Erkki

FTL

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Some kind of EVA component would be really interesting if handled well, or even just being able to suit up crew so they can safely conduct operations in low-oxygen environments both on your own ship and on an enemy's. (Perhaps once they take any damage, their suit is "ripped" and they start taking damage from the lack of oxygen.)

 

There's an app augmentation for that. (sorta)

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Personally, I would probably not use the chain laser because it will mess with the timing of the other lasers.  Same for the pike beam.  The dual, burst, and burst II have pretty similar cooldowns (10, 11, and 12 seconds respectively) so you can get off a large volley each time.  It looks like you're using a Federation Cruiser too, so combine that with the main weapon and you should be able to take down ships pretty easily, possibly the flagship too.  Maybe keep the chain or pike around and depowered until the enemy's shield system has been damaged, then switch out a burst laser for it, depending on your available power.  One volley of the dual, burst, and burst II will give you 7 shots, enough to punch through anything short of a full Zoltan shield.  I'd target shield systems first, using your cloak to dodge the first volley of enemy fire or letting your shields absorb it if they can.  Then maybe use the combat II drone do more damage, switching out the anti-drone since you have pretty good shields, or possibly the anti-personnel depending on your crew.  The anti-drone would be useful during phase 2 of the flagship and the anti-personnel during phase 3, assuming anyone is left alive by then.  The ion drone doesn't seem like it would be useful given your firepower, but I've never actually used it myself.

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I'm assuming this is pretty late in a run, probably right before the flagship?

Given that you can only mount three of these weapons with your current weapons system, which is totally fine alongside that upgraded laser artillery you also have, I would take the burst mk2, the dual lasers, and the chain laser. Normally the chain laser kind of sucks since it doesn't really combo very well to start and has low damage, but the burst mk1's are actually much worse, having the same energy drain as the mk2 with only the effective power of the dual laser. The point here being that if you manage to get the flagship's shields solidly down, you will benefit greatly from the fast recharge of the chain laser. Consider putting the chain laser in slot one so its chain doesn't get reset by a system outage. (If you can damage the flagship's engines or its bridge after taking down its shields, it will be taking so much guaranteed fire from your weapons that there's no way the fight will swing back in its favor. As always though, be especially wary of the flagship's missile launcher.)


Use the anti-drone for phase 2, but the advanced combat drone for phase 1 and 3.

I'm not sure how much power you can still get out of your reactor, but if there's room there, use that left over scrap to upgrade your engines. (Only 35% evasion is quite scary when going up against the flagship.) Maybe also throw some unpowered levels into oxygen and some extra levels into your piloting system, both for durability. (In fact, sell anything you don't need to get the scrap for those upgrades, the engine especially.)

That's how i'd do it, i can't see how you'd lose.

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I'm assuming this is pretty late in a run, probably right before the flagship?

 

the remarkable thing about this is its about half way through sector 6.

 

i've got another sector & a half to refine it. 

 

I think the general advice to junk the pike is sound.

 

I'm writing this from a store just 1 jump on I sold the pike and the Intruder and bought enough power for the 4th weapon and a zoltan crew member. Will keep the rest and see what the final sector & 1/2 offers up and optimise for burst potential from there

 

update

 

post-24580-0-52125300-1398526868_thumb.jpg

 

dead flagship with 0 dmg taken, man that was the most utterly one sided boss fight I've ever had.

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Yeah, the Federation Cruiser is... I'm not going to say "easy", because things can go south very quickly against the flagship if it gets a couple of lucky missile strikes in in the early going. But if you are set up to survive against it, you can cut through its first two builds with the artillery beam pretty comfortably...

 

Mind control feels like a system that has a lot of nuanced and elegant interactions with other mechanics in the game, it's really powerful when properly coordinated.

 

The mind control on the flagship makes for a really interesting change, in particular - up until then the primary purpose of mind control has been to disrupt enemies, at least in my use of it - specifically, I've enjoyed hacking the medbay, mind-controlling one enemy and then teleporting a boarding party over. And enemy mind control usually expires before your mind-controlled crewman can do much damage: I usually just put a Rock in the room with them and wait for them to punch themselves out, then take them both to the medbay. Whereas against the rebel flagship you really need mind control (or hacking) to counteract its mind control, because the consequences of not having a pilot for the time it takes for mind control to wear off can be totally disastrous.

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Just had a great run with the Slug cruiser.  By the time I reached the flagship, I had 3 shields, mind control, cloaking, defense II drones, a burst laser III and a couple of other 1 power lasers, and a weapons pre-igniter.  I got the burst laser and the pre-igniter in 2 consecutive jumps, the laser was given to me and the pre-igniter was purchased.  That let me get through several sectors with almost no hull damage and tons of scrap.  The final fight took a little longer than I was expecting because my lasers kept missing, but between my cloak, defense drone, and mind control the flagship could barely touch me.  I've now unlocked the Rock crusier and am one step closer to the Crystal.

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I still haven't unlocked the Slug Cruiser for some reason. I don't remember how to do it.

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The slug cruisers are pretty good/interesting, they're worth unlocking.

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I'm still bad at this game. I managed to get caught down a one-way path chasing a quest in the 6th sector and had to warp through the Rebel fleet 3 times to get to the exit. I got out of there with 5 hull points left and managed to hold it together to finally get to a shop, but by then I was so behind in the scrap curve that I never really recovered. Stage 2 of the flag ship wrecked me (I never know how to deal with the drone special) and so stage 3 had no problems finishing me off.

