Keep playing and don't feel too bad when you die. You're going to die. A lot.
Also, a good chunk of the game is actually just learning it. Even when a random event fucks you over, you can ask yourself: "Hm. Was it really worth the risk?"
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FTL |OT| Stories of the Space Oregon Trail
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Also, a good chunk of the game is actually just learning it. Even when a random event fucks you over, you can ask yourself: "Hm. Was it really worth the risk?"
Sector 4 is where I tend to get myself killed. Once I died in sector 3 (I've only played on Normal).
And I'm OK with this, because so far I've gotten progressively better, until the other day.
I died early in sector 2 after getting boarded. I had blast doors but the invaders worked their way to my door control system and destroyed it. Before that I had opened a bunch of doors to deprive rooms of oxygen, including the med bay.
Basically, after the battle I could not close the many open doors and the door control system was so badly damaged no one had enough HP to repair it and survive, so everyone suffocated to death trying to fix the damn doors!
And I'm OK with this, because so far I've gotten progressively better, until the other day.
I died early in sector 2 after getting boarded. I had blast doors but the invaders worked their way to my door control system and destroyed it. Before that I had opened a bunch of doors to deprive rooms of oxygen, including the med bay.
Basically, after the battle I could not close the many open doors and the door control system was so badly damaged no one had enough HP to repair it and survive, so everyone suffocated to death trying to fix the damn doors!
I hope everyone on board learned from that experience!
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
If you just started playing, keep at it. The game does get easier as you learn the different mechanics and tactics.
My first couple runs I was amazed at how hard even the first couple of sectors were, and I'm playing on Easy setting. But now I'm to the point where the first three or four sectors are honestly a cakewalk, I just bop around to as many beacons as I can racking up scrap to outfit my ship and get ready for the harder sectors. The game isn't physically any easier, I just got better at playing it.
Now every game is a race for me to get my ship ready as soon as possible, and I don't hit any real struggles until sector 5 and on. I've gotten much better at boarding party tactics and now I almost always try to kill enemy crews to get the extra scrap and such. I have yet to beat the rebel flagship at all though, it's second mode always gets me. Or, I get destroyed somewhere in sectors 6 or 7 by some random ship that has just the right complement of weapons to tear me apart. Or I get unlucky and most of my crew gets killed by fire or die trying to fix the oxygen system. So many way to die in space...
It's amazing though. This is one of the more strategic games I've played in a long time. So many decisions to make, and sometimes your decisions result in really bad unlucky stuff happening to you. So many times my ship has exploded in a fire ball and I am left thinking to myself, "yep, I made the wrong call there". It may be the best "captain of a ship" game I've ever played.
Ha, same damn thing happened to me. I had one crewmember left, with a sliver of HP. I said "Well...we all have to go sometime."
ZombieSupaStar
Member
grrr got to the 2nd phase of the boss battle, but the entire game not 1 store had burst lasers? and only saw 1 missile launcher (Pegasus at the end during the final scenario). Sometimes it just fucks you over, and sometimes you have burst laser 3 by the 3rd sector lol.
Haunted
Member
PastorOfMuppets
Banned
Some of those events are easily resolved if you have a specific race and/or having specific equipment. For instance, if you happen get the event where a station is on fire and you need to rescue the some scientists; if you have a Rockman on board, you get a blue text (always pick the blue text) and the event is solved with no casualties. Another event is if you have a Slug on board and you get the event with the six legged horse creatures. Having a slug will always yield the best result (loot + new Engi crew member)
The event involving the spiders end up bad pretty often if you send in your crew but if you happen to have boarding or anti-personnel drones, it is solved without any losses.
The problem is that I always die after I'm getting used to everything, my crew has turned kickass and my ship is all uber f'ed up. Starting over is just painful, lol.
The Slug ship can also clear out spiders with no problem. I've just recently learned that a lot of weapon power can clear events. I really like changing up my playstles.
I was looking at my top 5 ship scores.
2 Normal Victories (Zoltan/Kestrel B)
2 Easy Victories (Zoltan/Kestrel B)
#2 is an Easy failure with the Stealth Ship.
I've beaten the boss on much harder runs, but naturally the scores are bad. I just want to unlock the unknown ship. The two game elements I have left to explore are that ship and heavy drone use. Even with the Engi Cruiser I barely used drones. Hate not being able to micro manage them. Too much crossing my fingers that they do what I want them to do.
Especially painful with my Stealth Ship runs thus far.
The spiders also works out well with the Anti-Bio beam.
