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[Tomat]

Every single time I get far in this game I get put up against a ship that is impossible for me to handle because I never had the opportunity to earn scrap to buy anything.

Fucking roguelikes.

 

[O.DOGG]

Also, I just tried the Zoltan Cruiser today for the first time, and whoa, it seems insanely overpowered. The Zoltan Shield itself is quite the augment, but starting with a Halberd Beam? Holy crap! I'm getting the one achievement of not upgrading power until sector 5, and so far it's smooth sailing (any other ship would be completely crippled). I can't see not winning this one game. Had to stop for a bit, will continue later.

I don't really think there's any one ship that is too overpowered. They all have their pros and cons and it's all about which ship fits your style of play best. To be honest I didn't like the Zoltan Cruiser but then I didn't really play with it, I just unlocked it and left it in the hangar. May give it a shot but the greatest challenge for me now is beating the game with the Mantis Cruiser or the Stealth Cruiser on Medium Difficulty.
By the way I noticed that the enemy behavior on Medium is much more ruthless. Ships will jump much more frequently if you don't finish them fast enough, and they appear to aim at more critical systems of the ship instead of hitting random rooms. That's my observation at least.

 

[Soi-Fong]

Every single time I get far in this game I get put up against a ship that is impossible for me to handle because I never had the opportunity to earn scrap to buy anything.

Fucking roguelikes.

Died on my first boss battle with the starship at sector 8. Goddamn. Ran out of missiles (4 in the beginning of the battle) and practically out of scraps so I couldn't buy any.. Got him down to like 90% health. lol

I have to rely less on missiles and be more cautious in choosing my battles. It's really hard to be the "hero" in this game.

Always felt like a dick when I ignored a distress call.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Because you should listen to me when I shout at people!

I could make that rather long, but for the sake of being concise, get GrimrockFTLSpaceChemFrozenSynapseCivCityGrandAgesLoneSurvivorSineMoraEverydayGeniusGalacticCivilizationsIIEndlessSpaceGeneforgeGnomoria.

( Also known as the games who got the TOSA )


Especially Frozen Synapse cant be recommended enough, but they are all great.

I already have virtually all of them, heh (aside from Dungeons, I bought GalCiv2 last week, and Sine Mora less than two weeks ago). Lack of time means I've not touched most of them, including Grimrock, Gnomoria, Frozen Synapse, GalCiv2 and Geneforge. :/
Could you separate CivCityGrandAges for me? Is it Civilization, SimCity, and a game called Grand Ages I don't know about?

Famous last words.

For sure. I wasn't feeling good yesterday, what with still recovering from my impacted wisdom tooth surgery and it being my first day of work after that. Let's see how it goes.

Oh. In reality wouldn't someone get sucked out if they're standing in the room with the open door? That would have been a neat little feature. But suffocating my dude is a good idea. I never thought of that.

Why would you do that rather than quitting? Quitting to the main menu records your run as if you had died (restarting might too, I'm not sure).
Of course, that's unless you're simply a sadist. But you CAN recover from a run that went horribly bad, and it's actually one of the most fun parts of the game.

So when it comes to the final boss, where do you get the weapons you need? Are all the good lasers in mantis areas or something? I got to the second form but couldn't beat him fast enough because I never came across quality lasers or any attack drones at all. I had tons of scrap and in the end just used it on upgrades I didn't need because the stores weren't offering anything.

You need much less firepower than you think. The Kestrel's starting weapons are enough to beat the final boss! For other ships, as long as you don't start with and get exclusively beams, or get only lasers totalling less than four damage (both a virtual statistical impossibility), you're good.
For example, with the Kestrel, if you followed my tips, you should have a ton of missiles; set the missile launcher to autofire on the shields. Once it gets to level 2 shields or less, shoot it with the burst laser. Again, the strategy I posted means that the ship is a sitting duck during stage one while you're doing this. Later stages should not be much more difficult following it.

Another thing the game does right is the soundtrack.

Almost all indie games have a horrendous obnoxious soundtrack. Amazingly FTL has a nice soundtrack that fits brilliantly with the theme. It's not over the top and it sounds good.

Well done to the devs. All those other indie devs should take note. Also take note of how it has depth but simplicity.

Did you notice that every sector type has two tracks that perfectly synch, an exploration and a battle one, and the game fades into one or the other depending on the situation? Such a simple and effective way of doing dynamic music. You can open up both tracks with your favorite audio player, then mute one or the other to see this effect.

My ships all die in the first sector, probably should play the tutorial lol.

Play the tutorial, then read my tips on the previous page.

I can't seem to beat the later stages. I can't break through 3 layers shield with my lasers and my starter missile doesn't do enough damage to break their shield

Use teleporters, fire weapons in salvos. A single missile can weaken the shields enough that your combined lasers can go through it; focus on the shield room itself, obviously. Later on you'll find evade more bothersome than shields, so you might want to focus on the cockpit or teleport crew there.

So what do you people aim first? Shield? or weapon system?

If you can easily tear through theirs shields, weapons; if not, or you can easily negate most damage they deal, shields and cockpit. If neither, consider jumping away. Always fire in salvos (autofire is your enemy), and when the cockpit is down, aim for the engines.

Wait til you get the Pre Loader....all your weapons that are powered, charged at the beginning of a fight? yes pls. rare as hell though, only found it for sale twice and received it as a reward once in like 30 games.

EDIT: oops, had the names mixed up....yes, it is OP as hell lol.

I've never actually got it, but it seems like the cloak is a better proposition, as it is essentially the same for the starting barrage, and you get to reuse it later in the fight.
Of course, both at the same time must be entirely game-breaking . I've got to try that sometimes.

Again, I think you're exaggerating. In every single one of my games there is usually an upper strand of beacons and a lower strand. By time you visit 3 the fleet is already on your ass. Try to squeeze more out of it and the estimation zone is absorbing beacons so their events are nullified. So by what I am seeing, half of the beacons must go unexplored.

HALF? You're doing something wrong for sure. I think I will take screenshots of all my jumps through a sector and make a GIF or something to show you how I do it.
In this game I have currently paused, I once explored every beacon of a sector except 2-3. Granted, the sector had a few nebulae, but still.

This is every single playthrough and since the rebels advance by jump turns there is no way you are using skill to get more beacons.

I'm getting mighty tired of you calling me a liar. I think this is the last time I'm replying to you.
There are a TON of ways to get the most out of a sector. I've listed them in the past but for the sake of discussion, I will reenuimerate
1) Plan your entire route estimating where the rebel fleet will advance and go to the clusters of beacons that are most interconnected to have more options.
2) Priorize nebulae.
3) Hire mercenaries to scout the next sector and priorize ships.
4) Hire mercenaries to delay the rebel fleet.
5) Get any of the other events that delay the rebel fleet or scan the sector. There are LOTS of them, including surrender and boarding loot for some ships.
6) Get the Long-Range Scanners and priorize ships.
7) Explore past the exit, then jump back to it even if it means fighting the Rebel fleet.
8) More that I'm forgetting about right now.

