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

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
Mind Control is awesome, but doesn't work in nebula (you have to see the rooms to use it - and no, getting a Slug doesn't work either). Also maybe slug are immune? There are certainly times I tried to use it, and it didn't work, for whatever reason - there's no indication why it wasn't working. This occured even against non-slug - like on the flagship, early in the fight it didn't work, later it did.
The only way to 'stop' mind control is to use another mind control. When you attempt to MC an enemy crewman, their own mind control device can be used to revert them.

Flagship has fully upgraded mind control too btw.
 
Mind Control is awesome, but doesn't work in nebula (you have to see the rooms to use it - and no, getting a Slug doesn't work either).

Are you sure about that? Would that rule out the augment that lets you see enemies without sensors as well? The visual effect is identical. BTW, they changed it for the Advanced Edition, right? I remember Slugs saw lifeforms as indistinct dots, not red tinted ghosts like now.
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
FINALLY won a game with Mantis Cruiser A. Good god that was brutal. I typically never have a problem with getting to the last sector but with this ship I was struggling just to make it to the 2nd. Ion 1 and a Basic Laser? Is this the civil war? And I can't even use both at the same time? I was getting destroyed routinely. And it was the first time that I suffered a significant amount of crew deaths as well. It seemed like the RNG also couldn't help but serve up a bunch of ships equipped with Cloning Bays too. It helped me get an achievement, but the fact that you have to kill every enemy crewman to stop it from zerging is just madness. I'm tempted to try it now just for that.

I shouldn't have made it out of sector 7. I got really lucky in an asteroid belt where I decided to just ion lock the enemy helm and pray. It worked and eventually they were getting pelted with more asteroids than their shield could keep up with. Landed Swarm Missiles and a Flak II right after and cruised.

One thing that almost ended my run cold though was medbay hacking. I had left my two best mantis boarders in the medbay as I jumped in to fight the flagship. It decides to hack my medbay - okay, no problem, right? Negative. When medbays get hacked, they do constant damage to anyone locked inside and prevent any healing from happening when the hacking drone isn't actually activated. Its a guaranteed mob kill if people are inside.

I had two more mantis guys ready just in case. They were always manning the door and sensor rooms and they did the job fine as they leveled through the fights but.... man, fuck. Imagine my face when I saw them being killed in a medbay like some fucked Prometheus experiment gone wrong.
 
Anybody played around much with the upgraded hacking? Is hacking the O2 viable at all? From my experience with the flagship, it seems like it might be. But it'd probably need a pretty defensive build to keep from failing to attrition.
 

Palmer_v1

Member
Anybody played around much with the upgraded hacking? Is hacking the O2 viable at all? From my experience with the flagship, it seems like it might be. But it'd probably need a pretty defensive build to keep from failing to attrition.

It'll switch to AI if you kill the crew, so no.
 

Holden

Member
It'll switch to AI if you kill the crew, so no.

you won't kill all the crew by hacking the o2, the rest will just sit in the lvl 3 medbay

but draining o2 isn't really good cause he has 3 lvl of o2, so you either:

-don't damage his o2 and his o2 will go up in an instant after its done hacking
-do dmg to the o2
-or just do damage to something better like shields or missile gun

Disabling missiles seems like the best.
 
It'll switch to AI if you kill the crew, so no.

you won't kill all the crew by hacking the o2, the rest will just sit in the lvl 3 medbay

but draining o2 isn't really good cause he has 3 lvl of o2, so you either:

-don't damage his o2 and his o2 will go up in an instant after its done hacking
-do dmg to the o2
-or just do damage to something better like shields or missile gun

Disabling missiles seems like the best.
Well, I don't necessarily mean hacking the oxygen on the flagship. I meant that the flagship hacked my oxygen and it pretty well crippled me. I figure it has mostly max level systems. So would my own level 3 hacking be just as effective on other ships?
 

Woorloog

Banned
FTL is good, especially Advanced Edition but i can't help but wish the game was more about strategy, planning, and less about luck.
It is highly annoying when i have ideas but luck prevents me from executing those ideas (like going through 5 sectors without getting new weapons, not even seeing them in stores...).
Also, would like reactor to be visible on the ship, player and enemy, a target-able and manned-able room like others. And ability to give priority tasks (Rockman: Pilot only, don't bother with fires), ability to switch positions around without having to move people (press button to cycle people in this room for this station).
Oh, and teleport within my ships, rapid response firefighting/fighting team...
EDIT if nothing else, 4th Augmentation slot would have been nice, considering AE added a few more Augmentations, and seemingly made them more common. Very frustrating to find interesting but non-essential ones (eg Adv. FTL Navigation). Doubly so with ships that come with special Augmentations like Zoltan, Rock, Slug... eh, many.
And more ships having unique systems, the Federation Cruiser's Artillery Beam/Flak Artillery is damn cool.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I heard Rockmen are useful there.

