Erkki

FTL

Recommended Posts

Holy crap, I just finished the game on normal mode! I can't believe I got my first win on easy and my first win on normal back-to-back. Word's cannot express how great it feels to no longer be this game's bitch.

I went with the Engi ship and kitted it out with three ion guns constantly set to autofire while my offensive drones did the damage. In the last battle the entire enemy crew boarded my ship in a gambit to destroy my droid system. At one point there were six dudes wrestling in a burning droid room in a match to decide the fate of the galaxy. Luckily I had a mantis and a rock to deal with them, supported by the special ability of the Engi medbay. I also had a repair engi that I had been skill boosting from the very first sector so by the end he could repair a damaged system bar in about two seconds.

In this run I picked up the the damaged stasis pod and wasted a ton of fuel trying to complete that quest. After I had failed to find the right Zoltans I had some great misadventures as fuel-less ship. The first time I turned on my distress beacon a refueling ship found me. He was happy to sell me fuel and also

help himself to a bunch of my missiles, droid parts and scrap before jumping away.

Later on, with no scrap and one barrel of fuel I visited a distress beacon, only to find another stupid loser like me who was also out of fuel. Another refueling ship came by and I was actually forced to beg for a single barrel of fuel. Somehow I pulled through and ended up winning! Fuck you game! I wonder if my fellow hobo friend made it out okay...

The lesson that FTL teaches is that planning can help you up to a point, but if your plans become dogma you will die in the vacuum of space.

Yes! This is what I was trying to say earlier but you did a much better job. When you're in sector seven and that one item that completes your setup that you've been looking for the whole game doesn't show up, you have to rework things to fit what you do have. I think that's probably the game's biggest strength, that each weapon and system is simple enough to master on it's own but the possibilities for combining them seem endless.

I just beat the boss with the very strong Federation Cruiser with the inbuilt artillery beam.

Do you have any tips for the early game? This one and the layout B stealth ship are total glass cannons at the start.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Luckily I had a mantis and a rock to deal with them, supported by the special ability of the Engi medbay.

God, I love the Engi medbay. If only drones didn't give me anxiety headaches...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Was that easy or normal?

Easy. I'm going to do easy first for a while to unlock the ships, then tackle normal when I have a favorite strategy to try. SInce one run can take up to two hours, I'd rather have a better chance of getting some good runs in on easy. It's perhaps cheesy but so far I really like it; it doesn't bother me that the first sectors are a cakewalk. I enjoy toying with enemy ships.

Do you have any tips for the early game? This one and the layout B stealth ship are total glass cannons at the start.

Congrats at your good run! I only play on easy so far, so the glass cannon thing is less of a problem. I would say just start upgrading the shields as fast as you can, and get the autocannon charging time down. If you feel desperate, search for a cheap missile weapon for some extra early fire power.

My run with the Engi ion cannon/drone setup was quite succesful until I got smashed by the boss' third form. Reading your post, maybe if I got a third ion cannon rather than a backup laser, I could manage it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

God, I love the Engi medbay. If only drones didn't give me anxiety headaches...

I tried the Engi ship again and picked up an anti-ship drone mark II early on. That sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately it refused to sync up with the starting ion gun despite how much I tried to micromanage it. Enemies with three shields showed up right after that and they were impossible to defeat.

My run with the Engi ion cannon/drone setup was quite succesful until I got smashed by the boss' third form. Reading your post, maybe if I got a third ion cannon rather than a backup laser, I could manage it.

At the time I thought it was a crazy risk to give up my last damage-dealing weapon for a third ion gun, but I knew that the boss would have five shields and that all you need to do is two damage per salvo if your salvos go in quick enough. I feel like the non-boss battles in the game are all about being aggressive ending things as quickly as possible, where as the boss battles are about developing a longer term plan for taking him down. Both times I won I had a hull repair droid with me as well so that I went into each battle with full health.

I've got one pet peeve with the game at this point: after you're out of danger stealth systems don't automatically end their cool down. I don't know why this is the case, since after battle you can teleport as much as you want and your engines are ready to jump instantly. I keep forgetting to sit and wait for the stealth to come back online before I jump to the next area

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Don't know if this is pointed out, but it is worth starting the game without playing the tutorial--if only to be so confused that you can't continue on.

I also had fucking Brecon in my first crew. Don't know how I felt about that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I tried to play a couple of games on Normal, but I after a few quick deaths I saw that Easy is indeed better for experimenting. I then played an easy game with a boarding strategy in mind, and it mostly turned out well, except that I sold everything, including my hull-damage-dealing weapons to get extra crew members (I had 3 mantis eventually). That meant I couldn't win against the automated ships and that sucked :( I died in sector 6 when I wasn't able to win the boarding game against a larger ship quickly enough to avoid getting hit too much.

PS. With just one damaging weapon I would have done better I think, but I only found a powerful Ion Bomb, Health Bomb, Small Bomb. Those worked quite well with boarding.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yay! Won with a boarding-oriented strategy (still on easy). I even lost most of my boarding team, but got another one. Actually, most of my crew in The Last Stand were unexperienced late additions.

Hull repair bot + S. Bomb + 2 weak lasers + Defense bot + boarding proved quite useful! Only the last stage of the boss had me worried I wouldn't make it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Have the devs talked at all about patching in any new features? Aside from basic stuff like Steam achivements, I'd love the ability to save/export replays.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I just had the worst/best FTL moment.

