FTL - Faster Than Light

[TankSinatra]

If you're being real stingy with your Lanius HP, you can shield bait, punch down the O2, and wait for suffocation. It's a bit time-consuming.

I think 20th for the Rock B is pretty low (worse than the Fed B?), but I wasn't particularly taking issue with the rankings. It's interesting that non-accidental crew kills just aren't part of anyone's strategy in this (ancient) thread and Sullla's (ancient) tier list. I came late to the game, so I have no idea when people figured that out.

(And if the Slug C is 10th without crew kill strats, how high does it get if you're using it right?)

One thing that doesn't seem to get talked about in tier lists (Sulla mentions it intermittently) is starting with crap to sell. For any of the Rock ships, one ship fight and a store and you've got your second shield bubble. That's huge! I keep having these desperate poverty runs in the Kestrel A because you don't have anything to sell off (and you have to buy all the systems). That first 25-40 bucks can mean quite a bit.

And the Slug C - you've got 30 bucks in repair gel PLUS 155 scrap worth of systems you were going to buy anyway. I'm going to ignore all the times I got a fire in the weapons room before I got to shoot in sector 1 and put it in my top five.

[TheMeInTeam]

I'd shove Fed B low too, so I guess that would move Rock B up a little but it's still broadly below average.

Kestrel A shouldn't be scaling too poorly, since it needs only 50 scrap + either hacking or 3rd weapon (2 power or less) to make it into sector 3-4 transitions at < 200 scrap invest. After that your income/fight goes up so it's reasonable to pick up more stuff on it.

Sulla actually had Slug C 9th (I misremembered), and while I could see nudging it past Crystal A, Lanius A, and maybe Kestrel B the competition starts getting really strong from there...and Mantis C belongs up here if we're allowing micro to manipulate piloting + crystal lockdown bombs, so we're talking a ~3 spot variance at most (still debatable) among ships that are largely comparable in expected winrate on hard. That's pretty good considering how old the discussion was.

Wouldn't you normally hack weapons in sector 1 and shoot weapons out to de-sync them prior to the scrap for shields 2? MC can lower the evasion to make the hit very likely (pilot buffers happen in sector 1 but aren't guaranteed and evasion is still very low with MC'd pilot at those engine levels and tier 2 piloting).

If you're being real stingy with your Lanius HP, you can shield bait, punch down the O2, and wait for suffocation. It's a bit time-consuming.

I'd rather not unless target ship can't do damage. Maybe coupled with advanced flak to the weapons. No "medical airlock" is a bit of a nuisance admittedly.

[TankSinatra]

The point about Kestrel is that to get the hacking/MC/drone-or-cloak setup you're going to want, you're spending 240-305 scrap (and you're reliant on stores cooperating); for the Slug C it's 85-150 while already benefiting from having two of the systems and getting extra stuff from crew kills. It's a lot to make up. In general I think Kestrel A is worse than it looks. It's got two good weapons and that's it - you're not getting anything from the crew, and it's got no upgrades on anything. They could have at least thrown in a door upgrade or some extra missiles or something.

My abortive Slug C runs are almost invariably owing to missiles (or asteroids/EMPs, I guess) (or those bastards with two heavy lasers) where desynching doesn't help. In those cases I'll usually hack shields for the chance at getting in two shots on weapons.

Yeah, the Lanius B is weird because it's got all the best stuff but none of it goes together. It has the best weapon in the game, but flak isn't ideal for boarding support. It's got a clone bay and the one race that you can't suffocate. Not that any of that stops it from being hella OP.

[TheMeInTeam]

The point about Kestrel is that to get the hacking/MC/drone-or-cloak setup you're going to want, you're spending 240-305 scrap (and you're reliant on stores cooperating); for the Slug C it's 85-150 while already benefiting from having two of the systems and getting extra stuff from crew kills. It's a lot to make up. In general I think Kestrel A is worse than it looks. It's got two good weapons and that's it - you're not getting anything from the crew, and it's got no upgrades on anything. They could have at least thrown in a door upgrade or some extra missiles or something.

