Just thought some of you on TeamLiquid would be interested in a game like this...
What is FTL? FTL is a spaceship simulation roguelike-like. Its aim is to recreate the atmosphere of running a spaceship exploring the galaxy (like Firefly/Star Trek/BSG etc.)
What is the gameplay like? The game is split into two major parts: exploration and combat. You explore by making faster-than-light jumps over vast distances in space; arriving at locations containing text-based events that have a variety of choices and outcomes. Your crew will improve with experience, while your ship can be upgraded with advanced weaponry and equipment purchased with collected scrap metal. Fighting enemy ships involves real-time management of crew, power distribution and weapons. Check out the video on the front page to see it in action.
As of now, FTL has 36 hours left on its kickstarter campaign to help fund development and is being developed by two ex-2K Game guys. If some of you are interested, you can back the project and for only $10 they will give you a DRM-free copy of FTL (can be redeemed through steam as well). I was wondering if anyone was already a backer and tried the OnLive Demo?
Sorry to bump, but just noticed this game, and its super interesting, and recently watched the guys from idlethumbs podcast doing a livestream of it, ( http://blog.idlethumbs.net/post/29222455334/idle-thumbs-plays-ftl-faster-than-light ), and recent news from the website says they are releasing the full game mid september! i cant wait! A Space roguelike? yes please!
FTL is being released in 14hrs! surprised there arent more posts in here, the game looks great, anyone into space, or roguelikes should be all over this. Too bad to price point yet as far as i know, im expecting 10$, w/e the price tho, going to support the little guys on this one, and will be a good pass time while i also have Black Mesa dloading as well
Sorry to bump this once again, but the game is now on Good Old Games website. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/faster_than_light/ 8.99$, no DRM, and no need to wait for steam version which is in like 4 hours! im not that patient, going to be playing this while Black Mesa is downloading in an hour. I think this game deserves more love, but regardless, GG GL people.
On September 14 2012 23:03 rebuffering wrote: Sorry to bump this once again, but the game is now on Good Old Games website. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/faster_than_light/ 8.99$, no DRM, and no need to wait for steam version which is in like 4 hours! im not that patient, going to be playing this while Black Mesa is downloading in an hour. I think this game deserves more love, but regardless, GG GL people.
On September 14 2012 23:03 rebuffering wrote: Sorry to bump this once again, but the game is now on Good Old Games website. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/faster_than_light/ 8.99$, no DRM, and no need to wait for steam version which is in like 4 hours! im not that patient, going to be playing this while Black Mesa is downloading in an hour. I think this game deserves more love, but regardless, GG GL people.
Does the GOG version come with a Steam key?
I dont beleive it does. Which kinda sucks. but im ok with it, although i think if you order directly from ftlgame.com, it says something about a steam redeemable key or something.
My god, i just spent 3 hours straight playing this lol. Truly amazing game IMO. So refreshing.
My last playthrough went something like this :
Name my 3 crew members with names of my friends. I started out helping out at a distress beacon, killing a pirate ship and saving some civilians. One asks to join my crew, hell yeah i say. So now, ive got 1 on pilot, 1 on weapons, 1 on engines, and the extra member on shields so they replenish faster. After killing a few ships, and throwing down some scrap for some upgrades, i travel to some random star. Well, its a massive star, ejecting solar flares at me, my FTL engines are on cooldown, and theres a pirate ship there, saying "If were going down, youre coming with us" or something to that effect.
I aim for their weapons systems, direct hit. Awesome, they cant shoot me now....too bad they can still teleport on my godamn ship! with some nifty little micro, my 4 crewmates live, even though they took a beating. Now, i finish off that pirate ship. But those solar flares are raping me now. Theres fires all across the ship, i try to open the outside doors to eject the O2 so the fires stop, but those pirates who came on my ship, disabled my automatic door locks. Now im putting out fires, while trying to repair the door systems and shields as well so i can stop taking hull damage. But shit gets out of control, too little to late at this point. Fire in the O2 room now, its almost over. Dave and Jordan try to put out the fire in the O2 room, but fail, and die in the fire. Just Marc and the civilian left now, waiting as the fires kreep up into the medbay. Its over. All dead. After 10 mins of insane panic and damage control, it wasnt enough. Sorry crew. We failed.
EPIC GAME!! anyways hope you liked the story, for 10$, this game is easily worth the money.
I have been playing it pretty much since I got it, It can be a ton of fun, as well as frustrating, I had an awesome ship going, I got to sector 5 I think, then I ended up dieing because I got in a tough fight near a sun and my engines kept getting disabled so I could not flee :/
It's fun for a while, but imo for a roguelike it's also almost not challenging at all. The hard parts in the game are only hard because you were not lucky enough to find enough stuff earlier (imo this game seems to depend on luck a lot). The rest becomes repetitive incredibly quickly, and the combat is incredibly easy as well.
Also it seriously lacks content. After 2 hours or so of ingame time, you have essentially seen everything, with all other things you find after that only being variations of stuff you already know.
I heard there's a boss in the end but I didn't play that far.
That said, the game is still fun simply because it's kind of a novel experience, but it's not worth $10 imo.
After nine hours (NINE HOURS???) of playtime I finally made it to the final sector in my kestrel but got violently denied in the second stage of the boss fight. The boss sends out like hundreds of attack drones, making it impossible to keep all the systems up. Funny thing is though, after I died I just immediately started a new character. For a non-respawn game, dying isn't so bad :O
I got two horizon beams and an ion cannon 2 and I still couldn't beat the last boss with the zoltan cruiser, attack drones just destroyed me, too many Humans on my ship ._.
This is awesome. Reminds me of a couple rougelikes I found on a disk of bazillion games(seriously, there was hundreds) my grandma gave me. I finally beat the last boss after 53 tries. Flying around in my Federation Cruiser now.
And playing on easy is a hundred times less frustrating than normal. On normal you're praying for a 1 in 10 run that you get a string of easy encounters while finding decent stuff and not losing crew/hull to random events.
Great game, been playing it all day. Gotten halfway through sector 5 three times, but keep getting owned. I refuse to play on easy. Off the top of my head:
Some tips from stuff I've learned: -Long range scanners (30scraps) are very good, they let you avoid asteroids, stars and ships. -Burst your weapons to get through shields, don't just autoshoot on recharge. -Power down medbay for extra power when you don't use it. -Don't buy Drone Control (80 scraps) unless you already have a schematic ready (and enough scraps for power soon-ish), or you risk getting something you don't need, plus it needs 2-4 power per drone, anyway. -You can sell gear you don't use. -If you play the first ship, don't spam missiles, they are quite the precious commodity and are very expensive, only use when you need to take out a system or really need to kill the enemy. -Always keep the same crew on their respective systems so they level up. -If shit hits the fan, you can afford to not repair O2 system for a long time. It can go below 20% before it is an issue.
Stuff I'm unsure of: -Not sure yet whether it is better to get 3 shields or try to dump more scraps into weapons to destroy stuff faster. -I usually try to take out their weapons first, not sure if it necessarily is the best way to go about it. -It seems like only one crew can man a system at a time. -Not sure how good it is to dump scraps into engine for 5% evade per point.
I really wish there was more control over random encounters. I mean, yeah, you need to weigh the risk/reward of doing quests and stuff, but some of the events just boil down to being a 50/50 chance, which really sucks. I also kinda wish the rebel fleet wasn't always pressuring you from behind since the amount of scrap you reap varies wildly from run to run, but I guess they didn't want to make the game too easy.
So far, my most successful runs have been with the Kestrel Type B. The crew complement on that ship is just amazing in the early game, and 4 lasers is sufficient to punch through pretty much everything in the first few sectors. After acquiring a better weapon (I've had success with Hull Laser II, Heavy Laser II, and Burst Laser II, but stuff like breach/ion bombs work well too), one of the starting lasers is replaced so that I can actually stand a chance against 3 shield ships.
The sensors upgrade is actually amazing. Being able to target crew directly yields a lot more scrap in the long run, I find.
Stuff I'm unsure of: -Not sure yet whether it is better to get 3 shields or try to dump more scraps into weapons to destroy stuff faster. -I usually try to take out their weapons first, not sure if it necessarily is the best way to go about it. -It seems like only one crew can man a system at a time. -Not sure how good it is to dump scraps into engine for 5% evade per point.
It depends. On one hand, having good shields means less damage (especially vs burst lasers). On the other hand, you really need good weapons to kill stuff in later sectors, and they always seem to have annoying shield bypass weaponry. In the end, I'd prioritize killing them over defense, as taking out weapons is the key to avoiding damage in a lot of the later fights. Of course, I'd really prefer having both...
Target weapons until dangerous systems (missiles, bombs, and burst lasers, for instance) are disabled. If they can't punch through your shields, you can do whatever you like to them. However, if you are having trouble hitting their ship, target shields (decreasing shields means you get more chances at actually dealing damage), or target the helm/engine to reduce evade. Or just run. Generally if you can't hit them, it means you're losing anyways.
One man per system is correct.
Evade is amazing. If you reach 20% base evade and have a master pilot (+10%) and master engine (+10%), when you activate cloak, you'll have 100% evade. Evading stuff is always good, especially for things like ions and missiles.
-The hull repair drone is very useful. You can use it after encounters and thus don't need to power it simultaneously with other systems. Buying drone parts will give you more hull points per scrap than straight repair, and many will drop from events anyway. -IMO shields/engines/cloak are top priority. The game is about staying alive and minimising scrap loss to repairs. If you can get 3-4 shield early enough you can do entire sectors without getting hit by anything but missiles. -You can unlock ships and do achievements in easy mode, and use the unlocks in normal mode. -The game is very random. Some games will be much harder than others, hang in there. + Show Spoiler +
-It is crucial to have missiles ready for the end boss. You cannot disable its systems quickly enough if you have to go through shields first. In stage 1 focus the missile launcher, in stage 2 focus the drone control, in stage 3, a cloak is extremely useful for avoiding the secret weapon.
I think this game is incredibly fun and definitely worth it's price. The one thing I'd like to see though is more customization options for my starting crew, such as different character sprites besides the basic male/female. To make my guys more unique and more personal to me :3
On September 17 2012 11:09 PaqMan wrote: I think this game is incredibly fun and definitely worth it's price. The one thing I'd like to see though is more customization options for my starting crew, such as different character sprites besides the basic male/female. To make my guys more unique and more personal to me :3
That feeling when your crew is named after your friends and they all die.
I really hope they add support for renaming hired crew.
if i bought this game on steam is it possible to redeem it elsewhere as a downloadable? I just want to be able to have it on a pen drive and play it randomly etc
I would love to see them do an alternative story (or many) as an addon or something. From what I heard, they made a lot of money with their kickstarter so I'm hoping they'd be willing to chuck in some more content over time.
Best $9 I've spent on Steam in a long time. So far I've run through it about 15 times and the farthest I've gotten was just past the first stage of the Boss fight, and that was with the Torus. Only tried the Zoltan Cruiser once and it was a lot of fun. I enjoy trying to maximize the beam weapon's damage by hitting 4-5 rooms in one blast. Stealth ship is very entertaining to use, have to stay really active in battle, but I can't get past sector 5.
FUUUUU, miscalculated boss ship trajectory and reached it on 0 turns remaining. >.< Broke a pen in anger.
An Ion cannon shoots very fast and levels your gunman incredibly fast (plus it's useful to lock down enemy weaponry). Maxlevel in sector 3. Had two of them by sector 6 and could easilly lock down 4 systems of the enemy ship while my anti-ship drone I slowly kills them. :D
My biggest gripe is probably the lack of weapon sales. Sometimes you get some weapons fast and sometimes you just dont have anything for several sectors. Would be nice if all stores always sold some weapons/drones.
On September 18 2012 02:05 Gorsameth wrote: My biggest gripe is probably the lack of weapon sales. Sometimes you get some weapons fast and sometimes you just dont have anything for several sectors. Would be nice if all stores always sold some weapons/drones.
Still a lot of fun tho.
The best laid plans of mice and men....
That is part of the fun though, forced into tough decisions, a good weapon or more crew, buy fuel or missiles. I've really been enjoying this game after finding it on kickstarter and wistfully hoping it could come out one day, later finding it was released the day I had found its months old kickstarter. The zoltan cruiser is ballin' but I'm still having trouble dealing with the boss, still working on getting the other ships.
YES i just beat the damn thing! and without save game copying! (well admittedly, i made a copy before engaging the final boss for the last time because i had been out for a few hours and thought just in case, but didn't need it :D) god this game is so good, i'm so high right now just by finally winning xD 17 hours played total and just now managed to beat it
for those that want to know, did it with the default Kestrel Cruiser layout A.. had burst laser 1 and 2 plus a heavy laser 1 plus a fire beam combined with weapon pre-igniter augment. warp in, instantly fire a volley of 7 or 8 or so laser shots at the enemy, that usually gets one or two shots in but it basically always manages to at least knock out all shields and then draw the fire beam over four to five rooms. shoot another laser volley if there is enough time and if not go into stealth before taking damage and wait for fire beam to reload. The initial burst dps is pure gold.
So lucky i could max out stealth and get engines on 8 and get 3 shields. very very good. and going pure lasers is so helpful if you encounter a lot of these stations that trade like -15 missiles / drone parts for +45 scrap because you don't need any ammunition at all. So much less to worry about.
WOW. Layout B of the Mantis ship is imba once you get it going. And it's not even the hardest ship to unlock (or maybe I got lucky?) either.
Why? 4 men teleporter. Once you get 2 extra mantises, you dismantle every enemy's crew from the inside out. Don't care about their shields, just teleport everyone in! If they are rocks (slow to defend) and it's a 4 grid weapons room, 4 experienced mantises gets the weapons down to yellow before it even fires a shot. One small bomb to take out the med bay when injured enemies go to heal (which kills them at the same time), and a healing missile. Starts hard since you only have 2 mantises, but once I had that full set up, every ship became a joke (Zoltan shields are a pain though). You also get more scrap this way, so I could fully upgrade shields and dodge by the end.
Took me 3 tried in this ship before I beat the final boss (still some strategy refining needed), but once you know the tricks, even that's pretty simple. Teleport in men to kill and disable the weapons one by one (again, pretty quick because teleporter doesn't care about shields), and in stage 2 the drone system as well, stage 3 it becomes an AI ship so I just leave 1 mantis in each weapon to repeatedly destroy it whenever it gets repaired. Here's my most amazing discovery: stealth system allows you to dodge power surges! I try to buy it every playthrough now. Stage 2 power surge is completely dodged by just 2 levels in cloaking, while stage 3 power surge is dodged by just a level 1 starting cloak. Final boss no sweat lol, with a hull repair drone I ended with almost max health.
Finally beat this god damn game last night with the kestrel
I had 2 burst laser mk 2's and a ion cannon.
I think in general you basically need 2 things to beat the game
a> stealth. Although it's not 100% required, i can't really think of finding ways of surviving the drones in stage 2 otherwise. Even ignoring that, stealth is amazing for dodging the first few rounds of missles which is sorely needed. b> some way of doing damage after having mitigated damage.
I think it's OK to actually have a weak laser blast, and tanking damage is OK because you shold have level 3 shields and missiles should be your first priority anyway, which you should have by stealth.
Since i only had 7 shots (including ion) and you would expect a good few to miss every round, but i had enough shields + stealth to tank every wave, i actually just ended up shooting the cockpit. The reason why is once the cockpit is damaged your accuracy becomes 100% (enemy evasion to 0%), so i'm garuanteed 3 damage every round from that point on, and i just have to survive (easy with stealth)
I also had maxed out engines with masters on both engines and pilot which is very useful
Wow I finally beat the final boss ... my ship and the stage 3 ship exploded at the same time. Thought I had lost but I got the victory screen!! Got me hype!
i had max cloak since 2nd map but it was my first time doing it so i didn't know about it and cloaked at the start (usually the best way) by high defense systems u mean high dodge chance or 4 shields? i had 3 shields
Cloaking at the start is never the best way, you should cloak to dodge the first scary attack they do. Usually this is some sort of rocket or large blast laser. And those 8 drones are only there for 1-2 shots, so it is possible to survive it without cloaking, but you will do some damage. Also, the final ship does not turn AI when you don't kill all of their crew, so i'd suggest just letting the laser guy (second from left) alive.
In my last playthrough, i had shield 3, engines about 6 or so, cloak 2 and a defense drone. That ship just couldn't touch me, ever. I think i finished at 80% hp.
Also, everyone should try to get a 2 mantis boarding troop. You can capture so many ships with that easily, and thus get a lot more scrap, and sometimes even extra weapons from them. Just teleport in a 2space room with one guy in it, and as long as they are not mantis themselves, they need more then 4 crew to deal with it. Blow up their medbay when one of them goes there with missiles or bombs, and you can capture just about any ship.
Ho? Pure cloaking is obviously not a good idea endgame, because you can't disable their weapons in a single cloak. Early game it works pretty well. Later, you want shields and cloak, but i still don't see how it is a gamble. You activate cloak when they launch the first thing that you want to dodge, and then the fight rarely lasts long enough for a second cloak to be relevant, unless you have a pretty bad weapon layout or they have zoltan shields, which of course can happen.
I'm pissed, I just blew up a ship by accident after I teleported my ass kicking mantis death squad aboard to take it. I miscalculated the hull damage I would do trying to soften up their crew with lasers
It's doable without cloak but make sure you're maxed on shields and engine then. And you should have some good firepower too. Lasers are pretty good, I'd avoid beams unless you know what you're doing, missiles and bombs are both okay, though bombs are probably better because they won't get intercepted by the defense drone in phase 2. Note that it's a Defense drone mk2, so it'll shoot lasers, so if your only option is to weaken the shields with a missile, try to sloot everything at once, the lasers will come first and get shot by the drone, and the missile should come right after (as it's slower) and get through. Ion bombs are incredibly powerful and quite cheap and require only one energy to operate. I highly recommend getting one if you have trouble with the boss.
Just started a new game with the engi ship and had 3 enemies appear onboard my ship in the first sector i jumped to. The enemy ship had 2 bars of shields which meant it took ages to kill, what with my ion cannon getting unlucky constantly. The 3 enemies tore through my ship and I ended up losing a crew member before finally winning the battle.
Pretty hilarious how fast things can go wrong for you in a randomly-generated game.
Oh my god Man of War is so fun to use. Firebomb + Breach oxygen all day. Put the dual lasers on their weapon and chill out, casually bio beaming them until they suffocate.
On September 18 2012 16:30 ChezGod wrote: Wow I finally beat the final boss ... my ship and the stage 3 ship exploded at the same time. Thought I had lost but I got the victory screen!! Got me hype!
Finally defeated the boss, on Easy, but still. My ship was the Engi Cruiser / Torus with:
Ion Blast II Burst Laser II (not beam)
Anti-Personnel Drone Defense Drone II
Shields at 6 (3 blocks) Navigation/Engine at 6 (same amount as shield) Maxed doors, Pilot, Gunner, Engine and Shield crew member all maxed No cloak
Due to bad luck with the map and boss ship positioning I was not able to use any repair station but luckily I had a Hull Repair drone and 7 drone parts left and was able to get my hull to about 80%.
I dodged half the fire, the defense drone got most of the rest and what came through usually did not penetrate the shields. I focused the third weapon (from the left) with my Laser (those missiles hurt a ton) and kept the Ion Blast on his shield room. As a result, the amount of incoming damage to my hull was low and the crew (one mantis, mostly Engi) + personnel drone managed to hold off any boarding party.
I slowly wittled through the boss' shields until eventually shots start bleeding through and the Ion Blast keeps the shields down, firing very quickly at 4 seconds (19% faster due to crew member). My Lasers were aimed at his weapons, which are separate rooms (atleast in my engagement) and thus did not recieve repair once they were down. This worked for all three Phases, the defense drone played a crucial part I think in holding off all the fire.
I came across an Engi quest in (I think) sector 3, asking me to go somewhere and fight Mantis. I found the Mantis ship, which was manned by Rebels and destroyed it. Engi's rewarded me with the unlock.
Not bad for a ship that nearly died on its first jump, where I ended up on top of a sun and getting boarded in combo with a nasty solar flare, setting fire to half the ship with the O2 down. Luckily Engi's repair quickly enough and the nano med drones kept them alive! On to Normal!
This game is incredibly fun. I've beat it once on normal so far with a dual breach 2 dual burst laser 2 kestrel. That combo is really powerful. I've been streaming the attempts so far. If you like rogues, this is a great place to blow $9.
the combat is kind of flawed. if you have a breach weapon, hitting shields or weapons (usually shields first, allowing you to hit weapons with normal weapons) greatly swings the fight in your favor, whereas the AI just aims at random rooms on your ship ...
On September 19 2012 11:31 a176 wrote: the combat is kind of flawed. if you have a breach weapon, hitting shields or weapons (usually shields first, allowing you to hit weapons with normal weapons) greatly swings the fight in your favor, whereas the AI just aims at random rooms on your ship ...
Which makes it possible to actually beat the game, at least on easy.
Get cloaking lvl 2 (lvl 3 if you have stealth weapons augmentation) Get weapon pre-igniter Get 2 burst lasers (6-10 shots) Get 1 bomb, I recommend regular bombs, not ion bombs
You'll come out of FTL, take out his weapons and/or shields, fire another volley, then cloak while he fires. By the third volley you should be in firm control of the fight without having taken pretty much any damage.
I was completely surprised by this game but since it seemed like an amazing concept (basically, the best way to make a Star Trek-like game) I tried playing it, and it's awesome. First game I lost immediately (more or less second place I went to was by a red star and an enemy ship... while I was able to beat the enemy ship, the star constantly started fires on my ship which destroyed my engines... I tried to repair them, but at that point my whole ship was burning so I had to use the doors to get rid of the oxygen, which was fine to get rid of the fires but my pilot was harmed from fixing fires and couldn't get back to the cockpit (because of lack of oxygen) so there was no way out. Hell, just reading through that proves what an awesome game it is.
My second game is going very well so far, I'm in my second Engi sector, I already unlocked the stealth ship... I realize the game will get harder soon, but at the moment I'm doing perfectly fine with my shield having 2 layers (so pretty much nothing gets through) and my laser + anti-ship drone easily lets me take out enemy weapons quickly. Will get much harder when enemy ships get better shields.
Does anyone know if the devs have said anything about DLC, Expansions, Mods or anything? I can see this game just getting deeper and better constantly.
On September 19 2012 20:31 Tobberoth wrote: I was completely surprised by this game but since it seemed like an amazing concept (basically, the best way to make a Star Trek-like game) I tried playing it, and it's awesome. First game I lost immediately (more or less second place I went to was by a red star and an enemy ship... while I was able to beat the enemy ship, the star constantly started fires on my ship which destroyed my engines... I tried to repair them, but at that point my whole ship was burning so I had to use the doors to get rid of the oxygen, which was fine to get rid of the fires but my pilot was harmed from fixing fires and couldn't get back to the cockpit (because of lack of oxygen) so there was no way out. Hell, just reading through that proves what an awesome game it is.
My second game is going very well so far, I'm in my second Engi sector, I already unlocked the stealth ship... I realize the game will get harder soon, but at the moment I'm doing perfectly fine with my shield having 2 layers (so pretty much nothing gets through) and my laser + anti-ship drone easily lets me take out enemy weapons quickly. Will get much harder when enemy ships get better shields.
Does anyone know if the devs have said anything about DLC, Expansions, Mods or anything? I can see this game just getting deeper and better constantly.
I don't know about DLCs or such, but i would love a multiplayer mode where everyone controls his own part of the crew, maybe with bigger ships.
Been trying to get to the secret sector to get both the achievement for the rock ship as well as unlock the crystal cruiser (last ship I don't have). I've done like 30 runs and only gotten the pod 7 times, but never found the rock homeworld for the final bit. It's gotten to the point where I backup the save of any promising looking map since even just looking at most of the map layouts I get in sector 1, most of them are impossible to get to the sector on /rant
On the 30:th playthrough I finally beat the boss, on normal in the kestrel.
I was gonna attempt the cloaking strategy, and pretty early in the game I found a weapon pre-igniter. I had to sell both my advanced sensors augmentation and my burst laser to afford it but pretty soon I found a burst laser mk III and in the end I had one of each burst laser (I, II and III) for a total of 10 laser shots straight out of jump. I don't actually see how you beat the boss without cloaking to avoid his power surges. The two other times I reached the boss I succumbed to his drones in stage 2.
I was about to resort to lowering the difficulty but thankfully I didn't have to.
I can not beat the second stage of the final boss. I've gotten there so many times with the normal kestrel, but I always get raped by droids. Any tips for beating the boss, I've even tried on easy, just can't beat it.
Also, so far I've unlocked the Engi and Zoltan ships. What is the best way to go about getting the rest? Are any significantly easier to get than the others?
On September 18 2012 23:00 Simberto wrote: Ho? Pure cloaking is obviously not a good idea endgame, because you can't disable their weapons in a single cloak. Early game it works pretty well. Later, you want shields and cloak, but i still don't see how it is a gamble. You activate cloak when they launch the first thing that you want to dodge, and then the fight rarely lasts long enough for a second cloak to be relevant, unless you have a pretty bad weapon layout or they have zoltan shields, which of course can happen.
I am saying 'gamble' as in considering the involved luck factor of saving enough scrap and then you need to meet the right store to buy Stealth system, or sometimes you see some good but expensive weapons in store I'd rather grab that instead.
On September 20 2012 03:57 DoomBox wrote: On the 30:th playthrough I finally beat the boss, on normal in the kestrel.
I was gonna attempt the cloaking strategy, and pretty early in the game I found a weapon pre-igniter. I had to sell both my advanced sensors augmentation and my burst laser to afford it but pretty soon I found a burst laser mk III and in the end I had one of each burst laser (I, II and III) for a total of 10 laser shots straight out of jump. I don't actually see how you beat the boss without cloaking to avoid his power surges. The two other times I reached the boss I succumbed to his drones in stage 2.
I was about to resort to lowering the difficulty but thankfully I didn't have to.
haha grats! I was in easy mode and when he hit me with power surges i just repaired everywhere like a mad man. I just need to make sure my weapons and hull repair drone are working.
haha just beat it with engi ship layout B xD The initial guy, an engi by the name of Enzo Martin, did not die the entire journey and now holds the record for most jumps survived at 109 ^^
at some point i had almost 600 scrap banked x.x that was fun upgrading, maxed out my power generator and still couldn't power everything at once.
Remember that the first incarnation of the final boss ship has 4 weapon bays that can't be repaired, if you shoot those you take out almost all dps, saving hull for later.
On September 21 2012 05:52 Valashu wrote: Remember that the first incarnation of the final boss ship has 4 weapon bays that can't be repaired, if you shoot those you take out almost all dps, saving hull for later.
you can visit the free repair stations between the phase fights. The label disappear once you've been there, but if you memorize their positions and fly back they will repair you again. Unless the rebels have taken over the beacon or the flagship has passed over it you can use the stations again and again.
i beat the boss with engi ship on easy. my first playtroughs were so much fun but now it seems like all you need is luck after learning the mechanics. i reached the boss on normal few times but i didn't find the items i want on the way
Made it to the last level with the best setup I've had so far. Full crew of various races . Full ranked pilot, engine, weapons, and shield. Tearing through 4 shield rebel cruisers without taking more than 2-3 hull damage. Accidentally jumped to where the Mothership currently was instead of where it was going. Game over...Mothership got too close to the base...
Cool fun game. Very addicting. Kinda hate restarting (Normal krestal sux so much), but I love the way my two different ships feel & act. Hopefully more content is produced for this game
On September 22 2012 14:05 Bswhunter wrote: Cool fun game. Very addicting. Kinda hate restarting (Normal krestal sux so much), but I love the way my two different ships feel & act. Hopefully more content is produced for this game
The type A Kestrel is pretty good, in my opinion. Burst Laser II has an excellent damage/power ratio, and is good enough to see you through to the endgame with proper support. Artemis missiles pack a good punch as well, and they're incredibly useful for minimizing damage in the early sectors. If the type A Kestrel has a weakness, it's boarding parties. Three human crew is a bit lacking in firepower, but it's nothing that can't be solved with some combination of venting, the medbay, and blast doors.
