FTL

[dibs]

Wesley in he room with the open airlock?

[dartmonkey]

Blue screen. An hour and a half of careful strategy, unlocked achievements for having all the species on the ship and getting to the Last Stand with no redshirt deaths, kicking ass... blue screen. All gone, bye-bye.

[dartmonkey]

Okay thumbs, I need your help.

I'm hopelessly addicted. I'm also hopeless. After totting up 39 hours I have yet to beat this. On Easy. At the 32 hour mark I promised myself not to play past 40. Help me.

I've got the RedTail, the Stealthy One and the Zoltan One. I've reached the Big Ship many times, but his droids eventually obliterate my hull. I prioritise getting the teleporter and always buy a Pegasus when I can. I generally save missiles, upgrade doors and shields ASAP, weapons as required. I like Hull Repair droids. My penchant for beaming over and seizing ships results in the odd lost redshirt but I think it's generally the right strategy.

 

Maybe I've got into a strategy rut. What am I missing here? I've had some bad luck with crashes but can I really be this spectacularly shit at games?? Yes, yes I can. Distress beacon active! Waiting...

[dibs]

You need to take out the weapons at the front of the big ship asap. If you destroy them in P1 they will be gone for the rest of the phases. I find missiles and boarding parties the best for this. Just do not let the boss jump with your guys on board!

[Nachimir]

I've only beat the end with the ridiculous federation cruiser.

 

Like dibs says, take out the weapons at the front by killing the crew for them. They're in sealed compartments, so once they're gone, no one can get back into there and start firing the weapon again. Do it in a canny order: the ones near the edges will disappear first. Also, if you eliminate all of the crew, ship automation will take over and start firing everything again, so leave at least one alive.

[stewmull]

Watch 'Ohm Wrecker' on youtube, he was the first guy to beat it. The thing I learnt from him was to use almost all of the early locations to gain scrap crew etc. as the fleet arc speeds up the further you get into the game.

I always take out the rocket pods first, they will do the most damage and set fires etc.

I normally use a stealth generator and as soon as I see the rockets firing I cloak.

Also fire all of your rapid fire lasers at once, rather than sustained fire. Go for the shields first and then wepons.

When it comes to the drones, I take down the shields then the robot room.

Also try kill the people in the weapon pods, so they cant repair them, but just killing them doesn't stop them firing.

 

I beat it almost every time now on normal. For what that is worth.

 

Oh and pause, A LOT.

[Bjorn]

A good boarding crew is the most powerful tool in the game.  You don't even need much of a weapon if you can get an experienced crew of Mantis/Rock people rolling.  Even with no atmosphere ships, you just send the rock people in and upgrade the cooldown on your teleporter fast enough to pull them out when they need a breather. 

[dartmonkey]

BOOM!

Everything coalesced into a successful run. The USS Esperanto defeated the rebel flagship with a Basic, Heavy and Hull laser, a Pegasus Missile and a skeleton crew. Pre-igniter. Defence and Hull Repair drones. Full shields.

I had a nail-biting experience with my two Rock redshirts in Sector 6. The enemy was down to one bar of hull, their ship was on fire and my Rock guys had the last remaining crewman down to a sliver of health. Do I beam them out and give up a few bits of extra scrap? Hell no. I unpause for a second and my guys take him out. Grey success screen, I salvaged what I could. I immediately pause to beam them out. As I hit the space bar to resume I hear the hull breach and watch the beam animation begin. Did I get them? Transporter room - do you have them?...

I didn't. But damnit I love how this game taps into my Star Trek vocabulary and creates little narratives around my gambles and stupidity.

Life can now resume.

[Bjorn]

Nice, congrats!

[stewmull]

Nice one!

[Bjorn]

Advanced edition comes out next Thursday, Apr. 3rd!

 

I'm ridiculously excited about this.  New race, new ships, new ship systems.  And hopefully a few surprises they haven't announced.  I can't believe that they wouldn't go ahead and throw some new events in as well. 

[sclpls]

Yeah, I feel like it's been so long since they first announced the expansion. I've been holding off on jumping back into FTL because of it.

 

I'm also curious how the iPad port will turn out. I've actually been really skeptical that it would work well with touch controls, it seems so natural with a mouse and keyboard, but if it gets positive reception I'll definitely pay another couple of bucks to be able to play it on the iPad too.

[Griddlelol]

I'm so excited to try out the ipad version. I think touch controls would work really well, not to mention I can carry this fantastic game around with me.

[Gwardinen]

The iPad version is now out. I'm impatiently waiting for the Advanced Edition update for the PC.

[dibs]

Anyone tried it on ipad2? Does it run ok?

[Griddlelol]

This and hearthstone? *pleasure overload* my ipad battery will be constantly drained and my girlfriend will be wondering why I keep spending 3 hours sitting on the toilet.

[Shambles]

I'm kind of creeped out.  I have 67 hours played on this game.  My wife has 31 hours on it.  Haven't touched it in about a year or so and then feel the urge to boot it up last night.  Today I check the forums and find not only this topic revived but there's a brand new expansion released today that I knew nothing about.  I'm pretty sure the universe is a simulation directed by my sub-conscious.

[elmuerte]

AE is out on PC. It just got beamed down to my harddrive. (Also, new FTL music: http://benprunty.bandcamp.com/album/ftl-advanced-edition-soundtrack )

[ariskany_evan]

Excellent!  Humble Store version is updated, too.  Downloading now!

[Security_Tubbs]

Got all the way to the Last Stand on my first playthrough of AE with the new ship. Then the Flagship just hacked my weapons and I practically couldn't use them at all. So back to the teleporters again.

[Professor Video Games]

I'm ashamed to admit I never beat this on Normal. Seems like as good a time as any to give it another go.

[Bjorn]

Got all the way to the Last Stand on my first playthrough of AE with the new ship. Then the Flagship just hacked my weapons and I practically couldn't use them at all. So back to the teleporters again.

 

Dammit, I was really hoping that this would break the late game dependence on teleporters as the most efficient weapon. 

[Dewar]

I hate teleporters.

[Bjorn]

I hate teleporters.

 

Why?

[Badfinger]

I personally find the teleporter less fun and more micromanage-y than traditional capital ship style combat, but that's not really an argument I can put any quantitative value on.