The problem that any beam worth using in the late game uses up precious power that could (and really ought) be fueling more burst lasers.
Beams do the most damage of the weapons... to unshielded targets.
If you can run something like pegasus missiles to drop their shields, then beam... that's nice.
Basically this. beams + missile types work well. I generally agree that burst weapons are better (the best) on a pure damage/power level. That said if I have a glaive beam I'm probably going to use it. Pretty much all the low level beams are useless later in the game, and I'd only hold onto glaive, halberd and maybe fire beams. It is easy to get stuck w/o sufficient shield piercing on them though. One good burst laser + a halberd beam can wreck ships fast (with some luck and timing).
I think I have broken the game (on easy). I managed to beat the boss three times in a row with Torus + Ion blasters + Attack Drones.
Fully upgraded medbay means your crew is effecively immortal against any intruder. A couple of Ion whatevers mean you can always drop opponents shields (trick: you can actually just target weapons systems and if ion shot is absorbed by shield then the ion damage goes to shields instead). Get drone recovery arm at all costs and three level I attack drones.
Sit back and relax.
The Engi "medbay in every room" tech is definitely two steps ahead of the Pareto frontier.
I think I have broken the game (on easy). I managed to beat the boss three times in a row with Torus + Ion blasters + Attack Drones.
Fully upgraded medbay means your crew is effecively immortal against any intruder. A couple of Ion whatevers mean you can always drop opponents shields (trick: you can actually just target weapons systems and if ion shot is absorbed by shield then the ion damage goes to shields instead). Get drone recovery arm at all costs and three level I attack drones.
Sit back and relax.
The Engi "medbay in every room" tech is definitely two steps ahead of the Pareto frontier.
That trick! That's the kind of info I needed! I've been ioning the shield room this whole time.
I tried your torus/drone strategy. It worked great. Except for the fact that not once in the entire goddamn game was there an extra crew member. Not once in the entire goddamn game was there a drone recovery arm. I went to every fucking store. Not one arm. Not one.
I managed to scrape my way to the boss, and beat the first stage. Second stage I had no chance because I had no crew to keep the drone room repaired or defended. They boarded me with a robot, so the lack of oxygen didn't kill him.
I tried your torus/drone strategy. It worked great. Except for the fact that not once in the entire goddamn game was there an extra crew member. Not once in the entire goddamn game was there a drone recovery arm. I went to every fucking store. Not one arm. Not one.
I managed to scrape my way to the boss, and beat the first stage. Second stage I had no chance because I had no crew to keep the drone room repaired or defended. They boarded me with a robot, so the lack of oxygen didn't kill him.
Well, you got all the way to the boss. Keep at it, the strategy is sound. I just beat the boss a fourth time with this strategy. It also helped that I had three Engi crew for repairs and three mantis crew for fighting.
I tried your torus/drone strategy. It worked great. Except for the fact that not once in the entire goddamn game was there an extra crew member. Not once in the entire goddamn game was there a drone recovery arm. I went to every fucking store. Not one arm. Not one.
I managed to scrape my way to the boss, and beat the first stage. Second stage I had no chance because I had no crew to keep the drone room repaired or defended. They boarded me with a robot, so the lack of oxygen didn't kill him.
Well, you got all the way to the boss. Keep at it, the strategy is sound. I just beat the boss a fourth time with this strategy. It also helped that I had three Engi crew for repairs and three mantis crew for fighting.
WTFFFFFFFFFFF
This time I got the Drone recovery arm. I even had the teleporter and lots of extra crew. I was kicking everyone's ass up until the boss. Couldn't even do any significant damage to the first stage. When I tried to teleport into the boss, he stealthed and trapped my guys inside to die. Two ion guns and two drones was not enough to do anything. I aimed the ion guns at the missle launcher, but it still shot me frequently. Hull repair drone was worthless.
I even had the awesomest burst weapon, but I had to disable the ion weapons to use it. The maximum energy limit is complete horse shit. It's impossible to power three guns, three drones, and the entire ship simultaneously with the maximum energy they allow. If you power down even one thing, that will be the thing that fucks you guaranteed.
OK, like I said _three_ attack drones. Don't waste money or energy on teleporter. Get shields to level four, target one ion blaster at shields the other at the most important other subsystem. Don't waste efforts on repair drone, a crew member is better and won't shut down when drone control get's hit. My easiest runs were with only one mantis and one rock for fighting boarders and everyone else repairing like heck.