Nope. You need either a Anti-Personnel Drone, a Boarding Drone, or a Bio-Beam for a guaranteed chance at fulfilling that event with no casualties.

Really no joke at all, I never send my dudes in.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Nope. You need either a Anti-Personnel Drone, a Boarding Drone, or a Bio-Beam for a guaranteed chance at fulfilling that event with no casualties.

Really no joke at all, I never send my dudes in.

Guess i'll finally have a chance at this with the Slug Cruiser, i never have anything suitable otherwise...
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
Fun with Hacking

  • When you hack an enemy mind control system, it causes the system to mind control an enemy crewman for the duration of the hack.
  • Hacking door control is dumb? Yeah - until you realize that it locks every single door in the ship. Good luck repaing those hull breaches breh.
  • Hacking = a medbay is 100% proven to kill everyone in the medbay.
  • Cloaking + Hacking + Pre-Ignition means that you can fire a volley, cloak to prevent enemy weapons from charging, fire another volley on decloak, allow enemy weapons to charge to near full before sapping them back to nil with hacking, fire again, cloak, rinse, repeat - its the corner loop of FTL. very op needs nerf

I want to try hacking a cloning bay and sensors. Maybe even sensors or cloaking devices. These guys very extremely creative with it. I had no idea it was this versatile. I can only imagine the fuckery you can create with hacked drones.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Until you run into Zoltan shields, then your entire build goes kaput.

#fuckgreenshield
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
Until you run into Zoltan shields, then your entire build goes kaput.

#fuckgreenshield

Its reaaaally good now. Drone Control was good before, but with the shield supercharger drone its outstanding. Periodically kicking out greenshields is worth way more than what you pay for.
 

demidar

Member
Fun with Hacking

  • When you hack an enemy mind control system, it causes the system to mind control an enemy crewman for the duration of the hack.
  • Hacking door control is dumb? Yeah - until you realize that it locks every single door in the ship. Good luck repaing those hull breaches breh.
  • Hacking = a medbay is 100% proven to kill everyone in the medbay.
  • Cloaking + Hacking + Pre-Ignition means that you can fire a volley, cloak to prevent enemy weapons from charging, fire another volley on decloak, allow enemy weapons to charge to near full before sapping them back to nil with hacking, fire again, cloak, rinse, repeat - its the corner loop of FTL. very op needs nerf

I want to try hacking a cloning bay and sensors. Maybe even sensors or cloaking devices. These guys very extremely creative with it. I had no idea it was this versatile. I can only imagine the fuckery you can create with hacked drones.

Holy shit, can't wait to test that out.
 

demidar

Member
Game showers me with ion weapons. Then it throws 5 consecutive stealth cruisers at me with no shops in sight.

Sometimes I want this game to go fuck itself.
 
Is it possible to move my hacking drone, or reposition it somewhere else? Or even a way to destroy your currently deployed drone so that you can launch a new one?
 
I really want it for ipad and I know I would play the hell out of it on my tablet -- but can't justify the rebuy since I haven't played it all that much on my laptop.
 

Holden

Member
Well, I don't necessarily mean hacking the oxygen on the flagship. I meant that the flagship hacked my oxygen and it pretty well crippled me. I figure it has mostly max level systems. So would my own level 3 hacking be just as effective on other ships?

you NEED to have at least lvl o2 against flagship or you WILL die if he hacks it

anyway you need to try to have at least 2 lvls in everything by flagship
 

Danneee

Member
My next run will be a drone/mind control/ion. Any suggestions on weapons? I'll have at least one anti missile drone, one boarding drone and one attack or one repair drone.
Max shields/high engine ofc.
Good augments?
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Game showers me with ion weapons. Then it throws 5 consecutive stealth cruisers at me with no shops in sight.

Sometimes I want this game to go fuck itself.

It's almost like the game knows that in order for you to feel the greatest pain... you must first be put into a position of great elation, so that your fall can be all the higher.
 

RVinP

Unconfirmed Member
I haven't even finished the game even once, so thought I would finish it after update.

But for some reason, the frequency of failure(unsuccessful runs) is high with the 'Advanced Edition', Is it suggested to unlock the other ships by playing the game with 'Advanced Mode' disabled?
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
I think you can destroy a hacking drone with the anti-drone drones now. Not sure though.
Wait, how so? Does it actually reverse the medbay effect on enemies and harms them?

