FTL: Faster Than Light - Games

[IMG]http://i.imgbox.com/acpLjoFT.png [/IMG] NOOOOOOOOOOO FUCK YOU ROCKET LAUNCHER FUUUUCK YOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU

[QUOTE=Derposaurus;39250304]I always just ignore the fight, isn't that one of the options?[/QUOTE] It is not. The Mantis guy teleports onto your ship and your only two options are to either side with him or with the Engis.

It took ages to do. But using a combination of space bar, defence drone and a few well placed cloaks, I managed to do it. The defence drone saved my arse more than once during the fight.

Don't forget to carry a hull repair drone in storage.

[QUOTE=E-102 Gamma;39247801]That many losses can't be attributed to simple bad luck. There's gotta be something wrong with your playstyle. What is the first thing you spend scrap on? What are the first upgrades for your ship that you purchase? What is the first thing you do when you run into an enemy ship (e.g. target X system, teleport boarders into Y room, etc.)? What kind of weapons do you endeavor to obtain? Do you regularly run out of fuel, missiles, etc.? Do you ever read the outcomes of an event, either in the data.dat file or on one of the wikis, before you make your choices? Have you ever power-leveled your crew members? How do you handle boarders? Do you board other ships? Do you often lose crew members in events? "What is your playstyle?," basically. [/quote] Well, let me see. I don't really think I'm doing anything wrong with my initial choice of upgrades, because I get to the boss almost every time. I usually begin by upgrading engines, because i value high evasion over thick shields. I also try to get good doors soon, because they're just so useful against boarding crews. I don't like rockets much. If I get a good launcher, I try not to use it and save up the rockets for the boss fight, because I hate having to spend scrap on ammo. I prefer: a) Bombs. While they don't do hull damage, they recharge faster and can't be shot down. b) Lasers. Many of them. three single lasers are better than 1 triple laser. Recharge time seems to matter a lot. Fuel: I've never run out of fuel, or rockets, or drone parts. Power-Leveling: I don't specifically try to, but when there are enemies that can't get through my shields, I do wait around until my guys level up. My engines dude and pilot are always max level by the time I get to the last sector. Weapons not so much when I make intensive use of boarding crews. Shields depend on how soon I get my evasion score up. Events: No, I've used trial and error so far. I try to play it safe where I can. Lost too many crew members to that goddamn mantis pod. And fuck spiders. Sectors: I jump around as much as I can and plot my course to just barely escape the fleet when I reach the exit beacon. Combat tactics: Depending on how hard my enemy can hit, I either go straight for the shields with my first volley, or try to do 1 or 2 points of damage to their weapons first. I really try to be sensible about the timing of my volleys. E.g. if I have a laser that does 2 damage and one that does 1 damage, I'll fire them slightly staggered, with the 1dmg laser firing first so that it'll take out the shield and the 2dmg laser can hit the rooms. With the Boss, I usually concentrate my fire on the shield room while I send boarding crews to the ion gun and the triple rocket launcher. I use cloak to avoid either the ions or the rockets in the first stage. The second stage often gives me a lot of trouble because you have to keep their shields AND either the drone bay (no boarding) or the med bay (boarding crew in drone bay) down. Defense against boarding crews: I try to trap them in airless rooms where I can. If I can't, I usually have my crew take turns fighting and going to the medbay in order to prevent enemies from doing system damage. I hardly ever lose any crew in fights, be it when I'm boarded or boarding enemies myself. Boarding tactics I use: Bomb the medbay, then send crew in the medbay. I only fight in large rooms when I have the time to send 2 crews in. I don't think my problem lies with the way I fight. I think I'm relying on the wrong kinds and combinations of weapons and upgrades. E.g. for a while I loved beam weapons, but now I think they are really useless against the boss...you have to put too much power into the weapons system and won't be able to avoid taking damage. I also once had a burst laser 3 and actually hated it. Theoretically it can blast through any shield, but in practice, half my shots miss. And it needs 4 fucking power bars and takes AGES to reload.

[IMG]http://i.imgbox.com/acgwBfks.png[/IMG] This motherfucker's about to get his shit [I]rocked[/I].

