Erkki

FTL

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Hey man, just be grateful you have the Rock ship! My main problem with the game right now is trying to get the other vessels I've fought through Rock sectors dozens of times and only had the chance to get that ship once, and chose the wrong option out of un-willful ignorance. Four times I've picked up the damaged stasis pod and not found the Zoltan research facility, or should I say, the game forgot to put the research facility there, because I've lost games visiting every beacon to find it. Twice I've fought the famous Kthylzzzidrdzzzz and still his "mystery remains unsolved" or whatever crap the game tells me. Guess what FTL? Next time I get a quest that I haven't seen before I'm pulling out my phone and cheating, and it's going to be your fault.

When it comes to stealth B, I could write a book about my failures with that ship, but once I start typing about it in this little box I think of ways new ways to tackle that devious little ship. Here's the strategy so far:

Step 1: Use the long rang scanners to avoid conflict and rely on the kindness of strangers to get enough scrap to fully upgrade the cloaking system. Now you should be invincible for at least a couple of sectors, unless you're unlucky. That's where step 2 comes in.

Step 2: Be lucky.

Regarding missiles: if they were cheaper you would be doubly discouraged from taking surrender deals and in my opinion that would remove a great deal of the game's depth. By now you've surely noticed that it is often times much more advantageous for you to take a deal rather than destroy your enemy, regardless of how safe a position you might be in. This is something I really appreciate about FTL. I don't know about you, but In every other game I've played surrender dialogue boxes are a total waste of time, unless you are down to your last hit point.

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Hey man, just be grateful you have the Rock ship! My main problem with the game right now is trying to get the other vessels I've fought through Rock sectors dozens of times and only had the chance to get that ship once, and chose the wrong option out of un-willful ignorance. Four times I've picked up the damaged stasis pod and not found the Zoltan research facility, or should I say, the game forgot to put the research facility there, because I've lost games visiting every beacon to find it. Twice I've fought the famous Kthylzzzidrdzzzz and still his "mystery remains unsolved" or whatever crap the game tells me. Guess what FTL? Next time I get a quest that I haven't seen before I'm pulling out my phone and cheating, and it's going to be your fault.

I have to say that the Mantis, Slug, and Crystal are by an order of magnitude the hardest ships to unlock. They all rely on the player making upgrades and choices counter to received knowledge, which would otherwise lose you the game.

The Mantis requires a Mantis crewman to talk to KazaaakplethKilik, a teleporter to capture his ship, and an advanced medbay to heal him once you do. The Slug ship requires advanced sensors and accepting the surrender of three consecutive Slug vessels while in their space. And we all know what a bitch the Crystal ship is to get. It just seems perverse.

I unlocked the Engi, Stealth, and Zoltan cruisers all in my second run ever. The Rock and Federation ships followed right after, when I gave the Zoltan ship a test drive. It's now been like forty games and only once I decided to cheat did I get the Mantis and Slug ships. I don't know how I was supposed to guess some of these unlock conditions.

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It's OCCASIONALLY more advantageous, if you're using missiles, which aren't worth using in the FIRST place if you have a choice since drones will shoot them down anyway. You're way better off using bombs, in which case you usually only need to land one per fight and can then ride that advantage to victory. In the end, what might be intended as incentive to accept surrender instead just becomes incentive to not use missiles.

I don't know. At this point I'm getting pretty fucking sick of this game-- admittedly, after 40 hours of mostly really good times. It's oddly at its most fun when you're bad at it, because then there's things you can struggle against when you're failing. At this point, I feel like I've just mastered it to the point where the slot machine nature of the beast is stripped bare. Oh hey look, all I have is a glaive beam, I haven't encountered any stores, and you're sending ships with 3 shields against me. Awesome.

