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[M.D]

Bought this game recently when it was on sale for $2.49 and I can't stop playing it since! I love it soooo much

I recently got the ship you get for reaching a certain point, and I'm surprised at how different the game feels with a couple of small changes

I keep thinking I know everything but the game always kicks my ass at the later stages ;p

 

[Lizard with a ladder]

Bought this game recently when it was on sale for $2.49 and I can't stop playing it since! I love it soooo much

I recently got the ship you get for reaching a certain point, and I'm surprised at how different the game feels with a couple of small changes

I keep thinking I know everything but the game always kicks my ass at the later stages ;p

The game is incredibly addictive. Part of it's replay value lies in how different the game feels with each ship.

I unlocked the stealth ship today and my main strategy to rely on shields early in the game wasn't happening with this ship.

Dat tension of popping stealth right before they fire their weapons and hoping a missile doesn't wreak havoc while stealth is on CD.

 

[Parallacs]

For those that have reached the last sector, you know how awesome the music is: "The Last Stand".

I was bored the other day and looked it up on youtube (can't link at work). Two really cool things were mentioned about the song:

1. All of the race battles are mixed into the song. I was always too hyped to even realize this.
2. The awesome drum beats are exactly a second apart. This makes the song almost like a timer and hightens the tension.

 

[Lizard with a ladder]

So how does the rebel auto-scout repair. It has no crew and often times no drone system. Are we supposed to assume that it's A.I. works like a repair drone?

 

[Trouble]

So how does the rebel auto-scout repair. It has no crew and often times no drone system. Are we supposed to assume that it's A.I. works like a repair drone?

Yup. Also

Spoiler

the Rebel Flagship will do the same auto-repair if you kill all the crew.

 

[Lizard with a ladder]

Second time I've gotten a crew member named Butters.

 

[M.D]

Haha holy shit ;p

Up till' now I played the game on normal, and was a decent player I'd say. I managed to get to the sector before the last one most times I played.

I just played the game on Easy for the first time to try and obtain a new ship more easily, and it's insane how easy it really is! a huge part of it is probably the fact I know how to play it already, but it's a crazy difference in difficulty...
I managed to get to the last sector on my first time, but I was not ready for that flagship ship lol.. about 10 seconds into the fight I realized all hope it lost and disabled my shields, thought maybe there's some trick here since that ship is CRAZY

 

[Weltall Zero]

So how does the rebel auto-scout repair. It has no crew and often times no drone system. Are we supposed to assume that it's A.I. works like a repair drone?

Unmanned ships' rooms are populated by nanomachines that automatically but slowly repair all damage. These nanomachines are suspended in a gas mix that is lethal to lifeforms, which is why they can't be used while there's any crew alive on the ship. Also, this gas mix, along with the nanomachies, leaks outside the ship when the hull is breached, which is why a hull breach will prevent autorepairs in the same room in an unmanned ship.

Spoiler

I made up all of the above.

 

[Azih]

Haha holy shit ;p

Up till' now I played the game on normal, and was a decent player I'd say. I managed to get to the sector before the last one most times I played.

I just played the game on Easy for the first time to try and obtain a new ship more easily, and it's insane how easy it really is! a huge part of it is probably the fact I know how to play it already, but it's a crazy difference in difficulty...
I managed to get to the last sector on my first time, but I was not ready for that flagship ship lol.. about 10 seconds into the fight I realized all hope it lost and disabled my shields, thought maybe there's some trick here since that ship is CRAZY

There are a bunch of tricks actually but you still need a good loadout by the time you get to the final sector.

One trick, kill the rebel crew members stuck in their isolated weapon rooms, do this and that weapon will never fire again (as long as you keep one rebel crew member alive to prevent the AI ship from going into AI repair mode.

 

[isual]

how do you unlock the other ships ? i've only got the kestrel and the cyborg one

 

[Nikodemos]

Which one's the overall better ship, the Osprey or the Nisos?

