FTL

complexmath wrote:

So you clearly need a pretty hefty damage output to win as well. I just fought the final battle with my class A Engi ship and was holding my own, but my hull got wiped out and it was game over. I only had level 3 shields though, so maybe level 4s would have been in order. Think I may go back to the Kestrel too. I'm getting a bit bored of fighting with drones.

Yeah I've also found several stalemate states with the boss where my only game option is allow myself to be destroyed

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Wembley wrote:

Apparently, there are dead ends in space. I just lost a game because the path I took through the sector never linked up with the exit. I had to double back, but by that point the rebel fleet had overtaken most of the sector. I made it two jumps before the fleet just ground me into dust.

Yeeaaah, it sucks. Be careful.

This happened to me as well, on easy mode. My last 5 jumps had only one connecting point until I reached the dead end. I had 3 fuel left. It was sector 7 - the farthest I've ever been.

Am I going to have to get a ruler out to see if one star can reach another before I start heading in a direction?

I was doing pretty well up until I got stuck like this. Well, there was the loss of my mantis pair on the oxygen-less auto-scout ship..

Anyways, I vented my crew to space rather than giving the Rebels the satisfaction of the kill.

prozac wrote:

I'm currently in sector 7 stranded with no weapons and no fuel. The first people to respond to my distress beacon were Mantis pirates...

I had wondered what would happen if I ran out of fuel. I assumed game over, but that's a neat way they handle it.

complexmath wrote:
Tamren wrote:

Halberd only does 2, its the Glaive that does 3 and the Pike that does 1 if I remember correctly.

The glaive takes fifteen years to charge though, so timing is important. Is there any way to reduce the charge time of weapons? I noticed charge times of some of my weapons shortening over time, but couldn't tell why.

Though it's not the charge times themselves, I believe the charge bars will scale depending on the range of charge times you have. So if you have a bunch of 5 and 6 second weapons the bars will be long and similar lengths, while if you have a 5 and a 13, the 5 will be very short and the 13 long even though they still charge at the same rate they always do.

So I just noticed this today. When you are out of fuel and you have the big WAIT button on the jump screen, there's a distress beacon you can turn on at the bottom of the window. I guess this attracts more ships, but then some of them could very well be hostile.

Yoyoson wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
Wembley wrote:

Apparently, there are dead ends in space. I just lost a game because the path I took through the sector never linked up with the exit. I had to double back, but by that point the rebel fleet had overtaken most of the sector. I made it two jumps before the fleet just ground me into dust.

Yeeaaah, it sucks. Be careful.

This happened to me as well, on easy mode. My last 5 jumps had only one connecting point until I reached the dead end. I had 3 fuel left. It was sector 7 - the farthest I've ever been.

Am I going to have to get a ruler out to see if one star can reach another before I start heading in a direction?

I was doing pretty well up until I got stuck like this. Well, there was the loss of my mantis pair on the oxygen-less auto-scout ship..

Anyways, I vented my crew to space rather than giving the Rebels the satisfaction of the kill.

Plot your route before you take your first jump, excluding any routes where the distances look questionable.

Just got into a nice grinding battle. Fighting a little ship that has a pike and ion blast, while I have 4 shields. Just letting them beat on my shields until my crewman has mastered the position. Considering letting multiple crewman master it in case of emergency, but that requires more time. Sploits!

EDIT: This kind of thing actually only works in battle, so sun flares and the like can't be used to grind your repair up. That also means that if you take a bunch of damage in a battle, if you wait to repair until after the battle you won't level up from it, as far as I've noticed.

EDIT2: More research shows that your shield skill increases by 1 point every level of shield you recharge. Not upon getting hit, but the act of recharging itself.

Are you sure about the repairs? I always repair non critical systems after a fight and I'm pretty sure it works for skillups.

Tamren wrote:

Are you sure about the repairs? I always repair non critical systems after a fight and I'm pretty sure it works for skillups.

I could be wrong, but I remember watching my skills once and repairing like 3 systems after a fight and getting nothing. I may be mistaken.

On a sad note, I was kicking the boss' ass, with no problems whatsoever. After the first stage of the fight I thought it was giving me time to roam a bit again and then I realized he moved past me and got the rebel base. What a crappy way to lose, that's going to put me off playing for a while.

Well at least you have an excuse. I once hit the wait button accidentally and lost the same way.

I finally beat the game on EASY using the Zoltan ship. I don't even want to think about how many play troughs it took to accomplish it. Dodge is a very useful skill so upgrade those engines! You don't really need a lot of powerful weapons to take out the mother ship you just need some weapons that are good at taking down shields. Once the shields are down anything that does a fair amount of damage to hull is fine. If you have a transporter, you can also use a pair of guys you can use to take out the missile launcher.

So once I beat the game on EASY I took a break and came back to the game later in the day to give NORMAL a try. I used the ship you unlock when you beat it on easy. For the whole game I figured there is no way I am going to get far with this ship. I was getting hammered pretty bad. But wouldn't you know it, I beat the game on NORMAL on my first try! The absurdity of it all!

Sorry to derail, but nice Icon there Rob.

Gaald wrote:

Dodge is a very useful skill so upgrade those engines!

This was the first tactic I got into using and it's been very useful, but don't worry about fully upgrading them until much later, as the benefit starts to decrease from 5% per upgrade to 3%.

