FTL

Crew are sold at some stores, but also come from many missions.

Also if you run across a slaver ship you can buy a slave. Or you can fight them until they surrender and offer you a free slave. Or you can board them and kill all the slavers, and then sometimes rescue a slave still.

Thanks for the info all, now I need to stop playing, and get the hell to sleep, it's 1am local (one more jump, one more jump)

Bought the game... will begin skimming the forum for tips...

Was on Mumble last night with some friends and they heard me talking about it so they bought it and we were all giving people advice on what not to do and which choice to make etc etc. In my 2 hours of play time I think the most valuable resource is crew members.

I know I'm not supposed to, but I really want to have saves... almost beat the big bad at the end... but missed the shot before he got me... grrr. (This is my first rogue-like)

alexjg42 wrote:

Just a question. Does it pay to help out in distress situations or is it better to just ignore them?

Sometimes you will have blue-colored options, which give you a better chance of a good outcome. Otherwise, there's a risk that something will go horribly wrong. In some situations, this will randomly kill off one of your crew members, which is really bad.

I will occasionally ignore blue options if I'm given a choice to fight instead, especially when I want the scrap from destroying/boarding the enemy ship.

Also... can't do a thing with ion beam stuff... can never get the shield down and out... always go for the weapons.

I never pause either...

The ion beam is effective if you have a secondary weapon like drones. Then you just pound the weapon system and shields to keep them offline while the drone does the rest.

Of course this doesn't help if they board you... Not that I speak from experience.

Tagged, for my sins against crew members...

I do hate those solar flares going right for the oxygen room..

Also, can you fix the big cracks that sometimes appear? Also had one of those in the oxygen room. Sad times.

omnipherous wrote:

Tagged, for my sins against crew members...

I do hate those solar flares going right for the oxygen room..

Also, can you fix the big cracks that sometimes appear? Also had one of those in the oxygen room. Sad times.

you can fix those... but a crack in the O2 room is a nightmare. It's why I usually try my best to spring for a system repair drone.

Alas... Lana and her slug companion Nihld were brought down by a rebel scout after limping through a sector and a half with 2 hull points....

They really need to look up the definitions of "easy" and "normal" or change them to "Die" and "Die even more often"

JC wrote:

Alas... Lana and her slug companion Nihld were brought down by a rebel scout after limping through a sector and a half with 2 hull points....

They really need to look up the definitions of "easy" and "normal" or change them to "Die" and "Die even more often"

I made it through to my second sector, took out a ship, then couldn't fix my own in time as I think I was sitting ontop of the sun. It sure felt that way. My two crew members fought valiantly, but given the state of my O2, and that 2/3 of my ship was onfire, it was a battle they would never win.

New game now please. Loving every second of it, appart from the mornings, you know, when I have to wake up and actually function on 4 hours sleep. (One more jump, one more jump).

manta173 wrote:

Also... can't do a thing with ion beam stuff... can never get the shield down and out... always go for the weapons.

I never pause either...

JC wrote:

The ion beam is effective if you have a secondary weapon like drones. Then you just pound the weapon system and shields to keep them offline while the drone does the rest.

Of course this doesn't help if they board you... Not that I speak from experience. :)

Target the weapon system with the Ion, and set it to auto-fire. If the shield is up, it'll hit the shield, otherwise it'll hit the weapon system.

In the latest update, you can set auto-fire for individual weapon systems by holding CTRL when clicking to target.

With the Ion II, firing every ~4 seconds, you'll start pounding the heck outta that bugger.

Easy = you die. Normal seems to be 'die lots'. Despite this, I've gotten the engi ship. Good thing I don't fixate on 'winning' when I play. For the first time in... maybe forever, I'm gonna have to 'wuss out' and play on 'air quotes' Easy '/air quotes'.

Thanks, Malor!

I pick this up and there is 40 pages to plough through....

Can someone point me to the post that best advises on how to deal with boarding parties

Bruce wrote:

I pick this up and there is 40 pages to plough through....

Can someone point me to the post that best advises on how to deal with boarding parties

I generally funnel boarding parties into the medical bay using the airlocks and fight from there.

I generally funnel boarding parties into the medical bay using the airlocks and fight from there.

Huh, all this playtime, and I never thought of that!