 

[Grimm Fandango]

Well I had a great run going with normal difficulty with the Osprey, but I couldn't do it in phase 2 of the last boss. It's bullshit, you need to have a cloak (not possible with the ship of course) or a hull repair drone to beat it. It's ridiculous.

 

[PandaPedinte]

how do you unlock the other ships ? i've only got the kestrel and the cyborg one

Check the events needed here http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Ships

 

[smiggyRT]

I can be doing really well, destroying anything that comes my way... then get completely torn apart out of nowhere. :lol

Game is great fun though.

 

[yellow submarine]

Ok, secret to success on the Final Boss is getting your Cloak. Also, since I suck at games, I had to upgrade it fully to the 15 second max to be able to use it properly. But it's essential to the fight otherwise, you just get

Spoiler

totally violated by the special attacks.

Also, it helped so much that I had dual blasters and a Fire beam. Used blasters to down the shield, and then Fire Beam was totally OP. If I'd gotten Fire Beam earlier than the last level I would have romped through the game. I got it as a random gift right before I teleported into the penultimate galaxy. I spent most of the game limping along with a single blaster II and an ion cannon though. That was painful... loooooooooong battles of attrition. But I felt like Picard the whole way, so it was awesome.

CUT POWER TO LIFE SUPPORT, MAX POWER ON WEAPONS. MR WORF, BLOW ME A WAY THROUGH THIS SHIP!

 

[Nikodemos]

I remember reading that on every ship apart for the Nesasio and the SR-12 you were supposed to only get a single level in cloak, lest the flagship special attack cooldown overtake yours.

 

[MrPing1000]

After 86 hours finally beat the game. Hooray! In the Kestrel too.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I remember reading that on every ship apart for the Nesasio and the SR-12 you were supposed to only get a single level in cloak, lest the flagship special attack cooldown overtake yours.

That's correct. To be precise, it's ok to upgrade it all the way, as long as you only power it to level one for the boss fight.

Started today a game after not touching it in months; decided to play on Easy this time, to see if I can unlock the darn Rock ship variant (hate the Rock ship and it's achievements are pretty hard) and/or Slug Cruiser. Boy, I forgot how easy Easy is.

 

[Roche]

Well I had a great run going with normal difficulty with the Osprey, but I couldn't do it in phase 2 of the last boss. It's bullshit, you need to have a cloak (not possible with the ship of course) or a hull repair drone to beat it. It's ridiculous.

You don't really, I just beat it the other day without either of those things. I think my main strength was having a crew teleporter to be able to deal with the guns. Handy since their isolated and the crew don't come back between phases.

I took out the missiles mainly since they are always a pain to deal with , and then worked on the lasers. Pretty soon there wasn't much that got past my shields.

 

[Mengy]

Ok, secret to success on the Final Boss is getting your Cloak. Also, since I suck at games, I had to upgrade it fully to the 15 second max to be able to use it properly. But it's essential to the fight otherwise, you just get

Spoiler

totally violated by the special attacks.

The cloak certainly helps, but you actually don't need it. With a good battle strategy the boss can be beaten without a cloak at all, I've done it several times. But yeah, the cloak is one good way to beat it.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Well I had a great run going with normal difficulty with the Osprey, but I couldn't do it in phase 2 of the last boss. It's bullshit, you need to have a cloak (not possible with the ship of course) or a hull repair drone to beat it. It's ridiculous.

*cough*

Note his was on Normal, too, and the only time I ever reached sector 8 on Normal. In fact, the Osprey is one of the easier ships to beat it with; the biggest problem with the capital ship is getting past its four levels of shields to do any damage at all; the Osprey's artillery gun makes short work of the ship without even bothering to use any other weapon.

Just funnel the cash you would have used to buy the cloak into crazy amounts of evade and maxing the artillery gun and you're set.

 

[Wolf Akela]

I almost beat Easy on my fifth try... but 4 shields were so damn strong. I thought Ion Bomb completely disables a system but apparently not. Slugged out with the final boss for a long time but eventually lost because I ran out of missiles.

