In the non-AE version, are there any offensive drones worth a damn against the Flagship, or should I stick with the defensive ones and hope I find a decent breach missile/bomb?
The combat drone and combat 2 drone are excellent. Boarding drone is pretty good it punches breaches and tends to keep a lot of the crew occupied as you do other stuff. If you are pretty sure you can keep the shields down on it the beam drone does TONS of damage if the shields are down. Those are all the basic non AE edition ones. For AE there are some upgrades of those. For drone boats I like running defense 1 and combat 1 or 2 as multiple defense drones tend to like shooting at the same target which makes multiples not as effective as one would hope.
Okay apparently I've been using the Charge Ion weapon wrong. It's seems a lot better to let it autofire instead of building up shots. 6 second cool down is really fast and it may be enough to shut down shields?
Basically the only reason to charge them is if the target has a lot of shields. It helps to do the initial shield supression and then after that just let it ripple fire as their fast recharge speed will keep shields squelched effectively. One weird thing about them which may be a bug is sometimes if you say have a shield with three shields and you charge up three ion charges and then shoot all three list as hitting but you wind up only taking down one or two shields sometimes. It seems like if two ions hit to close to each other when hitting shields one sort of gets ignored. This really makes the charge up capabilities less useful than they otherwise would be. It is still nice to cut an extra shield or so down but after the initial burst just go with auto fire.
0
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
Okay apparently I've been using the Charge Ion weapon wrong. It's seems a lot better to let it autofire instead of building up shots. 6 second cool down is really fast and it may be enough to shut down shields?
Basically the only reason to charge them is if the target has a lot of shields. It helps to do the initial shield supression and then after that just let it ripple fire as their fast recharge speed will keep shields squelched effectively. One weird thing about them which may be a bug is sometimes if you say have a shield with three shields and you charge up three ion charges and then shoot all three list as hitting but you wind up only taking down one or two shields sometimes. It seems like if two ions hit to close to each other when hitting shields one sort of gets ignored. This really makes the charge up capabilities less useful than they otherwise would be. It is still nice to cut an extra shield or so down but after the initial burst just go with auto fire.
What's likely happening is that each ion hit is doing 1 point of ion damage to the shields. Since each shield layer actually has 2 power bars, it takes 2 shots of a lvl1 ion weapon to fully take down the first shield layer, and the 3rd shot will hit the second shield layer.
Ah well. Last night I unlocked Slug B.. Time to figure this beast out.
Predictably, the Slugs only give their worst ships to the Federation war effort.
The plus side with the addition of things like reconstructive teleporters and clone bays you have a much greater chance to make that damn slug B ship work than you could in the pre AE version.
Reconstructive teleport is awesome. Reached the flagship with Mantis B feeling totally cocky. Of course hacking targeted my teleporter. It actually teleports boarders back to your ship. I thought I was fucked but reconstructive teleport made it that my boarders kept coming back fresh every time. My defenses were good so phase I was an insane merry go around of hacked boarding. My boarders kept coming back with fresh HP as the enemy crew struggled cycling through their med bay. Eventually I was able to damage cloaking and hacking and went to town. The rest of the flagship was cakewalk after that.
Think I finally got a handle on flying an Engi A. Made it to Sector 5, full crew, 2 Mantis boarding party, 3 shields, and enough power to run everything. May the gaming gods continue to smile upon me.
I saw a werewolf drinkin' a pina colada at Trader Vic's.
And his hair was perfect.
Doing a run with a recently unlocked Mantis B ship with Charge Ion, I may do that. I had a hard time with Mantis A but with B I got lucky and got more Mantis early.
I decided to finally try out a normal run, now that I feel pretty comfortable winning regularly in easy. Going with my Slug A, which is my go to.
Run goes really well. End up with a Flak 1, Flak 2, basic laser and ion bomb, with two automated reloaders and a shield recharger. Also have a defense drone 1 and 2(though only 3 shields, couldn't afford fourth level).
End up in sector 8, one jump before the boss battle(which I felt pretty ready for).
A god damned automated scout. With two combat drones, a burst laser 2, burst laser 3, and a hull laser. And of course four levels of shields and super evasion. Thing took me 100 - 0.
Well, That's FTL, baby. I just failed a run on Stage I of the boss. Lanius A, 4 shields, Chain Laser, Ion Stunner and two Flak Is... the stunner and flak guns all have the same cooldown AND I had two automated reloaders. Also cloak and Defense I. Only problem was that I only had two crew... but I was compensating with a System Repair drone. Boss should've been cake.
