FTL - New Kind of Roguelike in SPACE!

[Eurus]

Man. I'm having an extremely hard time figuring out how to beat the boss. I never seem to have enough defenses and firepower to crack it. I take it defense drones are pretty much a necessity?

[Cogwheel]

Man. I'm having an extremely hard time figuring out how to beat the boss. I never seem to have enough defenses and firepower to crack it. I take it defense drones are pretty much a necessity?

The trick is in not letting it fire missiles, I find. Ion? Ion works if you have a steady flow of it. Boarders. In fact, if you have mark 2 Breach Bombs, those do a lovely job as well.

Really, just cripple it as much as you can. That's a lot of what it comes down to, I find.

[Lost Demiurge]

I had my first win yesterday! Well, on EASY, mind, but that's fine. I'll get better as I go!

I also unlocked the stealth ship that run, and ALMOST got the zoltan cruiser. It was a good run!

I started with the red-tail, and grabbed the boarding teleporter early on. Lucked into a rock crewman, and hired another at a store, and the first 5 sectors were lootapalooza thanks to my ace rockin' team! Then I lost them... it was a choice of letting them die taking out the helm and scuttle my chance at the stealth cruiser (since the rebel fleet was gonna engulf that area ahead of schedule if the automated drone got away) or saving them. Goodbye Mike. Goodbye Stalic. You will be missed!

On the plus side, shortly afterwards I was able to recruit two mantises, and they filled in the niche nicely!

I also had enough scrap to grab the basics... Drones, cloaking device, and four really nice weapons. A burst laser III was a lucky find, as well as a halberd beam. But I also grabbed two hermes missile launchers for the end fight, and I'm glad I did!

Add-ons were... Long-range scanners, pre-igniter, and drone recovery arm. I was stockpiling missiles and drones for the endfight, too.

I ROCKED the flagship. In the first stage, I used the hermes + a pre-igniter and popped out two ship assault I drones. Beamed the mantii over to take out the missile launcher of DOOM, and focused on keeping the shields down. It died fast! Had to switch the drones off at one point to teleport my away crew back.

The second stage was trickier... Especially since I'd switched to beams against it. (Had to. It had defense drones.) Still, the same tactics worked just fine. Had a panic moment when a lucky, early missile knocked out my teleporter, and I had to frantically defend while focusing fire on their shields and weapons, but once things were back I was able to selectively cripple weapons, cloak the drone swarm, and inflict a fair amount of damage. The breaching drones were annoying, but with strengthened doors I ended up ignoring the ones that landed in non-vital areas and that worked surprisingly well.

Got through it at half hull. After closing the breaches and repairing, I jumped to a repair beacon... Only to find out that I'd misread the screen, and jumped to the place the flagship was going!

I thought I was dead. Fortunately, switching back to missiles and keeping the drones going did the trick. Once their missile launcher was out, good shields, average engines, and pinpoint cloaking kept me alive. Was actually pretty easy.

Now when I get the chance, I'll have the stealth ship AND the fed cruiser to try out! Quite happy, overall.

Once I've unlocked all the optional ships, I'll muster up my courage and try playing on Normal... :D

[AmberVael]

I just made the most amazing ship I have ever made in this game.

I beat all three stages of the boss without going to a repair place. I beat the first two stages without taking any hull damage, or even losing all my shields. I beat the last stage and only took three hull damage in the fight.

I was using the Zoltan ship. Here was the loadout:

All four shields, fully powered.
Five power to the engines.
Maxed cloak device, full power.
Maxed weapon systems at full power, with the following weapons (in this order):
Halberd Beam, Ion Bomb, Pike Beam, Burst Laser II

Augments:
Zoltan Shield
Weapon Pre-Igniter
Stealth Weapons

Crew:
2 Zoltan (who manned pilot and weaponry, the former of which was silly, in retrospect, but he did start there, so he was the best at it by far).
2 Mantis (generally they were just there to fight boarders... only one person tried, and they failed miserably)
2 Engi (one on engines, one for general repair)
2 Slugs (one on shields, the other for... well, whatever he was needed for)


This thing tore ships apart all the way to the end. The trick was to use the ion bomb and burst lasers to take out the shields immediately, and while shields were down, destroy everything with the two beams. Given the strength of the ion bomb, and repeated fire of the burst laser, this could take a ship with four shields down to zero in an instant... and since I had the pre-igniter, it happened immediately. They likely lost their shields and weapons before they could retaliate- and if they didn't? I just popped my max cloak and blasted at their shields, while my stealth weapon augment allowed me to stay fully cloaked. Generally a second sweep of the beams was enough to take anything hardier out.

