FTL

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FTL

Post by Enhas » Wed Apr 16, 2014 9:13 pm

I've been playing this game almost straight for the last few days. Tried Normal for a while, but then dialed the difficulty down to Easy (which despite the name, isn't in the least) after being horribly massacred over and over within the first few sectors. And I'm still being horribly massacred, though I did get to the Rebel Flagship a few times (only to be horribly massacred by it, instead).

Yes, it shows how challenging a game this is when Easy destroys you. And yet I keep coming back, even though I still never even beat the Flagship yet. It's probably one of the most addictive games I've ever played. I don't have very many ship types yet, either (the three Kestral and Engi classes, for a grand total of six).

Now, I know some of you in chat played this years ago before the recent update, so what do you think of the game? And what are your strategies for, well... not dying and actually finishing the game?
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Re: FTL

Post by gkscotty » Wed Apr 16, 2014 9:20 pm

I've not had much chance to play the new version yet, but boarding parties rule, and so do any way of taking out all personnel on a ship without destroying it. By far the best way to get scrap and other resources.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:04 pm

I still can't beat the Flagship on Easy. This is getting frustrating.

I had the perfect ship. Loads of shields, weapons, drone beams, hacking, etc... I should have been able to take it out easily. I was destroying three-shield enemies in seconds before that.

But no, instead I immediately get my oxygen hacked and it goes to shit from there. I hacked their hacking system in return, but the damage was done... my oxygen was too low and my weapons were shot to death by missiles and too damaged to do anything back. In short, another good run ruined by horrible luck.

And yet I see people beating this on Hard. Meh.

Edit: In short, I keep learning more things about this game every time I die. Especially how important upgraded door and oxygen systems are, because if I had even more than a level one oxygen system I would've probably survived.

Edit 2: Just played another two hours or so and had another great ship, only for the exact same thing to happen even with upgraded oxygen. I really can't play this game.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Sat Apr 19, 2014 3:17 am

Just played again on easy, with Zoltan A, and made it all the way to the third phase of the flagship battle very easily.

And then I ran out of missiles, making my entire strategy useless as I then had no way to take down its shields at all. Every single time I think I have it, I screw up somehow.

I both hate and love this game.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Tue Apr 29, 2014 9:11 pm

I hate to keep filling up this thread with just my own posts, but what are the most reliable ways to beat this game? I've beat it three times on Easy and once on Normal, but I think every one of those came down to luck.

It doesn't matter how good a ship I manage to scrape together, because the second or third phase of the Flagship always gets me. And this was after doing four failed runs in a row with the Engi A, which is supposedly the easiest ship to beat the game with. I personally think it's a pile of shit that takes way too much scrap to make decent, but whatever. It's definitely not one of the better ships or crews.

I know the first thing to invest in is probably level two shields, but what about after that? I never have enough scrap to do what I want with, so I almost always end up going into Sector 8 woefully unprepared and under-powered. My only Normal win came down to finishing off the Flagship about one second before my last crew-member died or before my ship was destroyed, but it could have easily gone the other way.
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Re: FTL

Post by gkscotty » Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:10 pm

I don't really think there is a reliable way to beat the game.

Also,

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Re: FTL

Post by Meteorite » Wed Apr 30, 2014 7:14 pm

The only thing reliable in FTL is the Restart option if your first few jumps in the first sector go to shit.

Basically by the end of your second sector, you need to have at least one lucky break, and some sort of strategy to work with. And never rely on any one thing to do all the work, because, y'know. And be very sure before you switch strategies mid-run. Just because you found something awesome, doesn't mean you can then use it efficiently.

And don't forget, you can stack Scrap Recovery Arms.


