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FTL: Advanced Edition |OT|: Now on iPad (and free update on PC!)

Jinfash

needs 2 extra inches
Still messing around with the Federation Cruiser A, and while I'm finally getting the hang of it, I never felt more helpless against missiles as I do with this. Defense drones suddenly feel like a must.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Watching lethalfrag do no pause hard mode runs is so cool. He's so quick to react immediately to what the enemy is capable of, which makes me appreciate the game on another level.
 

Velcro Fly

Member
Watching lethalfrag do no pause hard mode runs is so cool. He's so quick to react immediately to what the enemy is capable of, which makes me appreciate the game on another level.

The ridiculous Mantis ship runs he's had the past few days have been awesome. He goes 7 sectors finding pretty much no weapons on the Mantis C and then gets an Ion Bomb and a Breach Bomb to pretty much dunk the flagship.

It's really fun how you can counter things the flagship does with many different things. The game feels hard but fair. He had a brain fart to not pick up hacking but picked up cloaking and it ended up working out well when his piloting got hacked he could at least cloak to have some evasion.

I may end up buying the game just to wuss out and play on easy. It's fun to watch that is for sure. My sleep has been fucked 5 nights a week watching Frag play. I'm just glad he's not a huge douche or unbearable or anything so I can at least listen to him while I do other things.
 

Proven

Member
The ridiculous Mantis ship runs he's had the past few days have been awesome. He goes 7 sectors finding pretty much no weapons on the Mantis C and then gets an Ion Bomb and a Breach Bomb to pretty much dunk the flagship.

It's really fun how you can counter things the flagship does with many different things. The game feels hard but fair. He had a brain fart to not pick up hacking but picked up cloaking and it ended up working out well when his piloting got hacked he could at least cloak to have some evasion.

I may end up buying the game just to wuss out and play on easy. It's fun to watch that is for sure. My sleep has been fucked 5 nights a week watching Frag play. I'm just glad he's not a huge douche or unbearable or anything so I can at least listen to him while I do other things.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. And I only watch a few hours a night.
 
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.

How does that differ from any other weapon? :) If you're afraid of that you can always upgrade the weapon system to provide some buffer.

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.

Well, you still have three (two) other weapon slots, by the time you reach there you should have at least another weapon. But I would still base my strategy around the beam.

Maybe the level matters, but it didn't destroy their drone for me.

I think it's random, it didn't happen every time for me, to the point that at first I didn't realize that was what was happening, and thought the flagship was simply targetting different rooms for the hell of it.

The rest of your strategy doesn't work on hard since
some of the weapons are connected to the ship
. They repair everything very fast (especially taking cloaking into account), the first time I disabled it but it would always come right back.

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.

Yikes. I still haven't played on Hard, so I didn't know. That, uh... changes a lot of the boss strategy.

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!

I believed when you counter-mind-control your own crew, it dispelled the mind control for good? I have to check that out too.

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.

Weird, so the hacking drone counts as a normal shot. I wonder if it's an unintended bug or a balance check to not make defense drones overpowered / hacking underpowered.

I may end up buying the game just to wuss out and play on easy. It's fun to watch that is for sure. My sleep has been fucked 5 nights a week watching Frag play. I'm just glad he's not a huge douche or unbearable or anything so I can at least listen to him while I do other things.

You lost sleep watching streams of the game and you don't even own it yet? What are you waiting for? :D
(it's an amazing game and I would contend it's much more fun to play than to watch. Also, don't feel bad for playing on Easy, I still do it for getting some achievements).
 

demidar

Member
Hacking drones get shot down by Mk 1 Defense Drones as well I think, but they probably don't fire as fast. Level 1 mind control is good enough to dispel enemy mind control, any higher is a waste of power unless you're planning on using mind control offensively.
 
Hacking drones get shot down by Mk 1 Defense Drones as well I think, but they probably don't fire as fast. Level 1 mind control is good enough to dispel enemy mind control, any higher is a waste of power unless you're planning on using mind control offensively.

