music authors text wasn't layered in the WIP file (was merged with background), so in case you have lost it, I have recovered it from your file and restored it to separate layer glory (glow re-created from scratch). I hope it helps!

/Cheers,
/Estel

Layers, they are awesome, are they not?

I was considering taking "purple" (actually I already worked it in) but if you consider the current "rainbow" your masterpiece than I'll opt for that. It looks a little less conservative compared to purple and thats a nice twist. Technically the CE releases could even get altering title screens whenever the resource pack is changed.

Thanks for your help. My WIP looks pretty much like yours now, minus the ships. Welcome to GIMP.

Estel wrote:

Sleeper Service wrote: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.

I also agree with this. +1.
My main intention with having custom artillery for each ship was to have them act as an alternative to the Augments.

Sleeper Service wrote:

Russian Rockman wrote:For a long time I have wanted to make a "Randomized" Flagship mod. After rannl helped you create Endless Loot I realized this could be possible with his help! The basics of my idea were:
(...)
Yeah, technically this would be possible in the form of a small program that the player has to execute to generate a randomized flagship mod, pretty much exactly as you described it. I'll ask Rann what he thinks about that, maybe hes posting directly here anyway.

Thank you so much for considering this!!! I think it could be awesome. Also, I'm willing to help with that whenever I have time.

Sleeper Service wrote:I planned to do that for the blue humanoids and alike at some point. This would be way more interesting if the game could be forced to spawn a certain crew variant on ships or as crew though...

Speaking of blue humanoids... I was wondering if it is possible to make blonde humans. It's just because I'm blonde so I feel a bit left out. Perhaps in the future we've finally been bred out of existence?

Sleeper Service wrote:Creating interesting lore is not that much of the problem as much as defining a distinct visual style for the sector and giving it a distinct game-play gimmick. Pirate Homeworlds might lack in that area, they might really just end up as a homeworld in the traditional FTL sense, a sector that has a very similar profile to the "... controlled variant". Well, lets see how it turns out. I still find the whole idea of an auto construction sector more interesting right now:

I think that the Pirate Homeworlds could be fun just because of their potential quest lines and unique events, but you've added so much to the regular pirate sector to make it more "piratey" it almost feels like a pirate Homeworld already. The construction sector sounds cool to. Oh how I wish that we could just have infinite sectors, then we could make as many types as we wanted.


ALSO, I'm not sure if you answered this question already. Do radiation events still not work?

Sleeper Service wrote:I was considering taking "purple" (actually I already worked it in) but if you consider the current "rainbow" your masterpiece than I'll opt for that. It looks a little less conservative compared to purple and thats a nice twist. Technically the CE releases could even get altering title screens whenever the resource pack is changed.

Thanks for your help. My WIP looks pretty much like yours now, minus the ships. Welcome to GIMP.

Thanks for willing to include it I also though about rotating landscape... spacescape... whatever from time to time, with CE releases, but skipped suggesting itm because, you know - I just made a background, a absolutely micro-promile input on CE, yet I already made few very long posts about that Didn't wanted to sound obtrusive.

But, if we're at it, I also though that if you even introduce that random boss element (or other heavy randomization) by things that roll it and automatically patch, you could as well rotate menu backgrounds randomly Having rebel base in different places would fit the ever-changing galaxy we get at start of every run.

Russian Rockman wrote: ALSO, I'm not sure if you answered this question already. Do radiation events still not work?

IIRC, last answer from Sleeper was something around the lines of "there are too many things introduced with auto anti-stalemate that may end up in a crash, that I don't see it worth extensive work required to (possibly) get it back. But, feel free to test yourself, and if you find a proper way, I'll gladly re-introduce it".
---

Just when I wanted to do small session, "celebrating" new menu (and finally cleaning up my high scores of CE nfinite records, thanks to FTL profile editor - I want to keep separate stats for CE Infinite from now on), it went awesomely well, and guess what, resulted in pretty easy win, bumping my CE/HARD won sessions count to 3 (fun fact - game disagrees, telling me that I have also won on Hard with Mantis A, but I can't remember it for a life of me... Neither my high scores seems to know anything about it.). Rock C is really capable ship - I've deliberately keep both starting weapons up to the sector 8 and that speaks something about their versatility (in fact, I kept charging missile to the very end and it was important part of busting Flaghsip's shields - I just swapped heavy crystal for Artillery gained at last moment, just because it's the same cooldown and shield piercing, but twice damage at triple power cost, which I suspected - correctly - that I'll be able to get compensated by upgrading weapon system before meeting boss).

The final fight was very steady, without any major turning points - I knew that I have to do it without losing too much hull (as repair stations spawned on the complete opposite of sector), and it turned out well, with more than half hull standing to the end. Mind control and boarding drone on phase 3 caused some controlled havoc, but other than that, nothing unplanned. Flagship managed to fire stage's 3 super weapon only once (no super-shield recharging, either), so I guess it went down quickly.

What is worth to note, trading helped greatly during that run. I was able to sell asteroid ore to the slugs TWICE in one sector (both gained by pirating), so it made effort-less scrap boost. I also had on-board assembly line, but it was never able to produce things required in the sector I was in

/Estel

// Edit

Small'ish bug /suggestion report, in case you still have time do fix things before rolling next update:

Bug:

1. There is this event with Slug captain Night of the pirate ship raved, that want to challenge us. If he offers to surrender, there is no option to break truce (Severity: Minor)

Suggestions:

1. In those event where Rebels are sympathetic for civilians, we can mercilessly stole supplies they provided. In some cases, supplies turn out to be booby-trapped, as soon as we return to ship, making us get no reward, unless few points of hull damage is an appropriate one for such deed.

