FTL - Faster Than Light

[darrelljs]

There's a whole generation of iPhone "gamers" and internet reviewers whose sense of agency literally doesn't go beyond clicking on whatever a game prompts them to do.

QotM.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

To be honest I struggle with some ships on easy to get a win, nevermind the difficulty levels you lot play on. the idea of pausing constantly to micromanage timings perfectly or to judge if you want to let a drone shoot based upon where its pointing is past what I can do, and I am enough of a gamer to hang round here.

I win on easy pretty often, but have only recently won on normal. I don't think FTL is 'hard' on those difficulty levels, it's just unforgiving. In that sense it might not be too difficult from civ4 - a monarch game is extremely easy for almost all RB players, but you still can't just do whatever you want. You have to expand, improve tiles, know how to defend versus attacks, etc. A clueless player would lose every game. That's different than a Halo clone where novice players can still make progress on high difficulty levels via respawning shields in-level and respawning lives in-game. Civ and FTL don't have any mechanic for "oh, you lost to the flagship/the AI won a space victory, press any key to go back a few minutes playtime and try again."

I will say even on easy you really need to just view FTL as a non-real-time game. Most of the mechanics are based around that concept. On normal I found while getting tutoring from T-Hawk that you just need to know a little about optimizing your ships and adapting to the hand you're dealt - I avoided hacking since I didn't want to learn a new mechanic, and as soon as T-Hawk convinced me to use it I won my first two normal games.

I do think on hard some actual mechanical skill comes in to play.

[antisocialmunky]

I do wonder how hard a normal 'no repair' run would be after that game posted by Sullla

[Shpoko]

Well I picked up this game about a month ago, and have been trying to skill myself up, helped immensely by watching Sullla's streams. I'm not quite to the point of feeling ready to take on Hard Difficulty, but I have been playing and winning (sometimes) on Normal.

Reason I'm posting is I felt the need to share my latest game on normal, with Kestral C. Throughout the run I felt like I was always right on the edge of the curve. Got lucky in I think Sector 2 when I found a free Hull Repair drone. Bought Drone Control in Sector 4 I think (w/ Combat Drone). Swapped that for a defense drone later, then added an Anti Drone. Weapons were starting until about sector 3, where I got a Burst 1 in a store. Later added a 2nd. Around Sector 6 I shelled out the scrap for a Hull Laser 2, then got a Hull laser 1 as part of a double scrap reward late in sector 7. Crew was numerous, but rather weak: 3 Engi, Zoltan, 3 Humans and Lanius. Had Lanius in piloting, Humans in the other big 3, engi in doors and sensors, with the Zoltan standing in the engine room (he had engine skill, so could take over whenever I had to send the human there to fight). Didn't max weapons til Sector 7, and shields didn't get the 4th bubble til sector 8. I was never able to get any systems other than that Drone control though, just never had the scrap when I found them in stores.

In sector 8, there were 3 repair stations in the upper left corner, while the base was bottom middle. I managed to hit all three, because I expected that, without Cloaking or Hacking, I would need to use the Hull Repair Drone after Each phase of the battle.

So I go in to the flagship battle, and put up a defense drone. It shoots down several of the flagship's Hacking drones before it gets one through on Piloting. Not great, but I could work around it. Focused weapons on shields, and got through that phase with 11 damage. Used three repair drones to fix that.

2nd Phase, I put up antidrone and defense drone. I doing pretty well until the first drone surge. They got a lot of damage through in that, I'm thinking 7 or so. Didn't help that the 1st boarding drone landed in piloting. Still I managed to fight it off, and the 2nd (in engines) and get the kill just before the 2nd drone surge I think. Took 10 or so damage in that phase (healed with repair drones again).

Third phase, 1st person MC'ed is the pilot. Of course. And the 1st boarder teleports right in there with him. Then the next 2 land in the weapons room. Fortunately, I had killed several in prior phases so that was about it. Good thing too, I would have had real problems if there had been more. Took several salvo's to get through the zoltan shield, so I ate several power surges throughout the battle, while I had no evade. Turned into a frantic race to kill them before they killed me. I won, with 4 hull left. From full. Still, as I read in a story once: "Doesn't matter how you get your win, so long as you won."

Final Stats were 29 ships defeated, 99 beacons explored, 1609 scrap total. (on Normal mind you). The run even set a new record for me: one of my Engis made 28 repairs over the run.

[T-hawk]

Good story. Yeah, a Hull Repair Drone can be a major solution in sector 8.

I got a Burst 1 in a store. Later added a 2nd. Around Sector 6 I shelled out the scrap for a Hull Laser 2

That last was a mistake, or at least would have been on Hard. If you already had double Burst 1 plus the starting guns, that was enough weaponry and the Hull 2 was a marginal overspend. If you're wondering where the scrap went that you couldn't afford drones, that's where.

Crew was numerous, but rather weak: 3 Engi, Zoltan, 3 Humans and Lanius. Had Lanius in piloting

Did you buy any of those crew? That was my other big scrap leak moving up to Hard - there's no scrap to spare to buy crew. Gotta make do on what the game gives you, and on the door system to hold off boarders.

But yes, piloting is the best place to stash a Lanius, since that's the hardest place to vent boarders on almost every layout.

Also, with the prevalence of Engis and Zoltans there, and the low-ish scrap total at the end - were you in friendly Engi and Zoltan sectors? As you get better, you find that the friendly sectors are actually worse with lower rewards. Hostile sectors are better for income, particularly Rebel and Mantis.

