FTL

Stele wrote:

So I looked around for some more tips last night. I probably should go back and read this whole thread because I bet they're already here somewhere. ;)

One thing I didn't realise at first: Hit cloak just after the enemy fires and those shots will miss, which maximises the time that they're not firing at you. Particularly helpful for the boss.

Another trick you can do is fire your weapons right after the attack misses. This cancels the cloak early and causes it to recharge faster. I could be wrong but I think the higher upgrades of cloak only make it last longer and it recharges at the same speed. But only once the cloak finishes.

Tamren wrote:

Another trick you can do is fire your weapons right after the attack misses. This cancels the cloak early and causes it to recharge faster. I could be wrong but I think the higher upgrades of cloak only make it last longer and it recharges at the same speed. But only once the cloak finishes.

In a similar vein, I vaguely remember reading somewhere in this thread that it's best to only have 1 power in cloak on the final boss since otherwise it won't have time to recharge before the next salvo.

Regarding auto fire: I've found it helpful to leave auto fire turned on for my slowest weapon. With manual fire I kept missing the recharge until I'd wasted several seconds. Basically I leave auto-fire on, but the only thing with a target lock is my slowest weapon. If I miss the recharge timer I can still pause as soon as I see the gun firing and lock targets with the rest.

Sonicator wrote:
Tamren wrote:

Another trick you can do is fire your weapons right after the attack misses. This cancels the cloak early and causes it to recharge faster. I could be wrong but I think the higher upgrades of cloak only make it last longer and it recharges at the same speed. But only once the cloak finishes.

In a similar vein, I vaguely remember reading somewhere in this thread that it's best to only have 1 power in cloak on the final boss since otherwise it won't have time to recharge before the next salvo.

Yeah, this is only really relevant against the final boss who has those mega-attacks which continue charging even when the cloak is up. With everything else there's no downside to letting it stay up longer (well, except the energy use) since their weapons won't recharge while the cloak is up.

Also keep in mind that the cloak just adds a chunk to dodge, it doesn't give an automatic miss. You need several upgrades to your engines in order to guarantee evasion while cloaked.

Rezzy wrote:

Also, my first run where I've survived long enough (easy mode!) to see the rebel fleet closing in on the map. I was wondering what would keep me from just hitting every checkpoint.

From what I've seen, nothing really stops you from sticking around, except you are guaranteed to get attacked by Rebel ships each jump.

If you can deal with their heavier stuff, it could be a decent method for farming scrap, but eventually your hull will start wearing thin.

If the rebel fleet catches up they just give fuel, no scrap. You definitely don't want to tangle with them more than you have to.

I'm having trouble unlocking the Mantis ship. I've never even tried boarding an enemy ship, so you can imagine how "kill everyone except this one dude" is a little intimidating. Any suggestions? I have every other ship unlocked except the crystalline ship, and about half of the variations.

When playing on easy the rebel fleet is risk vs reward. You can choose to fight them and eke out a couple more systems which could be game changing if you get certain events. If you have a stellar ship or the right gear you can shut them down fairly easily with minimal risk. On normal difficulty the rebel fleet is extremely powerful and the expense of fighting them is never worth it. I had one normal game end in zone 4 when I ran into a rebel ship with 3 missile launchers.

Got this on friday, my 22 run resulted in my first victory as the crystal ship! I had another run of the Kestrel that could have won but the flagship scored a touchdown before I could finish it off. Do you think its worth looking up how to unlock new ships or will I happen upon them if I keep playing enough?

Petriefied wrote:

Got this on friday, my 22 run resulted in my first victory as the crystal ship! I had another run of the Kestrel that could have won but the flagship scored a touchdown before I could finish it off. Do you think its worth looking up how to unlock new ships or will I happen upon them if I keep playing enough?

I looked it up and was glad. Some of them require choices or upgrades you're unlikely to stumble upon on your own.

Queueball wrote:

If the rebel fleet catches up they just give fuel, no scrap. You definitely don't want to tangle with them more than you have to.

