FTL - Faster Than Light

[Gustaran]

After beating normal I switched to hard difficulty and at least made it to the boss after a few tries. Holy cow, this game is kicking my butt. It feels like I am constantly walking a tightrope.
Props to the people playing with the inferior C ship designs at this level!

I wonder if the outcomes for the event choices are worse on hard difficulty? One example: On easy, I never even encountered the negative outcome for the "fire on the defective defense system" event once. Now on hard I seem to take constant hull damage through this and other events, probably 5-6 times in one of my recent runs.

[T-hawk]

Oh yeah. FTL Hard is the tightest balanced game I've ever seen. You will make it through if you play perfectly, and nothing short of perfectly.

Are the C ships inferior? They're more polarized into extremes, but that's not all bad. Stealth C actually works pretty well with the shield overcharger. Slug C gets a ton of tricks in both hacking and mind control. Federation C with the artillery flak does seem more reliable than the others with the artillery beam. Also, all the C ships get a cloning bay, which I have come to prefer over the med bay, especially given all the events where it saves you.

Some like Rock C and Mantis C don't do anything better than other versions, but aren't really actively bad. Zoltan C is the only one that's really a pain, since it's so crippled whenever the battery runs out or some of the zoltans have to leave their posts for repairs.

I've never heard about events being worse based on difficulty. Maybe it's perception bias in that a bad outcome on Normal is usually survivable while the same on Hard can wipe you.

[Gustaran]

Oh yeah. FTL Hard is the tightest balanced game I've ever seen. You will make it through if you play perfectly, and nothing short of perfectly.

One thing I noticed is how important weapon drops suddenly become. Especially if you are behind the curve and that one useful weapon puts you ahead again.
The other thing I understand now is how good Long Range Scanners really are. On lower diffulties they are nice to have, but on hard they are a major benefit.

Are the C ships inferior? They're more polarized into extremes, but that's not all bad. Stealth C actually works pretty well with the shield overcharger. Slug C gets a ton of tricks in both hacking and mind control. Federation C with the artillery flak does seem more reliable than the others with the artillery beam.

Did you beat the game with all of those? With Stealth C, I only had a ton of restarts, because one early beam drone can cost you 1/3 of our hull.

Also, all the C ships get a cloning bay, which I have come to prefer over the med bay, especially given all the events where it saves you.

I agree, the major benefit is the possibility of getting extra scrap through events without losing a crew members (I am looking at you, giant alien spider! ). I would estimate a Clone Bay might be worth ~100 extra scrap throughout a run compared to a Med Bay. The only problem is when you are being boarded and take an arrow to the knee take a missile hit to your Clone Bay. Some promising runs of mine were cut short this way.

I've never heard about events being worse based on difficulty. Maybe it's perception bias in that a bad outcome on Normal is usually survivable while the same on Hard can wipe you.

Yes, you are probably right, if you take 5 hull damage instead of receiving 25 scrap, it is a big problem on hard mode. And if it happens 3 times in a row you become convinced the odds are stacked agains you.
That being said, I wonder if there are differences between hard difficulty besides scrap and enemy generation? Someone on Reddit claimed that Level 3 doors go down faster on hard difficulty:

Doors do not last as long on Hard mode. If you watch my video, level 3 doors take 10 shots to break through. With two draining points, two boarders barely take any oxygen damage before the doors open and they move on.

Sullla also mentioned the possibility of the boss firing faster on hard than on easy in his "Federation Beam only" video, though he wasn't sure IIRC.

[Wyatan]

Sullla also mentioned the possibility of the boss firing faster on hard than on easy in his "Federation Beam only" video, though he wasn't sure IIRC.

As far as I know, on hard enemy crews tend to be leveled up.
So a level 2 weapons operator would increase the firing rate by 10% (well, slightly less: 120% to 110%).

[T-hawk]

Yes, Long Range Scanners is the one component that most reliably gets you ahead of the curve. And yes, weapon drops are quite important, and create a nice "play the hand you're dealt" scenario, gotta make do with what you get rather than always spending for the burst lasers.

I've won on Hard with all the C ships. I won Stealth C on my very first try actually. It starts with an anti-drone drone, did you not notice that?

I did see that bit on doors on Reddit. I'm not sure if that's a difficulty difference, or if level 3 doors were weakened in AE to account for level 4 now existing. Needs testing but I haven't felt like doing it because it's irrelevant to someone who only plays on hard.

[Gustaran]

I've won on Hard with all the C ships.

I won Stealth C on my very first try actually. It starts with an anti-drone drone, did you not notice that?

Yes, but with only two power in the drone system I would have to depower the shield drone. Or do you switch to the anti-drone and then back to the shield drone? Wouldn't you take a lot of damage doing that, especially if the enemy ship has a beam weapon installed?

[T-hawk]

Turned out that in that case, you have to leave the shield drone off and only use the anti-drone. The anti-drone does not always kill enemy drones (sometimes just stuns), and after depowering/repowering takes an oddly long time to acquire a target and shoot again.

The enemy has a beam weapon? So do you, so shoot theirs! They should only get one shot, and if it hits anything other than your weapon or drone system, you're fine. And quite a few enemy ship layouts - especially auto-scouts - have their weapon and drone systems adjacent so you can hit both with your one beam shot.

Or finally, the other answer is, yes you do take a chunk of damage from such a fight. I had one that dealt 7 or so. That was survivable.

[sunrise089]

I've won on Hard with all the C ships.

[T-hawk]

So I had a run memorable enough that it needed a full writeup:

http://dos486.com/ftl/zoltanc/

[Commodore]

Uh, T-Hawk...

...the timing on that shot? You're a robot.

Or maybe a wizard.

Robot wizard?