Faster Than Light (FTL)

[Vaiti]

I've lost so many games to phase 2 for the same exact reason, and I always seem to forget. By the time I get there killing drone bays = no more drones in my mind

[Druzil]

Thanks for the recommendations, I'm really enjoying this game.  I wasn't too sure about it when I saw the steam page,  I was afraid it was going to turn out like Gratuitous Space Battles... 

I got boarded and killed on the second jump I ever made and next thing I knew it was 4 am.

[Threash]

I want to unlock mantids and just kill everything with multiple uber away teams. They seem OP.

Until you find out unmaned drones have no oxygen.  Or someone blows up your teleporter while your ship is on fire.

[Rishathra]

New stuff coming!

http://www.ftlgame.com/?page_id=106

http://vimeo.com/79104930

[Soln]

Fucking A.  "Works on everything, more stuff, and it's free.  Yr welcome."

[luckton]

 

[kaid]

Fucking A.  "Works on everything, more stuff, and it's free.  Yr welcome."

I am a huge fan of FTL and seeing this makes me very happy. Its a great lil time killer game at work as its super easy to just put down as needed and you can plink on a star or two in lull times and then put it away no fuss no muss when busy.

[Khaldun]

I have a game on Normal saved just before the boss and...

I'm honestly scared to do it.

[Rishathra]

The good news is that the boss is no different on Normal than it is on Easy.  If you made it that far you have already survived the worst that Normal difficulty throws at you.

[Teleku]

Love the hell out of this game.  Purchased it awhile ago but never actually played.  Started a few weeks ago and officially got addicted.  Only just now at the point where I can resist playing it.  Unlocked all the ships except two so far, and after beating the game on easy a few times, killed it on normal twice (Once with the stealth cruiser Type B, and once with the Mantis cruiser Type B).

[DeathInABottle]

The Mantis B is such absurd fun.  I finally unlocked the Crystal B, though, which gives it a run for its money.  Though Zoltan Cruisers and Auto-Scouts are incredibly frustrating for both layouts before you get some sort of weapon.

[Teleku]

If you upgrade your teleporter, you should be able to beam you guys back out right before they suffocate.

[Phildo]

I got the event to unlock the Mantis cruiser yesterday, but didn't have the Crew Teleporter installed.  Woops!

Anyone able to recommend a strategy for unlocking it?

[Teleku]

Far as I know, it only unlocks in Mantis worlds (maybe even only the home world specifically).  Just route your play through towards all the red areas, and go into any mantis controlled zones.  Explore as much as possible, and it should pretty constantly kick off.

[Phildo]

It requires being in the Mantis home system and getting a particular event, but you also need a level 2 teleporter, a level 2 medbay, and apparently you need to incapacitate the entire enemy crew.  I just suck at boarding.

[Samwise]

I've been playing way too fucking much of this game.

Trying to do a run with the Cruiser, having finally unlocked it, and I want to get the achievement for not upgrading the weapons -- finding the challenge with that is not getting blown up with missiles since without upgraded standard weapons it's really hard to knock out their missile launcher before taking a bunch of kicks to the junk.  One of these attempts I'll get a defense drone and then I can cakewalk to victory.

[kaid]

I have a game on Normal saved just before the boss and...

I'm honestly scared to do it.

I finally got a normal kill using the zoltan deckplan A ship.

Really the boss did not seem much worse than normal it was just the sectors leading up to it tended to be more prone to screwing me over.

[kaid]

I got the event to unlock the Mantis cruiser yesterday, but didn't have the Crew Teleporter installed.  Woops!

Anyone able to recommend a strategy for unlocking it?

You need an upgraded medbay as well as an upgrade teleporter to do it. If you don't have your medbay upgraded enough the captain of the ship you board dies and you don't get the ship unlock.

[kaid]

I've been playing way too fucking much of this game.

Trying to do a run with the Cruiser, having finally unlocked it, and I want to get the achievement for not upgrading the weapons -- finding the challenge with that is not getting blown up with missiles since without upgraded standard weapons it's really hard to knock out their missile launcher before taking a bunch of kicks to the junk.  One of these attempts I'll get a defense drone and then I can cakewalk to victory.

This is one of the problems that is really annoying in normal mode. Hitting a bunch of missle boats early on and just getting reemed by them over and over and over again.

[Phildo]

You need an upgraded medbay as well as an upgrade teleporter to do it. If you don't have your medbay upgraded enough the captain of the ship you board dies and you don't get the ship unlock.