Nope. His first missile volley hits through my cloak, takes out my cloning bay. My gunner, injured from a previous fight, gets hit with a stray laser and dies before the drone can fix the cloner. A ton of my flak misses, failing to take out the flagship's rocket launcher in time. Game over.
The worst thing? I was trying to get the low-oxygen achievement, but had forgotten to vent my air before the first jump. My entire goal for that game was to just get to sector 8 and unlock Lanius B. But... I screwed that up and the RNG wasn't kind, preventing me from salvaging the run with a flagship victory. Happens to the best of us.
0
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
AHHAHAHAHAHAH
Stealth B win! Pics soon of some pivotal moments.
The REWARD: Stealth C
It's got no shields like the B
and no fucking cloak either? !?!?!
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
I have the dual laser and the ion stunner I started with. And the only other weapon I've seen the entire run, a crystal lockdown bomb I found when I killed someone. I have three power in my weapon systems.
decided to try and unlock rock b finally, was playing on easy because rock a is the worst. had 30+ missiles and the explosive replicator for most of the game, 4 missile launchers, and just needed to find a ship with a defense drone. never did until the flagship, and the flagship ended up running me out of missiles with 2 hp before i killed the 2nd phase.
I have the dual laser and the ion stunner I started with. And the only other weapon I've seen the entire run, a crystal lockdown bomb I found when I killed someone. I have three power in my weapon systems.
Worst equipt boss run ever.
Gonna give it a shot...
I lied. I bought a flak I a few jumps before the boss. Still only 3 power in guns.
I have the dual laser and the ion stunner I started with. And the only other weapon I've seen the entire run, a crystal lockdown bomb I found when I killed someone. I have three power in my weapon systems.
Worst equipt boss run ever.
Gonna give it a shot...
I lied. I bought a flak I a few jumps before the boss. Still only 3 power in guns.
Took 1 damage in the first round.
2 in the second round.
Died in the third round before I could knock out their overshields.
Bleh, found the stasis pod and repaired it, but no rock homeworld. Bright side, he was a key member of the crew and helped me be able to beat the flagship and unlock the zoltan cruiser.
Engi A has the best pre-AE gun in the game. I'm confused.
Hehe yes the engi A is one of the best pre AE ships that is not one of the super boarding monsters. It has a good drone controller and good weapon set and starts with one of the nicest weapons pre AE. That fast ion gun is amazing for punching through shields and crippling systems. Basically all engi A needs to shine is a drone retrevial arm. Once you get that you can start being super agressive with offensive and defensive drones it becomes a powerhouse.
Engi A has the best pre-AE gun in the game. I'm confused.
Hehe yes the engi A is one of the best pre AE ships that is not one of the super boarding monsters. It has a good drone controller and good weapon set and starts with one of the nicest weapons pre AE. That fast ion gun is amazing for punching through shields and crippling systems. Basically all engi A needs to shine is a drone retrevial arm. Once you get that you can start being super agressive with offensive and defensive drones it becomes a powerhouse.
Amusingly I ran into a store with a drone recovery arm in my second jump on my current run.
I didn't have the scrap to buy it.
Tears fell excessively.
HAHA yes welcome to the booby prize. Honestly after playing it for a bit you can make the ship work if you can survive the first sector or two. Basically you need to immediately launch the shield drone and you need to have your engine at 3 or 4 bars powered with a pilot and somebody manning the engine. If you do that your dodge chances are high enough you will actually build up charges of the super shield which also blocks teleporters/mind control/hacking attempts.
So while it is probably one of the hardest ships to get rolling it actually seems to be less painful than I was expecting it to be. Thank god it has the drone defense thing because drone boats are the bane of this ships existence early on.
Doing a run with a recently unlocked Mantis B ship with Charge Ion, I may do that. I had a hard time with Mantis A but with B I got lucky and got more Mantis early.
4-man boarding just makes the enemy crew AI flip. It seems to draw their attention away from everything, it's such a delight to see the pilot rush off to fight your boarders so your weapons have a better chance to shut down their weapons. The only thing that seems to pull them away from your boarders is if a critical system is completely damaged and on fire.
After doing like, a million runs with the Rock A to try to get the Crystal ship, I finally unlocked the Rock B. Made it to the flagship with the Rock B to unlock the Rock C. I'm VERY happy to hear that the Rock C has a crystal crewmember, and that the portal is always present in the Rock Homeworlds.
Sounds like it's time to do a million runs with the Rock C!
