FTL Captain's Edition 1.308/Inf 1.301b/EL 1.308

[thereaverofdarkness]

Selling cargo for +10-15 scrap over what I bought it for is often not even worth the augmentation slot it takes up, and it certainly isn't worth it if I only make the profit by advancing the rebels. Then I have to spend 2 extra fuel every sector just to avoid advancing the rebels double speed for two turns.

This alone indicated that you have no idea how trading system works. The amount of scrap one can gain from it is closer to hundred bonus scrap, than 15 one. IF used properly.

1.) there's significantly less fuel, even though you use significantly more of it

...and there is ton of it in shops. C'mon, in vanilla FTL, fuel was non-existing problem. I like never bought it, on Hard.

I'll grant that the Mantis C is just straight up a bad ship.

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It is one of most powerful ships in game, as every boarding one

I haven't had much trouble fighting Lanius boarders. The trick is to be ready to jump out of combat to go heal up before you go back in with them. There are other tricks, too,.

Excuse me, but if you're using tricks like that, no wonder that you lose so often. The amount of jumps (and fuel) you waste this way is ridiculous. Don't get it wrong way, but it's beginner strategy, not to say beginners mistake. CE is, indeed, rather meant for more veteran players (albeit on easy, it is still quite easy... in FTL terms).

/Estel

It may yield as much as a hundred at times, but a lot of times it doesn't yield that, and also the easiest way to obtain these goods is to buy them before shopping at a store, so you have to advance the rebels twice to buy and sell them if you don't have a cargo teleporter or access to theirs. "Used properly" I guess means "at the mercy of the RNG, hoping you get a good cargo that just happens to fetch the best price in a sector you'll actually go to" then again, I'm only assuming their price varies in different sectors. Maybe because I'm hoping the prices I've gotten were abnormally low, and that these space hogs aren't actually that cheap.

There is NOT a ton of fuel in shops. Most shops sell around 3-7 fuel, and when you're not getting hardly any from any other source, that's simply not enough. Sure, I usually didn't have fuel problems before CE, but I did buy it in stores every now and then. But most of it came from combat.

The Mantis C is powerful late game because it has a 2x2 crew teleporter, but it has an abysmally weak setup to begin with. It's impossible to make it do well, and tricky to even make it scrape by until you get a larger boarding party. A mantis and a Lanius just don't mesh well together, and while the bombs help cover for them, you have to wait for the bombs to slowly charge up before you dive in and the ship doesn't really have much in the way of defenses while it's waiting.

You don't need to make personal attacks, calling me a noob just so you can boast about how good you are at a game that rules by the RNG. I've played the game a lot and watched enough others play it to know I'm pretty good at it, and furthermore I'm not the only one who gets creamed by the RNG all the time. I'm probably just one of the few who can say for certain it is the RNG's fault almost every time I lose a game, because I very rarely make any mistakes of my own, and I tend to catch the ones I do make. Plus, a strategy that works, no matter how elementary, is not a "beginner strategy", and doing something the right way is not going to indicate why I lost a game. That's just a personal attack and it's just you gloating over the experience you think you have. I'd like to see videos of you doing so well before I'm ready to believe your skill is even close to mine in FTL. I'm not bragging, I'm saying I don't believe for a second you're as good as you make yourself out to be.

I entered a sector on one playthrough in which the background was filled with some kind of white cloud-like stuff and all of my systems and subsystems were ionized by 1 point. This utterly crippled my ship because of how many systems I had that weren't able to operate with one less bar. Doors were out, crew teleporter was out, I couldn't online the pair of weapons that together were my only chance of getting past 2 shield bubbles, and my ship was down to 1 shield bubble. Navigation was down so all my evasion was worthless. Also, when I first entered, there was a text event describing something about some negative effects and it gave me the chance to fight a ship or hide deeper in the bad cloud, but it made it sound as though the cloud was going to directly damage my ship and it said that the other ship was weakened by the cloud. Funny, because when I chose to fight the ship, it had 3 shield bubbles (at the beginning of sector 6) and probably at least 10 total power between weapons and drones. It nearly shredded my ship before I was able to jump out, and then the next two beacons I land in have the same hazard cloud with another similarly strong opponent, giving me no option to avoid combat with them. I got destroyed on the third ship. It was literally impossible for me to escape, except perhaps by possessing some knowledge that I had no way of obtaining.