My issue is more with getting up the scrap to afford and upgrade the teleporter, while also getting enough Mantis or Rock crewmembers to actually make boarding work, and not losing them like an idiot.  Is it viable to just dump two Rock guys in the enemy's Oxygen system and kill that?

[kaid]

That unfortunately is to slow I think. You need to go in and finish it pretty fast or you will fail out on the event with the captain dying. I tried it once just using boarding bots and it was to slow.

[Samwise]

Burst Laser II, Burst Laser II, Burst Laser III, Weapon Pre-Igniter.

 

Not much power left for anything else, but even a level four shield is no match for ten simultaneous laser blasts at the start of the fight.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, there are some crazy ass builds you can do, but it's all about your Donald Duck and, frankly, I've never been that lucky.

[Brolan]

Burst Laser II, Burst Laser II, Burst Laser III, Weapon Pre-Igniter.

 

Not much power left for anything else, but even a level four shield is no match for ten simultaneous laser blasts at the start of the fight.

That's what won my first victory.  I was using the basic Cruiser and found another Burst Laser II in one of the first stores I found.  I was immediately OP and coasted to victory.

[Samwise]

UI/AI improvement that would make having multiple identical weapons less OP than everything else -- let me set my auto-fire to synchronize my shots to match the slowest weapon rather than having everything firing at its own frequency.  In theory you can turn autofire off and fire each round manually to sync them up, but yawn.

[DeathInABottle]

If you upgrade your teleporter, you should be able to beam you guys back out right before they suffocate.

Yeah, but you still need to be able to take off that last bar of health.  The Mantis B gives you the boarding drone to do that, but the Crystal B doesn't.  And you can't board the zoltan at all, so a weapon is the mandatory first upgrade.  Still, my highest scores by far - and the easiest games - are with those two ships.

[Sophismata]

UI/AI improvement that would make having multiple identical weapons less OP than everything else -- let me set my auto-fire to synchronize my shots to match the slowest weapon rather than having everything firing at its own frequency.  In theory you can turn autofire off and fire each round manually to sync them up, but yawn.

I always synch up my laser fire... I don't know why you wouldn't unless the fight is already a cakewalk.

[kaid]

You need an upgraded medbay as well as an upgrade teleporter to do it. If you don't have your medbay upgraded enough the captain of the ship you board dies and you don't get the ship unlock.

My issue is more with getting up the scrap to afford and upgrade the teleporter, while also getting enough Mantis or Rock crewmembers to actually make boarding work, and not losing them like an idiot.  Is it viable to just dump two Rock guys in the enemy's Oxygen system and kill that?

Yes it is one of the harder unlocks. I was doing it with the federation cruiser that starts with a mantis crewman so I knew for sure I had that available. Having all the bits needed is hard enough and then you need to get some serious luck to actually find the event. It sounds like they are working to revamp how ships unlocks work in the FTL advance edition which is probably a good thing. Random is fine but some of the ship unlocks need some pretty silly chain of things falling just the right way to get them to happen.

The crystal ship is the only thing I have not unlocked. The amount of shit you have to have happen to get it is crazy. I cannot count the number of times I magaged to get the crystal crewman and have never yet even seen the rock homeworlds offered when I had the crystal crewman.

[Teleku]

Wait, people actually use auto fire?  I've put a shit ton of time into this game and never turned it on once.  Seemed almost totally useless.

[koro]

Certain things work quite well with autofire, and it can be quite handy in limited amounts if you need to manage crises on your ship.

[eldaec]

How on earth were you using ions without autofire?

[kaid]

Wait, people actually use auto fire?  I've put a shit ton of time into this game and never turned it on once.  Seemed almost totally useless.

Depends on the weapon lay outs if everything is pretty similar speed or super rapid firing like the higher end ion cannons it works great. For some weapon lay outs especially for ships with 3 or more shields you may have to turn it off to concentrate fire.

[Samwise]

Playing with the Slug cruiser for the first time and very much finding that one needs to not use autofire to get mileage out of the bio-beam weapon.  That thing is pretty awesome as long as they don't have a medbay.

[Ironwood]

I like it when people pile into the med-bay.  It tells me where to send my boarders or concentrate the firing.

BUT NOT BOTH.

[kaid]

I finally got the crystal ship A and B floor plans available. Good lord that took me a long time plugging away to get the moons aligned correctly for this one sheesh.

I am really looking forward to the advanced edition I wish they would give a ballpark of when they think it will be out.