This game is hard! Little help please

[Nosta]

Hey guys!

I am new to the game, but not that new, since I played around 30 times. But I feel ashamed because it seems I cant go any further in the game. I unlucked the Engi ship and the B Layout (awful by the way), reached the sector 5 and unlocked one achievment (the one where you must survive with 1 hull and then fully repair your ship).

But with these exceptions, my games (in Normal mode) are very hard, most of the time I am just trying to get scrap to repair Hull, buy fuel or missils/drone parts. Then I will have some scrap to increase 1 or 2 bars on my reactor or in something important like guns or shield. I wont have any money to buy weapons, augmentations, etc. When I reach sector 3 or 4, enemy ships are already very hard to beat!

Is this progression normal?

[Levgre]

Sounds like there's some major flaws in your gameplay, I'd say 25+ games to win the 1st time is normal, but more often people at least get to the flagship by then. I'd suggest watching some videos of people playing, or read the forum threads with tips.

[Sacarathe]

I played my first 30 hours on normal, then the next 120 on easy and then always normal after that, took me about 45 hours before I beat the boss on easy.

This game is harder to learn on normal and it's frequently not productive, have heart you will make it, but you will learn faster on easy.

I'd say your progression is normal, though generally you should not need to buy stuff at the stores. All the time.

On normal you will generally only get 2000-2600, though 3000 is possible(scrap). Try in your next playthrough(on easy) to only buy repairs, fuel, systems, from stores and nothing else. An odd item here and there to augment a build you are working on from the RNG items but do not rely on stores to kit you out. Most scrap I've ever had is 2850.

Tbh play on easy!

[itg]

Hey guys!

I am new to the game, but not that new, since I played around 30 times. But I feel ashamed because it seems I cant go any further in the game. I unlucked the Engi ship and the B Layout (awful by the way), reached the sector 5 and unlocked one achievment (the one where you must survive with 1 hull and then fully repair your ship).

But with these exceptions, my games (in Normal mode) are very hard, most of the time I am just trying to get scrap to repair Hull, buy fuel or missils/drone parts. Then I will have some scrap to increase 1 or 2 bars on my reactor or in something important like guns or shield. I wont have any money to buy weapons, augmentations, etc. When I reach sector 3 or 4, enemy ships are already very hard to beat!

Is this progression normal?

Never buy missiles or drone parts. These items cost far too much. If you're using more missiles/drones than you get from events and battles, you need to be stingier with your ammo.

It's near impossible to totally avoid repairing, but you should try to do it as little as possible. Every bit of scrap spent repairing is scrap that didn't go toward buying a useful upgrade which would have prevented damage down the road. When you're starting out, a good rule of thumb is to stop repairing at 75% hull. This at least ensures you'll be able to take advantage of events which repair your hull for free.

[Nosta]

Very useful information so far, thanks a lot!

I will use your advices in my next games, and try to learn on easy.

Seeing 1 or 2 useful gameplay videos is also a good tip that I will apply.

Thanks once again.

[The Captain]

Check out Twinge's Detailed Tutorial Video - it's long (and basic edition), but worth it.

If you need missiles, in early sectors if the enemy offers surrender with many missiles (e.g. 4+), consider taking it. You don't get much more scrap for destroying the ship, and total scrap value of the surrender might be higher (and you're not buying missiles).

Also, if you have more than one type of weapon, I recommend you don't use autofire. You don't want to waste missiles, and you want to wait to fire your damage shots after your taking down shields shots.

Personally, I seek to replace missile weapons with others. If you have all lasers, you don't need ammo. Flak guns and Ion weapons help knock down shields without ammo. Bombs need ammo, don't do hull damage, but they can't be shot down, only dodged. Ion bomb is great; breach bomb mk II is very good; I like the small bomb, though it needs more help.

Edit: spending scrap on defenses early means less scrap spent on repairs. Getting your 2nd layer of shields ASAP means some early ships can't damage you. Then get level 4 or 5 engines to help dodge (and faster FTL charge for running away if you need to).

[Elhazzared]

Being new you are probably using the Kestrel which is a very good ship. So here's a few tips.

Upgrade your shilds to level 2 ASAP! Many enemy ships don't have the capacity to blow through level 2 shields in the first and second sector... Well, after the update there are newer stuff so it means more dandomisation and less chances of useless enemy ships but still, it will save you a lot of damage reguardless.

Save scrap. You want to save up to buy better weapons at shops and stuff. You will also need to upgrade your weapons system but don't do so before you actually need to do it.