Anyway, it would be fitting to have option of massacring treacherous civilians there, with obvious chance-for-protest from crew (maybe a little lowered, as they just tried to kill us... Or not, as they actually had good reasons), and blue option for hostile factions. It should be stated that such pacification of settlement require time (fleet delay doubled for 1 jump), but provide small scrap reward from looting the poor settlement. The same things that offer blue option during the quest where we save settlement by bombing advancing marines (orbital bombardment, fire bomb, etc) could give blue option ensuring no fleet delay will happen (would still be risky to do with Vindicator beam, as fed cruiser is no hostile faction and crew can desert us - but still, would be "fun" twist on the name "Vindicator Beam").

Considering that we already have option to intimidate civilians with fire bomb (showing pirate how to do so properly), I don't see why we couldn't disallow those bastards to try bombing us, leaving it unpunished

2. Considering the "streamlining" options added some time ago (possibility to change mind about pirating, after learning that it may disturb our crew, etc), it would be really great to have option of socializing with crew at the production augment dialogues, in addition to (currently present) "change your mind and just move on". Many times, I want to check what I might produce with that augment/how much scrap it cost/what options, if any, that new crewman/augment gives to on-board assembly line, and even if I don't produce anything, it means "Wasted" beacon, without socializing. Also, we already have possibility to change mind and socialize in the ship's engineering dialogue, so why not in other empty beacons options, too?

Typos:

1. There is possibility that we get servo drones as a trade good - event text about it contain typo, it should be "you don't have use for them".

2. After Mr. Johnson's corporate quest - if we somehow disobey them, and kill his disciplinary forces - there is event text about finding and securing an "argumentation". Should be "augmentation".

I've got this other suggestion:
During one of my runs, I ran out of fuel and I had to wait for relief to drop by and hand me some fuel.

I found this Rock freighter drifting along and I sent a team out. Next thing you know, there's this Rock holding my crew for ransom. Give him scrap or someone dies.
So I thought it was no big deal, I'd not pay the guy, the guy dies and the Clone Bay would revive him.

That didn't happen. The event text said something like "You for the crew to return but they do not" so I assumed they didn't die and the Rock is keeping them alive or they saw how willingly they would be abandoned and mutinied.

So I guess my suggestion is this: There should be an option to shoot the Rock with an AP drone of some sort, or teleport a bomb on him (blowing up your crew member but you get scrap from salvaging the wreckage). Zoltan commanded to explode? Teleport the crew away?
Or if you're flying the Rock Cruiser and you have the plating, have the Rock join your crew instead.

Perhaps something could also be done for other events where you somehow lose your crew to utter BS.
The diseases I can understand (except for that one stop at a quarantine zone where I didn't even have a chance to use my level 3 medbay before my Lanius turned against me from and I got two Humanoid guards in return) but there are some events I guess out there that seem just right for strapping bombs to your crew and using them as suicide bombers.

Sure it might make your crew mutiny if you had the medbay, but well... Clone Bay could make your crew a little bit more suicidal. They certainly don't care if you blow up an automated ship while they're still onboard.

Estel wrote: IIRC, last answer from Sleeper was something around the lines of "there are too many things introduced with auto anti-stalemate that may end up in a crash, that I don't see it worth extensive work required to (possibly) get it back. But, feel free to test yourself, and if you find a proper way, I'll gladly re-introduce it".

Yeah that's what I remember too. But that was a long time ago so I wasn't sure if that was still the case. I might test this then now that I have some time! That's why I was asking. Thanks.

Is it possible to modify the Engi C layout in marked place in the picture and place there doors or wall? It looks strange with that hole in my opinion.

http://zapodaj.net/6f60117d3cff8.bmp.html

I have one more question. Did you modify the green ABS friendly artillery icon, because it disappeared in my games.

BTW. The Fed C layout is ultra hardcore with CE, even on normal difficulty .

ahmedoo wrote:Is it possible to modify the Engi C layout in marked place in the picture and place there doors or wall? It looks strange with that hole in my opinion.

Yes! I totally considered that, but forgot about it. Seems a lot like the defs forgot to put door there in the first place.

ahmedoo wrote:I have one more question. Did you modify the green ABS friendly artillery mark, because it disappeared in my games.

Removing that was necessary for making hyperspace events work. I consider doing some custom backgrounds for the friendly ASB events to bring it back at some point.

stylesrj wrote:So I guess my suggestion is this: There should be an option to shoot the Rock with an AP drone of some sort, or teleport a bomb on him (blowing up your crew member but you get scrap from salvaging the wreckage). Zoltan commanded to explode? Teleport the crew away?
Or if you're flying the Rock Cruiser and you have the plating, have the Rock join your crew instead.

Yeah, sounds reasonable. That event definitely could use some more blue options.

Estel wrote:What is worth to note, trading helped greatly during that run. I was able to sell asteroid ore to the slugs TWICE in one sector (both gained by pirating), so it made effort-less scrap boost.

It really looks a lot like CE actually makes HARD easier once you know your way around the mod, because trade profits are static. Isn't it ironic.