Subset Games Forum

Concept:
This mod is designed to address balance issues in the game, making more equipment in the game worth using and increasing the quantity of interesting decisions. This mod doesn't add large amounts of additional content - instead it focuses on improving the usefulness of existing content and making the base game a better overall experience without making the overall game notably easier or harder.


Mod File:
Balance & Bugfix Mod v3.7.2.ftl


Major Changes:

• Fixed multiple game bugs.
• Weak weapons made relevantly cheaper or otherwise improved. Best weapons more expensive, Flak I less accurate, Flak I & Halberd less common.
• Kestrel C and Federation B have been redesigned in an effort to make them a unique experience compared to other ships.
• You can no longer bypass enemy Defense Drones with Hacking, and Hacking is much more expensive.
• Many events tweaked, making more options actually worth considering (e.g., the black market weapons trade is far more reasonable).
• Enemy ships are stronger in Sectors 6-8.
• Stealth C's Shield+ Drone now requires 1 power; Engi B starts with Level 3 Piloting and Heavy Ion is buffed; Rock A starts with Explosive Replicator (with fewer missiles) and Hull Missile is buffed; Fed C starts with Repair Burst; Stealth B starts with Titanium System Casing and Level 3 Cloaking is cheaper.
• Most augments improved or made cheaper. Adv. FTL Navigation & Hacking Stun removed from game. Long-Ranged Scanners cost more. Racial augments sell for less to encourage their use.
• Shield Drones now require only 2 power and cost less. Fire Drone slightly weaker but only requires 2 power. Combat II & Beam II Drones have been buffed slightly and are more common. Defense II and Combat II cheaper.
• Other System Pricing: Cloaking more expensive (L3 cheaper), L2 and L5 Engines more expensive, Teleporters slightly cheaper. Many systems cheaper at the higher levels (especially Engines & Drones). Cheaper to switch Medbay and Clone Bay.
• The Rebel Flagship is less of a difficulty spike when playing on Easy difficulty (several systems are lower level, most notably Hacking and Mind Control).
• Stores: Missiles & Drone Parts cheaper. Humans, Rockmen, and Mantis cheaper.
• Enemy ships can no longer have Tier 5 Shields.
• Enemy AE ships buffed to be more in line with their non-DLC counterparts.
• Moderately reduced the odds of free crew from events and tweaked many event scrap gains up or down appropriately. Less free stuff in Engi Sectors.
• Fewer dead beacons in Sector 1, Mantis Sectors, Rock Sectors, and Abandoned Sectors. Sector 8 events make more sense.
• Tweaked enemy base power so they don't have weirdly high power during plasma storms sometimes.
• Rock ships have worse Cloaking but can equip Swarm Missiles. Lanius Bomber slightly weaker.
• Some weaker ship classes can no longer appear in late sectors. "Scout" class enemy ships now always have only 6 missiles, Medium enemy ships always have 10 missiles, Large enemy ships always have 14 missiles.
• Various quality of life tweaks: easier beam aiming, more consistent event option ordering (standard choices are first, better blue options are listed first), better default weapon/crew positions, more informative text, etc.
• Large number of punctuation and grammar fixes. Event phrasing tweaked to be more consistent and clear. Event text more inclusive.
• Fixed visuals on many ships, including shield positioning/size, cloaking lines, and system graphics.

There are several other changes not listed here; see http://www.it-is-law.com/ftl-balance/index.php for a full change list.


Mod Compatibility:
The changes to this mod are very extensive and not designed around compatibility with other gameplay mods. If combined with other mods, it should probably be set to the first slot (thus getting overwritten by other mods).

It should work fine alongside mods that only change visuals - for example, the High-Def Backgrounds Mod or Fleet Pursuit Indicator should cause no conflicts. I am also fine with anyone using my work as part of another mod as long as credit is given.

Feel free to post any questions, comments, bugs, or suggestions about the changes.