Yeah, they made them impossible to farm. But I coulda sworn in an earlier version you could farm them for scrap.

Yeah it's definitely worth looking up how to unlock ships. Here's the wiki ships page even.

There are so many interesting random events and I think it's important to know when you've stumbled across one that could lead to a ship. Or just to be prepared when you enter a certain sector, on the off chance you get the ship mission. Some of them require specific upgrades for blue choices like Med Bay 2, or are made easier by blue choices from certain augments like Rock Plating, so it's important to have those things when you enter the right sector, just in case.

Sure there's some fun to figuring it out on your own. But for one ship there's 3 separate events that have to happen in multiple sectors and you have to be lucky with a map setup with the correct sectors.

Actually I might be getting that ship with the game I started last night. I hit the first 2 events in the same sector, (2 or 3?), about 3 jumps apart. But when I quit for the night I was in sector 6 and still hadn't found the 3rd event, or even the right sector for it. Hopefully S7 is it. Find out when I get back to it this afternoon.

Stele wrote:

Actually I might be getting that ship with the game I started last night. I hit the first 2 events in the same sector, (2 or 3?), about 3 jumps apart. But when I quit for the night I was in sector 6 and still hadn't found the 3rd event, or even the right sector for it. Hopefully S7 is it. Find out when I get back to it this afternoon.

Of course, nothing. Ugh. I even tried a savescum to check both routes and nothing.

Queueball wrote:

If the rebel fleet catches up they just give fuel, no scrap. You definitely don't want to tangle with them more than you have to.

If I think I'm doing okay, I sometimes like to hit an additional system past the exit point (for some extra resources), and then backtrack through the fleet to escape. As with everything, it's a calculated risk.

I was doing really great on my last run. I had a teleporter and salvaged a ton of ships. Then I set my boarding party aboard a quest ship that jumped away mid battle. I was supposed to meet it somewhere but never found it. It was a quick downhill slide from there.

Whew. Finally a 2nd victory on Easy. My 2nd (or 3rd?) attempt in the Fed A ship got it done pretty easily. In the first sector I got a Halberd Beam which helped immensely. Later, I found another Burst Laser II to match the one I started with and it was pretty smooth sailing from there on out.

I still managed to do a lot of boarding and just pull my guys back before the auto-beam fired. But honestly after I got the second Burst, I didn't bother again until the boss. Everyone was dead too quick. I did pick up a Small Bomb at a store to help with the final boss shields, although I might not have needed it with the lasers.

Also stumbled on the quest to unlock the Slug Cruiser. So now I guess I have to go try that one.

Just Stealth, Mantis, and Crystal still to unlock. Also I didn't even get one of the 3 achievements for Rock B the one time I tried Rock A. That's a tough one.

Argh! Slug A. It took me 3 sectors to find a 3rd crew member. I finally took a chance. Then I never found another.

Still the 3 of us made it to the boss. I never had the spare parts for drones, but that's because I bought a pre-igniter. And I got a Glaive Beam dropped on me. SO with those, I just kept the starter bombs, and annihilated everything. Finally got the "They Never Saw It Coming" achievement.

And then the f*cking boss...

Spoiler:

With one volley I took out 1/3 of it's health. Then I never could get another Glaive shot off. I kept losing 1 point of weapon energy or whatever and having to recharge over and over. Plus I needed the 1-2 combo to get all the way through its shields and make Glaive most effective. Anyway, half my ship ended up on fire since I didn't have a defense drone, and so I had to bail. Store right next door. So I heal up best I can... and forgot to charge my Glaive... so I jump in and have to wait 20 seconds while he kicks my ass some more.

I finish the 1st form, but could just barely heal 5 more points at the store. 2nd form, I had him down to 8 bars of health... technically I think I did beat him, but the game didn't see it that way. My Glaive Beam was cutting across him, but I got blown up.

