FTL - Faster Than Light

[Kaida23]

I finally made it to sector 8 and beat the first stage of the rebel flagship, but then it made a beeline for the base (or whatever it is you're protecting) faster than I could catch it. Any advice on how to keep it engaged?

 

Btw - the second Zoltan ship design is awesome (and not all that difficult to unlock). The ion guns and the beam weapon make the first few sectors a cakewalk, but it definitely needs multi-shot weaps to get through the higher level shields in the later sectors.

[Ginger_Warrior]

It will still jump towards the base even if you defeat it. The "You've bought some time" comment is actually pretty misleading... if there's only one jump left before you tackle the first or second stages, you cannot destroy it in time. That's one of the reasons why it's better to tackle it sooner rather than later, the second main one being the availability of repair stations lessening as the rebels take over the sector.

[Racheya]

I tend to not prioritise engines, maybe I should do so more. I also really like having an extra boost in O2 since it helps when dealing with invaders and hull breaches as well as not getting killed with one hit to O2. At the moment I'm playing with the fed cruiser and doing decently so far. I've got a lot of crew, which helps. Gotta love the artillery beam.

[All_Bogs]

Usually, I tend to grab the first five upgrades relatively quickly, as those up your avoidance to 35%. Having more avoidance then leads to your crew gaining experience in piloting and engines more quickly, so you pick up that free +10% avoidance from skills faster as well. After those first five upgrades I tend not to bother unless I have a huge amount of spare scrap - the last three upgrades are pretty expensive, have diminishing returns (they only add +3.3%), and generally speaking I don't have enough juice to power the upgrades anyway.

 

 

I just finished the campaign using the Engi's space-donut vessel. It feels a bit clunky early on, only being able to do indirect damage. I was lucky enough to find another Ion Blast relatively quickly. With a duo of ion cannons you can basically lock down two systems for most of the time, which rendered enemy vessels completely harmless after I managed to chew through their shields. The Drone Arm augmentation is a must though, especially if you pick up a second drone early on. You can sell it near the end, too, assuming you have sufficient drone parts in supply, and doing so allowed me to pick up Fire Bombs right before heading into the final sector. As it turns out, Fire Bombs are pretty good at taking out the boss' weapons. They bypass shields, and one hit typically means two fires, which will roast the crew member manning the weapon system. Between a barrage of ion shots and two angry drones chipping away at the flagship's hull, it went down relatively quickly. Cloaking was lovely against its special attacks, too.

 

The biggest pain during the fights were the droids boarding my ship during phase two. As it turns out, having a damaged and depressurized engine room is not so good for your avoidance, and not having any avoidance means pain when there are a million drones and guns firing at you. Good thing there's repair stations :P

 

 

[Randox]

I consider at least one upgrade to oxygen and medbay to be important, not only for the extra hit before the system goes down and the hull takes damage, but because there are situations where being able to refill your shit with oxygen or getting your crew healed quickly will be the difference between victory and a much harder victory (or no victory at all). However, they are not systems that should have priority on power. I normally keep 1 for oxygen, and maybe 1 power on deck for medbay, and the rest I take from engines/shields/weapons on an as needed basis.

 

I also normally try to get at least one into the helm, since it presents a really easy way to take out my evasion if I lose it. Helm is however the last system I will pull crew away from, so it only happens if something else needs to be repaired to prevent death, or if I can lose evasion without risking my shields being overpowered.

 

If I end up venting a lot of the ship to put out fires, I like to be able to refil the ship as fast as possible, especially if I am still in combat, since losing oxygen with 25-50% oxygen levels (because you just vented half the ship or more) is an emergency that requires immediate attention or everyone is going to start dying, but losing your O2 above 90% oxygen levels is something you don't need to deal with until the end of the fight (sooner if you need to vent after you lose O2).

 

Likewise, if a crewmember takes a huge hit while I'm still in a fight, he needs to get back from medbay ASAP because my ship will have poorer performance until they return.

 

 

Evasion is a god send while you take out the final bosses missile weapons, and will in general make your life easier on the trek there. Evasion is your only defense against missles (not sure what effect if any it has against teleporter weapons), and is your first line of defense against lasers. You want your shields to be under as little strain as possible to deal with beams and ion cannons.

 

I've brought ships to the boss with maxed engines and 3 or 4 shields, and they are all but invincible against the first boss. Transporters can drop the missle weapon pretty quickly, as can a system bomb (system bombs are win), and at that point its doubtful you'll take much if any damage. If you can take down the missiles again on the second form before you get droned to kingdom come, its about the same. You stand a fair chance of keeping your shields online and they will save you from the evil beams. Unfortunately, you only get that kind of money on easy mode :lol:

[All_Bogs]

Evasion seems to work fully against teleport-bombs as well - it's pretty much your only defence against them. Defence drones also work nicely against missiles, even if they aren't 100% bullet-proof.

[Racheya]

took my fed cruiser with 3 shields and good weapons to the boss. Got past the first round but I just quickly got annihilated in the second round :( Not sure what ship to play with next. Maybe enji, I like that ship.

