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FTL: Advanced Edition |OT|: Now on iPad (and free update on PC!)
- Thread starter chickdigger802
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Weltall Zero
Member
The Mantis ship may be the hardest ship in the game to play, at least from the A layouts. I would advice waiting until you're really comfortable with boarding before making serious attempts with it.
Otherwise, you need to pick your targets very well. Boarding, and particularly boarding as a primary strategy (as opposed to complementing weapons), is especially effective against ships with fewer crew from the weaker races; ships with rockmen and mantises are bad news. Well, and just to go over the obvious, automated ships or ships with a medbay are a no-go; jump out as soon as possible.
The game will be quite tough until you get decent armament. It's a ship best played cautiously early on, not hesitating to jump away if the odds are against you. The good news is that victory by boarding nets you more resources so it should more or less even out. Once you get enough crew to man all stations aside from your boarders, and enough weapons to incapacitate ships (or even destroy them if they can't be boarded safely), things will be much easier.
The Federation Ship can't install a stealth system, to compensate for its artillery beam. Not sure if this is still the case in the advanced edition, which seems to follow a more free-form approach to module installation. In any case, it's one of the strongest ships even without it. The artillery beam is mediocre at level 1, but at max level (minimum cooldown) it's just murder. It bypasses shields, in case you hadn't realized, which means you can comfortably destroy ANY ship in the game, including the flagship, simply by sitting tight and resisting while you slice and dice it to pieces.
imo
the very first thing you need to do is upgrade your teleporter. not that many ships in the first 3 sectors have medbays so if you are able to beam guys back and heal them in a timely manner then you can simply wear enemy crews out until your mantis bros are leveled. (you get substantially more scrap when you don't outright destroy a ship so the more efficient you become at hollowing ships out the better. more scrap early on allows you to steamroll too). don't let runs get you down though. mantis A is a very, very hard ship to get going with.
Yeah, once you get rid of 3/4 of the weapons it gets to the point where it can't damage you at all, letting you slowly but surely make progress on the rest. Hacked the medbay and had some fun with the rest.
Though I'm not sure of the specifics with that. It started to not lock both doors and they could walk out the top, though usually one would try to get out through the bottom exit and have to shoot the door down, meaning he was toast. Have to mess with it more. Actually, on that note, has anyone beamed in a crew in a medbay then hacked it? Does that hurt you too?
Weltall Zero
Member
Oh yeah, definitely agreed on the bit about upgrading the teleporter; I never use it unless it's at least 2, otherwise it's almost suicide for the boarding guys. 3 is best, as you can pull them out, heal them, and port them back in almost immediately.
Yeah, I noticed that too. It's possible that it can't lock down a door when someone is passing through it. It might even be a bug.
Yes indeed, that's exactly how I emptied the flagship on the screenshot above. And indeed, it doesn't hurt you at all (makes sense; it doesn't heal you normally). I ported my boarding party straight to their medbay, waited until a few of their crew were there, then activated the hacking drone. They didn't last long.
(Bonus points: after killing all of the crew in the medbay, my crew destroyed it. I teleported them back, then the remaining enemy crew got into the medbay to repair it. The second they took it from red to orange, I activated the hack again and killed them. This game makes you do evil, evil things).
Hydranockz
Member
Any tips for getting Stealth B? The basic ship is absolute chore to operate!
You need a good start. Shields ASAP, and also see if you can trade the Glaive Beam for a pair of 2-power weapons, or something like that (1-1-2/1 works too, 4 power is enough for quite long in the game so don't bother upgrading the weapon system anytime soon).
Before that, combat is simple, wait till enemy shoots, wait a bit more for projectile travel, cloak to evade (make sure it has 2 power, medbay is not relevant during battles), shoot the beam so that it starts from shield generator and hits as many rooms as possible (sometimes prioritizing hitting merely max number of rooms is better though). It kills almost all early ships with one beam, and slightly stronger ones too if you take out the shield generator before the beam hits another room. Your weapon gets hit, just restart (if early/first sector).