I do prefer the type B more though. The crew complement is amazing, and 4 lasers gives you awesome firepower in the early game. It's also very easy to customize your weapon setup when each laser only requires 1 power.
Finally won (on easy). Felt like crew transporting & cloaking won me part 2. I had to pause and reallocate power a lot, but I managed to shut down the firepower and then I could slowly break through the 4 shields he had, THEN go after the drone section. I imagine an ion weapon would help with this part as well, but I've never used one really.
Had 4 humans, rock, slug, engi + burst 2, heavy 2, heavy 1, pike.
Didn't feel OP or anything, barely won, but I won!
Tried to start win run 2 with the Zoltan ship I unlocked and... yeah. Fire in the med bay. No way to open the ship doors to the outside on Zoltan ship. Can't put it out once its 4 squares. Eventually whole ship on fire. Haha... T_T
Tried to start win run 2 with the Zoltan ship I unlocked and... yeah. Fire in the med bay. No way to open the ship doors to the outside on Zoltan ship. Can't put it out once its 4 squares. Eventually whole ship on fire. Haha... T_T
I believe you can turn off your O2 and let the fire burn itself out. Also probably a good idea to put people outside the room to stop the fire from spreading. Just remember to turn your O2 back on after!
Oh man this game is fun, first play through and I'm not sure how to spend my scrap wisely, I seam to sink a lot into upgrades and spend a lot on rockets and fuel at the shop, can't get any new crew or drones up
On September 23 2012 11:12 Fzero wrote: Finally won (on easy). Felt like crew transporting & cloaking won me part 2. I had to pause and reallocate power a lot, but I managed to shut down the firepower and then I could slowly break through the 4 shields he had, THEN go after the drone section. I imagine an ion weapon would help with this part as well, but I've never used one really.
Had 4 humans, rock, slug, engi + burst 2, heavy 2, heavy 1, pike.
Didn't feel OP or anything, barely won, but I won!
Tried to start win run 2 with the Zoltan ship I unlocked and... yeah. Fire in the med bay. No way to open the ship doors to the outside on Zoltan ship. Can't put it out once its 4 squares. Eventually whole ship on fire. Haha... T_T
As Baske mentioned, fires will eventually burn out when they use up the oxygen supply. Turning off the oxygen generator isn't even necessary in most cases, though it will help. Also, it might be worth putting some scrap into door upgrades, since they'll slow the spread of fire.
On an unrelated note, upgrading ship systems makes them harder to blow up. This is especially useful for door controls since it reduces the chance that you'll be utterly screwed if an enemy hits it with a shot while you're venting stuff.
On September 23 2012 12:31 Scaramanga wrote: Oh man this game is fun, first play through and I'm not sure how to spend my scrap wisely, I seam to sink a lot into upgrades and spend a lot on rockets and fuel at the shop, can't get any new crew or drones up
The key to FTL is to maximize scrap usage in upgrades, weapons, and crew. In other words, try to reduce the amount of scrap spent on things like fuel and missiles.
So, on the last boss, he can't break my shield and I can't break his. I could leave my computer and come back 12 hours later and neither of us would be dead, what do?
What, don't you have a teleporter? You gotta have a teleporter man it makes the final boss so much easier. The weapon rooms are practically designed to be taken out with teleporter.
Edit (I was too vague). Once you take out the weapon rooms in phase 1 and 3 you're free to do whatever you want. I go for a lvl3 teleporter every run so I can get 4 guys into the boss asap. Knock out the weapons, knock out the crew, knock out the shields, recall your guys and kill the boss. Even in the 3rd fight when the ship is taken over by AI you're still free to break the shields/weapons with your crew then recall back.
Yesterday I managed to get to the final boss for the first time (on normal). Had the standard ship, my standard weapons plus a second triple laser thingy, three shields and a cloaking device. I managed to get to the end with just that, to my surprise, and even win the first two boss-phases. But then I had less than half of my hull left and no more repair beacons. I fought valiantly in the last boss-phase, but those multi-laser thing just outright killed me. Dang.
The game is lots of fun, but there's two things to criticize here. First, the randomness is at times a bit too random. I know that it's supposed to be a rougelike game and all, but still. Sometimes the first ship I fight has two weapons and two attack drones and outright kills me, or I get an enemy ship early on with four weapons and a teleporter with two of those mantis guys coming over, and there's just nothing I can do. It can be a bit frustrating having a pretty good ship, and then have it utterly decimated in just one round.
The other thing is that, for a rougelike, the game is kinda short and has a lack of options. I know most random encounters by now and know what to do, I know most enemy ships and their weapons, and I'm slowly beginning to feel like I'm just going through the motions now. I'm really hoping the developers don't consider the game finished and will instead gradually update it with more content. Anyone here happens to know if they ever made an announcement in that regard?
All in all, though, the game is definitely worth the money.
Yeah this game needs to be way longer with a little more content, still really fun, im trying to get through in the engie ship but am struggling hard at the beginning to survive trying not to buy fuel, when im close to running out its too late to find a store due to limited amount at each store, still trying to find the right balance
On September 23 2012 17:00 Probe1 wrote: What, don't you have a teleporter? You gotta have a teleporter man it makes the final boss so much easier. The weapon rooms are practically designed to be taken out with teleporter.
Edit (I was too vague). Once you take out the weapon rooms in phase 1 and 3 you're free to do whatever you want. I go for a lvl3 teleporter every run so I can get 4 guys into the boss asap. Knock out the weapons, knock out the crew, knock out the shields, recall your guys and kill the boss. Even in the 3rd fight when the ship is taken over by AI you're still free to break the shields/weapons with your crew then recall back.
I did have a teleporter (level 3) which was why he couldn't break my shield since I disabled his weapons, but I couldn't beat the crew they would simply run and heal at his lvl 3 med bay before I could kill any of them, and then finally he cloaked at a bad time and I lost my only mantis and then I gave up.
You need some way of dealing with level 4 shields, of course. But there are so many of those in the game that it should not be problematic. You absolutely need one out of Rockets, Bombs, Ion Cannons and multiple Blastlasers. This allows you to take out strategically important systems on the boss. Probably shields, or that medbay you mentioned, exactly when they are running there at low hp. How did you even get there with no way to break his shields? You meet level 4 shields before then.
Also, simple hint but many people forget it: Concentrate fire, don't use auto-fire.
If you have 10 shots in your lasers but they shoot at different times, you waste all your firepower on shields. Wait until everything is charged, then unload it at once.
I spent most my time boarding ships to maximize scrap, I never had a problem with all the other ships because the didn't have like 10 crew members who could cycle in and out of a lvl 3 medbay. It was bad planning on my part to not to have a way to beat lvl 4 shields, I realized in like sector 7 but it was too late by then.
On September 23 2012 17:00 Probe1 wrote: What, don't you have a teleporter? You gotta have a teleporter man it makes the final boss so much easier. The weapon rooms are practically designed to be taken out with teleporter.
Edit (I was too vague). Once you take out the weapon rooms in phase 1 and 3 you're free to do whatever you want. I go for a lvl3 teleporter every run so I can get 4 guys into the boss asap. Knock out the weapons, knock out the crew, knock out the shields, recall your guys and kill the boss. Even in the 3rd fight when the ship is taken over by AI you're still free to break the shields/weapons with your crew then recall back.
I did have a teleporter (level 3) which was why he couldn't break my shield since I disabled his weapons, but I couldn't beat the crew they would simply run and heal at his lvl 3 med bay before I could kill any of them, and then finally he cloaked at a bad time and I lost my only mantis and then I gave up.
On September 23 2012 17:22 Conti wrote: But then I had less than half of my hull left and no more repair beacons.
the repair beacons keep working even if the "repair" text disappears. they only stop to work when they were either consumed by the rebels or the flagship flew over them, but otherwise they keep working. you just have to memorize their positions to find them again.
On another note, anyone knows how the score is calculated in this game? Oo i had a 5500something run yesterday with the rock cruiser, and just now i had the most epic run ever with close to 3000 scrap collected, had almost 1500 cash at one point and upgraded to this thing before the last boss phase:
[brag]normal difficulty of course ^^[/brag] but then when i beat him only got 5083 points Oo so apparently collecting all the scrap in the entire universe and upgrading your ship to max on essentially every single system doesn't score very well.
Heard alot about this game, watched a couple of vids, saw one with TB narrating it, and made it sound surprisingly fun. Its only $10, so I'll give it a shot.
On September 24 2012 10:52 Scaramanga wrote: I got through a run on normal but at the end I only had a Ion blaster and the starting lazer for the first ship, couldnt do anything
It is a fair bit luck dependend. Sometimes you just dont anything good at stores/encounters and you have no chance of winning at all. Fortunatly games tend to not last all that long so you can just keep trying.
Use the rock ship every time to increase chances of getting damaged stasis pod, and have been able to consistently get one every playthrough. But THEN finding the Zoltan researchers to fix the pod is another story. Only happened once, got the crystal dude and it was pretty cool boarding with him. And THEN you gotta be lucky and have a rock homeworld coming up (which did not happen on that one time I unlocked the stasis pod). Reading the walkthroughs, there's an unmarked random node in the rock homeworld that you have to stumble upon. Screw this, I got assignments to do...
On September 25 2012 01:12 NotBillMurray wrote: This morning, beat it easily with Burst III, Burst II, Heavy 1, and Ion Bomb. Wrecked his shit before he could even kill me.
Before this I've been trying to go double Ion double Halberd, but man the above loadout just cleans right through him.
The ion bomb is fucking amazing. You can pretty much clear the boss with it and any other decent weapon.
Use the rock ship every time to increase chances of getting damaged stasis pod, and have been able to consistently get one every playthrough. But THEN finding the Zoltan researchers to fix the pod is another story. Only happened once, got the crystal dude and it was pretty cool boarding with him. And THEN you gotta be lucky and have a rock homeworld coming up (which did not happen on that one time I unlocked the stasis pod). Reading the walkthroughs, there's an unmarked random node in the rock homeworld that you have to stumble upon. Screw this, I got assignments to do...
Finally reached the boss on normal with my federation cruiser for the first time but misscalculated his route so it was game over even though I kicked his ass in phase 1. Pegasus missile on shields followed by that charging beam + burst and hull laser is a deadly combo. You can certaintly beat the boss without ion bombs.
Use the rock ship every time to increase chances of getting damaged stasis pod, and have been able to consistently get one every playthrough. But THEN finding the Zoltan researchers to fix the pod is another story. Only happened once, got the crystal dude and it was pretty cool boarding with him. And THEN you gotta be lucky and have a rock homeworld coming up (which did not happen on that one time I unlocked the stasis pod). Reading the walkthroughs, there's an unmarked random node in the rock homeworld that you have to stumble upon. Screw this, I got assignments to do...
Is the secret ship particularly good?
I'm just an OCD completionist T.T I've already unlocked every other ship, and type B's for 6 out of 8 of those. Still trying for that secret ship, still no success. I've got to temporarily uninstal this game before exams.
Sometimes RNG in this game is funny. Playing Kestrel B type (the one with 4 basic lasers as starter), first event gives me Weapon Pre Igniter (all your stuff is charged at start of fight). I'm like ok, this will be catwalk. Yeah, no. Till sector 6 i haven't found ANY weapon apart of 2 bad rockets. Shops were full of crewmembers and drones, but weapons, nah.
Bought 2 Burst Lasers before end boss and my mantis crew was op, but wow RNG is RNG.
Still best 10 euro i've spend on game since long time.
I'm waiting for someone to come up with AI mod that fights with actual strategy, it will be dubbed 'hardcore' mode and no one will be ever able to beat it.
Can anybody explain to me what I'm supposed to do against the second incarnation of the boss??? (with the drones)
4 straight times that thing has just buttraped me mercilessly. I beat the first incarnation without taking a single hit and yet this one just kills me in a second.
I use double DEFII drones and yet i still end up with like 2 assault drones and 8 breaches in my deck simultaneously and then there's like a power surge and four thousand attack droids are on me and every single system is failing and I go from 100% oxygen to -50% in 20 seconds because of the aforementioned breaches.
I try to fight the assault drones with my (maxed out) mantis dudes but HURR there's no air so I can't do anything
I just don't get what tactic you're supposed to use with the boss.
Even when I take out the drone control with my missiles I still get those random 5 or so drones attacking me.
On September 29 2012 00:51 ShloobeR wrote: Can anybody explain to me what I'm supposed to do against the second incarnation of the boss??? (with the drones)
4 straight times that thing has just buttraped me mercilessly. I beat the first incarnation without taking a single hit and yet this one just kills me in a second.
I use double DEFII drones and yet i still end up with like 2 assault drones and 8 breaches in my deck simultaneously and then there's like a power surge and four thousand attack droids are on me and every single system is failing and I go from 100% oxygen to -50% in 20 seconds because of the aforementioned breaches.
I try to fight the assault drones with my (maxed out) mantis dudes but HURR there's no air so I can't do anything
I just don't get what tactic you're supposed to use with the boss.
Even when I take out the drone control with my missiles I still get those random 5 or so drones attacking me.
I always rely on cloak to dodge the power surges, but it is still really hard.
Cloak helps immensely in the second stage. Activate it right when the drones start shooting and it'll generally last long enough to mitigate most of the potential damage. Taking out drone control does not prevent power surges.
On September 29 2012 00:51 ShloobeR wrote: I use double DEFII drones
That's the problem. Two def2 drones is 8 power. Which is absolutely ridiculous with extremely limited effect as far as I'm concerned. I prefer having 4 shields, 55% dodge and full weapons. I don't think I have used a single drone in my "serious" runs, ie. not playing a certain style and sticking to it. To get past phase 2 you basically have to fuck the boss up really quickly. Get his shields, then get his drone control thing. Repeatedly. Try to kill some crew in phase 1 so his repair effectiveness is lower. Try to kill more during phase 2. A big volley of lasers on a room with people repairing a module should do the trick. Also, don't forget cloak. It's a life saver. With 4 shields and 55% dodge, the power surge thing won't do anything pretty much, if you still get hit a lot, cloak and you'll be fine.
You can run a 4 shield double drone ion bomb ion cannon 2 fire beam with drones combo. My last run i had 2 antiship mk2s and a defense mk2, just toggle which ones are active based on whats going on. Dont need dodge or cloak when they have no crew and everything is shut down or on fire
On September 29 2012 00:51 ShloobeR wrote: I use double DEFII drones
That's the problem. Two def2 drones is 8 power. Which is absolutely ridiculous with extremely limited effect as far as I'm concerned. I prefer having 4 shields, 55% dodge and full weapons. I don't think I have used a single drone in my "serious" runs, ie. not playing a certain style and sticking to it. To get past phase 2 you basically have to fuck the boss up really quickly. Get his shields, then get his drone control thing. Repeatedly. Try to kill some crew in phase 1 so his repair effectiveness is lower. Try to kill more during phase 2. A big volley of lasers on a room with people repairing a module should do the trick. Also, don't forget cloak. It's a life saver. With 4 shields and 55% dodge, the power surge thing won't do anything pretty much, if you still get hit a lot, cloak and you'll be fine.
on my first attempt I was at 50% dodge with 4 shields and power surges still raped me
One def drone 2 is very useful, 2 are probably overkill. Every time i had even one of those active, not a single breacher drone landed on my ship successfully. Shut down his rocket gun first, then focus the drone control. As other said, cloak during power surges.
Has anyone managed to win with the stealth ship? For the life of me i can't figure out how. With no shields i end up spending way too much on repairs tobe able to afford things.
On September 29 2012 03:13 iGrok wrote: Has anyone managed to win with the stealth ship? For the life of me i can't figure out how. With no shields i end up spending way too much on repairs tobe able to afford things.
You can buy shields for 150 scraps at a store.
I´ve gotten to phase 2 twice on normal but I didnt have any ion weapons, which makes phase 2 really hard.
Is it just be or is boarding extremely good in this game? I mean there's so many benefits to it, more scrap, a lot easier to get the teleporter than specific weapon/drone layouts since its cheaper and more readily available, doesn't cost drones/missiles, only costs 1 power and nearly unstoppable.
Like no matter what starting ship I use I eventually turn to a two mantis + teleporter combo. The only time this has backfired on me is when I relied on it so heavily I couldn't get past 4 shield + lvl 3 medbay the boss has.
On September 29 2012 03:13 iGrok wrote: Has anyone managed to win with the stealth ship? For the life of me i can't figure out how. With no shields i end up spending way too much on repairs tobe able to afford things.
The stealth ship is really good because you can basically take zero damage for ages if you are careful, especially with the two absolutely amazing starter weapons (best in the game imho)
In fact, i advocate no shields until near the end really, you should go for a weapon layout that can basically alpha strike everything
Honestly keep the two starting weapons pretty much forever, maybe upgrade to a pike beam/burst laser II later on. Whats more important is getting a bomb of some sort, it really doesn't matter what kind. Just something to nuke their shields with so your weapons can wreck everything else.
The only thing that is really problematic with the stealth ship until you get shields are ships with offensive drones, and those zoltan things which need 1-2 salvae to get through the enhanced shields. The combination of both can cost quite a lot of hull points.
On September 29 2012 09:03 Coriolis wrote: Honestly keep the two starting weapons pretty much forever, maybe upgrade to a pike beam/burst laser II later on. Whats more important is getting a bomb of some sort, it really doesn't matter what kind. Just something to nuke their shields with so your weapons can wreck everything else.
I think you'll probably ditch the mini laser for a burst weapon later on since it's hard enough getting the enemy shields down
Also only 3 weapon slots Even a burst laser 3 + bomb + dual laser should be good enough though. It is kinda tough dealing with 1 less slot, esp on the second stage A sys bomb makes things WAY easier
You dont need cloak to beat the final boss (i never get that show up in shop zzzzzzz), you need some nice upgrades of engine to dodge missile and enough crew member to repair. Some hull repair and anti-personal drones would be very nice too.
Ah, finally got the secret ship after like 50 attempts. Had to cheat by looking into the dat file and see which events occur in which sectors. So that I can find an optimal path, or give up if the map looks unfavourable. Some advice if you don't mind being spoiled:
First, you gotta get the Damaged Stasis Pod, which is in Rebel, Pirate, Engi and Rock controlled sectors. It will show up as a distress beacon, and Long Range Scanners will not detect a ship there. Then, you need to bump into the Zoltan research facility, which only occurs in Zoltan and Engi worlds. If you have Scanners, this node shows up as nothing. And yes, if you are in an Engi sector, you can get both step 1 and 2 done if you are lucky. Finally, you need go to the rock HOMEWORLD, then find a random unmarked node (which scanners will show nothing) and select blue option. After this, you are in the crystal world, and you actually have a handy quest marker (about time lol). Go to that, and you unlock the Crystal ship!
Been playing with the crystal ship layout B. Holy crap it's fun. No starting weapons. 4 men teleporter. 3 crystal crew. Enouhg said. Teleport into their weapons room, then lock it down so they can't do anything. Move to the next room, more lockdown micro, etc. Asteroid and AI ships are a pain though, until you get weapons and more crew.
On September 29 2012 19:45 BurningSera wrote: You dont need cloak to beat the final boss (i never get that show up in shop zzzzzzz), you need some nice upgrades of engine to dodge missile and enough crew member to repair. Some hull repair and anti-personal drones would be very nice too.
The best combination I had was using 1 missle (one of the good ones), one bomb (the small one) and a 2 mantis hit squad to kill everyone on the main deck until there was no one left to repair shields. Then busted it up, activated a single laser drone and waited it out with everyone back at home repairing. If you kill everyone in the first encounter, they won't be back by the second and third one.
Id suggest letting the guy manning the second weapon from the left alive, its just a triple laser, so if you have shields 3, it does not do anything, and it prevents the ship from going AI mode and starting to autorepair everything.
I just beat the boss on normal fairly easily with Kestrel A. My sectors 1-7 were pretty hard though. I lost maybe 4 crew members, including one of the starting 3 in sector 1. I had to spend like 400 or 500 scraps on repairs and didn't have great weapons for a long time. Then at like sector 4 or so, I randomly looted a pretty sweet halberd beam, which allowed me to kill enemy ships fairly effectively in combo with my starting burst 2. Some time later I bought a burst 1 for later (didnt have enough money to get enough weapons/power at the time), and got a hull laser 2 in sector 7, so then I knew I had enough (8 lasers per volley and a small bomb which I got at the end of sector 7 as well). I was pretty lucky in sector 7 i think, and from there on, the rest was pretty easy, and I didnt even have a teleporter for the boss' missile room. 55% dodge+cloak ftw.
On September 29 2012 00:51 ShloobeR wrote: Can anybody explain to me what I'm supposed to do against the second incarnation of the boss??? (with the drones)
4 straight times that thing has just buttraped me mercilessly. I beat the first incarnation without taking a single hit and yet this one just kills me in a second.
I use double DEFII drones and yet i still end up with like 2 assault drones and 8 breaches in my deck simultaneously and then there's like a power surge and four thousand attack droids are on me and every single system is failing and I go from 100% oxygen to -50% in 20 seconds because of the aforementioned breaches.
I try to fight the assault drones with my (maxed out) mantis dudes but HURR there's no air so I can't do anything
I just don't get what tactic you're supposed to use with the boss.
Even when I take out the drone control with my missiles I still get those random 5 or so drones attacking me.
Need teleporter to take down the triple rockets, then you need like 6 shots and shoot through the shields and damage the drone control, do the same to the shields and then just kill him. You should have level 4 shields at that point and your relatively fine against the drone surge
On September 29 2012 00:51 ShloobeR wrote: Can anybody explain to me what I'm supposed to do against the second incarnation of the boss??? (with the drones)
4 straight times that thing has just buttraped me mercilessly. I beat the first incarnation without taking a single hit and yet this one just kills me in a second.
I use double DEFII drones and yet i still end up with like 2 assault drones and 8 breaches in my deck simultaneously and then there's like a power surge and four thousand attack droids are on me and every single system is failing and I go from 100% oxygen to -50% in 20 seconds because of the aforementioned breaches.
I try to fight the assault drones with my (maxed out) mantis dudes but HURR there's no air so I can't do anything
I just don't get what tactic you're supposed to use with the boss.
Even when I take out the drone control with my missiles I still get those random 5 or so drones attacking me.
Need teleporter to take down the triple rockets, then you need like 6 shots and shoot through the shields and damage the drone control, do the same to the shields and then just kill him. You should have level 4 shields at that point and your relatively fine against the drone surge
Basicly this, also double DEFII drone eats 8 of your energy, and its not exactly worth it. Cloaking device, better shields and taking triple misiles out is the key. You can't fail with that.
Just lure the boarding drone around, and repair the mess it makes (from damaging hopefully non-critical subsytems like door control, O2, sensors, etc.) Fighting the drone has no purpose (unless it came in on a critical system), since you kill it, and end up with a new hull breach somewhere else from the next boarding drone.
Really like the slug ship, since you kill the enemy crew and get the bonus from the very start of the game, and vs the boss you can work on killing the crew (except the dude in the laser) in stage 1, making the next 2 stages so much easier since you can just board/disable the shields. Won on easy with every square of the flagship on fire despite dismissing what must have been 8 crewmembers.... seriously everyone wanted to fly with me for once.
Finally beat it on normal for the first time using the red-tail. I did the mistake of killing the boarding drone in phase 2 several times so I almost ran completely out O2 with all the hull breaches. I barely avoided losing any crewmembers and after that phase 3 was a breeze.
I got a lot of weapons throughout the game, so at one point I had the mk III burst and 2 pikebeams for some crazy burstdamage. I swapped out one beam for the hull laser at the last stand so I could get through level 4 shields more cosistently. Augments on the other hand was scarce and the only one I got was Ion reflection, too bad because I would have really liked to see what that double beam/mk III burst setup could have done with a pre-igniter.
I didnt have stealth weapons and only 3 shields. However I had teleporter (awesome), a small bomb, the starting dual laser and a glaive beam. I took zero hull dmg in phase 1 and 2. For some reason phase 3 was the hard part of the fight, prolly cause I took out the missile room last.
I´ve learned that timing your shots is extremly important, especially your beam weapons.
Cloaking and 40% evasion protects you from rockets and the power surges. You can easily take a couple rocket hits so prioritize the cloak for the power surges. Teleporter is not the ideal solution and defense drones are almost useless against the boss. You would be better off spending that energy elsewhere.
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
On October 01 2012 00:59 ShloobeR wrote: Tried the boss again
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
I didn't get a second power surge, maybe it was the actual surge that hit you? I waited with my cloak until the projectiles actually launched, i.e. not when the message "Power surge detected" comes but 4-5 seconds later. All power surges completely missed.
All the drones and missiles came while i was cloaked. but then the moment i dropped out of cloak i got that power surge warning again and HURR have some more drones
On October 01 2012 00:59 ShloobeR wrote: Tried the boss again
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
When it says 'Power Surge detected' there is a delay before the actual thing. Just wait until all the drones show up, then hit cloak. Never had two power surges in a row.
edit: didnt see your other post. Sounds weird. Maybe its just random :S
On October 01 2012 00:59 ShloobeR wrote: Tried the boss again
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
Cloaking during power surges works perfectly. First, as mentioned, cloak when the drones start shooting. Second, do NOT use level 3 cloak. The recharge takes too long, which means the second power surge will hit.
On October 01 2012 00:59 ShloobeR wrote: Tried the boss again
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
Cloaking during power surges works perfectly. First, as mentioned, cloak when the drones start shooting. Second, do NOT use level 3 cloak. The recharge takes too long, which means the second power surge will hit.
In fact, just use level 1 cloak. Don't even bother upgrading it. It's not the length (because even level 1 is long enough, just click it when the drones show up) but the cooldown that's important.
cloaking does not work if engines or helm is down or helm is unmanned. You need a pilot and helm and engines at at least 1 hp to have your evade actually work. So as soon as you pull of the pilot or any of these systems goes red, cloak is pointless (at least against power surge attacks, normal weapons stop charging while you are cloaked and only projectiles on route already will still hit you)
On October 02 2012 00:17 MisterD wrote: cloaking does not work if engines or helm is down or helm is unmanned. You need a pilot and helm and engines at at least 1 hp to have your evade actually work. So as soon as you pull of the pilot or any of these systems goes red, cloak is pointless (at least against power surge attacks, normal weapons stop charging while you are cloaked and only projectiles on route already will still hit you)
Im pretty sure that even projectiles that have already been fired can still be dodged with cloaking.
On October 02 2012 00:17 MisterD wrote: cloaking does not work if engines or helm is down or helm is unmanned. You need a pilot and helm and engines at at least 1 hp to have your evade actually work. So as soon as you pull of the pilot or any of these systems goes red, cloak is pointless (at least against power surge attacks, normal weapons stop charging while you are cloaked and only projectiles on route already will still hit you)
Im pretty sure that even projectiles that have already been fired can still be dodged with cloaking.
^ This guy is right, in fact I always wait the last second to cloack and it works every single time.
On October 01 2012 00:59 ShloobeR wrote: Tried the boss again
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
Cloaking during power surges works perfectly. First, as mentioned, cloak when the drones start shooting. Second, do NOT use level 3 cloak. The recharge takes too long, which means the second power surge will hit.
In fact, just use level 1 cloak. Don't even bother upgrading it. It's not the length (because even level 1 is long enough, just click it when the drones show up) but the cooldown that's important.
Level 2 is sufficient to dodge the entirety of the phase 2 power surge. It's not strictly necessary since your shields will probably be able to soak up the remaining damage after decloaking, but if you have spare scrap, you might as well use it. For phase 3, depowering cloak to level 1 is optimal to reduce the recharge time.