I have to admit that I really love Mind Control. One of the greatest benefits, I find is that it allows you to immediately remove the enemies' evasion to secure some guaranteed early blows by hacking the pilot, in addition to serving as an offensive element by causing them to damage crew members. It also serves two primary defensive mechanisms, dispelling enemy Mind Control is certainly one benefit, but it can be used, in my experience, to great effect by using it against enemy boarding parties, particularly if paired with blast doors, as it allows you to keep all of your crew at their stations and using the boarding party to distract the boarding party until they can be teleported back to the ship. In saying all this, it certainly isn't nearly as powerful as Hacking is..
 

demidar

Member
I have to admit that I really love Mind Control. One of the greatest benefits, I find is that it allows you to immediately remove the enemies' evasion to secure some guaranteed early blows by hacking the pilot, in addition to serving as an offensive element by causing them to damage crew members. It also serves two primary defensive mechanisms, dispelling enemy Mind Control is certainly one benefit, but it can be used, in my experience, to great effect by using it against enemy boarding parties, particularly if paired with blast doors, as it allows you to keep all of your crew at their stations and using the boarding party to distract the boarding party until they can be teleported back to the ship. In saying all this, it certainly isn't nearly as powerful as Hacking is..

I'd put Mind Control just above Hacking because it can deal some serious damage when used at the right time, and it doesn't require secondary resources like drones. A level 3 Mind Controlled enemy can take on like, 2 guys at once and win, more if it's a Mantis. A level 1 Mind Controlled enemy will be killed by his crewmembers, especially if he's in the pilot's seat so that's one less guy to deal with. If you damage the enemy's medbay, you can Mind Control the guy repairing it to take out other repairers and delay healing.

You can't go wrong with Mind Control.
 

Woorloog

Banned
How does that differ from any other weapon? :) If you're afraid of that you can always upgrade the weapon system to provide some buffer.
Upgrading weapons to rank 5 is expensive early on (money i'd rather save for augments and other stuff). Using 2-2 or 2-1-1 or even just 2-1 gives me redundancy and buffer both.
Yes, getting weapons is just about as expensive, but natural redundancy is better (and finishing enemy in single shot is not necessary, with multiple weapons i might get lucky and just kill the crew). Also, if i need buffer slots, i often end up needing two right away. That's my luck...
 
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!


I haven't tested it to make sure, but it seems like if they were using a lower level hacking than you, theirs would run out first, start the cooldown, and then be ready to use again sooner than yours. The only way to block them would be to match their level (high or low). Even matching them wouldn't unlock the doors during cooldowns.

Mind control doesn't last longer for higher levels, so you can block any level with any level (you will always be on the same schedule to use it).


I'd put Mind Control just above Hacking because it can deal some serious damage when used at the right time, and it doesn't require secondary resources like drones.


I think each system is better for certain parts of the game. A teleporter + mind control strategy is amazing early on (and it's the one I usually use), since you can use it as often as you want and it earns you extra scrap. When I had enough drones though I would love to switch mind control for hacking, and eventually I think I'd even take drones over teleporter.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Weapon Pre-igniter on Zoltan is fucking broke.

ibkYkUTCelXJDE.png


wow
such defense
many shields
very doge missiles
wow

#fuckmissiles
 

BigDug13

Member
This game is really hard. So I finally get to the flagship with the Engi ship for the second try. I whoop his ass and he runs. I whoop his ass in the next solar system and he runs. What's jacked is that he's fully healed up each time. Then in the 3rd area he finally kills me because unlike him, I don't get to heal to full every time I run. I guess I need to hit his engines but I have such a hard time even getting through his shields with my guns on autofire and I focused all attacks on shields. I switched to defensive drones to try to keep the missiles at bay which worked great. Then I'm getting boarded and fires and systems down, I can't keep track enough to even switch my targets as I'm putting out fires. I guess I need to pause more often. Damn!

