Did you know? List little tips and tricks here!

[PeterFTL]

In the Kestrel B setup, weapons 1 and 2 are closer to the enemy than weapons 3 and 4.

This can be useful if you have damage-1 lasers and damage-2 lasers with the same cooldown: Put the damage-2 ones in the back, and their hits will automatically come after the damage-1.

Also, put bombs in the 3 and 4 slots - distance doesn't matter for them. Your lasers in slots 1 and 2 will get there slightly sooner.

Having 4 quick lasers means your weapons personnel level up VERY quickly, FWIW.

I find the Kestrel B to be one of the easiest ships.

--Peter

[PeterFTL]

In the Final Battle, Part II, the swarms of drones can be a real pain, but the cloak can be a lifesaver.

Best way to use it: (IIRC - I may be slightly off here)

1st time there's a power surge, put one power into the system and activate it slightly before the swarm hits. You might get some shield damage if you decloak too soon, but it's worth it.

2nd time there's a power surge, your cloaks should come online in plenty of time to cover you.

3rd time, your cloaks will come on just in time to cover you...

4th time, your cloaks will protect against half the swarm...

The 1-bar cooldown is *just* slower (if I remember correctly) than the power surge speed.

What I'll actually do is cloak to avoid the missiles and then get hit with the first round of drones, but I'll be ready with round 2.

--Peter

[5thHorseman]

In the Final Battle, Part II, the swarms of drones can be a real pain, but the cloak can be a lifesaver.

...

The 1-bar cooldown is *just* slower (if I remember correctly) than the power surge speed.

I've never really bothered with that one-power-cloak thing on drones, concentrating instead on blowing the flagship apart so I don't make it 4 rounds

However, try this: When your cloak starts to get out of sync, say in round 3, fire shots while cloaked to get your cloak to end faster.

[Twinge]

It's also worth noting the power surge warning message comes exactly 5 seconds before the power surge. This means you can do a level 2 cloak right when the message pops up and follow that with a level 1 cloak next time, as appropriate.

[jep]

There are no Blue options for having upgraded doors.

Yet another reason to love The Captain's Edition.

[GPuzzle]

The last power surge (laser spam) only does 1 damage per heavy laser, instead of the usual 2 damage per heavy laser (and the burst laser too, if I'm not mistaken). Therefore, unless your health is really low, you can ignore it, and not cloak during that time.
However, cloak essentially makes you unhittable, so it's a good idea to cloak for a few seconds to fix something before moving on to the next attack.

[anosmianAcrimony]

Enemy combat drones always fly over to the other side of your ship before opening fire. This means that you can wait for them to do so before cloaking, even if you have no shields. This gives you a good second's worth of weapon charge time.

[AReallyNiceWolf]

Did you know?

That if you have any shields whatsoever, and you engage an enemy in an asteroid field (preferably win too) as long as you allow yourself to be hit by asteroids (power down engines/remove pilot) then you can fully rank your crew up in shield manning, as each hit and subsequent power up will count as a skill boosting point

I use this every single game (except Shadow Cruiser with no shields) to boost every crew member to gold rank shields, so if one dies I don't have to suffer the consequences of slow shields!

Hope this helps!

[Va1iD]

Did you know that opening all of your indoor ships with the door open button allows quicker flow of oxygen in your ship.
So basically, if you recently fixed a hull breach, then you'd open all of your doors and wait until your oxygen meter is at a safe level.

[SirMilagres]

You can also sync your drones to down enemy's shield without losing them.

Example:
You have a laser drone and a beam drone against a ship with only one shield (no, you don't have any weapons.)
Un-power your laser drone just before it shoots (it will stop for less than a sec and then shoot.). Power it again just before your beam drone is ready to fire.

You can do this everytime and, as long as the drone is not destroyed you won't use another drone part.
Its very usefull but your battles will have a lot more pausing.

(sorry if this tip was already posted, didn't read all the 13 pages of this thread yet)