Subset Games Forum

I have played the game for 35 hours. I have extensive experience with a variety of ships and playstyles and I thought I would share my wisdom so anyone here who is having any trouble can better see how to deal with the insane complexity that is this game and win more. I can win 80% of the time after the first sector and deal with most issues effectively. You can too, crushing the helpless rebels and pirates under your unstoppable skills. If you are an experienced player you will likely know most of these things. This is more for new players.

A wise man once said that winning isn't everything, but it's the only thing that matters.

Since at times the random number god hates you I have used all the weapons and used many configurations. Some are obviously superior to others.

There will be several sections covering all of the parts of the ship and then a section on how to deal with the various events, and finally some advice on beating the big boss. A lot of the advice is on how to judge items you get- a lot is vendor trash- and work out what stuff you can sell for more scrap. More scrap means better items and stronger systems.

Section 1. Weapons.
A Lasers
B Missiles
C Bombs
D Beams

Section 2. Systems and subsystems.

Section 3. Augmentations.

Section 4. Races.

Section 5. Boarding.


Section 1. Weapons.

You will have a variety of weapons available to you. Sometimes you can chose the best ones, and some are nakedly superior, and sometimes you'll be forced to rely on suboptimal ones. How you use the weapons makes a massive impact on how successful you will be at the game. You can squander them ineffectively or blow ships up to hell.

Regardless of your weapon, you have several goals with all weapons. These are the goals, in rough order of priority, with the supporting goals of avoiding damaging and maximizing scrap. Pause at the start of each battle, especially when you're new at the game, and consider what you should be firing at.

1.Stop them escaping. Some ships will try to flee. Destroy their pilot system to stop that.

2. Knock out various systems, in order of importance-
Weapons, weaponized drones, Shields, Pilot, Cloak etc.

Their weapons do damage to you and should be the first priority to knock out. If they have a boarding drone or an anti ship drone they can seriously hurt you. I've lost more than once to those anti ship drones. If they have a beam weapon and they knock your shields out they can rip down multiple systems. Once their weapons are down you should take out their shields which protect them and then their pilot and cloak which let them evade your attacks.

The next three goals can be as important in different scenarios.

3. Kill enemy personal. People can repair ships and make systems more effective. If they die then the ship will be easier to kill. You also get more money if you kill the crew and leave the ship intact. This may require destroying medilabs which heal.

3. Render the ship inoperable. Hull breaches and fires stop people from being able to repair systems and slowly destroy the ship. Every second you get means more time to charge up your lasers.

3. Damage the enemy hull. Once you smash the enemy's hull they die. If you can't break their systems then smashing their hull may be your only option. If you see a chance to kill them take it. You get less scrap if you just kill them normally.

Onto weapons

A. Lasers.

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons

Fast weapons that impact on shields and drain them and damage the hull or systems. Only energy needed. Purpose- draining shields, damaging systems, destroying zoltan shields, causing hull breaches and fires.

The most important considerations when chosing these are damage, power, and cooldown. The best weapons, such as dual laser, do 2 damage for 1 power and have a short cooldown so you can beat down shields a lot- your damage per second is huge.

In terms of special effects, hull damage is rarely that important- normally you'll want to damage their weapons long before you break their hull. Dual lasers, crystal, and heavy lasers are very efficient weapons early game. Ion blast 2 is very fast and can lock down enemy ships. Lasers are very energy intensive though late game when enemies have strong shields to knock down, and some other weapons can be very helpful to knock out systems.

B. Missiles.

These bypass shields, but can be shot down by defense drones. They cost material to use and so a missile heavy build can be expensive. More missiles means less upgrades. Their goals are to knock out systems, cause hull breaches, and do damage.

There are two classes of these missiles- early game ones like Artemis (superior) and Leto and late game ones like Hermes (inferior in dps, though it has a faster cooldown), Pegasus and Breach which do more damage. Early game ones you can use to knock out weapons systems or especially tough shields, late game ones seriously damage a system and do massive hull damage. Breach is especially good, making a hole that will deny a room to the enemy. Normally one missile slot is enough due to their high expense.

When using these, always try to judge if you need a missile. Sometimes the enemy is weak enough that your other weapons will suffice.

C. Bombs

These bypass shields, can't be shot down, and can only be avoided by evasion. They use missile material and can be expensive to use. Their purpose is to do special effects like fire, ion, and heal, damage systems, and do a little hull damage.

Healing bomb is not useful.* Sell it and buy doors upgrade. When you're on your ship killing boarders isn't that hard. Run away to medibay, turn off O2, vent their atmosphere.

Small bomb.***** The best bomb, can disable systems quickly and easily.

Fire bomb.** Not that useful, if you haven't already smashed their ship to pieces they can normally put out the fire. Can be good against mantis with poor repair.

A contrary position from Agent_L
Fire bomb/beam is absolutely devastating when combined with rockmen boarding team.

Ion bomb.*** You can use it to knock out shields or weapons at key moments to let your fire hit them. Reportedly good for system denial.

Agent_L Ion bomb - now THAT is a denial weapon. Ioned system can't be repaired, can't be depowered. No other bomb does 4 dmg. And it's personnel-friendly: can be fired on top of your boarders in enemy medbay.

Breach bomb.**** System denial weapon. It can be very useful, and takes a long time to repair. The enemy has to heal the breach before they can repair the weapons system.

D. Beams.

The most cost effective weapon needing only energy. Can't pierce shields, but do damage directly to the hull (or personal). Angle them carefully by putting the start of the beam in a corner of room and you can do a lot of damage. Always good to have one. Glaive is the best as you can easily do 10 damage with it due to it doing 3 damage, not 1 like 3 of the others, though Halberd has a much shorter recharge time (17s vs 25s) and so can often be used more effectively, and does 2 damage per room hit.