Holy crap, Zoltan cruiser is a beast. I stomped my way through the entire game, only to get annihilated by the flagship. Need to think up a viable strategy for it, but this ship is amazing.
0
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Holy crap, Zoltan cruiser is a beast. I stomped my way through the entire game, only to get annihilated by the flagship. Need to think up a viable strategy for it, but this ship is amazing.
Too bad it's B layout is one of the only ships I've not managed to get a normal victory with.
I've even won with the Stealth B, for context.
It's not even that bad, I guess I'm just unlucky with it?
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Finally unlocked rock B last night. Should have killed the flagship in Rock A except for bad luck with repair stations meaning I only had 1/3rd hp to start the 1st phase and some unlucky dodging.
My Fire Bomb + Fire Laser + Rock Boarders Rock A was the most hilarious shit, so looking forward to Rock B tonight. All shall be purged in flame.
Can't beat this with any rock ship to save my life. UGH.
I feel like Rock c should do it but...like...I get beat up by sector 4 no matter what weapons I find.
With Rock A, I would pickup missiles any chance I get. Normally, I don't accept surrender from other ships, but if they were to even offer me a single missile, I'd take it. I would also have to be SUPER miserly with my shots or I would run out of ammo before I could find a beam weapon. 10hp ship? Fire one artemis at their weapons, then two Hull missiles at empty space. Even though your artemis would be sitting there ready to go, hold off go get your max damage per shot.
Explosive Replicator is the light. I actually eventually sold mine before the last stand because I didn't use many missiles anymore and had 30 saved up, but it's wonderful.
I noticed something new yesterday, enemy ships can actually run out of missiles. Has this feature always been in, or was it just added in AE? Because it's absolutely GLORIOUS.
Explosive Replicator is the light. I actually eventually sold mine before the last stand because I didn't use many missiles anymore and had 30 saved up, but it's wonderful.
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
It's always been there. Now they power down the weapon when they run out of missiles. Before AE it would be still powered and lit green, ready to fire.
Explosive Replicator is the light. I actually eventually sold mine before the last stand because I didn't use many missiles anymore and had 30 saved up, but it's wonderful.
Rock C starts with swarm missile and a piercing crystal shot. But each swarm missile only does 1 dmg, so it starts being rough to save up to 3 shots, and then have two of them miss.
It's also not very effective against ships with spread out small room. 2/3 shots go wide and do 0 dmg.
I notice enemy ships prefer to reroute their power so that their missile/bomb weapons stay online whenever possible. In later sectors when I come across a ship fully decked out with 3+ weapons, it's just disheartening to see them shuffle and keep that breach missile alive once I finally punched through their shields and evade to damage their weapons system.
I notice enemy ships prefer to reroute their power so that their missile/bomb weapons stay online whenever possible. In later sectors when I come across a ship fully decked out with 3+ weapons, it's just disheartening to see them shuffle and keep that breach missile alive once I finally punched through their shields and evade to damage their weapons system.
Yeah I would. The enemy AI is just sort of wonky, going from good weapons power management to things like targeting system-less rooms with ion bombs or spamming beam weapons on fully power shields. Overall I feel like the enemies are balanced, if they were too realistic it would get frustrating.
I think they play like many of us did after a few hours. They know what weapons to prioritize because they're good, but aim isn't great, and the auto-fire is stuck on.
+1
darunia106J-bob in gamesDeath MountainRegistered Userregular
GOD
FUCKING
DAMMIT
+21
tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
Posts
The combat drone and combat 2 drone are excellent. Boarding drone is pretty good it punches breaches and tends to keep a lot of the crew occupied as you do other stuff. If you are pretty sure you can keep the shields down on it the beam drone does TONS of damage if the shields are down. Those are all the basic non AE edition ones. For AE there are some upgrades of those. For drone boats I like running defense 1 and combat 1 or 2 as multiple defense drones tend to like shooting at the same target which makes multiples not as effective as one would hope.
Basically the only reason to charge them is if the target has a lot of shields. It helps to do the initial shield supression and then after that just let it ripple fire as their fast recharge speed will keep shields squelched effectively. One weird thing about them which may be a bug is sometimes if you say have a shield with three shields and you charge up three ion charges and then shoot all three list as hitting but you wind up only taking down one or two shields sometimes. It seems like if two ions hit to close to each other when hitting shields one sort of gets ignored. This really makes the charge up capabilities less useful than they otherwise would be. It is still nice to cut an extra shield or so down but after the initial burst just go with auto fire.
