Choose your weapon(s)

[shadowcrust]

This is the Swallow's loadout just after the first flagship fight. I lucked upon a Flak II and a Small Bomb in Sector 8 and swapped the Ion Stunner and Charge Ion with the new weapons.

Which combo would you have chosen for the next two flagship incarnations? Weapons were upgraded to level 7.

[itg]

I'd swap in the ion weapons for phase 3 in order to deal with the super shield. As for what to give up, I think I'd take out the flak II and small bomb. The pike beam is worth keeping since it actually does a ton of damage against the flagship's giant layout. The best plan is probably to ion the shields a bit, hack them, then take out piloting, to ensure your ion chain on the shields never misses.

[shadowcrust]

I also figured that the ion weapons would be a good choice for the third flagship, but the Flak II was quite convincing during the first and second flagship fights, and I liked having another damaging weapon with the Small Bomb.

Turned out ok, Flak II is on my list of weapons I'd use again



While I'm at it, I noticed a weird behaviour of Mind Control, not sure if bug or intended behaviour. When the flagship mind controlled one of my crew in a room there was fighting going on, and I countered with my own Mind Control in the same room, the result was that I controlled a boarding rebel and the flagship maintained control of my crew member, see here:



And just for 5thHorseman: still too easy, also after starting from scratch yet again (the sector 7 loss was due to making a detour to unlock the Rock cruiser and running out of fuel on the exit beacon to sector 8)

[5thHorseman]

And just for 5thHorseman: still too easy, also after starting from scratch yet again (the sector 7 loss was due to making a detour to unlock the Rock cruiser and running out of fuel on the exit beacon to sector 8)

I totally believe you, but I still want to see videos. Because I cannot see how it is possible.

[shadowcrust]

There are at least three very good reasons why I'm not recording my flights on video:

1) I'm too lazy to (do the research to) set up recording, and I have no idea how to do that on Linux with a dual monitor setup on deprecated hardware to boot.

2) It would kill everyone watching of boredom, and I feel bad enough already for slaughtering my way through the galaxy...

3) I think it's highly likely there are other people who are not afraid of 1) or 2) and who have a similar lucky winning streak and win more than 10% of their Hard mode runs, and who have recorded their flights and posted them. I wouldn't know for sure, because watching such videos leads straight to 2) for me

[itg]

You, sir, are falling behind in the high score race:



Rebel farming is still possible (In fact I could have done it in that #1 run) unless they actually set the points for beating the rebels to zero, so I don't expect my top score to be a long-standing record. Still, 7.4k is pretty solid.

[shadowcrust]

Very nice! Have you paid a visit to the Hidden Sector with the #1 Kestrel?

And I'm painfully aware my Hard highscores suck, maybe I did change my playing style after all and became less risk-taking with my usual on-the-verge-of-falling-apart ships... speaking of risks, so far 1 out of 3 attempts to kill the spiders was successful on Hard (without blue options)

[itg]

Nope, I did it with a distraction buoy and lots of nebulae. Take a run like that and add the Crystal sector to it and non-farmed 8k+ scores should be possible.

[shadowcrust]

Impressive - my visited beacon record of 122 in classic FTL involved a lengthy detour through the hidden sector, adding that sector to your #1 run and you'd get around 130 visited beacons.

[shadowcrust]

Seeing your 22 of skill masteries, I guess there is another minor bug in FTL AE in counting skill masteries twice and more for clones, when they regain their mastership after unfortunate incidents...