Boarders and Sun jumps

[Jason_Webb]

Hey all!

I've been prowling around looking for help and playing the game for about a week. I really like this game, it's incredible how addicting it can get when your run is going well lol.

My only problem is that I've never made it past Sector 3 or 4 on Normal because of (usually) boarders or jumps close to the Sun.

With the sun, it seems like the one reason for getting long range scanners cause it's really annoying. I followed another person's advice here and upgraded to lv 2 shields as soon as I could and it saved me a lot of scrap that would have gone towards repairs.

But that all goes to waste if I jump near a sun since it seems like if I'm near a sun, there's always some idiot jonesing for a fight oblivious to the giant ball of fusion next to him. My worst run ended with barely surviving a fight near a sun, fixing my engine and jumping the hell out of there with half my systems down and fires everywhere. Guess where I ended? Another near sun sector with another guy fighting me who boarded immediately. I just shut down the game lol.

So what's the fix for this? I feel like if I hit a sun sector, I'm automatically gonna lose 1/6 to 1/3 of my hull to fires and boarders just make it that much worse. Long range scanners would help but I never seem to get to a store that has them when I need em.

About boarders....I've been trying the advice people put up about fighting in the medbay, opening them to vacuum, but it never seems to work. I usually have to pull 2 guys off of stations to fight them which means the battle goes bad. They always run to door control so I lose the ability to seal them off. Even if I have blast doors 2 and open them to vacuum, they usually break through the doors and kill something vital before the vacuum kills them.....like shields....or weapons....or door control >.<.

Even if they don't, I can't get them to fight on my terms, they're always content with just destroying whatever's nearby. Once they teleport on, should I just drop what I'm doing and get as many people to dogpile them to get them out of my hair?

Should I upgrade to lv3 blast doors by Sector 2-3 when they start boarding? I usually don't have enough scrap for a drone control and the anti personnel drone. Any advice?

[Barackus]

If I'm really desperate to get rid of boarders or there is no enemy ship; I put the crew in the medi-bay, shut off the O2 and open all the doors except for where my crew is. The boards will eventually flee (happens really fast with level 1 doors) to the medi-bay or die

I consider blast doors a luxury item, so I usually don't have them till the final sectors.

[afedyuki]

Have you finished the game on Easy yet? If not, I would recommend doing that and unlocking a ship or two.

Here is what works for me when being boarded near a sun: invest into blast doors (lvl 2) ASAP. Vent your entire ship except med bay area (have your crew gather there) and turn off life support to make pressure drop faster. The moment the boarders drop what they were attacking and start moving close all the blast doors. As your life support is off the pressure will still keep dropping thus turning your entire ship into a death trap.

[UltraMantis]

Shields protect against solar flares. So lvl3 or 4 shields can help make a difference. Another suggestion is to vent the ship on oxygen since fires die out quickly without air. Close the doors of the occupied rooms and vent the rest. Of course that would just be a perfect invite for the RNG to target your life support.

As for vacuum killing the enemy boarders, well it wont kill them quickly but will eventually. At least they will be hurt giving your guys an advantage.

Welcome to the forum and best of luck in FTL.

[Jason_Webb]

Thanks for the welcome!

Really? I was under the impression that solar flares bypassed shields....Hmm..And I will try that, venting all rooms except occupied ones when I jump near a sun.

I haven't even played the game on Easy but....haha I'm stubborn and insist on playing on Normal.

Haha and yeah, I feel like if they hide in med bay, I'm gonna get hit in the O2 and door control at the same time and completely fucked. Yay we survived the battle! Oh no....I have no way out of the med bay w/out suffocating.....

If you had 2-3 human or mantis or whatever boarders came on, what would your standard response be? Because it's a regular occurrence, I'm looking for a strategy that deters the boarders but doesn't lose me lots of hull either.

Cause I feel like pushing everyone in the medbay and venting the rest of the ship would work as a last ditch but my ship is gonna get pummeled if they're not at their consoles fighting the other ship. If this happens 2-3 times, I'm hurting a lot.

If I vent everything but the occupied rooms and keep people at their stations, they'll come in and kill my solitary guys. If I vent everything but medbay, the boarders can escape but I lose in the fight and it takes time to get everyone back at their stations.

Should I pull 2-3 guys off their stations to fight the intruders?

Thanks again for your help!