Sucks to have it all gone and back to square one where maybe I'll get lucky and not get boarded by an army early like what happens at times.

Fun game, but damn!! Still have yet to beat the flagship on easy after 3 days. Maybe I suck.
 

CoolS

Member
This game is really hard. So I finally get to the flagship with the Engi ship for the second try. I whoop his ass and he runs. I whoop his ass in the next solar system and he runs. What's jacked is that he's fully healed up each time. Then in the 3rd area he finally kills me because unlike him, I don't get to heal to full every time I run. I guess I need to hit his engines but I have such a hard time even getting through his shields with my guns on autofire and I focused all attacks on shields. I switched to defensive drones to try to keep the missiles at bay which worked great. Then I'm getting boarded and fires and systems down, I can't keep track enough to even switch my targets as I'm putting out fires. I guess I need to pause more often. Damn!

Sucks to have it all gone and back to square one where maybe I'll get lucky and not get boarded by an army early like what happens at times.

Fun game, but damn!! Still have yet to beat the flagship on easy after 3 days. Maybe I suck.

Na dude, it took me ages till I first beat him, even on easy.

Another tip is not to use autofire. Use Pause A LOT and plan your weapon hits manually.
 

BigDug13

Member
Na dude, it took me ages till I first beat him, even on easy.

Another tip is not to use autofire. Use Pause A LOT and plan your weapon hits manually.

Yeah I realized my mistake after the second time he warped away. Man my ship was as upgraded as it had ever been. Hopefully it won't take too long to get there that loaded for bear again.
 

hepburn3d

Member
I used to get really annoyed at losing this game but once you win once every loss after that doesn't feel so tragic. If you resign yourself to chance, accept what ever fate throws at you and don't plan too far ahead then this game is ... [Ship Destroyed]
 

dalin80

Banned
Fun game, but damn!! Still have yet to beat the flagship on easy after 3 days. Maybe I suck.

On easy? Yeah, that's normally a 50/50 win lose game for me. Have beat the flagship on normal once with a standard ship. Hard mode is kicking my ass, can get to the final fight but it just devours my ship in seconds.

Pre-AE I could win the game on normal on 1/3 occasions perhaps 1/4 usually, post-AE that flagship just ruins you.
 

BigDug13

Member
I used to get really annoyed at losing this game but once you win once every loss after that doesn't feel so tragic. If you resign yourself to chance, accept what ever fate throws at you and don't plan too far ahead then this game is ... [Ship Destroyed]

Oh for sure. It's the fruit I have yet to taste so to be so close is just painful. Once I finally do it once, the pressure will be off. Part of it is also because the unlocks for the various A layout ships are tied to killing that flagship.
 

Drinkel

Member
I didn't realize how annoying hacking would be until the flagship hacked my weapons which resulted in neither of us being able to get through each others shields. With some teleport trickery I managed to get away from a stalemate but that was sheer luck.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
This game can go fuck itself. Seriously, RNG RNG RNG RNG RNG fuck you RNG.

Get to the fuck rebel boss at normal, better than I've ever been. Oh, hey asshole, damn you did pretty good that first round, hey how about I hit you with a missile bombardment before you can take that launcher out, and then as soon as I fuck up your systems with those, how about I teleport in

SIX fucking people. Oh, you mean you can't fend them off and keep your systems up so that you can continue trying to wipe out that missile launcher? Oh, what a shame. Remember, go fuck yourself.

SIGH
 

Log4Girlz

Member
So I'm on normal again. I'm pwning face. I get to the boss, get through both his first phases like a goddamn boss. I enter the third phase with full health. Before I can get rid of his zoltan shields (and I have 2, 3 shot lasers and two types of teleporting bombs) he gets a missile volley off and hits every system, and continues to hit every system with every volley. I literally can't do shit. From full health to zero with nothing I could do about it. Cheap. Just dumb and cheap. So pissed.
 

demidar

Member
So I'm on normal again. I'm pwning face. I get to the boss, get through both his first phases like a goddamn boss. I enter the third phase with full health. Before I can get rid of his zoltan shields (and I have 2, 3 shot lasers and two types of teleporting bombs) he gets a missile volley off and hits every system, and continues to hit every system with every volley. I literally can't do shit. From full health to zero with nothing I could do about it. Cheap. Just dumb and cheap. So pissed.

