Love the game, hate the random

[Twinge]

Objection! The Engi B is NOT the worst ship in the game! What are it's drawbacks?

It's the only ship in the game that starts with 1 crewman. It's the only ship in the game that cannot bypass Tier 2 Shields with its starting equipment. It only has Level 1 Engines so it won't be dodging anything (especially considering you're also missing the 5% Engine manning bonus). To make up for all of these massive downsides, it has... a little extra scrap once you hit your first store.

If you learn how to use it, the Stealth A is vastly stronger and more reliable. The Stormwalker isn't quite as bad (still bad) because of how overpowered boarding is to begin with. The Bulwark has a strong boarding crew to start and only need a Teleporter to start doing well. The Stealth B is the only ship in contention for the worst ship slot, but I don't believe its downsides (when played skillfully) compare.

[Twinge]

It's not balanced in any way sense or form as even after you know how to play the ship you still are highly dependent on luck to get a run with it going. [...] Again I stress that the skill cap of this game is hardly high, it's more of a learning how to play each ship and well, not fall asleep at the wheel.

That's my whole point - The Nesasio is not a luck-dependant ship. In the majority of cases you should be taking LESS damage early on than you will with something standard like the Kestrel. If you think the Stealth A is luck heavy, then I propose the game has a higher skillcap than you believe.

[spacecadet13]

Stealth A's starting weapon loadout is better, no argument, but, a lot of first/second sector battles, it's not a question of if you'll take damage, but how much, and most importantly, where. Which is where luck/RNG comes in, in ways that it absolutely does not for ships that start with a shield. Stuff that a ship with a shield can ignore/laugh at become life or death for Stealth A and B. An H laser strike that a shield would block hits the helm or weapons room...A ship with mini-beam and beam drone.. a ship with any attack drone..Zoltans..no path choice but to go through solar flare/asteroid field....you got problems. And, most importantly, a ship that starts with shields can upgrade to level 2 shields for significantly less than the cost of buying and powering level one shields. Not starting with shields is a massive, expensive, and all too frequently fatal drawback.

Using the stealth properly (timing) helps for sure, but does not negate your vulnerability to bad luck. You can still be hit while stealthed, just for starters. No amount of player skill is going to help right there. I've played the stealth ships a lot, quite enjoy both, but if I had to win a game of FTL to save my life, they would be the very last two ships I would chose to use, because they are the most vunerable to RNG.

And boarding, per se, is OP, BUT only with mantis/rocks/crystals. I don't care if your slugs are levelled up, un-levlled mantis's and rocks will squash them regardless, and if they're outnumbered, even just 3 to 2 by unlevelled humans, they're not gonna survive, and you either have to pray your healing bomb hits the room they're in or port back, abandon helm or power down engines, bomb the teleport room and send 'em back. Stormwalker would be the third to last ship I would choose..

[Elhazzared]

The kestrel may take one missile here, one missile there, for the most part it will be unharmed and this is it's major strenght. Start a battle with a missile to the weapons and enemy weapons power down, it's done, now the burst laser can take care of everything else. Get shields level 2 really quickly, initially by leaving the engine at 1 power but as you gain more scrap, investing back on it. with shields level 2 you are virtually imune to everything at the first 2 sectors and if you upgrade engines to level 4 or 5 with the corresponding energy, then a very bad luck run of no weapons, no shop with anything you need can still go to sector 5 without major problems, just on 2 shields, 4 or 5 engines and the starting weapons.

The nessario while possibly able to avoid most damage, it is without a question that you will at one point or another run into beam drones without time not to let them fire or worse yet, a zoltan. Now if you start getting hit in the weapons, not even the helm, just the weapons, then you are in for a lot of pain. Now, in a bad run where you don't get much scrap, can you survive past sector 2 on starting weapons, your cloak and dodge? The answer is no in 90% of the cases. When enemies start having 2 shields, decent sized crews, teleporting and more guns/drones. You are just dead in the water.

One very good example of a kestrel run, watch my vidios on my chanel of youtube, I have posted in the vidios section so you'll find it easly. Curently I have 8 vids which is a kestrel run since I wanted to start the FTL vids on the beggining ship. now you can say I recorded it because I won. It isn't, I just do it like if it was a stream. Whatever happens, happens. Things is, with the kestrel, that's how 90% of my runs go and in fact, by the time I reach the end and fight the mothership, I'm barelly adequate to fight it but hey, I still manage.

