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[Danneee]

So, I just discovered that

Spoiler

I need to beat the boss three times, got to the last fight pretty easy with a couple of lasers an ion gun, a missile and two repair droids but when I got boarded by five guys... well, my guys died

. Any advice how to have a ship that is good at everything? Or at least the best/cheapest way to quickly kill boarders. A barrage of lasers, good shields and high evasion seems to work against pretty much anything but I just can't seem to work out a good strategy against boarders. Draining O2 works against two or so boarders.

 

[The Foul]

... However, I too couldn't get the under 20% oxygen one, even though I'm pretty sure oxygen levels never rose above 15% during the entire run after my very first jump. Perhaps it's bugged?

This is how I did it.

I failed the first time due to a hack that blocked the weapons room (Not a problem, the alien drains oxygen anyway), but the mind control and battery room filled with oxygen due to not being in vacuum, taking the levels above 20% before I even noticed.
This is easily remedied by turning off oxygen, or better yet, run the pilot to the shield/door room and vent the cockpit whenever you're hacked, autopilot helped immensely in this run.

This was one of my favourite runs, invaders could barely get through the ships few closed super doors, and when they did they were so asphyxiated they could be mopped up by anyone. I eventually got an onboard repair drone which worked great in the vacuum, and a vulcan - easily the best sell everything to get gun in the game. Combined with the chain laser, it tore through the end boss no problems. How the crew managed to get around that ship without being sucked out into space George Clooney style is beyond me.

Overall the expansion is fantastic, a great game made even better. Can't bring myself to try normal, easy is fun enough.

So, I just discovered that

Spoiler

I need to beat the boss three times, got to the last fight pretty easy with a couple of lasers an ion gun, a missile and two repair droids but when I got boarded by five guys... well, my guys died

. Any advice how to have a ship that is good at everything? Or at least the best/cheapest way to quickly kill boarders. A barrage of lasers, good shields and high evasion seems to work against pretty much anything but I just can't seem to work out a good strategy against boarders. Draining O2 works against two or so boarders.

Try to lure them to the medbay and fight there, vent the room if you can your dudes will be fine. Always have some mantis and rock dude muscle on board. I always go fully upgraded manned doors to really choke boarders with vacuum. Mind control works on your own ship also. Some bomb weapons can target your own ship without damaging the hull... heaps of options, I love this game.

 

[SamVimes]

Man i got destroyed by the second phase of the battleship on normal, could've won but i forgot how strong are the drones. I wasted my hack on a weapon...

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I need to play this game again.

 

[KKRT00]

Are there any interesting mods out there yet? I mean some that changes game substantially.

 

[Woorloog]

Goddamnit! My enemy jumped with my boarding party on board...

 

[Mindlog]

Are there any interesting mods out there yet? I mean some that changes game substantially.

The mod I previously used was Descent Into Darkness. The changes in AE are more substantial. There was a project to make the entire game more mod friendly, but I haven't checked on that in a while.

I finally beat the game! Score was 5133, but it didn't crack my top 5 for that ship (Crystal B.)

Hard is very stingy. I almost bought Mind Control in Sector 4 and that could have cost me the game. I don't want to spoil another surprise (probably already did) but the fan service at the end of the game made me laugh. It threw me for a loop until I realized that with a Crystal boarding party it just made my job easier.

 

[tringworldso]

Can someone post their unlocked savegame here with all ships/layouts please?

 

[KojiKnight]

Goddamnit! My enemy jumped with my boarding party on board...

More fun/annoying is when you accidently kill the ship with your crew still on board... whoops. Cloning facility is a must if you want to built a teleporter based strategy.

 

[KKRT00]

The mod I previously used was Descent Into Darkness. The changes in AE are more substantial. There was a project to make the entire game more mod friendly, but I haven't checked on that in a while.

I finally beat the game! Score was 5133, but it didn't crack my top 5 for that ship (Crystal B.)

Hard is very stingy. I almost bought Mind Control in Sector 4 and that could have cost me the game. I don't want to spoil another surprise (probably already did) but the fan service at the end of the game made me laugh. It threw me for a loop until I realized that with a Crystal boarding party it just made my job easier.

