FTL

BlackSabre wrote:

But that's kinda like a pick your own adventure book. Sometimes you pick the wrong path and you die.

It's not quite the same thing. Even the "good" choices in FTL are still attached to the RNG and like a CYOA the "safe" path doesn't always do what you think it does. But that dead end didn't have anything to do with it and that's why I found it frustrating. Chalk it up to having a bad interface which has since been fixed.

Stele wrote:

Um yeah there's an option for "Show jump paths on hover." Turn it on.

Um yeah, he was talking about before they patched that in.

WolverineJon wrote:

After the second time I lost a boarding party to my Federation Cruiser's auto-fire artillery beam unexpectedly automatically firing (after the initial 50-second charge) and destroying the enemy ship, I now turn that thing *off* before sending any boarding parties!

Haha. I had a really pimp double mantis boarding party and my Federation ship was really souped up. I felt like I had the game in the bag. However, right before the last sector I did the exact same thing basically kiling my chances of beating the end boss. I was so mad at myself.

Tamren wrote:

FTL is all about "a series of unfortunate dice rolls that lead to your death", NOT "pick from these two identical options, one of which ends in your death". That was not the only game of FTL I lost from bad decisions. That isn't even the only time I got stuck in a dead end. But it was the one and only time I have ever gotten truly angry at the game, because how I failed had nothing to do with bad luck or poor decisions.

It's not a dead end though. As far as I know you can backtrack but you need to fight rebel ships at every hop. I have done it briefly before and usually don't even try to finish off the ship because there is only 1 fuel payoff. I just jump when the FTL drive recharges. It can be real tough without a defense drone though because they almost always have missiles.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Stele wrote:

Um yeah there's an option for "Show jump paths on hover." Turn it on.

Um yeah, he was talking about before they patched that in.

Sorry it's only been patched in since Sept... and seeing a post yesterday ranting about the issue was a little confusing.

EvilDead wrote:
Tamren wrote:

FTL is all about "a series of unfortunate dice rolls that lead to your death", NOT "pick from these two identical options, one of which ends in your death". That was not the only game of FTL I lost from bad decisions. That isn't even the only time I got stuck in a dead end. But it was the one and only time I have ever gotten truly angry at the game, because how I failed had nothing to do with bad luck or poor decisions.

It's not a dead end though. You can backtrack but you need to fight rebel ships at every hop.

This is the important part. Getting hemmed in by the rebels isn't an automatic death sentence, it's just a bit of a pain to push through. Why is that so upsetting?

You know what I'd really like to do? Play some of the games in my pile that aren't FTL. Just doesn't seem to be happening lately...

So I took the thread's advice and gave the Engi-A another spin on Easy. Racked up a couple extra crew members, scored a Heavy Ion and a Halbread beam, and a Defense I, Defense II, and additional Anti-Ship I drones.

Got to the last sector with full compliment of crew (and a pair of rockman boarding party), fully upgraded engines at 55% evade, and 3 bubbles of shields.

Walked into round 1 of the boss, and let the boarding team take out the weapons, while I concentrated on defense and locking down shields, then turned on full offense when the weapon systems were offline.

Round 2, same deal. Sent the rockmen to take out missiles, while keeping shields and droid locked down with ion. Recalled the rockmen to deal with the barrage of boarding drones, and slowly whittled away the hull to dust.

Round 3 (and only my 2nd time ever making it this far), and again the rockmen take down both weapon systems. His death blossom special attack only takes out my shields and can't do any damage to me, and I'm able to use my boarding party to fight off his boarders while taking down his hull.

34 f'n hours and I finally beat the boss!

Congrats.

I still keep getting to the end half prepared... didn't have any offensive weapons drop on my last engi run so had to buy and just didn't have the cash to get enough to matter. I might have to work harder to get to the boarding party strategys but I never end up with more than 4 or 5 crew so I always considered it high risk.

Gratz McIrish!

Now go get some more ships and do it again.