There is a reason why the kestrel is the starting ship and no the nessario. Because it's an incredibly balanced ship. It's not the best at anything specificbut it just has a perfect starting loadout which makes it so very balanced.

[Nevill]

The discussion is fruitless if one is going to ignore everything the other says.

Stealth A's starting weapon loadout is better, no argument, but, a lot of first/second sector battles, it's not a question of if you'll take damage, but how much, and most importantly, where.

No, it does not. It was said thrice already:

you should be taking LESS damage early on than you will with something standard like the Kestrel.

It is, actually, the main point of the discussion. If you do not believe it, fine, but please do not dismiss it as if the opposite were a well-known fact.

Stuff that a ship with a shield can ignore/laugh at become life or death for Stealth A and B.

Stealth B I would not comment on, but Stealth A disables enemy weapon first in most cases, thus, NO DAMAGE.

a ship with any attack drone..Zoltans..no path choice but to go through solar flare/asteroid field....you got problems.

In the run I posted above I encountered each and every one of these, in the very first sector. They weren't anything to write home about. What are those problems you speak of?

And what is the deal with flares? Why would you go out of your way to avoid them? The only hazard that presents the slightest danger to the ship is an asteroid field.

I had to win a game of FTL to save my life, they would be the very last two ships I would chose to use

You seem to ignore the part where it was said Stealth A can be successful 90% of the time. I'd choose it over Kestrel any time.

And boarding, per se, is OP, BUT only with mantis/rocks/crystals. I don't care if your slugs are levelled up, un-levlled mantis's and rocks will squash them regardless, and if they're outnumbered, even just 3 to 2 by unlevelled humans, they're not gonna survive, and you either have to pray your healing bomb hits the room they're in or port back, abandon helm or power down engines, bomb the teleport room and send 'em back. Stormwalker would be the third to last ship I would choose..

No, Just... no. Please don't take offense, but each and every sentence above is plain wrong.

You can board with God-damned Engies, for starters, if you support them with weapons. You can take down mantis and rock crews with slugs/humans. You can board while being outnumbered 4 to 2, if you have at least 3 crewmembers. You do not send people back unless something goes really wrong or you win.

With the amount of guides out there, I thought that someone wrote Boarding 101 already.

Using the stealth properly (timing) helps for sure, but does not negate your vulnerability to bad luck. You can still be hit while stealthed, just for starters. No amount of player skill is going to help right there.

Not if you stealth BEFORE they fire. Then fire and disable their weapons. While most conventional ships use Cloak to avoid missiles, Stealth A uses it as a poor man's Pre-Igniter. This is one of those cases where "played properly" caveat comes to mind.

Now, in a bad run where you don't get much scrap, can you survive past sector 2 on starting weapons, your cloak and dodge?

You can. Because you get 350 scrap ON AVERAGE by the end of sector 2, WITHOUT even selling your Titanium augmentation. On a bad run, you might get 300, or even 250 (never happened once I started counting it, but hey, it's possible). You need to find something to help you get past level 3 shields, though, but if you search for stores, you will find it. I don't believe there was a single run where I could not find anything.

But you said that no matter what I write, it won't change your mind. So it would be best to drop the subject altogether.

[spacecadet13]

Wow. Nevill. Almost not sure where to begin, there is just so much pure flat out wrong with what you've spewed forth there.

OK, judging by the screen shots you have, the items you purchased, scrap left over and your ending comment "Because you get 350 scrap ON AVERAGE by the end of sector 2.." I'm gonna take a wild guess and say all your experience & comments are based on Easy. Because there ain't no way you got 350+scrap in the first two sectors on any Normal run. And, on easy, the Stealth ships are pretty fun. All ships are pretty fun, on easy, because it's, well, easy. Compared to playing on normal, you have big margins for error and it doesn't matter how poor the ships starting loadout is, unless you get super unlucky, or make really bad decisions or mistakes on your way through, you are gonna win a lot more than you lose. Stealth A or B, on easy, I'm disappointed if I don't at least reach the flagship - which still happens, occassionally. On normal? If I get to sector 4 with either I'm doing better than average. No way anyone wins anything like 90% of the time with either ship on Normal. No way. On easy, yep, I can believe 90%+ for some players. On normal, literally every ship encounter can finish the game. Doing one or two bars of damage to their weapons room with your dual laser/mini beam doesn't neutralise them, it just stops ONE weapon from hitting you. For a short while . You need an awful lot of luck with either Stealth, on normal, just to make it to the flagship, and even more luck to have accumulated enough scrap/equipment on the way through to win. I stick by my original comment, with the starting loadout of the stealth ships it's not a case of if you'll take damage, its how much you'll take. And you will take more than ships that start with a shield. Play both on normal, get back to me.