Cloak, good dodge chance, and the Zoltan shield basically protected me from anything thrown at me. Even missiles shatter against the shield, and if it went down, cloak boosted me up to over 100% evasion... so it was really only the flagship that stood a chance. But even it wasn't enough.

I do feel compelled to note that this was on Easy difficulty. It would have been much harder to complete this ship on Normal. But yikes, this thing was vicious. I love the Ion Bomb now, and have a whole new appreciation for beam weaponry.

[SuperMuldoon]

Beat the game the other day for the first time (man its a hard hard game!). My layout was the Engi ship Torus with defense drone, anti ship drone and beam drone. Had cloak and teleporter too. Used a strategy I saw on the official forums. Basically beamed in my 2 mantis assault crew to take out the weapons (minus their burst laser thing, the inside left weapon) and then went around their ship killing everyone and leaving that laser crewman alive. I then finished first phase at my leisure.

Second phase I beamed in my guys to kill off the weapons again, and then take out their drone and shields. When the power surge warning comes out I get ready to cloak - and hit it once the swarm of drones comes out. Rinse and repeat.

Final phase, same thing. Cloak when it fires its 'power surge' lasers so they miss, and take out its systems. Since you killed all the crew except that one guy, what is normally a boarding phase is now much easier. If you kill all the crew the ship turns into an AI controlled, which makes it a much tougher fight.

Gonna try some new strategies with the new ships I've unlocked!

[Eurus]

The trick is in not letting it fire missiles, I find. Ion? Ion works if you have a steady flow of it. Boarders. In fact, if you have mark 2 Breach Bombs, those do a lovely job as well.

Really, just cripple it as much as you can. That's a lot of what it comes down to, I find.

Finally beat it. On easy, mind you, but baby steps. Had an Engi cruiser with two Burst Laser I, and an Anti-Ship Drone I and II. Didn't seem like it'd be enough, but I managed to wear it down. Lost three crew members in the process -- I had a bad habit of forgetting to recall my boarding parties when the ship changed forms -- but it worked. Pretty much just had to shoot the missile room to death with my lasers/boarding party.

[MachineWraith]

Were I not entirely broke, this game would be my first purchase. Alas, I spent the last of my spendin' cash on the Reaper minis on Kickstarter, and am waiting on a direct deposit paycheck (that was supposed to go through on the 15th )

[ex cathedra]

I just made the most amazing ship I have ever made in this game.

I also got my first victory on one of the Zoltan Cruisers; I think it was Layout B, the Noether. Yeah, I totally agree, and I think it might be because Zoltan Shield + >50% evade chance + stealth just makes you ridiculously hard to damage.

And, as it happens, I also had stealth weapons on that playthrough.

[Cikomyr]

Just won my very first game with the Kestrel!

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It's funny, I often manage to win games I get achievement with. In that case, it was "United Federation", with crewmen of all species.

The Fire Beam is soooo bad. I sometimes would end up crippling ships' weaponry and set them on fire, and then stop my weapons to just let the fire run.. and run... and run....

And watch...

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[Zanfib]

Some people just want to watch ships burn.

[iyaerP]

So I bought this the other day and spent the last two days playing nothing else.

So far have unlocked the Torus A&B, the Stealth ship (that I can't use to save my life), the Federation cruiser A&B, both of which rock the house, and the super secret special ??? ship.

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Crystal rock ship. Obtained via stasis pod event quest chain. Also, the weapons that you aquire in the process of doing said mission are gamebreakingly good. The only reason I didn't beat the Flagship that run is because all repair nodes were overrun by rebels, so I couldn't heal up from my measly 8 hp before facing him for phase 3, and I died to super-beam. Regardless, I haven't actually had a chance to USE the crystal ship yet as getting it was my last run before bed last night and I am at work now.

