EPTFTL: Faster Than Light - Page 13
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AntiGrav1ty
Germany2310 Posts
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Hesmyrr
Canada5776 Posts
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Ryalnos
United States1946 Posts
My best runs have typically been when I find several burst lasers (mk II is so damn nice ) + a heavy hitting bomb like a breach bomb. Bomb the shields, the rest is toast. No need to worry about defense drones. | ||
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ThaZenith
Canada3116 Posts
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Hapahauli
United States9305 Posts
From there, things can diverge based on your initial purchases. Picking up an early crew teleporter (especially on the federation ship) pretty much guarantees you a good run. I've also had a lot of success with stacking burst-lazer weapons. Also, be sure to upgrade your engine. Engine upgrades are something I neglected on my first few run-throughs, but they really really add up. Getting to about ~35% dodge aids so much with your survivability, and I always have a guy manning engines to boost my dodge rate. Getting to 50% by the endgame makes the boss a cakewalk - you won't even need cloaking! | ||
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DaCruise
Denmark2457 Posts
On October 13 2012 03:10 Hapahauli wrote: Finally starting to beat Normal a bit more consistently (every 4-5 runs or so), and I'm finding that investing really early in defensive stats is enormously important in getting through the game. My initial goals are to get my second shield point ASAP (first 50 scrap ideally) followed by banking 100-120 scrap. Saving some scrap really early in the game can make or break a run if you run into a well-stocked shop. From there, things can diverge based on your initial purchases. Picking up an early crew teleporter (especially on the federation ship) pretty much guarantees you a good run. I've also had a lot of success with stacking burst-lazer weapons. Also, be sure to upgrade your engine. Engine upgrades are something I neglected on my first few run-throughs, but they really really add up. Getting to about ~35% dodge aids so much with your survivability, and I always have a guy manning engines to boost my dodge rate. Getting to 50% by the endgame makes the boss a cakewalk - you won't even need cloaking! I always neglect engines. Its my last priority to upgrade. I´d rather have 4 shields, 7-8 in weapons and a drone or two. I also prefere cloak, teleporter and good augments over engines. That said I always have a guy in the engine room. Priority in systems goes like: pilot, engines, weapons, shields. But in the end there are so many ways to beat the game and having sick dodge rate is prolly 1 of them. However I would like missiles to be a little more usefull. As of now lasers, beams and bombs are simply way better than missiles. | ||
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Tal
United Kingdom1017 Posts
Hitting a decent dodge percentage transforms battles. Yeah, missiles do kind of suck. It's mostly because bombs can't be shot down, and are more cost effective at doing what everyone always wants (destroy systems while bypassing shields). One fix would be for bombs to use a separate, scarcer ammo, so that using them was more of a commitment. About smarter AI - it would make it too hard if they smartly focus fired, but they shouldn't be dropping bombs on empty rooms. Having said that, I do sometimes feel certain ships (ones with ion weapons and drones?) focus fire on my shields, but maybe I'm just unlucky. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11686 Posts
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FractalsOnFire
Australia1756 Posts
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BrTarolg
United Kingdom3574 Posts
On October 13 2012 01:13 Hesmyrr wrote: I'm pretty sure after you learn all the gimmicks, one can reliably pull off normal victory ~25% of times at minimum. I know I said it before but I really wish AI learned how to handle some weapons better (I definitely have no problem with random targetting, but they should learn to fire their weapons at the same time if they lack firepower to penetrate the shields individually. Also the exceptions should be made for bombs so they don't explode uselessly on systemless rooms.) While making the game more challenging, I truly believe this change is important because current immediately-fire-upon-charge model makes at least half of the battle a bore and formulaic. Everyone knows they have to be careful of missile carrying guys while those relying on beam weapons are a joke. Of course there are indeed case of severe mismatch where one can't scratch their foe no matter what but you shouldn't be allowed to sit back and relax if the enemy ship in combination have enough fire power to inflict some damage. Enemy boarding AI is worse - their utter predictability and lack of variation/strategy makes responding to them completely textbook - but that's thing for another matter. What I am saying is the option to toggle on slightly (this word is key since having too much might become frustrating) improved AI to make battle more engaging would be appreciated by the veteran players since it'll help to lengthen the games longevity more and reduce some of the repetitiveness. You can manipulate the AI using good airlock management to move them into the room you want to | ||
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gameguard
Korea (South)2132 Posts
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Kerotan
England2109 Posts
On October 15 2012 21:02 gameguard wrote: nice game but its seriously lacks replayability. Its too easy to achieve that first victory. After a while you just lose interest. O_O I have not won the game at all yet. Anyways, if you playing to win then you are doing it wrong, its about every single engagement, creating a story, where every jump you are faced with difficult choices, and things that can either hamper or help you. I still remember my mantis shield operator Felicity, and pair of elite rockman boarding hit squad. I think that since the experience is so fleeting it adds to narrative. | ||
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Pwere
Canada1557 Posts