 

Unlike so many other one-life type games, FTL just leaves me profoundly unsatisfied when I die like that.

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Anyone got any tips for the Rock Cruiser? i'm having real trouble with the combination of ammo limited weapons and slow as hell crew.

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The slug cruisers are pretty good/interesting, they're worth unlocking.

 

I'm not a big fan of the slug ships because they don't really come equipped for my play style, but there is one thing I like about them and that's how well they complement mind control.  The slug's ability to see the enemy even in nebulae and their inherent immunity to mind control make it quite powerful.  I haven't unlocked the B or C layouts, but I know the C layout starts with mind control and hacking.  I'm curious to try that out that ship.

 

Side question: how do you get the slug cruiser achievement for having vision in each room of an enemy ship?  Does being able to see the crewmen count as having vision, so that I only need to teleport crew members to empty rooms?

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Side question: how do you get the slug cruiser achievement for having vision in each room of an enemy ship?  Does being able to see the crewmen count as having vision, so that I only need to teleport crew members to empty rooms?

 

Slug crew get that bonus where they have visibility in each of the adjacent rooms, so the easiest way to get it is to send all 3 slug crew over to a smaller sized ship and spread them out.  And you have to have full visibility, just seeing the crew outlines doesn't count.

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Finally managed to get the Rock Cruiser victory with the B layout with a combination of a pre-igniter, a glaive beam, a flak cannon, and a incendiary bomb and two well trained rock crew for teleporting in after the bombs set a room on fire.

 

Does anyone know if the C layout with its crystal crew member make it any easier to unlock the crystal ship?

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I would suspect having a Crystal crew member would make the quest easier since you could theoretically skip the stasis pod portion of the quest, although I suppose it's possible that you still need to obtain the pod for the later parts of the quest appear at all.

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No, supposedly just having the Crystal Crew member is enough to skip to the last event, so you just have to find the Rock Homeworld if you're using the C variant and not have to worry about both finding the pod, and opening it.

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Discovered by accident just how easy it can be to farm a drone ship for xp with the right upgrades. Built my rock cruiser c layout around heavy shields and a boarding part, and burst weapons and early on came across a rebel sentry ship with just one projectile weapon and defensive drone. I basically just sat there with my shields it couldn't penetrate rotating the different crew members from station to station untill they were completely maxed out. I then lucked into having a double scrap arm combo. 

The final piece of the puzzle was managing to get the teleport heal which lead to this fun situation on another automatic ship, which i used as a punching bag to level most of my crew to max combat ability (to compliment their max everything else..

 

post-24580-0-72591200-1398860089_thumb.jpg

 

nded the run with my highest easy score of 4500, and i can see this sort of tactic being something i would need to make use of (maybe even build for) on higher difficulties.

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Does anyone know if the C layout with its crystal crew member make it any easier to unlock the crystal ship?

 

I recently unlocked the crystal cruiser using this method. You can skip the first 2/3 of the quest involving the stasis pod. Just find the Rock homeworlds with the Rock C (keeping the crystal crew member alive at all costs) and hunt around. There won't be a quest marker, unfortunately, so it's somewhat down to luck. If you can get long-range sensors it will narrow the search down a bit. The beacon should show as no ships present and will not be in distress. Good luck!

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I just rage quit a run where i was attempting to unlock the crystal cruiser. i found the rock homewords & then lost my crystal crew member to a random event....

 

Of course only the moment after getting to the main menu screen did i remember i had a clone bay & he would have been fine >_<

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Discovered by accident just how easy it can be to farm a drone ship for xp with the right upgrades. Built my rock cruiser c layout around heavy shields and a boarding part, and burst weapons and early on came across a rebel sentry ship with just one projectile weapon and defensive drone. I basically just sat there with my shields it couldn't penetrate rotating the different crew members from station to station untill they were completely maxed out.

 

I made this discovery early on, but I'm impatient and don't have the real world time to sit around and wait for the payoff.  Plus I often end up finding crew members that already have some kind of specialty so I never bother doing it.

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I made this discovery early on, but I'm impatient and don't have the real world time to sit around and wait for the payoff.  Plus I often end up finding crew members that already have some kind of specialty so I never bother doing it.

 

I usually just use ships like that for a quick bathroom break, or to check my email or something.  I don't have the time/patience to level up all the way, but I figure if I get to the Yellow level early on, it's worth a few minutes of waiting. 

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I made this discovery early on, but I'm impatient and don't have the real world time to sit around and wait for the payoff.  Plus I often end up finding crew members that already have some kind of specialty so I never bother doing it.

 

I've been basically firing up the ipad & playing a game of hearthstone while checking back on the progress :D

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It counted as a win, I'll take it.

 

It's like I tell my friends. Your mission's to stop the Rebel Flagship, not to survive unharmed.

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Just unlocked the B layout for the Rock Cruiser.  It's named the Shivan.  I'm really hoping that's a nod toward the Freespace series.  I seriously loved those games, especially Freespace 2.   I'm not even really a fan of flight/space combat sims but FS2 was sooooooo good.  I'm also pleased at the way I unlocked the layout by mind controlling an enemy Rockman helping another Rockman put out burning room.

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