The best blue event I've had so far involved a slug ship that claimed that it was disabled and required someone to help repair it. If you have a Mantis crew, you can send it over to find out that there was nothing wrong. The Mantis proceeds to single-handedly kill like half the ship before the rest surrender.
platypotamus
Member
Man, the couple times I've made it to the end sector, those repair stations don't work out as viable stops between stages of the battle. Do they ever?
It kinda sucks unless you have the advanced FTL jump module, then you can do a stage, jump back and jump to a repair spot and then back at the boss.
Holy crap. What an amazing use of that thing. Didnt think of that.
RealDeadOne
Member
Decided to try out Easy mode, and of course it was easily my best run yet. Made it straight to the flagship wrecking everything in my path, first time using a boarder drone+Mantis boarder combo
Until my poor Mantis got killed because I couldn't teleport her out of a room for some reason. And then the flagship absolutely annihilated me, I didn't stand a fucking chance. I had invested heavily in shields but it ion cannon'd them all right out, and then I spent more time trying to keep everything repaired than actually attacking. My Rock guy was on guns but I had to use him to put out fires.
Can't even imagine trying to fight that bastard on Normal...
Until my poor Mantis got killed because I couldn't teleport her out of a room for some reason. And then the flagship absolutely annihilated me, I didn't stand a fucking chance. I had invested heavily in shields but it ion cannon'd them all right out, and then I spent more time trying to keep everything repaired than actually attacking. My Rock guy was on guns but I had to use him to put out fires.
Can't even imagine trying to fight that bastard on Normal...
lol, perfect.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
I think most of my play-through's were less than an hour.. and it was about an hour I believe when I "beat" it the first time.
You can only explore so much, and after quite a few games you really don't read the dialogue anymore since you already know what it says. With good use of the hotkeys you don't even need to pause often.
That's all I'm asking for. A way to keep playing my crew. I guess the lack of "trading" would be it's downfall in the long run.. but still there's still quite a bit of fun from the metagame of enjoying your crew.
I definitely agree that there should be another mode to it. The devs already said they plan on adding content, so lets hope that goes in rather soon. I mean, it even was in the Beta, so it shouldnt be that out of the ordinary.
Fuck this. So... ugh...
Had a full crew (never happened before) managed to get the transporter (never happened before) but FUCK ran out of missiles... didn't have enough fire power to knock down the shields on boss v2 so I was basically fucked. Too many fucking drones man... it's just insane.
I don't know how much more I can play this game. The randomness of what you get etc is becoming infuriating. I just quit if I don't get a decent start in the first sector or two.
Had a full crew (never happened before) managed to get the transporter (never happened before) but FUCK ran out of missiles... didn't have enough fire power to knock down the shields on boss v2 so I was basically fucked. Too many fucking drones man... it's just insane.
I don't know how much more I can play this game. The randomness of what you get etc is becoming infuriating. I just quit if I don't get a decent start in the first sector or two.
If internet high fives were real high fives I woulda just slapped you raw.
whalleywhat
Member
You're just approaching it with the wrong mentality imo.
O.DOGG said:
You can sell them... during randomized events.
electricpirate
Member
Yea, the randomness is a big part of what makes this game so special. This is the only game I've played where going to the damn store will elevate my pulse.
Right now, I'm finding 4/5 play throughs I can get to the boss, that 5th game I feel like I get unlucky and I get bad rolls. I should be mad, but it just makes the rest of the game work so damn well. The ability for a few bad events, or a poorly designed system is what lends the game much of it's tension, and it's power to be so addicting. So far, I'm finding the balance between luck and skill to be pretty spot on.
Still, you can do lots to mitigate the need for luck. Every ship should be able to breeze through the first two sections, and most can slug it out in the third. Hit every node, and every shop, and i'd estimate you have a 90% chance of finding something good. If you don't find good weapons, you'll have found good crew, so go buy a teleporter and you can win fights that way.
Try not to spend any scrap in the first three zones unless you see a great weapon after that, plow cash into engines, shield/defensive stuff. if you can spare it, pick up a cloaking device ASAP, that way you can dodge missiles, save scrap, and reduce the danger in combat.
Still having trouble? Roll with the Engi ship, the ion cannon is probably the best weapon in the game, just point it at their shields and autofire. Or try the zoltan ship, the zoltan shield can eat damage and protect your precious hull, and the halberd beam alone is enough to take you through the third sector, find an ion cannon or burst laser and that's it, you've got enough firepower for the rest of the game.