To use these effectively you need to use a laser weapon to fully deplete the shield, pause as soon as it is depleted, and set the beam to slice the ship up. You can also use a bomb or missile to destroy the shield. They do damage for every room they cross.

A good set up is at least two lasers, one beam, and anything else.

Section 2. Systems

With all systems more upgrades is better, but some upgrades are less high priority than others. You should generally be upgrading these early on as a high priority.

1. Weapons so you can fire more.

2. Shields or cloak so you can avoid damage.

3. Engines so you can escape enemies faster.

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Systems

Shields. Blocks lasers, beams. 1 is good enough for the first 1-2 sectors, 2 past that, 3 for 5 and beyond. You don't need 4, 3 is enough to survive most attacks and cloak can defend you against more.

Engines. Gives you evasion. More is always good. Avoid blue options that let you flee battle mostly, almost always fight. You can train pilots and engine men up with it once you have cloak- find an enemy that is too weak to hurt you and cloak through every firing they do. The extra evasion will save you a lot of pain.

Weapons. You'll need full slots by the end to kill the boss, but because of the expense it's often good to go for lower cost weapons that don't require fully upgrading your weapons. 3 is fine for most of the early game, upgrade as you go.

Oxygen. Base is enough. Don't waste scrap. You can survive for a long time with o2 off if you need the power for something else. To kill boarders or prevent fire damage from suns normally turn oxygen off and vent as much as you can without compromising combat ability.

Medbay. Base is enough. You can upgrade it one level as it's useful in some scenarios but level 3 is unneeded and level 2 doesn't heal much more than 1. If you need to heal and time is an issue then you'll probably die anyway. It will be my advice later that you use mantis as they fight best, but if you chose to use other inferior races a lot level 3 can be necessary late game to heal your units.

Drones. Sell most drones, keep level 1 defence drone (aka the ultimate most cost effective missile killer) and level 1 beam or anti ship. Both are incredibly useful. Nothing else is that important. Level 2 beam or anti ship or defence aren't that much better and need lots of energy. Crew can do repairs. Boarding drones aren't that good. Hull heal is useful to keep for emergency heals.

Teleporter. Very useful, increases your scrap rewards massively if you kill crews. The teleporter is involved in lots of events that get you scrap so you should get it early. You only need level 1 initially, but level 2 can be useful for quick recall of troops and also allows you to teleport a unit with 100 health onto an automated ship and return it before the unit dies. Late game when facing more enemies and when you have to transport 4 units in to overwhelm them it's good to upgrade to level 3.

Cloak. Increases your evade, stop enemy weapons charging. Use this just before the beams or missiles would hit you, thus making them waste a shot. You can then fully charge your weapons and blow them out of the water. Upgrade to level 3. This serves as one of your main protections against missiles if you lack a defense drone. By pumping up your engines and leveling up your pilot and engine you can have enough evasion to avoid missiles.

Subsystems.

Pilot. The abilities from the upgrade are small, but more piloting means your pilot chair can survive more damage. If you are invaded this can allow your crew to respond in time to prevent destruction of the pilot room.

Sensors. Level 2 is good if you board a lot. Otherwise level 1 is fine. Level 3 is unnecessary, knowing how much energy the enemy has doesn't make your units kill it faster.

Doors. Level 2 is good if you don't have a strong mantis attack force to defend your ship and is a generally useful upgrade in preventing fires from spreading. Level 3 is good if you are in mantis homeworlds and are often invaded by very strong forces.

Section 3. Augmentations

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Augmentations

I'll list the augments in terms of how useful they are- amazingly useful, tier one, sometimes useful, tier two, anything else is tier three and should be sold for scrap unless you really want it. Tier three items are situational in their use and can easily be replaced by system upgrades or more crew.

Tier one.

Automated Reloader. Always useful, faster weapons fire.

Weapon Pre-Igniter. Always useful, have all weapons charged to damage the enemy.

Long-Range Scanners. Always useful, the extra information allows you to seek the kind of encounter you want. Low on hull? Avoid any enemies or asteroid events. Super cheap too.

Scrap Recovery Arm. Always useful, more scrap is good. You just have to get 250 scrap for it to break even.

Zoltan Shield. Incredibly useful against missiles and enemy weapons.

Tier two.

Stealth Weapons. Sometimes useful- it's good to be able to fire when cloaked but with weapons with long recharge times this expensive augmentation can sometimes be less effective.

Drone Recovery Arm. Sometimes useful. If you have a drone heavy build where you regularly use two drones a battle it's a good idea to get this.

Shield Charge Booster. Sometimes useful. If you have good shields and cloaks a faster recharge won't be as important as the enemy will normally either break your shields or fail at it.

Damaged Stasis Pod. Gets you a crystal crew member and eventually a crystal event. Normally not worthwhile unless you want the crystal ship. The quest is unreliable at best.

Section 4. Races.

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Races

There are a variety of different races with different abilities. You should be able to identify each by their image and know what their race means in terms of their repair ability and their combat ability.

Humans. Average repair and combat ability and health. They can beat zoltan and engi in combat normally and serve as your baseline.

Engi. Double repair, half combat. Don't use them for boarding actions, but they are excellent to staff your ship as they can repair damaged systems fast. They can be beaten by any race.

Mantis. Double combat, half repair. Use them for boarding actions, generally don't use them to man key systems. They can beat any other race in combat.

Rockmen. Equal in combat and repair, immune to fire, half speed, 150 health. They can beat any race bar mantis in combat. Both rockmen and mantis sectors are dangerous to go in if you are using a lot of boarding actions as the enemy is just as deadly with them. Rockmen are also very useful if you have fire weapons in boarding.