[spacecadet13]

Go for the doors max upgrade ASAP - stops fires and boarders from spreading or your money back! The doors upgrade is always money well spent, it's very cheap and prevents a lot of damage and problems. At the very least it will slow the fires and boarders down to the point where you can stop either, or both, from getting out of hand before you can deal with them.

However, sometimes you just gotta spend the scrap on other things, and when you don't have upgraded doors: for the fires, vent where possible, scramble crew in to fight it where venting is not possible - except the pilot in a battle, unless you absolutely have to, you don't want to lose all your evade % by having the helm unmanned.

Exactly the same for boarders - vent rooms to weaken them and get them out of rooms you don't want them in/into rooms you do want them in, don't leave the helm etc etc. You only lose a bonus from having the weapons & shields unmanned IF your crew has already earned an experience bonus on them - having a"rookie" crew on them is no difference to having them unmanned, and even when 'levelled up", their bonuses are not as critical as the evade bonus for manned helm and engines in my opinion.

Fighting fires, boarders AND a powerful Rebel ship at the same time....that's the kind of fun we know and love FTL for!

Shields don't stop solar flare fires altogether, but they do reduce the number of fires the flares start - a ship with no shields will have fires all over it after a flare, a ship with two shields will have a lot fewer.

[Zalminen]

Boarders:
You absolutely need at least lvl 2 doors. If you have them - here's what to do:
- As soon as you get a boarder, pause the game
- Turn off oxygen system, open the doors on the shortest path leading from from the invaded room to outside and leave other doors closed. If you do this immediately, the enemies won't have time to break anything and will instead start trying to get to a room that has oxygen.
- Evacuate any weak crew from the nearby rooms. The medbay is a great place for a last stand (which is often not even needed), especially if you've upgraded to lvl 2 medbay. The only station that needs to stay manned is the pilot seat but even that depends on what weapons the enemy has.
- The boarders will break down the first door sooner or later but as the new room will soon be empty of oxygen as well the boarders won't have time to break that system either and will move on again. Just make sure that all the doors between the invaders and the vacuum of space stay open as sometimes the game will close a door behind the invaders for some reason.
- Usually the boarders will suffocate before even reaching your crew. If not, they'll be weakened enough that you'll be able to take them on easily. Use medbay to your advantage.
- When the boarders are dead, turn oxygen back on, close outer doors, heal crew and return them back to stations.

Fire:
- Similar tactic usually works fine. If the fire is in a room with no systems or a non-critical system, just turn off oxygen and vent it.
- For critical systems use manpower. But don't try putting out a fire with just one guy, use as many as you can fit in the room. You want to put out the fire before it has time to do much damage and then repair the system ASAP. Again you only need to leave the pilot seat manned, everyone else can go firefighting.
- In sun fights consider if you can take out the enemy in a reasonable time or if it's smarter to just jump when you can.

[UltraMantis]

Dealing with boarders depends on the ship layout. Sometimes it isn't easy to get your fighters into the medbay and vet the rest of the ship. If you have a large crew you cant find enough room for all of them but at least you can send people in and out of the medbay to get some healing and win the fight by numbers.

Boarding events are almost harmless by themselves but can be tricky under the wrong circumstances. My advice is to use the healing power of the medbay to survive, and only vent the ship to force the enemy to come and play in the medbay. If you have upgraded doors, then you can chip off a little bit of their health. If you care to micromanage things that much, dont let the enemy break through the door to the medbay if the other room is airless. The door will stay open long enough to suck out a lot of your air. Instead open that door when you see they are about to break it down. It will allow you to close it back. With completely upgraded doors your 'guests' are almost sure to suffocate, and you can concentrate on fighting the enemy ship.

Solar flares are painless if you vent your ship completely except for 2-3 occupied rooms. Do NOT turn off the life support, there's nothing to be gained except a fraction of a second quicker venting. The ship will be extremly low on oxygen! If fires start in occupied rooms, either get your crew there to put out the fire, or vent that room also. Fires are a miniscule risk for an airless ship so i recommend this as an easiest solution.

In both cases your biggest headache will be multitasking the events on your ship and firing at the enemy.

[afedyuki]

I haven't even played the game on Easy but....haha I'm stubborn and insist on playing on Normal.

Yeah, I used to be that way too until about 40 failed attempts on Normal. You don't learn much if you are beaten in the first round, you know.

[Jason_Webb]

Thanks for all the help guys! I'll work on it. Haha and if I can't make it past there, I guess I will try easy.....i just don't want to