[QUOTE=Birdman101;39254310]This motherfucker's about to get his shit [I]rocked[/I].[/QUOTE] It took me a moment to notice the crew names. Also, seems you can't even run a good old fashioned Rock Ship without having a token human aboard.

[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;39254321]It took me a moment to notice the crew names. Also, seems you can't even run a good old fashioned Rock Ship without having a token human aboard.[/QUOTE] Damn anti-segregation quotas

[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;39254321]It took me a moment to notice the crew names. Also, seems you can't even run a good old fashioned Rock Ship without having a token human aboard.[/QUOTE] Just do what I do, deprive them of oxygen and put them to sleep. [sp] I do it all the time with the engi ship, I regret nothing [/sp]

[QUOTE=Don Merino;39254259]I usually begin by upgrading engines, because i value high evasion over thick shields.[/QUOTE] Well, don't do that. The first engine upgrade is cheap enough, but you really should prioritize shields first until you've got at least two layers. With your engines completely fully upgraded (which takes at least [I]300 to 355 scrap[/I], depending on the ship you're playing as, btw), you've got a maximum of 55% evasion, if you've got a fully experienced pilot and engines guy. Just a little bit more than half of everything is going to miss, on average. This means that, on average, [I]slightly less than half of everything will still hit you[/I]. And regardless of your evasion amount, so long as it isn't 100 or more, every single weapon fired at you can still hit you. Evasion just isn't reliable at all, since it's based on random chance, as I learned after a failed run as the Kestrel or two. Getting hit by missiles and bombs is a reality of this game. Engines won't save you. The only way to prevent missiles and bombs from blowing up your ship all the time is to ensure that the enemy ship's weapons system goes offline and stays offline. And even then, there's no guaranteed way to do that before the enemy ship gets a shot off. You could fire all of the lasers in the world and it's possible that every single shot could miss, even if the enemy ship only has 20% evasion. Boarders can only destroy systems so fast, and enemy crew members usually don't take boarding raids sitting down. You could cloak to dodge missiles and bombs, but the cloaking device takes 20 seconds to cool down between uses, so you're only going to get to dodge every other missile or bomb at best*. Defense drones can shoot down missiles, but they can also miss (apparently), can be blown up by projectile weapons (including your own, afaik) and can't shoot down bombs. Getting hit by missiles and bombs is something you're going to have to learn to live with, unfortunately. *There is one exception to this statement, in that Breach missile launchers have a 22-second cooldown, meaning you actually can dodge every single missile that comes out of them. Personally, I usually upgrade my shields to two layers before spending scrap on anything else (except fuel, if I get a chance to buy some), upgrade my engines to level 3, upgrade my shields to three layers, and then upgrade my engines to level 4 and maybe level 5. Once I get my engines to level 5, I'm happy. [QUOTE=Don Merino;39254259]Combat tactics: Depending on how hard my enemy can hit, I either go straight for the shields with my first volley, or try to do 1 or 2 points of damage to their weapons first.[/QUOTE] In my opinion, if you've got the firepower to pound through the enemy ship's shields, you're better off attacking piloting or engines rather than their shields system itself. Evasion is unreliable. The enemy ship could have a measly 15% evade and then dodge five shots in a row. If you knock their piloting offline, they lose all evasion and every single shot you shoot at them is guaranteed to find its mark (or their shields). You can then shoot at their shields system, engines, weapons, or whatever else you feel like without having to worry about all of your shots missing and doing nothing useful. Other than that, it sounds like your playstyle is mostly solid, except for your handling of the boss fight. The first phase of the boss fight (your initial encounter) is actually quite chill if you've got at least 3 layers of shields and a boarding team or two. Once you get its missile, ion, and beam weapons down, you can kick back and relax and think about how you're going to go about murdering the flagship's crew, because its burst laser ripoff weapon is just so lame that it's helpless against three layers of shields. You can even completely power down your engines if you need power anywhere else, or even if you just feel like it, because your shields have got you covered. Take your time on the first phase, and use your weapons only if you really need to. The second and third phases of the boss fight are so much easier if the flagship only has that one guy in the burst laser ripoff left. Hope this helps.