Slugs. Average repair and combat and health, but they can see rooms around them. They can beat engi, zoltan, and

Zoltan. Average repair and combat and 70 health. It can be beaten by rockmen, mantis, humans, and slugs. They add one free unit of power to any room they are in that is resistant to ion damage. After engi these are the best units to man systems.

Crystals. See the wiki. They're more for advanced players.

Section 5. Boarding

http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2448

This covers most of the points, courtesy of SushaBrancaleone and Aufklarer. I shall add a few of my own on survivability.

Watch the health of your units. If they fall below about 12 hp you should move them away from the room so they can survive or teleport them back.

Often enemies will chase your units down to try to kill them. To avoid this, move them into a room away from the enemy, pause when the enemy is as far away from the door as your unit is, move your unit out of the room. They should cross the door at the same time. By repeatedly doing this you can keep your units alive long enough for the teleport to recharge.

The enemies defend their shield with the highest priority. Going in and out of the shield room can generally draw them away from other rooms. If they are not chasing your low health units then after you leave the room they will go back to whatever they were doing. By doing this you can disrupt repairs and combat.



To be continued.

i didn't read all of it

but for example upgrading your pilot bay does increase your dodge significantly (when your pilot is away) which is usefull when they dmg your hull or its on fire or you have to use your pilot elsewhere.

If you have invested in engines its a good idea to put a point in it to have some dodge when engines are down.

also having level 3 sensors lets you know the enemy timer for stealth and repairs. its good to know what to target etc.

and about your strategy priorities, i dont agree.

Many prefer to hit engines first, but i stick to weapons, both with boarding ships and ranged ships as it reduces a lot the dmg you recieve and allows you to spend scrap on upgrades instead of repairs. thats why thee crystal shipo b is so powerfull. teleport your crew to the enemy room, use the crystal men special ability to lock enemy crew outside the room and take down the weapons. Use your stealth to avoid missiles shot before youtake down the enemy weapons. you can now take your sweet time just dont forget to take enemy engine down or they might warp away with your crew

SushaBrancaleone wrote:i didn't read all of it

but for example upgrading your pilot bay does increase your dodge significantly (when your pilot is away) which is usefull when they dmg your hull or its on fire or you have to use your pilot elsewhere.

In my experience, early game when you don't have a lot of engines the dodge is negligible- you might get 2-5 dodge from your upgrade. Or you could just buy an engine upgrade which would give you five dodge all the time. Late game it's easy enough to protect your pilot and not move him elsewhere, but you can spend cash on it if you really want to.

If you have invested in engines its a good idea to put a point in it to have some dodge when engines are down.

When engines are down you get 0 dodge regardless of pilot upgrades.

also having level 3 sensors lets you know the enemy timer for stealth and repairs. its good to know what to target etc.

I guess. I personally just mentally time it, or shoot lots at the weapons.

and about your strategy priorities, i dont agree.

Many prefer to hit engines first, but i stick to weapons, both with boarding ships and ranged ships as it reduces a lot the dmg you recieve and allows you to spend scrap on upgrades instead of repairs. thats why thee crystal shipo b is so powerfull. teleport your crew to the enemy room, use the crystal men special ability to lock enemy crew outside the room and take down the weapons. Use your stealth to avoid missiles shot before youtake down the enemy weapons. you can now take your sweet time just dont forget to take enemy engine down or they might warp away with your crew

Your strategy is high risk as you note. If you teleport your crew onto their ship and target weapons and then are unable to get your crew out you lose your crew. I prefer low risk.

And indeed crystals are powerful. Though I prefer mantis. If there's three of any normal unit there (aka non rockman) you can teleport a pair into the pilot room and they can easily kill up to three crew. Ship dead, lots of scrap, you win.

Nepene wrote:I have played the game for 35 hours. I have extensive experience with a variety of ships and playstyles and I thought I would share my wisdom so anyone here who is having any trouble can better see how to deal with the insane complexity that is this game and win more. I can win 80% of the time after the first sector and deal with most issues effectively. You can too, crushing the helpless rebels and pirates under your unstoppable skills.

A wise man once said that winning isn't everything, but it's the only thing that matters.

Since at times the random number god hates you I have used all the weapons and used many configurations. Some are obviously superior to others.

There will be several sections covering all of the parts of the ship and then a section on how to deal with the various events, and finally some advice on beating the big boss. A lot of the advice is on how to judge items you get- a lot is vendor trash- and work out what stuff you can sell for more scrap. More scrap means better items and stronger systems.

Section 1. Weapons.
A Lasers
B Missiles
C Bombs
D Beams

Section 2. Systems and subsystems.

Section 3. Augmentations


Section 1. Weapons.

You will have a variety of weapons available to you. Sometimes you can chose the best ones, and some are nakedly superior, and sometimes you'll be forced to rely on suboptimal ones. How you use the weapons makes a massive impact on how successful you will be at the game. You can squander them ineffectively or blow ships up to hell.

Regardless of your weapon, you have several goals with all weapons. These are the goals, in rough order of priority, with the supporting goals of avoiding damaging and maximizing scrap. Pause at the start of each battle, especially when you're new at the game, and consider what you should be firing at.

1.Stop them escaping. Some ships will try to flee. Destroy their pilot system to stop that.

2. Knock out various systems, in order of importance-
Weapons, weaponized drones, Shields, Pilot, Cloak etc.

Their weapons do damage to you and should be the first priority to knock out. If they have a boarding drone or an anti ship drone they can seriously hurt you. I've lost more than once to those anti ship drones. If they have a beam weapon and they knock your shields out they can rip down multiple systems. Once their weapons are down you should take out their shields which protect them and then their pilot and cloak which let them evade your attacks.