Probably old mods are not compatible with new edition. To be fair, i have not played since launch, so AE would probably be nice, but i was more interested to see this game expand significantly and thought that maybe mods will do that.
Game is nice, but its limited, i would love to have it bigger and focused on more exploration than moving through random few sectors to the boss

 

[Woorloog]

More fun/annoying is when you accidently kill the ship with your crew still on board... whoops. Cloning facility is a must if you want to built a teleporter based strategy.

I manage just fine with medical bay, i just didn't pay attention to the enemy FTL indicator, since not all enemies jump.
Unfortunately losing the boarding party will have cost me this game. Ah, well, at least i unlocked Kestrel C.

 

[TheCthultist]

Just got the ipad version, absolutely fantastic.... Only unlocked one ship so far though. I'm rather terrible at this but it is just so addictingly fun

 

[KojiKnight]

They've changed the unlock condition for that one, apparently. I accidentally did the unlock quest for it on one of my runs. You unlock it by doing an event in a rebel-controlled sector where

Spoiler

you find a shipyard. Investigate the shipyard and you'll have a fight with an under construction flagship. Win and you'll delay the fleet, get a ton of stuff, and unlock the cruiser.

They did? Bleh... I didn't need there to be another unlock (I had most of the stuff, but I seem to have lost it in a computer wipe) with randomness attached to it. Was wondering why it didn't unlock before... but I guess they needed to give you some sort of reason to visit rebel space.

 

[SamVimes]

Is it me or is the zoltan layout C the worst ship ever?

edit: lol my bad, i didn't realize you have the upgraded battery

 

[Weltall Zero]

EDIT, oh and i got Stealth Cruiser, didn't even notice that really...

Working as intended, then?

Any advice how to have a ship that is good at everything? Or at least the best/cheapest way to quickly kill boarders. A barrage of lasers, good shields and high evasion seems to work against pretty much anything but I just can't seem to work out a good strategy against boarders. Draining O2 works against two or so boarders.

Here are all my tips about it, see "being boarded". The AE edition adds a few more strategies like mind-controlling them, or temporarily moving one of your crew to the Doors station to reinforce them.

This is how I did it.

Huh, weird. Weirdest of all is that I only had two rooms with oxygen the whole run, so even if I got hacked and didn't notice it, it should have raised oxygen to about 18% at most. I don't know what went wrong.

How the crew managed to get around that ship without being sucked out into space George Clooney style is beyond me.

Actually, FTL is one of the few cases where pressure loss is portrayed realistically. We're just lied to by about anything else.

heaps of options, I love this game.

FTL in a nutshell!

Man i got destroyed by the second phase of the battleship on normal, could've won but i forgot how strong are the drones. I wasted my hack on a weapon...

Remember that power surges are not tied to any system, so in theory hacking the Drone system would only disable the regular, permanent drones.

I don't want to spoil another surprise (probably already did) but the fan service at the end of the game made me laugh. It threw me for a loop until I realized that with a Crystal boarding party it just made my job easier.

Huh? There's a special ending for Hard Mode or something?

 

[Finn of Ooo]

Did they rebalance any of the original ships? Always liked the stealth ship but it was so hard to use and required a lot of luck.

 

[afreaknamedpete]

I love the cloning bay, if only because of the missions where you have to send crewmembers onto planets. I had one guy get cloned 3 times thanks to away missions.

 

[Uriah]

Damn the 3rd form of the flagship is brutal. I'm never going to unlock the rockman ship.

 

[demidar]

Damn the 3rd form of the flagship is brutal. I'm never going to unlock the rockman ship.

A missile landed on my engine, setting it on fire and lowering my dodge to near nil. Talk about worst case scenarios.

 

[Mindlog]

Did they rebalance any of the original ships? Always liked the stealth ship but it was so hard to use and required a lot of luck.

Nope. The ships I have the hardest time with are Engie B and Slug B. I just don't work well with drones and the Slug ship needs to maintain a very rapid upgrade pace.

Huh? There's a special ending for Hard Mode or something?

There is a tiny little treat. Nothing big, but it made me laugh.
You'll know it when you see it.

*Unrelated: Does some of the music remind anyone of Ecco the Dolphin?