I was using Torus:
- Ion Bomb
- Hull Beam
- Fire Bomb
- Anti-Ship Mk2
- Defense Mk2
- Anti-Personnel (was useless)

Edit: fifth not first
- heal bots, drone recovery arm, jammer

 

[Nikodemos]

I was using Torus:
- Ion Bomb
- Hull Beam
- Fire Bomb
- Anti-Ship Mk2
- Defense Mk2
- Anti-Personnel (was useless)
- heal bots, drone recovery arm, jammer

Well, there's your problem. You had too many ammunition-based weapons. You should ony have 1.

And why did you remove your Ion Blast Mk.II? It's the best ion weapon, bar none. The ultra-fast rate of fire can knock out and keep suppressed even 4 layers of shielding (with an elite gunner), allowing you to work over the rest of the flagship's systems at your leisure.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I almost beat Easy on my first try... but 4 shields were so damn strong. I thought Ion Bomb completely disables a system but apparently not. Slugged out with the final boss for a long time but eventually lost because I ran out of missiles.

I was using Torus:
- Ion Bomb
- Hull Beam
- Fire Bomb
- Anti-Ship Mk2
- Defense Mk2
- Anti-Personnel (was useless)
- heal bots, drone recovery arm, jammer

Ion damage is like regular damage, in the sense that a system hit by it will see its performance degraded in as many levels as the damage. This means that dealing two ion damage to a shield system will drop one shield level. The difference is that 1) ion damage is temporary, so, in order to shut down entirely a ship's shields you have to deal enough damage to drop them entirely before the first shot's effects have worn out, and 2) that ion damage dealt to a shield will be inflicted on the shield system itself (rather than dropping a "bubble" of shields).

 

[fantomena]

Just started playing it (bought it long time ago).

It's really cool, but how do I get more people to my ship? One died.

 

[Zombie James]

Getting back into this after a while, played around seven hours so far. Only unlocked one ship up this point, though. Tough as nails game.

Just started playing it (bought it long time ago).

It's really cool, but how do I get more people to my ship? One died.

You can buy extra crew at some stores or after completing certain quests.

 

[Wolf Akela]

I see. I thought Ion Blast at best just keeps 1 shield layer down. In early sectors I cant even get it to hit some other system since a lv1 shield regenerates quick enough so it needs the help of a drone. And yeah I swapped it for bomb since I thought it disables the entire shield for my hull beam.

I tried again last night before reading this. I had two antiship and a defense drone. Weapons were ion bomb, blaster mk3 and hullbeam. I got whooped since he barraged my weapon system with missiles so I only shot my blaster like twice.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Getting back into this after a while, played around seven hours so far. Only unlocked one ship up this point, though. Tough as nails game.



You can buy extra crew at some stores or after completing certain quests.

Also, some ships (slavers mostly) will offer a crew member when surrendering, and finally, beating a ship by killing all of its crew will sometimes yield a crew member that was a prisoner in that ship (again, this most often happens with slavers).

 

[Trouble]

Motherfucking drone just stealthed and jumped away with my boarding crew on board.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Finally beat the game earlier today with the Red Tail. Got lucky with an early pair of Burst Laser Mk IIs and a Fire Bomb. Also managed to unlock 2 other ships besides the one for winning that run. 'Twas a good day.

Made the mistake of killing all the crew of the boss in phase 1 though. The AI just takes over and automatically starts making repairs. So it's easier if you just leave one guy alive.

This was on easy though. Think I might be done with the game for awhile, but I'll come back and try to beat it on normal and run through the other ships I unlocked eventually. It's very pick up and play if you only have a limited amount of time.

 

[Wolf Akela]

Motherfucking drone just stealthed and jumped away with my boarding crew on board.

Lmao. I also made the mistake of boarding and destroying the enemy ship.

Makes me wonder, what happens if you jump with boarders?