Fun fact: defense drones can destroy your enemy's supply of hacking drones (well, just drones really) in seconds.
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Re: FTL

Post by c_nordlander » Wed Apr 30, 2014 7:45 pm

@Steve: Also, those aliens have a language where "inflammable" and "flammable" are the same word! Crazy, man, crazy.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Wed Apr 30, 2014 8:40 pm

Okay, I just wasted another two hours with Engi A again, and ended up unable to do any damage to the first phase of the Flagship at all. Why do people say this is the easiest ship in the game to win with? It's definitely worse than the Kestral or the A and B Zoltan ships, for sure.

Aside from that, things were going good. I had a fourth level shield and high enough evade (48%) that most of the shots and missiles were missing. But that doesn't matter if I was unable to even get past the Flagship's shield.

Ion Blast II is a steaming pile of shit. Even though it charges very fast, it uses 3 power and tends to miss about 50% of the time. It's definitely not reliable enough to take down the Flagship's shield. I really should have swapped that out for the Halberd Beam I found, especially since I also had a Burst Laser II, and if I also had an Ion Bomb or Ion Blast I I'd probably have been set.

I can usually get to the end on Normal with no problems now, unless I come across some blatantly OP ship early on that's full of missiles or something. Lanius boarding ships also tend to kill me. I've found that it helps to upgrade your piloting to level 2 and sensors to level 3 as soon as possible, because it opens up many more blue options that can get you more scrap, weapons and drones. Unfortunately, I didn't come across any Scrap Recovery Arms at all during this run.
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Re: FTL

Post by Meteorite » Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:07 pm

Enhas wrote:Ion Blast II is a steaming pile of shit. Even though it charges very fast, it uses 3 power and tends to miss about 50% of the time. It's definitely not reliable enough to take down the Flagship's shield. I really should have swapped that out for the Halberd Beam I found, especially since I also had a Burst Laser II, and if I also had an Ion Bomb or Ion Blast I I'd probably have been set.
I have noticed that myself, unfortunately. It's good at wearing down shields, but it takes just one miss to lose all the progress you made.

In those cases, you really need to target the Piloting after breaking through, either with a weapon or the Ion blast itself just to have some guaranteed hits for a short time.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Fri May 02, 2014 2:19 am

Played as Engi C this time, made it all the way to the third phase of the Flagship and died horribly. Even though everyone says the third part is the easiest. They must be playing a completely different game.

It doesn't matter how high my evade is or if I have cloaking, I end up taking way too much damage. If even one of my systems is damaged, I'm completely screwed unless I can fix it quickly and this is exactly what happened here. Between the Flagship's missile spam and boarders, I really stood no chance at all. And I fully repaired with a Hull Repair drone in-between stages, too.

I breezed through the first two stages and figured it was in the bag. This happens every damn time. My only Normal win was a complete fluke and I still can't replicate it.

Edit: And now I can't even get past sector 2. I've started over at least five times. I think I should just stop playing now because I'm clearly not getting any better. I keep getting asshole ships laden with missiles that make me spend the scrap on repairs that I really need on upgrades. And I take back what I said about investing into sensors early on... it's not worth the cost because the chance of getting the events that they help with is slim, and you'll be without level two shields for longer which can be fatal.

Edit 2: And I just stayed up to 2:30 AM trying again, actually doing very well with great weapons and upgrades until I got destroyed by a random AI Scout in sector 7, with nearly 250 scrap unspent. It had two missile launchers and two ion blasts, and the whole thing took place in an asteroid field. Needless to say, it had my shields down quickly and both the asteroids and missiles destroyed me in a minute at full health. Just my luck.
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Re: FTL

Post by Meteorite » Fri May 02, 2014 6:38 am

Enhas wrote:Edit: And now I can't even get past sector 2. I've started over at least five times. I think I should just stop playing now because I'm clearly not getting any better.
I just want to lay down a few of my FTL stats.

Total Time Played: 242 hours
Total Games Played: 348

Total Victories: 15


FTL is not a game you can 'get better' at. You can learn from it, you can develop strategies, but ultimately it's a game that can sink your ship at any moment's notice. Believe me, I've had my share of screaming obscenities and flipping off the monitor when my totally awesome ship proved useless against something that shouldn't have gotten me, but did.

