Beginner's tips
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:29 pm
There are many excellent guides out there, but as a recent beginner, I want to share the items that I discovered that were key to my success beating the game. There are a ton of tactics to cover in the game, which are not addressed here. This is more of a high-level overview.
In Karate Kid, Mr Miagi focused on training Daniel on defense. If your defense is perfect, then you cannot lose a battle. While perfect defense is near impossible (although maybe perfect timed cloaks can achieve it), better defense means you survive more fights, spend less resources on fixing your ship, and continue to have opportunities to hone your skills at playing the game.
Offense
But ironically, even though defense is even more important than offense, I am going to talk about offense first. Because, until you understand combat in FTL, it is hard to play defense. When it comes to offense discussions, I will not be covering enemy boarding tactics. There are plenty of other resources out there that cover it better than I can (and beginners rarely have a teleporter in the first place).
To inflict damage on your opponent, you either need to penetrate your enemy's shield, or use attacks that ignore the shields. Let's first talk about penetrating your enemy shields. The best solution for this is ion attacks. Ion attacks prevent the shields from regenerating (and damage it as well). Once whittled down, chained ion attacks, will render the shields useless and allow your damage dealing attacks to be targeted wherever you want. If you do not have an ion attack (and the beginner ship does not start with one), then you have to overwhelm the shield with brute force or use attacks that ignore shields. So using simple math, if you have 2 shots that do damage, and the enemy has a shield of 1, then the you will do 1 damage to the ship. With brute force attacks, it is normally best to destroy the enemy's shield generator first. Once that is done, you can then focus on attacking other parts of the ship. Let's now talk about the various weapons that are at your disposal:
Standard Lasers - These shots are blocked by shields. These shots also damage shields. Shots can be evaded.
Beam Lasers - These shots are blocked by shields. These shots do NOT damage shields, so you will need some other way to drop shields before using these weapons, otherwise they are useless. It should be noted that if a beam laser does 2 damage and a shield has a strength of 1, the beam will still do 1 damage per room. If the defender has no shields, beam lasers do the most damage, as they hit multiple rooms at one time, doing full damage to each room. Shots can NOT be evaded.
Missiles - Missiles ignore shields, making them an effective choice to take out enemy shield generators. The problem for missiles is defense drones, which shoot them out of the air. Zoltan shields (special green shields that block all damage and teleports, but do not regenerate after being damaged) are also problematic. While missiles do damage the shields, they only do 1 point of damage, which is a costly way to drop the shield. Shots can be evaded.
Bombs - Bombs ignore shields, but are blocked by zoltan shields. Shots can be evaded.
So what is the best target for your weapons? The normal answer will be your enemy's shields, unless you only have weapons that ignore shields, or you have many attacks versus a shield strength of 1. Another option is your enemy's pilot chair, as that will drop their evasion to 0, ensuring that all future attacks hit. So either or both, will increase your damage output. However, if your enemy has weapons that you cannot effectively defend, then it may be better to target your enemy's weapon system (or drone control system) early. It becomes a judgement call, on whether you can attack the weapons first or must first reduce their defense. If your enemy has a drone circling it, then it has a defense drone which will make your missile attacks ineffective. Targeting the drone control will allow you to use your missiles after it is down.
Defense
So let's talk about the more important topic, which is defense. Normally, the first 2 things that I buy are shield upgrades (which gives you a shield strength of 2). Buying only one upgrade in shield strength, will not increase your shields. 2 upgrades = 1 additional shield strength. Be sure to add power to your new shields, to take advantage of the additional strength. Immediately after buying 2 shield upgrades, I then start to increase my reactor strength, as fighting battles with no oxygen support is not fun. The second thing to consider is increasing your engines. I am not as big a fan of buying stronger engines early as others on this board, however it is the only defense against bombs, and probably your only early defense against missiles. It also helps with regular attacks, as more missed attacks means less damage to your shields. It does not help against beam attacks.
One additional early priority for you is drone control (costs 80) and a defense drone. The defense drone will protect you against missile attacks, which makes the need for increased engines a little less. Cloaking (costs 150!) can help you dodge as well, by timing your cloak just before an enemy attack arrives. It involves more micromanagement, and I consider it a more advanced tactic.
The real key to defense, though, is looking at the enemy ship. What weapons do they have? You can tell from the images whether you are facing missile attacks (weapons with large barrel openings), ion attacks (lasers with blue markings), and probably bombs although I haven't been able to identify the weapon marking for that yet. Weapon systems may also be inactive (brought in closer to the ship), or active. If you know that you are facing a missile attack, you will want to activate your defense drone. You may also want to prioritize attacking the weapon systems, if you see that the enemy has weapons for which you have a poor defense.
Economy
The final topic is managing your scrap money. The first thing I do is buy 2 shield upgrades and then at least 2 reactor upgrades. After that, I start saving my money so that I can buy goodies at the shop. I tend to put off fixing my ship's hull, as better upgrades are more likely to extend my life than fixing the hull (plus sometimes you get the hull fixed for free). Fixing the hull becomes more expensive in later sectors, though, so I often fix it just before jumping to a new sector. You have to weigh, though, how confident you are that you won't be killed in your next few battles. So as a beginner, you may want to repair it more often, just to ensure that your ship is not destroyed.