OK, like I said _three_ attack drones. Don't waste money or energy on teleporter. Get shields to level four, target one ion blaster at shields the other at the most important other subsystem. Don't waste efforts on repair drone, a crew member is better and won't shut down when drone control get's hit. My easiest runs were with only one mantis and one rock for fighting boarders and everyone else repairing like heck.
There wasn't a third attack drone available the whole game or I would have dropped that hull repair drone.
They really need to make it so every store sells everything.
Hmmm, I beat two stages of the boss for the first time. So a definitely improvement. Even so, there was no place to repair after the second stage! No choice but to fight with no hull, and I'm dead at the first salvo.
Man, I never use 4 shields. I don't even get 3 always.
If you destroy the missile launcher that boss fight is a joke. If you destroy that and the burst laser, he has no way to damage you for the entire first phase of the fight.
Best way I've survived drone phase is by stealthing through the big drone push. The cooldown lines up with it almost every time.
You seem to want a game that is not random, but the whole point of roguelikes is that they are random and you make-do with what you can find. I don't think I've ever had a game of FTL that felt completely unwinnable, aside from ones that stall out in the 1st or 2nd sector. I find a teleporter and a cloak in nearly every game. Teleporter is my favorite. That is the closest thing I have to a set strat, because I loves it so much that I will drop everything to get a teleporter. Then I will beam my rock guy and my mantis guy over to the ship to kill the crew, then be completely befuddled as to why the entire ship just tore itself apart and now my rock and mantis guy are floating in the vacuum of space.
...oh yeah, I destroyed the enemy's shields and we were fighting in an asteroid field...
WOMP WOMP.
Sketchbook: don't diss beam weapons, especially since you so heavily favor the weapon pre-igniter, which seems almost exclusively built for beam weapons, so you can drop their shields with a salvo from the barst lasers then wreck house with your glaive beam, doing 3 damage per segment it hits and crippling shields/weapons in the first salvo of a combat. Beam weapons get me so hype. Fire beam is fun, but it's a lot of energy to divert for a weapon that doesn't immediately produce results (results being damaging weapon systems)
Dat Mantis sector. Went in with 6 crew, came out with only the pilot alive. Dude deserves a medal. Fighting in vacuum, killing off manti.
Last battle: two of the fuckers board, I vent the entire ship except for the bridge. My drones and ion guns are making mince meat of the enemy ship but the two fuckers aim straight for the bridge. I try closing doors in their path but they go through them like butter. They fuck up the door room on the way, a missile hits the O2 room, fuckers get to the bridge. Pilot fucking stabs the fuckers to death. Oxygen at 11%, all doors except bridge door open...
Enemy ship blows up. I get a "Heal Bomb"!!!
Fortunately the Engi med bay is working. Pilot goes into near vacuum to fix the doors while heal bomb charges up (18 seconds). Doors are fixed, pilot dying, still no fresh O2. Close all doors and run back to bridge which is slightly less pink than rest of ship. Engi med bay kicks in and pilot gets little better.
Mofo Heal B. still charging, bridge turning pinker, and pilot healt stalls and starts to fall again.
Pilot runs to O2 room and starts fixing, health running out, Health B. finally charged!! aim at O2 room, click, boom! Pilot at full health but falling immediately. Fixing that shit like a bookie on speed. Health B. recharging... longest 18 seconds of my life.
Literally at the last second Health B fires and saves pilot again, couple seconds later O2 is fixed.
I am not going to hire a single other crew member, ever.
Re: Sleep no More. I had a pretty good time, and I saw less than half of the scenes. You don't see them all at a given time. I saw the part where Macbeth comes back from having murdered the king and when Lady Macbeth is doing her "out damn spot" freakout, as well as Banquo's ghost at the dinner party. There were also a lot of scenes ran across that I could not identify. It was less like a play and much more like interpretive dance mystery with occasional chances for audience participation. The set is AMAZING, though. It is the best haunted house I have ever been to, hands down, because it is a full 5 floors of 1920's styled rooms that fill you with a sense of dread and foreboding but without any sudden scares or gross outs. You can pick up papers and read them and get more information. It's almost like you are a ghost floating through, because you are required to be masked and silent. Overall, a neat experience, especially for someone who likes the 1920's-30's aesthetic.