Get either a stealth system or pump upgrades into engines and shields.
 

CoolS

Member
So I'm on normal again. I'm pwning face. I get to the boss, get through both his first phases like a goddamn boss. I enter the third phase with full health. Before I can get rid of his zoltan shields (and I have 2, 3 shot lasers and two types of teleporting bombs) he gets a missile volley off and hits every system, and continues to hit every system with every volley. I literally can't do shit. From full health to zero with nothing I could do about it. Cheap. Just dumb and cheap. So pissed.

Yeah, this is exactly why I don't fight the boss without cloaking anymore.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Zoltan Bypass is an amazing augment for the final fight to prevent that shit without cloak too.
 

Uriah

Member
I found a level 2 flak cannon floating in space. I then proceeded to kill my boarding party because I underestimated its power. Welp.
 
Hard mode victory achieved

OwdxHw7.png



I don't even feel bad about getting such a ridiculous weapon set. I made it to the boss with weak stuff 3 times in a row and lost, it deserved some payback.

Having said that... oh man, what a weapon set. 12 fast charging shots for only 7 power, so the weapon room can take a hit with no effect. This is the only time I've seen any BL2 in a shop in AE, so of course there were two.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
Get either a stealth system or pump upgrades into engines and shields.

I do, always have 4 shields and engines are either maxed or close to maxed. When I was fucking with him like a boss, he was missing everything, I was fucking up his shit. Oh, final stage? Oh let me hit every system with a missile and have it explode with fire and your crew close to death before you can even get through the zoltan shield.
 

Wurst

Member
I do, always have 4 shields and engines are either maxed or close to maxed. When I was fucking with him like a boss, he was missing everything, I was fucking up his shit. Oh, final stage? Oh let me hit every system with a missile and have it explode with fire and your crew close to death before you can even get through the zoltan shield.

Yes, fuck this. Had two runs with a perfect Mantis raiding crew and a run with awesome weapons. First two stages were easy, third one destroyed me in seconds.

Guess I'll get the stealth now.
 

Danneee

Member
How do I get zoltan shields? I know about the shield bot (awesome) and I have maxed out my shields but never actually got the real deal myself. Is it obtained by a quest or what?
 
Had a really fun run last night. I think Fire Bomb might be my favorite weapon. Send one over, immediately followed by a pair of rockmen. It's a recipe for maniacal cackling.

I eventually managed to get a pair of fire drones, too. That feel when you've got every room of the flagship on fire at the same time. Go ahead and turn on your advanced AI control. You can't repair anything when everything is on fire.
 
How do I get zoltan shields? I know about the shield bot (awesome) and I have maxed out my shields but never actually got the real deal myself. Is it obtained by a quest or what?

The Augment itself can't be obtained outside of playable Zoltan ships (which obviously start with it). The drone is as good as any other ship can get.

OH MY GOD JESUS I BEAT NORMAL WITH THE FEDERATION CRUISER OH MY GOD JESUS

Grats! :)

Had a really fun run last night. I think Fire Bomb might be my favorite weapon. Send one over, immediately followed by a pair of rockmen. It's a recipe for maniacal cackling.

I eventually managed to get a pair of fire drones, too. That feel when you've got every room of the flagship on fire at the same time. Go ahead and turn on your advanced AI control. You can't repair anything when everything is on fire.

Even though it can't penetrate shields, and is quite slow, the Fire Beam is really cool as well, using no ammo and being able to set fire to a lot of rooms at once. One of my favorite weapons in the game for sure.

