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

[jep]

I'm not in love with github's in-browser editing, either. For me it freezes up every few edits (in FF or in chrome). Have you ever tried their software, though? They have it both for windows and mac and it's pretty sweet. You still use whatever editor you are using before, with the files like they were on disk. You just use the app to commit changes to your github repo. I think you can also do pull requests form there but I honestly can't remember. I didn't go that route this time because I only had the one file to edit but I've used it before and liked it a lot.

And yes, I've found timeliness to be key when trying to do any kind of group development stuff on github. You make your changes and you submit your pull request ASAP to avoid the headache of trying to merge things that got out of sync.

I was thinking you'd keep distributing the .ftl version as well. The Download as Zip from github would be more so people could "beta test" or get the "pre-release" version. At the very least, you'd want users who are slightly smarter than average because they need to have the basic ability to know to rename the .zip to .ftl.

[jep]

Oh yeah, I'd encourage you to keep it going on github indefinitely. I'm sure I'll find more mistakes that aren't easily catchable from just a spell check. Something like "You send your holographic crewmen drone to explore the station." is never going to be caught by spellcheck because each word is perfectly fine. I fixed a lot of places where "crewmen" was supposed to be "crewman." I expect to keep coming back and fixing stuff as I run across it in-game. When that happens now, I always stop and switch over and correct it. You saw a few of those before I decided to just crank the whole thing through the spellchecker in one go.

[Ksky]

Reading about FTL Advanced got my interesting in this game up again, and I thought I'd try some mods before that came out.

I was really enjoying this mod in particular, but is there any way to disable the rebel fleet pursuit while playing with this mod? I can do it in the Vanilla Game by modifying the Data.dat file so that it looks like:

Find the event "START_GAME" and/or "START_BEACON"
Add <modifyPursuit amount="-100000"/>

But I am having no such luck when this mod is active through the Slipsteam Mod Manager.

Any help or possibility to get this feature added in the future?

[Ksky]

Nevermind, I found

http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2593

Thanks for the great mod!

[Creaphis]

Hey, I'm new to this mod, so that may mean I don't actually know what I'm talking about yet, but my first impression of the trading system is that it's massively underpowered. I just bought some space rations for about 16 scrap, then sold them in another sector for 38 (23 from the merchant and 15 from the sale price). In exchange for 22 scrap of profit, I had to give up the chance to explore two beacons because of the double rebel pursuit both when I bought the rations and again when I sold them. This is a horrible rate of return, seeing as I could gain far more than 22 scrap worth of rewards from any other two beacons on average.

The double rebel pursuit is an unnecessary nerf because there are already natural negative consequences to trading:
- You have to tie up an augmentation slot with trade items when something with navigation or combat uses could save your life.
- You have to tie up scrap in a long-term investment when that same scrap could give you an immediate advantage if spent on your ship. Delaying your first door or shield upgrades to do some trading is very risky.
- When buying cargo there's no guarantee you're going to find a place to sell it anytime soon.

Remove the rebel pursuit nerf and trading may become an interesting part of this mod. What I've seen of Captain's Edition so far is amazing and it deserves to be even better.

Another possible way to improve trading would be to remove the requirement for the player to cooperate and sell the augmentation to the store when he's supposed to. With some rewriting it could make just as much sense flavour-wise. Maybe at one store you would buy a rare medical cure or desirable software, and then you can sell a portion or a copy of your goods an unlimited number of times before the end of the game. This way you don't even have to tell the player not to cheat.

[jep]

I hardly ever use the trade system. Just not worth it to me. I haven't studied it enough in-depth to find out if there are really big payoffs if you sell it just the right place (like how it says a certain good would probably fetch a good price in a Rock sector). It taking up the aug slot isn't usually that big of a deal to me most of the game. Only infrequently am I lucky enough to get an aug or two from events and have enough money to fill the remaining aug slots. And as you said, you forgo a beacon trip.

Not to keen on the solution of reusable goods, though. That's more like the augs such as the Fuel Recycler or whatever it's called. But large payoffs would be tough, too, since sometimes you have a store and the next beacon or two down the chain is another store. You can't really control for that with the structure of the mods. Nor can you control for what sector you are in (e.g. only give out goods that are sold for a profit in a sector that's not like the one you are in).

One idea I was toying with that's similar to what you're talking about is a factory ship. You'd need Augment A and Augment B to produce a Augment C at empty beacons. Augment C would sell for a hefty chunk of cash. You could do this without any of the honor system required for the trade system. It would be balanced because you'd basically be forced to forgo any augs. It'd be a different playstyle that I think could offer some variety.

You could balance it for early/late game a little bit by having an event that will check if you have Aug A and replace it with Aug A+ and likewise replace Aug B with Aug B+. Aug A+ and Aug B could make Aug C+. Aug A+ and Aug B+ would make Aug C++. It'd take time (and luck) to hit those upgrade events so you'd be unlikely to be producing the higher price goods until later in the game.