We do agree that Slug C is better. For Kestrel A, you do need all that scrap to get the "setup you want", but you do not need all of it before sectors 3-4 in order to function with decent outcomes. A third weapon will do by itself, as will hacking or (if you got good crew draws) crew TP. This is the same reason Kestrel B is really good - it continues to be a viable option to win battles with no or minimal damage for not much investment cost into the middle sectors. Kestrel A is like that too, just not as good at it as B.

There are better ships that start with more stuff while lacking big liabilities, but there aren't so many that Kestrel A is below average. Its weapons and having manning bonus on them + evasion is enough.

[Psillycyber]

I think the Rock B is being underrated. I wouldn't call it top 5, but definitely top 10. I think the mistake players make is that they don't lock down weapons. ALWAYS lock down weapons. This goes for the Crystal B too. Teleport into weapons, lock it down/burn it down, and take the rest of the ship apart at your leisure.

For offense on the Rock B, all you really need is a teleporter + hacking +1 missile and drone part per battle. The hacking is there to guarantee that the firebomb always hits the first time. Weapons will be burned out by about 25 seconds guaranteed. You do need to defend until then, so you'll want cloaking eventually. Adding cloaking Level 3 really does make this ship invincible because it helps you dodge one volley and buys you an extra 7-15 seconds where the enemy does not get to charge weapons, by which point the enemy's weapons will be burned out for sure. And with all the savings from not having to spend on weapons systems, you'll be able to afford cloaking earlier than usual.

The Rebel Flagship is actually a bit tricky to handle with this setup because of its multiple weapons systems. Even so, it is usually sufficient to lockdown the missile launcher with hacking+boarding+firebomb and then use strategically-timed firebombs and hacking on the doors to the missile room to whittle down enemy crew. Don't worry about the medbay. Yes, throw firebombs in there, but mainly to kill off crew with the explosion damage the moment they run in. Whether the medbay stays up or not is irrelevant.

I also recommend swapping the medbay for a clonebay at some point. That gives you the option of keeping at least one rock in weapons at all times to keep the fire spreading (even if that means one of the boarders gets focused down and dies in the meantime), and/or firebombing your own crew in the enemy's weapons at strategic times to kill off enemy crew before they can run to a medbay, and/or eventually tossing your entire crew over to the enemy ship once weapons are down and not worrying about losing your pilot to some silly misclick.

Note that all of this applies doubly to the Crystal B, which starts from sector 1 practically ready to beat the Rebel Flagship. Teleport to weapons, lockdown until weapons are mostly taken out, cloak in the meantime to avoid first volley, and then do whatever you please. The Crystal B just needs 4 shields and a clonebay, and it is ready to take on the RFS.

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't know what you use to make a tier list, but for me it's "how often does this ship win under theoretical optimal play on hard". By that metric, rock ships have no place in top 10; they don't start with those things that make them good .

[T-hawk]

"All you need is a teleporter + hacking + drone parts + cloaking" ... yeah any ship wins if it lasts long enough to get that.

The Lanius B was underrated in this thread because people weren't using the mind control correctly. You teleport your Laniuses into shields. When an enemy arrives, you pause, MC the enemy, and send your boarders elsewhere. Since the AI prioritizes shields over anything else, they'll fight their own guy while your team can go bang on the weapons or medbay.

That's an angle I never thought of.  I see where that would get the time for the oxygen drain to actually work, by the time the MC wears off.  Although I'd still contend that if that's the right tactic, then the Lanius B advocates should have been saying so earlier.

I don't know what you use to make a tier list, but for me it's "how often does this ship win under theoretical optimal play on hard".

Many people don't.  The metric for ships and weapons and everything else is often not win rate but more like "how satisfyingly does this let me gloat while winning."  Not "how often does it lose to that sector 6 rebel scout with four shields and 45% evasion and cloaking where all my boarding and ion and fire tactics can't help." Bursts-and-beams are the right ticket to deal with everything, but get so underrated because there's no gloating as you just immediately kill instead.

[TheMeInTeam]

Many people don't.  The metric for ships and weapons and everything else is often not win rate but more like "how satisfyingly does this let me gloat while winning."  Not "how often does it lose to that sector 6 rebel scout with four shields and 45% evasion and cloaking where all my boarding and ion and fire tactics can't help."  Bursts-and-beams are the right ticket to deal with everything, but get so underrated because there's no gloating as you just immediately kill instead.