 

[evilpigking]

Well got to phase 3 of the final boss before getting wrecked. Was pretty low after phase 2

Spoiler

Having the drone wave occur when the drone module is red is pretty broken

And of course there were no repair bases left on the map...sigh.

Had Heavy Ion, Breach Bomb 2 (that thing is awesome), blast laser 2, and hull laser on the Kestral. No Cloak though.

 

[Jackben]

Lmao. I also made the mistake of boarding and destroying the enemy ship.

Makes me wonder, what happens if you jump with boarders?

They come with you to the next jump point and continue to sabotage your ship, attacking and fighting your crew to their deaths.

 

[Daigoro]

bought this during a recent GOG sale. just started playing tonight. its good!

fires are a pain in the ass. getting better at dealing with them, now i have to learn to deal with hostile boarders.

i can definitely see getting hooked on this game.

 

[Azih]

bought this during a recent GOG sale. just started playing tonight. its good!

fires are a pain in the ass. getting better at dealing with them, now i have to learn to deal with hostile boarders.

i can definitely see getting hooked on this game.

Boarders are a bit similar to fire, shut all doors except the ones that go outside to start asphyxiating them. That also forces them to attack doors (Upgrade The doors one level!) instead of systems to try to survive. Keep energy on to health bay to heal your guys up between fighting boarders. You can even fight them in the medbay which will heal your guys but not them.

Of course things go really really bad if they teleport to the reactor or to the door system itself or if there are a lot of mantises but that's the RNG for you.

 

[Wolf Akela]

There are multiple phases??

I got to phase 2 and lost with Kestral. I got 2 mk2 blasters plus a missile. Lv3 shield, max cloak, max door, near max engine ans energy. Got demolished by anti personnel drone. Did not find any mantis or rock. No non-drone augment found.

How many phases does the flagship have? Anything I should know about the other phases?

 

[Fireblend]

Anyone have a quick start / general strategy guide for this game? I don't know what to invest on early in the game or what upgrades to focus on.

 

[Azih]

Anyone have a quick start / general strategy guide for this game? I don't know what to invest on early in the game or what upgrades to focus on.

First post in this thread has a lot of very good tips.

Very basically though

* upgrade doors one level ASAP. Huge upgrade to your ability to repel boarders
* Try to get good at NOT upgrading anything else through the first sector at the very least (and two or even three if you get skilled at combat). That way when you stumble across a shop with good stuff you can afford it with your hoarded scrap
* Engines (evading attacks) and shields (blocking lasers and beams) upgrade your defense. General consensus is that upgraded engines give you greater bang for your buck than upgraded shields. Shields are great for the early going but that's exactly when you should be trying to save your scrap. IF you get good weapons then weapon systems are good to upgrade to finish off your enemies faster.
* Get used to juggling your power around. Medbays should be off unless you need to heal someone and don't be afraid to turn off your O2 if that extra bar could be used elsewhere.
* Crews level up and make a big difference to the effectiveness of a system. You should ALWAYS have someone on pilot outside of dire emergencies. Try to keep the same crew on the same station as a veteran is incredibly useful.
* Don't play hero too much in the random events. No shame in not helping on a random event that screws you more often than it helps.

General combat tips

Try to recognize what you're up against and plan accordingly. If a ship has poor shields than try to pound on their weapon systems to keep them from hurting you for example. Also don't be afraid to run

Time your shots for maximum effectiveness as a barrage of hurt coming in at the same time is much better at overwhelming defenses than pinging at them one by one. If you're going to use a missile then consider firing it at their shields and then follow up with laser or beam fire so they have fewer barriers to get through and cause damage. Autofire is only really useful for ion weapons in my experience.