 

[KojiKnight]

Did they rebalance any of the original ships? Always liked the stealth ship but it was so hard to use and required a lot of luck.

Not sure about rebalanced, but I've been doing pretty well with it... It's more micro (and thus pause) intensive than others, but it's not much harder to get to the final areas.

 

[sfedai0]

Is this better to play on a PC or would it be too clunky to play on the iPad?

 

[epmode]

I still think it's easier on PC but the iPad port is class. Cross-platform cloud saves pls.

 

[Woorloog]

Did they rebalance any of the original ships? Always liked the stealth ship but it was so hard to use and required a lot of luck.

I'm not sure but did the Stealth Cruiser always have Titanium Casing or some such, and Long Range Sensors?

Also, this is bullshit: A Stealth Cruiser achievement requires one to avoid environmental hazard areas. Well, what about when you cannot avoid them? The only route to the exit system goes through a hazard...

 

[Finn of Ooo]

I'm not sure but did the Stealth Cruiser always have Titanium Casing or some such, and Long Range Sensors?

Also, this is bullshit: A Stealth Cruiser achievement requires one to avoid environmental hazard areas. Well, what about when you cannot avoid them? The only route to the exit system goes through a hazard...

It did on some layouts. The hard part is it doesn't get shields and they cost a lot of money to implement so it comes down to luck a lot of the time.

 

[Rentahamster]

Just blew up an enemy ship while forgetting to beam my attacking away party back onto my own ship. D:


RIP

 

[AEREC]

So how's this play on an iPad 3? 60fps smooth?

 

[Chance Hale]

Have they said anything about adding touch support to the PC version?

 

[epmode]

So how's this play on an iPad 3? 60fps smooth?

As best I can tell, the framerate is identical to the PC version.

 

[demidar]

It did on some layouts. The hard part is it doesn't get shields and they cost a lot of money to implement so it comes down to luck a lot of the time.

Yeah, shields mitigate a lot of damage that stealth otherwise couldn't, mainly asteroids, drone attacks and beams. My strat is to go straight for 125 scrap since almost every shop seems to hold a shield system. But then you need a new weapon by system 3, either replacing your crappy beam with a missile, getting a better laser weapon or lucking out with a flak gun, because by then enemies will have 2 shields and relying on your base 2-shot weapon to chew through 2 shields is too much.

 

[Raxious]

Still no touch support for the steam version means I still can't play it on my surface while I'm in the train.

 

[SamVimes]

Where can i find my saves? I have a bug in this run in which the game freezes every time i buy the clone system and i figured if i provided a save to the devs it would be easier for them to fix it.

Oh apparently they already know about the bug, it's caused by having a Zoltan in the medbay when buying the clone system.

 

[Weltall Zero]

There is a tiny little treat. Nothing big, but it made me laugh.
You'll know it when you see it.

Now I have to try my hand at Hard mode. As if I didn't have stuff on my plate unlocking all those alternate layouts!

*Unrelated: Does some of the music remind anyone of Ecco the Dolphin?

I guess it's somewhat reminiscent because of its Mike Oldfield-y, retro+new age-y style.

Where can i find my saves? I have a bug in this run in which the game freezes every time i buy the clone system and i figured if i provided a save to the devs it would be easier for them to fix it.

Oh apparently they already know about the bug, it's caused by having a Zoltan in the medbay when buying the clone system.

In any case: Users\[your user]\Documents\my games\FasterThanLight

 

[spiritfox]

I hate the final boss.

Just had a good run with dual Burst Lasers II destroying everything, and the first thing that it decides to do is to hack my Shields. By the time I jumped out I lost over half my HP and lost 2 crew members because they can't escape from the burning room. Of course the nearest repair spot is on the other corner of the map. Gah.

I'm never going to beat this guy.

 

[Mr. Virus]

I hate the final boss.

Just had a good run with dual Burst Lasers II destroying everything, and the first thing that it decides to do is to hack my Shields. By the time I jumped out I lost over half my HP and lost 2 crew members because they can't escape from the burning room. Of course the nearest repair spot is on the other corner of the map. Gah.

I'm never going to beat this guy.

