My first mod is ready for playtesting!

[Kiloace]

"What is it?"
This mod is a ship mod, and is the first in a series of new ships I will be creating for "Might of the Federation" - my big picture project for ftl modding. Let's talk about the mod itself...


For Your Consideration...The Avenger

fed_destroyer.png

Background Information
The Galactic Civil War is going poorly for the Federation. The Rebel Fleet continuously grows in might and ruthlessness, conquering many new sectors. The Federation, recognizing the impending danger of defeat, determines that the only way it can turn the odds into its favor is by concentrating its research and development on new, experimental starship technology. At long last, the development of a new prototype warship is complete: The Federation Destroyer.

The Federation spared no expense on its new model. The Destroyer is equipped with advanced warfare technology, including a new weapon exclusive to Federation ships: The Phase Cannon.

Type 1 Phase Cannons fire bolts of compressed energy, dealing concussive damage to the hull and systems of enemy ships. Perhaps the most notable feature of this weapon is its incredibly fast recharge rate, which is nearly half of that of the Mk. II Burst Laser.

In addition to these new weapons, the Destroyer also comes standard with an Automated Re-Loader, further enhancing its damage output, an FTL recharge booster, which allows it to quickly escape a dangerous situation, and a cloaking device. However, due to its limited size and role in the war, the Destroyer is unable to equip drone control systems or a crew teleporter. It also sacrifices survivability for combat capability, having a maximum hull strength of 20 and beginning without an integrated shield system.

Additional Notes:
- This ship replaces the Engi Cruiser Type A
- There is no floor plan (its transparent)

Question:
Now, as this is my first mod, I'm incredibly new to the whole thing. How do I create a description for the Slipstream Mod Manager?

EDIT: Version 1.1

I've revised and modified the mod! Version 1.1 changes several things. See the version history below for a full list of details. Here is the download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kn3egh2gqkpv4 ... troyer.ftl

Changes:
- Updated Ship Images, including new cloak, gib and miniship models!

- Starting power for shields increased from 1 to 2 (meaning you will only need 150 scrap and 2 power to get your first shield bubble).

- Starting power for cloak increased from 1 to 2 (should improve chances of survival in early game).

- Doors start at level 2 (to make fighting boarders less of an issue in the early game).

[Sleeper Service]

Seems like the ship has some really harsh trade-offs for all that weapon power. Sounds interesting.

I think the hull design is quite intriuiging. It captures the bulky Fed style with a lot of straight edges quite well. Looks like a way more intimidating variant of the bomber.

There is still room for some visual polishing though. The hull could drop some shadows on the engine parts. The connections between some parts could be evened out. Also the front hull is way more brightly lighted than the top part of the ship, you might want to adjust this. Checking out how vanilla ships are lighted and drop their shadows might be helpful.

Again: I quite like the whole design though. Keep up the solid work.

[Kiloace]

Considering its mostly a cut-n-spliced kestrel, I'm pretty happy with it. I get what you're saying about the shading, I'm just not sure how to get it to look genuine without messing it up. I'll probably toy with it over the next few days. I think I'm going to redo the cloak image as well.


EDIT: Also, did the download link for the file work okay? Haven't used dropbox for file sharing all that much. It'd be kinda lame to work so hard on something only I'll be playing with.

[5thHorseman]

Trying the mod now. I'll edit this or reply again with any thoughts during play but really quick:

The download link works fine.
The mod shows no errors which is good
I notice you have a 4x1 room that I'd suggest you break into two 2x1 rooms.

EDIT:
Lots of pitfalls in this one, possibly too many to overcome the overwhelming firepower.

No shields + No Long Ranged Scanners = One asteroid field and you're dead.
Shields At Level 1 = It costs 250 scrap to get a single shield bubble. That's rougly the entire scrap output of the first 2 sectors, assuming you don't have to fix your hull which, lets face it, you will.
Two Crew = Hard to repel boarders. Not bad on its own, but in tandem with the next 2...
One Airlock = You can't effectively vent the ship. See above and below.
Doors far from medbay = if your doors go down while you're inefectively venting the ship of air, your two crew members are gonna have a bit of trouble getting them fixed.

So for all its strengths, I think this ship is actually kind of a death trap. I'd drop the two augments and add Long Range Scanners and see how it plays. Your weapons are fast enough that (I think?) they'll still hit before most anything the enemies could have will fire, and if they get a shot off you can still cloak through that first round anyway. In fact, I'd happily abandon the cloak for LRS.

I'm not 100% sure the boarder issue NEEDS fixed but one potential fix would be level 2 doors. Don't know how effective they would be but they couldn't hurt A mantis or even another human would help in that regard as well.

All in all it's a fun ship when it works. It just has too many ways that are out of the player's control that things can go South very quickly.

2ND EDIT:
I just completed my 3rd and best playthrough of the ship. I lost my engi to suffocation but got a human not long after. No asteroids in sector 1, and sector 2 was a nebula which meant no asteroids at all. I bought a shield and had the scrap to upgrade it if only I'd found another store to sell the defense drone 2 I picked up in the very next jump AFTER the store where I bought the shield (of course). I rode 1 hull point through 3 jumps in sector 3 before a missile hit my cloaked ship, destroying it.