The next three goals can be as important in different scenarios.

3. Kill enemy personal. People can repair ships and make systems more effective. If they die then the ship will be easier to kill. You also get more money if you kill the crew and leave the ship intact. This may require destroying medilabs which heal.

3. Render the ship inoperable. Hull breaches and fires stop people from being able to repair systems and slowly destroy the ship. Every second you get means more time to charge up your lasers.

3. Damage the enemy hull. Once you smash the enemy's hull they die. If you can't break their systems then smashing their hull may be your only option. If you see a chance to kill them take it. You get less scrap if you just kill them normally.

Onto weapons

A. Lasers.

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons

Fast weapons that impact on shields and drain them and damage the hull or systems. Only energy needed. Purpose- draining shields, damaging systems, destroying zoltan shields, causing hull breaches and fires.

The most important considerations when chosing these are damage, power, and cooldown. The best weapons, such as dual laser, do 2 damage for 1 power and have a short cooldown so you can beat down shields a lot- your damage per second is huge.

In terms of special effects, hull damage is rarely that important- normally you'll want to damage their weapons long before you break their hull. Dual lasers, crystal, and heavy lasers are very efficient weapons early game. Ion blast 2 is very fast and can lock down enemy ships. Lasers are very energy intensive though late game when enemies have strong shields to knock down, and some other weapons can be very helpful to knock out systems.

B. Missiles.

These bypass shields, but can be shot down by defense drones. They cost material to use and so a missile heavy build can be expensive. More missiles means less upgrades. Their goals are to knock out systems, cause hull breaches, and do damage.

There are two classes of these missiles- early game ones like Artemis (superior) and Leto and late game ones like Hermes (inferior), Pegasus and Breach which do more damage. Early game ones you can use to knock out weapons systems or especially tough shields, late game ones seriously damage a system and do massive hull damage. Breach is especially good, making a hole that will deny a room to the enemy. Normally one missile slot is enough due to their high expense. Often bombs are more effective though, as they have shorter cool downs.

When using these, always try to judge if you need a missile. Sometimes the enemy is weak enough that your other weapons will suffice.

C. Bombs

These bypass shields, can't be shot down, and can only be avoided by evasion. They use missile material and can be expensive to use. Their purpose is to do special effects like fire, ion, and heal, damage systems, and do a little hull damage.

Healing bomb is not useful.* Sell it and buy doors upgrade. When you're on your ship killing boarders isn't that hard. Run away to medibay, turn off O2, vent their atmosphere.

Small bomb.***** The best bomb, can disable systems quickly and easily.

Fire bomb.** Not that useful, if you haven't already smashed their ship to pieces they can normally put out the fire. Can be good against mantis with poor repair.

Ion bomb.*** You can use it to knock out shields or weapons at key moments to let your fire hit them. I haven't used it much.

Breach bomb.**** System denial weapon. It can be very useful, and takes a long time to repair. The enemy has to heal the breach before they can repair the weapons system.

D. Beams.

The most cost effective weapon needing only energy. Can't pierce shields, but do damage directly to the hull (or personal). Angle them carefully by putting the start of the beam in a corner of room and you can do a lot of damage. Always good to have one. Glaive is the best as you can easily do 10 damage with it due to it doing 2 damage, not 1 like most. To use these effectively you need to use a laser weapon to fully deplete the shield, pause as soon as it is depleted, and set the beam to slice the ship up. You can also use a bomb or missile to destroy the shield.

A good set up is at least two lasers, one beam, and anything else.

Section 2. Systems

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Systems

Shields. Blocks lasers, beams. 1 is good enough for the first 1-2 sectors, 2 past that, 3 for 5 and beyond. You don't need 4, 3 is enough to survive most attacks and cloak can defend you against more.

Engines. Gives you evasion. More is always good. Avoid blue options that let you flee battle mostly, almost always fight. You can train pilots and engine men up with it once you have cloak- find an enemy that is too weak to hurt you and cloak through every firing they do. The extra evasion will save you a lot of pain.

Weapons. You'll need full slots by the end to kill the boss. 3 is fine for most of the game, upgrade as you go.

Oxygen. Base is enough. Don't waste scrap. You can survive for a long time with o2 off if you need the power for something else. To kill boarders or prevent fire damage from suns normally turn oxygen off and vent as much as you can without compromising combat ability.

Medbay. Base is enough. You can upgrade it one level as it's useful in some scenarios but level 3 is unneeded. If you need to heal and time is an issue then you'll probably die anyway.

Drones. Sell most drones, keep level 1 defence drone (aka the ultimate most cost effective missile killer) and level 1 beam or anti ship. Both are incredibly useful. Nothing else is that important. Level 2 beam or anti ship or defence aren't that much better and need lots of energy. Crew can do repairs. Boarding drones aren't that good. Hull heal can be useful if you have lots of drones.

Teleporter. Very useful, increases your scrap rewards massively if you kill crews. Involved in lots of events. Get early. Only need level 1, but level 2 can be useful. Get this as early as possible.

Cloak. Increases your evade, stop enemy weapons charging. Use this just before the beams or missiles would hit you, thus making them waste a shot. You can then fully charge your weapons and blow them out of the water. Upgrade to level 3. Protects you from missiles.

Subsystems.

Pilot. Don't upgrade, the evasion you get is pathetic.

Sensors. Level 2 is good if you board a lot. Otherwise level 1 is fine. Level 3 is unnecessary, knowing how much energy the enemy has doesn't make your units kill it faster.

Doors. Level 2 is good if you don't have a strong mantis attack force. Level 3 is good if you are in mantis homeworlds. Level 1 if you have 6-8 units.