Feels. Got to it with a pretty good set up offensively and defensively and it hacked my 02 systems. Lost all my crew before I could do anything about it .

 

[xenist]

I know that the boss ship is beatable, but for the life of me I cannot understand how. I don't want to read a walkthough or a guide but no matter what set-up I think off, I just feel like a baby trying to blow out a volcano.

 

[Haunted]

I know that the boss ship is beatable, but for the life of me I cannot understand how. I don't want to read a walkthough or a guide but no matter what set-up I think off, I just feel like a baby trying to blow out a volcano.

Here's a useful hint: their weapon rooms are closed off from the rest of the ship.


But yes, the difficulty and particulars of the final boss makes large parts of this game feel like everything is just preparation for that battle. Sometimes so much so that it works to the game's disadvantage, even. (Brad Muir gave a pretty interesting talk about this topic at a game design conference a while ago).

I was actually surprised they didn't really address this in the patch.

 

[KojiKnight]

Here's a useful hint: their weapon rooms are closed off from the rest of the ship.

A little more on top of that, watch for the room that launches missiles... Missiles tend to be a bigger problem since they break through shields.

 

[Pociask]

Here's a useful hint: their weapon rooms are closed off from the rest of the ship.


But yes, the difficulty and particulars of the final boss makes large parts of this game feel like everything is just preparation for that battle. Sometimes so much so that it works to the game's disadvantage, even. (Brad Muir gave a pretty interesting talk about this topic at a game design conference a while ago).

I was actually surprised they didn't really address this in the patch.

I was cruising on an easy run on the free update (which, btw, is awesome!) and was all ready to use my rockman and mantis boarders to kill the last crewmember on the flagship during the third phase of the battle. And... he mind controlled my mantis, who quickly started slaughtering my crew, yada yada yada, I lost about 2-3 shots away from finally beating the dang game.

 

[Finn of Ooo]

Yeah, shields mitigate a lot of damage that stealth otherwise couldn't, mainly asteroids, drone attacks and beams. My strat is to go straight for 125 scrap since almost every shop seems to hold a shield system. But then you need a new weapon by system 3, either replacing your crappy beam with a missile, getting a better laser weapon or lucking out with a flak gun, because by then enemies will have 2 shields and relying on your base 2-shot weapon to chew through 2 shields is too much.

I usually ran with layout 2 cause you start with that crazy beam weapon (halberd?), it's charge time usually meant taking some hits early on though.

 

[Chrono Helix]

I had a hilariously overpowered run on Easy (Don't judge me, I'm just trying to unlock ships first) with the Federation ship that carries the artillery beam. I got an early scrap recovery arm, got a cloak around sector 3, and later found myself in possession of a Halberd Beam and a Flak Cannon 2. I was keeping my weapon systems low for the achievement, but once I reached sector 5 I'd spend fights cloaking up, and after the cloak wore off Artillery Beam + Flak Cannon + Halberd Beam after the flak had broken their shields could easily one-shot ships. I didn't lose life on the first 2 phases of the boss.

 

[Error]

One of the greatest roguelikes of all time. So I take it the expansion is free for PC users? Thank you based Subset Games.

 

[Nicktals]

The mantis ship is soooo fun with AE stuff. Had 4 mantis as a boarding party, would tear through early ships crews in seconds, then later on, when they started getting med bays, i got a hacking unit.

I thought by hacking I would just keep them from healing (I didn't yet realize that hovering after clicking hacking tells you what it'll do to each system/subsystem) so I could finish the job, but it actually DRAINS THEIR HEALTH!

Also I had the stun upgrade for hacking...Keeping their med bay active just so I could lure them there to hack/kill them was so amazing. Cleaned up on easy, I might try that ship on normal...

LOVE this content. So fun.

EDIT: And yes, 10 seconds of hacking on the med bay is enough to kill an enemy with full health. Mind control + teleport is also lots of fun. Had an earlier run where I had the zoltan shield bypass, so I mind controlled the crew arming the ultra missle launcher on the final boss, and when it was almost out I teleported him back to my ship and killed him. Awesome!

 

[PedroLumpy]

Here's a useful hint: their weapon rooms are closed off from the rest of the ship.