EDIT: Emily, that sounds really fun. Do you know how long it's running for? They don't have that info on their website.
I don't think you have to worry about it going away. I know people who have been there 30+ times already. It's going to stick around for quite some time.
Sketchbook: don't diss beam weapons, especially since you so heavily favor the weapon pre-igniter, which seems almost exclusively built for beam weapons, so you can drop their shields with a salvo from the barst lasers then wreck house with your glaive beam, doing 3 damage per segment it hits and crippling shields/weapons in the first salvo of a combat. Beam weapons get me so hype. Fire beam is fun, but it's a lot of energy to divert for a weapon that doesn't immediately produce results (results being damaging weapon systems)
The fire beam is sub-optimal as well. Seriously, beams are great in the early game, but in the late game it gets to the point that any beam awesome enough to use draws too much power to be used well in conjunction with your other weapons to take down their shields. Pretty much everything in the last stand has 3 or 4 shields, which means you'll need about 6 power units worth of repeating laser to down their shields and take out their shield room; it's a hell of a run if you can still run your beam after that, and you'll not have taken out their weapon or drone room so you're left wide open. I would rather have the extra repeating laser and direct my fire a bit more.
Fire beams great in the early to mid game for killing crews at minimal risk to yourself, as killing the crew but leaving the ship intact gets you the bonus loot, but I always get rid of it in favour of more lazors in the late game.
Scott- I just beat the game twice in a row on Easy, and one thing I can say is that you have way too much Fuel/Missiles/Drones by sector 8.
On a good run I usually only have to buy fuel but not drones or missiles. Pay attention to what a ship offers you for not killing them. If you're going drone heavy and they offer those (8 scrap each to buy) it might be a good deal. If you're going burst weapons then it's probably not.
Try and avoid spending any scrap until you reach a store and see what they have. On the same note, avoid repairing unless it costs 2 or you're almost out of hull. Sometimes it's tempting to buy weapons in the early sector, but remember, they tend to not be as good late game.
Also, I don't go into the game saying, "OK I have to get stealth and drones." etc. I see what I get as drops (how I get 75% of my weapons) and go from there. Exploring as much as you can in each sector (except 8) is vital to winning. Don't go to nebula sectors, its mostly empty space and generally a waste of time.
One final note, both times I've won I've only had 3 shields and 25% engine dodge (without crew bonus). Those last few upgrades are incredibly expensive and not really worth it.
Is there any reason to spare ships if they surrender? I feel like you get more stuff (with the notable exception of slaves from slaver ships) by killing them.
Is there any reason to spare ships if they surrender? I feel like you get more stuff (with the notable exception of slaves from slaver ships) by killing them.
They'll almost always give you more fuel, missiles, and drones, but less scrap. Always consider what things you want, and how much they'll cost at the next store.
My thoughts: The only useful beam weapons are the Halberd and the Glaive, since they can pierce 1-2 levels of shields to do damage anyways, and a well-aimed beam can pretty much always hit 4-5 rooms. The Burst Laser II is far and away the best purchasable weapon in the game. If you ever see one, get it immediately. When looking at lasers, always consider both the shots/power ratio and the Pretty much the only use for missiles is if you've been unlucky and not gotten good burst lasers, so that you need to damage the shield system enough to get your other weapons through. Using a breach bomb on the enemy's O2 and Medbay has hilarious results. Sketch has I think undervalued the cloaking system, because not only will a correctly-timed cloak allow you to dodge a salvo pretty much guaranteed, it will also give you up to fifteen seconds where the enemy's weapons aren't even charging, and you can use that time to reroute power into medbay or teleporters or whatever else you need (for instance, you can cloak put three power from engines into teleport, and you'll have that power back by the time the cloak ends). The efficiency of engine upgrades starts to drop after the fifth bar, so after that consider putting power to other systems, and using engines to sink unneeded power. You don't need to power your medbay most of the time. A defense drone I is practically essential, for its extra defense against missiles (and boarding drones!) Getting a level II depends on how power you need for other systems (shooting down beams that would be dodged or blocked by shields isn't really necessary). If you're using boarding parties, try to only use Rockmen and Mantises, since other species will die faster. Also, don't board until enemy medbays are disabled, and make sure they stay that way. ALWAYS upgrade your doors at least once, at which point actually devoting crew to repelling boarders becomes largely unnecessary. (Except against boarding drones, which are the spawn of Satan upon this earth). The Scrap Recovery Arm is awesome. The Drone Recovery Arm is only useful if you're using drones very heavily. The Auto-Loader is also pretty great, and if you have the right setup using the Weapon Pre-Igniter feels almost like cheating.