It's just that kind of game.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Fri May 02, 2014 3:52 pm

I know. But I just feel like I truly am not getting any better, especially when shitty FTL players like Northernlion (on YouTube) are now beating Normal.

The C ships are terrible and I think they're meant for advanced players or people looking for a world of pain. I stuck with the Engi C for a while thinking that it's great because it starts with Hacking and Drone Control, but it's really not.

- It only starts with one weapon control, meaning you'll have to spend a lot in order to use anything besides the Dual Lasers you begin with.
- It starts with a beam drone. Beam drones suck, I've learned from experience by trying and failing to beat the Flagship with a drone/hacking combo. And early in the game you'll have to waste a lot of drones to hack the shields to, well... really do anything with the beam drone. Even though you start with 25 drone parts, they go down fast.
- The Clone Bay would be good if this was a boarding ship, but it's not, and its two Engi and one Lanius crew aren't exactly great at fighting in combat. So you'll probably have to waste 50 scrap ASAP to replace it with a Medbay.
- It does have the Defensive Scrambler augmentation that prevents your drones and missiles from being shot down. This would be good if the rest of the ship itself was good, but it's not. You can come across this for other ships, but it's very rare.
- Since the Engi C starts with hacking and drone control, that leaves only one more slot for a system.

As for the other three C ships I have (Kestral, Zoltan and Federation), they're also not so great. Kestral C is a mediocre version of the A ship with a Clone Bay, worse starting weapons and one of the crew replaced with a Lanius. And Zoltan C revolves around micro-managing power so much that it's very difficult to really get anywhere. I've not tried Federation C yet, but it looks to be designed around suiciding your units.
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Re: FTL

Post by Enhas » Sun May 04, 2014 8:56 pm

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I unlocked this ship this afternoon, and managed to beat Normal on my very first run with it. For upgrades, I bought the cloaking system (as it only has one free slot for systems) and upgraded the clone bay to level 3. To keep from taking power from other systems, I also invested in a Backup Battery to boost the clone bay's power up to max whenever someone was close to dying.

I spent everything else in shields (up to level 4), engines, and the teleporter. I only upgraded weapon control to level 2 after buying a Small Bomb, and that along with Advanced Flak were the only weapons I had in the whole game.

As for crew, I lucked out and was able to buy / find four Mantis and a Slug.

Advanced Flak by itself is good enough to do damage early on, but not so much later when shields are up. The Small Bomb was mostly to damage enemy medbays / clone bays before boarding.

What I did for the Flagship:

- Teleport two Mantis into the missile launcher room.
- Use Small Bombs to destroy the Medbay.
- Mind control a guy trying to fix the Medbay, and teleport the other two Mantis in there.
- Cloak to avoid missiles and some shots.
- Keep using Small Bombs on other systems and teleport the Mantises into the hacking system and other weapon rooms (except the laser) to destroy them, and then send all four to destroy the Shields once they've killed all the crew (except the laser guy).
- Use Advanced Flak on auto-fire until the first phase is down.
- Phase two was pretty much the same. Take out the missile launcher, then the drone control, beam weapon, shields and then Advanced Flak the ship to death. I cloaked to avoid the drone swarms, but sometimes I still took damage.
- Phase three was also pretty much the same. I have to keep using Mind Control on my own crew to take back control of them, and use lots of Advanced Flak and Small Bombs to take down the shield. Taking some damage from the missiles is basically unavoidable. After that, teleport into the missile room, teleporter room, mind control room and finally shields, and cloak to avoid the laser spam. Advanced Flak to death, though I ended up also having to take down the green shield again.

Anyway, I dismissed boarding ships as crap but this changed my mind. The only weapons I had the whole game were the Advanced Flak and Small Bomb, but with Mantises and a level 3 clone bay that's pretty much all you need. And that's my FTL log, for now.
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