Section 3. Augmentations

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Augmentations

I'll list the augments in terms of how useful they are- amazingly useful, tier one, sometimes useful, tier two, anything else is tier three and should be sold for scrap unless you really want it. Tier three items are situational in their use and can easily be replaced by system upgrades or more crew.

Tier one.

Automated Reloader. Always useful, faster weapons fire.

Weapon Pre-Igniter. Always useful, have all weapons charged to damage the enemy.

Long-Range Scanners. Always useful, the extra information allows you to seek the kind of encounter you want. Low on hull? Avoid any enemies or asteroid events. Super cheap too.

Scrap Recovery Arm. Always useful, more scrap is good. You just have to get 250 scrap for it to break even.

Zoltan Shield. Incredibly useful against missiles and enemy weapons.

Tier two.

Stealth Weapons. Sometimes useful- it's good to be able to fire when cloaked but with weapons with long recharge times this expensive augmentation can sometimes be less effective.

Drone Recovery Arm. Sometimes useful. If you have a drone heavy build where you regularly use two drones a battle it's a good idea to get this.

Shield Charge Booster. Sometimes useful. If you have good shields and cloaks a faster recharge won't be as important as the enemy will normally either break your shields or fail at it.

Damaged Stasis Pod. Gets you a crystal crew member and eventually a crystal event. Normally not worthwhile unless you want the crystal ship.

To be continued.

You, sir, haven't got any understanding whatsoever about boarding techniques. A level 3 medbay and transporter allows for rapid deployment and redeployment of up to 8 (if you got crystal or mantis B layouts) powerful troopers to rapidly destroy the enemy. As for the stasis pod, if you can revive the crystal within, DO IT. Crystals are immensely useful for situations where you have a level 1 medbay and no oxygen, are boarding, or similar. In fact, Crystal B is easily the most overpowered ship in the game because it has a 4-slot transporter, even THREE crystals, and starts with both shields and cloaking. Just be careful not to run into Zoltan-shielded ships or auto-drones, those'll cost you a crewman if you don't have weapons. Also, about your reply to SushaBrancaleone, I will point out that if you can afford to do it, firing an opening volley into the enemy weapons lets you sabotage other sections using your crystals and some mantis. (2 crystal 2 mantis boarding party ftw!)

P.S. If you get a dual-mantis boarding party to supplement your starting crystals (Carnelian), use them. If beamed into a room, they will easily kill the occupant and deal 1-2 damage to the system (depending on target life) without having to use both lockdowns. And if you use both lockdowns, you'll deal about 3-5 damage.

yeah, lot's of errors here.
Glaive beam does 3 damage, not 2, like you wrote. Neither most of them do 1. Mini and Pike are the only 1-dmg beams. We all know Glaive is the best damage wise weapon, but you kinda forgot to mention it charges so long that the weapons fight is usually over by 25th second. And 4 power requirement means you'll have to sacrifice all your defense to get it running.

missiles vs bombs : it's bombs which has longer cooldown, not missiles.
see:
2 dmg: artemis 10s, small bomb 13s
3 dmg: breachII 17s, hermes 14s

The point of healing bombs it to support your fighters on board of enemy ship. (The problem is it can miss.) Upgrading doors on own ship does nothing to support your away team.

Fire bomb/beam is absolutely devastating when combined with rockmen boarding team.

Ion bomb - now THAT is a denial weapon. Ioned system can't be repaired, can't be depowered. No other bomb does 4 dmg. And it's personnel-friendly: can be fired on top of your boarders in enemy medbay.

You don't upgrade piloting to have autopilot. You upgrade it to make it still work after a hit.
Cloaking doesn't protect against anything. It's just +60 evasion. If you have destroyed piloting or engines, it still means almost half of the shoots will hit.

Teleporter lvl3 paired with medbay lvl3 give huge difference. You can deploy 2 boarding teams and rotate them, board AI ships, etc. For serious boarding, teleporter lvl2 is a first thing to do.

Sensors lvl 3 give you exact knowledge about power use. If enemy has powerful missiles, knowing if they have 2 or 3 power slots left makes a difference between wasting time focusing on their weapons and moving to the next target.

Hull repair drone is something you keep in your inventory, there is no reason why one should choose NOT to have one. Best used between boss phases, may save your life then. Depending on sector, using hull repair drone may be cheaper than repairing in shops and certainly is more dependable.

You'll almost never need fully upgraded weapons, and it always means you're sacrificing something else.

The point of Hermes, as the name suggests, is to be FAST. It's best DPS missile.

man, you should go back to the basics and read http://ftlwiki.com/wiki/Weapons thoroughly.
It seems that your evaluation of the weapons is based mostly on your subjective feelings about how they spawned in your games.

At top of that, you've titled your post "walkthrough", when it's not a walkthrough at all.

dalolorn wrote: You, sir, haven't got any understanding whatsoever about boarding techniques. A level 3 medbay and transporter allows for rapid deployment and redeployment of up to 8 (if you got crystal or mantis B layouts) powerful troopers to rapidly destroy the enemy.

I do understand boarding techniques. Get 4 mantis, a very common unit. In my experience they can normally kill an entire crew with no problems. The only time I had any issues was with the big boss. You can heal them easily enough with a level 1 healing bay and you don't tend to need to deploy and redeploy them. If you have a level 3 cloak you can generally kill the entire crew before they can fire a single shot.

