[MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Discuss and distribute tools and methods for modding. Moderator - Grognak
JCQ
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:05 am

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby JCQ » Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:34 pm

better than the main game.
epeli
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby epeli » Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:30 pm

I had to get on the forums just to comment on this - FTL Infinite Space has great potential! Infinite space exploration with unforgiving roguelike game mechanics is pretty much exactly what I initially expected from FTL.

I've been playing this mod on normal, mostly with Kestrel, engi, stealth and federation cruisers. Longest game so far has been over 450 jumps and I still haven't encountered any crashes / bugs!

Noticed a few typos here and there, though.
Game start event: aquired -> acquired, scarp -> scrap
New sector event: Docked -> Dock, currenlty -> currently, benificial -> beneficial, crews -> crew's, requip -> re-equip

And there are still some vanilla events that reference to the rebel fleet pursuing you, like a mercenary you can hire to delay the fleet and a cache that you can trap to delay them.

However, there is a problem with this mod... the static ships make the beginning rather hard and late game (maxed ship with good crew/equipment) trivial. Really hope you find a workaround for that, this mod could be incredible if you can find a way to keep gameplay challenging and interesting even when the player already has an ideal ship.

Other than that, it's great! Just keep adding more variety, more events and enemies! Suggestion: add events that can remove a large percentage of player's scrap/drones/missiles/fuel, to counteract the infinite nature of this mod, where you keep accumulating more and more goods. Or perhaps events that remove those if you have too many stocked? I don't know.

Also, is it just me or do you encounter a lot less Distress signals in this mod than in the vanilla game?
Loki421
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:34 am

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby Loki421 » Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:36 am

I created an account just to ask how do I install this mod? It's not an .ftl. I thought I could just place it in the resources folder and replace the old data.dat but that doesn't seem to work. Do I need a special version of the game or something?
aveond
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:46 pm

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby aveond » Mon Oct 22, 2012 2:37 pm

Loki421 wrote:I created an account just to ask how do I install this mod? It's not an .ftl. I thought I could just place it in the resources folder and replace the old data.dat but that doesn't seem to work. Do I need a special version of the game or something?

nope, just replace the data.dat, it'll take a while to load on the first try, so give it 1-2 mins :)
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Loki421
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:34 am

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby Loki421 » Mon Oct 22, 2012 3:03 pm

aveond wrote:nope, just replace the data.dat, it'll take a while to load on the first try, so give it 1-2 mins :)


What indications can I look for that it worked? Is the rebel chasing already turned off? I thought I had it before but then I got to the last sector and ran into the boss, and was very sad.
DrkTemplar
Posts: 245
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2012 4:24 pm

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby DrkTemplar » Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:21 pm

epeli wrote:Noticed a few typos here and there, though.
Game start event: aquired -> acquired, scarp -> scrap
New sector event: Docked -> Dock, currenlty -> currently, benificial -> beneficial, crews -> crew's, requip -> re-equip


I will fix these, thank you!

epeli wrote:And there are still some vanilla events that reference to the rebel fleet pursuing you, like a mercenary you can hire to delay the fleet and a cache that you can trap to delay them.


Correct, none of this has yet to be removed.

epeli wrote:However, there is a problem with this mod... the static ships make the beginning rather hard and late game (maxed ship with good crew/equipment) trivial. Really hope you find a workaround for that, this mod could be incredible if you can find a way to keep gameplay challenging and interesting even when the player already has an ideal ship.


This is the factor that will make or break the mod, imo. I will continue to try and balance the ships as people provide feedback. Let me know which ships were too easy, or too hard, and why.

epeli wrote:Also, is it just me or do you encounter a lot less Distress signals in this mod than in the vanilla game?


I will increase the amount that appear.
DrkTemplar
Posts: 245
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2012 4:24 pm

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby DrkTemplar » Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:23 pm

DiEvAl wrote:
Loki421 wrote:
aveond wrote:nope, just replace the data.dat, it'll take a while to load on the first try, so give it 1-2 mins :)


What indications can I look for that it worked? Is the rebel chasing already turned off? I thought I had it before but then I got to the last sector and ran into the boss, and was very sad.