[Ginger_Warrior]

The lack of decent combatants on the Engi ship, after entering a Mantis area in Sector 2 with no opportunity to recruit, left me feeling very frustrated.

[Randox]

Totaly forgot about defense drones. Okay yeah, I'd expect evasion to be just as effective against teleport bombs then, since the difference would be bombs can't be shot down.

 

And if your flying an engi ship, and you still have an all engi crew when the option to enter mantis space comes up, you should probably not choose that option :P

[nine naked men]

Lost all of my progress when I installed Steam on a new PC so I'm back to square one, just the Engi Cruiser and the Kestrel. : (

 

The highlight though was using my ion weaponry to suffocate an enemy crew to get a dude his ship back. Didn't get anything too awesome out of it (bar an achievement of course) but it was hilariously morbid.

[Kaida23]

You can keep all your progress. All you have to do is copy the prof.sav file from the old PC to the new one.

 

It's in: my documents>my games>fasterthanlight

[nine naked men]

You can keep all your progress. All you have to do is copy the prof.sav file from the old PC to the new one.

 

It's in: my documents>my games>fasterthanlight

 

Well you are entirely correct. I thought save games were kept in the steamapps folder but I guess that's not true at all. Thanks!

 

Back to cutting up rebels with my federation laser now. :v

[Necromagus]

Still getting absolutely shredded by the drones on the second phase of the boss fight. I've had plenty of fun builds though, most of which included the weapons pre-igniter augment. I like to put a cloak on top of it so I can quickly cripple my opponent's defences at the start, then throw up my cloak while my weapons recharge, following it up with either a finishing blow or at least completely remove their offensive capabilities. It can be tricky to set up a balanced selection of weapons, but thankfully the Artemis and mk. II burst laser provide a good start.

[Randox]

A (good) cloak and pre-igniter would be nice. I imagine that would be two salvos off before they can fire one.

 

Big engines help a lot on phase 2, because they help your shields longer, and make your chances better of having some when they light you up.

[Kaida23]

I've beaten the mothership a couple times now and for me max shields (for obvious reasons) and high engines (ie: higher evade) are a must for dealing with the drones. I also tend to leave the same people in the engine and pilot rooms right from the beginning to get as much of an evade bonus as possible by the end.

 

Also, at least one missile launcher along with multishot weapons make the whole thing a lot easier, especially if you can kill the guy manning the missile launcher in the first wave.

[Necromagus]

So I've finally beaten the game, using the alternative layout Kestrel cruiser. My loadout was:

• Maxed out shields, engines, O2, medbay and doors (naturally)
  
• Weapons pre-igniter, shield charge booster, engi med-bot dispersal (this was huge)
  
• Maxed out cloak (used to avoid drone surges and the 'super-weapon' of the final boss)
  
• Phase one and three: Burst Laser Mk. III, Glaive Beam
  
• Phase two: Burst Laser Mk. III, Small Bomb, Ion Blast Mk. II
  

The fact that I went with 'unconventional' weapons for phase two saved my rear end. I also had a drone control with two Defense Drone Mk. II, but I never used them. I think the deciding factor was that I tried out new weapons and that I had gotten a lot better at micro-managing my crew. The fact that my repair team consisted of two Engis both named 'Jones' probably helped too. I was amazed how much the med-bot augment helped me out with emergency repairs during low damage moments in the final boss fight. I could cut power from my engines and pump my medbay and O2 up to full and go into breached rooms without worry, then have my engines back to full before the next enemy push. What really helped me out in the early game was picking up two scrap recovery arms early, and not giving up the last one until sector seven. Because the ship starts out with four weapons you'll probably end up with a maxed out weapons skill on one of your crew members by the time you hit sector two. That was a big help as well, especially since the ship is already quite potent in the early stages anyway.

[Kaida23]

Congrats. Feels good the first time you destroy the mothership, doesn't it? :)

[Randox]

So I remembered this game today, and scored another victory on easy (given how rough this was, doubt has set in about doing this on normal). It was a bit sad though. I made it through because pretty much the entire ship was pimped out, and it took mercifully few hits to weapons, engines, and shields during the final fights. A glaive beam, a 2 burst hull laser, and a basic laser was all I had for offence, in addition to a 2 pad teleporter. The teleporter saved the ship when 2 of my 3 repair crew invaded and disabled the missile launcher, which was doing serious damage even against my 55% evasion. In the end, those same two officers sacrificed their lives to bring down the boss agility in a desperate bid to take down the shields. I lost my teleporter right after they beamed in, but they managed to get the pilot away from his console. I'm not sure if that actually helped, but my lasers finally managed to weaken the sheilds for that final blow from the glaive beam. My crew died in the moments before I weakened the shields, to be avenged moments later with my victory (with a single life point remaining). Still, I am sad that I couldn't save everyone, especially since they weren't really soldiers, but 2 of the 6 crew I picked up along the way (I was down to one of the original 4 by the 3rd sector. I didn't get a new gun until sector 8).

 

Nice to win with a different ship though, a type B kestral. I was really wishing for that artillery beam though. The glaive is unmatched if you can bring the shields down, but the artillery beam is where it's at against massive shields and insane agility.