FTL: Faster Than Light

It is a fun and addictive game all right. It took 18 tries and reading up a bit on how the boss fight works. Then I tried Normal and felt like I was not getting anywhere with it. My next two victories were on tries 22 and 23.

All victories are on Easy and with the Default Kestral A. For all the times I played with that ship, I have not managed to unlock the Kestral B. I tried the Engi ship a couple of times but have not gotten used to it.

I have not played / beaten the game enough to give a very good list of what can beat the boss or what cannot - or what to do when missing something essential.

I think in general:

Spoiler :

Phase 1 tests your fire power. To win you need to be able to get past Class 4 Shields and do damage. Phase 2 tests your damage mitigation. If you can get past Phase 2 then you should be able to get past Phase 3.

Phase 1 - If you have a teleporter, just send a couple of guys in to take out the missile launcher, then the ion cannon, then the beam weapon. Note that they are not connected to the rest of the ship so will not get repaired. On top of that there will be no crew for the next phases.

Phase 2 - Even Class 1 Cloak works well enough for the power surge. I have not tried it without a cloak, but it looked pretty good with a Class 2 Defense Drone.
 
I guess for me this game seems like a poor value at $9 is that it is a rogue-like of the same formula of all rogue-likes, so it's as about as easy to pick pick up a free graphical version of some fantasy rogue-like, or a $2 version, and get a pretty identical challenge with just a different theme.

And the flip-side is there is Star Trek Online which is free to play, covers the same ground as FTL effectively since STO isn't very story-drive and is designed for a rapid grind/leveling system. And STO actually probably has more depth in the tactical play, excepting moving crew around in tactical space battles. I've spent about $20 in about a year of playing STO, and I could have easily just spent $0, $5, or $9 and probably had the same amount of fun.
 
There's a FTL wiki that you could try.
 
Also try the official forums if you have specific questions, anything not on the wiki can probably be found there, it has a lot of people posting helpful stuff.
 
Woot racked up my second win today as the Type A Mantis ship. Managed to pull out the victory despite losing my 2 boarding mantises that I had had since the beginning of the game in sector 6. Decided to push through anyway and managed. Things I learned from this run:

-Boarders destroying systems do hull damage as well. This would have good to know BEFORE my mantises took out the enemies medbay with 1 hull point remaining but hey, live and learn.

-The Ion Bomb weapon is INCREDIBLE. I got very few opportunities for weapon upgrades this run, but because I had the ion bomb the last boss was still a piece of cake even with only a burst laser mk 1 and a beam weapon.

-Boarding in general is great, it doesn't seem like a lot more scrap at first glance but compounded over the course of the game it's several hundred scrap easy. All for the cost of a 75 scrap teleporter and a couple of dedicated crewmen.

I definitely am feeling better about my skill at this game now, the last boss was far easier than last time I beat him even though my ship had no augmentations at all and only a mark 1 defense drone. Soon... I may attempt the dreaded NORMAL difficulty. Probably not for a few more wins yet though, I've heard horror stories.
 
I've tried two games. The first I barely understood what to do, thus dying fairly quickly. Second game was just bad luck on fuel finds and scrap, so I ended up being caught and killed.
 
Beat easy difficulty and most of normal, and I now only have the boss fight on normal left. I think the ion cannon that fires every 4 seconds is overpowered as I used it on both my runs and easy was too easy. Just supressing the shields with the fast shooting ion cannon makes you deal damage so fast. Normal was much more fun as there are a lot more challenging situations, but I doubt I will manage to beat the boss.

For normal difficulty I used the engi ship, the medbots that heal your crew constantly is a godsend that makes enemy intruders a non-threat. I now have fully powered drones so I use a mk2 defense drone and two attack drones in battle, as well as the ion cannon and fire bomb missile thingies that pierces shields and sets fires and kills enemy crews to prevent them from repairing.

Once I got to normal I was more impressed with this game, but I wish there was.. more. This game has the potential to be something great, but as it is now this is just a few hour time passer game for me.
 
Wolf is right, the bomb is easily the most useful weapon in the game. Shields are ineffective against them, and they can be murder on subsystems.
 
I get a whole lot farther with the Engi ship. The Ion Cannon is the best way to go. I still have absolutely horrible luck when it comes to encounters.
 
Managed to beat this on easy today after about the eighth run. Ended up using the engi cruiser with 2 assault drones, 1 defensive drone to stop those missiles, an ion cannon and two fire bombs that completely wrecked enemy ships.

My only problem with the game is that it feels more like good web based game in terms of length and depth. It's still good and easily worth £6 but there could have been so much more.
 
Got it yesterday, Cannot get past sector 7 on easy... Maybe I try to burn through the sectors too quickly?

I've unlocked the Engi and the Zoltan ship... and I really like the Zoltan ship, though wish it had a bit more power.
 
Yes it's important to squeeze as much out of each sector as you go, they only get harder so the more upgrades you can manage early on the happier you're going to be. And without spoiling it for you I will just say that the last boss is QUITE hard if you aren't prepared for him so zooming to the end is definitely not recommended, you need the scrap that you can get from doing more encounters.