Only one victory so far, but I have managed to face and fail at the flagship at least 6 out of my 20-something times, twice I even managed to get that far on normal. Once with the kestral, once with the Fed Cruiser.

I tried the mad hobo run, but died to boarders in the cabin, and with an engie crew-man....... yeah, we all know how that fight ends.

[Badgerish]

Unlocked the Rock, Engi-B (got all 3 achievements) and Federation cruisers all in the same run! (on easy, but hey)

Loving this game, although I wish it was a little more open/lass random (e.g. having more options for configeration at the start. unlocking ships does this, I suppose)

Go, Mantis boarding party!

[Grif]

Is it my incredibly bad luck, or is Anti-Ship or Beam Drone Mk II even available? Do they even exist? I have yet to see them on my 20 odd playthough.

[NEO|Phyte]

Is it my incredibly bad luck, or is Anti-Ship or Beam Drone Mk II even available? Do they even exist? I have yet to see them on my 20 odd playthough.

anti-ship IIs exist, no clue if there's a II on beam drones.

[iyaerP]

So last night I did the Crazy Hermit run. I was amazed and quite pleased to get all the way to the rebel flagship where I ultimately died having dealt...... ZERO DAMAGE! The biggest problem was having NO guns other than the starting two up until one sector before the finale, I picked up a halbard beam that I was never able to power because I didn't have enough scrap because I couldn't kill anything because I had no FRACKING GUNS. Oh, and I had a beam drone, but those are pretty much just trash anyway.

Had a couple close calls with mantis and rebel boarders, but thankfully, airlock shenannegins pulled me through.

I don't think I would have made it nearly as far as I did without maxxing out shields and cloaking device, but I never saw any weapons for sale when I could afford them and not fuel/repairs, and only that one drop at the very end. Still, was a good run even if not technically successful.

pics below

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[hobbitkniver]

Finally beat the game with the Kestrel. They weren't kidding when they said Easy mode was easier.

[Grif]

So last night I did the Crazy Hermit run. I was amazed and quite pleased to get all the way to the rebel flagship where I ultimately died having dealt...... ZERO DAMAGE! The biggest problem was having NO guns other than the starting two up until one sector before the finale, I picked up a halbard beam that I was never able to power because I didn't have enough scrap because I couldn't kill anything because I had no FRACKING GUNS. Oh, and I had a beam drone, but those are pretty much just trash anyway.

Had a couple close calls with mantis and rebel boarders, but thankfully, airlock shenannegins pulled me through.

I don't think I would have made it nearly as far as I did without maxxing out shields and cloaking device, but I never saw any weapons for sale when I could afford them and not fuel/repairs, and only that one drop at the very end. Still, was a good run even if not technically successful.

pics below

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Beam drones can be made quite useful if you have the appropriate weaponry to pair it up. Namely any of the small/breach/fire bombs or ion guns or missiles to disable shields. Then it's a joy to see it when it wrecks merry havoc on the unshielded ship.

[Eurus]

Is it my incredibly bad luck, or is Anti-Ship or Beam Drone Mk II even available? Do they even exist? I have yet to see them on my 20 odd playthough.

I got an anti-ship II the other day, but oddly it didn't seem that much different than a I. A little better, yeah, but for twice the power consumption I expected something a little more impressive.

[Cogwheel]

I got an anti-ship II the other day, but oddly it didn't seem that much different than a I. A little better, yeah, but for twice the power consumption I expected something a little more impressive.

While it doesn't hit any harder, I find that it fires much faster.

[thegurullamen]

Semi-successful day. Beat game on easy, unlocked kes b, fed, stealth and zoltan ships. Almost got the rock ship, but those stubborn jerks died to fires caused by the flares--hard to warp away when your engines have been melted by constant fire. Found the crystal pod twice, never got it to the zoltans in time. And I don't use the teleporter, so unlocking mantiss is going to be difficult.

Most recent run was with the fed. Was going well until I hit the nebula with the slugs with the inhibitors. Chose to lose oxygen (since shields and weapons were both necessary for me to win), but that ship must have had a 100% evade rate. Never did any damage to it and it crippled my engines until my crew that wasn't on life support asphyxiated. Human died bringing the engines back up and another died manning the airless helm and piloting the ship out of there with one hp--only for the ship to be boarded by slugs at the next beacon. And they landed on the opposite end of the ship from my half-dead mantiss--across an airless corridor.