It reminds me slightly of back when I was playing WoW. I started off playing Warrior, and I still think that was a really interesting class (no idea if it still is). I had relatively few skills, but managing my resources to use those skills, positioning myself optimally, and choosing the right skill at the time was a set of really interesting decisions. I tried out a bunch of other classes after that, and one that I played a fair amount was the Warlock. Playing Warlock involved using a whole lot more skills, managing minions, controlling range, etcetera. The end result was a class that was very challenging at first, when I was learning when to use each skill and getting a feel for the timing, but afterwards a whole bunch of battles which felt exactly the same. FTL is starting to feel that way to me, like I've understood everything there is to understand in the game and now it's just doing the same thing over and over and hoping the random number generator likes me this time.

Bleh.

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Bleh.

If a game costs ten dollars and it gives you "40 hours of mostly really good times" I think the appropriate response is "WOOOHOOOO!" :P

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finally won on easy, thanks to remo and scoops, and breach bombs mk2 w/ burst laser 2 and heavy laser 2. Flagship couldn't keep shields up through that and I evaded most shots. Whatever did hit me was quickly repaired by the gigantic crew i had

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Got to play this for myself and if you've watched enough videos like I have, it already felt like I've played the game.

It's cool, but normal seems impossible unless you just try to avoid everything at all costs and even then, I'm not sure how they expect you to beat the boss. Easy is fun, but almost too easy at times... so a little more balancing for a follow up would be amazing.

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I realised that since I started playing I've always put the starting trio on pilot/weapons/engines mainly cause I saw Chris do it on the livestream. It hit me recently that pilot/weapons/shields might work better, seeing as how I usually don't upgrade the engines that much and having a guy start his training on shields earlier might be nice.

So, any other starting configs? Or is P/W/E simply the best?

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evasion is great for dodging missles, that's why i upgrade engines, plus it's way cheaper than shields, though I upgrade those eventually. Also on the easiness of easy...not always the case, the game where I finally won, I nearly lost in zone 2 or 3 because chance screwed me hard and I had 4 rock teleport onto my ship at the same time. Only reason I managed to pull through is because I damaged their ship enough for them to want to go back. Even then I was really damaged, miracle I didn't lose anyone as well.

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Got to play this for myself and if you've watched enough videos like I have, it already felt like I've played the game.

It's cool, but normal seems impossible unless you just try to avoid everything at all costs and even then, I'm not sure how they expect you to beat the boss. Easy is fun, but almost too easy at times... so a little more balancing for a follow up would be amazing.

once you've got a handle on the strategy of how to use each weapon most effectively normal isn't really that bad

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OK, so my strategy for obtaining the Mantis ship failed when I seemingly did everything right

(boarding the ship without destroying it, teleporting, etc),

but still I failed. I looked it up.

Turns out you need a level 2 med bay, which I never upgrade since it's hardly necessary.

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Actually, a upgraded medbay occasionally allows you to avoid those random scenarios where part of your ship's capabilities are disabled by rerouting the damage to the medbay. Most of the time it really doesn't matter whether my engines are temporarily disabled or not, but at least they recognize the medbay needs more uses than just healing.

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The Mantis ship continues to elude me, but I did scoop up the Rock ship. It's missile based, which should pose quite a challenge for the end of level boss.

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Scooped up the stealth ship, which was actually pretty tough to use due to lack of shields and being unable to vent rooms easily.

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I've been playing nearly a game a day (on normal) for the last 2 weeks, and had a miracle run on normal last night.

I was gifted the Glaive beam after a jump or two, and quickly upgraded my weapons to take advantage of it. I hadn't been using beam weapons at all, but the description was such that I decided to forgo my usual upgrade path and sink a bunch of cash into the weapons. It worked very well. The Glaive beam tore through most enemies until around sector 5. I had held onto the BL2 and Artemis just in case so having those on standby was useful for the more shielded enemies.

Being able to tear through enemies means I wasn't taking as much damage as normal, and had enough scrap to upgrade as I pleased, and tour around looking at as many beacons as possible.

I came across the stasis pod and even though I wasn't specifically looking for it, managed to find the research station and get my Crystal guy. I chose to return him to his home, and this activated a quest marker in the next section. I made it to the marker and entered the Crystal sector. A few encounters later I was equipped with a crystal beam and had unlocked the Crystal cruiser! As I left the sector I had acquired two more Crystal crewman. I didn't have a guide for the quest so it was pretty lucky that I made the right choices.