 

[p3tran]

I just "BEAT THE BOSS ON EASY" hell yeah!!

now that's my favoritest -and for sure the most enjoyed- achievement of the last couple of years easily!

maybe I will make a t-shirt to remind me this joyful win
or maybe I should wait for the inevitable "FTL: I BEAT THE BOSS ON NORMAL" awesomesauce 8D


p.s. I really enjoy this game. makes me think of the way games used to be. 8)

 

[PandaPedinte]

I just "BEAT THE BOSS ON EASY" hell yeah!!

feels so good 8)



now that's my favoritest -and for sure the most enjoyed- achievement of the last couple of years easily!

maybe I will make a t-shirt to remind me this joyful win
or maybe I should wait for the inevitable "FTL: I BEAT THE BOSS ON NORMAL" awesomesauce 8D


p.s. I really enjoy this game. makes me think of the way games used to be. 8)

Congrats!

 

[Daigoro]

Boarders are a bit similar to fire, shut all doors except the ones that go outside to start asphyxiating them. That also forces them to attack doors (Upgrade The doors one level!) instead of systems to try to survive. Keep energy on to health bay to heal your guys up between fighting boarders. You can even fight them in the medbay which will heal your guys but not them.

Of course things go really really bad if they teleport to the reactor or to the door system itself or if there are a lot of mantises but that's the RNG for you.

First post in this thread has a lot of very good tips.

Very basically though

* upgrade doors one level ASAP. Huge upgrade to your ability to repel boarders
* Try to get good at NOT upgrading anything else through the first sector at the very least (and two or even three if you get skilled at combat). That way when you stumble across a shop with good stuff you can afford it with your hoarded scrap
* Engines (evading attacks) and shields (blocking lasers and beams) upgrade your defense. General consensus is that upgraded engines give you greater bang for your buck than upgraded shields. Shields are great for the early going but that's exactly when you should be trying to save your scrap. IF you get good weapons then weapon systems are good to upgrade to finish off your enemies faster.
* Get used to juggling your power around. Medbays should be off unless you need to heal someone and don't be afraid to turn off your O2 if that extra bar could be used elsewhere.
* Crews level up and make a big difference to the effectiveness of a system. You should ALWAYS have someone on pilot outside of dire emergencies. Try to keep the same crew on the same station as a veteran is incredibly useful.
* Don't play hero too much in the random events. No shame in not helping on a random event that screws you more often than it helps.

General combat tips

Try to recognize what you're up against and plan accordingly. If a ship has poor shields than try to pound on their weapon systems to keep them from hurting you for example. Also don't be afraid to run

Time your shots for maximum effectiveness as a barrage of hurt coming in at the same time is much better at overwhelming defenses than pinging at them one by one. If you're going to use a missile then consider firing it at their shields and then follow up with laser or beam fire so they have fewer barriers to get through and cause damage. Autofire is only really useful for ion weapons in my experience.

these are good tips, thanks. had some infuriating encounters tonight. this should help.

been wondering about overuse of auto-fire. and yeah, i never have enough money to buy good stuff at shops. upgrading too much stuff randomly.

also, i keep trying to visit as many locations as possible and take up every task i have a choice in. its getting me into trouble, and backtracking through rebel controlled space to find a way to the exit is bad news.

 

[Vlad]

these are good tips, thanks. had some infuriating encounters tonight. this should help.

been wondering about overuse of auto-fire. and yeah, i never have enough money to buy good stuff at shops. upgrading too much stuff randomly.

also, i keep trying to visit as many locations as possible and take up every task i have a choice in. its getting me into trouble, and backtracking through rebel controlled space to find a way to the exit is bad news.

To throw in a couple more things that might help:

- Turn on the option that shows you what nodes you can reach from a node you hover your mouse over. This makes navigation a hell of a lot easier.

- You'll get a better feel for what/when to upgrade the more you play. Shields and engines should always be pretty well upgraded eventually, and even if you're not planning on adding more power to a certain system, upgrading it anyway lets it take more damage before being disabled completely. Also, the better you get at combat, the less money you'll have to spend on repairs, so you'll have more for the good stuff.

- On any given run, I always make sure there's not a shop near me before I dump a bunch of money into upgrading. Too many times I've blown all my scrap on upgrades only to find a shop at the next jump point that's selling a good weapon/augment that I can no longer afford.

