FTL - Faster Than Light

[T-hawk]

I recommend the Zoltan controlled rebel sectors are dangerous.

Hogwash. Rebel sectors are awesome. Significantly more loot than friendly sectors. Shields level 2 and a loadout including a BL2 are enough to handle it.

[Brackard]

My sector 1 played - report in progress. I also thought we were playing best ball...?

[spellman]

Yeah, was under the impression it was ball bus time.

Everyone makes a run of Sector 1, reports, and best end state gets used to start next round. Also, we should vote on where to warp for next sector.

[Brackard]

Ahhh...that's what I'm missing. We need the voting for next sector.

[Molach]

I rushed the report out so perhaps people who weren't playing could give input on the format or something.

Great report NC.

About the end of sector, either our approaches work. My way, jumping to next sector, means slightly faster pace but also that choice of next sector is a part of the save's total quality. Other way, finish at end of sector, means we vote on where we wanna go, then someone grabs the save and makes the jump, then re-uploads the save from next sector.

However one should perhaps take the state of the ship in consideration when deciding which sector to jump too - so might need to decide which save ship first. Or maybe they all end up alike.

3 days enough? 2? 7?

[Brackard]

That's a good question really - is the map randomly rolled upon creation of the game, where they are all the same, or is produced at the time of jump.

If produced at game, all we need is one person to jump so we can decide. We can take the ship status into consideration on which save, and then go that direction. If produced at a game level, that's a bit different issue, we'd need to review not only the ship status, but what's coming up as well.

As far as frequency, I'm just glad you weren't talking a 24 hour turn around! I think 2 days is too short, 7 days it much too long. I think 4 days is about perfect.

[Brackard]

Ok, so here we go. I picked up FTL just recently and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to participate in a community game. I thank Molach for getting the ball rolling.

So, starter ship. Let’s take a look at the map. Ok, so we have a pretty open map. I’ve come to dislike nebula. One too many bad experiences there so I’ll try to avoid it as possible. I know that you can delay the rebels there, but I don’t know how much I’ll be able to grab before needing to head to the exit.

Below is the proposed map:



Red is the proposed map, yellow is the optional routes depending on the rebel progress. I’ve got a store right next to us, so we’ll try to get some scrap before we

Now, the ship. The basic ship. Basically assigned the humans in order, pilot, weapons, engine. Missile launcher and burst laser 2 (3 shots, 1 damage each).



So, nothing much more I need to do here, time to move!

Stop 1. A sun stop. You’ve got to be kidding me. Really? First stop?



We’ve got a Rebel Rigger here. Beam drone and weapons – missiles and laser of some type. And then you have solar flares. Have to love it.



Round 1 – target drone with the missile and the weapons with the burst laser.
The Rigger laser absorbed by shields, the missile misses.
Our missile takes out the drones and the burst laser takes out the weapons.



Solar flare hits door control and weapons. Fire quickly takes out door control so I need to put the fires out manually, but we work the weapons first. One more round of the burst laser brings the rigger down to a single point of hull. It is destroyed moments later as a system explodes internally.

Pretty cool. I’ve never seen that before in the times I’ve played.



I’m able to warp out just before the second round of solar flares (imminent warning).

Stop 2. Merchant trading fuel for missiles. Deny and move on. But not before I heal everyone up and make sure everything is repaired (still had some fires to vent out).

Stop 3. A ship needs help getting out of asteroids. I generally try all these events (with a few exceptions), especially with the blue option. No blue option here, but I try it anyway. <BUZZZ> Wrong answer. I take some hull damage.

Stop 4. So we make the circle around back to the shop. Yeah, I’ve got nothing I can really buy here. I fix my hull, purchase some fuel, and leave with the clothes on my back. That’s it.



Stop 5. We see a distress call, and we were headed that way anyway, so off we go! There’s a federation scout – out of fuel. Needs fuel. Sure thing. -2 fuel, +19 scrap. Not a bad return there.

Stop 6. We run across a civilian ship being attacked by pirates. Being the upstanding citizen that I am, I offer help, and am attacked by the pirate!

It’s a mantis scout and I aim everything at weapons. The mantis shoots first, starting a fire in the south portion of the ship. Open the airlock and that’s done. I return fire with everything, destroying weapons. I autofire my laser burst at the weapons and the pirate goes down shortly thereafter.

Bounty: +2 missiles, +1 drone, +12 scrap
Civilian bounty: Patch up ship (better than a sharp stick in the eye I guess….)

Stop 7. We run across a civilian ship being attacked by pirates. Being the upstanding citizen that I am, I offer help, and am attacked by the pirate!

It’s a mantis scout and I aim everything at weapons. Wait, does this sound familiar? Actually, yes, yes it does! But far from being regular, the mantis actually sends a boarding party over!



The interloper is removed without much ado. In the meantime, my sensors get hit, but I’m able to remove their weapons with first volley and then cleanup after that. (missiles +1, Drone 1, scrap 16). The civilian retreated so nothing there.

Stop 8. I get attacked by another pirate. Fortunately, I was actually the target and not some civilian.
This is a rock scout.

Their first round missile misses, and the laser absorbed. I take out the weapons (missile), and the engines (burst). After the weapons went out, there was a note saying they were trying to escape. That attempt lasted for about a quarter of a second before the engine was removed from the ship.

The pirates offered to surrender with a substantial offering of: 1 missile, 1 drone, and 8 scrap. The resulting bounty of them being destroyed was 3 fuel, 1 drone, and 15 scrap. A little bit better.

You can see where we stand with the map.

Stop 9 is nothing.



Stop 10 is a distress call. We need to lead him to his destination. I say yes of course being the outstanding citizen that I am. +10 scrap and a quest (next sector).