[stylesrj]

Ooooh! You landed in the AI sector!
Oh man that place is DEADLY! More troll moves pulled on you than the Abandoned Sector and its Lanius boarders.

Next time, avoid the nebula clouds or minimise contact with them as much as possible (sometimes you find more nebula beacons than a nebula sector). You do not want to go in there; the first cloud should have told you what to expect and therefore what to avoid from then on in.

But what's FTL without some hard-earned lessons? After all, my first ion storm almost killed me. "Hey where did my oxygen go? Why are my guns not powered up? Where are my shields? Why does that guy have a missile launcher, two shield layers and a burst laser II charging up?"

After all, I had no prior knowledge that nebula clouds would have Ion Storms. And now I avoid them and miss out on some great nebula opportunities (although I don't think nanobot clouds have anything good from them unlike some storms which give you Scrap and possibly kill your crew)

[thereaverofdarkness]

There weren't any beacons that weren't in the clouds. I had to go through them to get to the exit beacon. There was no way for me to know that the entire sector was a death trap before I went in. Ion storms can be nasty but since the AI actually takes a hit for it also, it's uncommon that they wind up with a setup that'll do well for them in it anyway. Almost every time I find they either have shields partway down or don't have all their weapons up. They neve ruse backup batteries, either. If I have a backup battery and know where the hazards are, I may choose to go into plasma storms on purpose because I have an advantage in there. But the ships in the white nebula were at least two sectors stronger than the enemies I fought before them. They were like sector 7 opponents, actually half the opponents in sector 7 are weaker than those. They certainly weren't weakened by the cloud like I was. Also, after I had found out about the weaknesses I had in the cloud, there was no way to fix the problem with scrap because I was on hazard beacons--I think I wouldn't have been able to upgrade any of my systems. But every beacon landed me in a fight I couldn't win anyway, so I definitely had no way to upgrade.

[Sleeper Service]

There was no way for me to know that the entire sector was a death trap before I went in.

Well now you know it. Better stay away from those nano clouds the next time, or get through them as fast as possible.

Also, there are more opportunities to lose it. Like those BS black holes that pop out of friggin' nowhere and take away two units of fuel and ruin any "Needle threading" you were planning on.

Except they don't pop out of friggin' nowhere. They can only appear in two sector types and the decision to "needle thread" there was yours to make. Have you taken the possibility of black-holes appearing there into account? If not that was foolish. If yes than you took a risk and that might or might not have worked out.

I've played the game a lot and watched enough others play it to know I'm pretty good at it, and furthermore I'm not the only one who gets creamed by the RNG all the time. I'm probably just one of the few who can say for certain it is the RNG's fault almost every time I lose a game, because I very rarely make any mistakes of my own, and I tend to catch the ones I do make.

However there are people that can consistently beat CE. If RNG would be the determining factor then this would not be possible. Chances are that you could still improve your game. Ultimately your vanilla FTL skills are to some extend irrelevant. Knowing how vanilla works helps, but CE is still different and your success depends on your ability to adapt to new things. Being good at vanilla FTL does not entitle you to be good in CE automatically. One day you might ride into those AI nano bot clouds with a fully geared up light laser barge and laugh at your past failures. Or not, however you choose. But as mentioned, there are people that enjoy the challenge the mod provides. The question is whether you think the mod should specifically adjust to you. If it did, I might have people complain in exactly the same manner because it is "too easy". Ultimately I made the mod as it is because I think adding more challenge is more interesting.