Weapon pre-igniter is basically broken in general. I'm just glad that random enemies don't ever seem to have it.

Actually, do enemy ships ever have augments aside from racial (Zoltan Shield, Rock Armor, etc.) ones?
 

Armaros

Member
Ah, alright.
The drone seem like the better option as it regens the shield though.

No that is wrong in AE, in AE if you run into th same quest they unlocks the zoltan cruiser, if you complete it and 'unlock the cruiser' your current ship gets the zoltan shield augment, you can get if even if you already unlocked the ship before.

This is only do the AE version tho.
 

Mindlog

Member
Beaten by quite some time. I usually refresh before posting when I have to step away for a bit. I can add a little something though! *
Ah, alright.
The drone seem like the better option as it regens the shield though.
jZs8vft.jpg

In AE the shield augment is one of two potential rewards for completing the 'Unarmed Zoltan Transport' quest in their Homeworld sector. *The other potential reward is Envoy. Envoy is a fully evolved Zoltan. As far as I know the drop is random between the two.

Started playing Captain's Edition. Pretty thorough mod and still fits quite well. I went in to Phase 3 of the flagship with 5 hit points and beat it with one left :D My score was low, but I may have to find a profile editor to keep my high scores pure. Looking forward to the 'Nightmare Sector' on Hard.
 

Danneee

Member
No that is wrong in AE, in AE if you run into th same quest they unlocks the zoltan cruiser, if you complete it and 'unlock the cruiser' your current ship gets the zoltan shield augment, you can get if even if you already unlocked the ship before.

This is only do the AE version tho.

Alright, good to know.
All new ships are unlocked through quests in home worlds or the rebel stronghold, right? And through beating the boss with the previous ship of course.
Because I've been taking the easy route through civilian and controlled sectors up until now.
 

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
Oh man, so I dove head first into this because I totally missed out on the original release but I figured what the heck I'll give it a shot.

So after fumbling around for 20minutes losing 4 ships due to not knowing how to play, I finally figured it out.

Then things got insane, I made it like 5 sectors out and things were generally going really well, when suddenly I was attacked for refusing to trade. The guys instantly beamed onto my ship, so I shuffled my crew into O2 room and vented the ship of oxygen. I managed to get rid of the guys who were boarding the ship but at the very last second their final volley of attacks destroyed my remote door subsystems.

With the enemy dispatched, and all the airlocks open, my crew was trapped in the only room with oxygen in it. I figured anyone who goes to repair the doors will not make it back, but then I figured if I only send one he may not be able to repair it at all. So I sent 2 guys to repair the systems, and with their last 3 health points they managed to bring the systems online, but unfortunately the O2 didn't refill fast enough so they both died.

It was a sad moment but the sole survivor had a mission to carry out.

Thankfully a slaver came up to me in the very next sector and I dropped 100 scrap on two slaves.

Billy and Ryan.
 
Can someone please post their complete savegame file with all the unlocked ships and types? I post 5 pages back but no one responded :'(
 

Koren

Member
Can you still play the original version, or does the update forces you to play the game with the new mechanics?
 

Mindlog

Member
Can someone please post their complete savegame file with all the unlocked ships and types? I post 5 pages back but no one responded :'(
Try this. I'm going to use it to give myself a clean save for mods. When I have myself set up I'll post that if someone needs it. Just create a new prof.sav then erase or move the existing ae_prof.sav file you have. The next time you load it will convert the save file with all of the ships unlocked.
 
No that is wrong in AE, in AE if you run into th same quest they unlocks the zoltan cruiser, if you complete it and 'unlock the cruiser' your current ship gets the zoltan shield augment, you can get if even if you already unlocked the ship before.

This is only do the AE version tho.

Oh, really? Cool!

Today I also stumbled into the new quest that unlocks the Federation Cruiser... I won't spoil it, but for those of you that have done it... it's so cool. :D
 
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