!!!SPOILERS!!! Nebula unlocks

[ZaneWolfe]

Finally completed the last nebula scenario, and got the Shadow Battleship. As expected this beast is force to be feared by all. But I ran into something really annoying in the end. By the time I had finally gotten the Battleship, I only had the second ability for the Human and the Zenith hulls, and none of the 3rd or 4th abilities. I feel that I didn't do that badly in the nebulas, but I only ever got the 2nd ability unlocks well after I had Cruiser hulls, and even then only two of them. So my request is for some info. What are the unlock requirements for each of the nebula scenarios?

Secondly, I started noticing near the end that I was getting less and less modules. Near the start I could get 2, sometimes 3 of them at once, where later on I only ever got one. At first I started thinking that I was running out of modules to unlock, but then I noticed there were several I had gotten on previous games that I never got in this game. This could have been caused by my performance getting worse, but I also think that it was running out of certain types of modules to give me. I noticed that human scenarios always seem to gve modules that the human hull can use. Same with the others. They only give out those moduls that their hull can use. I confirmed things by completing one more scenario after getting the Battleship. As expected, it was a duplicate, this one of the mining group and the pirates. Once I completed it, pretty easy with a Spire Shadow Battleship, I didn't get a single module, even though I knew I didn't have all of them. Specifically, I was missing the Plasma Seige heavy mount at the very least. Perhaps things can be widened a bit more, so that if it can't give you a module for the same hull type as the race you helped, that it will give you one from one of the others that you don't yet have?


Edit- Marked it as Spoilers since I am asking for info that isnt widely available.

[keith.lamothe]

There actually aren't 3rd and 4th abilities yet; not sure I'll have time for them for 6.0.  In general most people just burn their capacitor on projected shields (unless playing neinzul) so it isn't a big lack right now

[Hearteater]

Do you already know what they will be?  Because if not...

Teleport: Moves the Champion and nearby ships to target location (same system only), breaking friendly units free of tractor beams (but dragging tractored enemy ships).

Blackhole: Drags all nearby enemy ships to the targeted point instantly (or over a few seconds) and the acts as an gravity well reducing the speed of nearby enemy units to 8.

Override: Instantly reclaims all reclaimable enemy ships near the targeted location (up to a maximum of 200 ships; prefers higher marks).

Shadow Fleet: Spawns half-a-cap of zombie Mark IV Fighters for the player at the target location.

Mimic: Spawns a duplicate of target unit.  Does not work on fleet ships.  Duration of duplicate between 10 and 120 seconds, depending on the size of the target (Motherships lasts 10 seconds, Golems in the 30-60 seconds range, Starships last 120 seconds).  Doesn't work on AI structures.

Spawn Swarm: Target friendly Starship is destroyed, and a cap of zombie Nanoswarm Younglings appear in its place with the same Mark as the Starship.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Shadow Gate: Create a shadow warp gate that pulls in all units produced for the next several minutes. The warpgate collapses after 200 (scales with unit cap?) units warp in. Warped in units suffer very little paralysis time.

Shadow Decoy: Places an invulnerable beacon on current planet. This beacon will draw any attacking AI forces straight to the planet that it's on, and will put any nearby planet on alert. The beacon vanishes after a short time.

...all tapped out. 
Might be a little bit off balance wise too but don't worry 'bout that.

Edit:

Shadow Flare: Vessel emits a flare, which, while present, will drop enemy ship speed and effective range to half. The flare device is destructible, and will destroy itself after a set amount of time as well. Don't concern yourself with how a shadow light would work.

Shadow Bomb: Vessel stops for 30 seconds of charge time. After the charging is completed, a cluster of extremely powerful area-of-effect bombs is fired at all enemy ships in range, including structures. If the vessel is destroyed beforehand, the energy spent is wasted.

Shadow Field: A draining field is created at a target location. Enemy ships within it are attritioned, and the vessel's hull is repaired from the damage dealt. In addition, any allied ships in the field will be repaired.

I feel like if I type the word shadow one more time I will lose my mind.

[Faulty Logic]

Shadow signal: call in resistance (normal humans as per the core game minor faction, or nebula allies).
Shadow missile: spawn aip-free warhead (far less effective than actual warheads).
Shadow warp disruptor: for one minute, interplanetary ai structures only work on their planets.
Shadow IFF scrambler: target ships briefly become enemy to all.
Shadow grav destablizer: temporary planetary speed effect.
Shadow cannot_think_of_good_name: provides supply to current system temporarily.
Shadow stealth generator: temporary version of the planetwide cloaker.
Shadow logistics disruptor: temporary enemy supply denial.
Shadow minefield: self-descriptive.

Lots of potential here, for post-6.0 updates.

[Mánagarmr]

A wild suggestion spam appears!

[Hearteater]

Seemed to make sense, given the Keith, Chris and the rest of Arcen seem to have so much free time, 20-30 community suggestions are the perfect thing to occupy all that copious down time.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't mind   Often 90%+ of suggestions cruise right on by without being used, only to be picked up later.  I think 6 or 7 of the 9 bonus types in AS were pulled from mantis records of suggestions, some of which were actually migrated from the old suggestion forums.