On October 02 2012 00:17 MisterD wrote: cloaking does not work if engines or helm is down or helm is unmanned. You need a pilot and helm and engines at at least 1 hp to have your evade actually work. So as soon as you pull of the pilot or any of these systems goes red, cloak is pointless (at least against power surge attacks, normal weapons stop charging while you are cloaked and only projectiles on route already will still hit you)
Im pretty sure that even projectiles that have already been fired can still be dodged with cloaking.
This is correct. As long as you have 40% evade, the extra 60% from cloak means you will dodge any incoming salvo.
Beat boss on easy on my 8th playthrough (also unlocked layout B of starter ship on it), part 1 super easy, part 2 was manageable, nothing too bad. Almost lost it at part three. Think it started with a shield so I couldn't teleport over, and it seemed like everything that hit me started fires, and i had no cloak or drones. Was at like 10% hp when i finally got it.
Tried a normal run with B layout, but I couldn't get a decent fucking weapon no matter how many stores I tried, when I got to the final boss with my 4 starting lasers, i just turned off my oxygen, opened all my doors, and let my guys suffocate.
I bought this yesterday, and I love it. You have so many choices, all the time. You can take your ship in a lot of different directions, and always seem to be on the edge of doom. It's so exciting
Just a question - are drones ever worth it? It seems like such an epic trial to get any running, and then they eat lots of power and drone parts.
On October 02 2012 11:30 Tal wrote: I bought this yesterday, and I love it. You have so many choices, all the time. You can take your ship in a lot of different directions, and always seem to be on the edge of doom. It's so exciting
Just a question - are drones ever worth it? It seems like such an epic trial to get any running, and then they eat lots of power and drone parts.
To counter against rockets a defense drone is worth it, a breaching drone is also good but I wouldn't put any more than 5 points into the system. If you come across the drone retraction arm or something along those lines, which lets you reclaim drone parts, then drones are well worth it. With the Zoltan ship achievements, is the reactor the engine?
I just beat the final boss after several tries. I didn't even lose a single life.
My setup: Starting ship B Basic Laser x 3, Burst Laser II Lvl 1 cloak Teleporter Maxed out shield and evade
I quickly used the teleporter to take out the triple rockets, and cloaked for the first round of rockets. Cloak for all power surges. After that my lasers chewed through everything.
kestrel type A 2 x burst laser II 1 x burst laser I lvl 3 shields lvl 1 cloak max reactor forgot engines lvl, its not maxed defense drone mk II + drone control weapon preigniter 2x automatic reloader
burst laser II is like the best weapon in the game, it's basically gg when i found a second one, i couldnt find a forth weapon but didnt even need it
i didnt max shields and engine because they are too expensive at the final lvls, instead i found a defense drone mk 2 near the end and i decided to try it because i cant use my scrap elsewhere and it was definitely worth it
between my drone, my evade and my cloak, nothing much ever hits me, and once i pew pew down their shield generator in 1-2 volleys its gg
On October 02 2012 14:01 Chairman Ray wrote: I just beat the final boss after several tries. I didn't even lose a single life.
My setup: Starting ship B Basic Laser x 3, Burst Laser II Lvl 1 cloak Teleporter Maxed out shield and evade
I quickly used the teleporter to take out the triple rockets, and cloaked for the first round of rockets. Cloak for all power surges. After that my lasers chewed through everything.
On October 01 2012 00:59 ShloobeR wrote: Tried the boss again
55% evade, all 3 missiles hit me when cloak was down so at least i unlocked a new achievement hooray!
seriously this end boss, i feel like im doing the right things it just completely buttrapes me every time i try him.
GRNGRNGRN how the shit do i beat this 2nd incarnation, whoever suggested i cloak during the power surges... HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED THAT? the moment you come out of cloak there's a second power surge, and you just waste your time
Cloaking during power surges works perfectly. First, as mentioned, cloak when the drones start shooting. Second, do NOT use level 3 cloak. The recharge takes too long, which means the second power surge will hit.
In fact, just use level 1 cloak. Don't even bother upgrading it. It's not the length (because even level 1 is long enough, just click it when the drones show up) but the cooldown that's important.
Level 2 is sufficient to dodge the entirety of the phase 2 power surge. It's not strictly necessary since your shields will probably be able to soak up the remaining damage after decloaking, but if you have spare scrap, you might as well use it. For phase 3, depowering cloak to level 1 is optimal to reduce the recharge time.
On October 02 2012 00:17 MisterD wrote: cloaking does not work if engines or helm is down or helm is unmanned. You need a pilot and helm and engines at at least 1 hp to have your evade actually work. So as soon as you pull of the pilot or any of these systems goes red, cloak is pointless (at least against power surge attacks, normal weapons stop charging while you are cloaked and only projectiles on route already will still hit you)
Im pretty sure that even projectiles that have already been fired can still be dodged with cloaking.
This is correct. As long as you have 40% evade, the extra 60% from cloak means you will dodge any incoming salvo.
yes of course cloak can dodge on route projectiles, but not if your helm is unmanned or down or engines are down. That's what i'm saying. you can just go "oh i pull everyone off to repair this thing and when he shoots i cloak", you do cloak then but you don't evade anything, so any projectiles on route WILL hit you despite cloak.
I don't understand how you are capable of getting to the end with cloak and fully upgraded ship. Most of my scrap is used to repair the ship, and you can't do a lot of scouting due to fuel shortage and rebel wave.
Most of the time I arrived last sector, I just had starting lasers and maybe 2 or 3 shields with 35% evade. And 0 scrap.
On gog it doesn't mention linux. It was supposed to run on linux as well. Does anyone know whether it's working or not? $9 on this game would be much better spent than on the more expensive and mediocore dinner in TGIF I had yesterday. QQ
On October 02 2012 19:41 Spidinko wrote: On gog it doesn't mention linux. It was supposed to run on linux as well. Does anyone know whether it's working or not? $9 on this game would be much better spent than on the more expensive and mediocore dinner in TGIF I had yesterday. QQ
Steam! Costs $9.99 in the US Windows and Mac only. (FTL will be on the Linux beta in a few months but not now) Standard Steam conversions of £6.99 / €9.99 / 249 rubles / $7.99 in CIS territories. GOG.com! Costs $9.99 in all regions. DRM free build for Windows only! You will also receive a few bonus items: 5 songs from the soundtrack, a mini-artbook, wallpapers & avatars. Our Website!! DRM-free builds for Windows, Mac and Linux. Costs $9.99 in all regions (you can give us a tip too). You will also receive a Steam key.
On October 02 2012 18:58 Eviscerador wrote: I don't understand how you are capable of getting to the end with cloak and fully upgraded ship. Most of my scrap is used to repair the ship, and you can't do a lot of scouting due to fuel shortage and rebel wave.
Most of the time I arrived last sector, I just had starting lasers and maybe 2 or 3 shields with 35% evade. And 0 scrap.
The core of the game is scrap efficiency. Any scrap spent on repairs is scrap which could've been spent on fuel/upgrades. Thus, the goal is to minimize any damage caused to your ship. How you achieve this is entirely up to you.
Ahhh! I finally beat FTL (on easy). Logged in about 15 hours before I could do it lol.
Ended up using engi ship with 2 Anti Ship (rank 1) drones and one Defense Drone (rank 1). Coupled with Default Ion Blaster and Rank 1 Burst and Rank 1 Laser weapons.
I finally learned that you should level your shields and engine to at least rank 3. Ended up with 3 layers of shields and 40% evasion (with experienced crew).
Man that was really fun. Im gonna try hard to unlock the other ships now ^_^
My best friend has been playing this (can see him on steam always). Him and I usually have equal interests in games, but for some reason I just cannot see myself playing this. I guess maybe because I have never been a fan of space games.
After reading this thread I may have to give it a try anyway.
On October 03 2012 11:29 Schickysc wrote: My best friend has been playing this (can see him on steam always). Him and I usually have equal interests in games, but for some reason I just cannot see myself playing this. I guess maybe because I have never been a fan of space games.
After reading this thread I may have to give it a try anyway.
I got the game b/c of this thread. I thought I was going to hate it. 6 hours later and so many dead comrades... so many dead...
I think this game would really benefit from having an extra mode/difficulty where there's no autofire or pause. I did a couple runs of that myself and it's really super fun, and quite challenging if you burden yourself with a lot.
Here's my ship 1 second before i blew up the final boss. + Show Spoiler +
I was drowning in missiles this game, and was never low on fuel either. Also managed to get the crystal guy, though not in time to try and get the crystal ship. Breach missile OP.
Here's my stats, won easy on 8th play, normal on 10th. + Show Spoiler +
Fun game, worth playing, though I think I'm done with it. I rarely play games past beating them.
Just a couple tips that might help a bit if anyone's just starting. + Show Spoiler +
Make sure you pause a lot! The game is too fast to do without pausing to issue orders/think/micromanage everything.
Being able to beam over your crew is awesome because killing their crew without killing their ship results in more resources on winning. Not to mention chances of free crew members, extra weapons/tech, etc. The earlier you can do this the better, the extra crap you get really adds up.
And laser weapons are obviously the way to go, beam weapons are vendor trash. Missiles can be good in certain situations, but it's important to be able to get through their shields without relying on them.
Drones are a heavy investment if you want them to help a lot, I personally didn't find them worth it past one defense drone to help with missiles. And that's useless against the boss, it shoots three missiles at once, and you'll probably be disabling it right away anyway.
Got lucky on my last run with the engi ship. Found/bought some really good pieces.
Ended up with:
Drone recovery arm Stealth systems Weapon charger
Ion Blast II Burst Laser II Ion Bomb
Anti Ship Drone I Anti Ship Drone I Anti Ship Drone II
Was probably the easiest run I've ever had. With the drones and ion blast enemy shields went down really fast. Burst laser and Ion bomb can then either target shield or weapon systems. Stealth to dodge triple rockets before they are taken out or the power surge drones in Phase 2. I think i took less then 5 hull damage during all 3 Bossfights.
Not so lucky with unlocking new ships though. I don't seem to get the special events in the respective homeworlds.
I ALMOST beat it yesterday, I got the phase 3 boss to 2 bars of HP before he killed me. But after every fight he would always move on the closest repair point so I never got the chance to repair my ship
Ship: Kestrel
Shields: 3 Engines: Almost Max Cloaking Transporter Drones
The Glaive Beam is amazing. There's a reason it takes 4 power bars, it deals 3 damage. Lets say you hit the boss with a Burst laser and take out 3 shield bubbles, leaving 1. The Glaive will hit for 2 damage on every room it hits. If you target it correctly, you can cripple any ship even if they still have their shields on.
So I've beaten it on easy with the 13/18 ships I've unlocked (I count the two variants of each as different ones). I just started my first 'normal' run using the Kestrel B (since i think it's the best starting ship so far) and I can't believe how generous the RNG has been. found two heavy laser II and a pike beam and 4 crewmen in the first two sectors! I probably just jinxed it by posting this though lol. Makes me wish I didnt have to quit and go study.
Edit: I sure jinxed it. I ran outta fuel and the fleet got me. :/
Just completed normal with the sickest setup I´ve had so far. I used the rock cruiser and found weapon pre-igniter + the drone augment that lets you recover drone parts from non-destroyed drones. I also bought stealth weapons from a store so I could max my cloak.
I used 2 burst lasers, mk 1 and 2, the starting artemis missile + a halbard beam. If that wasnt enough I had 2 lvl 1 anti-ship drones.
Every fight I would insta-cloak, activate my drones and launch my missile at the enemys shields to make sure the missile hits before my lasers. I would then fire both lasers and then finally my halbard beam when the shields were down.
Almost every single fight from sector 6 to 8 ended before my enemies could fire off a single volley,,,,,,including the boss!
On a side note I encountered a ship that had 5 shields! never seen that before but he also bit the dust ofc.
Used the Kestrel A, and landed up with a lucky run so I could get all the best pieces together. Mantis boarding team, 2 defence drones, max shields, cloaking, and enough weapons to get through 4 shields. So I basically tanked everything, picked off his turrets (because the rest of the crew can't get there), and slowly whittled him away.
Everyone said cloaking countered his 'power surge attacks', but often the cloaking would still be recharging when he did it again, so that hurt. Also he moved straight to my repair station after the first fight, and the other ones were ridiculously placed, so no repairing for me.
Some thoughts on the game:
Once your ship has some extra crew the amount of micromanagement gets insane - using multiple people to repair the most important thing, or even having multiple people ready in a room you are scared of getting hit is good.
As a Starcraft player, accustomed to using every bit of supply, I had to drop part of that thinking. Because power gets progressively more expensive, in the midgame its often best to invest in more things than you can power - that flexibility is so important. I often land up in a bad fight but put everything to shields and engines so I can get out of there fast. Other times I can power up the right counters to the enemies loadout.
I think there are some balance issues - boarding seems a bit good, and a lot of items/weapons don't, but these are small complaints. It's been one of the best indie games I've played in a long time - it utterly engrossed me, and makes me really hope they develop their wonderful world. Now to try that new Federation ship!
About cloaking against the final boss: if you do a 10 sec cloak against the first power surge, then it will still be on cooldown when the second power surge hits. The best thing to do is to put 1 power on cloaking for a 5 sec cloak; it is still good to upgrade your cloak so that if the cloak room gets damaged, you still have cloak.
On October 04 2012 20:26 datscilly wrote: Bit of spoilers on final boss strategy:
About cloaking against the final boss: if you do a 10 sec cloak against the first power surge, then it will still be on cooldown when the second power surge hits. The best thing to do is to put 1 power on cloaking for a 5 sec cloak; it is still good to upgrade your cloak so that if the cloak room gets damaged, you still have cloak.
Oooooh yeah, I managed to beat it yesterday. Played with the Engi cruiser, found a bunch of stuff including a glaive beam, but never used it. I managed to get a Heavy laser 1 and Ion cannon 1 to complement my Ion cannon II (in the same shop, sold the drone to afford it) and they lasted me all game, since I didn't have to put in as much scrap in upgrading my guns I could just go quick engine + shields all the way.
Later I got a Beam I drone, which was basically the cherry on the cake, I only really had to use it on the last boss.
Tactics were easy, use autofire and target the enemy shield generator with all weapons, when shields are stripped, keep Ion cannon I on it, fire heavy laser at the guns and target the cockpit with Ion cannon I. As soon as the cockpit is disabled, you win, which is quickly done with 4 second base cooldown and a maxed out gunner.
I didn't have cloak, although the shipwide healing helped me a lot when boarded, also got the bonus 10% scrap augment, and kept the drone controller. So not optimized there. However, the Ion cannon II, Heavy laser I and Ion cannon I was only 5 power, I don't think it's possible to get anything better for 5 power tbh. I was looking for a burst laser II, since I easily had enough scrap to upgrade guns to max in the end, and it would have been better for stripping shields.
Beam drone really rocks when all shields are pemadisabled too.
I still haven't finished normal after 15 or so attempts. My most promising runs always get shut down when i least expect it. The last extremely promising run where i left sector 1 with 2 shields and had burst laser 3 was "Do you want to engage that automated ship?" - "Yeah, of course" - "Well, enjoy 2 rocket launchers and 3 shields that dodges 75% of your shots in sector 3".
On October 04 2012 23:11 Morfildur wrote: I still haven't finished normal after 15 or so attempts. My most promising runs always get shut down when i least expect it. The last extremely promising run where i left sector 1 with 2 shields and had burst laser 3 was "Do you want to engage that automated ship?" - "Yeah, of course" - "Well, enjoy 2 rocket launchers and 3 shields that dodges 75% of your shots in sector 3".
Haha. What usually kills me out of nowhere are innocent looking ships that end up having 2 rocket launchers and 2 laser drones. Either I manage to shut them down quickly, or they'll make me unable to do anything at all within 30 seconds and then slowly kill me. >.>
The most awesome death I had so far, however, was that one time where a series of unfortunate decisions led to a badly damaged, but not destroyed ship of mine. Half of the outer doors were open to kill various fires, and both my door system as well as the o2 system were destroyed, and all I had were three low-HP dudes clinging to their lives in the (still working!) medbay. They were healed just as quickly as they were suffocating, keeping them in some sort of limbo. I couldn't close any doors, and I couldn't send them to repair any stations because they would immediately suffocate if they'd leave the medbay. I couldn't come up with a solution for this (Of course I didn't have enough money to upgrade the medbay..), so after a minute of pondering I freed them from their suffering and turned off the medbay.
On October 04 2012 23:11 Morfildur wrote: I still haven't finished normal after 15 or so attempts. My most promising runs always get shut down when i least expect it. The last extremely promising run where i left sector 1 with 2 shields and had burst laser 3 was "Do you want to engage that automated ship?" - "Yeah, of course" - "Well, enjoy 2 rocket launchers and 3 shields that dodges 75% of your shots in sector 3".
Yeah some of those automated ships are incredibly strong. Is there a way to get information about enemy strength? Some upgrade I haven't seen? Also anyone with drones - if they have a beam drone and you even briefly have no shields things can collapse very fast.
On October 04 2012 23:30 Conti wrote:
Haha. What usually kills me out of nowhere are innocent looking ships that end up having 2 rocket launchers and 2 laser drones. Either I manage to shut them down quickly, or they'll make me unable to do anything at all within 30 seconds and then slowly kill me. >.>.
On October 04 2012 23:11 Morfildur wrote: I still haven't finished normal after 15 or so attempts. My most promising runs always get shut down when i least expect it. The last extremely promising run where i left sector 1 with 2 shields and had burst laser 3 was "Do you want to engage that automated ship?" - "Yeah, of course" - "Well, enjoy 2 rocket launchers and 3 shields that dodges 75% of your shots in sector 3".
Yeah some of those automated ships are incredibly strong. Is there a way to get information about enemy strength? Some upgrade I haven't seen? Also anyone with drones - if they have a beam drone and you even briefly have no shields things can collapse very fast.
Haha. What usually kills me out of nowhere are innocent looking ships that end up having 2 rocket launchers and 2 laser drones. Either I manage to shut them down quickly, or they'll make me unable to do anything at all within 30 seconds and then slowly kill me. >.>.
Those too
You can generally tell what weapons a ship will have just by looking at it. The weapons are retracted before combat, but you can usually still identify the type from the bit that protrudes from the hull.
On October 04 2012 23:11 Morfildur wrote: I still haven't finished normal after 15 or so attempts. My most promising runs always get shut down when i least expect it. The last extremely promising run where i left sector 1 with 2 shields and had burst laser 3 was "Do you want to engage that automated ship?" - "Yeah, of course" - "Well, enjoy 2 rocket launchers and 3 shields that dodges 75% of your shots in sector 3".
Yeah some of those automated ships are incredibly strong. Is there a way to get information about enemy strength? Some upgrade I haven't seen? Also anyone with drones - if they have a beam drone and you even briefly have no shields things can collapse very fast.
Haha. What usually kills me out of nowhere are innocent looking ships that end up having 2 rocket launchers and 2 laser drones. Either I manage to shut them down quickly, or they'll make me unable to do anything at all within 30 seconds and then slowly kill me. >.>.
Those too
Don't think so. As far as i know, the enemy ships are completely random, with a power budget based on which sector they are in. If you are unlucky, you get a very bad roll and they got 2 rocket launchers. If you are lucky, they have 1 small laser and 2 defense drones or something stupid like that.
On October 04 2012 23:11 Morfildur wrote: I still haven't finished normal after 15 or so attempts. My most promising runs always get shut down when i least expect it. The last extremely promising run where i left sector 1 with 2 shields and had burst laser 3 was "Do you want to engage that automated ship?" - "Yeah, of course" - "Well, enjoy 2 rocket launchers and 3 shields that dodges 75% of your shots in sector 3".
Yeah some of those automated ships are incredibly strong. Is there a way to get information about enemy strength? Some upgrade I haven't seen? Also anyone with drones - if they have a beam drone and you even briefly have no shields things can collapse very fast.
On October 04 2012 23:30 Conti wrote:
Haha. What usually kills me out of nowhere are innocent looking ships that end up having 2 rocket launchers and 2 laser drones. Either I manage to shut them down quickly, or they'll make me unable to do anything at all within 30 seconds and then slowly kill me. >.>.
Those too
Don't think so. As far as i know, the enemy ships are completely random, with a power budget based on which sector they are in. If you are unlucky, you get a very bad roll and they got 2 rocket launchers. If you are lucky, they have 1 small laser and 2 defense drones or something stupid like that.
I met a ship with a pike beam in sector 1 while I was playing as the stealth cruiser. Needless to say that my run didn't last very long...
I don't see how that is so dangerous, unless they also have a lot of shields. You should be able to shut that down with one salva, which you should be able to fire before it fires once. The worst thing i met as the stealth ship are anti ship drones, and especially on board of a zoltan ship where it takes 2-3 salva to break their shields. That usually costs you a lot of hull.
First play through with the Kestrel B and it seemed a bit overpowered compared to the other ships - I was able to go the whole game without even buying a teleporter. The next challenge is to try without a cloaking device
On October 05 2012 21:22 Mambo wrote: It is an amazing game, but after i finally managed to beat it, I haven't felt like playing much.
I dont have that feeling. In fact I hope to complete it with every ship. So far I´ve won with 6 ships on normal.
1 of the reasons for keep playing is that you can beat the game in so many ways. With or without cloak, with or without teleporter, with or without missiles, with or without drones etc.
Any tips on how to unlock the Engi Cruiser? I keep replaying into Engi homeworlds and help EVERYBODY out as much as I can. But I still cant unlock that ship T_T
I think you need Engi crew for that, which then gives you a blue option in some event which makes you go to one of two worlds, then to another world, and then you should get the ship. I randomly got it on my first playthrough, though, so i am not completely sure if i remember it correctly.
On October 06 2012 05:46 Simberto wrote: I think you need Engi crew for that, which then gives you a blue option in some event which makes you go to one of two worlds, then to another world, and then you should get the ship. I randomly got it on my first playthrough, though, so i am not completely sure if i remember it correctly.
You're thinking stealth ship. Engi is making it to sector 5
Yes. Easily. I have won twice with the stealth shield, and both times did not get shields until sector 4-6. Basically, just get as many weapons as you can, and always target their weapon system/drone system with an alpha strike. Cloak enables you to dodge their first salva, and you should get enough weapons system that a single drone hit won't ruin your plan. You can avoid hazardous enviroments due to long-range scanners. You should be able to take out anything that is not a zoltan ship without taking any damage.
On October 06 2012 06:39 Morfildur wrote: Is it even possible to win with the stealth cruiser when you don't have extreme luck and get a shield in the first 2 sectors?
A single drone can completely screw everything up unless you get lucky and shut it down before it destroys your weapon system.
Stealth cruiser can be tricky and is definetly not the easiest ship to play. Its all about getting the max out of your scrab and using the items you find as efficient as possible.
slug ship layout B is still the best .. no feasible weapons, only three slugs with a teleporter and a heal bomb INSTEAD of a medbay. x) still managed to beat the game with it somehow, but that ship is tough to get going with.
I've won with the stealth ship. You just have to stack weapons, preferably ones with short cooldowns (so you can fire while cloaked.) On the game I won my weapons were mini beam, dual lasers, burst laser II. I didn't get a shield until sector 5 because I simply didn't need it due to large amount of front loaded damage.
Definitely a fun game. I've played it several times on normal at first before switching to easy. Managed to unlock the Engi cruiser and got to stage 2 of the boss with that, but i wasn't equipped for it. Not enough systems upgraded etc. A few times when I had a really good setup I died prematurely due to some OP ship (cause I just have to kill everything in my way lol).
I'll have to get a TP and mantis crew. I ran into the Mantis guy u need to impress but not sure how to get the ship. I either destroyed him or he killed me and I didn't get anything. Anyone know what you need for that?
Also I found rockmen with just 1 lvl in medbay repair even remotely will kick the crap out of enemy mantis.
I got into this game by watching this vid - but his 2nd vid I couldn't watch cause its soo bad lol all those newbie mistakes.
On October 08 2012 11:11 Khul Sadukar wrote: Definitely a fun game. I've played it several times on normal at first before switching to easy. Managed to unlock the Engi cruiser and got to stage 2 of the boss with that, but i wasn't equipped for it. Not enough systems upgraded etc. A few times when I had a really good setup I died prematurely due to some OP ship (cause I just have to kill everything in my way lol).
I'll have to get a TP and mantis crew. I ran into the Mantis guy u need to impress but not sure how to get the ship. I either destroyed him or he killed me and I didn't get anything. Anyone know what you need for that?
Also I found rockmen with just 1 lvl in medbay repair even remotely will kick the crap out of enemy mantis.
I got into this game by watching this vid - http://youtu.be/eD_xlFUS7uY but his 2nd vid I couldn't watch cause its soo bad lol all those newbie mistakes.
For the mantis ship, you need to kill him by boarding him. You also need a level 2 medbay to unlock the blue option.
On October 08 2012 11:15 Simberto wrote: Pretty much anything kills anything else as long as they fight in their own medbay.
I was using the Engi remote medbay lvl 1. (they weren't in the medbay) In fact they could prob kill them without it but havent tested it.
Oh I completely forgot. I unlocked the Zoltan cruiser as well. It's cool and all but I hate the starter setup. A single Halberd is useless against elite ships, doesn't even tick away at them just dont penetrate at all. I had this sweet setup of 2 halberds, a weapon pre-ignition and was carving up ships in 1-2 shots. Then I had to travel back into rebel space cause systems didnt link up to the exit and I couldn't dmg the rebel elite fighter.
I reackon if you could outfit the zoltan with tons of alpha burst that would be awesome, while ur shield tanks the first salvo or 2. Unfortunately it just seems kinda costly given the starting gear. I'm hoping the B version is closer to what I want.
Finally beat it on easy. Playing through normal. It's much easier once you start understanding the game better. Still pretty difficult Now, I'm going to unlock all ships. =)
On October 09 2012 04:13 Spidinko wrote: Finally beat it on easy. Playing through normal. It's much easier once you start understanding the game better. Still pretty difficult Now, I'm going to unlock all ships. =)
Good luck trying to unlock the Crystal Cruiser. Still haven't managed to unlock that one yet. Or the Rock Cruiser.
Killed first stage of boss before I could take a single point of damage. Killed second stage before the drone surge could take any shots. Killed final stage right before any of it's surge shots hit me. Damn, I was a monster that game, offense-wise.
Went Layout A engi ship. 2 mark I attack drones, and a mark II attack drone. Burst Laser II, Hull Laser II, and Heavy Ion cannon. With weapon preigniter. 3 shields, 1 cloak, no teleporter. Engine was only 1 bar most of the time, weapons/drones/shields took all my power.
The only problem I had was losing a crew in sec 2 so I was down to 2, and jesus christ boarding parties were a huge pain to deal with. Only other crew I got I had to buy in sector 4.
On October 11 2012 03:18 DaCruise wrote: Fuck yeah, defeated the boss with the Vortex (engi-ship B). Not only that but I got a new highscore as well with 4866.
wow! good job man! That ship is such bullshit... mind sharing some details about your playthrough? id really like to know how you made vortex work.
On October 11 2012 03:18 DaCruise wrote: Fuck yeah, defeated the boss with the Vortex (engi-ship B). Not only that but I got a new highscore as well with 4866.
wow! good job man! That ship is such bullshit... mind sharing some details about your playthrough? id really like to know how you made vortex work.
Well I got a scrap recovery arm faily early. That is so worth it in the long run. I also got lucky and picked up some crewmembers fairly early including 1 mantis. I then bought a second 1 + a teleporter.
Towards the end I had max cloak with stealth weapons, max teleporter with a kill squad of 4! fully upgraded mantis warriors (lol) + 4 additional crewmembers working my main systems.
My weapons stayed crap throughout the game. I just couldnt find or buy a decent weapon so I relied 100% on teleport, which also had the consequence that I had to jump away from a couple of fights with drones Cause I couldnt get through their shields and they were armed to the teeth. I also had a defense drone.
