I play FTL with the Torus - Tipps are very much appreciated!

[GordonOverkill]

Hi dudes and dudesses,

at the moment I try to learn playing the Torus and to be honest, I am still far from "good". Therefore I started recording a video series with this ship and I'd be very grateful for any good hints. I was already told that I should have sold the Medibots and therefore bought the scrap recovery arm, but I am sure there is alot more that I could have done better.
Here's the link to the series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fixwhayMaAA&feature=c4-overview&list=UUMWW1k4ZUEB5Fu9EfjYMTUg

Those roguelike-maniacs among you might like to take a look at my ADOM videos, too (including a complete successful playtrough... as far as I know that was just the second one of it's kind on youtube).
This is the link to my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMWW1k4ZUEB5Fu9EfjYMTUg

However, I'd love to hear some oppinions!

[5thHorseman]

I watched your video and jotted down some notes. It turned into a long read (sorry!) but here goes.

Upgraded doors is a luxury. It's nice, but so much is more important early on. You're better off saving that scrap for shields or engines. I personally go with shields level 2 first. Your ship has 3 crew and a 3-person medbay, so at the worst you can put them all in there and evacuate the rest of the ship of air.

I agree that selling medibots for the scrap recovery arm is a good idea. The earlier you get one of those the better. If it was sector 4 I'd keep the medibots but in sector 1 the SR arm is king. Note: If you hadn't bought doors I think you could have bought that arm. Or shields. You chose wisely not going to other stores though. You need to get scrap at this point of the game, not spend it.

As soon as you got 50 scrap, I would have upgraded shields. That slug ship, for example, you could have destroyed their O2 and waited for them to die getting you extra scrap for no loss. Little things like that go a long way especially in a ship as dodgy as the Torus.

You've got a Mantis (good) and an Engi (bad) going in to fight 3 humans and then an attack drone. You should have sucked the air out of most of the ship and choked those guys out. Make the best use of your door purchase! Stick the bad guys in an inescapable room with no air in it, and laugh like a maniac while they flail in terror. That was a nasty fight, though. 3 borders, a boarding drone, and missiles? HELLO random number screw. You did well considering the odds. There's no really good way to handle that sort of fight.

The star layout wasn't unlucky. If the jump before you'd jumped to the star above the one you were at, you could have then jumped to that star second and would have maximized your jumps in sector 1. Don't worry about it too much, I do this too all the time But try to get a good guess of how many jumps the rebels have and then plan your route to end at the exit right before they get there. I usually do this when there are 6-8 turns left in a sector.

Incidentally this is a good example of how this game rewards planning more than you'd realize. So many things look unlucky but are simply punishing you for not being prepared and forward-thinking.

I've already said it, but 2 shields would have made that Rebel Fighter fight a 0-loss scrapfest. Also, once your drone has taken the weapons down you should have targeted the shields with your Ion Blast. If shields stay down fully then the drone can do what it is meant for: Hull damage.

NEVER TAKE ENGINES DOWN NEAR A SUN. Your engine power is how fast your ftl drive warms up. You want to kill the bad guys and then run away ASAP.

I'd have taken that pirate's first offer because they have 3 weapons (one a missile) and you still only have one shield (hint hint). You could have easily taken 4-5 damage before the fight was done. You made a good choice after only taking 1 damage to accept their 2nd offer.

[GordonOverkill]

Thanks alot for those great hints! I already tried to keep them in mind for the second episode, still I got the impression that the rng is definitely not my friend in this series. Would be great to hear if/how I could have done a little better in the second sector!

Here's the direct link to the second episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cohAyK7QtI8&feature=youtu.be

[GordonOverkill]

Third episode is recorded and I am quite happy that it was a little luckier than the second one. Still I do not really feel save. Bought a defensive drone, which is quite nice I think, but still no additional weapon... maybe I should have bought one from the black market merchant ship?
Any hints would be very much appreciated, for the fourth sector is surely not going to be easier.

Here's the link to the third sector episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqjisDObZAw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUMWW1k4ZUEB5Fu9EfjYMTUg

[5thHorseman]

VIDEO 2:
That second battle sucked. No good choice to make there. You kept up the offense which was likely the best of bad choices

In spite of that nebula sucking, in-sector nebulas are a great idea generally. And regular nebulas are great if you've got a long range scanner. The best is in-sector nebulas with an LRS.