This game needs more content, holy fuck

[QUOTE=E-102 Gamma;39256915](wall of text)[/QUOTE] Thanks a heap! In my defense, I must say that I only upgrade engines to level 6. Everything past that is indeed too damn expensive for the little benefit you get from it. I really appreciate the idea of leaving just the one guy alive in the burst laser room. The real trouble begins where I need something to reliably punch through their shields. Last time around, with the mantis cruiser, I had an ion bomb and two Hull Lasers (mk1 or 2, I don't know..those that fire 2 shots.) So when I ion-bombed the shields, I could theoretically punch through the remaining shield levels, but I just missed so goddamn often. In the end, I needed about 15 ion bombs to kill the bastard. How would I go about killing the enemy crew in this case? Because as long as they have a med bay and the blast doors, there's nothing I can do. Maybe I should have beamed my crew into the door control and then kept the med-bay down with ion bombs. Do you know how long the boss's cloaking cooldown is? Because that, I've already learned, can lead to nasty situations in combination with your boarding crew in there. [editline]17th January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Skyward;39257211]This game needs more content, holy fuck[/QUOTE] Well, it could certainly use some more, but it's been good for around 40 hours for me now, and I haven't lost interest completely yet. I rarely play any games for that long. FTL ranks 6th in my most played Steam games.

[QUOTE=Don Merino;39257851]The real trouble begins where I need something to reliably punch through their shields. Last time around, with the mantis cruiser, I had an ion bomb and two Hull Lasers (mk1 or 2, I don't know..those that fire 2 shots.) So when I ion-bombed the shields, I could theoretically punch through the remaining shield levels, but I just missed so goddamn often. In the end, I needed about 15 ion bombs to kill the bastard.[/QUOTE] If you can kill off the flagship's crew in the first phase, you can just send any two or four of your crew into the shield room and have them wreck it unperturbed. That's how I always dealt with the flagship's shields. [QUOTE=Don Merino;39257851]Do you know how long the boss's cloaking cooldown is? Because that, I've already learned, can lead to nasty situations in combination with your boarding crew in there.[/QUOTE] The flagship follows a very mechanical pattern of cloaking for 15 seconds and then waiting the 20 seconds it takes for all cloaking systems to cool down before cloaking again. It keeps on doing this so long as its cloaking system isn't damaged or disabled. It's really just a normal level 3 cloaking system, just like the one you can use in most of the playable ships. [QUOTE=Don Merino;39257851]How would I go about killing the enemy crew in this case? Because as long as they have a med bay and the blast doors, there's nothing I can do. Maybe I should have beamed my crew into the door control and then kept the med-bay down with ion bombs.[/QUOTE] I've found that, if you've got at least four crew that are of decent boarding races or are at least trained in combat, as well as a level 3 teleporter (or any level if it's a four-person teleporter), you can slowly kill off the crew without using any weapons. I outlined some ways to kill of the crew in these two posts: [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1212253&p=39009372&viewfull=1#post39009372"]Link 1[/URL] and [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1212253&p=39182615&viewfull=1#post39182615"]link 2[/URL]. If you end up with just one, two, or three humans left who refuse to let your boarders kill them, teleport your boarders into the shields room instead, break it completely, and then either have your crew start pounding their way through blast doors to get to the medbay or just teleport them out of the shields room, heal them up, and teleport them back into the medbay. Have them wreck the medbay, and then just sit there and wait for the remaining crew to fix the shields and come running to the medbay to fix it and fight the intruders and stuff. If you've got them outnumbered and/or out-gunned, they will fight to the death, since they don't have a working medbay to run away to. Crystal crew members make killing the crew way too easy, and bombs, anti-bio beams, and Mantises can help, but they otherwise aren't completely necessary. I really should write a strategy guide or something. I have so much to say about how to play this game. :v:

I don't even get how you can play the engi ship, most of the time I'm too busy keeping the enemy shields down so my drone can take lazy potshots at empty rooms to notice half of my ship is on fire.

I played the second variant and just vented my entire ship except the pilot's room and the medbay.

[QUOTE=alphatwo;39258854]I don't even get how you can play the engi ship, most of the time I'm too busy keeping the enemy shields down so my drone can take lazy potshots at empty rooms to notice half of my ship is on fire.[/QUOTE] Best thing to do is sell your drone and buy some laser weapons, if you play it right you'll get only have to fight automated rebel ships at the start, you can just pound the shit out of their shields and weapons system with your ion charge. Then sell that too and buy some more lasers.