Never buy missiles and drones. Learn to conserve your ordenace. Using the Kestrel as an example, You will want for a while to do it like this.

Missile to the shields, Burst laser to the weapons. You only ever fire one missile per battle (unless something went wrong and you really need a second one badly). The the burst laser keeps the weapons down all the time so you don't take much damage per battle.

What you are looking to get as far as weapon go is weapons that don't use ordenance. So more lasers are the best thing here, especially burst laser 2. They are the best weapon in the game. Probably you want to try and get a weapon early on that only requires 1 or 2 power as investing into a weapon that requires more can be quite expensive early on.

Other things to look out for... Teleporter is a must, especially if you manage to get 2 mantis on your crew. Drone control is great but remember, you don't want combat drones, you want defense drones, especially the tech1, you only want the drone to shot down missiles, not lasers and let the missles pass because it was busy shothing at what mattered less. The last thing would be a mind control. It's good for control enemy crew especially if you are boarding, but more importantly, when you are being mind controled, you can use it counter the mind control and recover the control of your own crew member.

You might also want to invest into engines. I personally find this to be the least rewarding early on as dodge chances will still be low, by the end I will not have that much power for the engines anyway so it mostly helps in running away if needed be... However, it's not necessarely a bad thing to upgrade them.

Hope this will help you a bit.

[The Captain]

I wouldn't say "teleporter is a must," especially given all the new systems. But there is more scrap to be had from killing all the enemy crew, compared to destroying the enemy ship.

[Nosta]

After reading your posts I tried to play again with your tips and I notice very significant evolution on my gameplay. The 2 shields early in the game is great indeed. Now I am managing better my missiles (1 per enemy or 2 against hard guys). I dont need to buy missiles anymore.

I gave more bars to engines early in the game but I am not sure that such thing was a good thing to evade, but it was great to charge faster my FTL.

Other thing I found is that I really need to buy another weapon, even a small laser, because in the 3rd sector the ships were hard to beat with the damn defensive drones. But again, scrap is not that enough.

By the way, I still need to use some scrap on Hull. A few scrap each sector, not a big deal, but enough to annoy me.

About the video, 5 hours of video is FAR AWAY from my possibilities , I have some time to play but not enough time to see such videos. I found a 23 minutes video from 5th horseman that seems good to learn a few things.

[5thHorseman]

About the video, 5 hours of video is FAR AWAY from my possibilities , I have some time to play but not enough time to see such videos. I found a 23 minutes video from 5th horseman that seems good to learn a few things.

*pokes head up* Hmmmm?

Thank you Yeah while my videos aren't tutorials, I do frequently explain why I'm doing the things I'm doing unless (I think) it's obvious.

And I've put together a boilerplate response to your general question. The others have done a fine job but hey, let me toss it in here as well.

Here is my personal checklist of things to do. I try to follow it with most every ship:

Before the end of sector 1, 2 shields (4 bars)
Before the end of sector 2, 4 engines.
Before the end of sector 3, 5 engines.
Before the end of sector 4, 3 shields (6 bars)

Note: This is for NORMAL mode. For HARD mode, I try to shift everything up one sector though it's pretty much impossible.

Also, you need to have a way to get through:
Before the end of Sector 2: 2 shields (Most ships can do this)
Before the end of Sector 4: 3 shields (This usually means you need to buy weapons or a teleporter in sector 3)
Before the end of Sector 7: 4 shields (or the Boss is gonna suck)

Note: to get through 2 shields, you need to do 3 laser shots. Or have 2 ions and a laser/beam/whatever. Or have a teleporter. Or a bomb. Doesn't matter what.

After I have the above, I start thinking about upgrading other things, like doors and O2 and medbay and stuff.

Most of the time I don't reach these milestones, and I end up not getting my 4th engine until midway through sector 3 or something. No biggie, as long as you keep trying.

Never, ever, ever, EVER buy missiles. Unless you simply must because you've not found a way to get rid of your missile weapon. They are the single biggest resource drain in the game if you buy a lot. The next big resource drain is repairs. Any time you show up at a store needing a ton of repairs, that's a weapon you can't buy, or drone control or a cloak or long range scanners or who knows what else. I never repair over 20 hull points (2/3 full) and sometimes I forego repairs to buy or upgrade something.

Ions are great in groups, but not so great by themselves. 2 Ions will eventually take down ANY shield so long as your opponent doesn't dodge too many of them. An Ion and an Ion 2 will reliably take down ANY shield eventually. Once those are down, you can use your other weapons to actually damage the ship.