And, dude..."And what is the deal with flares? Why would you go out of your way to avoid them? " Seriously? Facepalm. Yeah, flares aren't that big a deal.....FOR A SHIP WITH A SHIELD! No shields = more fires. Noob.

"Stealth before they fire..."played properly" caveat"...you really haven't played Stealth B at all, or A very much have you? Noob. Look up the stealth 101 guides.

You've got even fewer clues about boarding. My comments were specifically about the weakness of the Stormwalker, and boarding with Slugs from the start, and are just facts, nothing more. Engi's? Yeah, that's boarding 101 right there. By the time you'd done enough damage to the enemy crew to let you port over Engi's to finish them off, you'd have blown the ship up twice.

Actually, now that I come to finish this, I'm more and more sure this is just a wind-up, the comments just can't be serious, can they? Done to goad me into just this type of reply. That has to be it. If so, well played sir, well played indeed!

[Twinge]

Nevill isn't talking about Easy. I suggest you take a step back and realize that you may not be as skilled or experienced as the game as you think you are, and consider that we might not lying to you when we say things like Beam Drones, Asteroid Fields, and Solar Flares just aren't a huge concern for The Nesasio. None of them are something you're excited about, but none of them should lose you the game if you're playing correctly.


I expect to win 100% of all games on Easy using any ship - it's trivial for an experienced player.

On Normal, I expect to win 100% with the god tier (Crystal B) and probably around 80% with the bottom tier (Engi B, Stealth B). With any average ship (Stealth A, Kestrel A, Zoltan A, etc.) I'd expect to win around 90%. And I say that knowing that I still constantly make minor mistakes in this game - there's actually a decent amount of leeway and the skill ceiling is higher than most (including myself half a year ago) would expect.

Top players can achieve this level of success with careful, strategic play that comes from studying the game and playing a lot of it. For example, a player named Discord recently streamed himself winning 10 Normal games in a row with 10 different ships (including the Engi B and not including the Mantis B or Crystal B).

[Elhazzared]

Wow, calm down spacecadet13, you do have a poitn that the stealth A is not a good ship but you don't need to go that far. It is true that almost always on first and second sector on normal you can disable most ships weapons on a single volley, I've done this, in fact you can do that and drones as well in just one volley, depending on the ship type of course. It is also quite possible to get 350 scrap by the end of sector 2, thing is, this is far from average, this is on a very good run where you can get at least 7 fights you can win easly and probably a distress or two which award rewards without even fighting... Usually however you get like maybe one distress without rewards or with very low rewards and maybe 5 fights (let's not forget that you get 10 jumps before jumping off. And the 10th is to the jumping becon... You may get extra lucky and have 11 jumps if the becon is really at the edge of the system). Average your first sector run shouldn't award you more than 60 scrap which you can run up to 110 by selling the titanium plates. The second sector shouldn't award in average more than 100 scrap and that's pulling slightly on the bright side. Now all of this assumes you don't get zoltan ships which are an immediate GG and assumes that you don't get ships with drones (especially beam ones) whose drones and weapons rooms are too far apart to hit with a beam.

Flares are indeed a problem to any ship, especially if you take a flare to your guns... GG, you're going to take a shitload of damage trying to put out the flames and then repairing the weapons... Even if you just try to sufocate the fire, you're still gonna end up without weapons before it happens, then when the fire is out you must go repair the weapons and you still took way too much damage in that. If you can't a see a problem there... Well that is your problem really.