Against boss I just cloaked during powersurge and disabled all systems with my mantis squad. I even killed the entire crew in phase 1.
I had all my three attack drones before the end of sector 2, and my glaive/burst 3 by end of sec 4. I was praying at every store for the rest of the game to find an effin preigniter, but it never came. If I'd had it, the boss would have evaporated. As it was, it was too close for comfort.
I had even managed to get a second mark 2 attack drone, but I assumed 2 level 1's are better than 1 level 2, so i just sold it.
I started playing this and I must say that it's surprisingly entertaining. Short enough that you can clear it in one go, but long enough that you start to enjoy your ship and your crew.
Got my first victory with the Osprey. Having no cloak system or any way to easily bypass the shields, I had to rely on my artillery to eventually hit the shields and drones so I could finish it off in the 2nd phase. Lost 3/4 of my hull and 2 crew members; not as extreme as yours, Zenith, but it was still a blast!
I made a blunder in the Rock sector on my last playthrough. I got their challenge, but I accidentally killed them instead of passively surviving it, and apparently they don't surrender and you don't unlock the ship that way.
No ship really feels overpowered or impossible so far. The Osprey's artillery seems OP, but every ship has that little something that you can abuse. I still need to unlock the Rock, Crystal and Mantis, and most type B layouts. Fun times =)
On October 12 2012 15:11 stormtemplar wrote: Blehh. I can't seem to win with the kestrel. I always attempt to maximize my time in any given sector, and I feel like I do pretty well. I crush things for the first few sectors, then I get overwhelmed later. Any general tips from you guys? (You all seem to be better at this than me)
If you are playing on easy, you can pretty much beat it every time if you follow a few standards. Don't risk losing crew members (you can check the wiki to find out which events can cause you to lose crew members). For the final boss, having teleporter and stealth make the boss really easy. For fights where you know you are gonna take a lot of damage, just run instead, but that shouldn't happen very much.
If you are playing on normal, luck becomes a determining factor. What I do is if my first sector run isn't good, I redo it. Basically, I look for either an extra crew member, finding a good weapon in the shop, or getting a bunch of resources. If I get any of these, I keep going, otherwise I just start over.
For weapons, my favorite weapon is burst laser II, following by Artemis missiles and heavy laser I. Kestrel starts with 2 of these, so it's awesome. The key to every fight is to quickly chew through the shields and hit their weapons. Once their weapons is down, nothing else matters anymore. They can't do any damage, so it doesn't matter how little or how much dps you have, and it doesn't matter how good your defenses are. Just keep firing at their weapons and you win the fight cleanly. Finishing off the enemy through boarding seems to give better bonuses, so do that while keeping their weapons in the red.
Some ships also have an isolated O2 production system. Target that and then wait for the crew to suffocate. Deliciously evil.
I really like the Halberd beam. You can hit 4-5 rooms on most ships for 2 damage per room, so if you have a reliable way to take down shields (usually laser + ion, or some good missile), the fight is basically over. I agree that Burst Laser II is the best all around weapon. A ship with 4 of those would steamroll everything.
On October 12 2012 17:36 Pwere wrote: Some ships also have an isolated O2 production system. Target that and then wait for the crew to suffocate. Deliciously evil.
I really like the Halberd beam. You can hit 4-5 rooms on most ships for 2 damage per room, so if you have a reliable way to take down shields (usually laser + ion, or some good missile), the fight is basically over. I agree that Burst Laser II is the best all around weapon. A ship with 4 of those would steamroll everything.
Burst crystal mk 2 is pretty good too (if you can buy it, make it into the crystal sector) 3 power, 3 shots, but shield piercing and only 1 slot + 20 scrap to buy
Just unlocked the second version of the Mantis ship...and it's super cool and all, but if a fire gets started on your ship - wow. Warped into a fight by a sun and there was nothing I could do to avoid burning to death. The other ship couldn't even get through my shields, but the fires...
Once the engine room went there was no hope of getting away.
On October 13 2012 00:42 TheUnderking wrote: Is your game glitched? I'm pretty sure the federation ship is supposed to unlock when you beat the game for the first time.
No I just havnt been able to beat the game yet lol. played for like 15 hours so far and still not a single win.
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.
I mean you face like 5-10 ships per sector. If they aim at critical systems and focus fire to get through shields all the time you are done after one or two sectors without huge amounts of luck.
If the AI was smart, you'd be roflstomped every game almost no matter what. Just imagine an enemy that would actually target your weapons system? Or your shields? If any enemy in the game would have the capability to get through your shield, you'd just straight up die. That's the problem with good AI. You have to make them weaker, or make the player stronger, so in the end the game isn't any harder. (because I'm sure it's hard enough already, lol)
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!
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.
Upgrading the engines has the second big advantage of making your FTL drive charge faster, which lets you avoid a lot of bad situations, and be more cavalier about letting the rebel fleet catch up to you. It's definitely worth putting at least some into it once you get to the higher levels in other systems, as it starts to get so expensive to upgrade those.
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.
14 attempts, finally got a win on easy with the torus. Funny that it isn't my highest score. Got one for 2809 that almost beat the 1st stage of the boss, killed each other at the same time thinking that if I killed it before I died I would win. Fired 3 missiles, I had 45% evasion but 2 out of 3 hit ==. Oh what luck I have.
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
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.
I just finished by far the hardest game I've ever played. It took me about an hour for the final boss alone, it was pretty intense. My 2nd win on normal, first with the Red Tail, highest score to date (4747), and toughest route to victory.
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.
Rock ship 1 is bullshit. It is just so absurdly reliant on RNG. You NEED to find a good weapon before you run out of missiles, or it is just a slow death afterwards. This means you absolutely NEED a weapon in the first 2 sectors. A crew teleporter or lots of missile dropluck can extend this to the third or even forth sector, but if you have none until that point, game over.
For once I did not throw my boarding crew away in sector 7 or 8(!), but still I had no cloak and the repair points were far away. I entered third face with less than 30% hull o_O (easy difficulty).
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.
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.
just completed on easy after about 8 attempts (like 10++ hours afaik)!
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
I just had my luckiest run ever so far, for a second normal win(only second highest score so far though, 4312).
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.
Brilliant game. I bought it in the sale and have played it every spare minute since. I love games like this where they're just incredible crisp. Everything just comes together brilliantly. It reminds me of broodwar lol.
I like how there are so many different ways to win and you have to adapt really well to what you're given. I just had a really fun game as the A stealth cruiser where I managed to get burst laser III, hull laser II, mini beam and weapon pre-igniter just before the first boss. Jumped in and unleashed my 8 laser shots on the shield bay. Shields rocked, Hull laser lands and breaches, then the mini beam does even more damage. Hit cloak while I safely wait for them to recharge and do it again. Boss was almost dead before he got chance to fire a missile!
On December 19 2012 11:46 Fyrewolf wrote: I just had my luckiest run ever so far, for a second normal win(only second highest score so far though, 4312).
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.
You'll soon realize that FTL has three difficulties, Easy, Normal and Stealth Cruiser.
I love the Stealth Cruiser, it's my favourite ship that I have so far. At first it APPEARS really hard. Until you play around with the mini beam and learn to time your shots correctly.
You don't need to damage the actual shield bay to land your beam, all you need do is disrupt the shield. Turn off auto-fire and watch their shields when your lasers strike; the milisecond their shield is down pause the game. Then aim your beam starting in their shield bay. The first tic will land instantly before the sheilds go back up, doing 1 dmg and taking the sheild out allowing for the rest of the beam to land. Even with the mini beam you can hit up to 4 rooms in one shot! You only need to have 1 pixel of the line in a room to do damage to it. Combine this with level 2 cloaking (cloak the instant the battle starts) and you're almost guaranteed to do decent damage before the enemy gets chance to do anything. I find with the stealth ship im using the sensors early to pick fights because it's just so powerful at lvl1!
Then you continue on depending on what you find. If you can find/buy crew and get a teleporter then you can go the full defense route. A full 15sec cloak gives your boarding team lots of time to do damage. Or if you can get more lasers (preferably slow charging) try the strategy of high instant damage off of cloak with your OP beam.
Same here, I am on a type b stealh cruiser run as i type. That thing is so much fun to play. I also like the engi ships and the fed cruiser with the imba beam. BUT i have never finished the game with the standard ship.
I've been playing Infinite Space and I always die in the 2nd sector. I always end up encountering some ship with 4 shields that just fucks me up. Shit's hard yo.
i'd argue that engi B is on a similar level to stealth cruiser because only 1 guy. Also slug B to some degree because no feasible weapons and you have to run a 2 slug boarding crew. Try those if you haven't yet ^^
The main secret to playing as a stealth cruiser is that you have to always go for their weapons system. The only really annoying thing are enemies with drones before you get shields. And you should have a priority of getting more and larger guns before you get shields. Your goal is to take out their offensive capabilities with one salva, while dodging their first salva with your cloak. That works against most early enemies. After their guns are down, you can take your time and slowly pick them apart.
Stealth cruiser is one of the easiest i think cause the glaive beam is basically the best weapon ever and solves a lot of your gear check in the endgame
I bought this game 50% on sale a couple of days ago... well i don't know how long ago exactly, but i've already logged 56 hours. I haven't been this addicted to a game since November 23, 2004 happened >_>
I did not think i'd like this. I usually can't get into sci fi type stuff, fantasy is definitely my area. I was always Warcraft > Starcraft but i'm so in lesbians with this game.
So far i've failed to get past phase 2 on final boss on all three (or four? pretty sure three) attempts. Only unlocked Engi, Rock and Crystal ships. Using Crystal a lot but its weapons are decidedly shit once you start seeing ships with 3+ shields and decent dodge. I shall persist.
I swear, any other game would have me raging so hard at the RNG this thing dishes out, but i can't get enough.
Soundtrack is great too.
edit: i've yet to try out teleporting either, i should give it a go for shits and giggles at least
hmmm i almost always aim for their guns to minimize damage to my own ship. giving me more money for other things. am i the only one who does this?
only times i dont do it is if they only have lasers and beams that cant penetrate my shields in one volley. then ill go for shields.
*Goibon if you can kill all the crew on the enemy ships you will get better rewards all the time. more scrap. your choice of a crew member if its a slave ship. easiest way to do this is to teleport ppl onto their ship.
On January 04 2013 00:21 gostunv wrote: hmmm i almost always aim for their guns to minimize damage to my own ship. giving me more money for other things. am i the only one who does this?
only times i dont do it is if they only have lasers and beams that cant penetrate my shields in one volley. then ill go for shields.
*Goibon if you can kill all the crew on the enemy ships you will get better rewards all the time. more scrap. your choice of a crew member if its a slave ship. easiest way to do this is to teleport ppl onto their ship.
There is almost never a reason to not go for their guns (going for engines or cockpit if the enemy is fleeing being the only exception I can think of.) since there is no such thing as a time limit in combat. If you manage to disable their weapons the fight is pretty much over already.
Also with the stealth cruiser the mini beam can hit 3 sections at once quite easily, once I worked that out it, it was a little help. Still haven't passed the game on normal yet though with any ship
The red-tail is the easiest to win with imho. Get a teleporter early and practice boarding. Pretty soon you're destroying everyone and getting great rewards. You just have to remember to start looking for a boss-beating weapon set around sector 6ish.
Just started trying this out (on easy, to my shame).
On January 04 2013 01:34 Kerotan wrote: Also with the stealth cruiser the mini beam can hit 3 sections at once quite easily, once I worked that out it, it was a little help. Still haven't passed the game on normal yet though with any ship
I had a fairly successful run with the stealth cruiser but the RNG aggressively prevented me from finding weapons worth a damn. Ended up vs the flagship with the starting dual laser 1, a burst laser 1, and a hull laser 1 (which apparently never hits). Got to phase 2, but couldn't actually land hits consistently enough and my 5 remaining crew couldn't deal with boarding drones.
On January 04 2013 06:26 Klive5ive wrote: The red-tail is the easiest to win with imho. Get a teleporter early and practice boarding. Pretty soon you're destroying everyone and getting great rewards. You just have to remember to start looking for a boss-beating weapon set around sector 6ish.
I forgot the last part. Crushed my way to the end in a Rock ship with a boarding crew of 4 Mantis/Rock/Crystal, dual Ions shutting down everything on the enemy ships - except I forgot that damage is useful. Took out all the flagship guns and realized I didn't have a lot of actual options there. Ended up trying to take on the ship itself and completely mishandling it. Left the game with near full health and an incapacitated flagship because I couldn't do anything :p
I hate the fact that if you dont buy/find a good burst/heavy laser by 4th/5th sector. You're pretty much sol. I always reset when this is the case and when enemy ships start to have 3+ shields on.
On January 04 2013 10:00 Emnjay808 wrote: I hate the fact that if you dont buy/find a good burst/heavy laser by 4th/5th sector. You're pretty much sol. I always reset when this is the case and when enemy ships start to have 3+ shields on.
You can also manage that with enough ion weaponry. Knock out their shields (and their weapons, if you have two) and it doesn't matter how bad your damage weapon is.
On January 04 2013 10:00 Emnjay808 wrote: I hate the fact that if you dont buy/find a good burst/heavy laser by 4th/5th sector. You're pretty much sol. I always reset when this is the case and when enemy ships start to have 3+ shields on.
Ways to deal with shields: 1) Teleporter 2) Ion weapons 3) Stacked lasers 4) Missiles
3 is pretty much superior, though, because it is frontloaded enough that it usually lets you take out some of their weaponry without taking any damage, especially if you also have cloak.
Teleport takes ages to take out anything on the enemy ship, ion weapons have to slowly chew through their shields unless you got many, and missiles can get shot down or even miss. All of that makes you take lots of damage, which costs money, which is bad.
On January 04 2013 21:11 Emnjay808 wrote: Anyone know how to check pathing while jumping? I was watching Frag today and he was checking what spots he could jump to in his next move.
I did not know about this. Assuming i'm not completely misinterpreting, then just go into options and change the 'show beacon paths on hover' to enabled.
omg this is gonna make things a lot easer >_>
Unlocked Rock and Stealth today. Not a fan! I'll persist with them but they're very, very strange ships. I can imagine Rock being alright if i get a laser early. That has yet to happen, however. Running out of missiles ftw!
On January 04 2013 21:11 Emnjay808 wrote: Anyone know how to check pathing while jumping? I was watching Frag today and he was checking what spots he could jump to in his next move.
I did not know about this. Assuming i'm not completely misinterpreting, then just go into options and change the 'show beacon paths on hover' to enabled.
omg this is gonna make things a lot easer >_>
Unlocked Rock and Stealth today. Not a fan! I'll persist with them but they're very, very strange ships. I can imagine Rock being alright if i get a laser early. That has yet to happen, however. Running out of missiles ftw!
You can almost always get a Crew Teleporter pretty early, and with Rock crew it works fairly well.
The Rock ship seems terrible if you play on easy, because you get used to succeeding more often than not. However, you will need luck at normal with any ship, so simply getting a laser is more in line with other ships.
That said, I think the strongest ship is the Osprey, as in, highest win percentage on normal. For the very highest score, Mantis is probably the best, since you board every ship and get maximum scraps right away.
Burst Laser II and Dual Lasers are really strong. Heavy Laser I and Ion Blast I are good options, and everything else is pretty far off/situational. Missiles, bombs and beams seem better balanced, although Breach Bombs II are definitely on top.
As for Teleport, it has its uses even if you don't deal damage with it. Teleport anyone into the Pilot room and you reduce their dodge % by at least half, sometimes entirely, allowing your precious missiles/bombs to hit their target. Then run around until you can beam your boy back.
Ion weapons also allow you to solve a quest, and to suffocate weak opponents, earning you more credits. Ion blast II is pretty bad, but heavy is good with beams, and Blast I is good with lasers. Ion on a room prevents repairs, so Blast I allows you to stunlock one room, for easy suffocation/to kill the bastards in the medic room without damaging your crew/their hull.
Defense Drone I is much better than II, imo. It doesn't waste its shots on lasers, and can still block missiles/boarding drones. Attack Drone II, however, is a marvel to behold.
Everything with Fire/Hull in its name is generally pretty bad and very situational. And this pretty much covers the entire game =)
On January 04 2013 11:09 Simberto wrote: 3 is pretty much superior, though, because it is frontloaded enough that it usually lets you take out some of their weaponry without taking any damage, especially if you also have cloak.
Teleport takes ages to take out anything on the enemy ship, ion weapons have to slowly chew through their shields unless you got many, and missiles can get shot down or even miss. All of that makes you take lots of damage, which costs money, which is bad.
Attempting to take out systems with a boarding crew should not be your main aim - it's to kill their crew as fast as possible. The mid/late game can be defeated with nothing but a teleporter and stacked defense. With the aid of something like a breach bomb or even a fire bomb you can massacre everything. The game is defeated most easily when you adapt your strategy to what you are given. Running around looking for lasers all the time will result in losing a lot of games you could have easily won if you had adapted to one of the other very viable strategies.
Just got my second win ever with a ship (Bulwark) that I never expected to manage it. My weapon kit was breach bomb II, heavy laser I, ion blast (don't remember the exact name, the low end one that does 1 damage every 8 seconds) and and attack drone. Not exactly end game stuff but apparently it was enough.
I was careless and lost my boarding party on phase 1, so I was down to a crew of 3 for later phases. At the moment I won on the last phase, my ship was on fire with 3 enemies on board, about two-thirds open to vacuum with several breaches, and was down to 2 points of health. (Somehow I doubt they made it back for the victory party - thanks for your sacrifice, guys!) Score was just over 3800 which was only the fourth highest for that ship type, and below two others that didn't win.
Of the ships I have so far, Osprey seems like the easiest, since you can concentrate everything on defense in late game and win by attrition. I'm playing mostly Bulwark since I am having trouble unlocking the second layout for some reason (so many near misses now that I've lost count). Still missing Mantis, Slug and the secret one for the full set, although I do have all alternate layouts other than Bulwark.
I do like how you need to play differently each game based on what you find. There are very few truly useless options and nearly everything can be made to work if you adapt your style accordingly.
So far I've unlocked everything but the rock ship.
IMO strongest ship would be the Carnelian (crystal cruiser type b). Starting with stealth systems and a 4 man crew teleporter is insanely good, but what really sets it apart from the other ships is the 3 crystal crewmembers you start with. Being able to send 3 crystal men and a mantis into the weapons room of an enemy ship and lock it down until the weapons are disabled is so so good. its also quite good against the boss because you can quickly destroy their shields and drone systems in the same manner.
I'm trying to beat it with every ship, and right now I'm just stuck on maybe 20+ deaths using Stealth B.
I try to get fast cloak 3 (to ensure I can fire the glaive beam) and then go for shields and a secondary weapon, but I die usually just to some unlucky shots or a ship with a beam drone, it's really difficult.
On January 07 2013 00:32 Hot_Bid wrote: I'm trying to beat it with every ship, and right now I'm just stuck on maybe 20+ deaths using Stealth B.
I try to get fast cloak 3 (to ensure I can fire the glaive beam) and then go for shields and a secondary weapon, but I die usually just to some unlucky shots or a ship with a beam drone, it's really difficult.
What I found to be the best strategy with that ship is to get cloak 2 and save up all my scrap to get a 3rd weapon, that way I either activate cloak as soon as the fight starts to delay their weapons or after shooting because I load faster. That ship is a pain though it's a glass cannon without the huge damage output and dodging in cloak does not help to lvl up your pilot or engine which is so unfair
Last run I made it to the boss and I found out that with 4 laser shots and a big beam is almost impossible to beat phase 2. To win with that ship all the lucky stars have to come together it seems since a 3 weapon limit just cripples you so much on such a cheesy ship.
On January 06 2013 10:26 Chutoro wrote: Just got my second win ever with a ship (Bulwark) that I never expected to manage it. My weapon kit was breach bomb II, heavy laser I, ion blast (don't remember the exact name, the low end one that does 1 damage every 8 seconds) and and attack drone. Not exactly end game stuff but apparently it was enough.
Breach Bomb II is the best missile/bomb in the game, heavy laser I and ion blast I are also among the best. Really good setup, mostly if that's an attack drone II, since you have some leftover power to spare. I'd consider that setup way above average, and be confident you can beat the endgame boss 100%, as long as you have either a teleporter or cloak.
Has anyone here played with the few mods out there? I tried a few that add events or "balance" the game, but all they seem to do is make the game easier.
On January 07 2013 00:32 Hot_Bid wrote: I'm trying to beat it with every ship, and right now I'm just stuck on maybe 20+ deaths using Stealth B.
I try to get fast cloak 3 (to ensure I can fire the glaive beam) and then go for shields and a secondary weapon, but I die usually just to some unlucky shots or a ship with a beam drone, it's really difficult.
Hotbid, could you stream yourself playing Faster Than Light? I would love that :D
On January 07 2013 00:32 Hot_Bid wrote: I'm trying to beat it with every ship, and right now I'm just stuck on maybe 20+ deaths using Stealth B.
I try to get fast cloak 3 (to ensure I can fire the glaive beam) and then go for shields and a secondary weapon, but I die usually just to some unlucky shots or a ship with a beam drone, it's really difficult.
What I found to be the best strategy with that ship is to get cloak 2 and save up all my scrap to get a 3rd weapon, that way I either activate cloak as soon as the fight starts to delay their weapons or after shooting because I load faster. That ship is a pain though it's a glass cannon without the huge damage output and dodging in cloak does not help to lvl up your pilot or engine which is so unfair
Last run I made it to the boss and I found out that with 4 laser shots and a big beam is almost impossible to beat phase 2. To win with that ship all the lucky stars have to come together it seems since a 3 weapon limit just cripples you so much on such a cheesy ship.
This ship more than any other pushes you into a narrow field of options - which in this game means a low overall win-rate.
The only strategy that maximises your forced early investment in cloak is a one-shot build. Delay your shields til late and look for some really slow charging weapons, cloak at the start of the battle while they charge and do significant damage with your first volley. Avoid Zoltan sectors.
Transitioning into teleporters/mantis or drone/ion/laser is difficult because the early game will not yield masses of salvage and you require shields for these strategies - all of which will be later than they would be with any other ship.
On January 07 2013 00:32 Hot_Bid wrote: I'm trying to beat it with every ship, and right now I'm just stuck on maybe 20+ deaths using Stealth B.
I try to get fast cloak 3 (to ensure I can fire the glaive beam) and then go for shields and a secondary weapon, but I die usually just to some unlucky shots or a ship with a beam drone, it's really difficult.
What I found to be the best strategy with that ship is to get cloak 2 and save up all my scrap to get a 3rd weapon, that way I either activate cloak as soon as the fight starts to delay their weapons or after shooting because I load faster. That ship is a pain though it's a glass cannon without the huge damage output and dodging in cloak does not help to lvl up your pilot or engine which is so unfair
Last run I made it to the boss and I found out that with 4 laser shots and a big beam is almost impossible to beat phase 2. To win with that ship all the lucky stars have to come together it seems since a 3 weapon limit just cripples you so much on such a cheesy ship.
This ship more than any other pushes you into a narrow field of options - which in this game means a low overall win-rate.
The only strategy that maximises your forced early investment in cloak is a one-shot build. Delay your shields til late and look for some really slow charging weapons, cloak at the start of the battle while they charge and do significant damage with your first volley. Avoid Zoltan sectors.
Transitioning into teleporters/mantis or drone/ion/laser is difficult because the early game will not yield masses of salvage and you require shields for these strategies - all of which will be later than they would be with any other ship.
I have made it to the end with late game systems that way, everything upgraded to kestrel endgame levels but always lacking decent weapons, for some reason I have shit luck in stores and drops with that ship. Today I tried again absolutely stomped phase 1 with hermes and a reasonable boarding crew, of course though Hermes is useless in phase 2 so I died again, what I found most frustrating about the ship is the overall quality of weapons you start with. Moving on from the small beam and dual laser when you have to invest so heavily in shields in the midgame is incredibly crippling.
One thing I found to be quite useful is selling titanium plating as soon as something useful pops up in a store, it is after all a quite useless augment.
On Zoltan sectors - I found them fine unless encountered in the mid game. What I detested the most was ships with attack drones, if I got one of those in my first few jumps I restarted because I knew the damage that ship would do to me would cripple me for almost the rest of the game.
On January 06 2013 10:26 Chutoro wrote: Just got my second win ever with a ship (Bulwark) that I never expected to manage it. My weapon kit was breach bomb II, heavy laser I, ion blast (don't remember the exact name, the low end one that does 1 damage every 8 seconds) and and attack drone. Not exactly end game stuff but apparently it was enough.
Breach Bomb II is the best missile/bomb in the game, heavy laser I and ion blast I are also among the best. Really good setup, mostly if that's an attack drone II, since you have some leftover power to spare. I'd consider that setup way above average, and be confident you can beat the endgame boss 100%, as long as you have either a teleporter or cloak.
Thanks, that's good to know - I guess my definition of "good" needs a little refinement (it sounds like power efficiency is a big consideration). I think the attack drone was a drone I, not II. In general I felt like I was playing behind for a lot of the game and had near-constant supply issues for the last few sectors. I was almost out of pretty much everything by sector 8, but fortunately the layout allowed me to reach three repair sites before engaging, which solved my problem. It did all seem to work surprisingly well together once I no longer had to hoard missiles like a miser.
I did have both a teleporter (which I try to always get early for Rock ship if I can, and for any ship by the endgame boss) and cloak (which I picked up quite late). I was not close to maxed on power though. In hindsight shields and/or engine might have been a better investment than cloak. I only had 3 shields for the final battle and was taking a lot of punishment.
I barely ever upgrade cloak. Cloak lvl 1 is all you need for the endgame boss, and it's expensive to upgrade. As you said, power efficiency is really important, and two power also means two points in weapons, which is huge for the midgame. That's also why zoltan crew members are the best. You only need one engi, and two rocks or mantis to board, but ideally the 5 others would be Zoltans (although that'd mean the Engi would be the pilot, which might not be ideal. 1st world problem)
It's actually bad to upgrade cloak for the final boss. Five seconds is all you need to dodge his stage 3 special attack. Also, if the duration is longer than five seconds, you can't use it to dodge the second attack, as the 15 seconds + recharge is longer than the cooldown of the final boss's stage 3 special attack.
Its still useful vs everything not the boss, you can just drop the power down when you fight the boss. Though I wouldn't upgrade it if you aren't in the stealth ship.
On January 08 2013 11:12 Coriolis wrote: Its still useful vs everything not the boss, you can just drop the power down when you fight the boss. Though I wouldn't upgrade it if you aren't in the stealth ship.
It is quite good vs everything specially those pesky zoltan ships with 4 shields + super shield with maxed weapons, I don't even know.
I beat the game with the stealth ship yesterday. 2 heavy lasers II and a burst laser II was my weapon loadout, maxed shields, 6 power on engine, drone bay with a system repair and anti personnel, 2 cloak and my maxed boarding and piloting crew. It was relatively easy thanks to the antipersonnel and system repair they make those painful boarding drones so manageable, in both phase 2 and 3 cloak 2 came in handy, being able to stay in cloak for the phase 2 overload and dodging the laser barrage + power surge beams to get the achievement. I completed both of my goals in that run, beat the game with the ship and unlock it's type B.
I don't know, the time the cloak lasts is usually rather unimportant. You use it to dodge their most scary rockets, and afterwards you should take out their weapons before they can fire it again.
Remember that just because you upgrade or mount stuff on, you don't need to (fully) power them. Surge coming and cloak on cooldown? Shut down oxygen and medbay for a second, pump it to engines for more avoidance or shields, then back.
I think the stealth ship is just a troll ship, I don't see how you can win in normal difficulty with that considering how expensive shields are and the fact that in the first 2 sectors there are ships with beams weapons.
Stealth ship is great, now I've got the hang of it I hate going back to the old ships because they are so boring in comparison.
You do need a bit of luck early on though, attack drones will eat you alive plus you really need extra weapons so you can hit ships before they can hit you. Most ships with beam weapons you just take out their weapons before they can fire.