After a brief stop at a repair depot in the final sector, I made a bee-line for the Flagship. With a full arsenal, cloaking, teleport and a full crew, I was as confident as I'd ever been.

The first stage was tedious but not difficult. I had a small number of missiles, so landing shots was difficult.

The second stage required more management but even the attack drone wasn't causing too much trouble.

The third stage was a bit of a surprise as I wasn't expecting the super shield and was worried by the missile volley. Regardless, it was dispatched soon enough.

After about 30 attempts it was pretty nice to finally finish the game, even though I had some ridiculous fortune on the way.

For now I'll probably bask in the victory for a few days, then try out some of the ships I've unlocked along the way.

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The crystal cruiser unlock is one that isn't so much dependent on picking the right choices, as it is about getting really lucky. I've had two runs back-to-back now where I got the stasis pod and crystal guy, both in both cases they spawned so late in the game that there was no more rock homeworld to travel to.

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The Mantis cruiser is finally mine! I just had a massively successful run where I was swimming in money because I got the Scrap Collector addon at the start. I got no less than four laser guns, so if I timed it correctly I was firing nine laser blasts at the same time. Nothing stood a chance, but it also shows how (over)powered lasers are in comparison to the rest.

I've noticed that the first shop you visit always has both a teleporter and a drone control, which is super useful.

And today I noticed that the end boss is really the only time where rerouting power is really useful: when you hear the familiar 'boom boom boom' of missiles being launched, it's time to divert all powers from shields to the engines for maximum evasion. I would so love an add-on, or a neverending more, or whatever. I just love cruising around this universe.

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I had a great run tonight with Engi A. I got a droid recovery arm in the first sector plus an anti-ship II. Later I picked up another anti-ship I maxing out my droids. I also went all out on offense and at one point had 2 heavy laser I and 1 heavy laser II, and to top it off a weapon preignighter. For the final boss I swapped out a laser for a fire bomb. It was such a fun play through, dumping all my drones at an enemy and blasting out all his systems at once.

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Tried the Osprey and didn't get out of the first sector. Boarders and a zoltan pirate did me in.

Then had a long run with the Crystal Cruiser. It's good early on, but I felt like it needed an extra weapon once the enemy ships had 3+ shields.

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I got this game in the Steam sale and... Woah, this game is insane!

I'm obviously playing on Easy since I don't know what I'm doing yet but I'm still terrible. I know it's a rogue, but still...

I felt confident when I could finally upgrade my ship... Only to die because I didn't know enemies could just teleport in. I upgraded doors once to learn something else, and so on and so on.

But it still doesn't feel right, I managed to get three lasers and a level 2 shield and I still can't even reach sector five on Easy? Come on! Am I just unlucky or does each sector just get this crazy? I feel like I should "grind" but I'm on a timer on so many levels and ever battle might be my last. How do I even get a new ship or recruits?

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You unlock ships mostly through random events, but you get one for reaching sector 5, and one for completing the game. Alternative ship layouts are unlocked through achievements that you can see on the ship select screen.

You do want to grind as much as possible -- always try and fit as many sectors are you can in before hitting the fleet. The fleet is not instant death... if you can hit 3 more sectors and are strong enough, go ahead and fly backwards through them to reach the exit. It's just a hard battle with no loot reward.

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This game is difficult. And I'm playing on easy. I can't decide if I like the Rebel Fleet closing off areas behind you or not.

Some of the achievements I'm confused on how they're possible. Like the first ship you start with, one of the achievements to unlock the 2nd layout is to fully upgrade it. And that seems ludicrous. How are you supposed to get that? No hiring of any crew, no buying of missiles, no need to repair your hull? That's all I can guess. It sounds crazy to make happen.

I got the achievement for reaching the end of the game without using drones, which I have zero interest in using anyway, so I laughed.

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Okay it is way too satisfying to board a ship and destroy its oxygen supply and leave its crew to die.

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