It was a big dead end. This wasn't "fight one system of rebels to get yourself out of this cul de sac". It was "lets see you fight your way through a consecutive 12 systems of rebel fleets with half health and not even enough fuel". (this was back when I was playing on Normal btw, before I switched to Easy)

Also, who says I didn't try?

I boarded and my crew on an enemy ship finished it off....arrrgh, goodbye crew.
First time I worked with cloaking...wow, what a difference.

Dammit, Steam Cloud messed up my saves again! It seems like the steam implementation of cloud saves is just more hassle then its worth. I beat it with 3 new ships between yesterday and today on my work computer :D. I get home today, log in to steam, fire up the game and start playing and immediately realize this was a ship I had already won the game with. I suspected right away that it was pulling from a local save instead of the cloud. I quit out the game and watch helplessly as Steam Cloud then decides to sync and overwrite my work "older" save. So now I can't really make progress over the weekend unless I want to backtrack over those last three victories. I also have to remember to back up that save next week prior to firing up Steam.

Dropbox with symbolic links just works better.....

I know that an FTL save file editor exists, so to avoid having to re-unlock ships, you might want to find it and use it.

Same thing just happened to me. Finally unlocked the Mantis ship and Rock-B only to get it wiped out by the Cloud. I know that feel bro.

Yeah, I guess its a sign to play some other stuff that I need to finish up.

Just started playing this yesterday and it is eating. My. Life.

I do feel a bit stymied, though. I unlocked the Engi ship on my first run, not really sure how. Did a couple runs with it, got two of the cheevos so I unlocked the alternate layout, and now I'm feeling a little stuck. All my runs seem to end with me getting ignominiously blown out of the sky by some pirate I didn't think was going to be a big deal. I've been mostly running with the Kestrel trying to get the 2 out of 3 cheevos to unlock the alternate version of that, but those seem to be based on dumb luck, there doesn't seem to be much I can do but grind away and hope that I luck into the right set of circumstances to collect a crew member of each race / one of each system.

I'm sort of not sure what I should be doing to unlock more ships. Beginner advice?

hbi2k wrote:

I'm sort of not sure what I should be doing to unlock more ships. Beginner advice?

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Ships

Play on Easy until you unlock more ships. Some of them require multiple events in one zone or even multiple events in multiple zones. It can be difficult to survive long enough to unlock them on Normal, on the off chance you get the missions.

I just heard the GWJ ep from around xmas in which it is mentioned that there is a new race in the game now. What are they and when were they added? I have not played since a few weeks after the public launch.

It's not new, but the species they were talking about it is crystal. They have a special ability, called Lockdown, that temporarily covers the room's walls with rocks, preventing anyone from getting in or out until it wears off. There is also a type A and B crystal ship, but unlocking type A is hard to do, as there are a series of multiple random events that have to occur in a single playthrough in order to unlock it.

Keithustus wrote:

I just heard the GWJ ep from around xmas in which it is mentioned that there is a new race in the game now. What are they and when were they added? I have not played since a few weeks after the public launch.

Beantown Tom wrote:

In the most recent podcast, Corey Banks says that "FTL has added a new race in the latest patch."

I see no evidence of this. Does anyone know what he is talking about.

If he is talking about the Crystal race, they have been around since launch, I think.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Demiurge talks a lot of crazy sh*t.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Demiurge

That caught my attention on the podcast, too. Wouldn't it be cool if that (a whole new alien race being patched in) were true! I suppose it would change the game quite a bit, though.

Maybe in an expansion pack? Or (surprised at myself for suggesting this) some IAP?

Cory also said that the last time he played FTL was pre-launch. Presumably before all of the kickstarter reward content was added.

hbi2k wrote:

Just started playing this yesterday and it is eating. My. Life.

I do feel a bit stymied, though. I unlocked the Engi ship on my first run, not really sure how. Did a couple runs with it, got two of the cheevos so I unlocked the alternate layout, and now I'm feeling a little stuck. All my runs seem to end with me getting ignominiously blown out of the sky by some pirate I didn't think was going to be a big deal. I've been mostly running with the Kestrel trying to get the 2 out of 3 cheevos to unlock the alternate version of that, but those seem to be based on dumb luck, there doesn't seem to be much I can do but grind away and hope that I luck into the right set of circumstances to collect a crew member of each race / one of each system.