[/quote] As for the stasis pod, if you can revive the crystal within, DO IT. Crystals are immensely useful for situations where you have a level 1 medbay and no oxygen, are boarding, or similar. In fact, Crystal B is easily the most overpowered ship in the game because it has a 4-slot transporter, even THREE crystals, and starts with both shields and cloaking. Just be careful not to run into Zoltan-shielded ships or auto-drones, those'll cost you a crewman if you don't have weapons. Also, about your reply to SushaBrancaleone, I will point out that if you can afford to do it, firing an opening volley into the enemy weapons lets you sabotage other sections using your crystals and some mantis. (2 crystal 2 mantis boarding party ftw!)[/quote]

My experience with the stasis pod is that the quest line is hard enough to get that the augment isn't worth keeping over some other augment. Crystal men are useful if you get them early with the ship as you can lock down rooms as you note but late gameish when you tend to finish the crystal quest your weapons tend to be strong enough to hit enemy med bays and stop healing so mantis are more useful. Doesn't matter much what weapons they have if they're dead.

Also if you can get crystal B you also probably don't need a walkthrough. It is an amazing ship of course, as is crystal A. Makes the game a lot easier.

yeah, lot's of errors here.
Glaive beam does 3 damage, not 2, like you wrote. Neither most of them do 1. Mini and Pike are the only 1-dmg beams. We all know Glaive is the best damage wise weapon, but you kinda forgot to mention it charges so long that the weapons fight is usually over by 25th second. And 4 power requirement means you'll have to sacrifice all your defense to get it running.

Ah, I mixed it up with the Halberd beam. I haven't seen a glaive on my ship for quite a while.

Hull beam is also a 1 damage weapon, except on systemless rooms. You generally try to hit as many systems as possible to disable them so they can't hurt you, so you see 1 damage a lot. I shall of course fix my errors.

missiles vs bombs : it's bombs which has longer cooldown, not missiles.
see:
2 dmg: artemis 10s, small bomb 13s
3 dmg: breachII 17s, hermes 14s

I agree, another error.

The point of healing bombs it to support your fighters on board of enemy ship. (The problem is it can miss.) Upgrading doors on own ship does nothing to support your away team.

Fire bomb/beam is absolutely devastating when combined with rockmen boarding team.

I suppose, I'll add that, although mantis render both things unnecessary. Their killing power is pretty high. And rockmen aren't that common a unit. If you are an experienced player you can devise more complex strategies certainly.

I agree with doors doing nothing to support your away team.

Ion bomb - now THAT is a denial weapon. Ioned system can't be repaired, can't be depowered. No other bomb does 4 dmg. And it's personnel-friendly: can be fired on top of your boarders in enemy medbay.

I tend to just shoot the personel anyway, but sure I'll add this. It's been my experience that ion isn't that effective. If you get hit badly and lose your weapons and need to do some quick repairs you can stop enemies repairing with teleported in crew. You can't stop ion damage going away.

You don't upgrade piloting to have autopilot. You upgrade it to make it still work after a hit.

That is an advantage, I'll add that.

Cloaking doesn't protect against anything. It's just +60 evasion. If you have destroyed piloting or engines, it still means almost half of the shoots will hit.

60+ evasion is protection. If you have reasonably strong weapons you can normally take out their weapons in the first volley or two while you still have pilots and engines.

Teleporter lvl3 paired with medbay lvl3 give huge difference. You can deploy 2 boarding teams and rotate them, board AI ships, etc. For serious boarding, teleporter lvl2 is a first thing to do.

When I am doing signifigant boarding I tend to have stronger units than the enemy, so the medbay is optional. It's useful for the boss perhaps.

AI ships don't tend to be that tough in terms of shielding, shooting them tends to work better. If you have to you can board them though that will be mid to late game (or with a special ship, again indicating your lack of need for a walkthrough) when you have enough scrap for a level 2 teleporter.

I agree, for serious boarding teleporter level 2 is important. Unless you have mantis, or are against mantis.

Sensors lvl 3 give you exact knowledge about power use. If enemy has powerful missiles, knowing if they have 2 or 3 power slots left makes a difference between wasting time focusing on their weapons and moving to the next target.

Under my strategy, you tend to keep firing at the weapons until they're down, so there is no moving on. I am providing a fairly newbie friendly tactic for winning the game. You may have other tactics. This one works quite well until you get a feel for when you should change it up.

Hull repair drone is something you keep in your inventory, there is no reason why one should choose NOT to have one. Best used between boss phases, may save your life then. Depending on sector, using hull repair drone may be cheaper than repairing in shops and certainly is more dependable.

I agree and said so.

"Hull heal can be useful if you have lots of drones."

At times when you don't have many drones you're normally using a drone heavy build so you cannot afford to use the hull repair. I guess it is reasonable to keep it and I did tend to when I had it, I shall add that, you are right.

The point of Hermes, as the name suggests, is to be FAST. It's best DPS missile.

I suppose if you had limitless missiles and couldn't use your cloak to recharge weapons that would be very useful. I understand how the weapons work and their stats for the most part- I make the odd error as you have. I just have my own subjective judgements on how useful they are to a new player.

At top of that, you've titled your post "walkthrough", when it's not a walkthrough at all.

I've covered the majority of the buying and selling decisions a person will make. That was the biggest hurdle for me early on, working out how to understand the many choices you could make with regards to equipment. And in time I shall cover other issues, of power management, the value of racial bonuses, and

Nepene wrote:

The point of healing bombs it to support your fighters on board of enemy ship. (The problem is it can miss.) Fire bomb/beam is absolutely devastating when combined with rockmen boarding team.

I suppose, I'll add that, although mantis render both things unnecessary. Their killing power is pretty high. And rockmen aren't that common a unit. If you are an experienced player you can devise more complex strategies certainly.

Teleporter lvl3 paired with medbay lvl3 give huge difference. You can deploy 2 boarding teams and rotate them, board AI ships, etc. For serious boarding, teleporter lvl2 is a first thing to do.