Right now, I'm finding 4/5 play throughs I can get to the boss, that 5th game I feel like I get unlucky and I get bad rolls. I should be mad, but it just makes the rest of the game work so damn well. The ability for a few bad events, or a poorly designed system is what lends the game much of it's tension, and it's power to be so addicting. So far, I'm finding the balance between luck and skill to be pretty spot on.
Still, you can do lots to mitigate the need for luck. Every ship should be able to breeze through the first two sections, and most can slug it out in the third. Hit every node, and every shop, and i'd estimate you have a 90% chance of finding something good. If you don't find good weapons, you'll have found good crew, so go buy a teleporter and you can win fights that way.
Try not to spend any scrap in the first three zones unless you see a great weapon after that, plow cash into engines, shield/defensive stuff. if you can spare it, pick up a cloaking device ASAP, that way you can dodge missiles, save scrap, and reduce the danger in combat.
Still having trouble? Roll with the Engi ship, the ion cannon is probably the best weapon in the game, just point it at their shields and autofire. Or try the zoltan ship, the zoltan shield can eat damage and protect your precious hull, and the halberd beam alone is enough to take you through the third sector, find an ion cannon or burst laser and that's it, you've got enough firepower for the rest of the game.
platypotamus
Member
What's up with that? I had my Rockman die for the same reason the other day. Kept clicking and kept seeing a little red teleporty icon appear in the room?
Why not send some of your crew over into their shield room?
j_k_redtail
Member
Wow, this is such a great game. I actually spent a couple hours playing - it's actually been since I've played a game I've enjoyed this much.
I finally won on easy. Got through the first 2 boss forms without taking a lick of damage but that third form still managed to get me down to 4 hull. Between the boarding parties and his barrages, jeez... What a jerk.
O.DOGG
Member
How'd you manage that? I still haven't beaten the game once! Just died in sector 7 today when I encountered a heavily armed rebel fighter with very large missiles, two drones and a burst laser...
Had burst laser 2, burst laser 3 and hull beam as 100% of my damage, no missiles needed past the first sector. Ship was fully upgraded except for nonessential stuff. Didn't use any transporting or a stealth system (which would have helped greatly during the third form to avoid barrages). Crew was 3 humans manning the main systems, 3 zoltans manning the engine room and 2 engi running around on repairs. And lastly I had a defense drone Mk 2 up at all times. He was still only marginally helpful during the final stage but it's probably the reason I survived with 4 hull instead of died again for the millionth time.
Summary: Get lucky and get 1. good set of offensive weapons, 2. full, useful crew, 3. enough scrap to fully upgrade all essential systems. Easy as pie! *eyeroll*
Castef
Banned
Nice game, greatly overrated on the web in its current state.
Boarding mechanic is underdeveloped and it may mean doom without the player being able to do a frikking thing about it.
Space battles are interesting for the first 30 minutes. Then you understand that targeting everything else except weapons and shield is useless.
Also, the quantity of random elements is not that big and after a few games is all starts repeating very quickly.
Should be developed a bit more.
Also: you HAVE to be lucky. Otherwise you are doomed.
Boarding mechanic is underdeveloped and it may mean doom without the player being able to do a frikking thing about it.
Space battles are interesting for the first 30 minutes. Then you understand that targeting everything else except weapons and shield is useless.
Also, the quantity of random elements is not that big and after a few games is all starts repeating very quickly.
Should be developed a bit more.
Also: you HAVE to be lucky. Otherwise you are doomed.
Castef
Banned
whalleywhat
Member
I disagree.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
I agree with some of what you said, but this is a big no. Taking out their engine/piloting stops them from escaping as well as removing their chance to dodge, which is huge, and taking out the medbay can be very important for capturing ships.
Castef
Banned
If you are equipped with a pair of good weapons you don't even have to think about the enemy ship fleeing. Just disable shields and weapons and you are done.
Capturing ships is a minor part of the game, for 95% of space fighting you may apply the weapons/shields strategy and wipe out the enemy.
(I had a similar discussion some time ago about the fighting system in Eternal Darkness...
)KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Rewards are better if you keep the enemy ship intact, and sometimes you just don't have the firepower to take out a ship before it can jump.If you are equipped with a pair of good weapons you don't even have to think about the enemy ship fleeing. Just disable shields and weapons and you are done.
Capturing ships is a minor part of the game, for 95% of space fighting you may apply the weapons/shields strategy and wipe out the enemy.
(I had a similar discussion some time ago about the fighting system in Eternal Darkness...
Castef
Banned
I disagree. Point is: can you complete the game by applying my strategy? Quick answer: yep.
