FTL: A space based roguelike

[Wingflier]

Really?  What build do you use fire in?  I can't seem to make it work with the Kestrel

[keith.lamothe]

Saw a Fire Beam once.  Looked scary.

[chemical_art]

I was thinking of 3 new augments that would make the game more interesting and open up some new playstyles:

Missile Manufactory - Expensive. Produces 1 missile every jump.

Explanation:  In the game's current state, it's unrealistic to have more than 1 "missile" or "bomb" weapon equipped at a time, because you'll run out of ammunition too fast.  This is actually quite sad as I'd like to see more strategies available that use 2 or even 3 weapon slots equipped with missiles.

1 jump per missile may be a bit much (It'd pay for itself after 3 sectors, idk what the rate is for the scrap arm's average? Maybe it is not too much.) but once every other jump would be neat at the very least. One game I did use a 3 missile setup with a boarding party. The alpha strike from the missiles would disable most of the ship and the boarding crew would prevent any recovery. Knocking out shields and the pilot drive (with the 4th weapon a laser weapon which pounded the shields so they don't recover) was devastating, but was only used sparingly, not as a first resort.

Advanced Targeting Augmentation - Reduces your chance to miss the enemy ship by half.

Explanation:  Many weapon strategies (such as the one I explained in my last post) operate on a very tight and efficient cycle, which requires you to hit your enemy every time (or at least more often than not).  Against some ships such as Fighters, this can be a huge hassle, and you may simply lose the game as a result of luck.  This Augmentation would make some strategies better but still seems relatively balanced.

Neat. Still, if you hate the idea, pound the pilot drive and cut their evasion but at least half, if not completely.

Teleportation Inhibitor - Reduces the amount of enemies the opponent can send onto your ship and/or makes the cooldown between each "teleport" much longer.  Also slightly increases the miss chance of teleporting "bomb" weapons.

Explanation:  Teleportation seems to be the only strategy I've used so far that doesn't have any glaring weaknesses (for your or the computer).  There's also the massive bonus of the extra scrap and utilities you get if you simply kill the crew.  This would be a interesting way to put it in line with the rest.

Just FYI, the zolton super shield completely stops teleports, so if you face one without a weapon (common in early game boarder ships) you are simply out of luck. This applies to the ai as well, any boarding attack must wait till the ai pop pops 8 pointish shield, allowing you time to disable their teleport if you fear it or allowing your own boarding team to slam first. Still a neat idea.

[chemical_art]

Saw a Fire Beam once.  Looked scary.

Fire beams are scary...unless you have any shields...fire beams are completely nullified by a lvl 1 shield...

Now fire bombs? That's where it is at. Hit the med bay, warp your team at the weapons, the enemy crew is torn between stopping you now and dying as their medic bay is destroyed and uninhabitable, or leave you to disable the weapons and then hit the shields so your beam / laser weapons bomb the medic bay directly.

Comparing fire to missiles or direct damage weapons, I view fires as "bleed" weapons. If you put them out quickly they aren't a threat, but when out of control they grow to prevent repair for almost a minute, so I view them best when used with boarding parties usually where the crew can't converge to put them out quickly, so they grow and form a second crisis for a crew.

[zebramatt]

When did that EVER happen though? Where is this coming from? They told people for weeks they were taking time off, and they have never been hostile about suggestions. Look at their getatisfaction page for instance.

Maybe you are misreading fanboi rage as dev stupidity?

I'm mostly facetiously misrepresenting their response - I thought that was obvious!

I received several boilerplate responses about them not responding to improvement ideas as they did during beta; having no plans to make updates to the game at this time; and the surprising popularity of the game meaning the two of them don't have time to respond to ideas.

Which is all very reasonable, except that they obviously adopted a policy of using that response in all cases in the Ideas section of the getsatisfaction. Even if the reason a thread had been updated (by me and/or others) was just to say, "This idea you developer chaps have said you'd quite like to see in the game, if you get round to it - I reckon that would be awesome."

I maintained from the outset that my actual, genuine interpretation was that they'd been a little swamped and were dealing with it best they could, and have every intention of further enhancing the game once they've had a chance to take some time out to take stock!

But I can certainly understand how some folks have been led astray by their PR. If your first experience of the company is being 'fobbed off' with a 'stock response' when all you did was agree with something from the beta period, then I'm not surprised that on the internet, where people react all kinds of crazy to all kinds of treatment, it rubbed a few people up the wrong way.

(Although not me, mind you. I'm just trollin'.   )

[Mánagarmr]

Saw a Fire Beam once.  Looked scary.

Two burst lasers (alternatively ion bombs) and fire beam. Serve well cooked.

[keith.lamothe]

I wonder if there's an achievement for killing an auto-drone (no O2 on board) with fire

It'd be pretty funny if there was some kind of bomb that added oxygen to the target room, for boarding those auto-drones...

[icepick37]

I'm mostly facetiously misrepresenting their response - I thought that was obvious!

Should have been, haha. There's just SO MANY new folks on their forums now I've seen plenty of (12 yr olds?) with this exact attitude, so I was hoping to sate my curiosity of how they even GOT this idea, haha.Which you actually accomplished pretty well.

Well back to trolling I guess.

HOW DARE THEY NOT LISTEN TO MY TOTALLY UNIQUE IDEA THAT ONLY I HAD. What do you mean every other person who played this game?

[Wingflier]

I wonder if there's an achievement for killing an auto-drone (no O2 on board) with fire

It'd be pretty funny if there was some kind of bomb that added oxygen to the target room, for boarding those auto-drones...

Haha I consider auto-drones the only thing that make the "boarding strategy" remotely balanced ;p and even then...

[Hearteater]

You can heal bomb your boarders on a drone .

[Mánagarmr]

You can heal bomb your boarders on a drone .

Or use a lvl 3 teleporter and bounce them back and forth before they suffocate.

[keith.lamothe]

Or use a lvl 3 teleporter and bounce them back and forth before they suffocate.

Yea, that's usually what I do.

I tend to be frugal with bombs due to the missile ammo thing, but that's probably due to my second game where I was running missile-heavy and ran out.

[zebramatt]

In my most recent game, I got all excited when I saw a firebeam in the shop. Set me back 70 scrap. Next fight I got into I got torn to pieces... I think maybe I should have spent that scrap on more engine upgrades...

[zebramatt]

You can heal bomb your boarders on a drone .

Or use a lvl 3 teleporter and bounce them back and forth before they suffocate.

Also, I was sad that I couldn't beam my crew straight to sickbay! Level 4 upgrade for the teleporter, anyone? 

[Mánagarmr]

Also, I was sad that I couldn't beam my crew straight to sickbay! Level 4 upgrade for the teleporter, anyone? 

Use the Mantis B cruiser. It has the Four Man teleporter door-to-door with the medbay