Faster Than Mods blog - Admiral_Nemo

Faster Than Mods

So it happens that a game I own on Steam called Faster Than Light has mod support. Naturally, any game that has spaceships and easy mod tools is just begging for me to mod it.

So why not start with some ships I've already made:

Naturally I started with the Athena. The Athena battle refit is a perfect fit for this game being both heavily armed and yet small enough to fit the screen of the game.

At this point I should probably explain a little what the game is about. It is a space exploration game where the point of the game is to outrun the rebel fleet with their invasion plans (sounds familiar?). You, as part of the federation however also have the obligation to cause as much havoc around in the universe as you possibly can as well as interfere with daily life wherever you can, yes, this game is a lot like Star Trek.

Partially the appeal of the game is however micromanaging your ship. You have the ability to act as a sort of overlooking god (or HAL 9000 if you will) where you can send crewmen to their deaths while doing all you can to protect your ship.
An example of such a situation would be having a fire in the aft cargo bay, now you could just send a crewman over with a fire extinguisher but that means risking the lives of your precious crew. Usually the favorable action in such a situation would be to simply open the cargo bay air locks and let the vacuum of space deal with the fire.
Having this sort of classic sci-fi approach to space exploration is probably the best thing about the game. Going back to mods for a bit though.

Here is The Bronco, a fierce vessel with an impressive crew. This was proving to be the main challenge of modding the game. How do I make all these huge ships in FTL form without making them extremely overpowered in game terms?
Well, I suppose I kind of failed there. This ship in many ways is quite overpowered especially with upgrades.

Even so, I as the maker of the mod have no responsibility whatsoever to make these mods "fair" to the game... nope.... non at all...
Moving on to this last little ship:

If you're at all familiar with my spacecraft (which I do not expect you to be) then you will no doubt recognize this as an M-class Explorer. This is the M60 A.C.E turned into what I would say is the smallest possible ship in the game. Engines, Life support, Weapons, Shields and the pilot have all been shoved into their individual little square rooms. This ship with a standard crew of 2 is by far the most fun ship I've made so far. Sure it's a challenge but with an impressive arsenal this ship can hold its ground while dodging just about anything fired at it.

So what else is new? Not much really. The Steam summer sale robbed me of probably 60 or so gigabytes of space.
This does mean I got some great games though. This list includes Alan Wake, Hitman: Absolution, Primal Carnage, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider (2013), Max Payne 3 and more.

About Max Payne 3, the only game of those other than Primal Carnage (really fun) and FC3: Blood Dragon (overrated) that I have actually got installed and played. It is a fantastic game, showing that Rockstar studios all over the world can still produce that level of professional games where so many other major developers fail.
The writing, story and acting is all top notch. The gameplay is... well in comparison adequate but good nonetheless.
Is it a personal favorite of mine? Not really, however I admire the game for how well made it is and that's something I rarely say about a game.
On a sidenote, 30 gigabytes for 9 hours of gameplay? Couldn't you have scraped of maybe 1/3rd of that Rockstar so I could keep some of my SSD space?

Ok, so that's it for this blog. Have a nice day!
Admiral Skeybar