Step 11. Jump into a Rebel Rigger with beam drone and weapons.

Round 1 the laser misses. My missile/burst take out the drone and weapons. One round later the rigger offers surrender of 5 missiles, 2 drones, and 10 scrap. I accept.

Step 12 – Exit. The outpost is being assaulted by a drone. I offer assistance. The drone’s missile misses, laser absorbed by shield. I damage the drone, and destroy weapons. The drone is destroyed by bursts shortly thereafter.

Bounty: +3 fuel, +1 missile, +8 scrap
Outpost bounty: +3 fuel, +2 missiles, +11 scrap

Not a bad haul.

End of sector status:



Hull is obviously a bit poorer than I’d hoped, but I just received enough scrap to upgrade shields as required. No upgrades on equipment, crew, or weapons, so no screenshots there. Figured I’d leave it up to next person if warranted. I did pull in 114 scrap. Personnel are moving along decently enough in respective categories.

Final map is attached. I think I made fairly good use out of what I was given. I don’t think I could have hit too many more sectors here.

Brackard's Save

[T-hawk]

The galaxy map (the sequence of sectors) is rolled at game start. Each sector map is rolled when you jump into that sector. So for this exercise, I'd strongly recommend choosing and making a jump then sharing the save again, so everyone will be on the same sector 2 map.

You'd probably want to do that for each sector - choose best ball before jumping to the next sector, then have that player jump sectors before sharing the save.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Pfft, anyone can update any end-of-sector save to the next chosen sector.

Since T-Hawk wants us to bathe in blood and shattered limbs, I'll change my vote to Rebel Controlled Sector.

[slowcheetah]

I didn't see thi until late yesterday, but I jumped in with a first sector of my own.

1) SUN??!?! Grr, despite my first missile missing the rebel ships drone control, I took the ship out with minimal damage (a hit to the medbay), destroyed the rebel and escaped before the second flare.

2) Traded 8 fuel for 3 missiles, I very rarely seem to go heavy on missiles so this seemed a good trade.

3) Invaders, evacuated the ships air and huddled my crew in the medibay. They fought bravely while nanobots swirled around them stitching their wounds.

4) A ‘Manually search the wreckage’ event- Searched and I got, scrap and a defense drone. Pretty nice haul.

5) Ion storm + Autoscout= nastiness. I went with powering up the shields and hoped that the missile wouldn’t aim for one of my primary systems. Went as ‘planned’ and I lasered the droids weapon systems. Only slight hiccup was I hadn’t recharged O2 from event 3, and everybody started suffocating. Whoops.

6) Found an explored the asteroid field option. Of course I jumped right in, succeeded only in damaging my ship though.

7) Loyalist settlement, the nice folks gave me 2 Missiles a drone part and 14 Scrap. Note, I ignored the store, I’m not overly damaged or running out of fuel, and burst laser mark II is powerful enough to kill things right now. Consequently, I went to a further ‘scrap earning space’ and saved up to buy level two shields and a power bar.

8) Distress Beacon- Somebody has planned poorly and run out of fuel, tsk tsk. I got them off the ground again and they gave me a tasty 19 scrap.

9) Nothing happened, my crew stared out into space bored by the lack of imminent peril.

10) Federation Scout- BL2+ Beam is quite nasty, however, with only one shield aiming for weapons was an easy victory. Their destruction payed back my travel costs and gave me 9 scrap bonus.

11) Distress Beacon- Drunken rocks have lost their way, they yell something about the ‘space mule’ show of Nylar four and flourish a wad of scrap my way. Sighing, I have my ship fire its grappling hook and agree to drag the hooched up granites to their destination. Cash is cash.

12) Rebel Rigger with two weapons and a beam drone. It wasn’t much of a problem, level 2 shields plus a miss meant I could safely disable their weapons. I was systematically shooting them up when they offered 6 fuel, a missile and 8 scrap to surrender. I frequently seem to run out of fuel in these things so I let them live. I then spent my 53 scrap on an upgrade of my engines and a further power bar, strapped myself into the helm and told the Rocks ‘to be prepared for a wild ride’.

13) I arrived at the exit and was slightly disturbed by a sound like a cement mixer coming from the rock ship. Unfortunately , there was little time to focus on that as an autoassault with Missile, Ion blast and beam drone switched from terrorising a village to targeting me. Thankfully the initial missile missed band the second one only hit some plain hull and with its weapons gone the droid was easy to take out. The ‘villagers’ I rescued were very grateful, chipping in to my cause with some fuel and scrap. The Rocks were less amused, with a garbled ‘tooooooooo fast’ being heard amongst their grinding noises. In the hallowed tradition of cabbies everywhere, I slammed on the accelrator and screamed towards the exit beacon.

Looks like I am a bit used to Civ, you have to copy the print screen stuff into paint for FTL Here's a pic of my finishing ship anyway.



Looks like our further options are the rebel or zoltan sector. I don't usually go rebel, but I'm up for taking a red route in this game. Now I'll go and read the other sector 1's.

Could somebody tell me how you attach a file to these posts, in caase my save turns out to be the one that's chosen?

Final Ship stats

Scrap: 44
Hull: 19 (11 damage)
Fuel: 18
Missiles: 13
Drone schematics: 6

Number of crew & race: 3 humans
Crew skills: Everybody is about a quarter of a way up their respective skills (pilot, engines, weapons) 'Butters' the weapons guy has a quarter repair

Upgrades:
-shields: 4
-engines: 3
-oxygen: 1
-weapons: 3
-medbay: 1
-piloting: 1
-sensors: 1
-doors: 1
Reactor: 10 bars
Weapons: Burst Laster II, Artemis.
Drones: Defense Drone Mark 1 in storage bay
Augmentations: None