I still think you guys underrate going ion-heavy.  Running the math, high ion output should be able to ionize piloting + weapons down before all but fastest weapons get 2 volleys if your output is decent (3-4 ion weapons, or a few faster ones).  Being on the lower end of ion output requires you to hack evasion to guarantee fast times, but this is true for other weapons vs 45% evade too (even 8-10 projectiles from flak + lasers won't guarantee you getting through vs that quickly).

Would I take two flak 1's, a BL 2, and a heavy laser instead?  Yes I would, you would, anybody who's played well on hard for a while would prefer these.  If every run gave that, we'd almost never lose.  Builds like this or pre-igniter are the only ones that permanently disable enemy weapons + piloting faster than loaded ionization, after that the time to reach "no damage victory" per fight is comparable.  The "no damage in most fights" is what matters for win rate.

What the game gives you free or has available for sale is RNG; the more different weapons/setups you can use to consistently beat enemy ships without taking damage and handle RFS, the more likely you are to see winning combinations and put them together for less scrap.  Since you really need 3 ion weapons for them to work decently in late game, these don't litter my winning screenshots; I only go ions in maybe 25% of games (depends whether you count just using one as part of a volley) but win rate is comparable.

- https://i.imgur.com/eXqzDui.jpg - 5 weapon power is on the weak side, systems still carry this comfortably.
- https://i.imgur.com/TnRxwTw.jpg - better!

For non-boarding gunships, the fire beam is a better "win harder" pickup than a scrap recovery arm.  It even costs the same .  By this I mean it's dangerous to buy it on hard unless you're already secure defensively, and tends to run away in cases where you can get away with it.  Better for 4 slot ships since stuff like this isn't a liability vs scouts:

https://i.imgur.com/BVKrvDy.png

Crew TP is contingent on proper weapon support or hacking.  Since you can trick AI into pulling its pilot you can screw evasion badly and even 2 man boarding shreds most non-RFS ships w/o damage.  Boarding on RFS is variable to ship setup and I like the variance; cloaking/hacking builds TP ions and beam to death then slowly kill all crew in phase 1 while being immune to damage.  Hacking/MC with decent weapons usually hacks medbay --> kills 2 RFS crew --> bombs/breaks medbay + boards 2 more + MC to overrun RFS crew.  Other combos are more weapon reliant, usually boarding ions and shooting out missiles before doing plays on enemy crew with fighting --> shoot medbay.  Lots of good stuff.

[T-hawk]

Since you really need 3 ion weapons for them to work decently in late game

Question is, what progression gets you to 3 ion weapons?  On Hard, you can't afford to keep ion guns in storage in hopes of getting more later.  They always get sold like everything else for scrap to go into shields and systems.

Since you really need 3 ion weapons for them to work decently in late game, these don't litter my winning screenshots; I only go ions in maybe 25% of games but win rate is comparable.

I will believe you on that win rate.  But I also contend that those games would also be won with other weaponry besides ions.  You do note that ions require other support like hacking and defenses.  I think the proportion of games where that support will win with ions or fire/bio/etc but not with whatever conventional damaging weaponry you come across is exceedingly small.  Not quite zero, but I'd be surprised if it's any more than 2%.

Cloaking is the big thing that screws up ion builds.  You need 50% more ion output to overcome the time advantage of level-2 cloaking (10 seconds on, 20 seconds cooldown.)  That's the big hole I've never seen covered in arguments for ions.  One misstep resets everything.  If you aim your ions/hacking/boarders at cloaking, then you're not using those against weapons/evasion/medbay.

I agree that "time to no further damage" is key, and that's a good way of putting it.  But I disagree that ions are the fastest or most effective way to get there in any more than a tiny proportion of games.  2 damage to weapons in your first volley is usually enough to establish that, and 90% of games do supply enough bursts and beams to hit that hard.

That all said, yes, you understand ions better than most of their advocates.  Arguments for ions usually go like "you can stack shield lockdown infinitely!"  Great, so what is the reward formula for infinite lockdown?  If you took five damage while establishing that lockdown, that fight was a lost battle against the war of attrition.

[TheMeInTeam]

Question is, what progression gets you to 3 ion weapons?  On Hard, you can't afford to keep ion guns in storage in hopes of getting more later.  They always get sold like everything else for scrap to go into shields and systems.