When I am doing signifigant boarding I tend to have stronger units than the enemy, so the medbay is optional. It's useful for the boss perhaps.

AI ships don't tend to be that tough in terms of shielding, shooting them tends to work better. If you have to you can board them though that will be mid to late game (or with a special ship, again indicating your lack of need for a walkthrough) when you have enough scrap for a level 2 teleporter.

I agree, for serious boarding teleporter level 2 is important. Unless you have mantis, or are against mantis.

Well, imho Rockmen aren't that much rarer than Mantii.
I can't agree with you about Mantii requiring less support. I believe the opposite is true, it's Rockmen who are "teleport and forget" with their 150 hlt and immunity to fire. Mantii are quite fragile if there's more than 1:1 enemies and imho they require far more support with healing bombs and fast teleporter.
About AI ships: Rockmen can survive tel1 recharge without oxygen, while 100hlt creatures cannot. AI ships are tricky, sometimes they come without any shields, but there are plenty of screenshots of Auto-Assault with 5 bubble (lvl10) shields.

Plus (if you can board it) an early AI ship is free combat xp for your troops. They get xp for every bar taken down and often they can disable the most dangerous weapon before first shot.

Sensors lvl 3 give you exact knowledge about power use. If enemy has powerful missiles, knowing if they have 2 or 3 power slots left makes a difference between wasting time focusing on their weapons and moving to the next target.

Under my strategy, you tend to keep firing at the weapons until they're down, so there is no moving on. I am providing a fairly newbie friendly tactic for winning the game. You may have other tactics. This one works quite well until you get a feel for when you should change it up.

My point exactly: With lvl3 you can see how far from "full" to "down" they are exactly. So if the number of bars left is small, you can divide a volley, because even part of it will still bring weapons to 0. Taking medbay and weapons at once beats taking just weapons AND you have to keep in mind to keep hull of the enemy alive to protect your away team.
The other important factor is the "under repair" bar. This bar is NOT affected by hits. So when they have 0 active bars, and one being repaired at 90%, your hit will do just hull dmg. But if you wait 3 seconds so they can finish repairs and THEN fire, you'll bring it back to 0.

Hull repair drone is something you keep in your inventory, there is no reason why one should choose NOT to have one. Best used between boss phases, may save your life then. Depending on sector, using hull repair drone may be cheaper than repairing in shops and certainly is more dependable.

I agree and said so.

"Hull heal can be useful if you have lots of drones."

At times when you don't have many drones you're normally using a drone heavy build so you cannot afford to use the hull repair. I guess it is reasonable to keep it and I did tend to when I had it, I shall add that, you are right.

Just look at the scrap: repair in later sectors cost 3 scrap per 1 dmg. A drone part costs flat 8 scrap. Hull drone repairs from 3 to 5 dmg - that's worth 9 to 15 scrap for just 8. When you're at store it's cheaper to buy drone parts instead of repairs. (with 2 scrap per dmg, one drone makes repairs worth 6-10 of scrap, so on average it's not cheaper but not more expensive either). OFC, buying the drone for 100 scrap is not economical but it often comes for free.
Added advantage is that you can safely fly with partially damaged hull to take fullest advantage of free repair events. This further aids your budget.

Well, how many drones you have, that's different issue. It's quite easy to maximize drone parts income, if you're playing drone-heavy build. (eg. often taking surrender options, which are not that good for scrap).
But I think "if you have lots of drones" is an oversimplification. No drones are good without DPs, same goes to missiles and pretty much everything.

At top of that, you've titled your post "walkthrough", when it's not a walkthrough at all.

I've covered the majority of the buying and selling decisions a person will make. That was the biggest hurdle for me early on, working out how to understand the many choices you could make with regards to equipment. And in time I shall cover other issues, of power management, the value of racial bonuses, and

Well, a "walkthrough" is like turn-by-turn navigation: "Stop here, do this, go there". You're evaluating things saying "this is good, that is not so". That's valuable help for making choices, but still not a "walkthrough".
(But I believe that walkthrough of FTL is not really possible)

u can find everything u need to know about boarding in the 2 following threads:


Were in your base, MESSIN IT UP (a Boarding Guide) [spoiler]
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2376


Repel and Sieze (A Boarding Guide)
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2448

Agent_L wrote: Well, imho Rockmen aren't that much rarer than Mantii.

It's been my experience that you rarely see rockmen sectors till late game, rarely get them free, and they are more expensive to buy than mantis (65-45). For a newbie the expense to buy 3 or 4 rockmen will be hard to bear for the first few sectors.

I can't agree with you about Mantii requiring less support. I believe the opposite is true, it's Rockmen who are "teleport and forget" with their 150 hlt and immunity to fire. Mantii are quite fragile if there's more than 1:1 enemies and imho they require far more support with healing bombs and fast teleporter.

Rockmen have 150 health, mantis have 100, mantis do 2* the damage.

If one rockman fights one human they'll on average end up with 50 health, likewise 1 mantis versus one human. As a mantis levels up its double damage will increase more so it'll have more health at the end of a battle than a simiarly levelled rockman. As you said, in the event of a fire rockmen will be more survivable. Mantis kill enemies faster so your ship takes less damage from weapons fire.

However, a mantis' speed is a signifigant advantage. You can easily dodge them in and out of rooms to protect them if they are low health and you haven't been able to upgrade your teleporter or it's knocked out. You can also easily duck them out of a room, let a weapon hit, and send them back in to finish off the weapened enemy.

In summary, a mantis has more chances to be survivable than a rockman. Fires are a rareish event, your troops being heavily damaged is not a rare event. Even fires aren't that bad for you though as their troops take as much damage as yours.