Wow, that took a while but I'm looking forward to seeing the changes you've made, thanks for updating this!
I was a fan of the original mod, small changes can make a big difference sometimes.

Interesting choice getting rid of Adv. FTL Navigation, it was pretty worthless. If only it had some useful blue options... CE has an augment called Proximity Navigation to avoid taking damage in certain events.

Russian Rockman wrote:Wow, that took a while but I'm looking forward to seeing the changes you've made, thanks for updating this!
I was a fan of the original mod, small changes can make a big difference sometimes.

Interesting choice getting rid of Adv. FTL Navigation, it was pretty worthless. If only it had some useful blue options... CE has an augment called Proximity Navigation to avoid taking damage in certain events.

It wasn't worthless - it allowed you to go through a multi-jump dead end and still make it to the exit without ever running into the Rebel fleet.

dalolorn wrote:
It wasn't worthless - it allowed you to go through a multi-jump dead end and still make it to the exit without ever running into the Rebel fleet.

Which would only happen in 1 out of 50 games and only if you're one of those people who disable the option the beacon paths when you hover over them (which then is still your fault).

There's some fun ways to fix Adv. FTL Nav if I could change the code, but simply making it cheaper doesn't make it interesting at all. Before AE it had marginal utility because you could re-use Repair stations in Sector 8 and you could warp back to them and repair - but now even that's no longer a thing.

I think the tweak I'd like to see most is to make it let you visit any beacon that's NEXT to any beacon you've been previously, so you don't lose that extra hop. This would give you some flexibility and the occasional extra hop and be worth using sometimes. Almost definitely will never happen, but one can dream.


As far as giving it more blue options - I'd consider this, but I'm more interested in doing this for other equipment as there's plenty of things which could use a buff via blue options. Drone Reactor Booster, System Repair Drone, Anti-Personnel Drone, Hull Lasers, Anti-Combat Drone, Hacking Stun, etc. could all potentially benefit from their own blue options. Takes a good amount of work actually finding the events they're appropriate for and making all the events and results though...

I'm curious as to what would benefit from some of those augments getting blue options though.. I don't really recall any vanilla events that could really make use of things like the DRB, HackStun, AntiCombat drone or anti-armour weapons specifically.. especially the Hacking Stun since those blue options would appear even if your ship didn't have Hacking in the first place (unless it was added as part of a two-step series of blue options).

How more useful would AFTLN be if it increased your maximum jump distance, do you reckon?

slowriderxcorps wrote:I'm curious as to what would benefit from some of those augments getting blue options though.. I don't really recall any vanilla events that could really make use of things like the DRB, HackStun, AntiCombat drone or anti-armour weapons specifically.. especially the Hacking Stun since those blue options would appear even if your ship didn't have Hacking in the first place (unless it was added as part of a two-step series of blue options).

How more useful would AFTLN be if it increased your maximum jump distance, do you reckon?

It would be quite useful because it would allow you to bypass hazards, when you knew they were there that is...

But AFTLN also takes up one of your valuable 3 augments slots though, in my opinion there are not enough aug slots in FTL. When you could get things like Automated Reloader, Shield Recharge Booster, and Weapon Pre-Igniter, why would you waste slots with things like AFTLN or Hacking Stun?!

Your comment also reminded me of how situational Hacking Stun is, I don't remember how much it costs,but it's price should be lowered along with all other situational augs.

stylesrj wrote:

dalolorn wrote:
It wasn't worthless - it allowed you to go through a multi-jump dead end and still make it to the exit without ever running into the Rebel fleet.

Which would only happen in 1 out of 50 games and only if you're one of those people who disable the option the beacon paths when you hover over them (which then is still your fault).

Or if you deliberately chose the wrong path. Why didn't you think of that one?

Glad to see this get off the ground. I was bugging Twinge on IRC a few months ago about updating this for AE, so it's only proper that I stop by and say thanks.