TBH by far the most common progression is "start with an ion weapon".  You just need one thing of any type that does damage.  They're actually less expensive than most other weapons which helps.

Aside from buying an ion blast 1 or stunner to tack on for 1 power --> 1 layer down, or an ion charger if you have something that charges slower like pike or halberd (hacked evasion lets charger remove 2 shield layers for 2 power and keep them down a while), it's hard to justify buying an ion weapon if you don't have one already.

I will believe you on that win rate.  But I also contend that those games would also be won with other weaponry besides ions.  You do note that ions require other support like hacking and defenses.  I think the proportion of games where that support will win with ions or fire/bio/etc but not with whatever conventional damaging weaponry you come across is exceedingly small.  Not quite zero, but I'd be surprised if it's any more than 2%.

You can believe me or not, though I do have most recent 7 games streamed, winning 6 (all 7 were winnable, choked a Fed A lategame pretty bad on the one loss, that one stung...with better luck OR better skill I'd be 7/7 ).

Whether conventional weaponry also wins w/ support systems is not what we're interested in for this discussion (we both value support systems similarly).  8 laser projectiles w/o support systems is pretty awful vs RFS.  With good support systems they can win reliably, usually with green health.  What matters is the decision making that gets you to a winning setup for least cost.

When you sell any weapon to buy another, we're usually talking about a 30-50 scrap differential.  The new weapon doesn't just have to be better, it has to be better by enough to justify the scrap given up to acquire it, sometimes at direct expense of having a good system like hacking or cloaking earlier.

Cloaking is the big thing that screws up ion builds.  You need 50% more ion output to overcome the time advantage of level-2 cloaking (10 seconds on, 20 seconds cooldown.)  That's the big hole I've never seen covered in arguments for ions.  One misstep resets everything.  If you aim your ions/hacking/boarders at cloaking, then you're not using those against weapons/evasion/medbay.

Cloaking "screws up" builds in general, particularly flak 2/slower ones where you have to wait for 2 cloaks.  Vs these you have a few options, depending on what you have on your ship:

• If their weapons aren't threatening, you throw ions on piloting + cloaking.  This can be due to crappy enemy weapons, cloaking/hacking, or defense drone vs missiles.
  
• If you have something like my Engi A setup from last page, you can literally just ionize 3 systems (piloting, weapons, cloaking). No crew kill but still an easy win.
  
• If you're running a 4 slot ship so your hull damaging weapon isn't a drone, shoot the cloaking
  
• I'd almost never ionize medbay w/o enough ions for 3 systems, and only then if I've drained the target's oxygen.
  
• DD2 can similarly be handled by targeting drone control once you're through, though depending on what else is on such a ship hacking drone control can also screw its offensive drones.
  

2 damage to weapons in your first volley is usually enough to establish that, and 90% of games do supply enough bursts and beams to hit that hard.

I'd say that if you can't anticipate a way to reliably put at least 2-4 ion damage on enemy weapons in < 20 seconds based on current sector that you probably should be fishing for better offense.  Probably a good rule of thumb for any layout really.

Useful side note: the way ion damage works, if you hit enemy weapons with hull damage (say a heavy laser after shield ionization) then follow up with an ion, the combo will take down two weapons guaranteed.  This is similar to how you'd want to bomb or missile shields first, then hit with ion, then with burst lasers in that order.

But I disagree that ions are the fastest or most effective way to get there in any more than a tiny proportion of games.

Nothing is going to touch flak 1 and burst/dual lasers for "fastest" damage.  There's a good reason >> half my non-boarding builds wind up with that stuff (and ions are pretty terrible boarding support).  Again, it's a matter of switching cost/what you have available *right now* that can win the game.  With setups like that Kestrel C, which could easily win most battles with crew-kill rewards by simply cloaking/hacking weapons and shooting at piloting + oxygen with ions (ionizing cloak rather than oxygen when necessary), switching out weapons would just cost money and lose out on crew kill scrap rewards...not much upside there.  Prior to enemies having 4 shields and some freebie weapon drops, getting a few ion hits on shields --> shooting enemy weapons + putting 1 additional ion damage on them completely shut down opposing offense.