Topic: FTL (PC)

[Poopyhead pianoman ♫]

Engi B is one of the more luck-based ships. If it helps, I started winning a lot more when I took your advice and embraced what each ship was about. I.e. I build up the Cloaking system on the Stealth ship first, or I rely heavily on the Engi B's starting drones, rather than selling them.

An interesting bit of advice I read about the Engi B was that since you start with a very low evasion rate, it can be beneficial to move your Captain to the weapons room when a battle begins. You're probably going to get hit with enemy weapons fire anyway, but at least this way you'll have a slightly faster recharge rate.

A lot of the additions muddle the line between offensive and defensive. I had Zoltan and a clone bay, but I still haven't tried using them as boarders.

For some reason, I thought the clone bay couldn't revive lost boarding crew, but http://ftl.wikia.com doesn't exclude that. That's probably why they made Zoltans explode when they die—to hurt even when boarding!

Even when all these new systems and weapons, I still pick the wrong winners and losers. More often than not, it's my underdogs (that I fully expect to implode in the final battle) that pull through. Yet I lost with the Zoltan B carrying a Glaive beam and a weapon pre-igniter. My 2x Ion Blasts kept missing.

Mind control and hacking are absolutely kick-arse. I also think that a Lanius boarding crew would also be awesome, since I know how hard it is to remove them when they board my own ship.

P.S. I managed to get a Vulcan working. It's amazing.

[Poopyhead pianoman ♫]

I got it wrong. The Lanius cruiser is unlocked just by unlocking any four ships other than the Kestrel. That still makes the Crystal cruiser the hardest to unlock, and because I reset my profile it might take me a while to get it back.

I managed to unlock the Lanius B last night. You know how you say the Crystal B totally pwns? I think the Lanius B *might* just take the title of King Shit. Even though my first run with it resulted in victory, that might be because my run was, in Jeph Jacques' words, "hilariously broken". It gave me all of my end-game weaponry by the end of sector 1, and by sector 2 I had all but one of my crew, including 2 Zoltan. I took a screenshot if you're interested, but I understand if you don't want to spoil any surprises.

In all this time, I have still never managed to unlock and play the Mantis B or the Crystal B! Frustratingly, this time around I'm having a lot of trouble trying to get the Stealth B unlocked. I'm really good with the Stealth A, but any time I don't die is a time I can't get around an environmental hazard.

My worst ship is easily the Mantis cruiser. I suck so much with it. I don't think it's ever made it to sector 5.

[Poopyhead pianoman ♫]

An awesomely powerful build. (What you can't see is that I also pawned off my titanium system casing to buy a weapon pre-igniter.) The final boss couldn't touch me.
http://lankyland.com/hosting/view/1637


A build that let me set things on fire.
http://lankyland.com/hosting/view/1638



Thinking about it, the developers seem to have created a counter for everything. Anti-drones, hacking, mind control, defense scrambler, emergency respirators, fire suppression… and probably a few others I'm forgetting. I'm loving it.

[Poopyhead pianoman ♫]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's the underdogs that always win. I just flew the Engi B to victory using both of the starting weapons and a halberd beam (only 3 weapon slots). I stuck a defense drone and a combat drone in the drone system, and I kept the anti-personnel drone for the whole game. I really struggled to get through the 4-shield enemies. It required a hit from the heavy ion, plus the combat drone in action, and a hit from the heavy laser, in order for the halberd beam to do some damage. I mean, it's taking the 'philosophy' of the Engi B to a whole new level.

The defense drone was priceless, probably saving me a ton in scrap repairs, not that I needed to pay, since I was given not one but two hull repair drones. The stats said this was one of my most scrap-profitable ships, at 2065 scrap (my highest record is only 2160).

And yet, although I struggled to get through four shields, I had some indispensable assistance from mind control (purchased around sector 4) and the cloak (purchased early). I didn't even need the cloak often, since the defense drone kept missiles away. I nearly defeated a ship using only top-level mind control.

I dunno how these hunks of junk make it through to victory, but I'm still picking the wrong winners. My success rate is about 10%.

[gumstitch]

Far out, i've made about 2 dozen runs, reached the final boss twice, but not been able to take it down for one reason or another. Augh.

[Poopyhead pianoman ♫]

I think it took me 40 runs before I finally won for the first time. My success rate then stayed at something less than 5%. I tried Hard mode, and boy is it hard...