FTL - Faster Than Light

[TheMeInTeam]

You're arguing right past me at a completely different case. I had no secondary weapon and no knowledge of when I would.

I'm aware you didn't in that particular scenario, but we're talking sector 2 --> 3 transition timing. Keeping IB2 you'd have probably gone Zoltan sector over rebel and had a different run though, maybe something else rather than that small bomb. It's not reasonable to plan on using EITHER IB2 or BL3 alone into sector 4+. Decent progression needs another weapon (or maybe boarding if the game gave out crew like candy and a bomb weapon). 2nd weapon is significantly less onerous to use on 4-5 power than 5-6, trying to save for 6 weapon power means cutting other upgrades and likely extra chip damage in middle sectors.

IB2 + combat 1 is better in sector 3 IMO, you'd need to miss twice to have it break even with BL3 in terms of "time to hit their weapons" vs 2 shield layers, but the BL 3 can miss too.

In sector 4 where 3 shield ships start appearing often neither of these weapons are good enough anymore.

Ultimately, we're probably both right, it was a solidly winnable run either way, we'll never know whose approach might have resulted in like 99.2% win probability instead of 99.5% or some such.

Yeah it's true that such a choice with otherwise solid play would rarely alter whether the game is won. It's pretty noticeable that your games with fast weapons you are in the green when winning in nearly every case, whereas with the slow charger you took significantly more damage vs RFS. This is why I have IB2 as one of those weapons in the sea of "mid-tier, winnable weapons but nothing special" while I grade BL3 as one of only a handful of low tier weapons (similar to vulcan, chan ion, and several missile weapons with chain ion being the worst).

[T-hawk]

IB2 + combat 1 is better in sector 3 IMO, you'd need to miss twice to have it break even with BL3 in terms of "time to hit their weapons"

This is true, but you're looking at just that narrow metric of time-to-hit-weapons and not what that hit means.  You're comparing one ion soft-interrupt with the BL3 dealing 1-3 hard hull damage to actually progress towards killing.  I think the latter is better.  Also "+ combat drone" is not negligible, drone parts are limited, particularly considering I just got a defense drone early and could reasonably expect hacking on the run (no tele/MC/artillery occupying a system slot.)  Finally I did have a plan for 3-shield ships: BL3 plus combat drone, which the IB2 can't do and also not if you blow too many drone parts earlier.

It's pretty noticeable that your games with fast weapons you are in the green when winning in nearly every case, whereas with the slow charger you took significantly more damage vs RFS.

I actually hadn't noticed that, thanks for the pointer.  (You're seeing all the games at once to compare, for me they were spread out over a month.)  But I'll say that damage taken doesn't necessarily indicate win expectancy, since that is about the variance and the worst-case scenarios.  Big slow weapons like a Halberd always kill in 2-3 charges before the second drone/laser surge (with the second charge matching a 20-second hacking/MC cooldown), but faster ions/flaks/bursts can miss enough to expose you to more.  It's OK to take 5 damage per flagship phase if I'm slow to break the missile weapon, if it guarantees I kill the ship fast enough to not take 10 from multiple surges, since only the high variance can cause death.

[TheMeInTeam]

Halberd is more medium than slow. It's 2s faster than BL3 by default, also faster than quite a few missiles, glaive beam, and within 2-3s of most of the non-top tier 2-3 power weapons...but it hits a lot harder than any of its competitors in that charge time tier and can't miss (raked over piloting, it can help ensure other things also don't miss).

Not only can BL3 miss, but it's slower, takes more power, and its shots are spread out enough that beams lose damage to enemy shield recharging. Compare with flak 2 or arrangements of other mid tier weapons.

I'm generally not happy with 5 damage/flagship phase. It's less variance than risking 10 in one phase, but a single missile or laser hitting piloting and causing a fire can cause problems, even if piloting is at 2 you instantly lose significant evasion and risk it getting burned out completely at a bad time. Most cases you won't lose and can react with crew, but too much can go wrong still if RNG really doesn't like you. With your faster weapons you can continue to pile on after breaking missiles sooner, and I'm sure you did.

For most ordinary encounters hacked evasion can guarantee you won't miss, same for hacked shields --> beam of enough damage on piloting. Similarly cloaking through + tier 2 hacking weapons trivializes fights, I often go for ion oxygen deprivation or other crew-targeting strats if I have cloaking/hacking and enemy doesn't have multiple missiles of different types.

You're underestimating what putting "soft" ion damage on ships does in practice. I wouldn't be pushing it if it didn't result in the vast majority of possible encounters never firing those weapons again, and you've shown more than enough skill with other FTL setups that I doubt you'd struggle to take no damage with these just the same. The most annoying late game fights involve rebels or engi with dd2. You can ion-overpower evasion/cloaking pretty easily with high throughput or hybrid setups, but the tactics to fight dd2 with ions are IRL time consuming and annoying.

[Gustaran]

I came back to this game to start up a new project.  Still in progress, but lots of reading material here for anyone who likes.

http://dos486.com/ftl/series/

Interesting reports, thanks for posting.

