Has hacking made the Flagship too RNG?

[hierbo]

Thanks again for replying!

I do think we will have some common ground on this issue, but we must first get out of the opposing corners we're backed into and look objectively at one another's points.

Regarding the propositions you've made, I do agree that using bombs/missiles to attack the hacking system directly is a nearly sure-fire way to take them out. I likely did not consider this prior to our discussion because I seldom use missiles and bombs (except for special circumstances like the Rock B) due to their limited supply. With ships with only 3 weapon slots, it can be difficult to get enough firepower where you don't need to fire that missile every time. Still, though, that is a great solution and not terribly rare at all.

The other solutions you proposed, though, I feel are much more hit-or-miss. They can work under the right circumstances, but not most circumstances.

I feel that the examples that I gave regarding the balances between some other FTL challenges and solutions all have very high likelihood of success, and are therefore not really "apples to apples" comparisons with yours, which are conditional (except for the bombs one). I realize that not all of the examples I proposed are readily attainable in all ships, but since they are all reliable, you only need any one of them. So, if you can do any one of the things in my examples, then you can very likely overcome the challenge scenario in that example. Would you say that's a fair claim? If not, please elaborate.

[obliviondoll]

I'm just going to quote my original list as a reference here...

-Hacking.
-Fast-charging weapons (Ions, BL2, Chain Laser, Vulcan, the faster Flaks...)

Or any 2 of the following:

-Missiles/Bombs.
-Mind Control.
-Teleporter.
-Lots of non-Beam attack drones (or boarding drones).

This means you can effectively counter with:

-Hacking
-Fast-charging weapons (may include bomb/missile weapon)
-Missiles/Bombs and Mind Control
-Missiles/Bombs with Teleporter
-Missiles/Bombs with Drones
-Mind Control with Teleporter
-Mind Control with Attack Drones
-Teleporter with Attack Drones

Add overwhelming conventional weapons (lots of BL2s, combination of Ions and good laser weapons, Vulcans, Flak, etc.) to the "any two of..." list and that puts another 4 possible combinations on the list. You listed 6 possibilities for one of your examples, and 7 for the other. I've written out 8 possible solutions and explained how to take that up to 12. Each individual approach might be more luck-based than the individual approaches you can take to counter other enemy weapons, but the sheer number of different combinations of weapons and systems which effectively counter hacking signifcantly reduces how random it is. Most of the options for countering hacking are combinations of systems which work well together for almost every other situation as well. On most runs, there are plenty of opportunities to get at least 2 of the systems you need at least 2 of, and players will frequently find themselves with 3 or more of the options they need to counter a hack.

Basically all this means is that for your ship to be viable against hacking (by the Flagship or anyone else), you need some form of redundancy in the sense of having more than one viable offensive option. Some ships START with redundant systems. Fed Cruisers A and B can sort of qualify because they have regular weapons and the Artillery Beam, giving them a second offensive option if their primary is hacked. Engi A starts with a fast-charging Ion weapon and a Drone Control system with an Anti-Ship Drone. Most players will be actively WANTING that kind of redundancy without needing to think "I need this specifically so I can counter hacking attempts on my ship", just like most players actively upgrade both shields and engines for defensive purposes, and pick up cloaking or a Zoltan Shield to help with the same job whenever possible. Having alternative options for offense or defense can be a life-saver when something cripples your "best" upgraded system. It doesn't matter if it's crippled by hacking, 3 Vulcans firing at once, several BL2s, a couple of well-placed bombs or missiles, or whatever else.

If you have an all-Engi crew except for one Mantis, and haven't upgraded your doors, then the enemy Mind Controls your Mantis, there's a good chance he'll be able to wipe out your entire crew single-handedly if you don't have your own Mind Control, some way to quickly eliminate the enemy MC system, or some other way to isolate the MCed crew member while you deal with the ship. Most people see this threat and immediately come up with various ways to counter it. I see this threat and panic a little bit. Mind Control in FTL is something I find hard to counter, even while understanding that there are viable counters to it.

Hacking isn't so different, but it requires a slightly different thought process to counter. I find that countering hacking makes more sense to me than countering Mind Control. Any threat in the game is just about having the right mindset to overcome it. Figure out the rules behind the threat, and it becomes easier to eliminate.