Yep. You'll see purple first aid signs floating around in there instead of green ones and everyone locked inside dies a moderately quick death.
My next run will be a drone/mind control/ion. Any suggestions on weapons? I'll have at least one anti missile drone, one boarding drone and one attack or one repair drone.
Max shields/high engine ofc.
Good augments?
The game now seems to love throwing your direct counter at you now (or maybe they just stand out more now against your build, imo). Anyways, with something like that, automated ships will fucking own you as nothing on your ship can actually do good old fashioned damage if you focus heavily on Ion. If you're absolutely set on that, I'd say a Halberd or another beam weapon is a must. Ion isn't as good as it used to be imo. There are just too many counters to it and ways to punish you faster than you can punish the enemy.

Mind Control is always used best in conjunction with something that already causes the enemy crew to react. Even at level 3, 1 mind controlled enemy isn't going to cause significant, lasting damage to a ship by himself - with a fire going, a massive system repair (not drain or lock), a boarding in progress, breach, or 'other' event going on a well-timed mind control attack can make a bad situation for the enemy much, much worse. Its also one of the best boarding defenses you can use too imo.

As for drones, I think the Engi ship became much more versatile because of its drone capacity. Throw a shield overcharger on and it becomes Zoltan. Add in the Ion Intruder to breach/lock random stuff on a ship to create all sorts of havoc. The defense drones all perform better imo too.

Defense Scrambler makes enemy defense drones useless. Definitely worth a look. Explosive Recombiner gives your missile weapons a 50% chance to not cost a missile (gdlk). Easily some of my favorites for all situations. There's a LOT now though.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
There's an augmentation that allows you to bypass Zoltan shields now. #feelsgood

It's rare. I find that, generally speaking, you can count on being able to buy the modules you want but not so for augmentations.
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
iUTtT3womqlml.png
get absolutely screwed at every shop in the galaxy and swing it out with the flagship like a boss
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Lol 4 shields.

I rarely ever have enough points left over to spend on that much shielding. Mostly because I love picking up subsystems like Crew Teleport and Hacking and Cloaking. That Ion + Beam Drone build looks sweet though.

(Engi A so good)
 
Man, hacking+Mindcontrol is a nasty combo. hacking oxygen not only disables the system, but sucks about 30% of the oxygen out of the enemy ship. Then, when an enemy is about to start breaking the hacked door down, mind control him - he'll start attacking nearby enemies and systems. Simultaneously, focus ship fire on the oxygen system to break it. By the time they are able to access the room, your mindcontrol will be cooled down and you can just cause all out chaos on the enemy ship. It's fantastic. At this point, my weapons are on standby and im basically just starving the enemies for air till they die.

Getting the scrap bonus for not destroying the ship helps a ton.
 
Man, I thought going into the last fight with fully powered cloning, mind control, cloaking, and teleporter would be a sure thing. Nothing in the two sectors before could even touch me, and I was swimming in scrap. First form of the boss didn't land one hit.

Second form 100 - 0'd me, and all I managed to do was take out the missle bay with my boarding manti. Fucking boarding drone went after the O2 and the cloning couldn't keep up. Going from a for sure victory to embarrassing defeat, even with OP stuff like level 3 mind control, is the worst.

But then next game I found Flak 1 and 2 along with two charge lasers, so level 4 shields on the fat tub of bitch that is the flagship meant nothing to me. I hate the new stuff and love the new stuff at the same time.
 
I chose the wrong cloud save on Steam - lost two ships and my records. Sadpanda.

For a while I couldn't get back into the game. All it took to get me back into the way of things was suffering a devastating early-game setback and still managing to confront the Flagship. I forgot how enjoyable such unexpected encounters are.

I've played this game a ton, a ton since release on Steam. Never beat it on Normal. FOR FUCKS SAKE

I don't think I have either. Double sadpanda.
 
Finally made it to the last third of the final boss before dying because the only repair station was on the opposite side of the map.

What the fuck, a super teleporter?

That Vulcan though, great stuff.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
I chose the wrong cloud save on Steam - lost two ships and my records. Sadpanda.

For a while I couldn't get back into the game. All it took to get me back into the way of things was suffering a devastating early-game setback and still managing to confront the Flagship. I forgot how enjoyable such unexpected encounters are.



I don't think I have either. Double sadpanda.

Sometimes I wonder just how much game logic is there to counter your equipment. In normal, its a huge difficulty spike, with little to no fucking scrap and everything tearing you apart.
 

