Previews from the impatient

[Jimli_]

That sprite is pretty neat, I gotta say.

[R4V3-0N]

I'm very slowly working on a mod in my spared spare time that replaces Ghosts with a species called Trogis. A blend of an Engi and a Lanius. The animation movements are slowly coming along (I know about how Ghosts are transparent, I'm going to give them a TON of layers).

Two of them, together with a Lanius, will fly a ship called the 0o2-ZSC, (Zero Oxygen Zoltan Stealth Cruiser) equipped with a Zoltan Shield and two no-power Shield Drones; I'm going to use the SAD drone art that CE never put in their mod.

The ship will have a beam weapon with a length of two 2x1 rooms put in a line, and it does two system damage upon impact with a breach chance that chains up over time, along with 1-shield piercing. I still need to make the art for the beam... Think this combination of no oxygen, a breach beam and a Zoltan Shield with two no-power Shield drones is a little too powerful to start out with? The Zoltan Shield equipment is your shield system for the entire game play.
Humans will only be on the playable ships; they will be taken out of the FTL universe due to them having the Trogis skin. I don't think people will care, because no one buys humans at stores that I'm aware of.

Behold, the 0o2ZSC!

I blended the Engi Type A and B colors together to get this! I think it's pretty cool.
This is my first mod idea, so if you see anything that makes no sense whatsoever please tell me. I want this ship to be as balanced and as unique as possible.

Well some problems I see so far are the ballance...
2 shield drones that are no power and a zoltan shield?...

Compare that to the Zoltan B (or was it C?... I forgot) which starts with 1 shields and only has zoltan shields.
and t hen the stealth C that has a 2 power instead of 3 power shield drone...

This thing has 2 drones that are better and a zoltan shield... Arguably I would just say remove the shield and 1 drone or remove the drones... I say keep it at rather 2 drones that take power, or 1 drone that's no power.
On other news: You could keep humans in the game without replacing it's sprite, sorta similar to how CE /crew portraits mod allows a portrait of the race to be used. You could make the animation sheet just on a different... page? layer? I do not know the technical term. all I know is it's possible to keep human and make the ghosts use a different animation this way. I am just not the best at animation coding and thus I do not recall exactly how to do it.

[SciGuy303]

After staying inactive from the modding community for around a year, I suddenly had the motivation to make this thing:

If you can't tell, it's a splicing job between a Burst Laser II and Flak I. I think I did reasonably well. Thoughts?

EDIT: I just finished it's younger brother.


EDIT 2: And also it's older brother.

[elijahdb]

snip

Yeah, the Zoltan Shield stuff does seem a little powerful. I should've made it more clear that the Zoltan Shield equipment is your shield; no shield system whatsoever. I figured people would just scrap the Shield drones if I gave them the option of having the shield system, which I don't want.
As for the Ghost Sprites, I think you're referring to how a layer can cover up another layer. Sadly Ghosts always have the Human's sprites, it's hardcoded, and in order to get the Human sprites on the Ghost to go away I have to cover it up with a bigger layer of sprites.
My Trogis can't do that, so I have to replace the Human sprites with my Trogis sprites, and I don't want a robot that suffocates (I'm aware of augmentations but I don't want to go in that direction) so I have to get rid of Humans. But if I'm misunderstanding you and you think your way can help me PLEASE tell me.

And nice weapon graphics, SciGuy!

[SciGuy303]

And nice weapon graphics, SciGuy!

Thanks!
I'm planning to make graphics for a 'Fusion' modpack, which is kind of like two different classes of weapons combined (like then, it was the burst laser and flak combined). Sadly I have no idea how to code, so I might need to hire someone to do that for me

[elijahdb]

Thanks!
I'm planning to make graphics for a 'Fusion' modpack, which is kind of like two different classes of weapons combined (like then, it was the burst laser and flak combined). Sadly I have no idea how to code, so I might need to hire someone to do that for me

I'd do it for you, but I suck with the animation coding... You should just try it out yourself.

Metzelmax has a tutorial explaining the basics -> http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=17122

And gentasaurus made one about the boost and chain effects -> http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=29812

[Sleeper Service]

snip

As for the Ghost Sprites, I think you're referring to how a layer can cover up another layer. Sadly Ghosts always have the Human's sprites, it's hardcoded, and in order to get the Human sprites on the Ghost to go away I have to cover it up with a bigger layer of sprites.
My Trogis can't do that, so I have to replace the Human sprites with my Trogis sprites, and I don't want a robot that suffocates (I'm aware of augmentations but I don't want to go in that direction) so I have to get rid of Humans. But if I'm misunderstanding you and you think your way can help me PLEASE tell me.

And nice weapon graphics, SciGuy!

You might wanna have a look at Gencools stealth ship in the Bizarre: viewtopic.php?t=29068 He did some fancy stuff there with giving humans sprites additional unused layers, then activating those through the ghosts own animation data, while deactivating the actual human sprites. The result was ghosts that look completely distinct from humans, you can't get rid of the transparency though. Although I might be wrong... the covering up stuff might still happen there actually. I'm not sure, just a though.

[elijahdb]

You might wanna have a look at Gencools stealth ship in the Bizarre: viewtopic.php?t=29068 He did some fancy stuff there with giving humans sprites additional unused layers, then activating those through the ghosts own animation data, while deactivating the actual human sprites. The result was ghosts that look completely distinct from humans, you can't get rid of the transparency though. Although I might be wrong... the covering up stuff might still happen there actually. I'm not sure, just a though.

I ran the mod in FTL vanilla and the humans are purple, even though their skins in the img folder are white all over. I have no idea what's happening, but I'm curious to know. I think Gencool can enlighten us, but he seems to pop on and off of the forums.. I checked when he was last online and it wouldn't tell me, just a blank space.

[Jimli_]

So on a whim I decided I wanted to make some sort of Rock ship, so I whipped this up in hour or so. Not sure what I want it to be, but I like it so far.

[SciGuy303]

I let my imagination run wild for an hour or so. This is what it came up with:

Thoughts? I'll also probably do a little and older brother for this too, like my burst flak. (I'll let you guess what combination of weapon classes this is )

EDIT: Here's the younger brother.


EDIT 2: And the older brother.