Hey, Kestrel A is a lot harder than Kestrel B. You’re empirically more magic than I am.
I’d be up for that. I like more B versions of ships, though. We could have user choice for version maybe?
I think it’s quite close actually. The layout of B is better, but the burst laser 2 is great until the end of the game, but the B needs a whole new weapon system.
I don’t mind doing all type B(it could even be a mix of types), but I think it’d be better if we settled on a common set of ships. So if you prefer type B, I’m cool with that. If anyone else wants to play and has a preference, speak up now.
Sure, I’d be up for that. I’d prefer the B versions, too.
You’ll probably have to spell out what an ironman competition is for me in more detail, though…
You only get one run per ship. So you can’t restart a run if it’s going badly. If you die during that run, or choose to switch to a different ship, that run counts as a loss. If you beat the boss on your single try, it’s a win. Since there are 10 ships total, at the end of (and during, of course) 10 runs each of us will have a win/loss record that we can compare. It’s just a fun thing to do with the game when starting another run can seem pointless. The next 10 runs count. I’m just hoping I’ll have at least one win to show at the end of it.
OK. Are we going for number of wins, or should we compare our scores, too? That might be more interesting with the ships it is very hard to win with, like Engi B or Stealth B.
Hmm. I’ve never really looked at the score at all, but you may have a point, and it may give something to gun for even when victory is looking impossible. So yea, sure, scores too.
We should split the challenge into another thread I think, so we can easily recruit people and lay out the rules and track progress. I’ll make it later if neither of you want to jump ahead on that. Btw, I think the overall scoring system should be something like (actual score of run) plus +1000 for beating each stage 1 and 2 of the boss, and +2000 for beating the boss. Something along those lines. Then combine all ten scores for an overall rank.
Sure, go ahead.
Are you sure you want to give that much extra weight to beating the boss, especially since a typical score for making it to Sector 8 is usually in the 3,000-5,000 range? It seems like adding 100-500 extra points per stage would be more reasonable.
Also, I take it we’re all doing these runs on Normal?
PSA: This no longer works. Leaving a crewman on an enemy ship when you or they jump away now results in loss of said crewmember. They must have patched it.
I was instead hoping for an event where if you left a crewman on a crippled ship to create a clone they later came after you with the same ship to wreak vengeance.
on that note, here’s a relatively easy feature to implement:
save a copy of your ship upon defeating the flagship and
a) have it be the hidden boss in your next go round
b) be used as some sort of email challenge you could send to your friend.
So oft wears hats thought it would be a nice thing to do this evening to play FTL in bed. Seriously, who could say no to that?
I asked him which ship I should play, and he thought I should play the Kestrel A on normal, so, OK. I made the first jump, and saw an Engi ship with a quest that I’d never seen before!
The options were “Hear him out.” or “‘No! Arm the weapons!’” So I chose “Hear him out.”
It continued–
And then he had a ring, and everything!!!
So now we’re engaged! YAY!!! Clearly, he is the right guy for me, because I had been toying around with the idea of proposing to him with an FTL quest, too. 
I spent some time exploring the blue options you can get with other systems. But stay tuned for the forthcoming reddit post with all the details!
OMG this is THE GREATEST PROPOSAL EVER.
That is the definition of adorkable. Congrats to the both of you !
Congrats! Very cool and clever idea.
Yes, very cool and everything, but can we get to the bit all the nerds really want to know…How exactly did you do it, oft wears hats? 
Thank you all for the well wishes!
Someone wrote a Python script that unpacks the data.dat file into a ton of XML and TXT files that govern game content like quests and ship loadouts. You have to edit events.xml to make a custom event (I also had to edit some other files to customize the Engi ship for the event, and the sectors file to give the event a very high occurrence rate. There’s some modding guides that explain the basic event syntax, but it’s pretty straightforward. Once the mods are done, the same script packs them back into a data.dat file.
Once I had tested the file, I waited for her to leave her laptop unattended, then I substituted my file in for hers, backed up her profile, and talked her into starting a game.
I did not need much convincing. Just sayin’.