Only thing I don't get is the 2nd achievement, how does it track that you are avoiding 9 points of damage. I would have thought if I dodge the bosses super weapon that should be enough?
On January 10 2013 19:19 BlitzerSC wrote: I think the stealth ship is just a troll ship, I don't see how you can win in normal difficulty with that considering how expensive shields are and the fact that in the first 2 sectors there are ships with beams weapons.
You don't need shields. Just cloak whenever they first fire and then alpha strike their weapons. It relies upon having enough firepower to completely rape their weapons. I usually don't pick up shields until like sector 5.
On January 11 2013 00:32 Incognitodies wrote: Stealth ship is great, now I've got the hang of it I hate going back to the old ships because they are so boring in comparison.
You do need a bit of luck early on though, attack drones will eat you alive plus you really need extra weapons so you can hit ships before they can hit you. Most ships with beam weapons you just take out their weapons before they can fire.
Only thing I don't get is the 2nd achievement, how does it track that you are avoiding 9 points of damage. I would have thought if I dodge the bosses super weapon that should be enough?
Each normal laser does 1 damage, heavy lasers 2 damage, hull lasers 1, missiles vary and bombs don't hit shields so per rules of the achievement you have to avoid 5 heavy lasers or 9 normal lasers, no ship will have the amount of missiles needed.
I did it on the final boss in phase 3, wait for the laser barrage and the power overload to be a few seconds off each other. Cloak on the barrage and if you have level 2 or 3 which you should on stealth it will last enough to avoid everything.
That dodge 9 damage thing must be done without an active shield. So you can just power down your shield just before power surge, cloak the surge then repower your shield.
Here's a tip in general bout shields:
Zoltan crew members provice 1 power in the room they are in if it has something powerable. So, make zoltan your shields officer and recruit a 2nd one that idles in the shield room. Tada, you'll always have at least 1 layer of shield power, saving you 2 power for other systems.
Also, you can level shield skill easy. You gain skill ups for the level everytime you power up a shield layer fully, while in combat. So, easiest thing is, find an opponent that cannot harm you when you lose a layer of shields every few seconds, or simply when you have like 4 layers, an enemy that has no chance to break through all of them with their weapon rotations, then manually unpower 1 layer, then repower it. Wait for the shield layer to fully power, rince repeat. Level shield skill to max. A habit of mine to do this between enemy weapon cds if they run long cooldown weapons, since repowering a layer takes like 1-2 seconds.
On January 13 2013 04:17 Hot_Bid wrote: I am trying to beat this with every ship.
Thus far I have beaten it with every A-layout ship except Slug (which I have not unlocked yet) and also Mantis-B, Engi-B, and Crystal-B.
Rock-A was by far the hardest, it took me like 40+ tries, and I finally beat it when I random-dropped a burst-II and quested a burst-III.
I've actually been having a lot of success with Rock-A, even if I don't find a weapon fast. I just buy a teleporter asap, since rock crew are so beastly as boarders, and then focus on defense (usually shield 2-3 and drone), no need to power missiles after the first shot. Early on a missile in the weapons room and teleporting there keeps them from shooting, and later on when the enemies have medbays I'll have gotten my shields leveled higher and hopefully have a defense drone, so I target medbay instead with missile+teleport. If the rng god is fickle and I don't find another weapon eventually beating the final boss isn't going to happen obviously, but I can usually make it that far with just the starting loadout. Rock B is definitely more fun though.
On January 11 2013 03:26 daemir wrote: That dodge 9 damage thing must be done without an active shield. So you can just power down your shield just before power surge, cloak the surge then repower your shield.
Here's a tip in general bout shields:
Zoltan crew members provice 1 power in the room they are in if it has something powerable. So, make zoltan your shields officer and recruit a 2nd one that idles in the shield room. Tada, you'll always have at least 1 layer of shield power, saving you 2 power for other systems.
Also, you can level shield skill easy. You gain skill ups for the level everytime you power up a shield layer fully, while in combat. So, easiest thing is, find an opponent that cannot harm you when you lose a layer of shields every few seconds, or simply when you have like 4 layers, an enemy that has no chance to break through all of them with their weapon rotations, then manually unpower 1 layer, then repower it. Wait for the shield layer to fully power, rince repeat. Level shield skill to max. A habit of mine to do this between enemy weapon cds if they run long cooldown weapons, since repowering a layer takes like 1-2 seconds.
I definitely got that achievement with my shield active and fully powered. It doesn't matter if it's shield or hull damage, you just have to dodge 9 damage worth of projectiles in a cloak. Which is probably only going to happen on the final boss anyway, rolling an enemy that is packing an insane loadout for it isn't likely.
I never got that achievement while doding a heavy laser burst + power surge with cloak in the last boss. Read from the wiki that you need not have shields for it to work.
On January 13 2013 17:44 slained wrote: Just got the game tonight. Couldn't get far at all only got 1 ship. Love the challenge. Is there any YouTube vids of beating the hand or streams?
If you love the challenge dont watch or read anything.You can beat the game by yourself.
On January 13 2013 17:44 slained wrote: Just got the game tonight. Couldn't get far at all only got 1 ship. Love the challenge. Is there any YouTube vids of beating the hand or streams?
If you love the challenge dont watch or read anything.You can beat the game by yourself.
On January 13 2013 17:44 slained wrote: Just got the game tonight. Couldn't get far at all only got 1 ship. Love the challenge. Is there any YouTube vids of beating the hand or streams?
I shall spoil a little, just try and reach sector 5. + Show Spoiler +
Lost my Engi crew member early, but not until after I got a rock guy. I then got weapon pre-igniters as a random drop around sector 2, and an attack drone 2 from a quest.
Unfortunately I spent too long in sector 3 and the rebels nearly got me at the exit. I managed to teleport away with 1 health, and of course the first beacon after entering the new sector was a sun (and I also ran out of fuel). Had to wait, got away from the sun somehow but then a rebel rigger with a rocket came and ruined me.
Rock B is a load of fun, I bought a scrap recovery arm at the first store and was given two more extremely early along with a fire beam. Then I went on a murderous pyromaniacal rampage throughout the galaxy. Even got the shipburning achievement, tried a few times and wondered why it wasn't working, but I found out it means every single tile in every room needs to be on fire. Almost set the boss completely on fire too xD. Fire bombs really annihilate the final boss pretty hard, rockmen can consistently take out everyone on board in one go just bombing the medbay and teleporting in there. I was a little surprised that its missile launcher can still get through two defense drone mk2 though. Actually never found enough weapons to even penetrate 4 shields(only the fire beam and a burst 1 and starters) but it didn't matter as I was burninating the galaxy.
3 scrap arms gives so much money (got 2304 total), I bought and maxed every system except last 3 engines and lvl 3 of medbay/cloak/sensor/door/oxy. There was a weird event in a slug nebula I hadn't seen before of a slug pleading for help from a mantis fighter saying they'd give me everything they had. Afterwards I decided their tribute wasn't enough and blew them up too, got over 160 scrap from that event alone. I really should play with some of the other type b ships (want to play stealth b again), but I'm trying to get to the crystal ship as rock.
The new indicator of no oxygen in a room is kinda hard to see when it's completely on fire though, I actually lost my starting crew I used for boarding, I was going to tele back but didn't notice when the room ran out of air...
I FINALLY BEAT THE GAME ON NORMAL WOOOOOOOHOOO It really delivered the drama that I've come to expect from FTL, my original pilot died in unfortunate circumstances, and a mantis was only available replacement. I was using the torus, and I stacked ion weapons hard, i had the starting ion, a heavy ion and an ion bomb which worked really well with 2 combat drones and a drone recovery arm, I also bought the hull repair drone as well later on. The first phase of the boss fight was uneventful relatively uneventful, I took some hits but having 4 extra guys able to run around and repair quickly helped, any damage I took got repaired afterwards. It was in the second phase, or more accurately the aftermath of the second phase that really made things dramatic, having no stealth module and a manti at the helm meant that my evasion really wasn't best of times, I did reinforce the pilot subsystem twice though to make up from this.
The sensors went down, and just about every system had taken a beating. I was losing air and fast, my first priority was to get the medibay working again so the engi medi bot dispersal would counter the effects of the lack of oxygen and then to go fix the o2 room which I had even reinforced to take an extra hit before conking out entirely. When i finally got to the O2 room, the situation turned from bad to worse, there was a breach in the room and overall oxygen supply was estimated at approximately 9 percent, most of the ship was hazardous, medi bot dispersal did help but only slowed your death. the only safe place was in the medbay on the otherside of the ship, only big enough to accommodate 3. My crew is 8.
Knowing that their time was short my crew set to work, taking shifts to try and maximise chance of survival, one by one they started dropping, ferry the second enginner kept on working as his crewmate asphyxiated, for a moment it seemed like even he was not going to make it, the supply was fixed, but would it save him in time. Barely alive, ferry stumbled back to the medbay. When the fight had ended, the crew was 8. Now they were down to just 4. Out of the elite officers, only the shields officer had made it out alive.
Come the final fight, it was a messy punch drunk affair, my plan of venting all the oxygen from the rest of the ship and making any boarders fight in the medbay ended abruptly as the door systems completely failed, so my skeleton crew of 3 ran wildly from drone control to the weapons systems trying desperately to maintain the systems, while becca my pilot manti steered the ship.
The last legs of the rebel flagship where crushed by a single attack drone, valiantly shooting away while its shields had been ioned into next week, as the drone control was infested with boarders and the weapons systems cooked marshmallows.
As the rebel flagship broke up I couldn't believe it. The ship and its crew has been through hell and high water, and despite all the odds, come out on the otherside.
Thought Crystal B would be super good when I unlocked it today. Little did I know my first beacon would be a zoltan ship with attack ship drone. Impossible to break the zoltan shield, cloak lvl 1 only lasted so long and... he hit my door system + shield system, both set on fire...
Cant remember the last time i have felt so accomplished from mastering a video game and acquiring something as illusive as the crystal ship. Now on to Crystal B and the boarding victory of the rebel flagship .
Yay! beat it for the first time on normal! Was a very calm run, pretty much no close moments. The Zoltan A is now officially my favorite ship, since it was also the ship I first beat easy with. Both the Zoltan shield and the Halberd beam becomes increasingly useless the further you get, but their strength early on really helps my economy. Next up would be to unlock the other ships (only have 5 so far).
Beaten it with almost every ship on normal and I still celebrate and throw my hands up in the air every time i defeat the last boss. Always feels rewarding.
Maybe I've just had bad luck with it but I seem to have the hardest time with the Federation Cruiser B / Nisos of all ships. Leto and low level Artillery beam just seem incredibly useless and due to the layout fires, system damage and enemy boarding crews are a huge pain.
So.... apparently a defense drone can shoot down a boarding drone at the same time as it breaches your ship. My guy had to fix the hole, but the drone didn't appear. Happened to me on the final boss as federation b. It was an easy fight anyway though, got an amazing weapon setup (burst 2, dual laser, and two heavy laser 1, along with two automated reloaders). Turned on the artillery to take down his last square of health just for kicks.
Wow it happened again on the boss where I shot down the boarding drone just as it breached the ship. Also I didn't see it clearly, but the final boss brought up its zoltan shield just as it died and it had a hit or two missing, but then he exploded. Finally beat it with stealth b though, and unlocked mantis cruiser on the way. Now only have three ships left to beat it with
Wow the game can spawn unreachable beacons. I wonder if someone's ever landed on one jumping into a new sector...
Edit: I just had to beat the boss without using real weapons. I was going for the never buy at a store achievement using crystal b, the only things I ever found were two ion bombs. Had to lock two crew in rooms to destroy systems in order to damage him and then let them repair it. And had to activate the ai for the final stage so that it could repair systems enough for me to kill him. All of my crew martyred themselves except for the pilot...
Also had a weird bug happen when I was going for it earlier on mantis b. An enemy tried to board the room just to the right of the teleporter that I had two mantis in, and the right one bugged out and circled around counterclockwise under the ship before actually ending up in the room (I had a slug so I saw his red dot, he showed up in the room under the teleporter for a second and then went back to red dot before he finally arrived). He also didn't take damage until he arrived in the room proper, so it wasn't just graphical glitch.
Yay, I have finally 100% this game. Unexpectedly, Slug B probably gave me the most trouble out of any of the ships. Never got any decent weapons for it (only picked up a fire bomb and burst 1 alongside starters). Wasted over twenty-five fire bombs trying to take down the boss medbay and still failed to do so. Usually they give up repairing it after half a dozen or so but not this time. Had to teleport 4 guys into the shield room (slug+human first, then two mantis) and do some intense micro to keep them from dying, and only sometimes manage to kill a guy before he could run away to the medbay, until they all died, so that I could kill the shields by hand.
The weapon preigniter achievement was also hard as hell, kept trying with various ships, eventually got it with stealth b in sector 4 on an unshielded scout who had a cloak, but I barely timed it so he'd come out of it while mine was up. Had so many runs where I had a good setup but then never found any ships I could kill, best was probably a Rock A run where I had two hull missiles, a pegusus missile, and the artemis, but then annoyingly could never find any ships with fourteen health or less. Now all I have to do is fill up my top scores with only victories and try to break 5200
My most epic fight on this one was using a Stealth Cruiser vs Final Boss stage 1.
I had largely utter crap weapons, the best being a Fire Bomb. I quickly teleported and firebombed the weapons down, but was unable to eat through the shields conventionally. Through use of firebombs, and teleports, I managed to whittle down the opponent's crew to 2, and eventually used fire to destroy their O2 system. Unfortunately, I had finished loosing all of my own shipsmates save one, and the lack of O2 put out the fire.
By the end I was out of missiles, down to 2 crew, and the enemy still had 2 crewmen running around attempting to repair their 02 and cloak system. Both were asphyxiating, but the medbay was active, and enough to keep them alive.
Utter stalemate, as I couldn't beat through the shields with my single lazer and beam weapon.
Ugh, I can never beat this game. I've gotten to the boss with the Engi cruiser but just couldn't deal with it. Two Anti-Ship Drones, one Beam, Hull Laser, Ion Blaster, Level III shields, heavily upgraded engines and cockpit with enough energy to keep them all up and I could still barely touch the flagship. Boarding seems to be the best route for dealing with it. Is this true?
Bording is good to take out the primary weapon systems, but they have lots of crewmen and a good med-bay. You'd have to damage the medbay in order to thin the #s, or have bomb weapons to take out the injured crewmen as they heal.
2 Anti-ship drones and that weapon load out should have been enough, so long as you knock out the pilot. The mother ship has a fairly high dodge rating, so knocking that down to 0% means that between the Ion, lazer, and ship drones you should eventually be able to blow through the shields and eventually bring them down. It would be tough though, that isn't the best weapon-loadout.
Get the teleporter and teleport 2 of any of your crew to the bosses missile weapon slot at the start of each phase. That's the most dangerous weapon. Last phase this is hardest since the boss has the 15 point super shield, so recommended to unpower your teleporter and power up your cloak and use it everytime the 3 rocket volley comes to dodge it until you get the shield down so you can teleport some crew to take it out again.
You can totally kill the boss without ever installing teleporter, but it can be hard to get past the high shield and in 2nd phase, past the defense drone if you rely on missile weapons, as then you have to sync fire the missiles so the drone can't shoot them all down.
Bomb type weapons always work, small bomb is the best weapon in the game! 1 power, 1 missile, does good damage to crew and systems, my fav weapon. Well, after any fire type weapons, because burning stuff is :D
My best win so far has been with the kestrel. I was worried because a ship ftl'ed away with my mantis strike team right before the final sector. Won because I had 2 burst mkii and 1 burst mki that I just spammed in sync. Knock out shields then cockpit then spam on a space to tear the hull to shreds. Roaming human/engi team helped with boarders repairs.
On February 07 2013 00:45 Trozz wrote: Why up oxygen? Does it give you blue options? That upgrade seems bad.
It only gives one blue option against a slug ship that tries to disable your oxygen, which allows you to keep it up at one, but that's not really worth it since you can probably take them out quickly before your O2 runs out. If you max it then you can actually overpower a hull breach, but it's still a really low priority upgrade when you have nothing else left.
On February 06 2013 14:11 Coppermantis wrote: Ugh, I can never beat this game. I've gotten to the boss with the Engi cruiser but just couldn't deal with it. Two Anti-Ship Drones, one Beam, Hull Laser, Ion Blaster, Level III shields, heavily upgraded engines and cockpit with enough energy to keep them all up and I could still barely touch the flagship. Boarding seems to be the best route for dealing with it. Is this true?
As the other guy said its not impossible with that weapon setup, but it would take a really long time, especially since you can't aim drones at systems that need damaging. The best thing for a setup like that would be more defense (that level 4 shield would help a ton, especially against the second phases power surge), and just waiting it out until you can hit the ship (after you take down two shields with the ion and your drones fire so you can a laser at something, probably shields).
Boarding is the best way to take out the boss' weapons, but the rest of him is not easy to board, though if you have fire or breach bombs you can sometimes make their medbay completely untenable and they'll all end up with really low health and be unable to fix it. The big bonus of teleporting is that they can't fix any systems in the later stages, so long as you left the tri laser guy alive, being able to take out the drone control in the second phase and stop those boarding drones is good.
Also you should invest in a defense drone 1 next time, it's invaluable through all of the game to stop pesky missiles and boarding drones, and it makes the boss missile launcher much less dangerous with one of those and some engine upgrades to dodge the one it won't get.
On February 06 2013 13:27 Obsidian wrote: My most epic fight on this one was using a Stealth Cruiser vs Final Boss stage 1.
I had largely utter crap weapons, the best being a Fire Bomb. I quickly teleported and firebombed the weapons down, but was unable to eat through the shields conventionally. Through use of firebombs, and teleports, I managed to whittle down the opponent's crew to 2, and eventually used fire to destroy their O2 system. Unfortunately, I had finished loosing all of my own shipsmates save one, and the lack of O2 put out the fire.
By the end I was out of missiles, down to 2 crew, and the enemy still had 2 crewmen running around attempting to repair their 02 and cloak system. Both were asphyxiating, but the medbay was active, and enough to keep them alive.
Utter stalemate, as I couldn't beat through the shields with my single lazer and beam weapon.
If you kill all the crew of the flag ship, it actually goes into an automated mode which is even worse than a full crew because it performs system repairs automatically and very quickly.
Ahh.... good to know. The Flagship is such a beast... Bording to knock out the weapons, and then hopefully I'd have enough guns to try and beat through the shield. That was the problem though, none of the merchants I had run across sold weapons, none at all.
Just ignore the avoidance bonus on early battles like this and get your only engi crewman to repair stuff, the double repair speed helps more than 10% avoidance.
It's not as bad as the Stealth Cruiser Mk2. Sure, the beam is powerful, and wrecks most ships in the first couple sectors in one shot... it's got a huge charge timer and it's easy to shut down. Pray you never run into any anti-ship drones early on with that thing, or they luck out and hit your weapon system first.
On February 10 2013 10:37 Obsidian wrote: It's not as bad as the Stealth Cruiser Mk2. Sure, the beam is powerful, and wrecks most ships in the first couple sectors in one shot... it's got a huge charge timer and it's easy to shut down. Pray you never run into any anti-ship drones early on with that thing, or they luck out and hit your weapon system first.
Stealth B has Level 2 Cloak. And remember, the proper use of Cloak is to wait for the other ship to Fire first, and then activating Cloak. The +60% evasion boost Cloak gives you should allow you to dodge the shot, while also freezing your opponent's timer. That gives enough time to charge the Glaive beam in my experience before another shot is fired.
You're right in that when an Anti-Ship drone is involved, you have to rely on luck.
I just discovered this game thanks to TL, and I have had more fun playing this than many $60 titles. Finally beat the game on normal with the starting ship. Now it's time to try to unlock some of the other ships.
Rooms with a breach cannot be repaired by AI systems (AI scout ships, last boss after all crew dead) Rooms that are on fire also cannot be repaired by AI systems while on fire (well duh, systems take damage as long as they are burning)
On February 03 2013 09:25 Fyrewolf wrote: Yay, I have finally 100% this game. Unexpectedly, Slug B probably gave me the most trouble out of any of the ships. Never got any decent weapons for it (only picked up a fire bomb and burst 1 alongside starters). Wasted over twenty-five fire bombs trying to take down the boss medbay and still failed to do so. Usually they give up repairing it after half a dozen or so but not this time. Had to teleport 4 guys into the shield room (slug+human first, then two mantis) and do some intense micro to keep them from dying, and only sometimes manage to kill a guy before he could run away to the medbay, until they all died, so that I could kill the shields by hand.
The weapon preigniter achievement was also hard as hell, kept trying with various ships, eventually got it with stealth b in sector 4 on an unshielded scout who had a cloak, but I barely timed it so he'd come out of it while mine was up. Had so many runs where I had a good setup but then never found any ships I could kill, best was probably a Rock A run where I had two hull missiles, a pegusus missile, and the artemis, but then annoyingly could never find any ships with fourteen health or less. Now all I have to do is fill up my top scores with only victories and try to break 5200
That achievement is the main 'hard thing' I still have to do ....its so hard just to find a preigniter, let alone kill a ship in one volley. Congrats on 100%
On February 09 2013 05:33 Qbek wrote: It is best to leave the boss at 1 crew if possible, he can't do shit alone :D
I always leave the ion weapon crew member last lol. then I just take my sweet time destroying everything else with my mantis crew ^_^
The problem with that is that the ion cannon breaks off after the first phase of the boss, meaning you'd have to fight the automated ship in phases 2 and 3. I generally leave the guy manning the burst lasers alive, as that part of the ship stays intact the entire fight.
On February 03 2013 09:25 Fyrewolf wrote: Yay, I have finally 100% this game. Unexpectedly, Slug B probably gave me the most trouble out of any of the ships. Never got any decent weapons for it (only picked up a fire bomb and burst 1 alongside starters). Wasted over twenty-five fire bombs trying to take down the boss medbay and still failed to do so. Usually they give up repairing it after half a dozen or so but not this time. Had to teleport 4 guys into the shield room (slug+human first, then two mantis) and do some intense micro to keep them from dying, and only sometimes manage to kill a guy before he could run away to the medbay, until they all died, so that I could kill the shields by hand.
The weapon preigniter achievement was also hard as hell, kept trying with various ships, eventually got it with stealth b in sector 4 on an unshielded scout who had a cloak, but I barely timed it so he'd come out of it while mine was up. Had so many runs where I had a good setup but then never found any ships I could kill, best was probably a Rock A run where I had two hull missiles, a pegusus missile, and the artemis, but then annoyingly could never find any ships with fourteen health or less. Now all I have to do is fill up my top scores with only victories and try to break 5200
That achievement is the main 'hard thing' I still have to do ....its so hard just to find a preigniter, let alone kill a ship in one volley. Congrats on 100%
I got really lucky finding a preigniter early on and was able to kill one of the zone 1 ai drones. :D
On February 09 2013 05:33 Qbek wrote: It is best to leave the boss at 1 crew if possible, he can't do shit alone :D
I always leave the ion weapon crew member last lol. then I just take my sweet time destroying everything else with my mantis crew ^_^
The problem with that is that the ion cannon breaks off after the first phase of the boss, meaning you'd have to fight the automated ship in phases 2 and 3. I generally leave the guy manning the burst lasers alive, as that part of the ship stays intact the entire fight.
Yes. Also, Crystal men are op. Of course i have yet to reach the secret sector because i never see the rock homeworld after getting the crystal man, but getting those is not that hard. Then deactivate weapons except for the triple laser, which should do no damage to you. Then just port into the pilot room, kill pilot with lockdown, port out again. Do that 4-5 times and they only got the laser guy alive and the rest of the bossfight is a walk in the park.
Get the cloak for the final fight and it should be pretty easy, just board the weapon rooms and have 4 shield bars + good pilot (at least 40% dodge). When they board you in later phases just open the doors to outside and kill the survivors easily. You don't even need very strong weapons, I did it with two 8 sec Ion Cannons, Burst Laser that shoots 3 times and the attack drone.
On February 15 2013 02:08 3772 wrote: Get the cloak for the final fight and it should be pretty easy, just board the weapon rooms and have 4 shield bars + good pilot (at least 40% dodge). When they board you in later phases just open the doors to outside and kill the survivors easily. You don't even need very strong weapons, I did it with two 8 sec Ion Cannons, Burst Laser that shoots 3 times and the attack drone.
That is a pretty good setup. 8 sec ion thingies are pretty op, and with 2 of those you can easily shut their shields down forever. Only slightly problematic phase might be p1 because the cloak resets your ion stack. But on the other hand, the boss does not really do anything in p1 after you took out his rockets, ion thingy and beam with boarders, so you can slowly do some damage to it until you are in p2.
Have any of you seen Aurora Rising? Its a new kickstarter that is inspired by FTL. It looks like a similar concept, but apparently with a heavier focus on the rpg aspect leveling and using your crew.
I must be doing it wrong. With that setup there is only a slim chance of losing (if I had cloaking it would have been 99% impossible to lose), and I end up dying not half way into the second phase.
I must be doing it wrong. With that setup there is only a slim chance of losing (if I had cloaking it would have been 99% impossible to lose), and I end up dying not half way into the second phase.
things that would help
a> better weapons. You can't reliably break the shield with that. Without this and the inability to permatank the drone wave, you've already lost b> defense drone mk1's. Mk2's arn't too useful, though defense drones are helpful anyway c> cloak. Much better than defense drones and will help you survive the drone waves
Still haven't reached the secret sector or unlocked the crystal ship despite many many attempts.
To add insult to injury, I played one game on my wife's PC recently (she has her own copy of the game and set of unlocks/achievements on Steam). I picked the Rock ship, all the stars lined up and I found the secret sector and unlocked both the crystal ship and layout 2 for the Rock ship (which I also haven't managed to do yet).
Went back to my own PC and naturally I still can't do it...
I must be doing it wrong. With that setup there is only a slim chance of losing (if I had cloaking it would have been 99% impossible to lose), and I end up dying not half way into the second phase.
things that would help
a> better weapons. You can't reliably break the shield with that. Without this and the inability to permatank the drone wave, you've already lost b> defense drone mk1's. Mk2's arn't too useful, though defense drones are helpful anyway c> cloak. Much better than defense drones and will help you survive the drone waves
Weapons were fine actually, ion 2 is great for stacking ion, and although burst 3 takes forever to charge it can go through shields by itself, so it's especially easy in combination. Generally 3 isn't great is because you are only as fast as your slowest weapon, so it takes a while to disable things, but in an ion setup it's not so bad, as he doesn't need to wait to stack enough ion before firing.
He should have been able to tank the drone wave without cloak too from the look of the upgrades, unless he wasn't fully leveled with engine crew and shield crew. A shield charge booster could maybe help, booster+gold crew and 4 shields guarantees the drone wave can't get through (still ok without booster most of the time) unless you get hit by all the lasers, which he had good enough engines to almost always avoid, and the defense drone 2 (though mk 1 is more reliable since the missiles are the dangerous weapons). Taking out the drone control might have helped too(after missile launcher of course). Cloak isn't too important, it helps with phase 3 power surge (which won't always get through) and with the oh shit I got hit with all three lasers and need time to recharge shields during phase 2 power surge, it's a nice little bonus rather than a necessity.
Corvette, you probably should have had that one, next time you get a setup like that, with good guaranteed damage and high defense (4 shields, 4-5+ engines, and drone), make sure your crew is leveled before the fight, especially shields for the second phase, powerlevel them if need be. It looks like you just got unlucky while waiting for your lasers to charge (remember if you have ion 2 any other weapon will do since ion 2 stacks).
