FTL: Faster than light

[Wildwill002]

HEY! You! Get that game!

[Jake55778]

4 Burst Laser Mk 2s, weapon pre-igniter, 2 automated re-loaders, on Federation Cruiser with max lvl Artillery Beam, with fully trained crew on Weapons.

I just finished a run where I got a whole bunch of burst lasers. I didn't quite have the ideal x4 Mk2 (12 shots), but I did have x2 Mk2 + x1 Mk3 (11 shots), which I believe is the next best alternative.

My verdict? They're surprisingly bad late in the game. By the time you've broken through 4 bars of shields, and had to deal with up to 55% evade on enemy ships, you're lucky to land more than 1-2 clean hits (which the enemy can often repair before you get a chance to fire again). I didn't find any reloaders or the pre-igniter, which certainly would have helped.

[Aenir_bEPU]

4 Burst Laser Mk 2s, weapon pre-igniter, 2 automated re-loaders, on Federation Cruiser with max lvl Artillery Beam, with fully trained crew on Weapons.

I just finished a run where I got a whole bunch of burst lasers. I didn't quite have the ideal x4 Mk2 (12 shots), but I did have x2 Mk2 + x1 Mk3 (11 shots), which I believe is the next best alternative.

My verdict? They're surprisingly bad late in the game. By the time you've broken through 4 bars of shields, and had to deal with up to 55% evade on enemy ships, you're lucky to land more than 1-2 clean hits (which the enemy can often repair before you get a chance to fire again). I didn't find any reloaders or the pre-igniter, which certainly would have helped.

Can't that be said for any weapon, really?

[Jake55778]

Yep, I was only surprised because on paper burst laser Mk2s represent some of the best energy to damage ratio in the game.

They all have strengths and weaknesses. I don't think stacking all of any one type is really the way to go. Lasers have a hard time with evasion, Beams are useless against sheilds, Missiles consume ammo & can be blocked by drones, and Bombs & ion can't damage hull.
Drones are the only damage dealers that don't really have a weakness, but they're expensive (in both scrap and energy), relatively weak (x2 anti ship drone Mk2s cost the same energy as x2 Glaive beams, but won't do nearly as much damage), and consume drone parts.

[Invunarble]

Wow. How do you manage to not have your ship become decompiled with no shields running?

[Jake55778]

I was in an ion storm, the lack of shields was only temporary

[minnerthecat]

WOO! Just got myself a copy of this game finally, can't wait to play it ...after exams.
Curse you mathematics!!!

[Wildwill002]

Use it to help revise maths. You gotta count how many energy bars you have/are using and evasion percentages etc

[minnerthecat]

Yeah, I don't know who I was kidding... I ended up playing it all evening instead of studying!

[Jake55778]

Is this situation winnable?

I have 4 (fully trained) mantis vs 4 humans with a level 3 medbay. I can't out DPS them in the medbay, and if I fight them anywhere else they just take turns running back to heal. I could probably chase them down and pick them off before they reached the medbay, if it weren't for the reinforced doors. I am in no danger from the enemy ship's weapons, but I also can't get past their shield.

Any suggestions? Or is this just a stalemate?

[Invunarble]

Well, you could probably activate those S and Ion bombs, no idea what the "S" one is but I believe all bombs bypass shields, and if you hammer it down far enough, you'd probably shut down their shields.

If not, try putting two of your mantis crew in their teleporter room or something, and have the other two damage their shields at least to the extent where you can fire at their ship, or at least find some method to distracting the other crew members long enough so you can take down their shields.

[Wildwill002]

Take out the medbay with the ion bombs then kill the 3 humans that can use the majority of the ship. Leave the last one alive as otherwise the ship will be able to repair itself

[Jake55778]

Thanks, but was out of bombs so that wouldn't have worked.

I eventually was able to take out their doors with 2 mantis by attacking their O2 bay as a distraction. With he doors down I was able to get a kill, and from there it was 4 vs 3 and I was able to clean up the rest of the crew. From there it was just a case of destroying their shields from the inside and finishing off with the Glaive beam. Stages 2 & 3 went smoothly and I got my first win with the Mantis Cruiser.

