FTL - Faster Than Light

[haphazard1]

Missiles tend to be pretty poor, especially in the later game. But sometimes they are all you can get, and you have to try to make them work. At least until you can find or trade for something else.

[darrelljs]

Am I the only one that still plays the Basic version?

Darrell

[sunrise089]

Am I the only one that still plays the Basic version?

Darrell

No. I slightly prefer basic. But I feel like many players like the additional micro and skill-cap needed for the systems added in Advanced.

[T-hawk]

I spoke against Advanced Edition a little when it came out. It's got flaws; basically the stuff that's good is too good (flak weapons, hacking), and the stuff that's marginal or bad (most of the charge weapons, augments, mind control) dilutes and crowds out the good and average stuff. Mostly what kept me in the expansion is that it has 10 more ships; playing without those feels unsatisfying and incomplete. I can definitely see preferring the basic edition though, as I do with SMAC.

[jez9999]

       
(final death image split into 2 because of stupidly low attachment file size limit on this site)

So I just finished a run using Zoltan A in this fashion. I thought I was doing quite well. I still had my starting Leto missile and Halberd beam, and I'd gotten a weapon pre-igniter. I was in sector 3, spotted a store in the bottom-right corner of the map that I decided to visit despite its meaning a guaranteed fight with the rebels at the exit beacon in case it might have something interesting. It didn't.

So I come back up for this fight, visiting another couple of beacons on the way (some useful scrap there) and I'm faced with a rebel ship that has level 3 shields (2 Leto hits didn't take them below 2, no damage with the beam possible), and a freaking vulcan cannon that, after some warming up, obviously smashed us to pieces. We also got hit in piloting by an ASB causing a breach, preventing us from using FTL in time to escape. Ouch ouch ouch.

I'm left wondering what I could have done better here, though. I think I made reasonable priority decisions throughout. The store probably was worth the gamble to visit. Usually the rebel ship wouldn't be half this bad, and we would've been able to FTL out to the next sector. I was wanting to buy lasers or a flak cannon to get through shields, but the game gave me absolutely no opportunity to get either for the whole of sector 3 and most of sector 2, so I simply couldn't. I'm not even sure I had the opportunity to buy a bomb or more powerful missile. Perhaps just one to chalk up to extreme misfortune.

[T-hawk]

What was your engine level? That's critical for faster FTL charging to escape from those ASB rebel fights. Level 4 engines gets you out after one ASB shot, level 6 gets out before any. I hardly ever gamble on rebel dives before level 4 engines.

If you took two ASB shots with engines below 4, it was a mistake to make that gamble. If you had level 4 and chanced the one shot that hit piloting, then that was a reasonable gamble that you happened to lose.

[jez9999]

What was your engine level?  That's critical for faster FTL charging to escape from those ASB rebel fights.  Level 4 engines gets you out after one ASB shot, level 6 gets out before any.  I hardly ever gamble on rebel dives before level 4 engines.

If you took two ASB shots with engines below 4, it was a mistake to make that gamble.  If you had level 4 and chanced the one shot that hit piloting, then that was a reasonable gamble that you happened to lose.

Level 3. I think I've gotten FTL with level 3 engines before only taking one ASB shot? I'm pretty sure the first shot was through piloting with a breach.

[T-hawk]

I think the ASB timing is variable such that it's possible to get out after only one ASB shot with level 3 engines, but it's not consistent. It's possible you misremember and a first ASB shot missed or hit something inconsequential, so that there were two chances for one to hit piloting.

At any rate, yeah it's a gamble that you lost, even if it was correct in terms of win percentage to take. I probably would've taken the same route, risk one rebel dive for a store when I needed a decent weapon.

In general, if you lose because of a situation where many multiples of things ALL had to go wrong (store didn't have a weapon, ASB hit piloting, that ship had a Vulcan to kill you), that's not all that much of a demerit against playing well. But then again, squeezing out more ways to handle such a situation is where the margins exist between a win rate of 90% and 99%.

[Psillycyber]

Hey, if anyone is curious, I made a ship modpack for FTL. It's called "Psillyships mod." It has 8 new ships, some of which involve custom weapons, and all of which involve unorthodox setups/strategies. None of them is an OP fan modship like you see in some mods. They all require a bit of a struggle to win with on hard/master mode.
https://www.moddb.com/downloads/psillyships

Note that this modpack also requires some other mods loaded in Slipstream Mod Manager as well in order to work: Hyperspace, Insurrection+, and the two Insurrection+ weapons/augments modules. (If I were you, I'd play with Hyperspace and Insurrection+ anyways since they have a lot of logical balance tweaks that I can't imagine going back to the vanilla game from).