Also make sure to upgrade engines too, extra dodge and FTL charge are lifesavers.
And hope you're lucky.
Later on... not sure. I used brute force (weapons and defenses mostly) to fight my way through the sectors till 8, where i died (i just wanted Stealth C, didn't really care about winning with B).
Weltall Zero
Member
Pump all your scrap into engines. A lot of people use stealth to evade enemy fire, but I like using it as soon as the battle starts to give me an extra alpha strike; with decent weapons you can take out the enemy weapons before they can fire a shot. I actually find it one of the better ships.
He meant using the Stealth A (to get the Stealth B). I haven't tried the Stealth B yet, but, why would you ever want to sell the Glaive? It's one of the best weapons in the game and particularly perfect for a stealth ship.
Yes indeed, that's exactly how I emptied the flagship on the screenshot above. And indeed, it doesn't hurt you at all (makes sense; it doesn't heal you normally). I ported my boarding party straight to their medbay, waited until a few of their crew were there, then activated the hacking drone. They didn't last long.
(Bonus points: after killing all of the crew in the medbay, my crew destroyed it. I teleported them back, then the remaining enemy crew got into the medbay to repair it. The second they took it from red to orange, I activated the hack again and killed them. This game makes you do evil, evil things).
Haha, for sure.
Just had a pretty insane run on the B layout of the Mantis ship. You only start with 2 people despite having a 4 man teleporter, but by the third zone I had an entire ship full of people. 4 mantis, 2 zoltan, 2 engi...on one of the ships I disabled the ship piece by piece, except for the clone bay. No oxygen mixed with no shields or weapons meant they kept spawning in new people to make a mad dash to the oxygen before dying. I sat there for awhile just laughing before pelting the clone bay and stopping that.
Duh. Missed "getting". I read too fast.
The Glaive is powerful but its drawbacks make it a weak weapon. Long reload, even with that reload augment (Weapon Pre-Igniter is another matter of course), requires a lot power, is weak against shields.
The Vulcan Chain Laser, Burst Laser MkIII are definitively superior, and i prefer, with the ships 3 weapon slots, something like 2-3-3 when it comes to power use in late game.
I guess one could combine the Glaive with missiles or bombs but getting them requires weapon power upgrades, so it ain't viable early on really.
Weltall Zero
Member
You don't need any other weapon early on. The glaive does 3 damage; most ships in the first couple of sectors have one shield; that means you can still do 2 damage per room it traces. Better yet, if you start tracing the shield station, it will most likely go down, doing full damage to all the other rooms.
Its long recharge time is offset by the stealth system itself; better yet, you can fire it even when stealthed, as it's a beam weapon and doesn't drop stealth. All in all, I can't think of a better weapon for a stealth cruiser!
TaroYamada
Member
Can anybody confirm whether it now functions correctly on Windows 8 tablets?
Or better yet, a Defense Scrambler augmentation.
I recal reading They want to have it optimised for windows touch screens later on
Ken Masters
Banned
All I read is how difficult this game is, pretty much stopped me from buying this gabe when I initially was really interested
Is fun and awesome on easy. . and still not that easy
The One Who Knocks
Member
I don't usually post about the progress of runs, as generally I'm pretty terrible at this game, but I am extremely pleased with my progress thus far and I really need some advice from somebody more skilled than I about what direction I need to take my ship. My current stats are:
and I'm at a shop with these:
I've never finished the game, yet I'm in Sector 5 right now and this run is far better than my previous run to reach this area (I had a Kestral A run to reach the first phase of the final boss, and I destroyed this phase, but the second phase almost instantly destroyed me) so I would really appreciate any advice on what I should be aiming for/doing. I also have four crew members, two Engi (engine and weapon systems), a human (the pilot), and a Mantis (Shield system).