All that said, I can appreciate that because of the nature of hacking and the fact that it almost requires you to already have redundant systems to counter it effectively, it would be worthwhile to consider an alternative counter which isn't as reliant on how your ship is built, if only because running into a hacking-capable ship in sector 1 or 2 can be more problematic than such encounters should be. The proposal you already provided for the hack drone to be temporarily disabled by your ship's crew if they're in the room is a good one, and could provide just enough of an edge to reduce how painful an early unlucky encounter can be, without really hurting the viability of the system for later enemies.

[hierbo]

@obliviondoll: I am finding myself more and more in whole-hearted agreement with you the more that we talk about this matter.

I have had the chance to try out some of your proposed solutions, and I must say that when the systems/crew necessary to execute them are available, they pretty much all work beautifully. In addition, I found another solution that I think will work, though I have not had the chance to try it on someone with hacking yet, as I just got the stuff in my current run:

I am running the Engi B (I know, I must like suffering or something), though any ship with a drone system could do it, given that they have access to the right drones. I am using a combination of the defense drone I and shield overcharge drone. The defense drone I can hopefully stop the first 1 or 2 hack attempts from getting to my ship, by which time the shield overcharge drone should have made a point of Zoltan shields. If that works like I think it will, the Zoltan shields should cue the AI to stop firing hack drones, because they can't get through it, forcing him to wait until the Zoltan shield is down to try again. I believe that a combination of those 2 drones should keep the chances of the hack drone getting through to be quite low, though admittedly not 0.

In addition, I've tried using bombs, and as you'd guess, that pretty much always works unless the enemy ship is highly evasive, which is fine and fair.

Your point about early game is a good one, though. Most early game ships have little chance of having any counter-measure for hacking. I've suffered from that very situation once lately, in which it was,I believe, the beginning of sector 3, and an enemy hacked my shields. By the time I beat him, I had taken so much damage that I was doomed and died shortly thereafter. I think that hacking, like other enemy attack modes, must have some counter that doesn't require much of anything special (other than quick thinking and action) in order to beat it, otherwise it can be a death sentence for practically any ship early on.

Regarding the solution I proposed, and you mentioned again, the ability for crew to "stun" the drone would be great. I think that it would probably be best to keep the 'order of operations' in line with other similar effects, like fires, boarders, and breaches. You may prefer to repair a system and leave the breach, boarder, fire, or hack drone alone, but too bad; the mechanics of the game just won't permit it until the other condition is gone. When the crew "repairs" the hack drone away, it would become 'drone stunned' (the new drone mechanic that was introduced in AE), which has a decent chance of destroying the drone (just like when you hack their hacking system). Since all player ships must have a crew or some sort, it makes it at least possible to counter inopportune hacking, even in the early game when you will likely not yet have adequate systems to handle it in another way; it keeps bad luck hacks early on from being automatic 'game over' situations.

Well, thanks again for hashing this out with me. Of all the additions to the game, I found the hacking system to be the most difficult to adapt to. I'll continue trying to handle it in some of the ways you've described, as well as coming up with new ones, possibly.

I think the main take away from this is that the hacking system could use the additional countermeasure that can be employed by the majority of ships, regardless of how their ship is built (within reason). I know these guys aren't big on incremental updates, but I hope they'll make an exception in this case.

[project_mercy]

All that said, I can appreciate that because of the nature of hacking and the fact that it almost requires you to already have redundant systems to counter it effectively, it would be worthwhile to consider an alternative counter which isn't as reliant on how your ship is built, if only because running into a hacking-capable ship in sector 1 or 2 can be more problematic than such encounters should be. The proposal you already provided for the hack drone to be temporarily disabled by your ship's crew if they're in the room is a good one, and could provide just enough of an edge to reduce how painful an early unlucky encounter can be, without really hurting the viability of the system for later enemies.

This isn't really a hacking issue, it's more a.. design feature of FTL. You're mostly just getting into the RNG as a whole now. To some extent it's just the Golden Cow of the game.

