FTL: Faster Than Light - Advanced Edition

[Jaedar]

TIL you will still lose the game when all your crew dies even if you have a clone bay. Thanks, game.

Afaik no. At least I am pretty sure I've had my entire crew dead but ressurecting. Are you sure your clonebay was on?

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Hm, I suppose it's possible I thought it was powered when it was not, however. Game (and some silly mistakes on me revisiting it) has made me rage a bit today.

 

[Hellraiser]

Had a very good run with the Kestrel on normal. Chain vulcan and flak plus the starting weapons. 6 crew members, 6 in shields and 5 in engines plus a teleporter by the start of sector 6. Got assraped by a rebel ship which boarded me, hacked my doors and sent the ion boarding drone in addition to pounding me with flaks, lasers and missiles. Just as I almost killed the boarding party and the fucking drone my barely alive crew members get murdered by their flak. Seriously ion boarding drone+boarding party is just plain silly, he'll stun your crew while their dudes just kill your dudes. Unless he also stuns his own guys. Fires raged across the whole, oxygen is down, engines are damaged, weapons are damaged and my shields went down. TBH I could have survived that if I just fired flak+burst+missiles at them instead of vulcan plus flak.

Worst part of that run was that I got the Zoltan Cruiser event but picked the wrong option. I knew it was that event but that option sounded more diplomatic. Then again it kind of was guilt-tripping the other side and I guess that's poor diplomacy.

Still better then the time I lost 4 out of six crewmembers because I got boarded by 4 zoltan in the engine room and forgot their weak asses explode when they die. Fear the zoltan suicide bombers bros.

 

[Black]

Hm, I suppose it's possible I thought it was powered when it was not, however. Game (and some silly mistakes on me revisiting it) has made me rage a bit today.

That's how it works with enemy ships, if you board and kill all their crew you won't win if they have functioning cloning.

 

[Renegen]

Won the game on Hard with my trusty Stealth Cruiser A, almost breaking 6000 points. If you can believe it it was even my first hard run ever... man I love that ship.

Hacking (and Mind Control) are just OP. As you can see, there's nothing to write home about, my equipment is pretty crap. I was incredibly unlucky with the stores, both the Heavy Laser II and the Ion Bomb were found in ship battles. For the first 3 sectors of the game, I was traveling with my puny dual laser and small beam having to kill 2 shield enemies. I think I got Mind Control on sector 6, if you mind control the captain, the dodge rate goes to 0 and so even with shitty lasers you can reliably pierce through them. Then I got Hacking by the end of sector 7, just bad luck overall. Most of the time I had nothing to do with my scrap than just upgrade shields, I didn't even find Zoltans either. By the end battle I had 400 scrap and nothing to spend it on so I upgraded weapons to 8 even though I only need 5.

The Stealth Ship has what I consider 2 of the most OP things in the game, and they do really well in hard too. Long-Ranged Scanner is by far the best augmentation, with it you will kick the RNG in the gut and get the maximum scrap income every single game, very important on the higher difficulties. When I see it in stores early on I do anything to buy it, and my high scores are all runs with that augmentation. Cloaking was always considered good, but I was amazed at how many battles I would survive with barely any scratches just because of my cloak and dodge rate. Having cloaking is great for the end game of course and it also beats having to fly around with 150 scrap unspent hoping to get a good store. Ships on Hard seem to have much earlier shields, more weapons and are more often AI, in a way this benefits ships that have high dodge and rely less on attrition. The Stealth Ship A has the best engines with a 30% dodge rate right off the bat and on top it has Titanium Casing, making it pretty hard to hit.

I remember the old days when the Stealth Cruiser A was classified as D tier, I always had my highest score and a rare normal victory on it but I never considered it that good. Hell, I'd put it at A or S tier now.

 

[Hellraiser]

Finally reached the damn flagship in advanced edition on normal.

Got mind control in sector 2 or 3. Mind control is the new teleporter, it's simply so much better. Always mind control a mantis, with a level 3 mind controller it is guaranteed he'll kill one or two dolts and the nearest ship system.

