tberton

We can do better that that. Gold Loops Game Charms. Marshmallow wizards, puffins, grenades, ghosts and bigdogs. The box is Jeff Goldblum, done in a cartoony Kellogg's style, saying "Baboo!

That's the strategy I was playing for a while. It's super fun, but tough to pull off. Got me to the Flagship once, but I didn't have the right weapon loadout for it. In other news, Zoltan C is bullshit, especially once you start encountering anti-drones.

Yeah, Clone Bay makes random events a lot more do-able. However, the one with disease will still permanently kill the guy, because the clone will still be diseased.

1) Yes there is a queue and I believe it goes through them automatically. 2) Crew members lose a bit of experience after being clone, but it's not a ton, so asphyxiation might still be the right strategy in certain cases. I wouldn't do it too often though.

First off, I absolutely agree that it's wrong to associate all of Germany with Nazism. However, I do have one small point to bring up here: I think the Volkswagen is actually caught up in Nazism. A big aspect of Nazi propaganda was trading on the idea of the Volk - "the people" - who were ethnic, "regular" Germans (analogous to the "real Americans" who get brought up in American discourse today). The message of a lot of propaganda was that Jews and "gypsies" were the ones responsible for all the problems of the Volk and that the Volk were the true inheritors of German society. So I think it's tough to untangle the car from that, since it was marketed as the People's Car, with a specific notion of who "the People" were.* Man, there are other, dumb things I want to say about other stuff from this episode, but this discussion is really good so I won't interrupt. *Please somebody with better knowledge of WWII Germany correct me if I'm misrepresenting something here.

Pre-Igniter plus Glaive Beam: murder.

I've gotten a pre-igniter from a couple events recently. It's amazingly useful. Yeah, Zoltans explode now. Makes up for their lack of health and how much it sucks to lose one when you are relying on them for power. Zoltan C has a clone bay, right? I think I want to unlock and play FTL: Kamikaze Edition.

I still haven't unlocked the Crystal ship because that entire quest line is bullshit. The number of random hoops you have to jump through is crazy. And I haven't bothered trying to beat the game with every ship to unlock it the alternate way.

My favourite ship in Vanilla was the Noether (Zoltan , although the Adjudicator (Zoltan A) was pretty sweet too. I also liked Stealth A (can't remember its name). Right now, I love the Shrike (Lanius , although I've played a bunch of runs with it lately, so I might head back to the Zoltans soon, or maybe try out the Mantis since I've never really explored that ship.

I just learned this after trying it out and it's super useful.

Lanius B with Hacking, Flak I, Charge Ion, Ion Bomb, Fire Beam and a Weapons Pre-Igniter. Hack their weapons, mind control a dude, Ion their shields, set everything on fire, beam on, kill Oxygen while sucking the air out of the room. Then watch as the crew burns to death and suffocates at the same time, powerless to do anything about it. It's a slow victory, but such a satisfying one. Unfortunately, not a great set-up for the Flagship battle. I should have kept a Burst Laser instead of the Fire Beam, but that's not as fun.

In some ways it's harder, but I feel like the random events are a lot more forgiving. I've had far fewer crew killed by giant spiders, and it seems like colonists thank me for saving them from the rebels a lot more often.

I meant to post this last week: here's the article about different types of Magic players that Matthew mentioned. The names they use in Magic are Timmy, Johnny and Spike. Timmy loves costs that are big cost and big reward; he doesn't care how often he wins, as long as he crushes his opponent when he does. Johnny loves creative combos; he doesn't care how often he wins as long as he feels that he won in an original way. Spike just wants to win as often as he can. In Netrunner, a Timmy card would be Wotan, a Johnny card would be Data Leak Reversal and a Spike card would be Desperado. Obviously, sometimes these cards can appeal to multiple players (Scorched Earth is both a Johnny and a Spike card, Account Siphon is for Spike and for Timmy). It's an interesting way of approaching design, making sure that you have cards that appeal to a wide variety of players.

Thanks for reading my email guys! Sorry it was so long and rambling. I'm with Jesse on loving Queen's Gambit, although it gets risky. I was playing the other day against an NBN deck. He had 4 points and one Astro token and installs something in a remote server. I can't get in, so I ignore it. Next turn he lets it sit there, so I figure it's not an agenda. I Queen's Gambit the card, spending the money on something that I can't remember. Next turn, he scores a Breaking News, uses the Astro token on the card I had Gambitted, reveals that it was an NAPD Contract and wins the game. I'll be more careful next time. Also, I've played a fair amount in Toronto and have never seen somebody use Net Shield.

Yeah, that's probably my favourite addition. It gives extra crew something to do and allows for interesting strategies, like moving somebody to Doors when you get boarded so that you can vent the ship to space. I think that's just a core part of this type of game and there's not really any way around it without drastically changing what the game is about.

Agreed. It feels like there are way more different ways to play now, which is great, because my favourite thing about FTL has always been trying out different strategies. I still haven't checked out a lot of the new weapons: charge weapons seem neat, as do all the new drones. Flak Cannons are amazing though, they just murder shields.

I was trying to unlock the Lanius B today. One of the Achievements is "make it to Sector 8 without your oxygen levels exceeding 20%". I could have sworn I accomplished it, but apparently not. Then I died in Sector 8 against a dumb rebel ship, not even the flagship. Anyway, all the new systems are awesome. And Flak Cannons are pretty sweet too.

Also, hacking the Oxygen system is hilarious.

Cloak is super useful for the final boss. I imagine the new hacking and mind control systems would be helpful too. In other news, hacking a room, thus locking in any enemy crew in there, then sending in some Lanius to drain all the oxygen in the room and watching them suffocate is awesome.

I think teleporters are fun.

No, it's first you don't care about St. Patrick's Day and then you still don't care about St. Patrick's Day. A video game where the twist was "You were Santa Claus the whole time!" would be pretty sweet. Maybe man is the true Santa? To fight Santa, we had to become Santa ourselves

This is an interesting fact! For people who are into local politics, Parks & Recreation is a really good show. The first season kind of sucks, but after that it's great. Amy Poehler is a colossus of comedy.

Interesting that you guys were talking about local politics, since my desire to be involved in local politics has increased quite a bit once it was revealed that my mayor is a crack-smoking alcoholic with mob connections.

Just started listening, but glad to hear that Danielle finally got a podcast nickname. Great to have you, Junior Mints.

Oh sweet, some Torontonians! And apparently Emily works at my school! Awesome! Those folks should totally get more involved in the Toronto Netrunner scene. We have a bunch of great people who play all the time. Unfortunately, I've been out of the scene for a little bit, but we have a bunch of guys that drive around the province playing in tournaments (no sweet name or jackets though). I'll be playing more often now that the semester is over, mostly at 401 Games on Thursday nights. Glad to hear that Matthew was a going to his first tournament - too bad that I had to miss that one though, it would have been great to meet him. But yeah, all those folks should come play at 401, we always love to meet new players and we also have a Facebook thread where we just talk about Netrunner all the time.