About AI ships: Rockmen can survive tel1 recharge without oxygen, while 100hlt creatures cannot. AI ships are tricky, sometimes they come without any shields, but there are plenty of screenshots of Auto-Assault with 5 bubble (lvl10) shields.

I shall add that, that rockmen can survive tel1 without oxygen.

Plus (if you can board it) an early AI ship is free combat xp for your troops. They get xp for every bar taken down and often they can disable the most dangerous weapon before first shot.

Eh, i wouldn't recommend it for a newbie. I've done it but sometimes they get a missile hit on your teleporter and you lose your troops.

My point exactly: With lvl3 you can see how far from "full" to "down" they are exactly. So if the number of bars left is small, you can divide a volley, because even part of it will still bring weapons to 0. Taking medbay and weapons at once beats taking just weapons AND you have to keep in mind to keep hull of the enemy alive to protect your away team.

You can divide it, but they often have enough evasion to evade. I've divided before and failed to take out weapons and got hit badly. It's not a newbie friendly strategy.

The other important factor is the "under repair" bar. This bar is NOT affected by hits. So when they have 0 active bars, and one being repaired at 90%, your hit will do just hull dmg. But if you wait 3 seconds so they can finish repairs and THEN fire, you'll bring it back to 0.

Late game an enemy who has 1 weapons bar isn't that intimidating. I suppose there is some mild advantage to the sensors, but you could easily just shoot the weapons again when it repairs.

Just look at the scrap: repair in later sectors cost 3 scrap per 1 dmg. A drone part costs flat 8 scrap. Hull drone repairs from 3 to 5 dmg - that's worth 9 to 15 scrap for just 8. When you're at store it's cheaper to buy drone parts instead of repairs. (with 2 scrap per dmg, one drone makes repairs worth 6-10 of scrap, so on average it's not cheaper but not more expensive either). OFC, buying the drone for 100 scrap is not economical but it often comes for free.
Added advantage is that you can safely fly with partially damaged hull to take fullest advantage of free repair events. This further aids your budget.

Well, how many drones you have, that's different issue. It's quite easy to maximize drone parts income, if you're playing drone-heavy build. (eg. often taking surrender options, which are not that good for scrap).
But I think "if you have lots of drones" is an oversimplification. No drones are good without DPs, same goes to missiles and pretty much everything.

I agree, and you are right. I was oversimplifying when I said to sell all other drones, and it was poor strategy which neither I nor you actually used due to the many advantages. Well, a "walkthrough" is like turn-by-turn navigation: "Stop here, do this, go there". You're evaluating things saying "this is good, that is not so". That's valuable help for making choices, but still not a "walkthrough".
(But I believe that walkthrough of FTL is not really possible)

A walkthrough is a thorough explanation of all the steps you take in any task. Some involve turn by turn navigation, many do not as it is not needed. I am giving step by step instructions for certain tasks- if you have to chose between a weapon pre-ignitor and a ftl recharge augment one option is better for example.

Nepene wrote:

dalolorn wrote: You, sir, haven't got any understanding whatsoever about boarding techniques. A level 3 medbay and transporter allows for rapid deployment and redeployment of up to 8 (if you got crystal or mantis B layouts) powerful troopers to rapidly destroy the enemy.

I do understand boarding techniques. Get 4 mantis, a very common unit. In my experience they can normally kill an entire crew with no problems. The only time I had any issues was with the big boss. You can heal them easily enough with a level 1 healing bay and you don't tend to need to deploy and redeploy them. If you have a level 3 cloak you can generally kill the entire crew before they can fire a single shot.

As for the stasis pod, if you can revive the crystal within, DO IT. Crystals are immensely useful for situations where you have a level 1 medbay and no oxygen, are boarding, or similar. In fact, Crystal B is easily the most overpowered ship in the game because it has a 4-slot transporter, even THREE crystals, and starts with both shields and cloaking. Just be careful not to run into Zoltan-shielded ships or auto-drones, those'll cost you a crewman if you don't have weapons. Also, about your reply to SushaBrancaleone, I will point out that if you can afford to do it, firing an opening volley into the enemy weapons lets you sabotage other sections using your crystals and some mantis. (2 crystal 2 mantis boarding party ftw!)

My experience with the stasis pod is that the quest line is hard enough to get that the augment isn't worth keeping over some other augment. Crystal men are useful if you get them early with the ship as you can lock down rooms as you note but late gameish when you tend to finish the crystal quest your weapons tend to be strong enough to hit enemy med bays and stop healing so mantis are more useful. Doesn't matter much what weapons they have if they're dead.

Also if you can get crystal B you also probably don't need a walkthrough. It is an amazing ship of course, as is crystal A. Makes the game a lot easier.

The unit I mentioned in the second part of my post (which you failed to properly quote xD) isn't as common, but is much more effective. Trust me, I know boarding inside out. Also, you're somewhat mistaken in believing that a player WILL have weapons by then. My last run with the Carnelian didn't have weapons for quite a while, and even once it did, I preferred boarding them. Furthermore, soft, squishy ships will be very difficult to use your firepower on safely, giving yet another bonus to the crystal lockdowns. (the basic one being the ability to take a LOT less damage to your boarders)

Also, during the boss fight you WILL have to deploy/redeploy, and if the enemy crew is composed of large quantities of Mantis you will also want to do it (or use the various rearrangement techniques detailed in other threads), and a level 3 medbay/teleporter combination is crucial for any self-respecting boarder.

And as for the Crystal ships, one can just as easily get a hacked profile, be VERY lucky (like I was, I already gave up all hope of finding that beauty to complete my collection, though I -was- actually referring to getting it by chance in his first playthroughs), or mod the game to give the ship for just STARTING. Tried the last one, failed due to not having ftldat.