Beta Poll Part B: For the expert FTL players

[censor]

I managed to finish the game in normal with Nesasio. What a wonderful game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT69i1lU

[The New Romance]

Played about 25 to 30 games in 37 hours. Always played on Normal, beat the boss exactly once. Man, was I ecstatic! Getting to Last Stand is possible (not always, mind you), but that's where the trouble really starts. Takes a lot of luck and a lot of tactics and overview.

My goal now is to unlock ships, not beat the boss again (I've proven I can do it . Just a few minutes ago, I unlocked the Engi special ship, just when I thought I was never gonna get one of those special encounters (met the Mantis special ship encounter and managed to do everything right as far as I could, but then didn't have a Mantis crewmember and my MedBay was "only" level 2, shit).

Game's pretty hard. Roguelike-like, I dare say.

[veryalien]

It's too random which is putting me off the game.

[Volthar]

I beat it on Normal twice before the last patch (haven't tried it since then) but then I went back to easy to try and unlock all the ships. Normal got frustrating because I'd get to a 'home' sector and then not have enough scrap to buy the right upgrades for the unlock quests.

I don't think normal is too hard but it is too random for my tastes. Whether I beat it on normal seems too dependent on whether I happen to find the right stores with the right gear at the right time.

[Elexorne]

I wouldn't mind for this game to become a little harder, once you get used to it's mechanics then randomnes of the game won't become a problem. You just need to learn what and how you can use, and if you would be very lucky (like a gun you like in a shop) then this game become real easy even on normal

[halfacandan]

I beat the boss on Normal once before Stealh was redesigned but with 4 blocks of shields and weapons that can penetrate the boss's shields it's not so bad. I'd say that getting to the boss is harder than the boss itself. The Kestrel is still my ship of choice though; I can't get very far with any of the others.

[Acid_Trees]

I have like a 50% win rate on normal now. I think part of it is knowing what to expect, I lost my first few games learning things like not being able to beam back crew when the enemy is cloaked. Part of it, though, is having a solid strategy for your ship.

For the Kestrel, priority #1 is getting a crew teleporter. This is literally the first thing I spend scrap on, I usually have this before leaving sector 1. From there that gives plenty of scrap, fuel, and munitions, to the point where I always outclass ships I come across and never have to buy fuel. Also, the teleporter turns slavers and a couple events in nebulae into 'guaranteed crewmember' events.

Generally by sector seven, 6 out of 8 of my crewmembers have gold skills, and I run out of things to spend scrap on, upgrading things like oxygen and medbay. The boss is a cakewalk afterwards.

[stephenarcher0]

I tried 3 times on unsuccessfully on normal but have been playing on easy ever since.
I have just managed to get the mantis ship and was planning on trying on trying normal again after getting the last upgrade ship (the slug one).
After 65 full runs and 14 victories, I think I am ready for normal but want to get that darn slug ship first (tried so many times)

[Duboyski]

Beaten the game on Normal with every ship, and despite what I seem to read on the forum about strategy there are multiple ways to win. I've done it without a teleporter, without a cloak, without max shields or weapon loadout. The variety in starting ships really makes the game fun in the sense you have to approach things completely differently.

Generally I tend to horde scrap as much as possible for when I come across shops, only upgrading systems when I really need to. I find going to a shop with less than 100 scrap is usually pointless. Oh and I try to make sure I always leave a sector the turn before the fleet catches me which requires planning on how you navigate the system.

I'd be interested to try a hard mode

[LillithMenarra]

I've downed the boss many times now on Easy, it's very hard for me to not win it on easy unless luck is VERY much against me now that I know what I'm doing.

On Normal I've reached the Final Boss 4 times now in about 10 games set on Normal, and died promptly on 3 of those runs, and got to phase 2 of the final boss once on Normal.

The good thing is that losing is fun too~