EDIT: Oh and my previous run that progressed so far on easy so this is quite a significant jump and I'd rather not squander it by being unprepared for the final boss.
and I'm at a shop with these:
I've never finished the game, yet I'm in Sector 5 right now and this run is far better than my previous run to reach this area (I had a Kestral A run to reach the first phase of the final boss, and I destroyed this phase, but the second phase almost instantly destroyed me) so I would really appreciate any advice on what I should be aiming for/doing. I also have four crew members, two Engi (engine and weapon systems), a human (the pilot), and a Mantis (Shield system).
EDIT: Oh and my previous run that progressed so far on easy so this is quite a significant jump and I'd rather not squander it by being unprepared for the final boss.
You don't need to power all your systems at all time. For example, the MedBay only needs energy when you actively need to heal someone and similarly with the Mind Control, only feed it energy if you can utilize it well. (You can use it to counter an enemy's Mind Control, too, but one power if sufficient for that, for example).
Usually its ok to take a few points out of the engines (or oxygen if you remember to power it again) to fill gaps in other systems.
Juggling a bit of power between systems and needs can save you quite a bit of scrap that you'd otherwise be spending on the reactor, in your example you could have 60-85 scrap more on hand for the cost of a bit more micromanaging.
As for your direction, your offense is pretty slow, so you should (imo) either invest in heavy defense (Shield strength of 3 + atleast 40% dodge through engines for now, potentially max them out till the end, a Defense Drone if you can find one would be useful, too) or try to find stronger weaponry. (Other than drones)
Hacking is a pretty cool system for your ship, too, but together with the drones you have you'll be running low on drone parts fast I fear. Stealth is awesome but doesn't go that well with a fast firing Ion Blast and the other systems and augments in that shop I don't think are good choices for you right now.
I'd save scrap for another weapon. Hacking is awesome, but that might make you too reliant on using multiple drone parts per fight. So I'd save until I found a good 3 shot weapon...a bomb would also be a pretty good option right now. Could help get shield down once they get to 3 levels, and tend to be pretty cheap.
EDIT: I always buy the defense scrambler if I have a chance. Makes a huge difference later on, especially for the final fight.
Hmm, good question...my gut tells me that it would reclaim a hacking drone if you kill their crew or accept a surrender, but not if you destroy the ship, but I'd need confirmation on that...
I concur.
Hacking is indeed awesome, even more so with cloaking (to ignite the weapons).
All it requires is to hack the enemies shield system and wait out until weapons recharges under cloak, then time the hacking followed with a barrage of projectiles.
stump sock
Member
I sincerely think the most unbalanced thing in this game is the "intruders" event you get when you warp into certain beacons. I've had more ship wipes due to them just spawning on my door or camera systems and blowing them up before I can even properly react. Even worse is that this event happens even if you have Zoltan shields.
Haunted
Member
Coming back to the discussion we had earlier about the boss battle dominating strategy during the run too much - Mind Control + Hacking is a really fun combination that takes you through most of the game easily... but I won't take it, because I need one spot for the crew teleporter, which I consider almost a must-have against the flagship.
- Pause
- Open all doors (close medbay doors)
- Send your crew into medbay
- shut off O²
- Unpause
- Watch them suffocate while you rub your hands together gleefully like a maniac
Ken Masters
Banned
So there are difficulty modes, good to know
Edit: and I read even the easy mode is hard as hell, lol
Certain beams will go through shields depending on how much damage they naturally do. Artillery Beam gives no fucks about shields at all. I think the Glaive and Halberd can go through 1 shield level or so but I'd have to check. Fire and Anti-Bio beams need shields to be down in order to do damage though.
Yeah, Halberd can do damage through one shield, Glaive can do damage through 2 shields. Take the damage per room (2 for halberd, 3 for Glaive), and subtract the number of shield bubbles they have up, and you get the amount of damage you'll actually do per room.
Good idea to always start your beam on or close to the shields, so that if it takes a level off you'll do more damage for the rest of the beam.
Weltall Zero
Member
It was your weapon or the enemy's? Are you sure it wasn't a Heavy Pierce laser? It might have been a bug.
You need to get another weapon ASAP or you'll soon run out of drones. Other than that I would improve defenses (shield and evade).