Started as the Kestral type B, aka the Red-Tail. That ship starts with 4 basic lasers, which as you might know, is the shittiest weapon in the game. I visited over 10 stores, but they never had a good weapon or attack drone. I ended up with two breach missiles, one heavy laser, one shitty laser, and a beam drone. The only upgrades I had was a shield booster. In desperation, I maxed my teleport and medic bay. I only had one mantis and one rock suited for fighting, the rest were two zoltans, one engi and three humans. Tough times ahead, but everything's possible with a diversified crew working together towards a common goal. With one basic laser and a heavy laser, there is no way to bypass shields, but I only had 13 missiles before the boss, and between defense drones and dodges, it looked quite bleak. However, for the first phase, teleporting into the weapon rooms neutralizes most of the threat. Once that was done, all I had to do was teleport into the pilot room (to lower his dodge %) and fire missiles into his shields. One missed, but a 3rd shot was enough to bring them down. It was then time for the beam drone and shitty lasers to clean up. The 2nd phase was the hardest and required all that diamond league SC2 APM (it's over 90.00!!) Basically, the plan was to beam into the weapon systems, cloak the power surges, and then beam crew members into the enemy ship. Micro the weak ones around, hope that 45% dodge + maxed shields/booster holds the power surges between cloaks, teleport and heal, and learn the AI fighting patterns to maximize damage output. Eventually, my guys leveled up and had enough DPS to damage systems. The play is to always keep at least one crew member in the room so that the damage meter is never reset, and keep one guy running from the wheel to the engines to keep 2-3 enemies occupied. I eventually sent the shield and weapon guys as well, and after half an hour, the defense drone shut down. I fired my missiles into the shield room and waited. They both connected and breached, with four missiles left for the last phase. Third phase is a joke with a cloak system. Usual teleport into gun rooms, teleport into pilot room, fire missiles into the shield room and beam back. I finished the 3rd phase with two missiles remaining, about half of my hull, and all crew members accounted for. Jon the Mantis is now the kill leader (28), skill points leader (6) and is apparently dating Felicity, the legendary shield operator. Rodel the Human has the most evasions (645), most jumps survived (113), and has been nominated for the highest awards a Pilot can receive. When we left our glorious crew, they were seen partying in the Oxygen room, intoxicated on nothing more than adrenaline, post-victory euphoria, and whatever a fully upgraded medical bay has to offer. Duncan the Rock, sober despite his best efforts, took that opportunity to message his new friends, met along the way, who apparently had a hard time parking their 20,000 ton Bulwark in a typical Federation Hangar bay. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11686 Posts
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humblegar
Norway883 Posts
Found the glaive first actually, then got some crew, and then finally a teleporter. The small bomb is incredible, if I had to change anything it would be another mark ii laser at that first spot. Turning off autofire and manually timing laser+laser->glaive or bomb->laser->glaive is pretty nasty. Both killing ships with one shot from the glaive, or alternatively boarding while the defense drone kept me safe saved me a lot of scraps. Some fights I had to fire everything I had to get the medbay red before I could make any real progress. I remembered turning autofire off this run, think I would have gone insane had I lost another elite mantis boarding crew to ftl or my own glaive. Notice my hull and lack of cloak :p + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://tnypic.net/sowe3.png) One rockman was left on the flagship as the glaive finished the job, my killer mantis team was relaxing in my med bay :p | ||
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humblegar
Norway883 Posts
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dabom88
United States3483 Posts
On October 15 2012 21:02 gameguard wrote: nice game but its seriously lacks replayability. Its too easy to achieve that first victory. After a while you just lose interest. Unlocking all the ships is where the replayability comes in. | ||
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FFGenerations
7088 Posts
had some cool runs with stuff like 2xdef2 2xburstlaser3, but was dying a lot to fires, o2 & lucking out losing crew members this run was amazing, ion blast 2 (starter) 3x anti ship drone 1 drones cost nothing augment (even managed to replace this a sector or so before the end boss) glaive beam (not needed!!) 4 shield ~45% evade cloak 1 8 awesome crew rock skin augment (15% chance of null hull dmg) ship healing augment most beautiful setup i could have imagine >< (saying that the end ship got me from max to just 7 hull - the problem was i didnt over-spend in Systems so when they got hit by missiles etc suddenly i had no weapon/drone penetration/cloak.) i havent done a teleporter run yet. i just unlocked a rock ship in that run too :o | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
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Fyrewolf
United States1533 Posts
Started with the federation ship a, and bought a teleporter first early in the first sector and found another mantis crew pretty fast. Focused on shield and engine upgrades first, and boarded almost every ship I met to kill them. Ended up with way more scrap and upgrades than I knew what to do with. The only upgrades I didn't have were 2 weapons, 1 engine, 1 pilot, and 1 door upgrade. Never bought drone control or cloak. When I finally did upgrade weapons after sector 6 I had the starting burst laser 2, heavy laser 2, and the small bomb. I have a new appreciation for the bombs now, they're really good for weakening system and crew without killing the ship for boarding, even though I didn't get them until late. Final boss barely even touched me every phase, went in with less than half health and never went to red. Bombed the pilot to keep him from dodging, took out missiles/ion, teleported my maxed uber boarding party in, and when they ran away kept bombing the medbay. Second phase I kept my boarding party to fight off the boarding drones while I bombed their drone control, which set their ship ablaze, and tele to take out the missiles again. Third phase power surge got through a few times, but finished him off quick. Almost never used the artillery beam all run(not enough power/boarding) All of my crew made it out alive (1 rock, 1 human, 3 engi, 2 mantis, and 1 zoltan). Managed to get the quests and unlock both the stealth cruiser and the zoltan ship on this run. Really looking forward to trying both of them out soon. Every run of this game always brings new surprises and challenges, still finding new events after dozens of hours playing. | ||
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