New game 'Faster than light'

[QuantumPion]

I liked this game for about 4 hours. After the 10th or so loss on easy against the end boss I gave up. I understand that rogue-like games are supposed to have an element of luck. But with this game, once you get the basic strategy down, it is purely a roulette spin's chance whether you win or lose. If the boss takes out your shields or oxygen on the first shot, it's game over.

I think the way a rogue-like game should work is if you play 100% perfectly, than you should have an ~80% chance of success. With this game, it feels like even if you play 100% perfectly, you still only have a ~10% chance of winning by pure luck.

 

[Karsten]

I liked this game for about 4 hours. After the 10th or so loss on easy against the end boss I gave up. I understand that rogue-like games are supposed to have an element of luck. But with this game, once you get the basic strategy down, it is purely a roulette spin's chance whether you win or lose. If the boss takes out your shields or oxygen on the first shot, it's game over.

I think the way a rogue-like game should work is if you play 100% perfectly, than you should have an ~80% chance of success. With this game, it feels like even if you play 100% perfectly, you still only have a ~10% chance of winning by pure luck.

I don't think you have the game quite figured out. IF you make it to the Boss it is far from a luck thing. You should have 3 if not 4 shields at the least! On top of that either drones to help with shooting down missiles or cloaking. I have made it to the Boss a couple times and hardly ever fail. If you watch the video I just posted you see that I lost simple.
Simple tip if you do have cloak, don't use it right as you start the fight. You should have enough shields to hold during the first shoot of the Mothership. Wait till he fires his missiles and cloak right then. The odds of taking a missile when cloaked is next to zero. By then you should have his shields down to do some damage. Focus on his missiles then the lasers.

One thing I like to have (you see in the video) is the use of the transporter. Sending two people over directly into his missile bay means you should be able to take it out before his 3rd shoot.

Using upgraded Airlocks, lack of oxygen for fire and enemy control makes a big difference. Fight fire with lack of air during a fight as much as you can.

Above all, make use of the pause button often to plan your moves!

 

[QuantumPion]

I don't think you have the game quite figured out. IF you make it to the Boss it is far from a luck thing. You should have 3 if not 4 shields at the least! On top of that either drones to help with shooting down missiles or cloaking. I have made it to the Boss a couple times and hardly ever fail. If you watch the video I just posted you see that I lost simple.
Simple tip if you do have cloak, don't use it right as you start the fight. You should have enough shields to hold during the first shoot of the Mothership. Wait till he fires his missiles and cloak right then. The odds of taking a missile when cloaked is next to zero. By then you should have his shields down to do some damage. Focus on his missiles then the lasers.

One thing I like to have (you see in the video) is the use of the transporter. Sending two people over directly into his missile bay means you should be able to take it out before his 3rd shoot.

Using upgraded Airlocks, lack of oxygen for fire and enemy control makes a big difference. Fight fire with lack of air during a fight as much as you can.

Above all, make use of the pause button often to plan your moves!

I've made it to the last boss with full upgrades and crew 4 times and still lost, on easy. By full upgrades I mean every possibly upgrade (limited by max reactor power), full array of weapons, maximum crew all with maximum skill, etc. Of those 4 attempts I once made it to phase 3, twice to phase 2, and once died on phase 1. What happens is he manages to either take out my shields, weapons, or oxygen by the second volley. From then on I am just playing catch-up on repairs and its only a matter of time before I run out of hull. Yes I have used boarders with 2 max-level mantis guys, that is the strategy I try to use to get enough scrap throughout the campaign to get all the upgrades.

 

[Daverino]

I discovered a new strategy last night which I call 'walking the dog.'

Upgrade your shields immediately to level 2, you don't even need the energy to power them right away. The early encounters will have plenty of ships that only have two single shot lasers and now missiles. When you hit one of those ships, power down your weapons, power up your second shield level. Now here's the critical part: go walk your dog. If you don't have a dog available, try watching TV, making dinner, or reading a book on the john. Once you're finished, you come back to FTL and you will find that your shield operator, pilot and engineer are all maxed out. Every time you dodge, your engineer and pilot get an experience point. Every time your shields go up to max your shield operator gets one point. Letting the enemy ship futilely attack for about 15 minutes is all that's needed to max out your crew. If they have an attack drone, that's even better because it's weak and fires really fast, so more exp in less time.

Just make sure they don't have missiles

 

[acheron]

Still haven't made it to the boss on normal, but beat him several times on easy: once I figured out a strategy it basically worked every time, to the point I was a little disappointed.

Though it reminds me of Nethack in that way: there's luck, skill, and knowledge needed in the early- and mid-game, but once you're prepared and know what you are doing, you can waltz through the end-game unless you run into extremely bad luck or you royally screw up.

Anyway I switched to playing on normal difficulty, and I think I've made it to sector 7 once; mostly I can't even get past, say, 5.

 

[acheron]

I discovered a new strategy last night which I call 'walking the dog.'