As weird as it sounds, I find that some of the more cost-effective upgrades are the non-obvious ones, like buying a level 2 life-support upgrade. Even if I only leave it powered at level 1, the upgrade means it can absorb the occasional random hit without going completely offline.

Itsatrap wrote:

As weird as it sounds, I find that some of the more cost-effective upgrades are the non-obvious ones, like buying a level 2 life-support upgrade. Even if I only leave it powered at level 1, the upgrade means it can absorb the occasional random hit without going completely offline.

A second level of piloting is incredibly important for this reason. In the mid-game a single hit to the cockpit can lower your evasion from something like 35% to zero percent for several shots. Making that feat require two or more hits is very helpful.

Malor wrote:
I generally funnel boarding parties into the medical bay using the airlocks and fight from there.

Huh, all this playtime, and I never thought of that!

There is also only capacity for 3 boarders at a time in the medbay, stragglers run for the nearest oxygenated room and more often than not suffocate in their futile attempt.

Another fun trick, if you want to prevent boarders from destroying a subsytem shuffle a crewmember in and out of the room. This forces the AI to attack the crewmember and stops their attack on the subsystem. As long as that crewmember is not a Rock they will be fast enough to dodge enemy laser fire, preventing any harm to befall them.

The more you know...

I've done the shuffle before, but my crew usually takes a little bit of damage -- normally that's just to keep them busy until everyone else gets there, so that's fine.

But I never thought of forcing invaders into the medbay by simply evacuating the rest of the ship. Duh.

How many crew members can you have? And isn't it fun when you end up with one wee dude left

omnipherous wrote:

How many crew members can you have? And isn't it fun when you end up with one wee dude left :-D

In that case you can empty the air out of everywhere except the medbay and a room next to it and cycle your hurt guys in and out.

McIrishJihad wrote:

Target the weapon system with the Ion, and set it to auto-fire. If the shield is up, it'll hit the shield, otherwise it'll hit the weapon system

I reached the Rebel Flagship for the first time tonight using exactly this tactic in the first ship I unlocked that has Ion and drones as standard (Engi?). I was pretty much pounded to dust then, though, despite having 3 shield bars and decent weapon upgrades. It's missiles that are the main problem. I need some kind of anti-missile mitigation.

I think you have have up to 8 crewpeople, omnipherous. Crewbeasts? Crewthings? Something like that.

up to 8! I must start trying to collect them, I think I had 4 once, it was the bomb.

I'm still waaay to early to be thinking about boarding enemy ships, even having the option displayed to me is terrfying. I have a hard enough time surviving solar flares!

Yeah, that's something I'm curious about too. My crew seem kinda squishy, I think they must all be wearing red shirts ...

babakotia wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Target the weapon system with the Ion, and set it to auto-fire. If the shield is up, it'll hit the shield, otherwise it'll hit the weapon system

I reached the Rebel Flagship for the first time tonight using exactly this tactic in the first ship I unlocked that has Ion and drones as standard (Engi?). I was pretty much pounded to dust then, though, despite having 3 shield bars and decent weapon upgrades. It's missiles that are the main problem. I need some kind of anti-missile mitigation.

Most people suggest using a boarding party to take out the missile compartment on the boss. Just have to survive a wave or two of them and your guys will take down the gunner and the gun station. The station will respawn for the next wave but the gunner won't, so it will be easier to take down then.

Also, Defense Drones shoot down enemy missiles. One of those will help immensely.

Good tips. Thanks! I love this game.

Stele wrote:

Also, Defense Drones shoot down enemy missiles. One of those will help immensely.

Kill anything that stands between you and getting a Defence Drone. I picked up a Mark II last night and it was like having a guardian angel.

With 3 shields, full engine and the drone, my ship was like a frickin' ghost when it slaughtered the flagship. Mwhahahah.

babakotia wrote:

Yeah, that's something I'm curious about too. My crew seem kinda squishy, I think they must all be wearing red shirts ...

I think my ship is wearing a red shirt too...
My advice would be to try to fight boarders in the medbay. Barring that, don't wait for their health to get too low to switch them out of the fight.

Why did I open the Mantid capsule I took on board?

The inhabitant was angry, and only sliced 'one' crew member in half before it was subdued... But I only had a crew of one

Game over.

MOOOORRRRRREEEEEEE!