Stealth before they fire is all very prety, but if you fight against a ship with an engi. Sure you stealth, knock out weapons, maybe, but if it's an enemy with 3 points of weapons which there are a few and they have an engi on board, you are going to take fire back, the engi will repair the weapons before you shot again so when you shot again, they will still keep one weapon. This means you'll take at least 3 shots back and pray it does not hit your weapon systems. the reason why you stealth after they fire is to very likelly (but not for sure) dodge their fire which will give you extra time to finish them off probably just avoiding extra pain.

Boarding with slugs isn't actually bad, they are just as good as a regular human in combat so yeah, they do ok. Now they are not mantis who can kill fast or rock who can take poundings, but in the first couple sectors most ships come with only 2 enemies, one goes to the shields, another stays at the helm. Port both guys on the shields and the guy at the helm will not even provide support, once that guy is dead the one from the helm will come and you killed both without a hint of a problem, even if both were actually rock or mantis, also you have healing bombs (though sadly not a medbay) so staying alive isn't much of a problem, especially once the guy leaves the helm and there is no dodging. In a 3 man ship just attack the guy further away from everyone, either no one will support and then the remaining 2 will come which well, in a straight up fight you win because of the healing bomb, or when first port, a second guy will come (more often the case) but not the one at the helm, now you should at least half kill the first guy before the second gets there because it's 2 vs 1, then when you kill the first the guy, the one at the helm will help the second guy, but you should have time to nearly kill the second guy by the time it takes him to get there. From there one it's 2 somewhat hurt slugs vs one guy, usually human, full health. Either use a healing bomb or take care of it with proper micro management... Doing that with engi however... lol, no thanks, neither them nor zoltans.

PS: Twinge, don't take me wrong but you can't fight a zoltan ship early on head to head, you're gona take a huge amount of damage even assuming they don't knock out your weapons, that's a GG right there cause continuing that run is just a plain waste of time. the times you find a zoltan cruiser early on already account for more than 10% of your runs so having a 90% success with it is in my sincere opinion way exagerated. I only talked about the zoltan cruiser problem, straight up bad luck in certain fights which knock out your weapons, especially easy if the enemy has drones then adds more to the failure percentage... I am willing to admit that maybe I'm not the greatest guy to play that ship, maybe it just doesn't adapts to my playstyle. But even then, 90% chances of winning is exagerated. Even if you don't run into these problems it's highly likelly not to get enough scrap or find weapons early on, even in stores and that leaves you with nearly nothing to fight after sector 2 which again count against the 90%.

[Twinge]

You can't fight a zoltan ship early on head to head, you're gona take a huge amount of damage even assuming they don't knock out your weapons, that's a GG right there cause continuing that run is just a plain waste of time.

One important facet that makes the Stealth A a reasonable ship is the Level 4 Engines it starts with. THis means that your FTL charges at a solid clip, and when you do indeed hit those fairly rare tough fights you get in a bad spot on - you can simply run away.

I haven't played enough repeated games to have any statistically sound data, to be clear - my numbers are only estimates based on general success and perceived power level of the ship. My Stealth A win rate could easily be only 80% or could be as high as 95% - I'd have to play dozens of games to really say for sure, unfortunately.

[Elhazzared]

You can't fight a zoltan ship early on head to head, you're gona take a huge amount of damage even assuming they don't knock out your weapons, that's a GG right there cause continuing that run is just a plain waste of time.

One important facet that makes the Stealth A a reasonable ship is the Level 4 Engines it starts with. THis means that your FTL charges at a solid clip, and when you do indeed hit those fairly rare tough fights you get in a bad spot on - you can simply run away.

I haven't played enough repeated games to have any statistically sound data, to be clear - my numbers are only estimates based on general success and perceived power level of the ship. My Stealth A win rate could easily be only 80% or could be as high as 95% - I'd have to play dozens of games to really say for sure, unfortunately.

Then please don't throw estimates without a few hundred games on those ships to make statics that are completly unrealistic... Now you do have a point of having a relativelly fast FTL recharge but how fast is fast enough? By the time the FTL drive is actually charged you would have already tore down the shields of the zoltan cruiser and probably not very far from taking another volley. At this point it's already useless to run because one more voley and they will likelly be weaponless and you wouldn't take any more damage anyway. The problem is that in the process to destroying their shields or just charging up the FTL you already took a lot of damage, with beam weapons and some bad luck you can get as high as almost half your hull gone.