Upgrade your shields immediately to level 2, you don't even need the energy to power them right away. The early encounters will have plenty of ships that only have two single shot lasers and now missiles. When you hit one of those ships, power down your weapons, power up your second shield level. Now here's the critical part: go walk your dog. If you don't have a dog available, try watching TV, making dinner, or reading a book on the john. Once you're finished, you come back to FTL and you will find that your shield operator, pilot and engineer are all maxed out. Every time you dodge, your engineer and pilot get an experience point. Every time your shields go up to max your shield operator gets one point. Letting the enemy ship futilely attack for about 15 minutes is all that's needed to max out your crew. If they have an attack drone, that's even better because it's weak and fires really fast, so more exp in less time.

Just make sure they don't have missile

LOL. Get an ion cannon and set it to auto-fire and you'll upgrade your weapon guy too.

 

[Daverino]

LOL. Get an ion cannon and set it to auto-fire and you'll upgrade your weapon guy too.

Y'know, and I thought about that too?

 

[BladeVenom]

I liked this game for about 4 hours. After the 10th or so loss on easy against the end boss I gave up. I understand that rogue-like games are supposed to have an element of luck. But with this game, once you get the basic strategy down, it is purely a roulette spin's chance whether you win or lose. If the boss takes out your shields or oxygen on the first shot, it's game over.

I think the way a rogue-like game should work is if you play 100% perfectly, than you should have an ~80% chance of success. With this game, it feels like even if you play 100% perfectly, you still only have a ~10% chance of winning by pure luck.

I agree, but I don't think you are playing perfectly.

Did you do 10 games in 4 hours? Slow down the pace to be more careful. Timing volleys, power management, and keeping track of systems and crew has me pausing the game often.

What's the first thing you do when you run into the boss ship? I send a boarding party to take out his missile launcher, a pair of Mantis are nice. Another party takes out his ion weapons next. His weapons are separate from the rest of the ship making taking them out with boarders easy. Once both of them are down, the boss isn't much of a threat in stage one. Take out the Beams next, and that just leave him firing three lasers, no problem if you have at least 3 shields. Now leave that one guy on lasers alive. The weapons left to right are Ion, Laser, Missile, Beam.

Now that you have taken out 3 out of 4 of his weapons and the crewmen manning 3 of them, time to work on the rest of the crew. If you kill everyone but the one guy in the laser, stage 2 and 3 will go easier. You need a weapon that is good at creating fires or breaches, a bio beam might also work, or a healing bomb for your boarders to take them out. Fire bombs and Rockmen are a good combination. Make sure his med bay is down. Damage gets fixed, but dead crew members are gone for good. Leave that one guy at the laser to keep the ship from going automated. A hull repair drone is nice to have in storage if you don't regularly use one, to fix damage between stages.

Stage 2 With no one in the main body of the ship, and 3 out of the 4 weapons unmanned, your boarders will have an easy time of it now. He uses a defense drone, so if you have a single missile launcher it will be almost useless. Either have several or don't use any at this stage. So it's useful to have an extra weapon in storage. Also you don't want to use fully energized stealth in stage 2, it will last too long, and a second power surge will happen before your stealth is recharged. Don't use it too soon; timing is important. You can even get by with one unit in stealth. Save it till your shields are down, and then go stealth before you take any damage; a benefit is that by only using a single charge in stealth is that it will be recharged faster, and almost always ready for a second wave.

Stage 3, he sends over all his crew to board you. If you killed off all his crewmen but one guy in stage one, that part will go easy. Power surges are shorter so you only need one unit of stealth, just wait till you actually see it coming to hit stealth mode.

Simple tip if you do have cloak, don't use it right as you start the fight. You should have enough shields to hold during the first shoot of the Mothership. Wait till he fires his missiles and cloak right then. The odds of taking a missile when cloaked is next to zero. By then you should have his shields down to do some damage. Focus on his missiles then the lasers.

Also as soon as shields are damaged or frozen with an Ion attack, move that extra energy to engines for better dodge. And back again when they are fixed.

 

[QuantumPion]

I agree, but I don't think you are playing perfectly.

Did you do 10 games in 4 hours? Slow down the pace to be more careful. Timing volleys, power management, and keeping track of systems and crew has me pausing the game often.

What's the first thing you do when you run into the boss ship? I send a boarding party to take out his missile launcher, a pair of Mantis are nice. Another party takes out his ion weapons next. His weapons are separate from the rest of the ship making taking them out with boarders easy. Once both of them are down, the boss isn't much of a threat in stage one. Take out the Beams next, and that just leave him firing three lasers, no problem if you have at least 3 shields. Now leave that one guy on lasers alive. The weapons left to right are Ion, Laser, Missile, Beam.

Now that you have taken out 3 out of 4 of his weapons and the crewmen manning 3 of them, time to work on the rest of the crew. If you kill everyone but the one guy in the laser, stage 2 and 3 will go easier. You need a weapon that is good at creating fires or breaches, a bio beam might also work, or a healing bomb for your boarders to take them out. Fire bombs and Rockmen are a good combination. Make sure his med bay is down. Damage gets fixed, but dead crew members are gone for good. Leave that one guy at the laser to keep the ship from going automated. A hull repair drone is nice to have in storage if you don't regularly use one, to fix damage between stages.