I'm not saying it wasn't fun. It was a blast (pun intended). However, that was my BEST run

[Kiloace]

Thank you very much for the feedback 5thHorseman!


I never truly played a full run with the ship (ironic, perhaps) so its nice to hear feedback from an unbiased, experienced FTL player and modder.

I'm very hesitant to give it long range scanners, because, while I agree with you that asteroid fields are a bit of a doozy, the ship then comes that much closer to being a stealth cruiser reskin, with new weapons. If there is truly no other way to prevent the ship being absolutely destroyed in 1 fateful misjump, perhaps I should give it a shield layer to begin with.

The weapons are pretty darn good, rivaling (and I'd even say possibly outdoing) the Kestrel's Burst Laser as a valuable starting weapon, which is why I'm afraid giving it shields to start would make it OP.

Any thoughts on that?

[5thHorseman]

I think either starting with a shield with one power, OR no shield but when you buy it it has 2 power in it (so you can use it right away) would make the task a lot less daunting. That way, you're only devoting the entire resources of the first sector to getting a shield and not both of the first 2 sectors In all 3 of my playthroughs I was able to accrue 100+ scrap before I died and in two of them I bought shields but could never get that 2nd bar, so I think it's reasonable to try both of those options.

You could also modify the shield blueprint to, say, cost 150 for the first level so you don't have the choice of "150 AND find a store" or "100, pay anywhere". You can merge them into "150, pay anywhere" if you feel 100 is giving the player too much (and it might, I don't really know. That's why we test )

I think it'd be worth exploring all 3 of those options. I agree that LRS would make this essentially a stealth ship, but starting with shields AND cloak is just asking for a super OP ship.

By the way I don't know if you intended this but it really felt like I was flying the Defiant from Deep Space Nine.

[Kiloace]

I think either starting with a shield with one power, OR no shield but when you buy it it has 2 power in it (so you can use it right away) would make the task a lot less daunting. That way, you're only devoting the entire resources of the first sector to getting a shield and not both of the first 2 sectors In all 3 of my playthroughs I was able to accrue 100+ scrap before I died and in two of them I bought shields but could never get that 2nd bar, so I think it's reasonable to try both of those options.

You could also modify the shield blueprint to, say, cost 150 for the first level so you don't have the choice of "150 AND find a store" or "100, pay anywhere". You can merge them into "150, pay anywhere" if you feel 100 is giving the player too much (and it might, I don't really know. That's why we test )

I think it'd be worth exploring all 3 of those options. I agree that LRS would make this essentially a stealth ship, but starting with shields AND cloak is just asking for a super OP ship.

You're probably right about the shields and cloak.

If I recall correctly, you start with 1 cloak bar, but I might bump that up to 2 to help in addition to changing shield mechanics. Having not worked with superluminal before, I didn't realize the "starting power" tab also affected purchased systems - for some reason, I thought you'd just get 2 shield bars on purchasing the system, but now I know how I can easily fix that.

Unlike starting power, modifying costs is not something I know how to do, but this would be a good opportunity to learn how it works.

By the way I don't know if you intended this but it really felt like I was flying the Defiant from Deep Space Nine.

I'm a huge trek fan, its only natural that it'd influence my work with FTL. Originally, I was going to make the ship an escort like the defiant. Of course, I created the ship by splicing an image of the kestrel I found online in Microsoft Paint (I've come a long way since that ) so the ending size led it to be more of a cruiser. I ended on the middle ground of a destroyer, because I wanted it to be more restricted and defined in the role of combat than the starting kestrel.

The Phase cannons weren't ripped directly from trek, per se, but heavily inspired by the Defiant's pulse cannons:

http://images.wikia.com/startrek/images ... efiant.jpg

Even the weapon design bears quite the implicating resemblance of phaser cannons from Star Trek Online:

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Phaser_Dual_Cannons

The cloak was really just a coincidence - the opportunity to create a more diverse playstyle than anything else was a must. It just so happened that the way to accomplish that was with cloaking.

As for the actual model, I suppose it was somewhat inspired by the Saber-class Federation ship:

http://images.wikia.com/startrek/images ... ada_II.jpg

I already had the idea of a main, teardrop-shaped body with 2 engine cylinders connected on "wings" in mind, though. I only realized it started to take the shape of the saber ship a little after I started putting it together.

[Kiloace]

The Federation Destroyer v1.1 mod is ready for playtesting! I will be editing the OP with version info and the download link momentarily.

NOTE: The file is not named differently, meaning it will overwrite the previous version. Take note of this if you want to keep both.

NOTE 2: I haven't seen how dropbox reacts when you upload a file of the same name. I think it replaced the file correctly, but on the off chance that it didn't and its still the old version, let me know.

[UltraMantis]

There is already a mod named Federation Destroyer. Maybe pick a different name for your mod?

Here is the Federation Destroyer by StormblaDD

[Kiloace]

Aw man...

Yeah, I guess I better, but "destroyer" was really fitting. Time to go name searching...