November 12th, 2014, 12:02
(This post was last modified: November 12th, 2014, 12:02 by Gustaran.)
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(November 12th, 2014, 10:14)T-hawk Wrote: Then again, I'm not sure we get to complain about losing one fight via shield hacking, when we win hundreds upon hundreds that way...
You are right, It was not really meant as a complaint, more as an "WTF" moment because I was cruising along thinking about the ideal setup for the boss and not expecting any real danger. 
And it's not like hacking isn't a major factor in certain sectors, I learned the hard way that upgrading your oxygen before entering a slug nebula is a very good idea. 
November 20th, 2014, 12:45
(This post was last modified: November 20th, 2014, 12:48 by antisocialmunky.)
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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.”
December 22nd, 2014, 01:55
(This post was last modified: December 22nd, 2014, 01:56 by greenline.)
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I have finally beaten hard mode with every ship.
December 22nd, 2014, 22:04
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(December 22nd, 2014, 01:55)greenline Wrote: I have finally beaten hard mode with every ship.
Pretty impressive first post 
December 23rd, 2014, 13:52
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I've been playing FTL recently again to try and beat Hard with every ship, but the Fed/Matnis/Stealth/Zoltan C ships just refuse to work out. How did you deal with them?
In playing hard mode, I've discovered that Mind Control paired with some weapon that sets fires is a very potent combination. Set a room on fire and control the first guy to rush in, and now the crew can't put out the fires while the controlled guy is around, giving it plenty of time to spread and burn down the system. My first run with the Engi C was able to capture about 70% of the ships it ran into - deploy a Hacking Drone to drain the shields, shoot a Fire Beam to cause a ruckus, and Mind Control the first sap that manages to get into the shield room. 
This tactic doesn't work well on ships with a Rockman and a Level 2 Medbay, and of course Lanius and Auto-ships don't care about fires at all. Still, it carried me to the end of the game pretty smoothly.
January 18th, 2015, 10:38
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Very belated answer to Fenn's post! I had a winning run with the Zoltan C on New Year's Day, and finally had the time to type the writeup over this weekend. Here are the links:
Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/lcsullla/c/5792386
Writeup: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/FTL/zoltanc.html
I did the Federation C and a number of other ships earlier, so I'll put a link to my FTL index page here for anyone who might be reading this and hasn't seen it already.
January 19th, 2015, 13:34
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Quote:The two shot version of the Charge Laser is one of the weakest lasers in the game
Nah. It's fine. 2 power for 2 shots in 12 seconds is just about identical to the perfectly serviceable Burst Laser 1. It's no BL2 or flak, but I'm usually happy to find one. I always feel the four shot version is the weak one, since either it's wasting power (3 power for 2 shots in 10 seconds) or wasting charge time for faster weapons if they wait for more shots. Its best companion is the Halberd Beam with similar charge time and a great need for the four-shot shield penetration... and you just did happen to grab one of those.
Quote:However, their own weapons were an Ion Stunner and a Pike Beam, which meant that so long as I had two Zoltans stand in the shield room, they could never damage my ship either.
The Zoltans weren't even necessary there. The Ion Stunner is not fast enough to stack ion damage with itself, so only one of your two shield bubbles would ever get ionized, so the Pike Beam would always still get stopped.
Sometimes the way to win these fights is to actually aim at the Defense Drone II, by timing your shots just as it's about to orbit into the path where your laser will fly. Eventually they will run out of drone parts.
Quote:That Rock guy was the subject of an intense debate in chat regarding whether or not he should replace the Zoltan pilot
I'd do this in a heartbeat. Rocks fighting off boarders actually doesn't work all that well, since they take forever to get there. I love a Rock on piloting, since that obviates their speed disadvantage since the pilot never moves. And the Rock holds his own fine in the cockpit against boarders or fires, which are tough for a fragile Zoltan. And of course you get to apply the Zoltan's power somewhere if he moves off piloting.
Quote: I told you the Zoltan C was a good lategame ship.
No, the Zoltan Shield is a good lategame augment. It's only that. The ship has nothing else for lategame. Zoltan C is just worse than the other two Zoltans, which sport the same shield and endgame-quality beam weapons and not C's crippling start problems.
Not to sound like I'm nitpicking, but you don't need me to tell you about the things you've done right. I hear that Hacking is pretty good.
January 19th, 2015, 17:19
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I'm curious as to why you think Zoltan C is the worst ship in the game. For me, the hardest run was Stealth B, since you need need even more scrap then Zoltan C does to be functional (50 for a cloaking upgrade so you can survive most battles, 125 to buy shields from a store, ?? for another weapon, 125 to be able to USE the weapon, along with more engine and shield and reactor upgrades...), plus it's very easy to lose the run to any ship with an attack drone.
I'd put Slug B up there as well, but my very first run with it on hard dropped a Burst Laser II in the first sector, followed by a Flak I being in a store in sector three. That turned into an easy victory...
January 19th, 2015, 17:53
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At least Stealth B starts with cloaking. Stealth C doesn't have cloaking or shields subsystems - it has to rely on a single Shield Charger drone to build defences. As you can imagine this fails to suffice against 99% of enemy ships you'll encounter in Hard Mode, and makes asteroid fields a death sentence. Its only redeeming feature is that it starts with Long-Range Scanners so it can avoid all the ships which will grind it into a fine powder.
Zoltan C might be more frustrating to play (and it definitely sounds like micromanagement hell) but I can't think of a ship more terrible than Stealth C.
January 19th, 2015, 18:04
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(January 19th, 2015, 17:53)Fenn Wrote: At least Stealth B starts with cloaking. Stealth C doesn't have cloaking or shields subsystems - it has to rely on a single Shield Charger drone to build defences. As you can imagine this fails to suffice against 99% of enemy ships you'll encounter in Hard Mode, and makes asteroid fields a death sentence. Its only redeeming feature is that it starts with Long-Range Scanners so it can avoid all the ships which will grind it into a fine powder.
Zoltan C might be more frustrating to play (and it definitely sounds like micromanagement hell) but I can't think of a ship more terrible than Stealth C.
I disagree on the count of Stealth C. The shield overcharger doesn't seem like much, but it can get up one bar of shielding before 90% of weapons can fire, which means that the average enemy ship (two lasers or 1 missile 1 laser) will only get one shot through, about the same as if you started with regular shields. Having the anti drone also helps a lot.
But the biggest difference is that your weapons take ~12 seconds to charge instead of 23. That makes a *massive* difference.
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