So I finally got around to purchasing FTL, and I've been absolutely hooked ever since.
Awesome, a new victim. I mean, fresh meat. Er, new blood. You guys know what I mean!
Seriosly now, welcome aboard. It's always good to see a new fan.
Even as I sit here at work, visions of future strategies that I'd like to employ and memories of past failures dominate my mind's eye. I'm a total sucker for Roguelike-likes, and FTL deserves to be ranked among other recent greats like Spelunky and Binding of Isaac.
Funnily enough, I've been searching for roguelike-likes (even typing that exact work) for a bit, but there seems to be a distinct shortage of them that are not straightaway roguelikes. I really gotta play a bit more of Bindings of Isaac (I got it in a bundle, I think). I had an extremely obsessive Spelunky stage as well; what an AMAZING game. I never managed to get past the crystal caves, though; that one is tough as nails. I really wish they published the enhanced Xbox Live version on PC...
I also learnt of a roguelike-like platformer called TowerClimb, but have yet to play it, so no clue how good it is.
Alright, now that I've gotten my fanboy gushing out of the way, I have a few questions that I hope FTL-GAF can maybe help me with:
Let's get to it!
Can I unlock ships on Easy and then use them in future Normal playthroughs? If so, might this be a good way to go about unlocking stuff? I have been playing on Normal only for about 3 or 4 days now, and I still have yet to unlock any other ships or even achievements. The ship that you unlock by getting to Sector 5 seems easily doable, but the rest all have vague criteria for unlocking.
Yes, on both accounts. I unlocked most of my ships on Easy, and indeed they can be used on normal just fine. Obviously enough, it IS easier to achieve most unlocks on easy. In fact unlocks were one reason that I delayed playing Normal exclusively for a long time, until I realized I was sick of seeing Easy scores as my top five.
From perusing this thread, I gather that upgrading the engine is paramount in most cases. Is that accurate? Should I usually make that an early priority, and is it important to always have a crew member manning the engine room?
Depends a lot on your strategy and other means of defense. A well upgraded engine makes missiles a lot less scary, as well as making jumping out of trouble much easier/safer. Some ships (particularly the Nesasio, lacking shields) absolutely need every bit of dodge they can get. Others can tank damage better, and particularly having a defense drone goes a long way to countering missiles (but you're still vulnerable to bombs or multi-missile salvos).
I generally try to get engines to at least 5 by endgame. The good thing about engines is that they're really cheap to upgrade compared to shields, so they're a good return of investment.
As for manning them, I usually make them my least priorized station, manning shields and weapons first, but only because the boost to those systems provided by a crew members is both huge and not achievable via upgrading systems otherwise.
I've gotten better at dealing with boarders, but it still seems to be my Achilles heel in this game. I could be doing great for quite a while and then two or three Mantises will board my ship and begin to wreck shop. Moving everyone to the medical bat and venting the rest of the ship has been pretty effective for me, but I'm wondering if there are any better strategies I could employ to deal with this.
Like in the rest of the game, there are.
You might want to read the specific section about "being boarded" in my mega post, here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45775649&postcount=1191
I feel that most any advice I can throw at you is covered there. With a little practice (and doors to level 2 at least), boarders pretty much become a non-issue.
I've always struggled with not having enough scrap to ever take advantage of better weapons or more advanced systems. I've only once had enough to even purchase a Teleporter system. Usually, when I come across a shop, I need to spend a little on fuel and missiles.
Never, EVER, buy missiles. I'm serious. For that matter, never use missiles if there is an alternative (and if there isn't, you're already in trouble). I adhere almost strictly to non-missile weapons and usually sell missiles in bundles of 15 to the traders that buy them.
As for fuel, buy it if you're at 10 or below, but don't buy over 15. Optimizing your route can go a long way towards saving fuel; again, check the big post.
Even hull can be cheaped on. I usually always leave about 5-10 points of damage unrepaired to take full advantage of random hull-repairing events and to use that scrap towards early upgrades (in turn doing better early). This is a bit like Starcraft, doing well early helps on the long run exponentially.
After that's done, the weapons and other upgrades are way out of my price range. Is this the case with most people playing on Normal? Do you rely on lucky drops for more advanced weapons?
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I virtually never buy weapons unless I'm swimming on cash or there is one that complements my current build perfectly (or is overpowered, like the Burst Laser II). Systems on the other hand are virtually always worth the price of admission, assuming certain things (i.e. teleporter is going to do little good if you only have Engi and Zoltan). There are also exceptions, like some ships seriously lacking on offensive capabilities, but the Kestrel can coast on its starting weapons for a good 3-4 sectors, and at that point you're bound to have got at least 2-3 more weapons from events.
Also remember that boarding yields much, much better loot, including a pretty nice chance of weapons. If you have a prospective boarding crew, always priorize the teleporter above any weapon.
Kipp's advice above is solid. I would point out that asphyxiating the enemy crew is not mutually exclusive to killing them with crew members. A particularly nasty approach (but one that requires some micro, and thus might be dangerous in ship-to-ship combat) is to send your crew member to fight and distract the enemy crew (so that they don't hit the doors yet) while the air drains from the room, then as soon as the floor turns striped, move your crew to a safe room. Wait while the enemy crew bang on the door (while choking), then rinse and repeat. You can usually kill the most persistent boarding party without even hitting the medbay.
Hope this all helps, and happy trekking!
On another topic, I'm guessing most of the people on this thread will be aware of Star Command?
I really only became aware of this a couple of weeks back, but it looks amazing, sort of as if FTL and XCOM had a baby.