Hey all, quick poll. If you've beaten the final boss (on any difficulty), how long did it take you? How many hours did you put in before winning the game?

kincher skolfax wrote:

Hey all, quick poll. If you've beaten the final boss (on any difficulty), how long did it take you? How many hours did you put in before winning the game?

I came unbelievably close at the 17hr mark and finally did it at 25hrs.

beat at about 20 hours.

I think I played it around 42 hours before I finally beat it on easy, and then beat it on normal right away as well.

I don't remember exactly, but I had a few failed Kestrel attempts and finally beat it on easy with the Engi ship, so I would guess I first beat the game at around the 8-10 hour mark.

I've since beaten the game a half dozen times on easy. I've reached the flagship several times on Normal but haven't defeated it yet. Even when I win, I'm always dangerously low on hull strength, so I don't know if I'm doing it correctly or not.

kincher skolfax wrote:

Hey all, quick poll. If you've beaten the final boss (on any difficulty), how long did it take you? How many hours did you put in before winning the game?

I started on normal for about 30 hours and then switch to easy and beat it on hour 47. I haven't beat normal yet. I haven't even made it to the last boss on normal ever since I switch back. I think easy spoiled me.

I am so excited for DLC for this game. I think this system could be applied to another "mission" pretty well. Or heck, even a wagon train! How about super Oregon Trail with a little tower defense game to fend off coyotes and "indigenous people".

-I mean do people feel like FTL represents a distinct new genre? Are we going to be talking about FTL-likes?

-I really like how FTL boils out everything except the interesting decisions.

-It is almost boardgame like (could use a little more info to decide between alternatives. Slug crew sometimes gives you odds for choices being of benefit ala Dianna Troi? )

Infernarl wrote:

-I mean do people feel like FTL represents a distinct new genre? Are we going to be talking about FTL-likes?

Feels a lot like it sits at the intersection of a rogue-like and Theme Hospital

Infernarl wrote:

-It is almost boardgame like (could use a little more info to decide between alternatives. Slug crew sometimes gives you odds for choices being of benefit ala Dianna Troi? )

I have a hard time imagining that they didn't play Battlestations and/or Space Alert when designing FTL. I have a copy of Battlestations waiting to get played, and Space Alert is serious fun.

DanB wrote:
Infernarl wrote:

-I mean do people feel like FTL represents a distinct new genre? Are we going to be talking about FTL-likes?

Feels a lot like it sits at the intersection of a rogue-like and Theme Hospital

Agreed. It really is an extension of the Diner Dash/resource management style of games. Instead of serving up dishes to patrons you are fighting off enemy ships. I'm not sure it's so much a new genre as taking an existing "casual" genre and building it into something that appeals to the slightly more serious gamer.

Casual mechanic + rogue-like elements.
From that abstract perspective its fairly similar to Binding of Isaac.

Delerat wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Dodge is a very useful skill so upgrade those engines!

This was the first tactic I got into using and it's been very useful, but don't worry about fully upgrading them until much later, as the benefit starts to decrease from 5% per upgrade to 3%.

Yeah, just eyeballing the cost / benefit of dodge versus shields, I kind of think dodge is more important early on. If you're using the Zoltan ship, I'm pretty sure you can dodge while your Zoltan Shield is still up, making that a huge benefit. For everything else, it still only takes one power per 5% dodge, which seems like a really good ROI. Dodge also has synergy with stealth, which requires several engine upgrades to make you fully invincible.

kincher skolfax wrote:

Hey all, quick poll. If you've beaten the final boss (on any difficulty), how long did it take you? How many hours did you put in before winning the game?

I just beat it on normal. The actual run took maybe an hour. I think I've played about 10-12 hours? I'm not sure (I play mostly in Linux so I don't have Steam tracking me). It's basically all I've played since it was released, and I don't get much play time these days.

I actually beat the boss on my first try with the Engi cruiser. I'm not sure whether I was just lucky, or whether that ship is OP, or whether the Zoltan ship (which I'd been using for the most part) sucks. By the end I had another Ion weapon and a laser, which allowed me to perma-stun a single subsystem of my choice, or mostly stun two subsystems, while letting my crummy starting drone plink away. Perma-stunning the drone subsystem on phase two made that ridiculously easy this time.

I find the stealth upgrade really helped a ton on the final boss, as somebody previously suggested. In phase 3 he has a special move that shoots a ton of stuff at you simultaneously; with stealth you can manually dodge the whole affair.

I think I got about 35 hours in before my first real win.

Infernarl wrote:

-I mean do people feel like FTL represents a distinct new genre? Are we going to be talking about FTL-likes?

I think roguelike is a fine description for this game. It's easy to get distracted at first by the unit management stuff, which is not typical for rogue likes, but in every other way it fits perfectly.

(skimming)
What a kick in the junk this game is. Got to the 2nd stage of the flagship on my 2nd play, haven't even come close again since.
(/skimming)

And tagged for later.

Yoyoson wrote:

Anyways, I vented my crew to space rather than giving the Rebels the satisfaction of the kill.

Good Move, HAL.

SamF7

I haven't had time to play as much as I would like, but it reminds me very strongly of playing Red November, except instead of the kraken you get rock-jerks. And there's no grog.

10 hours for my first Easy win. Got real lucky though with some drops so I dunno if I really count it or not. :p