I must be doing it wrong. With that setup there is only a slim chance of losing (if I had cloaking it would have been 99% impossible to lose), and I end up dying not half way into the second phase.
things that would help
a> better weapons. You can't reliably break the shield with that. Without this and the inability to permatank the drone wave, you've already lost b> defense drone mk1's. Mk2's arn't too useful, though defense drones are helpful anyway c> cloak. Much better than defense drones and will help you survive the drone waves
Weapons were fine actually, ion 2 is great for stacking ion, and although burst 3 takes forever to charge it can go through shields by itself, so it's especially easy in combination. Generally 3 isn't great is because you are only as fast as your slowest weapon, so it takes a while to disable things, but in an ion setup it's not so bad, as he doesn't need to wait to stack enough ion before firing.
He should have been able to tank the drone wave without cloak too from the look of the upgrades, unless he wasn't fully leveled with engine crew and shield crew. A shield charge booster could maybe help, booster+gold crew and 4 shields guarantees the drone wave can't get through (still ok without booster most of the time) unless you get hit by all the lasers, which he had good enough engines to almost always avoid, and the defense drone 2 (though mk 1 is more reliable since the missiles are the dangerous weapons). Taking out the drone control might have helped too(after missile launcher of course). Cloak isn't too important, it helps with phase 3 power surge (which won't always get through) and with the oh shit I got hit with all three lasers and need time to recharge shields during phase 2 power surge, it's a nice little bonus rather than a necessity.
Corvette, you probably should have had that one, next time you get a setup like that, with good guaranteed damage and high defense (4 shields, 4-5+ engines, and drone), make sure your crew is leveled before the fight, especially shields for the second phase, powerlevel them if need be. It looks like you just got unlucky while waiting for your lasers to charge (remember if you have ion 2 any other weapon will do since ion 2 stacks).
P1 must really suck with that setup, though. Ion2 loses its stack pretty often due to cloaking, and no teleport means he can't even disable the enemy weapons systems. So basically he has to very slowly chip away at the enemy health with Burst 3 through 2-3 shields, while eating triple rockets all the time. After P1 things should get easier because your Ion stacks don't get reset, but you will still eat some damage with no cloak and no teleport to disable weaponry faster, which with all the damage from P1 might be too much.
I must be doing it wrong. With that setup there is only a slim chance of losing (if I had cloaking it would have been 99% impossible to lose), and I end up dying not half way into the second phase.
things that would help
a> better weapons. You can't reliably break the shield with that. Without this and the inability to permatank the drone wave, you've already lost b> defense drone mk1's. Mk2's arn't too useful, though defense drones are helpful anyway c> cloak. Much better than defense drones and will help you survive the drone waves
Weapons were fine actually, ion 2 is great for stacking ion, and although burst 3 takes forever to charge it can go through shields by itself, so it's especially easy in combination. Generally 3 isn't great is because you are only as fast as your slowest weapon, so it takes a while to disable things, but in an ion setup it's not so bad, as he doesn't need to wait to stack enough ion before firing.
He should have been able to tank the drone wave without cloak too from the look of the upgrades, unless he wasn't fully leveled with engine crew and shield crew. A shield charge booster could maybe help, booster+gold crew and 4 shields guarantees the drone wave can't get through (still ok without booster most of the time) unless you get hit by all the lasers, which he had good enough engines to almost always avoid, and the defense drone 2 (though mk 1 is more reliable since the missiles are the dangerous weapons). Taking out the drone control might have helped too(after missile launcher of course). Cloak isn't too important, it helps with phase 3 power surge (which won't always get through) and with the oh shit I got hit with all three lasers and need time to recharge shields during phase 2 power surge, it's a nice little bonus rather than a necessity.
Corvette, you probably should have had that one, next time you get a setup like that, with good guaranteed damage and high defense (4 shields, 4-5+ engines, and drone), make sure your crew is leveled before the fight, especially shields for the second phase, powerlevel them if need be. It looks like you just got unlucky while waiting for your lasers to charge (remember if you have ion 2 any other weapon will do since ion 2 stacks).
P1 must really suck with that setup, though. Ion2 loses its stack pretty often due to cloaking, and no teleport means he can't even disable the enemy weapons systems. So basically he has to very slowly chip away at the enemy health with Burst 3 through 2-3 shields, while eating triple rockets all the time. After P1 things should get easier because your Ion stacks don't get reset, but you will still eat some damage with no cloak and no teleport to disable weaponry faster, which with all the damage from P1 might be too much.
It's really not that bad, I've had that setup before and it can take out the boss pretty quickly. It's actually one of the best fights for using burst 3.
His cloak take some of the ion away, but it's the boss dodging ion shots that is actually more harmful than the cloak really is. You get off just under five ion shots before the burst, so if you aren't autofiring the burst and missing often, his shields will be pretty low when you actually fire, and the burst 3 will tear through anything anyway.
And while your laser charge time takes a bit, boss missiles actually take even longer to charge than burst 3, and only get off first because of cloak, so with good engines the missiles will generally miss at least once or twice and most likely hit something non-vital/systemless other times until the burst laser fires, which can disable the missiles after first (usually second though) volley if enough hit and kills the crew after the second volley to permanently disable. So you really don't eat that many rockets overall, maybe one or two from first volley, and hopefully none after that, though it's possible to get really unlucky and just have a rocket immediately take out the piloting while missing his missile weapons too much to disable them, or something like that.
It's actually far better than some of the other setups I've been forced to try to win with, easily better than the median at least. Burst 3 doesn't really care what kind of defenses are still up and just massacres him, if it doesn't immediately disable the weapon in the first volley, then the second will destroy it and any crew that was in there, so as long as you have enough dodge and the few missiles that do get through don't hit anything unlucky, it works out really well. I've gone through all three phases with that setup and never went into the red.
In terms of beating the boss with your weapon setup, that one is insufficient.
There are basically 2 ways to do it. Either you get 2 ion weapons and stagger them (so that you never have downtime on the ion) and eventually this will eat through their shield and then you can start blasting whatever you want at their ship. An example setup would be 2 ions, a bomb and some drones. This requires a huge amount of power and levelling early on, and is quite difficult to do.
Missiles are by in large useless against the boss because of his defense drone, though you can try a missile setup if you want (i've never seen one)
The other way is the most simple way which is stacking a bunch of weapons which can break the shield outright (glaive or otherwise). This is by far the most common way to win the game
The main difficulty is you can't just "blast through once and then win", you have to be able to consistently blast through their shields multiple times, which is why you may need to invest almost 6-8 power into your weapons just to get 2 ion and some other weapon going. 2 heavy ions are ideal for this
This is why ships like the rock ship and the crystal ship are the best in the game (and by quite a long way)
On March 01 2013 00:39 BrTarolg wrote: In terms of beating the boss with your weapon setup, that one is insufficient.
There are basically 2 ways to do it. Either you get 2 ion weapons and stagger them (so that you never have downtime on the ion) and eventually this will eat through their shield and then you can start blasting whatever you want at their ship. An example setup would be 2 ions, a bomb and some drones. This requires a huge amount of power and levelling early on, and is quite difficult to do.
Missiles are by in large useless against the boss because of his defense drone, though you can try a missile setup if you want (i've never seen one)
The other way is the most simple way which is stacking a bunch of weapons which can break the shield outright (glaive or otherwise). This is by far the most common way to win the game
The main difficulty is you can't just "blast through once and then win", you have to be able to consistently blast through their shields multiple times, which is why you may need to invest almost 6-8 power into your weapons just to get 2 ion and some other weapon going. 2 heavy ions are ideal for this
This is why ships like the rock ship and the crystal ship are the best in the game (and by quite a long way)
1 Ion 2 is enough to slowly eat their shields. Heavy ions are generally worse because they do not self-stack.
The simplest way i have found of dealing with the boss is having at least 1 crystal men aboard your shit. You don't need anything else, just enough defenses to survive P1. Take out guns, then just beam crystal + x into their cockpit, punch whoever is in there, lockdown when they are at 50%, teleport out after you are done. Repeat until the only guy alive is the triple laser dude. From now on you can just do whatever you like on board of their ship in p2 and p3 after you killed the shield.
I assume some boarding scheme with at least 1 bomb + firebomb and rockmen crew could work similarly well, maybe youll need some teleporter upgrad. If you do it correctly, you should be able to destroy and set on fire their medbay, and then just defend it against anyone who tries to repair. Then you just need to clean up afterwards. This worked pretty well on most ships i encountered the one time i did it, but i got a crystal man before reaching the boss.
ion weapons (ion blast 2 and ion bomb) are good and beam weapons (halberd beam) are good. missiles are usually not efficient if the target has a defense drone. i prefer the ion bomb by far, as it only requires 1 energy, can take out two shield levels and defense drones can't stop it. weapons that require 4 energy are not worth it at all, as it's too easy for a shot to your weapons bay to disable them and leave you sitting there with your pants down.
if you can get it, ion bomb, ion blast 2 and halberd beam will win the game easy. the zoltan ship is good with the zoltan shields and it starts with a weapon you can take all the way to the end game. the osprey (fed cruiser) also has a great weapon in the artillery beam, which bypasses all shields. just remember to disable it if you have a boarding party, as it fires automatically (so long to those crewmembers, LOL).
cloak, crew teleporter and drones can all be good, but you don't need any of them. weapon preigniter is sweet if you can get it though.
anyway, it's mostly luck if you win or not, as it all depends on what weapons you manage to get. the different ships and layouts just present weird ways to start the game.
I'd disagree on the weapons department a bit, so long as you have anything that can strip super shield down in p3 before it's recast, you can win the game with just teleporter. Even if you don't have anything that can damage the hull, you just kill all crew members, then beat down all systems to red. Each time a system is fully destroyed, hull takes 1 damage, and once all crew is dead, the AI will take over the boss ship and it will slowly keep repairing systems that aren't in a burning room or in a room with a breach. The last bit of damage you do means you'll lose 1 crew member, unless you can nail some really clutch pause-teleport back-unpause on the crew member doing the last bit of damage.
So some more information about Aurora Rising came out today. The developer more or less said that he really liked the ship combat from FTL, but felt the crew combat was lacking. He says he wants to have a more interesting system for controlling crew, as well as system for leveling them up, and even letting them have back stories. The interview with all of that is here:
TIL that Level 2 oxygen isnt enough to stop the oxygen bleed with 2 hull breaches. I ended up draining all the oxygen on my ship, and then they took out my 02 generator.
I started streaming FTL today. In 5 runs, I managed to luck box my way into a live victory with the Engi Cruiser. Here's the link if anyone is interested (my volume was lower than I thought, so it may be hard to hear me at times): I failed the first run in the video, won the second one. Also bit of a warning: lot of loud feedback at the beginning. >_> Sorry, I'm new at this.
I've been trying to get the Crystal Cruiser with the Rock ship for a while. I managed to get 3 damaged stasis pods (I scraped two of them), the ancient device, but not the Zoltan Research Center (I got one before I got the pod). On the next run, I managed to get a burst laser 2 super fast on the rock ship and then an ion bomb, then had a boarding party of doom with my crystal crewman and mantis.
Then in sector 6 as I was cackling away at how easily ships were falling to my ship, I accidentally got my crystal/mantis crew stuck in a room with my crystal's lockdown (whoops) with a mantis and a human when I wasn't expecting it, getting them both killed. Fortunately I had enough scrap to hire another mantis and I had a spare rockman anyways. Made it through the flagship's first 2 stages without taking any damage, then promptly took a devastating shot on my cloak almost immediately in stage 3 (I have 0 idea how this happens when I have a cloak and 2 defensive 1 drones and ~50 evade on top of that, with shields 3 -_-). Couldn't clear it in time to get it up for the power surge, managed to do okay anyways. Then the Zoltan Shield refreshed itself like 6-7 times and I got to less than a third hull. Managed to seal the deal and get the victory. I have a knack for getting my crew killed like a retard in sectors 6-8.
Currently have normal wins with the Kestrel, Osprey, Torus, and Bulwark. Gotten close with the Mantis Cruiser. I have no idea how on earth I'm going to win with the Zoltan Cruiser A or Engi Cruiser B. >_>
Edit: Got a win in the Basilisk... if you don't count a few sector 1 restarts (like one beacon in), it was my first attempt. >_> I did get a full repair in at a station after stage 2 though.
^^ The new update makes it slightly easier to get the crystal cruiser now, the ancient device in the rock homeworlds will be questmarked, if you manage to find pod and the research station and get the rock homeworlds of course.
Change Log v. 1.03.3
Tuning:
-You can now retrieve crew from a room when teleporting even if they are shooting at a door or walking, limit of 4 per teleport -If you're carrying the Crystal alien from the stasis pod, the Rock Homeworld map will start with the appropriate quest marker to for the beacon that leads to the Crystal sector -The Crystal Lockdown bomb is now available as a drop (from enemies or in Stores) in Rock sectors -Shield Skill will level up when the shields absorb a hit, not when they recharge. This prevents turning the shields on/off to level up.
Major Bugs:
-Fixed: Bug that would sometimes cause an enemy ship not to get hit by asteroids in an asteroid field -Fixed: Bug gave double rewards after victory when player teleporter was broken and crew 'used the shuttle' -Jumping will now immediately provide invulnerability to solar flares, incoming boarding drones, and beams -Can no longer open the ship upgrades screen in hostile situations using the hot key -If the boss is destroyed, at that point game over will be blocked and your victory is assured even if your ship is exploding. -Blast Door health will properly regenerate on safe (no current boarders) jumps -Boarding Drones will no longer be hit by projectiles after they've successfully landed -Boarding Drones will no longer be destroyed upon Boss Ship Super Shield regeneration -Waiting in a nebula will no longer remove the sensor dampening effect -Fixed: Sometimes enemy boarders wouldn't pursue any targets and just stand around.
Minor Bugs:
-Drones should no longer fly "into" the shields and fire past them. -Dying crewmembers will stay dead if you Save & Quit + Continue. They will also remain unselectable and unmovable as soon as dying animation starts. -Will no longer open the store / allow repair in the rare situation that you have 0 hull and should be dead -Credits + Victory screen won't close if you accidentally tap a key - only escape will close it -Missiles/lasers/asteroids/etc. will no longer collide with bombs since they are technically 'interior' objects -The event where your crewmember goes crazy will have the correct race/name after going crazy -You won't be able to waste your money choosing pointless repair choices at the repair station event -Beam Weapons can now correctly cause breaches, but that will not come standard to current weapons to preserve balance so it's just for modders. -Interior console glow fixed to display correct colors for crew levels -Combat/Defense drones will properly trigger blue event options -Drone / missile counts can no longer go negative -Modding to have more than 4 shield bars will no longer make asteroids ridiculously terrifying -Crew will no longer continue repairing a breach if the room is on fire, the fire will take the correct priority (as the animation shows) -More grammar/typo fixes and minor animation/image polish
On May 31 2013 09:54 Trozz wrote: Rather nifty patch. I still need that crystal ship. How are those new bombs?
It's basically just like the crystal crew's ability, it covers a room in crystals that prevent anyone from going in or out of it. Probably most useful for boarding, as you can keep people from entering a room while you destroy the system inside, or attack only 1/2 people without reinforcements arriving. I suppose if a room was on fire and you wanted to keep the enemy out of it you could use it then too, or on your own ship to stop enemy boarders, but that's rarer. Also lets you board the final boss with minimal crew, and lockdown before they try to run away to the medbay so you can finish them off and then retreat. It's an good weapon for boarding, otherwise not that useful though.
i just beat the game the first time (normal) with the kestrel. for the interested: + Show Spoiler +
i had burst 3 and ion blaster as my 2nd and 4th weapons and lvl 1 attack and def drones, lvl 3 shields, no stealth, not much engine power but a crew teleporter. no augmentations. in 1-2 phases of the boss fight I boarded 2 mantis into the pilot room while i mainly focussed on shields with all my weapons. this way teh boss loses evasion and shields very fast and you kill a ton of crew because they have to walk through the shield room to get into the cockpit. in phase 3 i defended with my mantis warriors while still shooting mainly at the shields and cockpit.
Wow, they finally patched the crystal ship's quest so it isn't complete luck finding the ancient device? THANK YOU BASED FTL (now I'll only have to waste another 10 hours of my life to get it).
In case anyone else has been on the fence about this game, it's on sale for $2.50 for the next 18 hours at ftlgame.com (activates on Steam) and GOG.com (no Steam code). Yay!
On June 22 2013 03:42 Iranon wrote: In case anyone else has been on the fence about this game, it's on sale for $2.50 for the next 18 hours at ftlgame.com (activates on Steam) and GOG.com (no Steam code). Yay!
I've had more fun with this game than many $60 so-called "AAA" titles. At $2.50, everyone on TL who doesn't own it should get it.
Bought it for 15 dollars and bought another two copies as after 200 hundred hours the devs totally deserved more. Superbly polished, thoughtfully made game that has captured the fun and style of the "let's make a game where you're Jean Luc Picard" idea.
I FINALLY BEAT THE FINAL BOSS. When I first got the game for $5 a few weeks back i was thinking the game was w/e when i first played it. I kept trying and kept dying and i just got hooked. Took me maybe 15-20 attempts to beat the game, around 7-8 hrs total. The mass drone+triple missile attack in phase 2 kept owning me, finally locked that part down.
beat it on easy(but damn its still challenging). My setup was maxed everything(including cloak) except dodge, laser mk II, artemis missile, ion lvl 1, and heavy ion shot. Used cloak to dodge missles, shoot both ions to let the laser get at least one hit. Use the missle to attack shields or w/e is giving you problems like the triple missile launcher.
This is a pretty addictive game, but such a frustrating one too. I realize this genre is all about random events and such, but I feel like it's a bit over the top. You can make all the "right" decisions for half the game, have tons of good stuff on your ship and still die without being able to do anything.
I feel like you should be able to compensate for the random events by playing "well" and making reasonable moves, but most of the times that does not happen. You have to play well AND be super lucky until the end.
Pretty much all my games where I play with a good ship (such as either of the Kestrels) feel eminently winnable to me. I suppose it's possible to get unusually bad luck and die to it but it's not common in my experience.
If you've just started playing you're almost certainly playing worse than you think you are, FTL is not terribly obvious all the time.
On July 23 2013 16:56 PoP wrote: This is a pretty addictive game, but such a frustrating one too. I realize this genre is all about random events and such, but I feel like it's a bit over the top. You can make all the "right" decisions for half the game, have tons of good stuff on your ship and still die without being able to do anything.
I feel like you should be able to compensate for the random events by playing "well" and making reasonable moves, but most of the times that does not happen. You have to play well AND be super lucky until the end.
But If you are just playing good it's over in about 2 hours and that's that. you will maybe invest 2 or 3 more hours into getting cool ships and trying random stuff but it's nothing compared to the 10 hours you will invest at least in this system :/
I'm obsessed with using the fire beam and fire bombs to win. It's so satisfying to choke out the opposition ship. But I still haven't managed to win with either weapon, all my wins on normal have come from standard laser salvoes and drones.
Well I have played a good 10 hours and read a lot of stuff so I wouldn't say I'm good, but I kinda know what I'm doing. I just have the Engi ship unlocked though, not sure how to unlock the next ones but I wanted to win with them.
Last run, sector 5 or something, I had a Engi ship with 3 shield, weapons ion + missile + beam (can only power two of them), a defense drone and a standard attack drone. I was owning shit up easily and getting more scrap to play a more drone-centered follow-up as I just got the drone recovery arm.
Then, what happened happened. I made a wrong "scenaristic decision" and ended up against a very scary beast: a ship with 3 shields as well, ion defense (apparently, as I never could EMP anything), one missile PLUS one triple standard laser PLUS one beam laser. Long story short, I couldn't disable anything before it took down my weapon system (his first missile was faster than mine, no weapon pre-igniter found, and my defense drone missed), and from then on it just destroyed me as I couldn't repair fast enough, and his pure power was >3.
I forgot to mention this was a solar flare place so everything fell apart pretty quick. Note that my systems were properly manned with experienced crew, didn't make a single difference.
What was I supposed to do there? My ship was disabled before I could even fire anything.
Also I find it pretty retarded that the Nebula thing that kills half your power doesn't affect enemy ships as well. I had another run where I litterally had to choose between no shield or almost no weapons while the enemy ship was bombarding me. I died as well, or maybe I survived barely and died right after, can't recall.
On July 23 2013 17:22 schaf wrote: But If you are just playing good it's over in about 2 hours and that's that. you will maybe invest 2 or 3 more hours into getting cool ships and trying random stuff but it's nothing compared to the 10 hours you will invest at least in this system :/
Well, couple days ago a friend told me you just had to play correctly too. He then proceeded to play a run right next to me to "prove me" and lost terribly at sector 6 or whatever because everything bad that you can imagine happened to him.
On July 23 2013 18:23 PoP wrote: Well I have played a good 10 hours and read a lot of stuff so I wouldn't say I'm good, but I kinda know what I'm doing. I just have the Engi ship unlocked though, not sure how to unlock the next ones but I wanted to win with them.
Last run, sector 5 or something, I had a Engi ship with 3 shield, weapons ion + missile + beam (can only power two of them), a defense drone and a standard attack drone. I was owning shit up easily and getting more scrap to play a more drone-centered follow-up as I just got the drone recovery arm.
Then, what happened happened. I made a wrong "scenaristic decision" and ended up against a very scary beast: a ship with 3 shields as well, ion defense (apparently, as I never could EMP anything), one missile PLUS one triple standard laser PLUS one beam laser. Long story short, I couldn't disable anything before it took down my weapon system (his first missile was faster than mine, no weapon pre-igniter found, and my defense drone missed), and from then on it just destroyed me as I couldn't repair fast enough, and his pure power was >3.
I forgot to mention this was a solar flare place so everything fell apart pretty quick. Note that my systems were properly manned with experienced crew, didn't make a single difference.
What was I supposed to do there? My ship was disabled before I could even fire anything.
Also I find it pretty retarded that the Nebula thing that kills half your power doesn't affect enemy ships as well. I had another run where I litterally had to choose between no shield or almost no weapons while the enemy ship was bombarding me. I died as well, or maybe I survived barely and died right after, can't recall.
You were unlucky to be facing a deadly enemy in a solar flare and for their first missile to bypass your defence drone and take out all your weapons. But as soon as that happened you should have put full power to engines, moved your gunners and extraneous crew to the engine and shield rooms, and got out of their ASAP. Trying to fight a heavily shielded ship with an iron based set up in a solar flare is unwise at the best of times.
The nebula event does effect enemy ships too.
FTL does have a lot of luck, especially when playing the stealth ship which struggles with certain enemies in the first few sectors. But its not as luck based as it first appears.
If you want you can certainly blame luck when you lose. There is certainly enough skill in the game that it matters more than luck, but if you don't want to believe that you're free to do otherwise. But would you actually find that more enjoyable? If you assume that every death is your fault and try to learn from it, I think you'll have a lot more fun with FTL, and additionally you'll get better faster. I'm not saying luck doesn't matter; lucky runs are definitely significantly easier than unlucky ones. But I think it's more fun to believe that every game is winnable even if that's not actually true.
I know that in the other roguelikes I play (particularly DCSS) a lot of people blame luck when they lose. Crawl is actually much more winnable than FTL--if you play only strong combos in crawl you can win over 95% of the time if you are good; I would be surprised if it were that high for FTL--but there are still people who choose to believe luck causes their deaths. These players never get good at Crawl.
One option in FTL when you get into a bad encouter is to just flee from it. This obviously isn't friendly to your scrap situation but it's a lot better than the 0 scrap you have when you die.
On July 23 2013 19:18 Tal wrote: You were unlucky to be facing a deadly enemy in a solar flare and for their first missile to bypass your defence drone and take out all your weapons. But as soon as that happened you should have put full power to engines, moved your gunners and extraneous crew to the engine and shield rooms, and got out of their ASAP. Trying to fight a heavily shielded ship with an iron based set up in a solar flare is unwise at the best of times.
Yeah that's precisely what I did, but it was too late. The beam laser destroyed my engine next, and by the time it was repaired, I didn't have time to charge up the FTL before dying. Maybe I can try and be a tiny bit faster next time.
crate > I agree and that's the mindset I've been trying to have with this game from the start, even though I usually hate all random aspects in games (hence why I love Starcraft, almost no random).
But when an event can occur that ruins your whole playthrough despite the mostly correct decisions you've made, then it becomes frustrating, no matter how you look at it.
Also, it makes sense that people that blame luck don't get as good, because they stop trying before the others. That doesn't mean they're wrong though. FTL could have been just a bit less luck-dependant and it would've been just as much of a better game.
Also, I wish they'd make semi-rogue like games. Add rare checkpoints (saves), while making the game longer, more epic, yet less frustrating.
On July 23 2013 19:18 Tal wrote: You were unlucky to be facing a deadly enemy in a solar flare and for their first missile to bypass your defence drone and take out all your weapons. But as soon as that happened you should have put full power to engines, moved your gunners and extraneous crew to the engine and shield rooms, and got out of their ASAP. Trying to fight a heavily shielded ship with an iron based set up in a solar flare is unwise at the best of times.
Yeah that's precisely what I did, but it was too late. The beam laser destroyed my engine next, and by the time it was repaired, I didn't have time to charge up the FTL before dying. Maybe I can try and be a tiny bit faster next time.
Did you have three or four people repairing the engine? Should only take a few seconds. I'm also surprised that with three shields the beam laser managed to get through so often... they'd have to hit every laser shot and be synched up with the beam, and even then it should only do one or two damage, which shouldn't put engines offline. Combined with the missile getting through your defense drone, which is really rare, I guess there wasn't much you could do.
I'm quite sure if you're playing with some of the stronger ships you can probably win atleast 50% of your runs in FTl if not more. While some of the ships are alot more prone to horrible rng ( Zoltan ship with beam drone and a Burst mk2 on first beacon says hello to your Stealth cruiser). It mostly comes down to knowing most of the random events and adapting your strat according to what you have available in the two first sectors.
On July 24 2013 00:25 Tal wrote: Did you have three or four people repairing the engine? Should only take a few seconds. I'm also surprised that with three shields the beam laser managed to get through so often... they'd have to hit every laser shot and be synched up with the beam, and even then it should only do one or two damage, which shouldn't put engines offline. Combined with the missile getting through your defense drone, which is really rare, I guess there wasn't much you could do.
I don't remember exactly what was damaged and in what order. Maybe it was the cockpit (only two people repairing max).
But yeah that was very unlucky...
I just finished the game for the first time (Normal difficulty) with an Engi type A. I cheated and used a save at the end though (I wanted to finish it at least once, and I wasn't in as good a shape I would've hoped). Took me two "reloads" to do it.
One thing I've learned that I didn't do so well previously in drone switching. I was using 4 energy for drones when I had one attacking and one defending even though you actually need only two. I was switching things a lot but wasn't thinking about drones for some reason.
Gonna try the Osprey next, as I unlocked it.
One thing I don't get is all these people (on various forums) saying "I went for build A and it was great" as if they had much of a choice. I feel like the build you go for is mostly dependent on what you find and in what order.
On July 24 2013 00:53 Xan wrote: I'm quite sure if you're playing with some of the stronger ships you can probably win atleast 50% of your runs in FTl if not more. While some of the ships are alot more prone to horrible rng ( Zoltan ship with beam drone and a Burst mk2 on first beacon says hello to your Stealth cruiser). It mostly comes down to knowing most of the random events and adapting your strat according to what you have available in the two first sectors.
I'd say winning 40% is already stretching it. There are simply a lot of unwinnable situations in the first few sectors, unless you're playing Easy or with mods.
On July 24 2013 00:53 Xan wrote: I'm quite sure if you're playing with some of the stronger ships you can probably win atleast 50% of your runs in FTl if not more. While some of the ships are alot more prone to horrible rng ( Zoltan ship with beam drone and a Burst mk2 on first beacon says hello to your Stealth cruiser). It mostly comes down to knowing most of the random events and adapting your strat according to what you have available in the two first sectors.
I'd say winning 40% is already stretching it. There are simply a lot of unwinnable situations in the first few sectors, unless you're playing Easy or with mods.