I don't know the algorythm for determining ships in each sector, but I suspect it purely has to do with system and energy costs. The issue is there doesn't appear to be any control on the effectiveness of those costs. The RNG just rolls up a ship, and sometimes it's a total failure and other times it's basically instant death, but behind the scenes it values them exactly the same. This is exacerbated by AI ships, which don't pay for any systems like O2, Medbay/Clonebay, Doors, Sensors, etc, and so they can just spend all that other stuff. They functionally get free people and a free repair droid for no points, no energy usage. So, the RNG can make an AI ship with a level 2 cloak, a level 3 hacking or Mind Control, and 4 artemis or Leto launchers and fit it in the second sector. Drop those levels down by 1 and it fits in the first sector.

It would be nice if it used some point system that took into account the number of systems available, the effectiveness of certain things over others, and used that to determine where things went (even if you threw in some additional plus/minus to this point pool to make up for good and bad ship possibilities). This would make for a better game, though the people hung up on stuffing it into "It's a rogue-like!" mold will probably disagree.

Tabletop gaming has had this issue for years, so it's hard to really gripe on FTL for it, given their dev resources(or resource). But most games that have a point system (like Batteltech/Warhammer's various flavors/etc) seem to do better with a scored based on effectiveness and less on flat stats.

[obliviondoll]

All that said, I can appreciate that because of the nature of hacking and the fact that it almost requires you to already have redundant systems to counter it effectively, it would be worthwhile to consider an alternative counter which isn't as reliant on how your ship is built, if only because running into a hacking-capable ship in sector 1 or 2 can be more problematic than such encounters should be. The proposal you already provided for the hack drone to be temporarily disabled by your ship's crew if they're in the room is a good one, and could provide just enough of an edge to reduce how painful an early unlucky encounter can be, without really hurting the viability of the system for later enemies.

This isn't really a hacking issue, it's more a.. design feature of FTL. You're mostly just getting into the RNG as a whole now. To some extent it's just the Golden Cow of the game.

I don't know the algorythm for determining ships in each sector, but I suspect it purely has to do with system and energy costs. The issue is there doesn't appear to be any control on the effectiveness of those costs. The RNG just rolls up a ship, and sometimes it's a total failure and other times it's basically instant death, but behind the scenes it values them exactly the same. This is exacerbated by AI ships, which don't pay for any systems like O2, Medbay/Clonebay, Doors, Sensors, etc, and so they can just spend all that other stuff. They functionally get free people and a free repair droid for no points, no energy usage. So, the RNG can make an AI ship with a level 2 cloak, a level 3 hacking or Mind Control, and 4 artemis or Leto launchers and fit it in the second sector. Drop those levels down by 1 and it fits in the first sector.

It would be nice if it used some point system that took into account the number of systems available, the effectiveness of certain things over others, and used that to determine where things went (even if you threw in some additional plus/minus to this point pool to make up for good and bad ship possibilities). This would make for a better game, though the people hung up on stuffing it into "It's a rogue-like!" mold will probably disagree.

Tabletop gaming has had this issue for years, so it's hard to really gripe on FTL for it, given their dev resources(or resource). But most games that have a point system (like Batteltech/Warhammer's various flavors/etc) seem to do better with a scored based on effectiveness and less on flat stats.

The "issue" with hacking is that because it functionally disables a system early in the fight, most counters rely heavily on having multiple options available, and early in the game, that's not something you can reasonably expect.

[project_mercy]

The "issue" with hacking is that because it functionally disables a system early in the fight, most counters rely heavily on having multiple options available, and early in the game, that's not something you can reasonably expect.

How do you deal with any system in the early sectors? You drop shields (or use shield penetration) and kill them. Plenty of starting ships have shield-penetrating options. Weapons hacking on starting weapons (Stealth B Glaive beam aside) is not astoundingly effective unless paired with a cloak.

I mean, how do you deal with anything with a board-only ships (slug b?) when the other side has a level 3 clone bay or a Zoltan ship with a pulse 2 and 2 launchers in sector 1 (and yes, I have seen this). You don't. The game is fundamentally about situations where later on you can maybe get away, and early on you just die. I wish it was a bit smarter during encounter creation in valuing certain things (like the effects of a Zoltan Shield early in the game) but it is what it is.

I'll gladly rescind this statement at whatever point someone posts videos of winning with Stealth B 3 times in a row on Hard without save scumming.