[T-hawk]

Next page of material for TMIT to lecture me on. http://dos486.com/ftl/series/page5.shtml

[TheMeInTeam]

That early damage cascade on Zoltan C was really unfortunate. The ridiculous burst laser setup was a final nail but it started back on the scrap loss from the bad early fights. Take the situation vs 2 anti-drones - if you had 2 shield layers that's a free (albeit very slow and painful) win, but it's hard to get there when you have clone bay + doors shot out for ages.

A useful trick regarding offensive drones: if you depower a drone when enemy anti-drone shoots it, the shot can't destroy your drone. With some tedious power toggling micro you can actually do some damage with offensive drones against enemy anti-drones without melting your drone parts away. It's similar to the hacking trick, except for the part about missing hacking because it's better by a wide margin. Still, have to squeeze whatever you can with low tier ships sometimes.

For Zoltan C I recommend moving shield guy to drones rather than engines. This lets you depower oxygen to use both charge ion + beam drone w/o battery, saving battery for when you need shields (can power oxygen again at that point too). IMO this is usually worth the 5% evade hit. Anyway obligatory picture to induce disgust https://i.imgur.com/TnRxwTw.jpg

The phallic ships just aren't very fun to play, but interesting writeups for them all the same! Some of the B ship unlocks are pretty annoying on hard. In particular taking intentional damage on Kestrel A, getting Rock B at all, "tactical approach" on stealth, and actually hoarding so much scrap on Lanius are pretty impractical, leaving some annoying or RNG alternatives instead. If I reset my account I'd expect to take a few losses on ship unlocks, and I'm never going to bother doing the crystal quest via stasis pod. Much better to unlock Crystal by winning, and I've been there by having a random crystal crew on Rock C and Crystal A, good enough for me.

[T-hawk]

I know, basically everything went wrong for Zoltan C... the root problem was buying the small bomb (desperate to stop teleporters with the broken doors / clone bay) and then the crew to repair instead of layer 2 shields at either of those junctures.  Was particularly frustrating since I was just about to turn the corner with workable offense.  Even that 8-laser ship probably wouldn't have been fatal if not for also inflicting the 5-zoltan boarding event at the same time.

Never knew that about depowering drones... not sure if even I have the micromanagement tolerance for that.  I have no problem letting the game run unattended -- with layer 2 shields, could have beaten the two-anti-drones just by autofiring the ion until it hit and destroyed enough drones to run out of parts.  Slow but not painful, I'd just let it run overnight.

I wanted to have the profile intact to show the win-loss records, and without using any editor, so having to do the unlocks is the least-bad tradeoff.  I haven't lost yet for going for any unlock, Fed A just happened to be on a redo but the exact same thing could have happened on Fed A's first run or Fed B or many others.  And yeah I haven't unlocked Crystal yet, plan is to just do it through A+B wins.

[TheMeInTeam]

I find Rock A's needing to bypass dd1 with missile spam can cost runs in particular. Often the play on that ship is selling rock plating + hull missile to turn yourself into poor man's Kestrel A, but you can't beat dd1 with only missiles this way. So you can either play many games in that ship until you happen upon a dd1 or you can suicide run until you get a dd1 and kill that ship, likely costing that particular run. When I was starting off and unlocking ships I didn't have the patience for the former, Rock A isn't a very interesting ship overall IMO.

Most of the others are doable though Stealth A getting the "one shot the enemy while cloaked" depends on the run too (tactical approach can suck one). Lanius keeping oxygen down is more annoying than hard, have to constantly remember to depower oxygen if they hack doors etc.

[T-hawk]

And the conclusion, two pages, starts here. http://dos486.com/ftl/series/page6.shtml

[TheMeInTeam]

Boarding on Lanius B lets you guaranteed remove piloting by moving crew between rooms (forces AI shuffle). It's high tier because it has a great weapon and two useful systems immediately. I'd contend that stating boarding isn't immediately useful and staying so throughout the game is the actual armchair piloting . It's a janky means to lower evasion, shoot out weapons, and delay repairs but it's instantly available and free of cost. Situational crew kill is still more dosh too.

You can force MC'd enemy crew to fight with micro, both on own and enemy ships. Shield lock is an option but you can also force their crew to hit MC'd crew to tank for you, good vs early ships w/o medbay. I often get hacking as 3rd system for lanius B rather than cloaking. That sector 3 on lanius B was awful.

That slug A was a slaughter. I always seem to wind up with consistently high scores using that ship, despite that it doesn't seem anything better than average initially. The one exception where I had only hacking + MC and 8 projectiles still torched the flagship and finished in green health.

I do not agree with buying drones over hacking on a boarding ship (or in general). Hacking makes enemy medbays potentially beneficial but can also delay their weapons + door block that room for kills. There are quite a few encounters where DD1 does nothing, hacking can be useful in every fight w/o exception if you can clear super shields.

Crystals are pretty free wins, though A's weapons can be awkward pairings with some loadouts.