While i agree with the part about the first few sectors being a bitch sometimes when things start snowballing badly, I really do think that with proper rng management and no "micro" fuckups in battles you'll have 50% + win in the long run. My last 14 runs are actually 7 wins 7 loss, with 3 losses on the last boss, and the 4 other losses being sector 1-2 losses with under 1k score. All these games were with strong ships,(Zoltan a, Rock A , Enig A and Red tail) while before that i played 9 games before i won with Stealth A. Even though it's a small sample size im fully confident people with a stronger grasp on the game than me will have a extremly high winrate with the top 4-5 ships.
On July 24 2013 07:03 Xan wrote: While i agree with the part about the first few sectors being a bitch sometimes when things start snowballing badly, I really do think that with proper rng management and no "micro" fuckups in battles you'll have 50% + win in the long run
What's "rng management" though? If things are going badly, shouldn't you take risks (like try to save ships and whatever) to try and catch up? And if good things happen, shouldn't you play safe?
Or is the opposite?
I really don't see what "good rng management" means. You can't really manage so much randomness. I guess buying long range scanners early would be one of the only reliable ways to "manage rng". As in, reduces it. But that's assuming a shop has it lol.
PS: don't get me wrong btw I love the game and am totally addicted to it
On July 24 2013 07:03 Xan wrote: While i agree with the part about the first few sectors being a bitch sometimes when things start snowballing badly, I really do think that with proper rng management and no "micro" fuckups in battles you'll have 50% + win in the long run
What's "rng management" though? If things are going badly, shouldn't you take risks (like try to save ships and whatever) to try and catch up? And if good things happen, shouldn't you play safe?
Or is the opposite?
I really don't see what "good rng management" means. You can't really manage so much randomness. I guess buying long range scanners early would be one of the only reliable ways to "manage rng". As in, reduces it. But that's assuming a shop has it lol.
PS: don't get me wrong btw I love the game and am totally addicted to it
Knowing all the events and their chances, generally never fighting the giant spiders distress beacon for the most common example, not buying from the slug merchant etc, generally avoiding all 50/50 crew member killed choices and similiar content, sometimes taking the medium reward instead of the great one. Although i gotta say playing like that might become boring, nothing like 50/50 gambling your only crew member for some exstra scrap when in a tough spot!
On July 24 2013 07:03 Xan wrote: While i agree with the part about the first few sectors being a bitch sometimes when things start snowballing badly, I really do think that with proper rng management and no "micro" fuckups in battles you'll have 50% + win in the long run
What's "rng management" though? If things are going badly, shouldn't you take risks (like try to save ships and whatever) to try and catch up? And if good things happen, shouldn't you play safe?
Or is the opposite?
I really don't see what "good rng management" means. You can't really manage so much randomness. I guess buying long range scanners early would be one of the only reliable ways to "manage rng". As in, reduces it. But that's assuming a shop has it lol.
PS: don't get me wrong btw I love the game and am totally addicted to it
with certain ships i have a REALLY high winrate on normal
rock ship 2, crystal ship are very strong contenders as they have an ezpz lategame
Zoltan ship also good because of a very strong earlygame, though you need a lot more luck to pickup the weapons you need for the boss
There are definitely ships where a near 100% winrate is possible. Can't remember ever losing with Kestrel B for example. You probably can't win them all but even with the weakest ships close to 50% winrate is possible in my opinion.
Off the top of my head some pointers to manage the RNG:
- skip all events that can cost crew members. Never worth the risk - long range scanners are pretty good early-midgame - avoid all suns and ionic storms, even meteor storms if your shields arent good, consider just protecting engine and cockpit and jumping out of it as soon as possible - don't jump to spots where there is only one exit. If you are unlucky it's a sun and you are screwed - always jump to positions that have a lot of other systems adjacent. never jump to any corners if it isnt a shop or some specific quest you want to finish - jumping to system with as many other systems as possible adjacent gives you the best chance of spotting shops and distress calls/quests - don't hesitate to jump midfight if you know you are going to take a lot of damage even if you can probably kill the ship - avoid specific systems depending on your ship/crew. If you cant handle boarding parties you dont go into mantis sectors, if you rely heavily on your shields and only have 10% evasion avoid rock sectors, if you have problems with automated ships avoid rebel controlled sectors, etc.
Some general tips about weapons: - missiles usually suck - offensive drones are very situational, usually not being able to target systems is pretty bad. I wouldn't invest in offensive drones except as a last resort if you are really running dry on weapons - Defense Drone 1 is better than Drone 2 - Killing vital systems is always more important than hull damage.
==> basically the best weapons are burst/dual lasers, followed by all the other lasers to remove shields, bombs to disable specific systems and maybe beam weapons if you have the means to remove shields reliably with bombs/lasers. Burst Laser Mark II is by far the best weapon in the game imho.
Well the problem I see with the "safe" approach you suggest (I tried playing exactly like that a couple times), is that you end up visiting less of each sector (lots of spots are "alone" kinda), getting less scrap and stuff in general. You probably get more scrap than if you had unlucky RNG or died stupidly in a sun storm or whatever, but I feel you can also easily end up getting to sector 8 with not enough stuff (or the wrong stuff) to kill the boss.
I tried that style (at least something close to it) like twice with the default Engi ship at least (the one starting with the fast Ion + attack drone) and even though it was pretty safe up to sector 8, the final boss completely detroyed me at step 2 and I'm not sure I could've done much as I microed every single power charge/crew member I could.
I might change my mind as I keep discovering little ways to optimize my play, and better ships of course.
You just want to see as many nodes in the sector as possible so you dont miss a shop or distress call/quest. That's why you go for jumps where you can see the most adjacent spots. You dont want to miss out on an op weapon or augmentation because you didnt find the shops in the sector.
If you have time you still want to hit as many nodes as possible of course before you leave a sector.
Any ideas how to do the Manpower achievement with Zoltan A? I always run out of fuel/missiles if I avoid too much, otherwise I die Not to mention you need to be pretty lucky to find another Zoltan in sector 1-3.
On August 01 2013 02:11 nimbim wrote: Any ideas how to do the Manpower achievement with Zoltan A? I always run out of fuel/missiles if I avoid too much, otherwise I die Not to mention you need to be pretty lucky to find another Zoltan in sector 1-3.
I farmed scrap in sectors 1 and 2 since they are pretty easy with the Type A starter weapon, also I didn't use missiles unless completely necessary and always tried to maximize the damage of the laser by going through 4 rooms at least. Remember most ships in sector 1 and 2 only have 1 shield so the laser cuts through it like butter and can practically disable it with a good fire arc. Missiles are a panic button, also Leto is a really garbage weapon.
One other thing is that as soon as you get a new crew member take the Zoltan out of the captain chair since you want all the power available for shuffling, this makes engaging a slaver early on a requirement to be honest.
On August 01 2013 02:11 nimbim wrote: Any ideas how to do the Manpower achievement with Zoltan A? I always run out of fuel/missiles if I avoid too much, otherwise I die Not to mention you need to be pretty lucky to find another Zoltan in sector 1-3.
I farmed scrap in sectors 1 and 2 since they are pretty easy with the Type A starter weapon, also I didn't use missiles unless completely necessary and always tried to maximize the damage of the laser by going through 4 rooms at least. Remember most ships in sector 1 and 2 only have 1 shield so the laser cuts through it like butter and can practically disable it with a good fire arc. Missiles are a panic button, also Leto is a really garbage weapon.
One other thing is that as soon as you get a new crew member take the Zoltan out of the captain chair since you want all the power available for shuffling, this makes engaging a slaver early on a requirement to be honest.
Doing it like that already, thank you. I used all the missiles for ships with 2 shields, of course. Maybe I just need to try sector 1 until I find perfect conditions.
For those who don't know a while ago a free expansion called FTL: Advanced Edition as well as a port for Ipad were announced. Today the new race was revealed as well as a few other details:
On December 20 2013 13:21 SchierkeWiking wrote: For those who don't know a while ago a free expansion called FTL: Advanced Edition as well as a port for Ipad were announced. Today the new race was revealed as well as a few other details:
well, i stream ftl quite often. if anyone is having a hard time, come watch and maybe learn how i deal with various situations. i'm experienced at ftl; i've won with every ship and layout, and due to a reformat i'm going through and unlocking all ships again (only have the crystal cruiser left to unlock now). i typically win regardless of ship i use and have come back from some pretty terrible beginnings to win.
On December 31 2013 15:38 insectoceanx wrote: Picked this game up, I am so terrible, after 12 hours of play I have made it to the boss one time and was promptly defeated on easy.
Good for you... I have played like 30+ hours and never made it to the boss... Although I have never tried playing on easy.
wow sick, I didn't know they would release an expansion. This game was fantastic while I played it! Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I unlocked the crystal Cruiser on my second try getting it. I read that people spend like a huge amount of hours trying to unlock it. The sort of spoiled all the fun.
The game is fantastic tough. I highly recommend for anyone!!
The iPad version is amazing. The controls are really good.
Also, hard mode is insane. I've only made 3 sectors before dying so far. I run out of resources so easily and all the ships after the first 2 sectors are like twice as good as they are on normal or easy.
I spent over 100 hours trying to unlock the Mantis ship. I never seemed to never get the Mantis homeworlds or I got there in the 2nd sector, when I could not possibly have all the prerequisites. Now all you have to do is finish the game with a Zoltan ship...
So here is my feedback after chain dying for at least 5 hours last night !
Overall : amazing content for a FREE expansion, every other game would have make us paid 5 $ for that kind of content. Graphic and ergonomy upgrades, new weapons, redesign of enemy ships, new modules , new player ships , new random events every single aspect of the game has been improved ! it is that simple! One of the best expansion I saw for a game so far.
Graphic and ergonomy upgrades: There is a lot to it but the best part is maybe to see the links between forward jump points on the FTL map.
New weapons and modules :
The amount of choice has become insane especially for weapons where you have now for each class of weapon at least 6 more weapons.
Those new weapons are not that great in terms of brute force. They are all weaker compared to their " classic" counterparts but they all have nice unique features. basically advanced weapons can do several things from accumulating the energy for a big blast , firing faster as the combat goes on etc...
for the new modules , hacking is by far my favorite because it can hurt where you need to with a high success rate so this is something reliable! Mind control is funny and also can be used defensively to cancel a mind control from ur opponent !
New events :
Countless of new events make the game more unpredicable which is great! New choices are available for a lot of races and new events are quiet fun I must say.
Increased difficulty of the game :
Here is the big deep part that all my friends noticed so far. I am not even talking about the hard mode (didn't try it yet) , the normal mode have increase so much in difficulty for several reasons.
First : the new ennemy ship layouts are less "boarding" friendly , one easy way to beat the game on normal mode was to abuse heavy boarding tactics, these tactics are less efficient because of the new layouts.
Second : Hacking drone , this module in 80% of encounters is not a problem as it will disable a module expandable to the victory. However , it needs just one hit at the right of your module to make you die horribly! Your shield disabled as a big laser blow destroy everything valuable on your ship. Your weapon system disabled when u need it to destroy weapon module of the enemy etc.... Among the 7 death I made last night 6 were involving a good hit with an enemy hacking drone!
Third : the new weapons! Basically the choice of weapons has so much increased that most of the time you will not find in the stores the "reliable" weapons you were used to. You have to deal with those new fancy weapons that have all a common feature :
All new weapons are bad for the first shots compared to old one. A key to beat the game in normal mode was to be able to disable the main weapon system of the enemy ship ASAP to avoid taking dommage. the new weapons don't give the ability to disable enemy ship in the first or second blow anymore. They are slower and more effective overtime.
Conclusion : To conclude on game difficulty , I would say that new strategies have to emerge as the old "EZ" ones are not so reliable with the advanced edition. I think it's great they manage to change the game to force new kind of strategies. I think Hacking drone is a key element to consider both as a threat and a solution to many problem.
Overall Conclusion : Be prepared to die and be frustrated as hell, this new expansion makes normal edition feels like a game for noobies! I didn't even try the Hard mode but I can assume it would require a perfect concentration and a lot of pause thinking to be beaten (+ an insane amount of luck ) . This FTL advanced edition gives a new challenge for people that already have beaten the game with almost every kind of ship. I guess I will spend 120 Hours more on that title
Here's a fun strat. Getting the Lanius ship, suck all the air out of it (except the pilot seat which has a human), then pull enemies over to your air-less ship using mind-control and teleporter. Straight up guarantees a kill (don't have to try to disable their med bay).
Another trick with mind control is that if the enemy mind controls one of your important guys, you can just use your own mind control to get him right back.
On April 04 2014 18:22 klup wrote: So here is my feedback after chain dying for at least 5 hours last night !
Overall : amazing content for a FREE expansion, every other game would have make us paid 5 $ for that kind of content.
Omg, just wanted to read about the new contend and then decide if I buy it. I'm absolutely surprised that it free. Had to stop after this line to comment ^^ Absolutely loved FTL and will play some new things today for sure!
On April 05 2014 17:17 Shock710 wrote: i just cant beat the final boss, :/ when he starts sending the boarding drones i just get screwed
Easiest way to deal with them is to upgrade doors and hope they dont board anything crucial, while burning the boss down. Trying to fight them really only delays the inevitable since the ship will send them over and over and over.
Okay, hacking needs to be nerfed. I got to the final boss and it hacked my weapon system, I literally couldn't do anything because my setup was about comboing my weapons instead of nuking everything in one go. Quite annoying to play with a game winning setup and then lose because the Rebel Flagship hacked the only system it shouldn't have hacked.
Hacking is also really strong for you too. There's so many more options now that you can hack shields. Beams are really strong now.
And the AI kinda sucks. While you can hack the right system 100% of the time, the AI usually hacks your doors or something. Sure there's the occasional time it hacks your weapons, but even then, it's only about ~10 seconds you get delayed, then you need to target their hacking system and disable it.
The final boss usually hacks my O2, it only has hacking for stage one though. But damn it drained my O2 to zero, it's a good thing a had engi-med bot dispensers. Only reason I lived through it.
Zoltan A with a Halberd, Charge Ion and Pegasi Missle + Hacking, Drones and Mind Control, stomped hard by Phase 3, actually didn;t take any damage phase 1 or 2, but the boarders kicked my butt.
So I've been unlocking the type Cs. If I make it to the 8th sector, boss has never been anything but an easy kill.
Hacking trivializes final boss. 100x better than cloak. If you have a hack AND a breach. lol.
My goal for bosses/purchases are: boarding > one of breach/hacking, pref both> ion 2 (the 4second cooldown one or 2 slow ions, staggered) > weapons.
Breach, ion 2 are rare so i'll pick them up before boarding if I see them but yea.
Phase 1: board and kill missiles > gun > ion. Hack ion or missiles if you need to, depending on what is most dangerous for you if you need too, else I save it for crew killing. if you hack the med bay, it deals damage. When all the guns and gunners are dead, you can spend as much time as you want killing crew since you can't get attacked. Don't kill'em all, leave a few. If i can I leave like 2-3, so I don't wipe them all out by mistake on next phase. Spend scrap on doors. (I'm pretty sure you always get enough for a t2)
Phase 2 hack drone while you destroy all guns. Man the doors for a door bonus, you have minimum t3 doors + Hack for the boarding drones. Hack also works for the "drone spam warning" as far as I can tell. I just keep weapons on drone till I win. (ion on shields as always if I have them).
Phase 3, hack MC it clears the control, board guns. Take your sweet time to win.
Boarding is even better now than before, because a mind control is a near guaranteed pickup, unlike finding something like a breach, for fast disabling. If you have a good sector 1, the B layout mantis ship is crazy strong.
Mind control does not work well at all with boarding strats, there doesn't seem to be a way to cancel the mindcontrol? If they only have a mindcontrolled target you have to sit there taking damage from the ship.
Edit: I've had my guns hacked vs the boss, didn't even matter.
On April 06 2014 13:29 Xafnia wrote: Hacking trivializes final boss. 100x better than cloak. If you have a hack AND a breach. lol. .
Phase 1: board and kill missiles
Cloak is for evading surges, which hacking does nothing against. Admittedly, hacking shields makes the RNG challenge of 'do I have enough guns' a lot easier.
You also can't board missiles/tri-laser in hardmode because they're connected to the rest of the ship. Well, you can, you just won't be able to destroy them realistically.
how useful are the burning techniques, i remember i tried going through (easy) run by like using firebombs and targeting their oxygen, so i could like get the most scrap, i died before the last boss anyone tried that one on him?
Burning is more fun, but you have to sit there taking damage until you finally finish off the weapons. Could be 1-2 more cycles of attacks. Good if you can't get through shield though.
I don't know if you know this yet from using boarding parties but the last boss doesn't die like a normal ship when its crew are all killed. Also his third form has a zoltan shield that regens during a power surge if it is depleted so missiles and bombs can be a bit of a pain.
I've killed the final boss before with the help of fire but it wasn't too easy and I lost crew in the process. It automatically repairs its subsystems when all of its crew are dead so you end up slowly burning its hp away. Just make sure that you have cloak. to avoid power surges and a gun or better yet a beam weapon to destroy the zoltan shield.
Just played three games with the new update: it's really cool. Definitely a step up in difficulty, but in a good way: you and the enemies have a lot more options. I just lost a sweet engi ship to an ion pulsing star...it ionized my shields against a ship which had two attack drones. Another time I was trying to be clever with clones when the bay was destroyed and I lost 3 crew.
Looking forward to unlocking some C classes and then trying for glory on hard.
opened steam and saw ftl was downloading, had no idea what changed and gave it a try. My first run went smoothly boarded raided got rich, never found a weapons shop though. And then I encountered a ship of the new alien race with shields, was rather surprised to find out that they are doing quiet well against boarding. Second run I ended up in a Pulsar, didn't realize it until it hit my weapons and engine, while my rocket wielding opponent only got shields and engine turned off. Couldn't do a thing, because the pulses came to fast. Love the update though. Clone armied over the boss afterwards with the new alien race which was awesome.
The more I play the more I discover about this new expansion. The amount of new events is enormous. Each new adventure is a clear different aventure. With all the different setups you can have this is truly amazing !
I just died to a combo of hacking drone + boarding drone loosing 3 crew members in the operation , I will not be that foolish again !
Best indie game for sure ! Also the musics are truly amazing!
The next question is will they make a FTL 2 or even a multiplayer FTL or both !
I've played through twice on easy mode so far and it doesn't really seem any harder unless you get mind controlled without a clone bay and don't want to lose your guy (have to let him run around shooting stuff). Easy mode is easy, but it's still really fun; It's fun because everything goes right and never wrong .
On April 04 2014 20:13 crc wrote: Here's a fun strat. Getting the Lanius ship, suck all the air out of it (except the pilot seat which has a human), then pull enemies over to your air-less ship using mind-control and teleporter. Straight up guarantees a kill (don't have to try to disable their med bay).
Another trick with mind control is that if the enemy mind controls one of your important guys, you can just use your own mind control to get him right back.
That sounds really slow; wouldn't it be better to just teleport a lanius to an enemy's O2 generator with a boarding drone? I guess boarding drones cost money technically, but it seems like the strategy would work. could always swap out for 2 new lanius if the boarding drone dies; with the clone bay you could just keep beaming lanius into their O2 chamber and optionally (perhaps necessarily) shoot their O2 with a missile/bomb before teleporting in.
On April 05 2014 20:14 jrkirby wrote: Hacking is also really strong for you too. There's so many more options now that you can hack shields. Beams are really strong now.
And the AI kinda sucks. While you can hack the right system 100% of the time, the AI usually hacks your doors or something. Sure there's the occasional time it hacks your weapons, but even then, it's only about ~10 seconds you get delayed, then you need to target their hacking system and disable it.
Yeah. Hacking weapons, cockpit (good in the last few sectors and final boss), or shield are all good, and kinda OP. However even with hacking you still can't solely rely on beam weapons since you'd need something to get past super shields. While equipping a cheap single weapon like laser or missile or combat drone will eventually break the shield, it is a slow process and that could be a problem (maybe combat drone would be fast enough though) Weapons is 80% of the time the best option though since it makes you rather untouchable. Between cloaking and weapons hacking you'll almost never take any hull damage at all from any ship.
That said, drones, cloaking and teleportation are also very strong and you can only have 3 of those 4, meaning you have to leave one out (although teleportation isn't that good I guess if it's only a 2-slot one)
Yeah. Hacking weapons, cockpit (good in the last few sectors and final boss), or shield are all good, and kinda OP. However even with hacking you still can't solely rely on beam weapons since you'd need something to get past super shields.
You can break super shields with beam weapons. They do normal dmg to super shield. If a beam weapon hits 5 rooms it does 5 dmg to the zoltan shield.
On April 06 2014 13:29 Xafnia wrote: Hacking trivializes final boss. 100x better than cloak. If you have a hack AND a breach. lol. .
Phase 1: board and kill missiles
Cloak is for evading surges, which hacking does nothing against. Admittedly, hacking shields makes the RNG challenge of 'do I have enough guns' a lot easier.
You also can't board missiles/tri-laser in hardmode because they're connected to the rest of the ship. Well, you can, you just won't be able to destroy them realistically.
Is that just a hard mode thing? I was wondering why he mentioned killing the missiles so easily. I only just got to the boss yesterday with the Red Tail (Kestrel B I think) and without thinking I just tele'd a lone mantis into the missiles room before even considering the layout could have changed. Didn't realize it until I heard the crew-about-to-die sound and looked to see my poor mantis overrun with people that could heal
I died to phase 2 because I took a ton of damage on phase 1 trying to figure out what to do with just some weak lasers and only one mantis left to board. Phase 2 the boarding drone + some stray hull shots during the surge just did me in. Not sure if I should just run the same strat but with defense drones to compensate or mix it up entirely. Red Tail runs used to be so easy for me D:
I've only been playing hard mode since it came out, but I aint about that no-pause life.
Lanius boarding parties are sick good, that oxygen drain is so strong. Not to mention their immunity to suffocation means I just can't choke them out like I usually do with most boarding parties (unless I have good fighters on board).
I just had a win with Lanius A class... I got lucky and managed to secure a Vulcan Laser pretty early on.
In case you haven't seen it yet, Vulcan Lasers are single shot lasers, that reduce charge time/refire rate after each shot, to a minimum of 1.1 seconds base. Yes... 1 second auto-fire laser. After 4 cycles it could punch down any level of shield fast, even the final boss's 4 shields with fast recharge were punched through quickly, even with dodges. Combine with Hacking the engine or cockpit to kill evasion and a few Breach 2 Bombs to target Weapons and I took virtually no damage during at least one of the phases.
Lanius Ships are nice with a full Lanius or mostly Lanius crew as they can simply ignore O2 which makes fires, breaches and most invaders a non-issue. Very powerful, and I'm contemplating a Lanius teleportation strategy to vent the opponent's ship too.
On April 07 2014 22:46 puppykiller wrote: So I played this game all last night instead of going to bed because it is exactly what I am looking for in a game so now I am uninstalling lol.
On April 06 2014 13:29 Xafnia wrote: Hacking trivializes final boss. 100x better than cloak. If you have a hack AND a breach. lol. .
Phase 1: board and kill missiles
Cloak is for evading surges, which hacking does nothing against. Admittedly, hacking shields makes the RNG challenge of 'do I have enough guns' a lot easier.
You also can't board missiles/tri-laser in hardmode because they're connected to the rest of the ship. Well, you can, you just won't be able to destroy them realistically.
Is that just a hard mode thing? I was wondering why he mentioned killing the missiles so easily. I only just got to the boss yesterday with the Red Tail (Kestrel B I think) and without thinking I just tele'd a lone mantis into the missiles room before even considering the layout could have changed. Didn't realize it until I heard the crew-about-to-die sound and looked to see my poor mantis overrun with people that could heal
I died to phase 2 because I took a ton of damage on phase 1 trying to figure out what to do with just some weak lasers and only one mantis left to board. Phase 2 the boarding drone + some stray hull shots during the surge just did me in. Not sure if I should just run the same strat but with defense drones to compensate or mix it up entirely. Red Tail runs used to be so easy for me D:
I've only been playing hard mode since it came out, but I aint about that no-pause life.
Yeah only hard mode has the layout change, and it turns boarding ships from free wins into something quite harder. The flagship prioritizes keeping crew in the guns I think, so if you can pick off crew (hack medbay, crystal lockdown) you can still knock out weapons once there's only 1 guy left in the lasers.
My only hard win was with the Carnelian... lost 2 boarders in sector 7, but I spent phases 1 and 2 picking off crew one at a time. Phase 3 I all-in teleported whoever I had to take out the shields, and then huddled everyone that was left in my weapons room as half my ship burned. Flagship died first!
lol all you people are so good at this game and I'm so shit at it. Never beaten it and only ever unlocked a single ship. T_T But the iPad version is great for me and the whole game is so amazing. Listening to the soundtrack at worrrrrrrrrrrrk.
Yeah don't worry, my first 25 hours playing this game and I only got the ship you get for making it to sector 4 (or was it 5?); right now I'm at 66 hours and I only have the Zoltan ship an the Osprey T_T.
Well its way easier to get ships now for those without many. Some of the new stuff seems silly overpowered though. I was rolling in sector 6 and came across an enemy with hacking and a frag weapon and an ion weapon. Hacked my shields, ioned my laser, and frag knocked out my engines, shields, and weapons...game over
On April 10 2014 11:57 Eliezar wrote: Well its way easier to get ships now for those without many. Some of the new stuff seems silly overpowered though. I was rolling in sector 6 and came across an enemy with hacking and a frag weapon and an ion weapon. Hacked my shields, ioned my laser, and frag knocked out my engines, shields, and weapons...game over
You're supposed to do that to them before they do it to you
On April 07 2014 22:46 puppykiller wrote: So I played this game all last night instead of going to bed because it is exactly what I am looking for in a game so now I am uninstalling lol.
The most frustrating thing in the AE is when you go into a shop desperatly in need for some reliable weapon for your Basilisk and you found only charge lasers, ion stunners, and hull lasers everywhere.
Normal mode isn't that hard on most ships. I can usually determine if I'm going to win or not by the end of sector 1/middle of sector 2.
Some require more drops than others. Some are a lot more viable with hacking, like beam weapon ships.
Most important tip in the game: Spend as much time as possible in each sector before leaving. (this solved like 90% of my problems).
Avoid: Mantis sectors with a ship weak to boarding. Rebel if you have boarding ship. Rock if you don't have anti missile defenses. (cloak or anti missile drone thing, high evasion) Zoltan if you have weak Shields/attack with consumables only.
Highest priority purchases: Breach, Ion II, always buy them. Ion II lets you kill anything, breach lets you do it safely.
Other high priorities: Teleport+Mantis/rockmen+Hacking/breach. More scrap from victories, if you get this early you should snowball to victory as long as you have a ship that can tank or disable the enemy. The extra scrap add-on is really good, especially if you can get it early.
Must-haves before final boss: MC+cloak or hacking.
I never buy drone bay. Pre-igniter is good, but overrated imo. It costs a lot, and unless you already have great weapons, your money is better spent elsewhere.
Best crew are Engi > zoltan>rockmen for manning. Mantis/crystal > rockmen > others for boarding. I prioritize boarding crew, because I always go for a boarding build on all ships.
Some ship-based tips for some ships:
Engi A: Ion Blast II is the best ion weapon and one of the best weapons in the game, can take down any shield regardless of how good it is, "always" target shield with it. Investing heavily in defense on this ship is really good because you have the best "grind enemy down" weapon. Get more shields/evasion as much as you can.
Good shop options: any weapon to do damage without using drones asap, defense drone mark 1, cloak. One of: mind control/hacking before boss. Consider selling aug if you can buy something good.
Fed Ships: Don't upgrade the artillery beam. It is a waste of scrap. Type A: Rush Teleport.
Mantis A: Win game. Op ship. Mantis B: Rush 4 boarding crew, pref 4x mantis + any kind of bomb/hacking. Win. Hacking kills enemies in the medbay.