[Jake55778]

I went and got myself stuck again...

I somehow forgot to include any direct damage weapons in my arsenal, so my only way to damage the hull is to blow up systems from the inside. The only solution I can see would be to kill off the last crew member and let the autopilot take over, then destroy more systems as it repairs them. Of course that shoots me in the foot for stages 2 & 3 since the autopilot will still be active.

If I've missed an alternative please let me know

[Invunarble]

Can't breach missiles cause hull damage to system rooms? If so, use that for as long as you can. Once you run out of missiles, have a crew member teleport into one of the inaccessible* rooms of their ship, and order him to attack the system continuously for hull damage. Pretty sure it doesn't need to be repaired to be attackable, so try that.

(No idea why that said "naccessible"... )

[Aenir_bEPU]

Breach missiles can't cause hull damage.
Systems can't be destroyed in order to be damaged.

Kill the last crew member so that the AI takes over.
Use your crew to get the ship to 1 hull. Have the boarding drone finish it off.

[Jake55778]

Who needs weapons when you have an 8 person boarding party?

[Invunarble]

How the hell do you have such a large teleporter? Is that a mantis ship thing, or what? o_0

Also, won't you have to sacrifice a crew member each time you run into a drone ship now?

[Jake55778]

That's what the anti ship drone is for. If that fails I just jump away.

Also: all of the mantis!

[Wildwill002]

8 mantis vs 8 rock with both ships weapons and med bays down, who would win

[Jake55778]

Hmm, in a DPS race I think mantis win by a narrow margin. Even if I'm wrong on that a little micro should be all it takes to ensure a mantis victory. 50% move speed vs 120%.

Rockmen + Fire bombs however is pretty much unbeatable.

[Aenir_bEPU]

Mantis do 2x damage, Rockmen have 1.5x health.

Rockmen only get an advantage when there's fire.

[vallorn]

Aye. using the rock ship that comes with fire weapons and putting a teleporter on is damn near unstoppable. hell I almost killed the final boss with it except it managed to reach the federation base just before I could kill stage 3.

[Jake55778]

Fire against the final boss is risky. If it gets out of hand and takes out their O2 bay you can end up fighting their AI

[vallorn]

they have lvl 3 doors so fire wont spread between rooms so you just have to be careful.

[Aenir_bEPU]

Level 3 doors does -not- stop the spread of fire. What it does is slow it down.

If your goal is to kill Flagship using only boarders/fires, killing all the crew is the best thing you can do, as then the AI will repair systems, allowing you to destroy them again.

But you'll still need at least 1 damage dealer/ion weapon to take out the energy shield on the last phase.

[Jake55778]

So after not playing FTL for a while since I had unlocked every ship/layout, I decided to try and get all the achievements on Normal difficulty. Along the way I ended up deciding to push a particular soldier to do his very best.

The_Perfect_Soldier.PNG

I see your supersoldier, and raise you a team of them.
3 mantis and an engi all with maximum skill masteries.

[Invunarble]

It's a .gif picture too!

Aenir, I think you have some competition

[Wildwill002]

Soo... How about dat modding scene?

http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3542

What I'm currently using!

What is FTL Infinite Space?
The universe is vast. With FTL Infinite Space you can explore the universe to your hearts content, or till you blow your ship to bits. Infinite Space will jump you from sector to sector, while you search for ancient powerful artifacts, and advanced technology to enhance your ships capabilities. Learn when to fight, and when to run. Dominate or be destroyed.

*No Rebel Fleet, No Rebel Boss, No hard stop end of game.
*Redesign of Sectors, and Enemy ships.
*Sector "mini bosses" (Player Cruisers images).
*19 new custom weapons.
*17 new custom drones.
*17 new events
*A different gaming experience than vanilla.

[Aenir_bEPU]

FTL is part of Humble Hundle 9 https://www.humblebundle.com/