The zoltan's hard to pass up but I would have. You paid 65 bucks for 1 energy when energy's costing you like 20 right now.

Good example of even though you plan for it, not being able to maximize jumps.

2 engines (and 2 more power) is important, but I'd have also kept that scrap until I saw what the next sector had. That first jump is danger-free so why spend the scrap? After you saw no stores, though, I'd buy those 2 engines.

VIDEO 3:
I'd have fought that guy, hoping his Halberd beam wouldn't come on line. If it didn't, you could have beaten him with minimal (if any) damage. It's likely he'd have had 1 shield and the two lesser weapons.

In that mantis fight, you left your engines unpowered. Also, you could have opened the left-hand door (because they were attacking the right-hand door) and gotten the air out of that next room before they got there You also let them get into your oxygen and didn't keep the doors behind them open so they were doing so without fear of choking to death. Boarders should ALWAYS have the fear of choking to death! And your 65-credit Zoltan only lived through that fight because those mantises for some reason ran away. Finally, you could have ended that fight much earlier if, when their weapons took a damage, you switched the ion to the shields. They couldn't hurt you with one weapon down.

I like the "gather scrap before going to the store" strategy but I still would have spent some scrap improving engines. You're going to anyway and you'd have dodged a few shots along the way, saving on repairs.

When fighting 2-shield ships with the default setup, you need to concentrate the ion on the shields. It really hurts you when they come back up. Of course, it also hurts to be bombed and missiled to death

As soon as those missiles were down, you again should have switched to the shields with the ion. I liked how you handled the two boarders, though!

That defense drone was a great buy. Exactly what I'd have done. I'd have not picked up the Rockman, though I see the idea. Him and the mantis together can repel boarders together, saving your Engi and Zoltan the effort Though if you hadn't, you could upgrade your drones

Good strategy in that fight. You were screwed by the RNG and only took a little damage. I'd have also accepted the fuel.

You actually could have had both drones up at the same time. Just, whenever he fires a missile, turn off the attack drone and turn on the defense drone, then after it shoots the missile switch back. You didn't need to on this fight of course.

I would have targeted that 2-shield ship's shields with the ion, or at least would have switched to shields once you took out one weapon. It would have greatly reduced the length of that fight without risking any damage.

That Zoltan ship could not have hurt you. Again you should have been firing at the shields to speed up the fight.

[GordonOverkill]

Big, big thanks again for the great tipps, 5thHorseman! I have tried to think of them and reach a better performance in the new episode... still I am afraid that I made some shocking new mistakes x-) Anyway, the "Speed Metal" is still alive and working, so let's see how far this journey will go! With your help I hope that the ship will be able to see some more sectors at least

Here's the link to the new episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6yKzsS57Bo&feature=youtu.be

[LegatDamar]

The defensedrone can miss, too. Thats why the rockpirate hit your weapons

Zoltanshilds are no problem with the Torus, because ionweapons do 2 damage to the zoltanshield.

Heavy ion is crap, but on the Torus it can be nice, because it adds it iondamage on the damage from the ionblast II - fire beam crap, and on this ship perhaps the worst weapon you can get

I haven´t played much in the last weeks, but (and please don´t be mad - your are still a ftl-beginner) your painful third video mad me do a "good" Torus run The Torus is one of my favorite ships and can be so much fun to play.

When you got new ships, watch the videos from 5thHorseman. They are really good and you can learn much from it - and they are so much fun to watch. And you can see that even a ftl-pro can make very bad mistakes in a large number

[GordonOverkill]

Thanks for the hints and explanation, LegatDamar!
Got the fifth episode online now and I am actually quite happy with it. Just there was a problem with my recording programm... somehow the video was recorded in twice the normal speed, so video and audio do not fit to each other and the whole video might not be very enjoyable. Sorry, really don't know how that happened.
To make it short, the boarding crew did a great job, I increased the engine to lvl 4, the reactor to lvl 15, sensors to lvl 2, found a Hermes missile launcher and a shield charge booster and left the sector with just 13 hull points but 161 scraps into a mantis sector.