Seriously, those events are nothing. Even without door control, with no battles going on, you can simply send everyone to fight the enemies and cycle them through your medbay.
Well, that strategy wouldn't work if he had no door control. Also, if they hit the O2 generator, I would make a priority securing and repairing it, otherwise you may well end up in a no-win condition if the entire ship is without oxygen, including the medbay, and you can't leave it for long enough to repair the O2 system.
He shouldn't be jumping into beacons with no door control....If you follow the steps posted, it will work. O2 will run out of the O2 room before they can take them down (except in very rare situations), which means intruders will run. Eventually meeting you in the med bay. There are quicker ways to do it, but the way mentioned will definitely work unless they've hacked your door control, or he jumped into the fight with doors out.
Also really helpful to send a crew member just to man the doors to give them extra strength. So if you have more crew than med bay spaces, that's a good system to cycle crew between.
not psycho
Member
Nooooo. Made it to the boss on hard, and he hacked my shields. A lot of people have been saying hacking is too random there, and I agree. Because of the way the boss works with
, plenty of crew, and cloaking on top of it just in case the already very fast repair wasn't enough, the choice of hacking is too big. Even if you did disable the hacking controls, it wouldn't really do anything, because they'd repair it while cloaked and still use it on schedule. So the difference between getting lucky and having sensors or oxygen hacked, or getting unlucky and having weapons or shields hacked, is monstrous. It's not fun watching the hacking drone fly towards your ship to choose a random target, because you know it is such an overwhelmingly important part of the battle and you can't do anything about it.
There wasn't much to do but slug it out, and I got to the 2nd stage, but was too damaged to survive.
almost everything connected
There wasn't much to do but slug it out, and I got to the 2nd stage, but was too damaged to survive.
Pinko Marx
Banned
Proptip for that, if you attack the enemy ship's oxygen, they'll usually call back boarders to fix it. As a matter of fact, O2 is one of the things I shoot for first anyway.
If they hack something integral you can't deal with, jump away. Engines should be high enough so that it's not a big deal. If you want to play it safe, just hacking their hacking puts things back on an even playing field.
Single most painful thing in existence = watching someone else play.
I'm currently watching a let's play where the guy is quite good but constantly powers down his engines and moans about not dodging any shots, always buys a teleporter even when his crew consists of only two engys and lives in a constant state of forgetting to re-power disabled systems.
'I don't understand why I haven't done any damage to the other ship in the last half hour... There shields must be regening too fast'.
NO! Your weapons were ion'd in the first round and haven't fired since as all the power is sat in the power bar waiting for you to notice a giant fucking green column of spare energy.
AAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!
I need a cup of tea.
I'm currently watching a let's play where the guy is quite good but constantly powers down his engines and moans about not dodging any shots, always buys a teleporter even when his crew consists of only two engys and lives in a constant state of forgetting to re-power disabled systems.
'I don't understand why I haven't done any damage to the other ship in the last half hour... There shields must be regening too fast'.
NO! Your weapons were ion'd in the first round and haven't fired since as all the power is sat in the power bar waiting for you to notice a giant fucking green column of spare energy.
AAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!
I need a cup of tea.
Weltall Zero
Member
Not only that; hacking their hacking tends to destroy their hacking drone, forcing them to redeploy. You can keep doing this until it hits a system you don't need, then stop counterhacking altogether.
Further, I assume deploying a defense drone right as the battle starts would counter their hacking drone, right? That's two systems that can counter the flagship's hacking, not counting jumping away, focusing fire on it, etc. To add to that, the most efficient strategy against the flagship is boarding to disable three of its guns, no weapons needed until that point. I'd say hacking is balanced enough, it's just that we're so used to fighting the flagship without it.
That description seriously doesn't match my definition of "quite good".
That description seriously doesn't match my definition of "quite good".
Compared to most let's players I have seen he's normally on top of most things, I have seen some who haven't realised that you can pause the game or those who just leave there variety of weapons on auto fire and hate beams as they 'must be bugged as they do nothing'.