But yes, the difficulty and particulars of the final boss makes large parts of this game feel like everything is just preparation for that battle. Sometimes so much so that it works to the game's disadvantage, even. (Brad Muir gave a pretty interesting talk about this topic at a game design conference a while ago).

I was actually surprised they didn't really address this in the patch.

Yeah that's always stuck out for me too. The boss is in a whole other league compared to the rest of the game. Its odd that it doesn't ramp up better.

 

[Nicktals]

Here's a useful hint: their weapon rooms are closed off from the rest of the ship.


But yes, the difficulty and particulars of the final boss makes large parts of this game feel like everything is just preparation for that battle. Sometimes so much so that it works to the game's disadvantage, even. (Brad Muir gave a pretty interesting talk about this topic at a game design conference a while ago).

I was actually surprised they didn't really address this in the patch.

Do you have a link to that talk?

And yeah, it does make the game stand out..But I'm glad they didn't change it much. Even if the ramp up isn't really smooth, it's the last fight, and the amount of times i've won with just a couple life, rooms on fire, and a couple seconds to live makes it pretty much perfect. You can throw absolutely anything at it, and you often need to. It really does a great job of making me feel like i've pushed my ship to its limit.

The downside, of course, is certain builds that can do well against regular ships will just get curbstomped by the flagship, so you've kinda got to have a plan in the back of your mind ('yeah, i could sell that anti-personel drone, but that'll REALLY come in handy for the end game")...

 

[Woorloog]

Revising my opinion: Advanced Edition makes the game a tad easier. At least toward the end.
Second victory! Engi B this time.

 

[Mindlog]

Yeah that's always stuck out for me too. The boss is in a whole other league compared to the rest of the game. Its odd that it doesn't ramp up better.

On hard I've had bigger problems with random ships being very heavily armed and shielded. It's made me paranoid to the point that I avoid Zoltan sectors on every difficulty. Imagine the boss firing all of its weapons at once in a proper salvo. Something like that.

I was cruising on an easy run on the free update (which, btw, is awesome!) and was all ready to use my rockman and mantis boarders to kill the last crewmember on the flagship during the third phase of the battle. And... he mind controlled my mantis, who quickly started slaughtering my crew, yada yada yada, I lost about 2-3 shots away from finally beating the dang game.

Was the crew severely injured? I always put them in separate rooms and stick at least one boarder inside my door room. Haven't lost a crewmate to mind control directly, but it has gotten me killed before during a no shield stealth run. I used MC defensively to save an important Zoltan instead of incapacitating the enemy pilot before my Flak landed. From there everything spiraled out of control and I died.

Finally found a drone I like. Combat II isn't always just valuable scrap.

 

[Intheflorsh]

"ASB target locked" keeps popping up. Anyone know what it means and what it does?

 

[Mindlog]

"ASB target locked" keeps popping up. Anyone know what it means and what it does?

Anti-Ship Battery

Misses a lot, but very strong when it hits. It's fired by a third party and they can be aiming at either you or the enemy.

 

[Pociask]

On hard I've had bigger problems with random ships being very heavily armed and shielded. It's made me paranoid to the point that I avoid Zoltan sectors on every difficulty. Imagine the boss firing all of its weapons at once in a proper salvo. Something like that.

Was the crew severely injured? I always put them in separate rooms and stick at least one boarder inside my door room. Haven't lost a crewmate to mind control directly, but it has gotten me killed before during a no shield stealth run. I used MC defensively to save an important Zoltan instead of incapacitating the enemy pilot before my Flak landed. From there everything spiraled out of control and I died.

Finally found a drone I like. Combat II isn't always just valuable scrap.

He killed my rockman rapidly (they were both waiting in the teleporter room to board the vessel), and put the hurt on a second crewmember I foolishly sent in to "help." I think after that it wore off, but due to previous missiles my crew was already low, and things escalated out of my control. If I could refight the battle with that ship, knowing what I know now, I would win in a walk. Alas, I am now making the trek in an Engi Vessel where a planetary investigation reduced my crew from 3 to 2. I feel like I frequently either get no crew available at stores or missions, or I'm overflowing with crew members.