Stage 2 With no one in the main body of the ship, and 3 out of the 4 weapons unmanned, your boarders will have an easy time of it now. He uses a defense drone, so if you have a single missile launcher it will be almost useless. Either have several or don't use any at this stage. So it's useful to have an extra weapon in storage. Also you don't want to use fully energized stealth in stage 2, it will last too long, and a second power surge will happen before your steal is recharged. Don't use it too soon; timing is important. You can even get by with one unit in stealth. Save it till your shields are down, and then go stealth before you take any damage; a benefit is that by only using a single charge in stealth is that it will be recharged faster, and almost always ready for a second wave.

Stage 3, he sends over all his crew to board you. If you killed off all his crewmen but one guy in stage one, that part will go easy. Power surges are shorter so you only need one unit of stealth, just wait till you actually see it coming to hit stealth mode.




Also as soon as shields are damaged or frozen with an Ion attack, move that extra energy to engines for better dodge. And back again when they are fixed.

By playing perfectly I meant acquired enough scrap to buy all upgrades and having a fully upgraded crew with good selection of weapons, up to the final boss. I will try your strategy next time though, thanks.

 

[Daverino]

Finally beat the game with the Kestrel I last night on normal (never tried easy). Here was my final ship:

8 shields (4 layers)
6 engines
6 weapons
1 everything else

Weapons
Burst Laser Mk 2
Burst Laser Mk 3

Augments
Scrap recovery arm
Weapons Pre-igniter <- Key to victory
Teleporter

Long short of it was I didn't realize how awesome the Weapons Pre-igniter was until this run through. I got it as random loot in the first sector. I'd always see it in the shop for 120 scrap but it seemed too expensive. How wrong I was. With the setup I had, I could fire eight shots immediately in combat. That was always enough to take down the shields and weapons of any enemy. I used the teleporter early in the game before I got the weapons energy needed to run 6 bars. The first time I got the setup running, I accidentally killed my boarding party because I did so much damage so quickly. Oops.

Earlier runs had mostly focused on boarding parties, skipping drones or stealth. And while boarding is great and gets you tons of scrap, it means that your battles last longer. And if you cannot neutralize enemy missiles, you'll take some damage. I found that eventually I would run into a ship that rolled some catastrophic damage to a key component before my boarding crew could win the day. That was usually the prelude to defeat. My lesson was that the teleporter is great early on, but disabling and killing quickly is key later on. If my weapons had to focus on the enemy med-bay to support boarders and I wasn't able to neutralize that four damage missile launcher on the enemy ship, eventually I would meet with disaster.

Now I'm onto The Torus!

 

[lupi]

on sale for $6.

http://www.ftlgame.com/

 

[BladeVenom]

Definitely worth $6 for anyone who hasn't played it yet.

 

[Chaotic42]

Yeah, this game is absolutely worth getting. Pick it up.

 

[microAmp]

on sale for $6.

http://www.ftlgame.com/

Mucho thanks. Nice to be able to use Amazon Payments.

 

[you2]

Kind of wished it worked on andriod tablets.... it is more fun than I expected.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

So I just beat the game on easy. Reading this thread I was expecting it to be really hard even on easy, but I just kind of roflstomped it. Haha, I wasn't sure if killing it the third time would trigger "phase 2" or if was the end : p

I was in the Red Tail with burst laser III, heavy laser I, basic laser I, and breach bombs II, boarding drones and hull repair drones. I never even used the hull repairs and only tossed a couple of boarding drones. I had two mantis that I teleported into their missile rooms each time, but didn't really utilize them otherwise.

 

[Kelvrick]

I think normal is a lot harder than easy.

The "average" fight is cake. Its those random ones before you're fully established that just spiral out of control before the end game. Warp in too close to a sun with an enemy who warps guys over and if you don't have a full crew and some upgrades like invisibility or defense drones, his missiles just tear you apart. Normal seems to have a lot more of these for me.

Even when you're playing well, pulling guys out of fights to go get healed, one of their missiles/weapons hits the room and takes out 2 of your upgraded guys. The random spawns of stores and events will kick you in the face too. I went through 4 galaxies (phases?) without picking up a single additional crew member somehow. No way can you make it at the end with less then a good crew. Now if you're lucky, (like one of my play throughs) I got 3 of the energy guys, 1 of the engi (repair guys), 2 crystal guys and 2 manti? I was roflstomping everything.

Just frustrating as hell and it brings me back to the days of nintendo. Addicted to being frustrated.

 

[SMOGZINN]

So I just beat the game on easy. Reading this thread I was expecting it to be really hard even on easy, but I just kind of roflstomped it.

Games like this have a ton of luck involved. Play it again and you might get destroyed right away.

 

[Ferzerp]

@#$% this %##@@$ of a game!

 

[dud]

@#$% this %##@@$ of a game!

Whatever this means.

I tried the game for an hour and deleted it. To each his own ...