The efficiency of engine upgrades starts to drop after the fifth bar, so after that consider putting power to other systems, and using engines to sink unneeded power.
The first point of engines gives you 5% reduced damage. The last point (going from 31% to 35%) is closer to a 6% increase in effectiveness. Taking on average 65/100 hits instead of 69/100 hits.
Notably even better when manned.
The difference would be incredibly noticable if we were talking about the difference between 98% avoidance and 99% avoidance. You take half the damage going from 98 to 99.
Comments
Fully upgraded medbay means your crew is effecively immortal against any intruder.
A couple of Ion whatevers mean you can always drop opponents shields (trick: you can actually just target weapons systems and if ion shot is absorbed by shield then the ion damage goes to shields instead).
Get drone recovery arm at all costs and three level I attack drones.
Sit back and relax.
The Engi "medbay in every room" tech is definitely two steps ahead of the Pareto frontier.
I tried your torus/drone strategy. It worked great. Except for the fact that not once in the entire goddamn game was there an extra crew member. Not once in the entire goddamn game was there a drone recovery arm. I went to every fucking store. Not one arm. Not one.
I managed to scrape my way to the boss, and beat the first stage. Second stage I had no chance because I had no crew to keep the drone room repaired or defended. They boarded me with a robot, so the lack of oxygen didn't kill him.
This time I got the Drone recovery arm. I even had the teleporter and lots of extra crew. I was kicking everyone's ass up until the boss. Couldn't even do any significant damage to the first stage. When I tried to teleport into the boss, he stealthed and trapped my guys inside to die. Two ion guns and two drones was not enough to do anything. I aimed the ion guns at the missle launcher, but it still shot me frequently. Hull repair drone was worthless.
I even had the awesomest burst weapon, but I had to disable the ion weapons to use it. The maximum energy limit is complete horse shit. It's impossible to power three guns, three drones, and the entire ship simultaneously with the maximum energy they allow. If you power down even one thing, that will be the thing that fucks you guaranteed.
They really need to make it so every store sells everything.
Hmmm, I beat two stages of the boss for the first time. So a definitely improvement. Even so, there was no place to repair after the second stage! No choice but to fight with no hull, and I'm dead at the first salvo.
Or cloak to reduce damage.
Or a teleporter to also do more damage and kill more crew.
If you destroy the missile launcher that boss fight is a joke. If you destroy that and the burst laser, he has no way to damage you for the entire first phase of the fight.
Best way I've survived drone phase is by stealthing through the big drone push. The cooldown lines up with it almost every time.
You seem to want a game that is not random, but the whole point of roguelikes is that they are random and you make-do with what you can find. I don't think I've ever had a game of FTL that felt completely unwinnable, aside from ones that stall out in the 1st or 2nd sector. I find a teleporter and a cloak in nearly every game. Teleporter is my favorite. That is the closest thing I have to a set strat, because I loves it so much that I will drop everything to get a teleporter. Then I will beam my rock guy and my mantis guy over to the ship to kill the crew, then be completely befuddled as to why the entire ship just tore itself apart and now my rock and mantis guy are floating in the vacuum of space.
...oh yeah, I destroyed the enemy's shields and we were fighting in an asteroid field...
WOMP WOMP.
Sketchbook: don't diss beam weapons, especially since you so heavily favor the weapon pre-igniter, which seems almost exclusively built for beam weapons, so you can drop their shields with a salvo from the barst lasers then wreck house with your glaive beam, doing 3 damage per segment it hits and crippling shields/weapons in the first salvo of a combat. Beam weapons get me so hype. Fire beam is fun, but it's a lot of energy to divert for a weapon that doesn't immediately produce results (results being damaging weapon systems)
Dat Mantis sector. Went in with 6 crew, came out with only the pilot alive. Dude deserves a medal. Fighting in vacuum, killing off manti.
Last battle: two of the fuckers board, I vent the entire ship except for the bridge. My drones and ion guns are making mince meat of the enemy ship but the two fuckers aim straight for the bridge. I try closing doors in their path but they go through them like butter. They fuck up the door room on the way, a missile hits the O2 room, fuckers get to the bridge. Pilot fucking stabs the fuckers to death. Oxygen at 11%, all doors except bridge door open...