Seriously, maximizing explored sectors is one of the keys to success in this game. Why the hell are you ignoring all these options?

Seriously guys I'm not trying to be negative, just realistic. If luck is part of the concept and even the whole genre, you don't have to pretend like it is a much smaller amount than is true.

We are not pretending anything; we simply know the game much better than you, and I think we've demonstrated it quite thoroughly. Let me ask you a simple question. How many times have you finished it so far?

Yes, a lot of vague references to tactical foreknowledge that magically appears when you are better at the game. I see. That makes a lot of sense.

Excuse me? I've given you a LOT of explicit, specific options to follow regarding this very topic. How is this "vague" or "magical"? Note that the list I just posted is a virtual repeat of one I responded you to with before, you just chose to ignore it.

A teleporter would indeed have done me a LOT of good against the boss on that run, but when considering to get one at stage 5, I thought the next two stages would have any weapons whatsoever to offer rather than two extra crew. Maybe if I had bought the teleporter, those extra crew events wouldn't have generated and stores would have generated a nice offensive drone that I wouldn't be able to buy because I spent my scrap on a teleporter, and then since it was almost useless, shield upgrades to survive.

A teleporter is FAR more crucial to have than any drone or any specific weapon. I'd say it's the most crucial thing to have in the entire game, either above or tied with a cloaking system. It costs half as much as well. Again, please, read my final boss tips.

The point is that you don't know what you're going to get later. You can have a strategic plan and try to adjust as it is or is not working out, but things are not nearly as skill-based as I think you guys are coloring it.

Any hard-set long-term strategic plan you might have is going to fall apart. You have to improvise each and every run. Fuck, I go into most of my runs not knowing what the hell I'm doing, since each time I try a different ship. My last completed one, with the mantis ship was quite hard considering the immensely sucky weapons they have, but guess what? I won that games as well.

There is still a hell of a lot of luck in coming across good things in the right timing. What do you do when a store has what you need but it's the only jump point that far left and it's too early?

There are some ahead, but to get enough scrap would take enough time that the fleet would eat up the store? You move on. But then the next store has garbage, so then what?

You go to another shop? There's 2-3 shops per sector, that makes it 14-21 shops per game, and since you DO detect them when you're one jump away, there's no excuse why you shouldn't have access to them all. Heck, I skil over 50% of the shops so as to not waste a turn.
Also, aside from the teleporter, cloak and possibly drone systems (which almost half of all shops have), there is NO "thing you need" in this game. You can finish the game with any combination of equipment that can go through a four level shield, which means pretty much anything that includes a bomb or missile, any combination that can do 5 aside from beams, or heck, the Ion Gun 2 and any other non-ion weapon at all.

Then garbage is what luck gave you. Unless there is a magical whole-map scanner that tells you what items you'll get, it doesn't make any sense to act like it's skill when you find good things. You can try and maximize what you do come across, but getting the actually good shit that is actually useful in end-game has all to do with good fortune of even being able to set your eyes upon one in your meager space-life.

Again, you can finish the game with the Kestrel's starting weapons. There is no need for any of the high-end stuff if you know what you're doing. Heck, once I finish my current Zoltan run I'm tempted to purposely do just that to show you.

Trouble with beams is, you gotta get the enemy shields down first, or they do no damage.

The Halberd beam does TWO damage; that means at the start of the game, you can simply start tracing at their shield room and the next rooms it hits will do full damage, one-shotting ships like 70% of the time; insane. I did run into a bit of trouble when they started having two levels of shields, as I hadn't got any other weapon yet... but the ship ALSO comes with a missile weapon to weaken them shields. You all know my dislike for using missiles, but it tided me over until I got a beam weapon, then it was back to carnage again.

I don't really think there's any one ship that is too overpowered. They all have their pros and cons and it's all about which ship fits your style of play best. To be honest I didn't like the Zoltan Cruiser but then I didn't really play with it, I just unlocked it and left it in the hangar. May give it a shot but the greatest challenge for me now is beating the game with the Mantis Cruiser or the Stealth Cruiser on Medium Difficulty.

Mantis cruiser does worst at the beginning, especially against shielded automated ships. I always jumped out of those. Once you start getting weapons, cloaking and such it does much better. It's definitely one of the most underpowered ships, as you can get a teleported for relatively cheap.

The Stealth Cruiser, however, is awesome. I've finished the game twice with it, both on easy, I think (after finishing it once on Normal, I'm probably not playing it again until I unlock everything). It's amazing how different its playstyle is, and yet you can do pretty well with good engines and cloaking until you get the shields. One of my successful runs, I didn't bother getting shields until sector 6 or 7!

By the way I noticed that the enemy behavior on Medium is much more ruthless. Ships will jump much more frequently if you don't finish them fast enough, and they appear to aim at more critical systems of the ship instead of hitting random rooms. That's my observation at least.

That's awesome to hear. I didn't notice a huge difference on Normal (then again I played the Kestrel, which seems kind of overpowered when you play a few of the alternate ships, with its starting Burst Laser II). I'm actually eager to unlock all and jump on normal.

Died on my first boss battle with the starship at sector 8. Goddamn. Ran out of missiles (4 in the beginning of the battle) and practically out of scraps so I couldn't buy any.. Got him down to like 90% health. lol

I have to rely less on missiles and be more cautious in choosing my battles. It's really hard to be the "hero" in this game.

Always felt like a dick when I ignored a distress call.

Yeah, ignore missiles until the boss, unless absolutely necessary. I've not bought a missile EVER; rather the opposite, I tend to sell bundles of 15 in those events that give you 45 scrap. Relying on missiles is not a sustainable strategy at all, therefore the opposite of what you want.

And yeah, ignore pleas for help if you smell a hint of danger. You are on a mission, after all .
You know what's to feel like a dick? Try destroying a slaver ship, killing all slaves, because you have a full eight crew already and you'd rather get the scrap for destroying it, than the slave they offer.

 

[Dice]

Every single time I get far in this game I get put up against a ship that is impossible for me to handle because I never had the opportunity to earn scrap to buy anything.

Fucking roguelikes.

Eh, other roguelikes seem to more consistently give you something to work with, even if not ideal. They also tend to be about surviving your own willful progress, not getting chased down in one direction. I was in a nebula following the only path I had to the exit. Got nothing 3 times in a row. Like the game actually talked about my crew looking for shit and not seeing anything. The other spots also barely offered anything, being stores or a couple distress beacons that just wanted to take my fuel or drones for very little scrap. Great design there...

The repetitive run aspect may be addictive to some, but for me in this game it becomes fairly tiresome. So much becomes routine and then you're just hoping to find something good for one through that routine. Looking at the manner in which it is so, I realized it's fucking hard because that's all it has. If it were easier, the limited and linear content would catch full attention. That said, I think this would be better as an open ended game where you explore space and there were many other sorts of encounters you could have.