Also had a life sign detection augment so I farmed the shit out of 3 nebula sectors. Your worst enemies are all-slug crews and zoltan super shields, everything else is a cakewalk. Either MC the pilot or the weapons guy, blast everything at their shields pretty much crippling them as the AI will just swarm to the damaged shield gen ignoring the MC'd guy or sending their crew one by one for him to murder.

Sadly I got blown up on the second form because I made the dumb choice of mind controlling a weapons dude first instead of a shield guy. Well that and the damn drones blew up my hacking watchamacall-it preventing me from hack-draining the flagship's shields which made the first form a cakewalk. And in a bout of temporary idiocy I totally did not attempt to use a missile as decoy when sending the hacking thing.

Nearly 5k score. You weren't kidding about that long range scanner being useful as fuck, sure as hell pays for itself much better than the 10% more scrap augment.

Also played with the Vortex (Engi B layout) a bit.

This thing is either a deathtrap or the RNG is fucking me over because getting out of the first sector alive is hard. Main problem is that you have no crew to man the engine and the damn thing is only level 1 making your dodging shit. Also the starting laser sucks.

Best I managed to do was get to sector 4 or 5 with it. Had the starting weapons plus a swarm missile launcher. I was struggling with scrap and repairs.

 

[Renegen]

Nearly 5k score. You weren't kidding about that long range scanner being useful as fuck, sure as hell pays for itself much better than the 10% more scrap augment.

It even pays for itself through blue events, it's really awesome.

The Engi B got slightly buffed by the expansion thanks to the new stuff so it's no longer the worst ship anymore but man what a bad ship it is. Even its main weapons are really bad because the Heavy Ion has too long of a cooldown to reliably bring down 2 shield enemies. You really depend on finding crew members or weapons to even survive early.

 

[Shadenuat]

Engi B is a death trap and the only way to ride is to completely re-equip it; I got fast ion gun and 2 heavy lasers, also hacking and cloak, then waited to buy GOOD drones.
...of course I never found any shops with drones after.

But the ship I opened up on my Engi B run looks a lot more promising as a Shodan-paradise:

Spoiler

With that sort of augmentation and in-built devices it can become many things I believe, a missile ship, or drones one or some sort of a hybrid...

 

[RedScum]

Defense scrambler is great if you're going with missiles, pissing all over those pesky flagship defence drones.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Starting with hacking and clone bay too, with a lanius crewmember, that is an excellent ship. Just get teleporters and you can clear pretty much anything out with a combination of hacking and a lanius to kill the oxygen in the room. (Make sure to fiddle with the doors by deactivating the hacking drone to let them in, and then turn it on when they try to leave the airless room to go heal.)

Hell, high level hacking alone can suffocate a ship given enough time, and with drones and shields you can be effectively invincible in a lot of fights.

 

[Renegen]

I don't think you can get hacking, drones, teleport and cloacking but yeah.

 

[Black]

About ~5 successful games so far, more unsuccessful and still haven't found this new gatling laser or whatever, fuck my life.

 

[Ashery]

Main problem is that you have no crew to man the engine and the damn thing is only level 1 making your dodging shit. Also the starting laser sucks.

Early game? Man weapons, not the bridge, and upgrade shields as soon as possible.

The Engi-B is actually a really strong ship once you buy another ion weapon.

 

[agris]

Does anyone have first-hand experience with FTL mods? I'm looking for a >7 sector experience without the rebels pursuing (and disabled scaling is a bonus). I've found the Infinite Space 2 and Captain's Edition mods. If any of you have played them, what's the gameplay / balance / stability like?

 

[Renegen]

Captain's Edition is great, it's the exact same game but with new content and depth to existing mechanics and each race plays more uniquely, I liked that they buffed my Slugs too. But it tends to crash and you lose all of your progress, happens quite often.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i had crashes but the game autosaves every time you jump out of a system. almost no progress lost.

 

[Regvard]

What happens when all your crew is dead, you have a backup DNA augment and your clone bay is broken?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

to be cloned crew members slowly can't be resurrected anymore one after another.

 

[Black]

What the fuck is the deal with Stealth C? No shields, no sensors, no outstanding systems and NO STEALTH.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Also played with the Vortex (Engi B layout) a bit.