 

[Daigoro]

To throw in a couple more things that might help:

- Turn on the option that shows you what nodes you can reach from a node you hover your mouse over. This makes navigation a hell of a lot easier.

- You'll get a better feel for what/when to upgrade the more you play. Shields and engines should always be pretty well upgraded eventually, and even if you're not planning on adding more power to a certain system, upgrading it anyway lets it take more damage before being disabled completely. Also, the better you get at combat, the less money you'll have to spend on repairs, so you'll have more for the good stuff.

- On any given run, I always make sure there's not a shop near me before I dump a bunch of money into upgrading. Too many times I've blown all my scrap on upgrades only to find a shop at the next jump point that's selling a good weapon/augment that I can no longer afford.

oh god damn, thats amazing. why is that not on as default? crazy.

thanks for the tips.

just ran out of fuel after jumping to Sector 3 and thought i was done, but i coasted and found an AI scout to pillage. forging on!

 

[PandaPedinte]

oh god damn, thats amazing. why is that not on as default? crazy.

thanks for the tips.

just ran out of fuel after jumping to Sector 3 and thought i was done, but i coasted and found an AI scout to pillage. forging on!

When you run out of fuel, you have the option to turn on help signal.

 

[Azih]

these are good tips, thanks. had some infuriating encounters tonight. this should help.

been wondering about overuse of auto-fire. and yeah, i never have enough money to buy good stuff at shops. upgrading too much stuff randomly.

also, i keep trying to visit as many locations as possible and take up every task i have a choice in. its getting me into trouble, and backtracking through rebel controlled space to find a way to the exit is bad news.

Cool, glad to help. Also remember that anything that is bad for you is also bad for your enemies. Use the same tactics on them. Kill their engine or helm to stop their evasive ways, lock down their weapon systems with ions to keep them from hurting you etc. Everyone (except for the boss) is playing by the exact same rules.

Hitting as many nodes as possible is actually a good thing. As long as you can still escape the rebel fleet of course. That's why Adv. FTL Navigation is a really valuable augment.

 

[Wolf Akela]

I really doubt every hand is winnable.

I played another game on Easy. I start with 3 crew. What happens in the middle of sector 1? One of my crew goes nuts and becomes hostile on top of FOUR human boarders. Doors melted before aphyxiation could even start. It doesn't help that I picked Torus and it was my human who turned hostile.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I really doubt every hand is winnable.

I played another game on Easy. I start with 3 crew. What happens in the middle of sector 1? One of my crew goes nuts and becomes hostile on top of FOUR human boarders. Doors melted before aphyxiation could even start. It doesn't help that I picked Torus and it was my human who turned hostile.

Could you give us more details? I've never encountered that event and it doesn't appear in the wiki.
http://ftlwiki.com/wiki/Events
Further, as you can see, absolutely no event at all outright kills or turns a crew member against you with no choice: all events that have a chance to do so, also have an option to skip the event. This is EXACTLY what you should do if you don't have a blue dialogue option (coming from a special piece of equipment or crew), especially if you're low on crew. It's the very first thing i menion under events here.

 

[Azih]

I really doubt every hand is winnable.

I played another game on Easy. I start with 3 crew. What happens in the middle of sector 1? One of my crew goes nuts and becomes hostile on top of FOUR human boarders. Doors melted before aphyxiation could even start. It doesn't help that I picked Torus and it was my human who turned hostile.

I think maybe you had an event where you took on a boarder and it turned out to be a mole that turned on you?

 

[Wolf Akela]

I can't find it but it was a quest. I remember I had 3-4 dialog boxes in a row. Is it possible to get two different events?

 

[Lizard with a ladder]

I can't find it but it was a quest. I remember I had 3-4 dialog boxes in a row. Is it possible to get two different events?

You talking about the quest where you find some crazy guy on a desolate moon?

Not really worth the risk picking that guy up.