You need much less firepower than you think. The Kestrel's starting weapons are enough to beat the final boss! For other ships, as long as you don't start with and get exclusively beams, or get only lasers totalling less than four damage (both a virtual statistical impossibility), you're good.
For example, with the Kestrel, if you followed my tips, you should have a ton of missiles; set the missile launcher to autofire on the shields. Once it gets to level 2 shields or less, shoot it with the burst laser. Again, the strategy I posted means that the ship is a sitting duck during stage one while you're doing this. Later stages should not be much more difficult following it.

LOL prove it. I can tell you how this goes: He conveniently pulversizes your shields with the triple missiles, causing a hull breach and fire in there, then you die from a million lasers while trying to fix that.

HALF? You're doing something wrong for sure. I think I will take screenshots of all my jumps through a sector and make a GIF or something to show you how I do it.

Please do. I don't believe it for a second. Are we playing on different builds or something?

In this game I have currently paused, I once explored every beacon of a sector except 2-3. Granted, the sector had a few nebulae, but still.

This is every single playthrough and since the rebels advance by jump turns there is no way you are using skill to get more beacons.

I'm getting mighty tired of you calling me a liar. I think this is the last time I'm replying to you.

I'm not calling you a liar, I'm merely saying that your information is false. It could easily be from selective memory. That happens a lot with people. If your claims don't match up with my observations, then you know what I'm going to believe? My observations. I am not lying, either. I have read your tips and tried them and gotten nothing more out of it than I usually do.

There are a TON of ways to get the most out of a sector. I've listed them in the past but for the sake of discussion, I will reenuimerate
1) Plan your entire route estimating where the rebel fleet will advance and go to the clusters of beacons that are most interconnected to have more options.
2) Priorize nebulae.
3) Hire mercenaries to delay the rebel fleet and priorize ships.
4) Get any of the other events that delay the rebel fleet or scan the sector. There are LOTS of them, including surrender and boarding loot for some ships.
5) Get the Long-Range Scanners and priorize ships.
6) Explore past the exit, then jump back to it even if it means fighting the Rebel fleet.
7) More that I'm forgetting about right now.

Seriously, maximizing explored sectors is one of the keys to success in this game. Why the hell are you ignoring all these options?

Why the hell are you ignoring me telling you that I am and I am not getting the same results? Edit: To further clarify. Say you have a nice cluster of 5 stops in a small arc at the bottom of the map. Hit 3 of them and then by time you reach the 4th it will be rebel controlled. Meanwhile, there are 3 more points at the top of the map you never had a prayer of ever seeing. This is how it is every single time so my confusion is extremely high when reading your posts. Even if the rebels never came, there are so many worthless spots that you'd have a faint hope of running into enough ships or shops you can wrangle fuel out of to be able to make it through them all.

We are not pretending anything; we simply know the game much better than you, and I think we've demonstrated it quite thoroughly. Let me ask you a simple question. How many times have you finished it so far?

Stop being a dick about it. You're only making it worse because even using your supposedly foolproof methods, I lose. That is the issue, not me ignoring you guys.

Excuse me? I've given you a LOT of explicit, specific options to follow regarding this very topic. How is this "vague" or "magical"? Note that the list I just posted is a virtual repeat of one I responded you to with before, you just chose to ignore it.

That response was not to you, so it was not in reference to your tactics (which don't work anyway)

A teleporter is FAR more crucial to have than any drone or any specific weapon. I'd say it's the most crucial thing to have in the entire game, either above or tied with a cloaking system. It costs half as much as well. Again, please, read my final boss tips.

I did, and tried them. He appears to be much more deadly than you give credit.

Any hard-set long-term strategic plan you might have is going to fall apart. You have to improvise each and every run. Fuck, I go into most of my runs not knowing what the hell I'm doing, since each time I try a different ship. My last completed one, with the mantis ship was quite hard considering the immensely sucky weapons they have, but guess what? I won that games as well.

Yes, I spoke of flexibility in the very thing you quoted.

You go to another shop? There's 2-3 shops per sector, that makes it 14-21 shops per game, and since you DO detect them when you're one jump away, there's no excuse why you shouldn't have access to them all. Heck, I skil over 50% of the shops so as to not waste a turn.

Goddamn you are really temping me to do the exact same thing as you mentioned and taking pictures of the map as I go through it. Your claims are seriously utterly ludicrous compared to what I'm seeing in the game. Seriously, what is your build number? I want to check mine and compare. Edit: Mine is in Steam and says 1.03.1

Also, aside from the teleporter, cloak and possibly drone systems (which almost half of all shops have), there is NO "thing you need" in this game. You can finish the game with any combination of equipment that can go through a four level shield, which means pretty much anything that includes a bomb or missile, any combination that can do 5 aside from beams, or heck, the Ion Gun 2 and any other non-ion weapon at all.

These things are harder to come by than you convey.

Again, you can finish the game with the Kestrel's starting weapons. There is no need for any of the high-end stuff if you know what you're doing. Heck, once I finish my current Zoltan run I'm tempted to purposely do just that to show you.

Please, make some youtubes of your feats. I really do want to see this. As I have said a million times already, I'm not calling you a liar, I am just saying that your statements and my experiences with the game seem to be very far removed. You paint a much, much freer picture with way more possible moves and seemingly more gentle enemies.

 

[Tomat]

Speaking of Roguelikes, are there any other roguelike games on Steam aside from Isaac and Dredmore?

 

[Soi-Fong]

Man, if they kickstart a sequel to this game, I'll fund the hell out of it.

One of the best gaming experiences ever along with Planetside 2 for me this year.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I'm done replying to you, Dice. You can disagree with what other says without calling them liars or otherwise claiming that their experiences are false (which is somehow even more insulting). I don't have any need for your rudeness. The most I'll do is provide you with proof of both a completed run with Kestrel's defaul weapons, and a star map with over 80% of the nodes visited (which is unfortunately harder to do than I thought as rebel-occupied sectors lose their "visited" graphic. Still, I don't understand what more proof I need than the fact I've finished the game 4-5 times in about 30 hours of total gameplay. Again, can you please give me your numbers on both? I don't understand what better measure you can have of experience with the game.

For the record, I died in my run with the Zoltan cruiser. It was entirely my fault, and I learned from it. I got auto-boarded; you know, that one event when you get boarded immediately before a fight with a ship, bypassying your Zoltan shields (the game, funnily enough, even tells you that you don't know how they did it), and while I could have won the fight, I figured I would deal with the boarders in peace by jumping to another place. This was not the best choice as I jumped straight to ANOTHER autoboard+ship (totalling 6 boarders including a rockman and a mantis, versus my handful of Zoltans) and got my doors and O2 busted early. As the Zoltan have a measly 70 HP (and I was going for the "no reactor upgrades" achievement, meaning I had all of three energy bars to maange aside from the Zoltan themselves), this probably would have ended badly anyway... even as I tried a THIRD jump right into a large rebel ship.