Beat easy for the third time today, the last boss gave me no trouble at all this time, I think I'll finally move up to normal. Also, I love the Mantis ship type B, 4 person teleport pad is totally sweet. Got a crystal dude for the first time on this run but sadly I didn't encounter a rock homeworld so I couldn't complete the sequence of events to unlock the ship. It's the only one I need now, I've unlocked all the other ships.
 
Leonel said:
I got it. It's hella fun. :D What'd be cooler is if one could mod it to have Star Trek or other science fiction themes. I got as far as destroying one wing of the rebel flag ship too!
Click to expand...

I got the rebel flag ship down to 1HP after my craziest game. It was painful sitting there to see who what would shoot first.
I was down to two crew members twice and got back up to 4
In one sector I had to go through 7 consecutive stars behind rebel lines because the logical path to the exit didn't work and I had to basically go back to the start
I still haven't even gotten to sector 8 since then. But mostly been focusing on unlocking stuff

Zoltan cruiser: sorta easy, but really hard if you get boarded a lot and early.
Click to expand...
Move your crew to the medbay and leave it the only room with oxygen. As long as you have the room full you will win any battle and they will automatically go to the room with oxygen. Ince they start moving there you can refill any other rooms with oxygen to not suffocate your excess crewmen.
With that, the only threat are drones that are not affected by lack of oxygen.
 
Been playing with the Slug Cruiser, SUPER FUN. The anti bio beam is totally lols.
 
:bump:

Im bumping this as i just had something happen ive never had happen before. So I was playing as the Rock in the Bullwark for the first time just now, and i managed to do something i think rather rare. I made a complete hash of the final boss and lost my teleporting assault team (entirely my own fault). And then on the final phase, i thought i was screwed. I had about 10% hull left. Still, with my heavy hull laser and burst MKII laser there was a slim hope. So i laid into the boss, and they laid into me. Long story short i won - but just before the killing blow landed, the flagship fired off its super weapon, and its remaining blasts hit my ship and destroyed it - along with the rebel flagship. I still won, but the crew on the bullwark will now go down as martyrs. I was a bit disappointed that you dont get an achievement for that, as in all of my victories i have never seen anything like that. It was pretty epic. Has that happened to anyone else?
 
sherbz said:
:bump:

Im bumping this as i just had something happen ive never had happen before. So I was playing as the Rock in the Bullwark for the first time just now, and i managed to do something i think rather rare. I made a complete hash of the final boss and lost my teleporting assault team (entirely my own fault). And then on the final phase, i thought i was screwed. I had about 10% hull left. Still, with my heavy hull laser and burst MKII laser there was a slim hope. So i laid into the boss, and they laid into me. Long story short i won - but just before the killing blow landed, the flagship fired off its super weapon, and its remaining blasts hit my ship and destroyed it - along with the rebel flagship. I still won, but the crew on the bullwark will now go down as martyrs. I was a bit disappointed that you dont get an achievement for that, as in all of my victories i have never seen anything like that. It was pretty epic. Has that happened to anyone else?
Click to expand...

You see it somewhat often on Reddit, but I've not won this way. I tend to win in green health on hard most runs, usually 1650-1900 scrap on ~100 beacons explored.

IMO Rock A is either 2nd or 3rd worst ship in the game for hard difficulty, but given its RNG nature I'd leave it as worst on lower difficulties.
 
I still have never beaten the game on hard. Man I suck. I got all achievements except the crystal rock origins one on easy though.

Have you play the captain's edition mod? It adds a ton of features and makes the game fresh again.
 
civvver said:
I still have never beaten the game on hard. Man I suck. I got all achievements except the crystal rock origins one on easy though.

Have you play the captain's edition mod? It adds a ton of features and makes the game fresh again.
Click to expand...

Haven't tried it since it seemed a little bloated, but I'll probably get around to it eventually. Over last >30 games I have an 80% winrate on hard and am presently on a 5 win streak, with 7 and 6 win streaks before that.

Some recent wins:
 
TheMeInTeam said:
You see it somewhat often on Reddit, but I've not won this way. I tend to win in green health on hard most runs, usually 1650-1900 scrap on ~100 beacons explored.

IMO Rock A is either 2nd or 3rd worst ship in the game for hard difficulty, but given its RNG nature I'd leave it as worst on lower difficulties.
Click to expand...

Yes, most of my runs end in the healthy green state. I was very late to the FTL party. So am slowly working my way through the various ships and stuff, along with all the extra content the enhanced edition offers. Theres so much gameplay in it though. According to GOG im 86 hours in playtime and i reckon i have only played/unlocked about 33% of the game. It has a lot of legs, especially for a completionist nerd (like me).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Blake00
Bethesda has released new Starfield gameplay trailer & deep dive videos
Replies
0
Views
340
Blake00
Blake00
Blake00
Theocracy (new Civ 1 & 2 like 4X indie game)
Replies
10
Views
3K
GPR
GPR
The_J
Early access: Terra Invicta, a 4X where you have to resist an alien invasion
Replies
3
Views
2K
dwcole78
dwcole78
InsidiousMage
Can't Place Initial Garrison
Replies
3
Views
248
InsidiousMage
InsidiousMage
M
Passagefall: What if Unity was a generation ship?
Replies
4
Views
409
MysticWind
M
Top Bottom