Mindlog

Member
Sometimes I wonder just how much game logic is there to counter your equipment. In normal, its a huge difficulty spike, with little to no fucking scrap and everything tearing you apart.
Last game. Sector 6 is a choice between Lanius and Mantis. I take Lanius and reinforce certain systems as a precaution. Didn't have enough combat specialists to deal with Mantis. First enemy I face in Sector 6 is loaded with weapons and drops two Lanius boarders on my ship. I counter with a Lanius of my own and send another crewmate to reinforce the doors. I'm using micro like crazy to stall for time. My lone Lanius is about to die, but my stalling looks like it's going to work. My engine room has a lot of spare health, but no oxygen. That's where I'm trying to isolate the Lanius fight. As long as I keep stalling I will win.

First enemy volley takes out my Clone Bay. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.
 

demidar

Member
Enemy weapons fire more shots, take less power and charge up faster than player weapons. It makes your shields less valuable than their shields even when you both have equivalent levels of shields.
 
Enemy weapons fire more shots, take less power and charge up faster than player weapons. It makes your shields less valuable than their shields even when you both have equivalent levels of shields.

...Seriously, is this true? There goes all my assumptions about this game. Might as well roll a dice instead of playing it if they're willing to stack the deck that much.

What difficulty does that apply to?
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
...Seriously, is this true? There goes all my assumptions about this game. Might as well roll a dice instead of playing it if they're willing to stack the deck that much.

The game is more or less governed by dice rolls I'm not sure why this comes as a surprise.

FTL is about risks and gambles, not some sort of deterministic strategy game.

I mean, that's why I hate the damn thing but also why I love it.
 
Enemy weapons fire more shots, take less power and charge up faster than player weapons. It makes your shields less valuable than their shields even when you both have equivalent levels of shields.


Any specific examples? I haven't noticed this, and I don't believe it.

It would be dumb because the player should be able to identify the enemy weapons and plan accordingly. Like using 2 layers of shield instead of 3 if the enemy has a 2-shot laser and a missile launcher. Or being able to predict how much damage will knock out a weapon.

The only one I can believe is charging speed being different, because there could be an equivalent to the automated re-loader that enemies can have.

For the record, enemies can run out of missiles or drone parts just like you. There are some hidden variables, but identical weapons firing more shots or taking less power would be pure cheating.
 

demidar

Member
The game is more or less governed by dice rolls I'm not sure why this comes as a surprise.

FTL is about risks and gambles, not some sort of deterministic strategy game.

I mean, that's why I hate the damn thing but also why I love it.

I think there are good places to apply randomization, but also bad places. Randomizing events, shop inventory, enemy spawn, that stuff is fine. But things like dodge chance are taking it a bit too far imo. Dodge is probably the central defense mechanism is the game, closely followed by shields. Shields are very important, but they can't mitigate missiles and bombs, and almost every enemy late game carries either one, and the only way to fight against them is either dodge (which defends against most attacks) or drones (which requires sacrifices in other areas of the ship). It can be infuriating fighting a ship with 3+ shields and reasonable dodge (25%+) and the game hasn't given you a chance to obtain things that circumvent dodge/shield (hacking, mind control, crew teleporter, boarding drones). Then you have to rely on missiles to try and take down their shields systems, but due to dodge it might take a while while two of their crewman fix it full time and you're still getting pummeled by their weapons. Worse still, the enemy has a stealth system or they're hacking your weapons system. You're just sitting their hoping to get lucky with a string of hits, or hoping you don't get crippled enough to jump out (and possibly into another fight while still crippled).

My solution? This is a bit indirect but it would be to double store inventory. There are too many times where you need a specific system or weapon to round out your build or to cover weak points. By providing more options at stores, a person can make the decision to either increase their advantages or cover their disadvantages or even go in a new direction, rather than making do with an imperfect or no solution at all. With the addition of new items with AE, finding what you want or need is harder in stores.

Any specific examples? I haven't noticed this, and I don't believe it.

It would be dumb because the player should be able to identify the enemy weapons and plan accordingly. Like using 2 layers of shield instead of 3 if the enemy has a 2-shot laser and a missile launcher. Or being able to predict how much damage will knock out a weapon.

The only one I can believe is charging speed being different, because there could be an equivalent to the automated re-loader that enemies can have.

For the record, enemies can run out of missiles or drone parts just like you. There are some hidden variables, but identical weapons firing more shots or taking less power would be pure cheating.

Hmm, it might be true that the enemy could possess a re-loader. That might be it.

I might need to test it out further, but I could've sworn an enemy had a three-shot laser for only 1 power. A bit busy atm.
 

Woorloog

Banned
So. I just destroyed the boss... while getting destroyed. Apparently losing my ship doesn't matter if the boss dies just the moment before...
 
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