I guess that's one of the dangers of closely skirting the rebel fleet; you don't have any "safe" beacons to jump back if shit hits the fan. Still, my mistake was the first jump; that was an unnecesary risk I definitely should not have taken. I love this game and its tough love so much.

And just now I realized that, having died close to the end of the 4th sector, I missed the achievement too . Ah well.

 

[Dice]

You can disagree with what other says without calling them liars or otherwise claiming that their experiences are false (which is somehow even more insulting).

You had no problem doing that to me.

Sad that our experiences had such a great conflict of facts for each of us to merely report on. I guess we'll never figure out WTF is going on.

 

[Danj]

Again, you can finish the game with the Kestrel's starting weapons. There is no need for any of the high-end stuff if you know what you're doing. Heck, once I finish my current Zoltan run I'm tempted to purposely do just that to show you.

I'd like to see that, because I must admit I am skeptical that that's possible.

The Halberd beam does TWO damage; that means at the start of the game, you can simply start tracing at their shield room and the next rooms it hits will do full damage, one-shotting ships like 70% of the time; insane. I did run into a bit of trouble when they started having two levels of shields, as I hadn't got any other weapon yet... but the ship ALSO comes with a missile weapon to weaken them shields. You all know my dislike for using missiles, but it tided me over until I got a beam weapon, then it was back to carnage again.

Yeah, I figured that out after starting a Zoltan run and mousing over the halberd beam; I managed to get by with just using the beam in the first sector, where everyone has only one shield, but once you hit a ship with two it's no good.

 

[O.DOGG]

I'd like to see that, because I must admit I am skeptical that that's possible.

I think it's possible. Just get a teleporter and a boarding party + cloaking, and you'll be good with the starting weapons for all three forms of the rebel mothership.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Is there a mod to sell drones, missiles and fuel (not that I'd want to) at stores?

 

[Dice]

Okay, here we go. I went through the first stage just to show how it can be. This was the very first try, and the results were pretty common.

First jump, let's try to hit all these on the left before the rebels start coming. What do we find?

Jack shit. Didn't want to overdo the images so the next stop was a fight and I got a bit of scrap.

I know for a fact that if I go out that far to the right it will be too far, so I take the left path.

Found a battle and got the scrap, so I'll continue up to what is apparently a store because it's my only option if I'm going to pretend like I can hit all the jump points. What can I buy?

Enthralling options. Might have been able to get a teleporter if that one before wasn't NOTHING. What's next..

A distress call. Chance of getting a rebel ship instead (has happened many times) but I did get a normal battle. What was after that?

NOTHING! Okay, moving on, where to go...

That top nebula didn't connect for some stupid reason, so I will take the lower path, but there isn't enough time. For this step I am dropping those two at the top to go right. Total Lost Points: 2

Gambled on something for fun and lost a nice chunk of scrap, the point is the jump points anyway. Now I take a risk and end up fighting a rebel ship, used some missiles because it's not a long run.

Maybe because I had just fought a rebel ship it had mercy on me. I fought a drone to save people. Double payment. Yet I was sitting in red so I had to get the fuck out. I went straight right and the bottom two were lost. Total lost points: 4

No time to go out and come back, so the top 3 were lost. Total points lost: 7, or 8 if you count the one that turned into a rebel ship. Again, I lucked out on the rebel ship not appearing when I exited.

Aside from the starting point and exit there were 19 points at the start. I concede that is a bit far from half, but I have suffered worse fates. As I said earlier, on many stages for me there seems to be an upper path and a lower path.

Even though the store was shit and two points had absolutely nothing (and my flippant gamble lost), this kind of run is my concept of lucky since I dodged the rebels well for the most part, so the kind of domination you speak of is insane to me.

 

[Canis lupus]

Thats a huge post Weltall!

Btw, what happens when the whole sector is red of Rebels? Insta death or just extra, harder fights?

 

[Mazre]

I went through the first stage just to show how it can be. This was the very first try, and the results were pretty common.

Even though the store was shit and two points had absolutely nothing (and my flippant gamble lost), this kind of run is my concept of lucky since I dodged the rebels well for the most part, so the kind of domination you speak of is insane to me.

So was this a common run or a lucky run?

Enthralling options. Might have been able to get a teleporter if that one before wasn't NOTHING. What's next..

You passed on a scrap recovery arm 4 jumps in, pretty much the exact ideal time to pick one up, as it would pay for itself many times over in a full run. With a different ship or forward thinking the drone recovery arm is a pretty compelling option as well, more of a gamble but still there.

You finish up with 132 scrap and a hull laser after one sector, giving you offensive and defensive upgrade paths.

Now I take a risk and end up fighting a rebel ship, used some missiles because it's not a long run.

Again, I lucked out on the rebel ship not appearing when I exited.

I may be misreading, but it appears based on the screen shots you show that you misunderstand the advancing fleet mechanic. You'll only encounter the fleet itself if you jump into or remain in a node between the white and red line. This region represents where the fleet will be after you jump. In the two shots attached to the preceding quotes you are quite in the clear to jump to those nodes.

They also tend to be about surviving your own willful progress, not getting chased down in one direction.

While FTL has a more literal chase than many, the basic push mechanic is quite common to the genre. Be it the need to find more food or limiting the number of turns a player can remain on a floor, or both. It can certainly be argued that FTL uses a more aggressive mechanic but at the same time it is highly predictable and mostly consistent. There's even additional risk/reward choices built in via the option to travel through available nebulae (node/not sector), or spending scrap on a mercenary, to buy more search time (additional nodes).

 

[Canis lupus]

What to do against invaders? :S

 

[Dice]

So was this a common run or a lucky run?

The amount of jump points skipped was common. The luck was in not catching too many rebels despite pushing it. This is not hard to understand.

You passed on a scrap recovery arm 4 jumps in, pretty much the exact ideal time to pick one up, as it would pay for itself many times over in a full run. With a different ship or forward thinking the drone recovery arm is a pretty compelling option as well, more of a gamble but still there.

That's a nice concept for a bank account, but in space survival to go the distance you must last each step. 50 scrap is a vital shield level, doors that keep the baddies out, a couple energy bars, another weapon online, etc.

You finish up with 132 scrap and a hull laser after one sector, giving you offensive and defensive upgrade paths.

The point wasn't to say all is hopeless. The point was to show you can't visit all the stops, which was named here like it is a normal thing "if you know what you're doing"

I may be misreading, but it appears based on the screen shots you show that you misunderstand the advancing fleet mechanic. You'll only encounter the fleet itself if you jump into or remain in a node between the white and red line. This region represents where the fleet will be after you jump. In the two shots attached to the preceding quotes you are quite in the clear to jump to those nodes.

This does explain some, but I have been hit by the fleet there anyhow, and the speed was still fast enough that the solid red field swallowed up the jump points before I could get to them, so that narrow sliver makes no difference. If I rode things closer and higher, I just would have had to take the top line and miss more (and get stuck since it didn't connect)

It can certainly be argued that FTL uses a more aggressive mechanic but at the same time it is highly predictable and mostly consistent.