In Karate Kid, Mr Miagi focused on training Daniel on defense. If your defense is perfect, then you cannot lose a battle. While perfect defense is near impossible (although maybe perfect timed cloaks can achieve it), better defense means you survive more fights, spend less resources on fixing your ship, and continue to have opportunities to hone your skills at playing the game.
Offense
But ironically, even though defense is even more important than offense, I am going to talk about offense first. Because, until you understand combat in FTL, it is hard to play defense. When it comes to offense discussions, I will not be covering enemy boarding tactics. There are plenty of other resources out there that cover it better than I can (and beginners rarely have a teleporter in the first place).
To inflict damage on your opponent, you either need to penetrate your enemy's shield, or use attacks that ignore the shields. Let's first talk about penetrating your enemy shields. The best solution for this is ion attacks. Ion attacks prevent the shields from regenerating (and damage it as well). Once whittled down, chained ion attacks, will render the shields useless and allow your damage dealing attacks to be targeted wherever you want. If you do not have an ion attack (and the beginner ship does not start with one), then you have to overwhelm the shield with brute force or use attacks that ignore shields. So using simple math, if you have 2 shots that do damage, and the enemy has a shield of 1, then the you will do 1 damage to the ship. With brute force attacks, it is normally best to destroy the enemy's shield generator first. Once that is done, you can then focus on attacking other parts of the ship. Let's now talk about the various weapons that are at your disposal:
Standard Lasers - These shots are blocked by shields. These shots also damage shields. Shots can be evaded.
Beam Lasers - These shots are blocked by shields. These shots do NOT damage shields, so you will need some other way to drop shields before using these weapons, otherwise they are useless. It should be noted that if a beam laser does 2 damage and a shield has a strength of 1, the beam will still do 1 damage per room. If the defender has no shields, beam lasers do the most damage, as they hit multiple rooms at one time, doing full damage to each room. Shots can NOT be evaded.
Missiles - Missiles ignore shields, making them an effective choice to take out enemy shield generators. The problem for missiles is defense drones, which shoot them out of the air. Zoltan shields (special green shields that block all damage and teleports, but do not regenerate after being damaged) are also problematic. While missiles do damage the shields, they only do 1 point of damage, which is a costly way to drop the shield. Shots can be evaded.
Bombs - Bombs ignore shields, but are blocked by zoltan shields. Shots can be evaded.
So what is the best target for your weapons? The normal answer will be your enemy's shields, unless you only have weapons that ignore shields, or you have many attacks versus a shield strength of 1. Another option is your enemy's pilot chair, as that will drop their evasion to 0, ensuring that all future attacks hit. So either or both, will increase your damage output. However, if your enemy has weapons that you cannot effectively defend, then it may be better to target your enemy's weapon system (or drone control system) early. It becomes a judgement call, on whether you can attack the weapons first or must first reduce their defense. If your enemy has a drone circling it, then it has a defense drone which will make your missile attacks ineffective. Targeting the drone control will allow you to use your missiles after it is down.
Defense
So let's talk about the more important topic, which is defense. Normally, the first 2 things that I buy are shield upgrades (which gives you a shield strength of 2). Buying only one upgrade in shield strength, will not increase your shields. 2 upgrades = 1 additional shield strength. Be sure to add power to your new shields, to take advantage of the additional strength. Immediately after buying 2 shield upgrades, I then start to increase my reactor strength, as fighting battles with no oxygen support is not fun. The second thing to consider is increasing your engines. I am not as big a fan of buying stronger engines early as others on this board, however it is the only defense against bombs, and probably your only early defense against missiles. It also helps with regular attacks, as more missed attacks means less damage to your shields. It does not help against beam attacks.
One additional early priority for you is drone control (costs 80) and a defense drone. The defense drone will protect you against missile attacks, which makes the need for increased engines a little less. Cloaking (costs 150!) can help you dodge as well, by timing your cloak just before an enemy attack arrives. It involves more micromanagement, and I consider it a more advanced tactic.
The real key to defense, though, is looking at the enemy ship. What weapons do they have? You can tell from the images whether you are facing missile attacks (weapons with large barrel openings), ion attacks (lasers with blue markings), and probably bombs although I haven't been able to identify the weapon marking for that yet. Weapon systems may also be inactive (brought in closer to the ship), or active. If you know that you are facing a missile attack, you will want to activate your defense drone. You may also want to prioritize attacking the weapon systems, if you see that the enemy has weapons for which you have a poor defense.
Economy
The final topic is managing your scrap money. The first thing I do is buy 2 shield upgrades and then at least 2 reactor upgrades. After that, I start saving my money so that I can buy goodies at the shop. I tend to put off fixing my ship's hull, as better upgrades are more likely to extend my life than fixing the hull (plus sometimes you get the hull fixed for free). Fixing the hull becomes more expensive in later sectors, though, so I often fix it just before jumping to a new sector. You have to weigh, though, how confident you are that you won't be killed in your next few battles. So as a beginner, you may want to repair it more often, just to ensure that your ship is not destroyed.