There was one guy who had somehow unlocked every version of every ship yet wasn't aware that you had to buy extra power to fuel those ship upgrades, he flew under the steadfast belief he had double shields even though the top two slots were never powered.
It's a love hate relationship as they do make me feel much better about my continued failed efforts in getting past the new flagship. Also helps my ego get passed that I have probably done the exact same mistakes and was never aware as no-one could comment on them!
Weltall Zero
Member
Heh. Well, the fact that the average LPer is terrible still doesn't make this particular one good. The one you mentioned that unlocked everything was most likely using a borrowed savegame.
Speaking of savegames, mine is starting to look good:
I need alternative weapons soon enough. And if you get hit, not impossible even with cloak on, and get hit on the weapon, you're fucked. The weapon is way too risky.
And hitting the shield generator is what i do, but sometimes it is not enough, if the enemy has upgraded shields, one beam might not damage the shields enough.
not psycho
Member
I just played again, this time getting hacking... but the same thing happened. They randomly hacked my shields again, and even though I hacked their hacking it still killed most of my life.
I think what happened is that if you don't match the exact level they have, your cool off periods won't line up, and they'll still get you. I was hoping it would destroy their hacking drone or something, that seems fair. Unfortunately no.
Also, hacking their hacking doesn't unlock the doors except when you actually activate it so it doesn't even fully counter it if you had exactly matched levels.
Either way, it isn't an even playing field. Regardless of what setup you have, the coin flip of which system they choose is the most important factor in the battle, and you have no control over it.
Maybe the level matters, but it didn't destroy their drone for me.
I've had defense drones up on lower difficulties and it got past.
The rest of your strategy doesn't work on hard since
some of the weapons are connected to the ship
Obviously it's possible, I just don't like that the biggest turning point in the fight is one momentous coin toss at the beginning.
Oh yeah, if you get hacking or mind control make sure to get 3rd level. cloak you can make good things happen on 1 level, depending on your build...getting 3 and using it as a preigniter is nice, but yeah, if you only have 1 level on hacking or mind control they'll still mess ya up!
EDIT: And yeah, defense 2 SHOULD do a good job of keeping hacking off, but the flagship can spam it (not sure what the limit is, but i've seen them send 4 at a rate of 1 per second until they managed to slip one by (which can happen, but is maybe only a 25% chance.
Once you get used to the game, sadly no, its not that hard at all. There is a little RNG going on that may keep you from the final boss, but it really is quite easy. You still need to use strategy, so again you need to get used to it. Its almost just relaxing on easy. Very enjoyable.
I STILL HAVEN'T BEATEN IT ON NORMAL FUCK. WENT AS FAR AS I EVER HAD WITH THE FEDERATION CRUISER THINGIE
The One Who Knocks
Member
Thanks to you and the others who replied. I went for the defense scrambler, upgraded shields, and upgraded dodge while hoarding the rest for another weapon. Unfortunately I ended up seventeen scrap pieces short of the Glaive beam at the final shop and despite having high defense and evade, I was absolutely slaughtered by the first stage of the final boss. I couldn't strip the shields fast enough to allow the fire drone to (drones were never actually an issue though on the run thankfully, ended up with twenty-four at the final boss; finishing every battle by burning the enemies' systems helped) before it ended up cloaking, recharging everything, and slaughtering me. Thanks for the assistance, but I think I'll have to go back to easy or find another approach.
Yeah, I actually dislike how much I rely on the teleporter. Even if my crew isn't really made for boarding I will always get one to disable the weapons, otherwise the shield + dodge rate is usually too much for me to try and deal with along with those damn triple rockets.
Might need to try hacking the shield(...or engine) one of these times and see how it goes. It's just too damn useful on all the stages otherwise.
Oooh, yeah you should've sold a drone, augment, or SOMETHING to make that glaive beam work if you could've swung the necessary weapon system upgrades. Sounds like you're getting really close though, so I don't think going back down is necessary. You're expected to get torn to shreds by the flagship the first couple times...you'll learn to half plan your run for the flagship.