Which makes it boring to keep going at.

 

[Dice]

Btw, what happens when the whole sector is red of Rebels? Insta death or just extra, harder fights?

You keep fighting rebel ships that only give you 1 fuel to get on your way. Some of them can be quite nasty, too.

What to do against invaders? :S

Have upgraded doors and vent the air out from where they are. Make it so they want to go to the medbay and fight them in there. With them at sub-50 health and you having medbay backup, you kill them fast.

 

[Snuggles]

Have upgraded doors and vent the air out from where they are. Make it so they want to go to the medbay and fight them in there. With them at sub-50 health and you having medbay backup, you kill them fast.

Also, if they're tearing up your ship and you're forced to attack them outside of your medbay, don't be afraid to constantly take your dudes out of the fight and send them to the medbay once their health gets low (and rotate in new guys tag-team style) Enemy health doesn't regen so you can cheese most fights by playing it really safe.

 

[Dice]

Curse this game and all the hype around it for leading me to miss the true space captain experience, the X3 Terran War pack.

Also, if they're tearing up your ship and you're forced to attack them outside of your medbay, don't be afraid to constantly take your dudes out of the fight and send them to the medbay once their health gets low (and rotate in new guys tag-team style) Enemy health doesn't regen so you can cheese most fights by playing it really safe.

Yeah, that's a good move if they decide they just want to fuck up your shields or oxygen.

 

[sonicmj1]

You need much less firepower than you think. The Kestrel's starting weapons are enough to beat the final boss! For other ships, as long as you don't start with and get exclusively beams, or get only lasers totalling less than four damage (both a virtual statistical impossibility), you're good.
For example, with the Kestrel, if you followed my tips, you should have a ton of missiles; set the missile launcher to autofire on the shields. Once it gets to level 2 shields or less, shoot it with the burst laser. Again, the strategy I posted means that the ship is a sitting duck during stage one while you're doing this. Later stages should not be much more difficult following it.

While I guess it can be done, I'm not sure how you'd get through the shields in Stage 2 with just your Artemis. Wouldn't the defense drone just keep taking all of them down before you hit the shields and open the way for your burst laser?

 

[Achtius]

Was fighting the last boss, did not find a store that sells defensive drone at all. so I died to his missile

In hindsight I should of re-routed all my energy to engine instead of having 3 layers of shield.

They need to release on a tablet so I can play all day on the go D:

 

[RPG Wizard]

While I guess it can be done, I'm not sure how you'd get through the shields in Stage 2 with just your Artemis. Wouldn't the defense drone just keep taking all of them down before you hit the shields and open the way for your burst laser?

I'm getting the impression that "just the Kestral's starting weapons" also includes a kickass crew, teleporter, cloaking, and drones.

*shrugs* I've unlocked more than half of the ships. (Need Slug, Mantis and Zoltan) But I have yet to beat the game. Still, the difference between normal and easy is a ton of scrap, and I've decided I'm going to do it on normal.

 

[Canis lupus]

You keep fighting rebel ships that only give you 1 fuel to get on your way. Some of them can be quite nasty, too.

Have upgraded doors and vent the air out from where they are. Make it so they want to go to the medbay and fight them in there. With them at sub-50 health and you having medbay backup, you kill them fast.

Cool, thanks for the suggestion. I hate invaders. I almost made it to sector 5, beat the rebel ship, but lost everything because of the invaders.

 

[DY_nasty]

While I guess it can be done, I'm not sure how you'd get through the shields in Stage 2 with just your Artemis. Wouldn't the defense drone just keep taking all of them down before you hit the shields and open the way for your burst laser?

Not every ship has defensive drones.

Pick your fights. Like if I'm getting fucked by mantises while fighting a ship that would be more than a match in a fair fight. Hold them off best you can, jump back to a safe sector so you're not getting pounded while fighting boarders at the same time, lick your wounds, go a different direction.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Is there a mod to sell drones, missiles and fuel (not that I'd want to) at stores?

In the words of the game developers themselves, doing so would distupt the delicate balance so much that they would be forced to give less scrap rewards across the boards. Also, they want to encourage people trying out different things, like having 30 missiles, getting a missile weapon and saying "hell, why not?".

In any case, there are several events that let you sell spares.

Okay, here we go. I went through the first stage just to show how it can be. This was the very first try, and the results were pretty common.

Even though the store was shit and two points had absolutely nothing (and my flippant gamble lost), this kind of run is my concept of lucky since I dodged the rebels well for the most part, so the kind of domination you speak of is insane to me.

There is zero luck involved with avoiding the rebels; the game clearly and explicitely tells you where they'll be after you jump. I will address your route in a minute.

While I guess it can be done, I'm not sure how you'd get through the shields in Stage 2 with just your Artemis. Wouldn't the defense drone just keep taking all of them down before you hit the shields and open the way for your burst laser?

Holy crap, I 100% forgot about stage 2's defense drone :S (since I virtually never use missile weapons by then). You're completely right, you can't get through the shield AND the drone with the starting weapons. :/

There is still a way, however; you'd have to kill everyone in the ship and send a boarding team to take down the drone control room. It would take way longer and be much more dangerous (as you can't shut down its weapons completely), but it might be doable... I think.

The amount of jump points skipped was common. The luck was in not catching too many rebels despite pushing it. This is not hard to understand.

Again, there is zero luck involved in encountering Rebel ships or not. If you don't know this, you don't know the first thing about FTL and can't be expected to plan a decent route at all. Sorry to be so harsh, but that is simply reality, and we would have reached this point much earlier if you focused in learning rather than assuming everyone has the memory span of a fish.

That's a nice concept for a bank account, but in space survival to go the distance you must last each step. 50 scrap is a vital shield level, doors that keep the baddies out, a couple energy bars, another weapon online, etc.

1) If you are having trouble in the first sector, there is something you're doing terribly bad. Seriusly. The first and second sectors are the loot piñatas of the game, the ships offer zero challenge.
2) If you don't plan ahead, you won't ever finish the game. I begin to suspect that's your case. Of course, you will insist that is due to bad luck, as the obvious truth is too ego-damaging.

The point wasn't to say all is hopeless. The point was to show you can't visit all the stops, which was named here like it is a normal thing "if you know what you're doing"

I will wait here for you to quote back to me the post where I or anyone else said you can visit ALL the stops in every sector (a preposterous statement to be sure). Go on, I'll wait.

This does explain some, but I have been hit by the fleet there anyhow,

One would be tempted to pull the "your memory is selective", considering it has never, ever, happened to me, in 40 hours of game. Most of my finished games end in the 90s of jumps, that must be around, what, 1000 jumps total?

and the speed was still fast enough that the solid red field swallowed up the jump points before I could get to them, so that narrow sliver makes no difference.

Again, I'll address your route in a minute.