[Biohazard063]

However there are people that can consistently beat CE. If RNG would be the determining factor then this would not be possible. Chances are that you could still improve your game. Ultimately your vanilla FTL skills are to some extend irrelevant. Knowing how vanilla works helps, but CE is still different and your success depends on your ability to adapt to new things. Being good at vanilla FTL does not entitle you to be good in CE automatically. One day you might ride into those AI nano bot clouds with a fully geared up light laser barge and laugh at your past failures. Or not, however you choose. But as mentioned, there are people that enjoy the challenge the mod provides. The question is whether you think the mod should specifically adjust to you. If it did, I might have people complain in exactly the same manner because it is "too easy". Ultimately I made the mod as it is because I think adding more challenge is more interesting.

As long as we get to rant at ourselves when we get screwed, it's alright with me.
One thing needs to be said though, you'll never feel as safe in CE as you could in AE.
There will always be a few things that can really mess your run up. (Does make me wonder, do black holes appear as a hazard with long ranged scanners?)
Which is great ! Makes victory all the more sweeter.

Seen a lot of things come and go in this mod... good thing the bounty hunter is still a class A **** right ?

[thereaverofdarkness]

It's much less challenge and much more rote memorization. Knowing what to expect gives a player a huge advantage, so much in fact that it allows them to simply avoid choices that are otherwise purely a death trap. They can also gauge their specific situation and determine how much of a death trap it really is. Sure, had I known the AI nanobot sector would do specifically what it did, I would have chosen the other sector, or at least upgraded my crew teleporter. That's not skill, that's memorization.

I don't expect to go into CE being an expert. One of the things I was counting on was to see new events that weren't built in the style of the original--new events that actually had reasonable and intuitive choices and consequences. But what I found was more of the same, where I'm basically counting on the RNG and knowing all of the specifics, and any actual gameplay that's skill-related is basically the same as before. I haven't learned any new skills in CE nor have I needed any. The only thing that will make me a "better" player from this point on is learning events so I know when to choose or avoid them.

That's not a challenge.

P.S. There's nobody who can consistently beat FTL. If you get a string of victories, there's a good chunk of luck involved, no matter how well you play.

[Sleeper Service]

It's much less challenge and much more rote memorization. Knowing what to expect gives a player a huge advantage, so much in fact that it allows them to simply avoid choices that are otherwise purely a death trap. They can also gauge their specific situation and determine how much of a death trap it really is.

Yep, thats pretty much how FTL works. Learning what is what, learning what weapons do what, learning what events can result in. Then again nano clouds aren't purely a dathtrap, they are an environment you can adopt to. Estel seems to like them as his personal AI hunting ground. But pointing out that they are purely negative might be justified. I have to think about this. But in generally how you define what the game asks of your is irrelevant. I mean I could argue that the ability to adopt to rapidly or slowly changing circumstance is a skill that is required for CE. But in either case, yeah, memorizing stuff is part of this mod, just like it is part of vanilla FTL. Ultimately this seemed to have worked out pretty well for vanilla FTL and it seemed to have worked alright for the mod as well.

P.S. There's nobody who can consistently beat FTL. If you get a string of victories, there's a good chunk of luck involved, no matter how well you play.

Twinge and a few others have 28+ winstreaks on hard with changing ships. This proves that enough experience/skill/memorization or however you want to define it will overcome any situation. Luck ultimately isn't relevant in FTL, like Twinge put it "the game just has a deceptively hight skill ceiling".

[stylesrj]

By the way, for next update will the following be fixed?

1) Engi Homeworld Event. After I get the real intel, I have no other choice but to let those Rebel scum go... but what if I'm flying a Slug ship? Why can't I go back on my truce and attack or why can't I try with other ships. I hate letting Rebels go with some idea of a choice. Especially when I can attack the decoy without consequence (Although those guys were asking for it and who here ever let them go?)
2) The Slug event where the guy beams onboard and steals your stuff if you were silly enough not to remember how many moons you flew past:

Code: Select all

<event name="SLUG_DISTRESS_QUESTION_FALSE">   <!-- JUSTING - TO DO - Add reduction of scrap   "Further, I have taken advantage of your lack of acuity to beam aboard your ship and steal your stuff!!"-->
	<text>"That issss... incorrect." Further, I have taken advantage of your lack of acuity to beam aboard your ship and steal your stuff!</text>
	<item_modify steal="true">
		<item type="scrap" min="-35" max="-35"/>
		<item type="fuel" min="-4" max="-2"/>
		<item type="drones" min="-2" max="-1"/>
	</item_modify>
</event>

If you have a Teleport Disruptor, shouldn't you be able to say "On the contrary, I have taken advantage of your ignorance to disable your teleporter. Get him!" and either he's impressed by your actions and joins the crew willingly or he attacks as an intruder.