Does that sound interesting to anyone else? You could call it the Factory Ship Extension.

[Sleeper Service]

IMO the trades system is fine as it is. If you know what you are doing It can be quite profitable. Trading also has the other advantage that it removes a lot of global risk, which can benefit certain ships in certain situations a lot.

Trading can be actually good. Plan your purchases based on what you've seen of the sectors' tree, since some stuff sells for up to thrice the normal profit price at specific sector types. Take drinks at canteens to get hints, and try it yourself.

Also, everyone who is not happy with the trade system can just continue to ignore it.

[jep]

IMO the trades system is fine as it is. If you know what you are doing It can be quite profitable.

I wonder how much of the "you know what you are doing" is because you wrote it, though? Maybe I'll know what I'm doing after I've spell-checked a bit more.

I'm not advocating an overhaul of the trade system or removing it, though. I think it adds some interesting flavor without being OP. It works within the limitations of the system and gives some variety to the game, even when you don't use it (sometimes I just like reading the descriptions).

What did you think of my Factory Ship? Any interest?

[Sleeper Service]

I wonder how much of the "you know what you are doing" is because you wrote it, though? Maybe I'll know what I'm doing after I've spell-checked a bit more.

I put Mr Misters quote there to point out that people out there also realise that themselves after time.

Problem with the factory ship concept is that you can not remove augments in events. That would leave the payer with excess production augs to carry around and use again, just like in the batch system. If the factory ships would be separate events, then there would be no way to tell where they are, the player would have to hope finding one by chance, which would make this whole system quite unreliable, and kind of in the way if you don't want to use it, as many more empty beacons would be added. If the factory ships are at shops, all the shops events would have to be rewritten to imply that there is some kind of production facility, which would take some flavour away. Also it would allow you to sell the final product right away, which basically would make it the same as the batch system.

[jep]

(Edit: on re-reading your post, I realize where some of the confusion is. My suggestion is that YOU are the Factory Ship. You do the production with your own augs. You don't have to find a Factory Ship at a beacon. You just get to use your aug at an empty beacon just like all kinds of augs in CE.)

Well, I was thinking of handling it one of two ways. First would be a ship that comes pre-loaded with the two basic augs, much like you already pre-load certain ships with the fuel recycler aug or beacon hacker (IIRC). There'd be a separate "factory ship" ship (either reusing one of the existing ships or a whole new ship model for flavor).

The other way would be to add to the start screen a choice for if you wanted to start the game as a factory ship. Are you limited to giving only one aug in an event, even if you daisy chain the choices?

For clarity sake, I'm going to stop calling them Aug A, Aug B and Aug C and call them Light Manufacturing, Industrial Template and Finished Machinery. Does that make sense? You need a Light Manufacturing and an Construction Template to produce a Construction Equipment. So all aug slots are going to be filled so you'll never be able to just keep churning out the goods.

The upgrade path could look something like:
Light Manufacturing -> Heavy Manufacturing -> Advanced Manufacturing
Construction Template -> Industrial Template -> Engineering Template

LM + CT + 20 scrap = Habitat Modules worth 40 scrap
LM + IT + 20 scrap = Nanite Fabricators worth 40 scrap
LM + ET + 20 scrap = Gravimetric Calibrators worth 40 scrap

HM + CT + 30 scrap = Plastisteel Decking worth 60 scrap
HM + IT + 30 scrap = Buckyball Tubing worth 60 scrap

and so on for all combinations.

I don't think it'd require more empty beacons. It'd just require the same thing you did for augs like the fuel recycler. There's a hidden choice for if you have LM/HM/AM. That would lead you to a menu with a hidden choice for if you have CT/IT/ET. Each of those combos on the tree would end you up at a final choice to produce one unit of the good from the above combination tree. It'd subtract the scrap and give you one goods aug. If you already had your third aug slot filled, you'd have to throw out what you had and replace it. When you upgraded from LM to HM, you could sell off your old LM at the next store to clear up room. It could be set to a fairly low price to keep it from generating too much money and so you'd be happy to replace it with a good if you landed at an empty beacon before you hit a store.

There'd be no removing of augs by the events. You'd just then have an goods aug that you could sell the next time you landed at a store via the regular aug sales page (not a custom event). All of these augs would be set to rarity 0 so they never get awarded randomly and the prices could be scaled so that each goods aug sells for a higher price.

There could be a few events added in that would let you upgrade the Manufacturing or the Template to its next level. I think it's fine that they're relatively rare. Sometimes the RNG screws you in FTL and that's just part of the game. And yeah, you could get really lucky and the very next empty beacon you land at offers you another upgrade. But that's FTL.

Does all of this make sense from a feasibility standpoint? I totally understand if you say "meh, not interesting to me." But I think it could all be done, technically. I might try to whip it up myself.

I could also try to get on IRC sometime to flesh out the idea.