Enemy ship blows up. I get a "Heal Bomb"!!!
Fortunately the Engi med bay is working. Pilot goes into near vacuum to fix the doors while heal bomb charges up (18 seconds). Doors are fixed, pilot dying, still no fresh O2. Close all doors and run back to bridge which is slightly less pink than rest of ship. Engi med bay kicks in and pilot gets little better.
Mofo Heal B. still charging, bridge turning pinker, and pilot healt stalls and starts to fall again.
Pilot runs to O2 room and starts fixing, health running out, Health B. finally charged!! aim at O2 room, click, boom! Pilot at full health but falling immediately. Fixing that shit like a bookie on speed. Health B. recharging... longest 18 seconds of my life.
Literally at the last second Health B fires and saves pilot again, couple seconds later O2 is fixed.
I am not going to hire a single other crew member, ever.
EDIT: Emily, that sounds really fun. Do you know how long it's running for? They don't have that info on their website.
Fire beams great in the early to mid game for killing crews at minimal risk to yourself, as killing the crew but leaving the ship intact gets you the bonus loot, but I always get rid of it in favour of more lazors in the late game.
On a good run I usually only have to buy fuel but not drones or missiles. Pay attention to what a ship offers you for not killing them. If you're going drone heavy and they offer those (8 scrap each to buy) it might be a good deal. If you're going burst weapons then it's probably not.
Try and avoid spending any scrap until you reach a store and see what they have. On the same note, avoid repairing unless it costs 2 or you're almost out of hull. Sometimes it's tempting to buy weapons in the early sector, but remember, they tend to not be as good late game.
Also, I don't go into the game saying, "OK I have to get stealth and drones." etc. I see what I get as drops (how I get 75% of my weapons) and go from there. Exploring as much as you can in each sector (except 8) is vital to winning. Don't go to nebula sectors, its mostly empty space and generally a waste of time.
One final note, both times I've won I've only had 3 shields and 25% engine dodge (without crew bonus). Those last few upgrades are incredibly expensive and not really worth it.
Oh and here, http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light_Wiki
I got all the way to the end on easy, didn't know what I was doing, then got fucked up by some random ship.
I also found it amusing that I could hear myself while recording so I kept talking to myself. Also facebook chat sprinkled throughout.
My thoughts:
The only useful beam weapons are the Halberd and the Glaive, since they can pierce 1-2 levels of shields to do damage anyways, and a well-aimed beam can pretty much always hit 4-5 rooms.
The Burst Laser II is far and away the best purchasable weapon in the game. If you ever see one, get it immediately. When looking at lasers, always consider both the shots/power ratio and the
Pretty much the only use for missiles is if you've been unlucky and not gotten good burst lasers, so that you need to damage the shield system enough to get your other weapons through. Using a breach bomb on the enemy's O2 and Medbay has hilarious results.
Sketch has I think undervalued the cloaking system, because not only will a correctly-timed cloak allow you to dodge a salvo pretty much guaranteed, it will also give you up to fifteen seconds where the enemy's weapons aren't even charging, and you can use that time to reroute power into medbay or teleporters or whatever else you need (for instance, you can cloak put three power from engines into teleport, and you'll have that power back by the time the cloak ends).
The efficiency of engine upgrades starts to drop after the fifth bar, so after that consider putting power to other systems, and using engines to sink unneeded power.
You don't need to power your medbay most of the time.
A defense drone I is practically essential, for its extra defense against missiles (and boarding drones!) Getting a level II depends on how power you need for other systems (shooting down beams that would be dodged or blocked by shields isn't really necessary).
If you're using boarding parties, try to only use Rockmen and Mantises, since other species will die faster. Also, don't board until enemy medbays are disabled, and make sure they stay that way.
ALWAYS upgrade your doors at least once, at which point actually devoting crew to repelling boarders becomes largely unnecessary. (Except against boarding drones, which are the spawn of Satan upon this earth).
The Scrap Recovery Arm is awesome. The Drone Recovery Arm is only useful if you're using drones very heavily. The Auto-Loader is also pretty great, and if you have the right setup using the Weapon Pre-Igniter feels almost like cheating.
Notably even better when manned.
The difference would be incredibly noticable if we were talking about the difference between 98% avoidance and 99% avoidance. You take half the damage going from 98 to 99.