Faster Than Beri (FTB) is a small mod for Faster Than Light (FTL) which adds two new ships to the game and replaces the mantis with bugbros. The mod was made as a gift for the streamer Beribug with the ships being based off of a piece of mspaint art by Beri and the mantis using her bugbro mascot design. The development of this mod was used as an opportunity to practise my sprite work and to learn about modding a game without inbuilt modding support. Fortunately the small but dedicated FTL modding community has developed a number of modding tools for the game which made the process largely frictionless.
Designing the ship layouts was a challenge as the ship sprite is rather compact which has the effect of making these ships notable weak to beam weapons as they can hit several rooms with greater ease on these tightly grouped layouts. To help alleviate this key systems were spaced apart from each other reduce the impact successful beam attacks had on a ship's fighting capability to bring it more in line with other ships. Additionally care was taken to ensure the A and B ship layouts were distinct from each other whilst still thematically tying back to Beri. Layout A is a fairly friendly and well rounded set up suitable for Beri's preferred play style. Layout B on the other hand takes it's inspiration from one of Beri's alternate, more monstrous, designs and as such is equipped with a more aggressive boarding drone and mind control ship system.
Overall I was pleased with how the mod's development went and it was positively received by Beri and her community. Similar small-scale fan projects seem like a good approach to explore different concepts while ensuring that there will be an audience that can provide their thoughts and feedback on such projects. As such it is an approach that will be used again in the future.