I'm getting the impression that "just the Kestral's starting weapons" also includes a kickass crew, teleporter, cloaking, and drones.

Yes, that was my meaning. You're toast without cloaking and teleporter at the very least.

Not every ship has defensive drones.

Pick your fights. Like if I'm getting fucked by mantises while fighting a ship that would be more than a match in a fair fight. Hold them off best you can, jump back to a safe sector so you're not getting pounded while fighting boarders at the same time, lick your wounds, go a different direction.

We were talking about the boss, stage 2, which does have drones. But you make a fair point all the same, jumping out of a fight you can't win (and even identifying those) is not something that's immediately obvious. Most of the unlockable ships teach that lesson the harsh way.

 

[balddemon]

So we're having a GAF challenge to beat the game on (Easy/Normal)? with (Layout A) of (The Kestrel) using only the starting weapons which include (Burst Laser II and Artemis)? Can we use the Cloaking Device and Teleporter?

I'm starting a game on Normal under those conditions and am allowing myself to Cloak and Teleport. Don't see any other way of beating the boss with only those shitty weapons.

edit: Here's my Hangar screen for the starting of the challenge

I wish I had a better way to take screens than Print Screen + Paste in Paint lol.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Okay, here we go. I went through the first stage just to show how it can be. This was the very first try, and the results were pretty common.

Your very first jump was a mistake. Always, ALWAYS jump to the leftmost beacon you can reach (unless it will leave you stranded, which is definitely not the case). You could have hit all five leftmost beacons in the time the fleet reached the first.

At the shop: Like you, I wouldn't know what to buy, but only because it's full of amazing options (more so if you had saved a bit of scrap; I mean, it's the freaking Kestrel, you can go to sector 2 without a single upgrade).
I personally would have sold that missile weapon and pick a teleporter. You don't need a missile weapon with the Kestrel at all; with a teleporter this early in the game in a Kestrel, you will be swimming in scraps and crew by sector five!
Barring that, the Drone Recovery Arm is a freaking game-breaker if you get drones (which like half of all shops have, including that very one). Buy it now, get the drone system in sector 2 or 3, sail through the game.

Gambled on something for fun and lost a nice chunk of scrap, the point is the jump points anyway. Now I take a risk and end up fighting a rebel ship, used some missiles because it's not a long run.

Never gamble if you don't have a blue option. You can do so "for fun" as you mention, but don't expect me to take any complaint seriously after that shit.

I'd like to know what happened between:
http://i2.minus.com/iRWEaFEF4ynFy.jpg
and:
http://i5.minus.com/ifCt96mXfNoiH.jpg
There is at least two/three jumps from one to the other (as evidenced by the fleet advance speed), yet you claim the bottom two were lost, as if you had jumped straight to the beacon on the second (one jump). Huh? You should have lost at most the lower leftmost one.

No time to go out and come back, so the top 3 were lost.

False. Look here:
http://i5.minus.com/ifCt96mXfNoiH.jpg
1) Jump at the location selected by the pointer (yuo have no choice).
2) Jump to the beacon immediately above it.
3) Jump to the beacon on the top right.
4) Jump back to the beacon on 2).
5) Jump to the exit. By the time, the Rebels have already arrived; just hold until your FTL lights up and get out.
That's two beacons versus one, or two lost versus three lost.

But wait, there's more.
1) Jump at the location selected by the pointer.
2) Jump to the beacon immediately above it.
3) Jump to the beacon on the top left.
4) Jump to the beacon on the top right (just right of that one).
5) Jump back to the beacon on 2). This will prompt a Rebel fight.
6) Jump to the exit. Again, Rebel fight.
Three beacons rather than one, or one lost versus three lost, at the cost of two Rebel fights. That's exactly what I would have done in your situation. Which, again, I probably wouldn't be in to start with.
This sector has 21 beacons. You claim you lost 7-8; I think I've demonstrated you could have lost at least 3 less. That is 4-5 lost in 21, less than 25%. Which is about what I claimed originally.
This leaves you with 15-16 beacons. Even hitting all 2-3 empty ones, and discounting 1-2 shops, that's 10 events absolute minimum; this is not taking into consideration the list of 6-7 fleet-delaying and beacon-scouting techniques I enumerated.

If I was a hopeful man I would assume this would convince you that you simply lack experience with the game, and start listening. However, I am not a hopeful man. In any case, this has been on for far too long (and robbing me of time to play FTL), so from now on, if you still want to believe that FTL is a fucking Russian roulette or whatever, feel free.

So we're having a GAF challenge to beat the game on (Easy/Normal)? with (Layout A) of (The Kestrel) using only the starting weapons which include (Burst Laser II and Artemis)? Can we use the Cloaking Device and Teleporter?

I'm starting a game on Normal under those conditions and am allowing myself to Cloak and Teleport. Don't see any other way of beating the boss with only those shitty weapons.

For sure. In general, I guess a top player could beat it without those, but doing so with Kestrel's default weapons to boot would literally be impossible, as you wouldn't be able to get past form 2's shields and defense drone, as mentioned above.

edit: Here's my Hangar screen for the starting of the challenge

I wish I had a better way to take screens than Print Screen + Paste in Paint lol.

If you're willing to use Steam (and have either the Steam version or the version bought straight from the devs, which includes a Steam key, you can; simply hit F12, like in any Steam game. I do agree the game should include a PrintScreen key by default, though.

Another thing is that you might want to put that screenshot in quote tags, so that it is resized (users can still see it full size by holding the RMB over it) and doesn't mess up the word wrapping of the rest of your post.

 

[balddemon]

For sure. In general, I guess a top player could beat it without those, but doing so with Kestrel's default weapons to boot would literally be impossible, as you wouldn't be able to get past form 2's shields and defense drone, as mentioned above.

If you're willing to use Steam (and have either the Steam version or the version bought straight from the devs, which includes a Steam key, you can; simply hit F12, like in any Steam game. I do agree the game should include a PrintScreen key by default, though.

Another thing is that you might want to put that screenshot in quote tags, so that it is resized (users can still see it full size by holding the RMB over it) and doesn't mess up the word wrapping of the rest of your post.

Wow yeah I totally forgot about F12 lol. Anyways I made an Imgur album. Had a really good Sector 1 imo, especially for this being my first time on Normal. I can only assume it's gonna get worse from here on out. I had the choice between an Engi sector and an Uncharted Nebula. Chose the Engi one because I don't wanna screw myself over by finding an Ion Storm lol.

http://imgur.com/a/K8rra#0

EDIT: I'm taking a break for now, I got to hit the gym and then work and then KU game...no time for real games

 

[Canis lupus]

Reached sector 7 with the Torus ship. Everything was going well, until I got in battle with a Mantis fighter, fuck them! I die everytime because of the Mantis, they always send invaders in my ship, they're way too strong for me, even with 6 crewmembers against 2, at the same time I was busy trying to destroy their ship with 3 shields.