[obliviondoll]

The "issue" with hacking is that because it functionally disables a system early in the fight, most counters rely heavily on having multiple options available, and early in the game, that's not something you can reasonably expect.

How do you deal with any system in the early sectors? You drop shields (or use shield penetration) and kill them. Plenty of starting ships have shield-penetrating options. Weapons hacking on starting weapons (Stealth B Glaive beam aside) is not astoundingly effective unless paired with a cloak.

I mean, how do you deal with anything with a board-only ships (slug b?) when the other side has a level 3 clone bay or a Zoltan ship with a pulse 2 and 2 launchers in sector 1 (and yes, I have seen this). You don't. The game is fundamentally about situations where later on you can maybe get away, and early on you just die. I wish it was a bit smarter during encounter creation in valuing certain things (like the effects of a Zoltan Shield early in the game) but it is what it is.

I'll gladly rescind this statement at whatever point someone posts videos of winning with Stealth B 3 times in a row on Hard without save scumming.

When your primary reliance is weapons, like ALMOST EVERY SHIP IN THE GAME STARTS WITH, and they have hacking, you're praying the RNG doesn't hack your weapons.
When your primary reliance is boarding, and they have hacking, you're praying the RNG doesn't hack your Teleporter.
When your primary reliance is drones, and they have hacking, you're praying the RNG doesn't hack your Drone Control.
When you're running a Fed Cruiser, depending on your loadout early on, you're either hoping the hack doesn't hit your Weapons or your Artillery system.

No matter what your ship's primary armament is, hacking has the potential to negate it early on. There is NO other system in the game AT ALL which can potentially produce an unwinnable situation for ALMOST EVERY playable ship in the game with a single bad RNG roll.

EDIT: It feels weird arguing that hacking is well-balanced AND that it isn't in the same thread. it's pretty much perfectly balanced for late-game encounters, but it has the potential to be too powerful for early game ships to counter. Pretty much only ships which start with hacking systems are capable of effectively countering it.

[project_mercy]

I'm not going to provide a length reiteration. You're down to feelings now. I don't personally find hacking weapons early on to be an issue. They're generally on low cooldowns (Again, Stealth B aside, which is already infinitely terrible, so it can't get worse). Hacking drones may be slightly worse, but compared to the other anti drone things in AE, it's really just kicking the horse's corpse.

[Coppy]

I do realise this is sort of a bump but meh I wanna be heard.

Got this on iPad (nothing beats navigating through the galaxy while on a bus and train) (Faster Than Light is the best and ONLY actual Strategy game in AppStore, the rest are either using 90s graphics or time=money based shithouse games, I even wrote a review for FTL on the 2nd day it's on AppStore and mentioned the same thing about being the only Strategy game but they never published my review!) (sorz for the off topic there, I tend to keep hating), and I used to play the PC version at friend's house all the time.

Just a game ago, I had the same thing and it was the 2nd time out of about 20 games.
Stealth B
Max level systems:
Shield
Engine
Weapon
Stealth

Level 2 systems:
Battery
Door
Sensor
3 - Pilot (suddenly forgot the actual name and cbb to check it now)

Level 1 systems:
Medbay
Oxygen

My weapons were (respectively as seen in the HUD, so Vulcan is the prioritised weapon)
Burst laser 1
Burst laser 2
Chain Vulcan

Note: Without the battery on, I lacked 3 power from powering everything completely.
Note 2: Couldn't find a single store from the 2nd half of the sector before The Last Stand.
Note 3: Couldn't find a single store despite exploring half of the Last Stand sector and I actual got to the boss when she's already there for 2 rounds (so if I jump from the boss fight, it's instant lose.