In the first beacon you should get 6 extra fuel, 6 missiles, 20 drones, and 92 scrap.


Currently the amount of resources you get at the start is random, but you should see "Welcome to FTL INFINITE SPACE" in the first message that appears.
Whale Cancer
Posts: 272
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:28 pm

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby Whale Cancer » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:23 pm

I was thinking about this on the bus.

Have you considered using linked quests to increase ship difficulty? For instance, you could have an encounter with a very easy ship. When it is beaten, it triggers two quests that each lead to an easy ship battle. Defeating one of those ships triggers two quests that each lead to a medium difficulty encounter, etc., This is one way to 'fake' scaling difficulty. The amount of quests beacons that will spawn will be large, of course, but that could be part of the challenge (as it would be hard to avoid the quests as well as hard to keep track of which quests are the harder encounters).

Just a thought.
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Loki421
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:34 am

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby Loki421 » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:10 pm

Just a thought I had about a bribe system.

1. When you meet an enemy ship you are immediately given the option to offer a bribe. And it would show you what it will cost to get the enemy ship to leave you alone.

2. There is a bribe button on your screen that you can use during a fight. (I'll call it battle bribe for easy reference). The materials required for a successful battle bribe would decrease based on how damaged the enemy ship was. The thought being a ship who's taking some damage is much more willing to accept a bribe than to keep taking damage. This could also be randomized a bit so that a ship would refuse a bribe until they have taken a certain amount of damage or even/also based how long the fight has gone on. How long or how much damage could be different for different types of ship.

3. The initial bribe should be set at lower than any battle bribe. So its cheaper to take the up front bribe than to risk a fight where you might not be able afford the bribe latter.

4. The initial bribe should always be set a percentage of how much you the player actually have, so that you can always afford it.

5. The battle bribe could be set by the power level of the enemy ship. A stronger enemy ship requires a larger battle bribe. This way if you choose to fight it out you could run into the situation where you couldn't afford the battle bribe.

I was thinking everything in the game has a scrap value assigned to it already pretty much. So you could set it up in a way that you could choose to spend scrap directly or give away crew members, weapons, modifications, missiles, fuel in order to make up the required amount of the bribe.
Last edited by Loki421 on Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Whale Cancer
Posts: 272
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:28 pm

Re: [MOD][WIP] FTL Infinite Space

Postby Whale Cancer » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:25 pm

Loki421 wrote:Just a thought I had about a bribe system.

1. When you meet an enemy ship you are immediately given the option to offer a bribe. And it would show you what it will cost to get the enemy ship to leave you alone.

2. There is a bribe button on your screen that you can use during a fight. (I'll call it battle bribe for easy reference). The materials required for a successful battle bribe would go decrease based on how damaged the enemy ship was. The thought being a ship who's taking some damage is much more willing to accept a bribe than to keep taking damage. This could also be randomized a bit so that a ship would refuse a bribe until they have taken a certain amount of damage or even/also based how long the fight has gone on. How long or how much damage could be different for different types of ship.

3. The initial bribe should be set at lower than any battle bribe. So its cheaper to take the up front bribe than to risk a fight where you might not be able afford the bribe latter.

4. The initial bribe should always be set a percentage of how much you the player actually have, so that you can always afford it.

5. The battle bribe could be set by the power level of the enemy ship. A stronger enemy ship requires a larger battle bribe. This way if you choose to fight it out you could run into the situation where you couldn't afford the battle bribe.

I was thinking everything in the game has a scrap value assigned to it already pretty much. So you could set it up in a way that you could choose to spend scrap directly or give away crew members, weapons, modifications, missiles, fuel in order to make up the required amount of the bribe.


2 and 4 cannot be done in the XML as it stands. You could rig a surrender event to be like a second bribe attempt in order to do something like 2. 5 is possible but would require oodles of work.
Contribute to help save the Whales from their various diseases! *DELAYED* Should release the skeleton with the main quests attached by the end of the week (By NOV 9)! *DELAYED* Don't listen to my dates! Things always seem to come up!