Rock A: Rush Teleport. Win. Op ship.
Slug A: If you get a good weapon early to go with breach, you should be fine. Sell Gel scrap. MC is good here, you don't need to upgrade sensors.
Artillery beam is like one of the easiest ways to win the game. Just make a defensive ship with cloak, drones, and hacking and watch your beam do all of the work.
Rock B is better for teleportation because you can use firebombs to aid you to kill shit faster, mantis A and B are soso, and Slug B does better with cloning than a medbay
On April 10 2014 17:36 puppykiller wrote: I disagree with some of the ship to ship advice.
Artillery beam is like one of the easiest ways to win the game. Just make a defensive ship with cloak, drones, and hacking and watch your beam do all of the work.
Rock B is better for teleportation because you can use firebombs to aid you to kill shit faster, mantis A and B are soso, and Slug B does better with cloning than a medbay
No kidding, he stated the federation beam is a waste. The federation ship is so overpowered I refuse to play it. The beam will just autokill each stage of the final fight no matter what else is on your ship. Way, way, way, way to good.
I can't even think of another weapon that is half as good. I guess 4x burst lasers is as good? Probably now 4x of the chain lasers, but still...you can have that and the beam...
Imo it's very bad at the beginning with 50/40s charge time but very strong at the end with 20s. But that's very expensive and I normally upgrade it in sector 6/7. Before that imo getting other weapons or systems online is more important.
So for me it read as if he wants to give advice to new players and then I must agree. Spend you scrap on other stuff and get familiar to the game until you regularly get to the end sectors (and that was not that easy for me he made it sound, still having a hard time to unlock C ships).
On April 10 2014 17:36 puppykiller wrote: I disagree with some of the ship to ship advice.
Artillery beam is like one of the easiest ways to win the game. Just make a defensive ship with cloak, drones, and hacking and watch your beam do all of the work.
Rock B is better for teleportation because you can use firebombs to aid you to kill shit faster, mantis A and B are soso, and Slug B does better with cloning than a medbay
I haven't unlocked Rock B. I only played Rock A once. Cleared boss but didn't get any of the achievements.
I think the artillery beam is pretty garbage. You could have a breach, an ion blast II and 10scrap. Pre-igniter + small bomb. 2x Burst II. Small Bomb + Burst III. All of those and you'll still have a rank I artillery still.
If you have enough tanking to for defense to not matter at all, or just enough to avoid the first volleys, A chain Vulcan is cheaper and will wreak anything.
Requires 4 power, has an initial cooldown of 11.1 seconds and reduces the cooldown by 2 seconds with each volley. Caps at a 1.1 second cooldown after 5 volleys.
Obviously you have to see these weapons, but yea I'd only upgrade the artillery if you can't find anything in shops.
Artillery beam allows for an ultra defensive build. Get Defense drone and upgrade shields/engine and just let the beam do it's work. Fully upgraded, it does quite a bit of damage, even if it's uncontrolled, and 20sec timer isn't horrible for a auto-hitting shield piercing beam.
Also, compared to the cost of a full suite of weapons and the upgrades to use them, the Artillery beam isn't bad.
If you are going full defensive, a rank 1 artillery will work anyways, so you might as well spend all your scrap on defensive stuff then, and not get any other weapons or artillery upgrades.
On April 10 2014 17:36 puppykiller wrote: I disagree with some of the ship to ship advice.
Artillery beam is like one of the easiest ways to win the game. Just make a defensive ship with cloak, drones, and hacking and watch your beam do all of the work.
Rock B is better for teleportation because you can use firebombs to aid you to kill shit faster, mantis A and B are soso, and Slug B does better with cloning than a medbay
Mantis B is outrageously good, possibly only beaten by Crystal B. I agree that Rock B is the stronger boarder than A. Art beam is... slow and you can't direct it at systems. It's free damage and never bad, but don't build the ship around it unless you have no other options.
As for the post you were quoting: drones are fantastic, defense I will save you a ton of scrap on repairs/general damage, especially vs the flagship. You do not need hacking or MC if you have cloak/drones because you're avoiding the vast majority of damage and MC can be mitigated with micro. Obviously if you can't break 4 shields, then hacking is pretty important.
Man I've played so much crystal B that I never learned to appreciate mantis B. Crystal B most imba ship in the game that I have played after the Fed ship.
How come there's no mention of the ion bomb? For one missile you disable anything for long enough. Need to hit shots? Bomb piloting! A medbay making boarding hard? Ion bomb it! Can't bypass shields? Ion them! Seriously, four ion damage for one power is really good. If you man weapons with a skilled crewmember, you can even chain it, keeping the system locked down.
On April 10 2014 17:25 Xafnia wrote: Best crew are Engi > zoltan>rockmen for manning. Mantis/crystal > rockmen > others for boarding. I prioritize boarding crew, because I always go for a boarding build on all ships.
I would rather have a Zoltan manning weapons/shields/engines than an Engi. The power they provide can't be ionized, so you can keep these core systems running. Two Zoltans in shields will let you have 1 shield bubble even against heavy ioning. Particularly helpful in pulsars.
Another piece of advice for new players: Pause. A lot. Pausing lets you take your time with decisions. Do I need to use my bombs/missiles/drones/hacking for this enemy? Should I power shields or engines? Should I cloak a laser volley or a missile? Should I repair weapons or shields? Is it necessary to extinguish the fire right now or can it wait? Whenever you need to make a decision fast you should just pause instead.
I would rather have a Zoltan manning weapons/shields/engines than an Engi. The power they provide can't be ionized, so you can keep these core systems running. Two Zoltans in shields will let you have 1 shield bubble even against heavy ioning. Particularly helpful in pulsars.
I did not know that.
Engi B has to be the worst ship in the game. So bad.
I would rather have a Zoltan manning weapons/shields/engines than an Engi. The power they provide can't be ionized, so you can keep these core systems running. Two Zoltans in shields will let you have 1 shield bubble even against heavy ioning. Particularly helpful in pulsars.
I did not know that.
Engi B has to be the worst ship in the game. So bad.
Heh my first victory ever was with that ship layout. I don't mind it too much as long as you are able to pick up some crewmembers relatively quickly. It starts with a lot of drones, and while I usually sell the system repair drones early, the anti-personnel drone can be useful all game long.
I would rather have a Zoltan manning weapons/shields/engines than an Engi. The power they provide can't be ionized, so you can keep these core systems running. Two Zoltans in shields will let you have 1 shield bubble even against heavy ioning. Particularly helpful in pulsars.
I did not know that.
Engi B has to be the worst ship in the game. So bad.
Heh my first victory ever was with that ship layout. I don't mind it too much as long as you are able to pick up some crewmembers relatively quickly. It starts with a lot of drones, and while I usually sell the system repair drones early, the anti-personnel drone can be useful all game long.
If you're able to pick up some crewmembers, bordes shouldn't be a problem. Just vent the room they board and guide them to the medbay. Or watch them suffocate as they try to get past your upgraded doors. I would almost always sell the anti-personnel drone for doors 2 and 10 scrap.
On April 10 2014 17:36 puppykiller wrote: I disagree with some of the ship to ship advice.
Artillery beam is like one of the easiest ways to win the game. Just make a defensive ship with cloak, drones, and hacking and watch your beam do all of the work.
Rock B is better for teleportation because you can use firebombs to aid you to kill shit faster, mantis A and B are soso, and Slug B does better with cloning than a medbay
Did they change it so the Federation Cruiser can get Cloaking? In vanilla it couldn't since the Artillery Beam replace the slot.
Engi B is my favorite ship in the game because it makes no sense lol. I have a soft spot for tha ship.
Pausing is lame... you're an RTS player so act like it!
Personally I stick my zoltans in things like oxygen if I have a full crew. Otherwise I will put him in engines because if he has to leave his station it is less disorienting than losing a whole shield level or having a gun go offline.
I think you are missing why the Federation ship is so good. Sure you can get quad 2 shot lasers and be good or you can get any number of other combinations that are great. The Federation cruiser doesn't depend on drops or shops...you can just upgrade reactor, shields, and engines. I think the first time I played it I actually did 6 power into shields and engines and won my first attempt. I played three games in a row and won all three. Never used it again.
Many of the other ships just can't be basically built to be invulnerable. Having said that, I haven't won on hard with the new stuff yet (also haven't played federation) so we'll see.
I tried fed on hard and got way too lucky by finding two scrap enhancement collectors. I am still astounded by the fact that I didn't beat the final ship. Can't beat hard yet .
well, im new, but i found that i really need to find a def drone with the fed ship relatively early, rockets can really eat at that ship. But once i can defend vs rockets, its easy cruising, the beam not only eventually kills all ships, it also disables a lot of systems very easily.
On April 11 2014 01:22 puppykiller wrote: You can cloak it.
Engi B is my favorite ship in the game because it makes no sense lol. I have a soft spot for tha ship.
Pausing is lame... you're an RTS player so act like it!
Personally I stick my zoltans in things like oxygen if I have a full crew. Otherwise I will put him in engines because if he has to leave his station it is less disorienting than losing a whole shield level or having a gun go offline.
In the advanced edition, this is less of a worry because the modules slowly dischage rather than losing the entire charge at once.
On April 12 2014 06:24 Nazza wrote: Is it just me or is Flak II a bit too... imba...?
it's on the line as far as I'm concerned, it makes beams insanely good and is great in its own right. I played stealth b a few days ago and got a flak 2 to go with the glaive beam in sector 2, which is 9-12 damage every 20 seconds with a maxed weapons crew and a reloader.
Flak 2 is solid indeed, great for killing shields and stuff. 4 Flak 1s would be a pretty brutal salvo.
I think the most OP weapon I've found so far is the Gatling Laser. Once it gets down to a 1.1 cooldown fire speed, it just takes out anything/everything. I suppose a Defense 2 drone might be able to stop it, but I'm not sure. It starts slow, but it really doesn't take long to reach full potency, at which point the enemy ship is as good as dead. Combine with faster attack speed via crew/augments and it's just stupid. I've accidentally killed ships with it when trying to kill off crew.
Yeah that vulcan laser is just stupid good. Had that and an ion II and ion I, made quick work of the final boss (on easy). Since the expansion though that final boss is a bitch, fuck hacking and mind control.
On April 05 2014 19:17 BlitzerSC wrote: Okay, hacking needs to be nerfed. I got to the final boss and it hacked my weapon system, I literally couldn't do anything because my setup was about comboing my weapons instead of nuking everything in one go. Quite annoying to play with a game winning setup and then lose because the Rebel Flagship hacked the only system it shouldn't have hacked.
Yeah my latest normal play through that happened. Had some nice weapons with full 8 power I think, as well as drones and hacking and cloak (hence NO TELEPORT). Used hacking on their ship (not on it's hacking system) but then it hacked my weapons and I got completely screwed. The enemy hacking system has an very low cooldown, something like 9-10 seconds I think? I could just barely get a single shot out of what was a flak1 I think.
So in other words: if you don't have missiles and/or a strong boarding crew with teleporter do not use hacking on the rebel flagship until they use it on you (if they hack weapons, or possibly shields, you'd almost certainly want/need to hack their hacking system)
On April 12 2014 06:24 Nazza wrote: Is it just me or is Flak II a bit too... imba...?
On April 12 2014 11:44 Obsidian wrote: Flak 2 is solid indeed, great for killing shields and stuff. 4 Flak 1s would be a pretty brutal salvo
I bought a Flak2 since I had halberd beam and weapon preigniter, and it was nice, but a little bit disappointing. I wasn't expecting the accuracy radius to widen so much (or at all), making it miss so many of it's shots unless you have a ship that has like 3 rooms all adjacent to a 2x2 room that you're targeting (rather rare). Despite using 1 extra power, I think I'd prefer 2 flak1s —even with weapon preigniter. It's ridiculous on paper, especially with preigniter, but personally I think I'd prefer a burst/heavy laser 1 with a burst laser 2, or DEFINITELY an advanced flak with flak1
http://de.twitch.tv/lethalfrag does Hard-no pause-runs and succeeded with the 3 kestrels till now I think. But he stopped for today ~an hour ago. As a normal player is amazing how much thought he/good players can put into the game while I just wait for the lasers to load.
Haven't even beat easy yet... At a certain point I just hit a wall. I don't understand how I'm supposed to get through level 3 shields and drones and all that shit. It's not like I get tons of weapons leading up to that point either.
How do you guys get such gear on your ships? I constantly go broke on repairs and can hardly get anything past starting stuff and a few ship upgrades (blast doors and 2 shields), usually I then end up failing miserably around sector 5 because I can't keep up with the enemy progression...
On April 16 2014 20:16 Animzor wrote: Haven't even beat easy yet... At a certain point I just hit a wall. I don't understand how I'm supposed to get through level 3 shields and drones and all that shit. It's not like I get tons of weapons leading up to that point either.
There are four main ways to get trough shields: a lot of lasers, chaining ion damage, missiles/bombs and boarding. The easiest is to fire a bomb or a missile to their shield system. Once it's damaged they lose shield levels and it should be easier. Repeatedly firing enough ion weapons at the shield will stack the ion damage, eventually breaching them. However you need good ion weapons for it (a Ion Balst II, a Chain Ion, or two of Heavy Ion, Ion Blast, Ion Stunner, Ion Charger). The many lasers aproach requires not only having many lasers, but also firing them at the same time. Their will block a number of lasers equal to their level, but not any more. So instead of firing your Burst I and Hull Laser II whenever they are avaible letting their shields recharge between the volleys, you should fire one big volley of lasers. Boarding is completely different and I won't cover it here.
Or perhaps your problem is not getting enough weapons? If that is the case I would recommend visiting sectors with more stores. Engi and civilian sectors have 2-3 stores, zoltan and rock sectors have 2 stores, others have 1-2 (not sure about the new abandoned sector). The green sectors are also more likely to give you free items.
As for more general advice: visit as many beacons as possible in every sector. There's no need to rush through the sectors, take your time and farm as much scrap as possible. This includes fighting all possible battles, since winning gives you better rewards than not fighting. If you save someone from a pirate/mantis/rebel, they may give additional rewards, so you should almost always fight whenever you notice that you're fighting for someone else.
On April 16 2014 20:44 Manit0u wrote: How do you guys get such gear on your ships? I constantly go broke on repairs and can hardly get anything past starting stuff and a few ship upgrades (blast doors and 2 shields), usually I then end up failing miserably around sector 5 because I can't keep up with the enemy progression...
Choose a ship that you can dominate the early sectors with and get the appropriate upgrades as available. One thing the new content has done has made it so that no ship can just coast through (well for me yet anyway). I've played around since the new content came out and made it to the final boss with 4 different ships (Fed A & B, Zoltan A, Mantis A).
If you have Zoltan A, I find it quite easy to pass the early part of the game.
The easiest combos that I have found is just to have a missile launcher and a good laser and to pile on defense, but I really like the chain ion.
I think my first win I had a Chain Ion Laser and a burst laser mark 2 and that was it for weapons. I had 3 shields, 6 evade, and defense drone mark 1 as well.
They really upped the final boss difficulty. Cloak isn't a foolproof defense against every surge anymore, and there's the huge lottery of getting hacked (read: if he gets weapons, shields, engine or pilot, gg). This has made Defense Drone I the best upgrade in the game for the final boss (for some reason, DDII seems to miss boarders/hacks way more often).
In turn, cloak isn't nearly as efficient, and I'd rather invest that money in engines. Getting to 55% dodge + 4 shields should be enough to survive anything, and anyway you need the systems for 3 out of drones, hacks, mind control and teleport.
While you keep this in mind, this stuff isn't really what will get you through the rest of the game. Staying ahead involves rarely paying for repairs, getting shields ASAP, and having OP guns, like Burst Laser Mark II, Flak I, Heavy Laser I, Ion 1. Then there's every little trick left in the book, like letting a weak enemy fire at you early to max out shields/dodge, suffocating the crew whenever you can, maxing out jumps in every sector, knowing encounters and the crew/gear to best solve them, etc.
On another note, Lanius B starts with the most broken gun in the game. That thing puts Dual Laser to shame. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like the strongest ship so far.
Pwere, defense drone II can shoot lasers so it just has too many targets and is always on cool down when you need it ready for missiles. 2 DD1s can work amazingly well, but I usually just go with one DD1.
One trick I have found is having 4...that's right FOUR zoltans on shields. It seems like they power back up to 2 shields almost instantly after getting knocked down. I know on a recent winning run (only on normal) I actually had a crew with 5 voltans and that 5 free energy for systems is just amazing.
On April 16 2014 23:15 Eliezar wrote: Pwere, defense drone II can shoot lasers so it just has too many targets and is always on cool down when you need it ready for missiles. 2 DD1s can work amazingly well, but I usually just go with one DD1.
One trick I have found is having 4...that's right FOUR zoltans on shields. It seems like they power back up to 2 shields almost instantly after getting knocked down. I know on a recent winning run (only on normal) I actually had a crew with 5 voltans and that 5 free energy for systems is just amazing.
It's more than that, DD2s just seem to outright miss their targets a lot of the time. DD1s are much more reliable.
I don't think Zoltans affect how quickly a shield comes back, although they do make the shield immune to ion damage.
Played a run today and lost on normal difficulty on stage 3 of the boss. Mind control just messed me up way too bad and I never even got through its zoltan shield (despite shooting 8 laser blasts a round).
What I'm really enjoying is the unlocking of the new ships. I didn't have the slug ship at all and happened to get it on this run and got Zoltan C for getting to the final zone. Later this week I'll have to try out those two ships and work on getting the rest of the models I don't have.
On April 16 2014 22:26 Pwere wrote: They really upped the final boss difficulty. Cloak isn't a foolproof defense against every surge anymore, and there's the huge lottery of getting hacked (read: if he gets weapons, shields, engine or pilot, gg). This has made Defense Drone I the best upgrade in the game for the final boss (for some reason, DDII seems to miss boarders/hacks way more often).
In turn, cloak isn't nearly as efficient, and I'd rather invest that money in engines. Getting to 55% dodge + 4 shields should be enough to survive anything, and anyway you need the systems for 3 out of drones, hacks, mind control and teleport.
While you keep this in mind, this stuff isn't really what will get you through the rest of the game. Staying ahead involves rarely paying for repairs, getting shields ASAP, and having OP guns, like Burst Laser Mark II, Flak I, Heavy Laser I, Ion 1. Then there's every little trick left in the book, like letting a weak enemy fire at you early to max out shields/dodge, suffocating the crew whenever you can, maxing out jumps in every sector, knowing encounters and the crew/gear to best solve them, etc.
On another note, Lanius B starts with the most broken gun in the game. That thing puts Dual Laser to shame. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like the strongest ship so far.
If he hacks some important system, either hack him back or jump away and come back. You have multiple attempts at the flagship before it actually destroys the base and you lose that way, and chances are the second time he'll hack your doors or something shitty like that.
I dislike how RNG it is, if the AI were any good they would always hack weapons, but there are ways around it.
Assuming you can jump away, you still only get one jump away if the ship gets to your base first (which is usually the case if you farmed the stage a bit for extra scraps). DD1 simply avoids the issue entirely, and then shoots down boarders in phase two. I like jumping away to deal with boarders in phase 3 too, so you gotta make sure that you beat phase 2 in your base. This way you get a fight in a rebel territory and you can jump back to base to safely kill boarders.
On another note, it seems like many of the B Layouts are so weak you can only play them on easy (if you don't like restarting over and over in the first few sectors). Stealth Ship B basically requires you to get lucky for the first two sectors until you buy and upgrade shields, then find a store and trade your Glaive beam for two decent guns in sector 3 to deal with ships with three shields in sector 4. Meanwhile, you keep losing Hull every fight, and any enemy with attack drones destroys you. Slug B and Mantis B are in a similar boat, although Mantis B becomes OP if you do get that lucky.
Mantis B is one of the strongest ships in the game. It starts OP in a way that let's it accrue lots of scrap. No other ship starts with a double shield, or with a defense drone. Mantis B has both. No ship can hurt you for the first few sectors, you just board ships and collect the scrap bonuses at your leisure, without likely needing any repairs, unless you hit an asteroid/automated ship combo or something. The boarding drone can kill most automated ships until you get your first weapon.
The Rockship B isn't too bad, with the piercing heavy laser. The Lanius B is arguably stronger than the Lanius A, having a unique weapon and a teleporter.
Otherwise I agree that B layouts are generally weaker. I've been having a horrible time with Engi B, the ship is a pile of vendor trash and one crew member.
On April 16 2014 20:16 Animzor wrote: Haven't even beat easy yet... At a certain point I just hit a wall. I don't understand how I'm supposed to get through level 3 shields and drones and all that shit. It's not like I get tons of weapons leading up to that point either.
There are four main ways to get trough shields: a lot of lasers, chaining ion damage, missiles/bombs and boarding. The easiest is to fire a bomb or a missile to their shield system. Once it's damaged they lose shield levels and it should be easier. Repeatedly firing enough ion weapons at the shield will stack the ion damage, eventually breaching them. However you need good ion weapons for it (a Ion Balst II, a Chain Ion, or two of Heavy Ion, Ion Blast, Ion Stunner, Ion Charger). The many lasers aproach requires not only having many lasers, but also firing them at the same time. Their will block a number of lasers equal to their level, but not any more. So instead of firing your Burst I and Hull Laser II whenever they are avaible letting their shields recharge between the volleys, you should fire one big volley of lasers. Boarding is completely different and I won't cover it here.
Or perhaps your problem is not getting enough weapons? If that is the case I would recommend visiting sectors with more stores. Engi and civilian sectors have 2-3 stores, zoltan and rock sectors have 2 stores, others have 1-2 (not sure about the new abandoned sector). The green sectors are also more likely to give you free items.
As for more general advice: visit as many beacons as possible in every sector. There's no need to rush through the sectors, take your time and farm as much scrap as possible. This includes fighting all possible battles, since winning gives you better rewards than not fighting. If you save someone from a pirate/mantis/rebel, they may give additional rewards, so you should almost always fight whenever you notice that you're fighting for someone else.
Depending on your playstyle, you could also hack the shields, or if they have a lot of evasion, hack their piloting and then fire missiles at their shields.
On April 19 2014 02:28 Leporello wrote: Mantis B is one of the strongest ships in the game. It starts OP in a way that let's it accrue lots of scrap. No other ship starts with a double shield, or with a defense drone. Mantis B has both. No ship can hurt you for the first few sectors, you just board ships and collect the scrap bonuses at your leisure, without likely needing any repairs, unless you hit an asteroid/automated ship combo or something. The boarding drone can kill most automated ships until you get your first weapon.
The Rockship B isn't too bad, with the piercing heavy laser. The Lanius B is arguably stronger than the Lanius A, having a unique weapon and a teleporter.
Otherwise I agree that B layouts are generally weaker. I've been having a horrible time with Engi B, the ship is a pile of vendor trash and one crew member.
Add Zoltan Shields and Clone/MedBay to the list for Mantis B, and defense/anti-ship drones kill your boarders. It does get very strong, but it's hardly reliable.
Engi B was easy enough. Finding a 2nd ion early makes the whole run a breeze. You can suffocate any crew easily with heavy ion + ion blast, which tends to let you find prisoners.
The Slug, Stealth, Mantis C (and the stupid crystal) are the only ships I don't have yet, and I don't see myself getting them on normal anytime soon.
On April 19 2014 02:28 Leporello wrote: Mantis B is one of the strongest ships in the game. It starts OP in a way that let's it accrue lots of scrap. No other ship starts with a double shield, or with a defense drone. Mantis B has both. No ship can hurt you for the first few sectors, you just board ships and collect the scrap bonuses at your leisure, without likely needing any repairs, unless you hit an asteroid/automated ship combo or something. The boarding drone can kill most automated ships until you get your first weapon.
The Rockship B isn't too bad, with the piercing heavy laser. The Lanius B is arguably stronger than the Lanius A, having a unique weapon and a teleporter.
Otherwise I agree that B layouts are generally weaker. I've been having a horrible time with Engi B, the ship is a pile of vendor trash and one crew member.
Add Zoltan Shields and Clone/MedBay to the list for Mantis B, and defense/anti-ship drones kill your boarders. It does get very strong, but it's hardly reliable.
Engi B was easy enough. Finding a 2nd ion early makes the whole run a breeze. You can suffocate any crew easily with heavy ion + ion blast, which tends to let you find prisoners.
The Slug, Stealth, Mantis C (and the stupid crystal) are the only ships I don't have yet, and I don't see myself getting them on normal anytime soon.
Clonebays were a huge buff to boarding, especially if you have 4boarders on mantis B.
You can just port into the bay, kill everyone in it and destroy the clonebay before they respawn. Medbays ships are significantly harder to board.
At the point where you have 4 boarders (and, hopefully, guns), the game is basically won. But good luck getting to that point more than ~20% of your games. I guess it doesn't really matter since most of your losses will happen in a few minutes, but there's something nice about getting a high win % in a mediocre ship, which is the exact opposite of the Mantis B =)
I just got finally into FTL and it's amazing! It even takes me away from playing too much Hearthstone, because I can't resist playing too much FTL right now. This game turned out to be a lot more than I expected. So addictive!
On April 19 2014 02:28 Leporello wrote: Mantis B is one of the strongest ships in the game. It starts OP in a way that let's it accrue lots of scrap. No other ship starts with a double shield, or with a defense drone. Mantis B has both. No ship can hurt you for the first few sectors, you just board ships and collect the scrap bonuses at your leisure, without likely needing any repairs, unless you hit an asteroid/automated ship combo or something. The boarding drone can kill most automated ships until you get your first weapon.
The Rockship B isn't too bad, with the piercing heavy laser. The Lanius B is arguably stronger than the Lanius A, having a unique weapon and a teleporter.
Otherwise I agree that B layouts are generally weaker. I've been having a horrible time with Engi B, the ship is a pile of vendor trash and one crew member.
Add Zoltan Shields and Clone/MedBay to the list for Mantis B, and defense/anti-ship drones kill your boarders. It does get very strong, but it's hardly reliable.
Engi B was easy enough. Finding a 2nd ion early makes the whole run a breeze. You can suffocate any crew easily with heavy ion + ion blast, which tends to let you find prisoners.
The Slug, Stealth, Mantis C (and the stupid crystal) are the only ships I don't have yet, and I don't see myself getting them on normal anytime soon.
Engi B: You start by looking for a shop a selling all the crap that is on the ship: = repair bots, defence bots, drone speed boost augment And buying some decent weapory.
I actually ended with 2x burst laster mk2 and heavy laser + some ion. So the run through was very easy.
A friend and I got a bit bored after finishing on Hard with half the layouts, so we made a balance mod to make the shitty guns better. It turns out the game becomes basically impossible when enemies have 3-4 decent guns every fight. There are possible workarounds, but in practice, you still need the really good guns to make sure you don't take damage basically every fight due to decent guns everywhere.
It's too bad, decent fire bombs were really fun to use, and being happy to find a Burst Laser III was a strange feeling, but decent Hull Weapons are way too dangerous when you take them to the face.
On April 23 2014 15:05 figq wrote: I just got finally into FTL and it's amazing! It even takes me away from playing too much Hearthstone, because I can't resist playing too much FTL right now. This game turned out to be a lot more than I expected. So addictive!
You can even watch a HS stream on the side and not miss anything! Best of both worlds.
Upgrades (Put two more into Drones than I had to, because Why the Hell Not? Just to max out everything and still have Scrap left over): http://i.imgur.com/8jWttvL.jpg
Crew (missed out on a Crystal because I forgot how many Green sectors were after the Asteroid Distress beacon and went for the Weapon/Scrap. And Zoltan Homeworlds was right after. AND I encountered the research station in the 3rd beacon there): http://i.imgur.com/wqBdyBa.jpg
Equipment (Not all the weapons I would have wanted, but hey, goodbye shields. Say hello to my little friend, the Halberd Beam): http://i.imgur.com/JG5wKpO.jpg
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