2nd Phase, I put up antidrone and defense drone. ... Didn't help that the 1st boarding drone landed in piloting.

Defense drones can shoot down boarding drones. Did you not remember to put up the defense drone right away? (I forget that too, even now. )

[greenline]

Also, with the prevalence of Engis and Zoltans there, and the low-ish scrap total at the end - were you in friendly Engi and Zoltan sectors? As you get better, you find that the friendly sectors are actually worse with lower rewards. Hostile sectors are better for income, particularly Rebel and Mantis.

I don't know the actual numbers behind this, but the scrap per sector seems to be determined much more by the species then by the designation. For instance, Mantis sectors, despite being hostile, seem to be loaded with 'junk' nodes where you'll fight off a boarding party or something without earning any actual scrap, compared to, say, Rock or Lanius sectors. And Engi sectors will usually give you free item drops half the time- I usually prefer them for my second sector if I haven't found a weapons upgrade yet, and even if you don't get weapons you can still sell it for a lot of scrap. And Slug sectors seem to have the highest fight density per nodes, or whatever you would call it.

Maybe the difference is more pronounced if you have long range scanners, but I can never seem to find the things.

[Shpoko]

Good story. Yeah, a Hull Repair Drone can be a major solution in sector 8.

I got a Burst 1 in a store. Later added a 2nd. Around Sector 6 I shelled out the scrap for a Hull Laser 2

That last was a mistake, or at least would have been on Hard. If you already had double Burst 1 plus the starting guns, that was enough weaponry and the Hull 2 was a marginal overspend. If you're wondering where the scrap went that you couldn't afford drones, that's where.

Crew was numerous, but rather weak: 3 Engi, Zoltan, 3 Humans and Lanius. Had Lanius in piloting

Did you buy any of those crew? That was my other big scrap leak moving up to Hard - there's no scrap to spare to buy crew. Gotta make do on what the game gives you, and on the door system to hold off boarders.

But yes, piloting is the best place to stash a Lanius, since that's the hardest place to vent boarders on almost every layout.

Also, with the prevalence of Engis and Zoltans there, and the low-ish scrap total at the end - were you in friendly Engi and Zoltan sectors? As you get better, you find that the friendly sectors are actually worse with lower rewards. Hostile sectors are better for income, particularly Rebel and Mantis.

2nd Phase, I put up antidrone and defense drone. ... Didn't help that the 1st boarding drone landed in piloting.

Defense drones can shoot down boarding drones. Did you not remember to put up the defense drone right away? (I forget that too, even now. )

Maybe buying the Hull 2 was a mistake, but I was getting to the point where I was having trouble getting damage through even with 6 shots (had a couple ships run away at this point) and was starting to feel I was falling behind the curve. I never bought drones at all, I was trying to gather scrap for cloaking and/or Hacking. As for the crew, they were all from events, I didn't buy any of them. Sector wise, I went through two Abandoned sectors and a mantis controlled too, as well as one slug nebula. Just didn't seem to find many encounters. I do remember being rather disgusted when at the last 4 beacons prior to the exit in the Mantis sector, I found nothing to fight. Early on I had a few green sectors, but I went for every red one I could reach. As for the boarding drone, I did have the defense drone up, but I think it got distracted by missiles right then. Or it might have gotten the first, but missed the 2nd.

[T-hawk]

I don't know the actual numbers behind this, but the scrap per sector seems to be determined much more by the species then by the designation.

Yeah, we need some actual numbers. I gotta dig through the files sometime and work it out.

Rebel sectors definitely stand out for rewards, since there are a lot of double-payout events. Same goes for Pirate sectors. I actually mistyped on Mantis above - meant Pirate. Mantis sectors are just OK on rewards as you say, but are still preferable because the ships are weak and easy to beat.

Engi have a lot of beacons that aren't blank, but do something marginal without income, like buying fuel or trading resources. Abandoned/Lanius also has a lot of side junk like those.

Zoltan is the worst sector type of all. Zoltan shields are a major pain, but the density of rewards is low, including several boarding events.

Slug sectors are high-risk high-reward. Slug ships get extra shields (up to 5) and lots of annoying junk in cloaking and hacking and MC, but there are a lot of fights. Avoid them with weak weaponry, but go fry them with a strong loadout.

[greenline]

Zoltan being the worst sector definitely seems right: not that many ships, and the ones that are there are very painful, with Zoltan shiels and a very high chance of missiles.

I wouldn't say Slug sectors are that bad; sure, they often will have annoying subsystems, but their actually weaponry is very non threatening (out of sync lasers + fire weapons), which means that even the most pitiful offensive setup can wear them down over time. The only encounters there I routinely have any trouble with are when they try to run away.

The consistently most dangerous sectors I've seen are definitely Lanius. The higher tier Lanius ships can really screw you over if you're not careful, since they usually have mind control, flak + missiles, and will board with two Lanius who you can't vent out.

[Sullla]

This thread has been awful quiet for a while now. As a discussion point, I wrote up my own version of an FTL Tier List for the different ships in the game. I'm curious to hear other opinions on where all of you would put your personal rankings. Obviously we won't share identical rankings, but I'm hoping that there's a general consensus on what's high tier, low tier, that sort of thing. Or maybe not - that would also make for a fun discussion too. Enjoy.