Pfff

 

[Maxwood]

After five/six playthroughs on Normal, I tried Easy. Second try really is easy! But then again, i'm "getting" the game a lot more then before. Not sure how to describe it, know exactly what I knew a couple of playthroughs before, but better.

Anyway, it's awesome! So glad I decided to try this, and it shows me once again I shouldn't question Toma. Yes, that does make Alundra get on a higher place on my "want!" list

Just reached sector 7 for the first time, feels so goooood.

 

[balddemon]

After five/six playthroughs on Normal, I tried Easy. Second try really is easy! But then again, i'm "getting" the game a lot more then before. Not sure how to describe it, know exactly what I knew a couple of playthroughs before, but better.

Anyway, it's awesome! So glad I decided to try this, and it shows me once again I shouldn't question Toma. Yes, that does make Alundra get on a higher place on my "want!" list

Just reached sector 7 for the first time, feels so goooood.

first off , congrats on the milestone! does feel good reaching places you haven't been yet.

second off, you're gonna get fucking destroyed by the boss unless you get one more level of shields (2 power bars), hella more engine power, and more missiles. i'd focus on the dodge first, but with only 1 sector and you only have 12 scrap...good luck lol. you might be able to cheese with the cloaking device when they shoot missiles, but you dont have a teleporter either, which would make life so much easier because you could take out the weapons. once again, good luck.

 

[ShaneB]

What the? Did I miss a GAF challenge?? Someone fill me in!

 

[Balehead]

It's actually pretty rewarding to try out different ships and strategies. I've had plenty of games that felt like they were "the run", unlocked ships and had some luck in what I found only to have my best crewmembers suffocate to death or be captured by the enemy as they jumped away with my invaders on board.

 

[Dice]

Sorry I still think you're completely delusional with that flight plan. It advances too fast to make that many jumps and if you can't clearly see that with the images I don't know what to say to you.

If I was a hopeful man I would assume this would convince you that you simply lack experience with the game, and start listening. However, I am not a hopeful man. In any case, this has been on for far too long (and robbing me of time to play FTL), so from now on, if you still want to believe that FTL is a fucking Russian roulette or whatever, feel free.

And the game isn't worth it for me to argue about or waste more time on, either. Winning is not a big deal to me, but being interesting is. I do not find the repetitive battles of this game worth the trouble. Now, after seeing the sales today, I'll go and be salty as fuck that giving this game a chance led me to miss X3 yet again.

 

[Canis lupus]

Okay, finally reached sector 8, but the boss man... He's way stronger the 2nd time.

 

[DY_nasty]

Sorry I still think you're completely delusional with that flight plan. It advances too fast to make that many jumps and if you can't clearly see that with the images I don't know what to say to you.

And the game isn't worth it for me to argue about or waste more time on, either. Winning is not a big deal to me, but being interesting is. I do not find the repetitive battles of this game worth the trouble. Now, after seeing the sales today, I'll go and be salty as fuck that giving this game a chance led me to miss X3 yet again.

Not at all.

Humble up. Maybe you suck, people are trying to help you get better.

 

[A Human Becoming]

In the words of the game developers themselves, doing so would distupt the delicate balance so much that they would be forced to give less scrap rewards across the boards. Also, they want to encourage people trying out different things, like having 30 missiles, getting a missile weapon and saying "hell, why not?".

In any case, there are several events that let you sell spares.

Meh, the more options the better.

 

[Santiako]

Yay! Finally! I killed the boss with shit weapons!

 

[Weltall Zero]

Just finished the game with the Zoltan cruiser. Unlocked all three achievements; by far the hardest (I was actually kind of surprised) was reaching sector five with only five reactor bars; took me three tries. Once I got that and could upgrade the reactor at my leisure, I cut through the game like a hot knife through butter. It does help that I got what might be the deadliest combination ever: Zoltan Shields, Stealth, Weapons Preloader, Weapons Fast Loading, Burst Laser III, then either Fire Beam + Hull Beam or Halberd Beam (was carrying all of them but could only power one or the other two). Just for the overkill, I got an Ion Bomb near then end, when I was carrying around 60+ missiles.

But seriously, that combo. I jump in with weapons preloaded, shoot a 5-shot barrage at the enemy shields (which drops them almost 100% of the time), then immediately I paint a bloody, fiery X on the enemy ship. Then I cloak. Then I decloak and do that again, all before the enemy can fire a shot. The extremely few ships that aren't fiery wreckage by then have are rewarded with having to go through 5 points of Zoltan shield, with high evade, then my normal shield, before either my weapons or cloak cool down. Insane. I killed the flagship so quickly, I lost my lone boarder on stage 2 THEN on stage 3, both times because I killed it so fast I didn't have time to beam them back. And that doesn't usually happen to me! To be fair, it was 2:30 and I was (and still am, as this was 20 mins ago) half asleep.

Sorry, but I stand by my statement; the Zoltan ship is freaking overpowered. Guys, if any of you haven't finished the game yet, I think that's the ship to go.

Reached sector 7 with the Torus ship. Everything was going well, until I got in battle with a Mantis fighter, fuck them! I die everytime because of the Mantis, they always send invaders in my ship, they're way too strong for me, even with 6 crewmembers against 2, at the same time I was busy trying to destroy their ship with 3 shields.
Pfff

Mantii have to breathe air. Just leaving that there . (Upgrade doors to level 3, it helps).

Also, the Zoltan ship's shields prevent boarding (though only regular, from-ship boarding; if it's part of an event, even if the event is boarding + ship, you'll simply get a message to the effect of "You don't know how they got through your Zoltan shields!".

If all else fails, herd them to the medbay.

Meh, the more options the better.

The opposite of that, actually. When an overpowered option is added that is the clear optimal route, making all others obsolete, the game is objectively made poorer. Selling missiles would become the optimal strategy and either the game would be balanced around that (so that missile weapons become useless), or is made trivial by selling missiles.

But, well, it's just a matter of opinions. I just happen to agree with the devs in this matter, even without considering how well thought of other answers provided by them seem to me.

Yay! Finally! I killed the boss with shit weapons!

Nice! That must have taken quite a lot of patience. Did you kill the entire crew of the flagship? I have to try that sometime again too.

 

[Santiako]

Nice! That must have taken quite a lot of patience. Did you kill the entire crew of the flagship? I have to try that sometime again too.

I only killed the crew on the weapons during the first stage, the drone stage left me with 25% of the hull, and in the last stage I kept shooting the medbay and boarded and killed everyone with my expert mantii to destroy the shields from inside so I could damage the hull faster.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I only killed the crew on the weapons during the first stage, the drone stage left me with 25% of the hull, and in the last stage I kept shooting the medbay and boarded and killed everyone with my expert mantii to destroy the shields from inside so I could damage the hull faster.

Nice strategy! In stage 3, did you leave any boarders in the weapon silos so that they didn't get autorepaired by the AI, or did you just focus on taking it down ASAP? I'm guessing by the point you killed everyone the ship might already be quite damaged.