I'm not feeling forced to find another way of playing the starship battles. And this is a flaw, considering the good quantity of variables which could be involved.
Haunted
Member
Boarding the flagship's main area is a suicide mission, they've got like 5 or 6 guys running around.
Boarding the weapons rooms however...
Honestly, depending on the enemy's dodge chance, I go for the bridge first.
Do you defeat the rebel flagship in every run on normal? I definitely feel that my runs go better with the increased scrap you get from boarding/capturing and I'm far away from beating the game every time. You might win the small battles, but you're not playing optimally and that'll reduce your chances against the flagship.
That said, the nice part about FTL is that everyone can play it the way they want. If you want to have boring ship battles all the time, that's your prerogative.
If you want to be forced to use other methods of playing the game, unlock and use the other ships. The mantis cruiser's primary offense is via boarding parties. It doesn't sound like you've played with any of the ships outside the starting ship much if at all, yet you speak like you're an expert on the game and knock it for only offering only one tried and true method of getting through the combat.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
If you are equipped with a pair of good weapons you don't even have to think about the enemy ship fleeing. Just disable shields and weapons and you are done.
Capturing ships is a minor part of the game, for 95% of space fighting you may apply the weapons/shields strategy and wipe out the enemy.
(I had a similar discussion some time ago about the fighting system in Eternal Darkness...
In the first few sectors, your strategy will certainly work. In the later sectors, it won't always work. In encounters with rebel scouts who immediately prep to flee, you have to take out the engines as soon as possible or they will get away and bring the rebel fleet bearing down on you quickly. And using boarding parties is a very important strategy to get the most scrap you can, yet sometimes it's just too dangerous to risk losing your crew.
It doesn't sound like you've actually played the game very much, or are very far into it?
electricpirate
Member
See, I feel like these three things are kind of contradictory.
It sounds like you are reliant on one strategy, and that sounds like a strategy reliant on missiles and burst lasers. So if you don't get those weapons, and you get a couple of bad events you feel screwed.
But if you can't find the weapons you need, then you can look for other strategies. Drones, or boarding parties.
I agree on the variety of events/quests, I'd love to have about triple what's in here now, and a few of the common ones should be more rare (plaugue planet, zoltan eye, etc)
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Indeed. It'd be nice if the results were more interesting than scrap/missiles/fuel for 90% of them, too.
electricpirate
Member
Yea, I think straight loot being more common would be more fun. A) You can sell it for scrap, and B) it's cool to get stuff
. Also, more quests with weird outcomes. How about quests where you have to disable a ship, or a quest where you have to knock out a specific weapon and jump away. I'd like to see the negative outcomes be a bit crazier. Maybe the ship you docked with pulls you down next to a star and the commotion summons a rebel, or the ship takes 2 of your crew hostage and demands payment (Or you can fight to free them).
I dunno, I'm curious to see what subset will do, and the modding scene is starting to pickup. I don't have that cracklike addiction anymore (though once a game starts, it's hard to pull away from it), but at 40 hours in, and still having fun, my complaints are pretty minor.
You can't just say things like that and not try to back them up. It may mean doom without the player being able to do anything about it? How so?
Huh, no. Targeting the bridge removes the dodge chance, which is a HUGE deal as you get further in the sectors. In the first few sectors, sure, it's not super useful, but as you get to sector 6, ships start to dodge a HELL of a lot more, have more shields, and in general is much more difficult to take down - if you destroy the bridge, you completely remove their chance to dodge, which makes it much easier to take down their shields and weapons.
As other people have said, you also get more rewards when you do minimal damage to a ship and instead kill the crew - if you teleport into a ship with a med bay, you *will* die unless you can teleport back in time. You just can't outfight people in a med bay, and when one is present, the crew will always run back to it to heal.
The events would indeed probably benefit from more variety, but it's not such a huge deal, since their outcome is never the same, really.
And you don't HAVE to be lucky. By this point, I always, and I mean ALWAYS get to the final boss on easy. Regardless of luck. It's the type of game where you have to make your own luck, and work with the resources you're given. You can't ever min-max because you have no idea what's going to happen.
And no. As I and other people have said, sometimes you need to disable their engines or the bridge to prevent them from fleeing, sometimes you need to kill the crew without destroying the ship, and a "pair of good weapons" truly isn't enough for a lot of the ship in sectors 6/7, and for the final boss it's definitely not enough.
Try playing it a bit more and seeing more of it rather than playing it for an hour and decide that it's not deep enough.