Got the game. playing it. Crewmen are Turing, Boole, and Babbage. got in a fight so that they could die quicker. hooray! they lived. hooray. They're long dead by now.

uhgghhghgh died on the second phase of the boss fight I had a glaive beam and a boarding drone and a breach missle on the kestrel ughgggh so mad

[t]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/882971585397661576/1E1B0D4DC66408BA42839BB0FF5C59A0EBD7CD98/[/t] First try on normal mode. I got the second burst laser from the event in which you manage to rescue a survivor and some things from a Federation ship after defeating a pirate ship. I found the ion weapon floating in the space. Other weapons and robots got sold for scrap, and I eventually managed to get the invisibility system. And everything thanks to Elnubnub, the Zoltan I bought that kept my second level of O2 powered up during the whole battle against the Federation ship without getting even scratched.

awesome! holy crap! I got a shiled charge booster augment, and farmed against an enemy drone when all they had was a beam weapon and I had level 2 shields and now I have an engi with 29% shield charge reduction and the augment for 15% reduction! AT STAGE 1 :D Oh my god the ion beam is OP just use it on their oxygen systems, you can shoot it twice each time a shield recharges so you can just suffocate their entire crew [editline]19th January 2013[/editline] I left stage 1 with level 2 shields, 13 power bars, hermes missle, and 147 scrap. [editline]19th January 2013[/editline] Oh god and I just bought a reload booster [editline]19th January 2013[/editline] OH GOD OH GOD engi ship A heal field heals anti-personel drones [editline]19th January 2013[/editline] so the engi ship type A is overpowered I got trapped at a dead end and had to fight 5 federation fleet ships and survived [editline]19th January 2013[/editline] fuuuuckkkkKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK IT WON BECAUSE I GOT COCKBLOCKED AND COULDN'T JUMP TO A PLACE I THOUGHT I WOULD BE ABLE TO JUMP FROM IT GO IN RANGE GOD DAMNIT I HAD MAX ENGINES AND SHIELDS AND A PEGASUS AND BREACH MISSLES AND A DEFENSE DRONE AND TWO ATTACK DRONES I WAS SO PREPARED

There's an option in the menu that shows you the available jumps from each beacon on mouse-over.

Seriously though. How long would it take... To add new text options. Probably about a minute each. To add player controlled ships to the enemy pool To make new ships, Probably by literaly cutting parts of the sprites from the old ones and combining them. About two minutes each to add new weapons. probably about two minutes each. To add alternate skins for all the character (it does bother me that all my crew look the same) about a minute each. (assuming they are all recolours, which would be good enough)

If it takes that little time as you claim, Why not do it yourself?

[QUOTE=The Jack;39278697]Seriously though. How long would it take... To add new text options. Probably about a minute each. To add player controlled ships to the enemy pool To make new ships, Probably by literaly cutting parts of the sprites from the old ones and combining them. About two minutes each to add new weapons. probably about two minutes each. To add alternate skins for all the character (it does bother me that all my crew look the same) about a minute each. (assuming they are all recolours, which would be good enough)[/QUOTE] Yeah totally, they probably made the whole game in a day, too.

The thing about adding content is that it might completely change the game, which some people do not want.