I was up to the final sector and had just wrecked an automated drone. I decided to go to the bathroom while my guys healed up/repaired everything. Upon returning everyone except my zoltan (Breckon) was dead and oxygen levels were at 0%. After thinking about it for a moment I realized that this was due to the fact that my zoltan was the only thing powering my oxygen and that by moving him to the medbay to heal I had shut off the life support. Furthermore the only reason Breckon survived is because he was powering the medbay with his zoltan aura, thus keeping himself alive despite total asphyxiation.

Congrats Nick.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anybody had much luck with the default ship, layout B? The four lasers seem to eat through early ships easily however without replacing them by sector three they are practically useless. I used it as a base for a boarding focused crew (it starts with a mantis) and got further than ever on normal. I just didn't get lucky enough with the loot so was stuck with weapons unable to get through shields. A large Slug ship eventually got the best of me as my Mantis couldn't stand up to five angry slugs with a functioning med bay.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You do the specific achievements listed in the hangar next to the ship. They tend to be a little more wacky than the default layouts. Engi B for example has no sensors and one crew member.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wow, bought this game the same exact time I picked up Torchlight 2. Both amazing games. I oddly can't stop playing this one, even though it annoys me greatly.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You do the specific achievements listed in the hangar next to the ship. They tend to be a little more wacky than the default layouts. Engi B for example has no sensors and one crew member.

Unfortunately the prevailing strategies for many of the ships seem to be "roll twenties". I've given up on the stealth ships for now since they rely way too much on luck to get out of just the first sector or two. There is literally nothing you can do to win against an early Zoltan with a beam drone.

I'm trying to beat normal mode as the Kestral but I always end up in sector six with no better ordnance than what I started with, plus a weak drone I purchased out of desperation. From what I gather most people cite finding another burst laser as key to their success; I just need to find a single store than even sells weapons before sector five and I'll be happy.

Edit: Just lost the best chance I've had in a while. I decided to skip the shops in the first sector and just rush for the second layer of shields. I entered sector four with three shields, 45% evade and six laser shots per salvo. I thought I was hot stuff until I ran into an AI ships with three shields, two attack drones, a burst laser and a missile launcher in an asteroid field. All of my shots missed, everything coming at me connected, and of course the first thing they hit was my weapons.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

got all the way to stage 3 of final boss and made extra sure to take out the teleporter but it can still do the crazy laser nonsense and teleport dudes no problem. So i died at around 20% left. Lasers do seem to be the way to go, that or 3 Ion Cannon II's will completely disable a ship

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also just got to stage 3 of the final boss before dying. Still haven't beat it, and I always play on easy. :(

The cumulative nature of those bouts are also tiring; I couldn't repair between stages, and was down to 25% hull by the third level.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finally won on normal mode with the Kestral. I got the second laser burst II and an ion bomb, which at a total of five power must be the most efficient weapon setup in the game. I also had a four person boarding crew, three of whom were men of the geological persuasion. It was so tempting to use my weapons on enemy ships but then I discovered that

defeating a ship without damaging the hull can get you just over 70 scrap in the later areas! :yep:

I made the most of my arsenal and utterly destroyed the boss... except when the second-stringer boarders died when I forgot to take out the stealth system. That was embarrassing. In the second stage I was wrecking the shields so hard that four rebels were in there trying to fix it. You know what they say, never put all your eggs in one basket, especially when that basket is on fire. When the third stage started the rebel flagship was manned by a single crewmember;

the trick then was to make sure he stayed alive so the ship didn't get another super shield.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I also had a four person boarding crew, three of whom were men of the geological persuasion.

Interesting. You mean Rocks, right? I guess boarders don't really need speed that much, though it can play an advantage.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anybody had much luck with the default ship, layout B? The four lasers seem to eat through early ships easily however without replacing them by sector three they are practically useless. I used it as a base for a boarding focused crew (it starts with a mantis) and got further than ever on normal. I just didn't get lucky enough with the loot so was stuck with weapons unable to get through shields. A large Slug ship eventually got the best of me as my Mantis couldn't stand up to five angry slugs with a functioning med bay.

I'm really liking layout B of that ship. I try to get a teleport as quickly as I can and immediately start taking over ships. Sector 3 pretty much destroys me though, probably because I focus so much on leveling up my away team and teleport that my shields and weapons are pretty much useless :\

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

that feeling when you take your eye off the hull of the enemy ship for one second to give an order to your away team only to see them disappear as your artillery fires off and the ship explodes = :zoid:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

They died the only way they knew how.

Asphyxiating in a crumbling Mantis ship.

:adama:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Interesting. You mean Rocks, right? I guess boarders don't really need speed that much, though it can play an advantage.

I favor Rocks slightly above Mantis when it comes to boarding, but obviously I take what I can get. Rocks require less micromanagement and they are immune fire so you are free to set the whole ship ablaze if need be.

that feeling when you take your eye off the hull of the enemy ship for one second to give an order to your away team only to see them disappear as your artillery fires off and the ship explodes = :zoid:

The same thing happened to me. Since boarding is easily the most reliable way to beat the game I don't think I will ever use the Osprey. I also don't have much faith in the artillery's intended use, as a slow but reliable super weapon: one time it was stupid enough to aim at a single room.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now