[LaughingThesaurus]

So it will take approximately decades for you to even vaguely get caught up with suggestions... assuming you meticulously considered and implemented (or rejected) each one?

[Orelius]

Shadow shadow: allows the shadow frigate to produce a shadow

Shadow shadow shadow: allows the shadow frigate's shadow to produce a shadow

Shadow shadow shadow shadow: allows the shadow of the shadow frigate's shadow to produce a shadow

Shadow shadow shadow shadow shadow: the massive amount of shadow produced by the shadow frigate and its shadows, shadow's shadows, and shadow's shadow's shadows melts your graphics card, causing the AI to cease function, winning the game.

[ZaneWolfe]

Well, you having not actually having coded the extra abilities means that I'm not just sucking I guess. Well since that question was answered so promptly I will have to repoke for the answer to the other. What are the unlock requirements for the various different scenarios? IE, what goals, beyond the obvious ones of simply solving them successfully, do you need to meet to get how many unlocks?

Secondly, given what you are saying about not having any extra abilities beyond the attack booster and the tachyon put in, I think expanding the rewards more would be a good idea. If early on I am getting 2-3 modules every nebula, assuming I am doing as well each time, I should be getting 2-3 in the latter ones as well correct? Is it just running out of modules from that hull type so its giving me less overall? Or is it designed to scale back the rewards later? As I said in my first post, I know at least one nebula that I finished and didn't get a single module despite, IMO, doing very well. And I knew I had not gotten every single module yet.

Edit- I had one last question. Is there another planned scenario? A few leading up to the final, and to a point the final itself, seem to imply there is a hidden shadow tech super weapon that could be used to end the war. I was getting all pumped after I beat the last one and got the battleship, expecting another alternate win condition like with the FS, but then I hit the beta duplicates and it felt like a big let down. While the Shadow Battleship is by no means weak, given the right setup and modules it can tear some waves appart just by itself, it didn't feel like the game ending weapon that was being hinted at. Maybe its just me, and I misunderstood some of the journal logs, but I was expecting it to end with something truly epic. Like finding the Shadow Spire race and watching them unleash their version of the Super Dreadnaught upon the AI.

[Cinth]

I think I know some of this

What are the unlock requirements for the various different scenarios? IE, what goals, beyond the obvious ones of simply solving them successfully, do you need to meet to get how many unlocks?

There are 9 unique scenarios. Some scenarios are set to come after you get upgraded hull sizes or just after you have some more modules.

Secondly, given what you are saying about not having any extra abilities beyond the attack booster and the tachyon put in, I think expanding the rewards more would be a good idea. If early on I am getting 2-3 modules every nebula, assuming I am doing as well each time, I should be getting 2-3 in the latter ones as well correct? Is it just running out of modules from that hull type so its giving me less overall? Or is it designed to scale back the rewards later? As I said in my first post, I know at least one nebula that I finished and didn't get a single module despite, IMO, doing very well. And I knew I had not gotten every single module yet.

There are 4 abilities. You will find the other 2 on the Neinzul hull. You get no more than 2 modules for completing a scenario. Actually this is best served with an example.
Say you just completed EER vs Sorrow's Fang (Green humans vs Purple humans).
Valid unlocks for this scenario would be the Human shadow ship (but you start with it!!) and any module that would fit on the human shadow ship. If you have all the modules for the human shadow ship, then you don't get any modules. There wouldn't be a valid one to give. If this was your 2nd or 5th scenario then you would unlock the next hull size.

Edit- I had one last question. Is there another planned scenario? A few leading up to the final, and to a point the final itself, seem to imply there is a hidden shadow tech super weapon that could be used to end the war. I was getting all pumped after I beat the last one and got the battleship, expecting another alternate win condition like with the FS, but then I hit the beta duplicates and it felt like a big let down. While the Shadow Battleship is by no means weak, given the right setup and modules it can tear some waves appart just by itself, it didn't feel like the game ending weapon that was being hinted at. Maybe its just me, and I misunderstood some of the journal logs, but I was expecting it to end with something truly epic. Like finding the Shadow Spire race and watching them unleash their version of the Super Dreadnaught upon the AI.

The battleships are monstrous. Let's not overlook that you also gained several ships to add to your fleet and m,c,e that the factions add to your coffers. And you get to control some awesome Dyson Gatlings and the Enclaves are there too

[Vitka]

Shadow shadow: allows the shadow frigate to produce a shadow

Shadow shadow shadow: allows the shadow frigate's shadow to produce a shadow

Shadow shadow shadow shadow: allows the shadow of the shadow frigate's shadow to produce a shadow

Shadow shadow shadow shadow shadow: the massive amount of shadow produced by the shadow frigate and its shadows, shadow's shadows, and shadow's shadow's shadows melts your graphics card, causing the AI to cease function, winning the game.

His Divine Shadow - gives you ability to nuke planets with your shadow ship, makes you lose game when you do this to AI homeworlds, because prophecy.