[QUOTE=E-102 Gamma;39258559]If you can kill off the flagship's crew in the first phase, you can just send any two or four of your crew into the shield room and have them wreck it unperturbed. That's how I always dealt with the flagship's shields. The flagship follows a very mechanical pattern of cloaking for 15 seconds and then waiting the 20 seconds it takes for all cloaking systems to cool down before cloaking again. It keeps on doing this so long as its cloaking system isn't damaged or disabled. It's really just a normal level 3 cloaking system, just like the one you can use in most of the playable ships. I've found that, if you've got at least four crew that are of decent boarding races or are at least trained in combat, as well as a level 3 teleporter (or any level if it's a four-person teleporter), you can slowly kill off the crew without using any weapons. I outlined some ways to kill of the crew in these two posts: [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1212253&p=39009372&viewfull=1#post39009372"]Link 1[/URL] and [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1212253&p=39182615&viewfull=1#post39182615"]link 2[/URL]. If you end up with just one, two, or three humans left who refuse to let your boarders kill them, teleport your boarders into the shields room instead, break it completely, and then either have your crew start pounding their way through blast doors to get to the medbay or just teleport them out of the shields room, heal them up, and teleport them back into the medbay. Have them wreck the medbay, and then just sit there and wait for the remaining crew to fix the shields and come running to the medbay to fix it and fight the intruders and stuff. If you've got them outnumbered and/or out-gunned, they will fight to the death, since they don't have a working medbay to run away to. Crystal crew members make killing the crew way too easy, and bombs, anti-bio beams, and Mantises can help, but they otherwise aren't completely necessary. I really should write a strategy guide or something. I have so much to say about how to play this game. :v:[/QUOTE] Wooooohoooo! Thanks to your advice (kill the crew, leave only the guy in the laser weapon alive) and a little luck finding 2 average laser weapons for my mantis cruiser, I was able to kill the boss!! Actually, it hardly gave me any trouble once I'd concentrated on taking out its weapons first. My ship: Mantis A, "The Gila Monster". Yes, on my 48th try on EASY, I didn't bother naming my ship anymore. Weapons: Hull Laser 2 Burst Laser 2 Small Bomb Drone Bay: 1 Defense Drone 1 Other Systems: Teleporter 3 Medbay 3 Shields 4, running on 3-4 Evasion 6, running on 4-6 O2 1 Cloaking 1 Augments: Automated Re-loader Repair Arm Engi Med-Bod Dispersal Crew: 1 Zoltan: Shields 1 Mantis: Weapons 1 Human: Pilot 1 Engi: Engines 1 Crystal, 1 Mantis: Boarding Crew 1 2 Mantis: Boarding Crew 2 Score: 3753. (Best: 3932 with the Red-Tail/Kestrel B) I'd say it's imperative to kill the crew in the first stage if you haven't got an awe-inspiring array of weapons. Teleporter 3 is really useful during that stage to save your crew from getting killed during the cloaking phases. (I still lost the Crystal and 1 mantis). Once I'd taken out all their weapons save the green laser, I disabled the med-bay, fought them there and meanwhile did my best to kill their door-control. Once all the crew were dead, I went on to the shields. The second and 3rd stage were easy after that. 2nd stage, teleport into the drone room and destroy it while using the smart bomb and the lasers against the the rocket launcher. My defense drone shot down the boarding drones, and my cloak saved me from the first rocket volley. After that I had to survive only one more rocket volley before I'd taken out the launcher. 3rd stage was even easier..I just had to survive long enough to kill the Zoltan shield, which wasn't difficult with my laser weapons, and then disable the rocket launcher once again. [editline]20th January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=The Jack;39278697]Seriously though. How long would it take... To add new text options. Probably about a minute each. To add player controlled ships to the enemy pool To make new ships, Probably by literaly cutting parts of the sprites from the old ones and combining them. About two minutes each to add new weapons. probably about two minutes each. To add alternate skins for all the character (it does bother me that all my crew look the same) about a minute each. (assuming they are all recolours, which would be good enough)[/QUOTE] Wow, you'd not only code, but also skin and BALANCE a new weapon in a matter of 2 minutes? Has Chris Roberts called you yet to get you to work on Star Citizen?

Got this on the christmas sale, probs the best game out the bunch. Just unlocked the crystal cruiser on my Zoltan cruisers maiden voyage. Only thing I think would be a nice addition would be an augment for boarding. Almost all systems except doors have an aug, so why not boarding. I think it's much riskier than just shooting away with preigniter/reload. Especially without mantises or rockmen to spare. Something like pressure suits or demolitions. Or Tactical Dreadnought Armour coughcough [IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6a/Space_hulk_box.jpg/300px-Space_hulk_box.jpg[/IMG]

so I got a bit of inspiration to do some modding today [t]http://puu.sh/1Q56u[/t] making my ebon hawk mod more complete, if I can figure out how to use this without overwriting the stock repair drone it'll be sweet

The second stage of the boss always fucks me over. It's the drones.

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;39288930]The second stage of the boss always fucks me over. It's the drones.[/QUOTE] Level one cloak is your friend.