What's likely happening is that each ion hit is doing 1 point of ion damage to the shields. Since each shield layer actually has 2 power bars, it takes 2 shots of a lvl1 ion weapon to fully take down the first shield layer, and the 3rd shot will hit the second shield layer.
The plus side with the addition of things like reconstructive teleporters and clone bays you have a much greater chance to make that damn slug B ship work than you could in the pre AE version.
And his hair was perfect.
And his hair was perfect.
man i need me a mantis ship, dat teleport room.
I decided to finally try out a normal run, now that I feel pretty comfortable winning regularly in easy. Going with my Slug A, which is my go to.
Run goes really well. End up with a Flak 1, Flak 2, basic laser and ion bomb, with two automated reloaders and a shield recharger. Also have a defense drone 1 and 2(though only 3 shields, couldn't afford fourth level).
End up in sector 8, one jump before the boss battle(which I felt pretty ready for).
A god damned automated scout. With two combat drones, a burst laser 2, burst laser 3, and a hull laser. And of course four levels of shields and super evasion. Thing took me 100 - 0.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
Nope. His first missile volley hits through my cloak, takes out my cloning bay. My gunner, injured from a previous fight, gets hit with a stray laser and dies before the drone can fix the cloner. A ton of my flak misses, failing to take out the flagship's rocket launcher in time. Game over.
The worst thing? I was trying to get the low-oxygen achievement, but had forgotten to vent my air before the first jump. My entire goal for that game was to just get to sector 8 and unlock Lanius B. But... I screwed that up and the RNG wasn't kind, preventing me from salvaging the run with a flagship victory. Happens to the best of us.
Stealth B win! Pics soon of some pivotal moments.
The REWARD: Stealth C
It's got no shields like the B
Kestler C. Whatever its called.
I have the dual laser and the ion stunner I started with. And the only other weapon I've seen the entire run, a crystal lockdown bomb I found when I killed someone. I have three power in my weapon systems.
Worst equipt boss run ever.
Gonna give it a shot...
fuuuuuck you FTL.
I lied. I bought a flak I a few jumps before the boss. Still only 3 power in guns.
Took 1 damage in the first round.
2 in the second round.
Died in the third round before I could knock out their overshields.
Hehe yes the engi A is one of the best pre AE ships that is not one of the super boarding monsters. It has a good drone controller and good weapon set and starts with one of the nicest weapons pre AE. That fast ion gun is amazing for punching through shields and crippling systems. Basically all engi A needs to shine is a drone retrevial arm. Once you get that you can start being super agressive with offensive and defensive drones it becomes a powerhouse.
Amusingly I ran into a store with a drone recovery arm in my second jump on my current run.
I didn't have the scrap to buy it.
Tears fell excessively.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
HAHA yes welcome to the booby prize. Honestly after playing it for a bit you can make the ship work if you can survive the first sector or two. Basically you need to immediately launch the shield drone and you need to have your engine at 3 or 4 bars powered with a pilot and somebody manning the engine. If you do that your dodge chances are high enough you will actually build up charges of the super shield which also blocks teleporters/mind control/hacking attempts.
So while it is probably one of the hardest ships to get rolling it actually seems to be less painful than I was expecting it to be. Thank god it has the drone defense thing because drone boats are the bane of this ships existence early on.
Crystal b and mantis B,C have the four man teleport bays.
Sounds like it's time to do a million runs with the Rock C!
Too bad it's B layout is one of the only ships I've not managed to get a normal victory with.
I've even won with the Stealth B, for context.
It's not even that bad, I guess I'm just unlucky with it?
My Fire Bomb + Fire Laser + Rock Boarders Rock A was the most hilarious shit, so looking forward to Rock B tonight. All shall be purged in flame.
I feel like Rock c should do it but...like...I get beat up by sector 4 no matter what weapons I find.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
With Rock A, I would pickup missiles any chance I get. Normally, I don't accept surrender from other ships, but if they were to even offer me a single missile, I'd take it. I would also have to be SUPER miserly with my shots or I would run out of ammo before I could find a beam weapon. 10hp ship? Fire one artemis at their weapons, then two Hull missiles at empty space. Even though your artemis would be sitting there ready to go, hold off go get your max damage per shot.
Explosive Replicator + Pegasus/Swarm is the life.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Ships can also run out of drones.
Rock C starts with swarm missile and a piercing crystal shot. But each swarm missile only does 1 dmg, so it starts being rough to save up to 3 shots, and then have two of them miss.
It's also not very effective against ships with spread out small room. 2/3 shots go wide and do 0 dmg.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Wouldn't you?
GOD
FUCKING
DAMMIT
#ftl
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