I have recorded a new audio for this episode, hope so it's a little better to watch Here's the new link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uVREJ8tv2Q

[5thHorseman]

Episode 4:
I get mad at my gunner too But yeah their dodge was horrible. You coudln't have done anything better in that fight (other than powering the 2nd shield early but you corrected that mistake as soon as you saw that weapon could shoot twice). As was said already, your drone is not 100% perfect. Sometimes missiles will just get through.

Trying to air out the door room was probably a mistake, but you only took 1 hull damage for it. It may have gone down anyway even if you'd sent both Engi in to fight the fires. But it sucks when doors are down and half your ship is open to space

To power all 3 shields you could... buy more power? Though I would have instead just bought one more engine, then checked out the store. My personal checklist is: 2 engines, then 2 shields, then 4 engines, then 3 shields, then 5 engines. Roughly one of those per sector.

NOOOOOO! Ion would have been epic. You can technically beat the final boss with your current ship (with upgrades, but no further purchases), but that heavy ion actually makes you a contender. Seriously, a 2nd ion is a viable beat-the-final-boss strategy. Add a cloak and you're almost guaranteed to win. Add another weapon or a 2nd attack drone and you're a shoe-in. The fire beam, though? Terrible choice for this loadout. It clashes with the attack drone. Either you want an attack drone or you want to kill the crew, not both.

Same goes for the teleporter. You have the crew for a teleporter, but not the ship. That said, a teleporter is about the best mistake you can ever make because the extra scrap is SO nice and let's face it: Nothing's more fun than boarding enemy ships.

You can't close doors that the enemy has broken through. They will close on their own eventually which is why those other 2 doors were closed while the bad guys were attacking your door control.

You should have turned on your medbay when your Zoltan and Mantis were hurt, or at least put them in different rooms. One bomb hit in your shield room and they would have DIED.

After buying the teleporter, you had an extra power in your shields. Watch for that when you run your Zoltan around.

I was drooling wondering how well a double-ion setup would have shredded that Rebel Fighter's shields... As it was, you used up an attack drone that never had a chance to do any damage because you never fired your ion blast once.

Rocks have more missiles, which is a good match for your defense drone. It's what I'd have picked.

EDIT: --------------

Episode 5:

You realized pretty quickly on your own the problem with the attack drone/telporter strategy. By using the teleporter you've essentially rendered your attack drone useless. It's not a terrible problem but if you can use the scrap selling it's not a terrible idea. However, note that it's currently the only way to kill automated ships.

You can actually swap drones back and forth all you want. Once they're out there, you don't lose a drone part for reactivating them.

You should have put your Rockman in the upper-left corner of that room, and your mantis in the upper-right. You can do this (all while paused) by selecting your mantis and telling him to leave the room, then selecting your rock man and telling him to leave the room. Then, with your Rockman still selected (and the game still paused) tell him to go back into the weapons room. Finally, tell your mantis to do the same. Because you told your Rockman to enter the room first, he'll go to that first slot and end up in the upper left. You do this because the Rockman can take more damage and you wouldn't have had to move anybody out of the room.

I'd have teleported into their medbay but I'm kinda crazy like that. I have no problem though with you running away from that fight. It was going bad and could have gone much worse

Great strategy with that mantis bomber. My only (very minor) nitpick was you could have paid more mind to your doors. Some of them closed without you noticing which could have allowed those mantises to destroy systems. No harm no foul, though

I'm not sure because the video was going fast, but you may have been able to kill that last Rockman without teleporting back. Again, no harm no foul and it usually pays to be careful like you were.

That rock scout was decked out. You're starting to see the problem with only having the Ion 2: Every miss hurts your taking their shield down. Good job on the battle, including pulling your guys back to heal. Woo, though. You got them down to 1 hull. One more drone shot and you'd have lost your boarding party!

Very good sector. You got through it with a ton of scrap. Looking forward to to seeing how you spend it!

[GordonOverkill]

Once again big, big thanks, 5thHorseman! I used the trick to change the positions of the boarders more than once in the latest episode and it is really great! Although I did not play perfectly (some rather painfull mistakes, to be honest), I am quite happy with the overall developement and slowly but surely I am getting positive that this run might end successful. Would be very, very cool to get some more good hints for the final fights!

Here's the link to the latest episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuEqIE3OXpw&feature=youtu.be