Just that one mistake of not using my pre-igniter probably cost me victory. Although holding off invaders with only 3 of us might have been impossible too. Ugh.

Defence drone will shoot down those damn-annoying boarding drones too. Don't leave home without it.

Argh! Another Rock Ship run. Another Crystal crew member in S2. Another "no Rock Homeworld anywhere on the map" so no chance for Crystal ship.

Also I finally re-read the whole thread. Been doing that in down-time the last few days, just a page or two here and there.

Awesome to see so many people having very similar experiences to what I'm having this week, only in Sept. Completely hooked into the game. Taking 10 hours of playtime before your first victory, on Easy no less. Frustratingly trying to unlock the Crystal Ship. And struggling with boss strategies early on. Lots of boarding tips, weapon tips, etc.

Games ending in 1-3 jumps, usually because of solar flares, and not enough guys to put out the fires. Have definitely had that happen twice.

Such an awesome game. Need to make sure it plays on my laptop, so I can have it for the holidays while I'm visiting family. I'm quite sure I won't be tired of it by this weekend.

Also have you guys been to the official forums? There are two mod sections. Tons of new ships people have made, including the Enterprise 1701-A, and a Firefly class transport.

Use Grognak's mod manager to install the .ftl (zip) files.

Haven't tried them yet, as I still want to unlock all of the basic game ships. But for those of you who are "done", maybe that will give you something to do.

Stele wrote:

and a Firefly class transport

Well that pretty much just sold me the game, when nothing else has been able to.

My spaceship goes Pew Pew!

This game is really fun, I have been looking for something like this forever. I would love to see it in 3d with some serious graphics behind it.

Oh yeah and the other comments that this would make an awesome Star Trek or BSG game are spot on. Seriously this game is like that "33" episode of BSG. The Cylons Federation chasing you, and you have to keep moving or die.

But the basic gameplay would work for a ST exploration type game as well. Random story missions that help your crew level up. Plus some kind of over-arching story, perhaps the Federation-Dominion War, or a Fed/Romulan vs Borg campaign... where you would fortify sectors by visiting X number of systems or something. Supplying parts to starbases or something? There could definitely be tons of depth added to the story, but keeping this same simple gameplay. Love it.

I got to the last ship once on Easy.

I don't suck as hard at this as it looked like I would. Only about two thirds as hard.

I have just found that you can mod FTL, and I couldn't be happier!

Finally for the first time in 36 games, I found the Mantis ship event. Of course I did not have the required material:

Spoiler:

I had enough money for a teleport. But there was not a store in the entire system!!! I had Long-Range Sensors already, and went everywhere. Ran into the ship event 2 jumps from the exit. And I even checked the one zone past the exit after I had already failed, and no store there either.

Seriously, you have to have everything ready for it before you go to a Mantis Homeworld? But you don't know there's a Mantis Homeworld until you jump there? Ugh...

Guess I should start savescumming more. Or just use one of the profile editors. Ridiculous.

Loaded up last night and started a run with Stealth A, finally got my Bird of Prey and Tactical Approach achivements, as well as No Redshirts

Hello Stealth B!

Also, the hi-res background mod is pretty awesome.

I just started playing this game and got to the end boss on easy after quite a few fails. I see you guys talking about level 3 weapons and loadouts. How do I get these? I never saw 1 level 3 weapon and only a couple level 2s to purchase on any of my playthroughs. I know I'm missing something really obvious.

Another victory. First with Rock A ship. That's like 3 of 39 games now.

Still no luck with Stealth, Mantis, or Crystal ship unlocks. Got step 1 for Crystal but never saw Step 2. Still never seen the stealth one, but I'm not sure I've ever seen Engi Homeworld, just Engi controlled sectors.

Winning feels good. But I still can't get any achievements to unlock Rock B either, and that's like the 3rd game of Rock A I've played. Every time I think I'm going to get the "kill enemy in fire room" achievement, they run away to a corner of their ship that isn't on fire. Jerks. :p