I'm sort of not sure what I should be doing to unlock more ships. Beginner advice?

Hi hbi2k!

For the "Tough Little Ship" achievement, I found that the following trick worked for me (I'm sure many others have used this method this as well, but here's a spoiler tag just in case):

Spoiler:

This works best if you have a clear path to a store. Asteroids (on Easy at least -- I haven't tried Normal) take off one hull point per impact. If you find yourself in an asteroid field, deal with any enemy ship that's there, and then drop your shields. If an asteroid impact damages anything significant, raise the shields (assuming those weren't what was damaged O.o), fix it, then drop them again. It can be a little tricky, since an unfortunately targeted asteroid impact can cause trouble (such as starting a fire in the door control or O2 room). Once you have only one hull point left, raise the sheilds, jump away, then head to the nearest store for repairs!

I've unlocked a few ships (Engi, Stealth, and Zoltan), and other than just playing until you encounter the trigger events for each ship, I recommend trying as many different play styles and ships as possible. You'll often need a paticular ship system, system upgrade level, or race of crewmember to change the trigger event from just a normal encounter to a quest.

I hope that helps!

I had a really good Kestrel run today. (I think it might have been under 12 parsecs.) Had a fully-upgraded cloak, three levels of shielding, some hull lasers for damage, ion bombs to knock out systems, that neat-o missile launcher that launches two missiles at a time, a fully leveled-up crew plus a couple extras for repairs and to handle intruders, the works.

Got to the boss, it was a tough fight, but I made it and-- what? He teleported away? But I just SAW him exploding! Well, that's bullsh*t, all right, track down his second form OH GOD DRONES EVERYWHERE LASERS WHY THE LASERS?!?!

Is this something I'm just not expected to be able to beat until I unlock better ships, or what?

hbi2k wrote:

I had a really good Kestrel run today. (I think it might have been under 12 parsecs.) Had a fully-upgraded cloak, three levels of shielding, some hull lasers for damage, ion bombs to knock out systems, that neat-o missile launcher that launches two missiles at a time, a fully leveled-up crew plus a couple extras for repairs and to handle intruders, the works.

Got to the boss, it was a tough fight, but I made it and-- what? He teleported away? But I just SAW him exploding! Well, that's bullsh*t, all right, track down his second form OH GOD DRONES EVERYWHERE LASERS WHY THE LASERS?!?!

Is this something I'm just not expected to be able to beat until I unlock better ships, or what?

Are you doing Easy or Normal? Normal is just nasty no matter what as you probably don't have enough power to deal with stuff.

With that ship setup I would ion bomb the piloting system then drop the Pegasus missle on drone control, then shields while the piloting is down. Assuming you can sufficiently drop shields attack with the hull laser. Use your cloak to avoid the power surge drones when they appear.

Oh, and don't forget to take out the tri-missle launcher if you don't have defense drone plus super high evade.

The three-stage boss fight is a nasty surprise if you aren't expecting it. My strategy is almost always the same:

1. disable the triple-missile system
2. avoid killing the crew in the triple-laser room
3. knock out the shield system; small bombs are good, fire bombs are better
4. be extra careful when trying to use boarding parties during stage 1; it's much safer during stage 2

Itsatrap wrote:

2. avoid killing the crew in the triple-laser room

Why? It's a lot easier to destroy the weapon if there's no crew in there.

hbi2k wrote:

Is this something I'm just not expected to be able to beat until I unlock better ships, or what?

There aren't better ships. They're just different.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

2. avoid killing the crew in the triple-laser room

Why? It's a lot easier to destroy the weapon if there's no crew in there.

If you kill all of the enemy crew, an AI takes over and repairs systems super fast and makes the fight harder.

So you leave the one guy alive, in the laser room (inside left of the boss), all alone, and never attack that room.

If you manage to kill/board the rest of the crew in the main body of the ship, you have a very easy phase 2/3 fight.