I also see you managed to teleport out everyone in time, now that's a freaking good captain!

I'm a bit displeased with the fact that the victory screen with your ship name, crew, etc. disappears as soon as you press a key... including F12 to take a screenshot, making capturing it impossible. :/ At first I just thought there was a bug and it disappeared too fast, as i was taking screenshots like crazy every time I beat the boss.

 

[Santiako]

Nice strategy! In stage 3, did you leave any boarders in the weapon silos so that they didn't get autorepaired by the AI, or did you just focus on taking it down ASAP? I'm guessing by the point you killed everyone the ship might already be quite damaged.

I also see you managed to teleport out everyone in time, now that's a freaking good captain!

I'm a bit displeased with the fact that the victory screen with your ship name, crew, etc. disappears as soon as you press a key... including F12 to take a screenshot, making capturing it impossible. :/ At first I just thought there was a bug and it disappeared too fast, as i was taking screenshots like crazy every time I beat the boss.

I focused the boarders on hitting the shields to kill the thing asap, as you can see I barely had 2 points of hull left, I was banking my whole ship's life in the fact that I hoped that the AI wouldn't have enough time to repair the weapons

 

[RPG Wizard]

Hurrah, beat it finally! Using the basic Kestral, I managed to get through the entire game without losing any crew. Sadly, I never found any shops selling systems until the last sector. (Slightly exaggeration. Found one really early on when I didn't have enough scrap for any of them!) While I managed to get an arsenal of 1 hull laser 1, the starting burst laser 2, and two burst laser 1, I figured I wasn't winning due to the lack of cloaking or teleporters.

Found the shop in the last sector, and of course it wasn't selling drones, which meant I wasn't using the nice defense 2 drone I had had sitting in my inventory the whole game. Sold all the drones, bought the cloaking and decided against the teleporter because it'd be better to have maxed cloaking instead.

With proper cloaking timing, I managed to get through it all. Though I have to admit, 40% dodge is REALLY useful.

 

[DY_nasty]

Maybe I've had "bad experiences" with drones but I've never been that big of a fan of them. Defense drones are alright but even then... it just seems like I have to devote so much attention to them. From energy to scrap to drone management etc.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I focused the boarders on hitting the shields to kill the thing asap, as you can see I barely had 2 points of hull left, I was banking my whole ship's life in the fact that I hoped that the AI wouldn't have enough time to repair the weapons

I see, wow. Must have been one intense hell of a fight. I know the last stage music is burned into my mind because of how my heart was racing the first few times.

Hurrah, beat it finally! Using the basic Kestral, I managed to get through the entire game without losing any crew. Sadly, I never found any shops selling systems until the last sector. (Slightly exaggeration. Found one really early on when I didn't have enough scrap for any of them!) While I managed to get an arsenal of 1 hull laser 1, the starting burst laser 2, and two burst laser 1, I figured I wasn't winning due to the lack of cloaking or teleporters.

Found the shop in the last sector, and of course it wasn't selling drones, which meant I wasn't using the nice defense 2 drone I had had sitting in my inventory the whole game. Sold all the drones, bought the cloaking and decided against the teleporter because it'd be better to have maxed cloaking instead.

With proper cloaking timing, I managed to get through it all. Though I have to admit, 40% dodge is REALLY useful.

Holy crap, you beat it using those weapons, no teleporters and no drones? Not a small feat indeed!
I find it strange that you didn't find shops that sold systems; about half of all shots sell systems. Did yo priorize nodes with a lot of connections to unexplored nodes? You can see shops from one jump away, so making sure you have been at most one jump away from every node helps a lot.

Maybe I've had "bad experiences" with drones but I've never been that big of a fan of them. Defense drones are alright but even then... it just seems like I have to devote so much attention to them. From energy to scrap to drone management etc.

Like every other aspect of the game, drones are really carefully balanced. Defense drones are the single best defense against missiles, period (although on a barrage of missiles they will typically only shoot down the first one). I wonder if the game makes it shoot down the first missile or the first missile you do not dodge; I think I remember dodging the first and the defense drone shooting down the second in a boss missile three-barrage.
Every single other drone I've tried has been worth the price of admission (and that's even though I'm VERY skeptical about stuff that uses ammo):
- The Defense Drone mark II is costly, at 4 energy, but it shoots down incoming lasers as well, making one of the strongest defensive options in the game.
- The hull repair drone lets you turn one drone parts into 3-5 hull points. This is amazing when you have lots of them and don't have or care for any other drone.
- The boarding drone is a major pain in the ass; combine it with a boarding party and you can tear the crew of a ship to shreds. Extra points in that it creates a hull breach on entry AND is immune to suffocation. I suspect killing all the crew in the flagship and landing one of these would kill it eventually with no other input on your part. It also bypasses shields like a missile (but not a Zoltan super shield, which it does zero damage against).
- The antipersonnel drone is an awesome defense against boarders, especially if you don't have mantii and such. The fact that it doesn't need to breathe makes it deadly; vent all air, send one of those, and watch them suffocate as they fight the drone rather than bang on the doors.
- The repair drone is a bargain; for one energy you get something that repairs any damage on your systems and, again, cannot suffocate. Can save your ass if your O2 system gets hit or a breach opens in a system you need and your crew is low on life.
- The anti-ship drones have an absurdly high rate of fire compared to normal weapons. On a ship with no shield, they're bloody murder, especially the beam one.

For extra points, the system repair and anti-personnel are not lost unless they are destroyed by boarders or weapon fire; you just repower them again and they go on their business, and also are slowly repaired when in the drone control room provided ANY drone is powered, even if it's not them. If you get the drone-recover arm, the same applies to anti-ship drones and even the hull repair drone if you jump in time, giving you at least 2 hull points each jump.

They're really low-maintenance as well. The energy costs are fair, you don't really need to put scrap towards them other than the initial drone system (at just 80 scrap), as the game showers you with drones, and there is very little management involved (they are, after all, drones ).

 

[Canis lupus]

I did Weltall, ship doors level 3, before I can get the invaders to the medbay they damage my weapon and o2 chamber, making my crew slowly lose oxygen and leaving me vulnerable against their mother ship.

 

[Santiako]

I did Weltall, ship doors level 3, before I can get the invaders to the medbay they damage my weapon and o2 chamber, making my crew slowly lose oxygen and leaving me vulnerable against their mother ship.

Go and fight them (just don't use zoltan and engis to do so), rotate them and it's difficult to lose, send the ones fighting to the medbay when they get lower on hp and send new people to fight them, repeat until done.

 

[Canis lupus]

Go and fight them (just don't use zoltan and engis to do so), rotate them and it's difficult to lose, send the ones fighting to the medbay when they get lower on hp and send new people to fight them, repeat until done.

Rotate them? I unlocked the ship with the green aliens that are immune to fire, I think this is my best ship at the moment. Fire breaks out easily and these guys don't lose hp when they stomp the fire out.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

All I dreamt about last night was FTL. Those FTL-dreams are relentless.