57 hours, on easy, zero victories

[Maury Markowitz]

That being the case, you have your answers.

I do?

30% of the time, you need to plan a little better. Spend a little scrap when you find stores on supplies you are low on.

That's the other thing, like the cops, there's never a store when you need one. I find stores all the time when I have no scrap, and never when I have it to burn. I always seem to get lots just before the Last Stand, for instance.

50% of the time, you need to play a little better. There really is no excuse for losing a boarding party because the ship blows up or jumps away.

Really? This has never happened to you? Ever?

If to kill a ship is going to use up all your resources, maybe you are better off jumping and just losing 1 fuel. So what if he has super shields, you can still jump away.

And then run out of supplies. The #1 source of fuel in this game is other ships. In the games where I've avoided combat, I end up in the SS Float in Space.

Instead of blaming the game for being too hard, instead focus on your decisions. Most of us still make mistakes, the key is to minimize them and get better. The fewer poor decisions, the less scrap spent on repair (or replacement crew) and the more spent on making your ship stronger. Make few enough and you will win.

That's great advice… but what are those decisions?

[Agg Shell]

some of those disisons are, learn the events. if you know which events do what you can plan better. such as the madman, it's onlt worth it if you find a blue option. otherwise, you'll just lose crew an hull. secondly, don't keep missiles on autofire. use them to take out shields and let your laser do the work. lastly, if all else fails, look on youtube and look for playthroughs of FTL. there you can study what events do what, learn when to disable things, and know that you pretty much always want to buy fuel whenever you can. also, choose a good ship, and know it's starigy. i doubt you have this ship, but the mantis type B is a boarding semi - drone ship. you arn't going to focus on weapons. stealth cruiser focuses on dodge. engi focuses on drones. it's all about knowing what each ship is capable of doing, and how certain events hold up. even small upgrades like sensors or doors help a ton! knowing that the enemy has repair drones lets you know you need to hit drones first, doors help flooding oxegin out of boarder rooms! also, don't forget to pause. if you need to spend 5 minutes paused to find out how many rooms you can hit with a certain beam, you better do it. and i must say this, because i don't know if this is you're problem. every race has their own pros and cons. (yes, even humans. pro - no cons con - no pros) if you send a mantis to repair during battle, it's not gonna get fixed. maybe even look online to see how to unlock ships. then if you see "hey, the zoltan peace envoy! that holds a quest i can do to get the zoltan cruiser!" maybe then you will find a ship style you like the most. maybe crushing enemys with missiles, or pausing them with ion, or going all - out massacre with boarding. lastly, remember. there isn't one way to play the game. you might adore the ion feild thing, when i think it's a waste of scrap. hope we can help you on this forum!

[Dontmindme]

No, I no longer lose boarders to the ship jumping away or exploding. Why? Because I make smart decisions when to board. I did lose boarders that way and corrected my mistakes.

I don't board the ships that are charging their FTL, or if I do, its after the FTL is disabled and I camp it.

I don't board ships with gray doors either unless I have upgraded my teleport so I can pull them out more quickly if the enemy can dish damage.

I'll only board during suns and asteroids at the very beginning and I'm ready to pull them out if their hull goes to even half.

Those are the types of decisions I'm talking about. Of course boarding gives more scrap, but don't get fixated on it. If their is risk to your boarding crew, blast it down or even let it run away. The scrap from one encounter is not worth your boarding crew.

The same goes for encounters. Sometimes they have you defended. Too many shields or Defense drone when you have missiles. Sometimes the best decision is charging up the FTL and jumping. Sometimes to stay and fight isn't worth the reward. There are fights that might cost you more in damage and resources than the rewards.

There is also a trick to finding stores, jump to the beacons that connect to the most others you haven't seen. Jump through the middle of the map, maximizing your chances of finding one. If you are almost out of missiles, sometimes better to jump to get more.

The majority of things you mentioned you die to are avoidable or correctable. What I'm saying is take each instance and ask yourself what you could have or should have done better to avoid it. Except for the very beginning of the game (especially with certain ships), all the so-called randomness can be dealt with.

[Robeja]

Few triks that worked for me in my last run:

Always get all the fuel in stores. If someone demands it you'll sell it very expensive and you'll have enough fuel to continue the journey.
Try to invade as much as you can, when you defeat a ship the reward is better.
Ion systems are nice. You can disable enemy ship without making damage to it, and then farm them for experience.
Try to destroy (with invading crew) all the subsystems of an enemy ship: this grants more exp.
You can let one or two enemy guys alive and their medbay working, so they will fight and cure (and so on), so you'll get a lot of combat exp
Having teleporter maxed out helps a lot (to move injured people back to your medbay)
Cloak! when enemy shoots a missile. It's better to have cloak lvl 1, this way you can reuse it faster (on the 3rd final-boss fight)
Sometimes you can get rid of oxygen, just for a while. Focus all energy on weaponry, and put oxygen again when enemy is disabled.
If fight goes wrong, reenable oxygen and jump.

On the Last Stance I had:
Engi ship
it's circular so you can bring people easily to any room
have drone system already installed
The medbay-everywhere effect is sooo coool, especially when fighting intruders, or in low oxygen
4 shield
2 engine (yes, only 2 on engine)
4 weapon (3 for ion cannon II, 1 for ion bomb)
1 oxygen
1 medbay (or 2 i dont remeber)
6 drone (1 defense drone and 1 or 2 drones for attacking)
1 cloak

Hope this helps