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FTL - Faster Than Light

Yep I got that event. In fact just finished my first run with SS Donger. I had two super experienced Mantis fighters as my boarding team. Only once was the enemy smart enough to hide in their med bay, where I could not kill them. Just as I was beaming out, a laser swept through their ship, destroying it! WTF, they shot themselves!! Oh.. It's my 50 sec system laser. Whoops.
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Well going through the entire game without finding a weapon better than Burst Laser 1 and charge weapons killed that one AE run I played... No bombs or teleporters. A joke really.
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(April 10th, 2014, 21:55)darrelljs Wrote:
(April 10th, 2014, 21:17)WilliamLP Wrote: If anyone has unlimited time you can check out LethalFrag's no-pause runs on Twitch.

Bah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNRTJ1UJ7kw

If you have 4.5 hours to waste you could watch the full run.

Darrell

I don't know! That's the cheesy way to beat the boss with boarding. It doesn't really take skill or quick thinking, just solving the puzzle to get that setup. They also closed up that loophole in Hard Mode now - the weapons are connected to the rest of the ship.

No-pause is really hardcore in a different way to need quick thinking and mouse skills and (probably) a couple hundred hours of experience.
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I just had my first game with the vulcan laser, and it is TERRIFYING once it finishes spinning up. Got the first form of the boss down to 2 hp in my best attempt yet using the federation cruiser on easy mode.
Surprise! Turns out I'm a girl!
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Playing this game on anything above Easy drives me nuts. There's just not enough scrap to keep updating shields/engines, while also having some leftover to purchase stuff early on at stores. Maybe if I stopped randoming my ship choice and picked one with a good early configuration I'd have more success but I try so hard to subscribe to the idea that random = fun that I rarely make myself do it.
"We are open to all opinions as long as they are the same as ours."
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You just need to know the ins and outs. I'd also recommend the Zolton Cruiser if you have it or the Kestral B. They are both pretty reliable.

For example I have these guidelines:
- Skip shops in Sector 1 if you have less than 50 scrap. The only thing worth buying at that point is the Scrap Recovery Arm (best thing in the game)
- You generally don't need L2 shields until Sector 3. It is very possible to save up all your scrap until this point.
- Shield is the least important station
- L2 Doors should probably be your first upgrade followed by a few levels in engine power
- L2 Sensors is generally a waste of resources
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
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I don't really get the usefulness of the door upgrade. It seems I'd always rather have a crew member, who can staff the door station in the rare case where crowd-control is that important, and do a bunch of other stuff in other instances.

My favorite thing is the teleport, it just does everything -- economics through more scrap and crew members, shield bypass, system deactivation, etc. Does need mantises or rockmen in the crew, I guess.
DL: PB12 | Playing: PB13
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Maybe this is coming from base FTL but it is really easy to have the door control damaged by a stray shot. The classic cases where this is handy are when there's a massive fire and you can't vent anymore or you vented a crucial hallway and its basically impassible (The Zolton and the ship you get for beating the game are rather notorious). The door doesn't matter by itself but lots of bad things can happen when it gets blowed away when other stuff is going on. Also, it helps with fire spread.

BTW - I think they removed the bonus for capturing intact.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
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Teleporting is even better now because there's an add-on called "Restorative Teleporting" where your teleported crew are healed to full health after they teleport.

Combine that with Zoltan shield bypass add-on and you can destroy so many Zoltan ships so quickly
"You want to take my city of Troll%ng? Go ahead and try."
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Some of the best strategies depend on the particular ship.

I used to play trying to delay L2 shields until I could check a few stores. Now I tend to upgrade L2 very fast, even early in sector 1. It's only 50 scrap (plus power) that you're going to spend anyway and there are many encounters that will probably do hull damage if you have L1 shields, but are a joke if you have L2. E.g. basic laser + beam, two basic lasers, anything with a combat or beam drone, anything in an asteroid field. The investment pays off in your repair bill later. I think really early shields are a lower variance strategy if you feel good about your chances of winning with average pickups throughout the game. Waiting for a store is a big payoff if you can buy something great but you can also get wrecked if you get really unlucky facing exactly the wrong ship. Your run is only as good as the worst ship you run into.

(And, the Zoltan ship can get away with shields a little later.)

L2 doors is if you have a soft crew in low numbers, but those ships tend to come with doors upgraded anyway. They are nice to remove oxygen against enemy boarders while they beat down the door to the next room, then you repeat until they're dead. Combinations of losing doors and oxygen and fires and breaches can get really nasty though.

Yeah, L2 sensors aren't that good. You get the same effect just by putting an extra crew in the room now. They do give you a few blue dialog options for more scrap rewards but they're rare.

From my experience, to win safely and pretty consistently on normal with most ships, the Defense Drone is almost mandatory fairly early, to stop missile damage. Otherwise you'll just be spending too much on repairs to get a good build going, unless you luck out into an amazing DPS weapon system.

Oh and if you can get Long Range Scanners, buy that up immediately.

I think the bonus for beating ships intact with boarding is still there, but it maybe feels lower than pre-advanced edition.
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