This thing is either a deathtrap or the RNG is fucking me over because getting out of the first sector alive is hard. Main problem is that you have no crew to man the engine and the damn thing is only level 1 making your dodging shit. Also the starting laser sucks.

Best I managed to do was get to sector 4 or 5 with it. Had the starting weapons plus a swarm missile launcher. I was struggling with scrap and repairs.

Playing with it myself now, funny enough I bought missing sensors in sector 1 already. Picking up extra crew here and there, ditched most drones, and upgraded shields. Having 1 crew has the advantage that you can open all airlocks. Still looking for better weapon combo.

Will post screenshot when (if?) I reach sector 8.

 

[Jaedar]

What the fuck is the deal with Stealth C? No shields, no sensors, no outstanding systems and NO STEALTH.

They wanted to make a ship even worse than EngiB

 

[DwarvenFood]

Engi B / Vortex, start of sector 5. Having some trouble now, cannot defeat shis with 2 shields, ion charges too slow... praying to RNG gods.

 

[Hellraiser]

You need a good 3rd weapon by sector five on that shit or a basic combat drone. I don't ever get level 6 shields until sector 6 or 7, all that scrap is better spent on engine upgrades, a proper weapon or a module like mind control/hacking/teleport. All of them give way better returns than one extra bubble of shield on any ship.

Upgrading shields to a third bubble too early was my biggest mistake when I started playing the game. Two bubbles are enough for a very long time on normal because 90% of the time what fucks you over the most are not enemy beams and lasers but missiles, bombs, flaks or boarding parties. If you face two or more of those at the same time you are particularly fucked. Beams and lasers merely finish you off after those tastefully rape your ship systems and crew.

Overall you get better survivability from engines level 4/5 and 2 shield bubbles. Because engines help you dodge everything which also lessens the burden on your shields and engines have no downtime unlike shields. At the same time you dodge a lot of the inane shit that shields don't stop like missiles, bombs and flaks to a lesser degree. This is why the Vortex is so bloody awful, it starts with level 1 engines and you lack crew to man them giving you the worst starting evasion in the game IIRC.

I also prioritize getting a weapon over more shields because fuck ups start when you can't end a fight soon enough. Sure, you may get shields which stop all beams and dodge most missiles. But the enemy never runs out of missiles AFAIK, you can't repair hull damage and sometimes one lucky missile can turn an entire fight around. If you end up in a fight where the only way you can deal 1 damage to the enemy is to have every shot hit you're fucked, you need a margin to cover all those missed shots, you need overkill. Because after the first 2-3 sectors their pilots will get better, their engines and engineers will get better and they will dodge 30-50% of your shit making fights last longer and if the enemy has more than just beams attrition will get you or he makes a lucky shot with a fire or breach in your weapons or shield room.

In other news the Flak II is by far the best fucking weapon in the game. One decent shot and four shield bubbles go poof and you may even damage the hull or a system as a bonus, for three power. Better than all the ion weapons I would say. Yes, it charges long but holy fuck this thing has zero weaknesses. It shreds shields, hull and causes widespread damage almost as good as a beam weapon. Even if it collides with a drone it still will do its job. There's just no reason not to have it powered up and firing all the fucking time, unlike a halberd beam or similar.

 

[Black]

Just unlocked Slug C, which was a bitch to do because B is quite bad, but starting with mind raping and hacking seems pretty cool.
FTL AE for RPG of 2014.

 

[Ashery]

This is why the Vortex is so bloody awful, it starts with level 1 engines and you lack crew to man them giving you the worst starting evasion in the game IIRC.

Really cheap to upgrade and, honestly, you're better off manning weapons over the bridge, so that low initial evasion doesn't mean much.

But the enemy never runs out of missiles AFAIK...

They can, although I'm pretty sure the flagship has infinitely many.

Better than all the ion weapons I would say.

Not really. It might be able to pierce heavily shielded ships more cheaply, but ions keep their shields down while the flak just creates a short lived tunnel; ions allow you to fire weapons as soon as their ready instead of waiting for the weapon that reloads the slowest.