"Our ship was destroyed, so we're taking yours!" they said, taking aim and firing. I could only watch in horror as they blew up my sensors, taking out the ship's last hp and killing us all. Slugs. Such stupid sons of--

[Cogwheel]

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Ho hum.

[Volatar]

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snip

Ho hum.

And you didn't even need to eject the warp core to do it.

[factotum]

How on earth did you manage to get so many fires burning on the thing when you don't have any dedicated fire-starting weapons?

[Rustic Dude]

Crew killed because of breaches on the hull + Heavy laser(It has a chance to start some fires)=Infernoship

Also, congratulations Cogwheel. That is some happy crazy space hermit.

[BRC]

The Space Hermit LIVES!

I won for the first time last night with the Engi Ship. I mainly used an Anti-ship Drone I and a Defense Mk II, with a system repair drone on standby. Weapons were the Ion Mk II, a Burst Laser II, and a Breach Bomb.


Between the Ion and the Lasers, I could keep their shields down, letting the AS drone do it's work. Breach Bomb handled those systems that especially bugged me. The Defense Drone (Mk II defense drone is a wonderful thing) and three layers of shielding meant basically nothing could touch me except borders, and the Engi Ship's layout combined with fully upgraded blast doors and a two-man one-mantis security team handled that (Venting the atmosphere is a wonderful thing).

[Cogwheel]

Crew killed because of breaches on the hull + Heavy laser(It has a chance to start some fires)=Infernoship

Also, congratulations Cogwheel. That is some happy crazy space hermit.

Actually I wiped the entire crew save Laser Guy with sniping at the end of phase 2. Only reason phase 3 was even remotely doable.

[Sprinter]

How on earth did you manage to get so many fires burning on the thing when you don't have any dedicated fire-starting weapons?

Fire spreads by itself without crew to put it out it only signifies how long it took him to kill the flagship.

Actually I wiped the entire crew save Laser Guy with sniping at the end of phase 2. Only reason phase 3 was even remotely doable.

Congrats! That was a smart tactics too. No evasion since he cant get to piloting and also no AI auto-repairing everything.



Had a challenging run with type B stealth ship took me over dosen times to actualy win with this ship on normal. No shields and Glaive beam takes too long to charge more then twice as long as your cloaking lasts. Hardest ship type to win on normal by now and im only missing slug and secrit ships now. Eventualy i swapped the glaive beam for burst laser mk III and halbeard <3 this combo.

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[shadow_archmagi]

Had by first Normal win on my 37th playthrough, using the Kestrel.

Burst Laser 2, Halberd Beam, Fire-Starter, and Ion gun.

Ion plus burst laser is just enough to drop four shields if nobody misses (or if the anti-ship drone can be bothered to help) which opens up a chance for the halberd and fires to start, and then after that they don't generally get back up to four shields.

[Sprinter]

Had by first Normal win on my 37th playthrough, using the Kestrel.

Burst Laser 2, Halberd Beam, Fire-Starter, and Ion gun.

Ion plus burst laser is just enough to drop four shields if nobody misses (or if the anti-ship drone can be bothered to help) which opens up a chance for the halberd and fires to start, and then after that they don't generally get back up to four shields.

Congrats Kestrel is well armed starting ship think only red tail (type B) is better but other people prefer engi cruiser Torrus.

With halberd you can actualy start firing even if there is one miss as it does damage through one point of shield. Which is very OP. only glaive beam can go through 2 points of shields but its charge time is 25s which makes it actualy worse weapon as it gives crew chance to repair damaged systems back to operatonal before it fires again.

[shadow_archmagi]

Congrats Kestrel is well armed starting ship think only red tail (type B) is better but other people prefer engi cruiser Torrus.

With halberd you can actualy start firing even if there is one miss as it does damage through one point of shield. Which is very OP. only glaive beam can go through 2 points of shields but its charge time is 25s which makes it actualy worse weapon as it gives crew chance to repair damaged systems back to operatonal before it fires again.

Oh, yeah, I was totally doing that. Heck, any ship with a decent evade chance WOULD generally only lose three shields to the bombardment, so I'd have to halberd their shield generator down before I could firebeam.