[thereaverofdarkness]

P.S. There's nobody who can consistently beat FTL. If you get a string of victories, there's a good chunk of luck involved, no matter how well you play.

Twinge and a few others have 28+ winstreaks on hard with changing ships. This proves that enough experience/skill/memorization or however you want to define it will overcome any situation. Luck ultimately isn't relevant in FTL, like Twinge put it "the game just has a deceptively hight skill ceiling".

Well he does play on Advanced Edition without any overhaul mods, which is probably the most fair setup you can get in FTL. I can believe someone getting 28 straight wins there, but I guarantee you it won't happen most tries. I watched one of Twinge's playthroughs on that streak (with the Stealth B) and right near the beginning of the video he exploits a bug that doesn't exist on my version: while the pilot is mind controlled, he has a crewmember enter the pilot's room and gain full bonus as if he were in the seat even though he's merely stepping into the room, and then he activates cloak before the crewmember gets to the pilot position and enters combat, which causes the ship to maintain full pilot-bonused evasion during cloak. When I try that, the crewmember does apply unbonused piloting evasion to the room upon entering but must reach the seat before applying the full bonus, if the crewmember enters combat the bonus will disappear, and activating cloak before he reaches the spot will not prevent the evasion from going down. So he had 75% evasion I think it was, when he should have had 60%. But even still, he had a very close call later in the run when he came down to 1 hull HP and didn't have a store around to repair. There was definitely a lot of luck in that run. I just went and turned off CE, went back to AE and played a run of the Stealth B and right before exiting sector 2 I encountered an unbeatable enemy. It had a beam drone II and two weapons with highly varying charge times--I forget what they were. It also had 2 shield bubbles. I never got to fire the glaive beam because the drone shortened the cloak in the first shot, and subsequent shots took out my navigation and weapons. Even if I had cloaked before the beam drone fired, there was no reason to believe the weapons wouldn't be shot out by subsequent volleys of weapons' fire later. My best bet at that point was to pause after the beam drone starts firing and see if it's going to hit the weapon or cloak, but by then it was too late.

I'd say if you play a perfect game and make zero mistakes, you have about an 80% chance of winning in AE hard, maybe a 70% chance of winning in original FTL normal, and it's looking like about a 60% chance in CE hard but I haven't played nearly enough to tell for sure. Twinge is about as good as I am--while he played some cool tricks I've never thought of, he missed a few I would have taken advantage of to great effect. He got lucky, even in AE which is a lot more fair.

[Sleeper Service]

1) Engi Homeworld Event. After I get the real intel, I have no other choice but to let those Rebel scum go... but what if I'm flying a Slug ship? Why can't I go back on my truce and attack or why can't I try with other ships. I hate letting Rebels go with some idea of a choice. Especially when I can attack the decoy without consequence (Although those guys were asking for it and who here ever let them go?)

Unfortunately that isn't possible, because crew-killing the ship also has to result in gaining the intel. Being able to attack the ship again could therefor potentially lead to getting the quest two times, if the ships is crew-culled afterwards. Removing the later isn't really possible either, cause that would prevent all crew-killer builds from completing the quest at all.

The Slug event where the guy beams onboard and steals your stuff if you were silly enough not to remember how many moons you flew past.

I'm pretty sure no one ever does get that wrong, but I might still add that.

He got lucky, even in AE which is a lot more fair.

Well he and the other 20+ hard game winstreakers get lucky pretty consistently then. CE is designed for Normal difficulty by the way, thats made pretty clear on the front page. The existence of Hard mode does not feature into the mod.