Now what happened to me was the same as SpaceChicken from page 2. Except I didn't even remember or had enough scrap to get my Hack module (about 4 games ago, I've came to the conclusion that the most important additional systems (shield is counted as essential system in my book) are Stealth and Hack tho Drone will be a good addition if I happened to find good drones in the first 4 sectors).
Yes, like I've said, what happened to SpaceChicken had happen to me. Weapons system was hacked. Tho I did manage to bring the boss's missile systems down, twice and costed her about 7 or 8 hull points. (Maybe I should've targetted her hacking systems first when I had the chance. I did have a chance to damage it once tho but it was repaired and the cloak-hack chain kicked in right after.)
I thought that maybe I can bypass the boss's shield and hit her systems if my Vulcan warmed up completely. Turns out I was WRONG! It managed to shoot pass 2 shields at peak times but the boss's cloak-hack chain would kick in and my Burst Lasers were always about 3 seconds from being completely charged.
One thing I noticed from this is that I could've gotten through this cloak-hack chain if the weapons system was manned. Fact is, it WAS manned but you know when a system is hacked, you don't actually get the "manned" status and this is the THING that stopped me from getting the 6th Victory that I still need for the Last of the last unlockable ships.


I seriously thought I was finally going to win with this 2nd stealth B run, thanks to the Vulcan. I've used the Vulcan once before on a luckier ship with Hack system and it was the shit. It just ripped through the boss's shield and every other systems she had. That ship of mine didn't even need missile weapons and it didn't have any.


You might ask why I didn't get missile weapons for my unlucky Stealth B. It's simply because I got the Burst laser 2 in early game and I've decided to use a 2x Burst Laser 2 + Glaive Beam build. It was my plan until one of the shops I've encountered had a Chain Vulcan. How could I say NO to a Vulcan? It was the 2nd time that I've seen it, the 1st time being the time I ripped the boss apart and the time when I have just enough scrap if I sell my Glaive Beam (nope, I did not find any scrap recovery arm through out the whole run despite having visited at least 2 shops in every sector except the last and the 2nd last). So, there, my plan changed and it was 2x Burst 2 + Vulcan.
Sad fact: I've found a Burst 1 and decided to keep it around as a Plan B, just in case I can't find another Burst 2. My plan B had to kick in.

And that's why my Stealth B failed again.
Additional Details of how it failed: I couldn't allow myself to see it get destroyed in this kind of ridiculous way, AGAIN. So I've decided that he shall live and fight another day. *Stealth B had jumped from the Boss fight despite Base would be destroyed in 1 turn.*



I really prefer lasers over missiles and bombs since they don't run out of ammo. Even if I need one, I'll only get a missile weapon in the late game because if I don't save up at least 25 missiles before the boss fight, I'm not going to have ammo.
Burst Laser 2 is my favourite. 2 power, 3 shots. I remember that ONE time I got soooooo ridiculously lucky with the Engi B, got 2 scrap recovery arms in early game so I had 3 Combat drones (2x Mk 1, 1x Mk 2), (2 or 3) Burst Laser Mk 2, 3 shields, almost maxed out engine with varied power level, battery, Level 2 hack and most importantly, THE weapon pre-igniter.
Good lord, that was the best run I've ever had, since ever. My drones and lasers torn through the boss's shield like a piece of paper. I don't remember if the boss even fired a single volley of missiles at all! It was absolutely the best and the boss's 3 phrases didn't even last more than 7 minutes.


And there you have it, how Bad it may go and how Awesome it can go.


Ps. You might ask why I referred the Boss as "she". The answer is really simple, like all the bosses in other games, this boss is a bitch.

Ps2. Sorry for this long post and probably randomly mixed segmented experience and info. I think it's because I haven't been posting any posts in any forum for a long while and all my thought-juice that had been held back for all these times just culminated as I typed this post.

Ps3. I almost forgot to mention that 3 minutes after I've realised I was stuck in the cloak-hack chain, I closed the game (in a way that it doesn't stay in my multitask bar) on my iPad and only reopened about 7 hours later and found that the chain came loss by a bit. What I'm saying is, I used to need 2-3 more seconds to get my burst lasers charged up but after those 7 hours, I seemed to only need around 1 more second.

Ps4. If applicable, Thanks for reading!

[SuperEd]

The hacking+cloak sync just happened to me, which led to me being able to deal 0dmg, and came across this post.
But i just realised you dont need any counter to it, just (important) DONT HIT THE HACKING SYSTEM and, if you didnt have a zoltan shield at the start, its impossible for them to sync up.
As for the rest of the systems being hacked, as someone else said around here, all have the 'be prepared for the bossfight' solution, (o2 = lvl2 , shield = have cloak or high burst damage)
Felt like someone might want to know that, hf!