[Megathread] Faster than Light

[PizzaSHARK]

This game is sooooo RNG ><

Roguelike is Roguelike. All games in the Roguelike genre are intentionally heavily randomized

[Deleted]

For the people that also played Dungeons of Dredmor...how does this compare, as in, which one do you think is better? They're probably hard to compare, but is there a lot of freedom in 'builds' and stuff?

[Deleted]

Changed title for clarification.

It's just super-messed now. I thought this is about FTL Games who made that fantastic dungeon crawler back in 80s. Some might remember it quite well.

[Deleted]

Boohoo! After 6 tries I managed to get to the boss-sector with the Kestrel. After some travelling I was waiting for him 1 point from the base (as I thought he had to reach the base). Once he got to the location 1 jump from the base I wanted to go to him to fight...but then I already lost! Apparently he needs to be 'within 1 jump range' instead of on the base =(

I felt really confident as I had a good ship, maxed shields, maxed weapons and stuff...but lost because of lack of knowledge. That's kind of irritating. Ah well...time to try again ^^

[Deleted]

Ye get to him early because there's 3 phases to the fight and he moves about the map.

Edit: just realised I called the boss spaceship 'he'.

[Mothhive]

Wooooo, finally beat it! Guess all the times I failed beating the boss finally paid off as I managed to come up with a great strategy to beat him!

[Howard Moon]

I managed to come up with a great strategy to beat him!

Please share it, as I've reached him a few times but he always destroys me in the first or second round

I've gotten terrible luck with weapons in the stores, and I can't manage to break through his 5 goddamn shields -_-

[Mothhive]

Please share it, as I've reached him a few times but he always destroys me in the first or second round

I've gotten terrible luck with weapons in the stores, and I can't manage to break through his 5 goddamn shields -_-

First off, I used an Engi ship with the setup shown here. I'm sure you can do it just as easily with other ships and setups, but I love having Engi crewmembers for fast repairs, as well as the Engi Med Bot Augment to keep my crew's health topped up if the shields are breached or if there are boarders. I also managed to get to the last sector without using any missiles, so I had quite a stockpile saved up, although, I had 30 left over (out of the 55 I started with) when I beat the flagship, so you don't have to ration them so much if you don't want to.

Anyway, my plan for the first stage was to take down most of the weapons and then kill off most of the crew before they fly off for the second stage (which happens when you get their hull to zero). To start with I targeted their shields with my Ion Blast II and set 2 Anti Ship I drones to chip away at their shields. This does damage to them very slowly, but this is intentional since I want to keep the ship there while I kill most of the crew. Sometimes the drones will get a lucky hit on one of their weapons, and while that's a bonus, it's not really necessary. You may actually have to turn them off at some point to stop the ship from being damaged too quickly.

While that's going on I target their weapons with Breach Bomb II which do massive damage to systems and crew, but no hull damage (since I want the ship to stay there). I took out the Missile Launcher first (Keep an eye on it before it's destroyed, as you'll want to cloak right after it shoots missiles so that they miss), then the Ion Cannon, and then the Heavy Laser, leaving the Beam weapon alone as it poses no threat once the others are gone. I then target their med bay until it is offline and has a breach which drains the oxygen from the room. If crew come to repair it, just keep it targeted and you should kill them off one by one as they go to repair it. In my playthrough they didn't try and repair it, so I targeted a small room with a system in it (Door Control), and 2 of the ships crew came to fix it, followed by others when they died. Apparently the ship becomes automated and much harder to deal with if you kill all the crew, so stop using the bomb so that you leave one alive in the main section of the ship, and the guy in the Beam Weapon room. At this point the ship isn't a threat at all, so your Ion Cannon and Drones can finish them off. Their ship should look something like this. As you can see, I have taken no damage at all.

Once you've finished it off, a part will break off and it will jump away. When you fly to it's new location stage 2 will begin! Stage 2 can be a real bitch and is the one that I failed on in all my previous attempts. At the start of each stage the ship repairs all it's damaged systems, so the first thing you'll want to do it take out the Missiles and the Heavy Laser again with your breach bomb (actual missiles may not be effective as they have a defense drone), but do not use your cloak to avoid the missiles this time as you'll need it very soon. In this stage their ship will have an energy surge (you'll get a warning shortly before it happens) and half a dozen drones will surround your ship. If you have upgraded your cloak to have 2 bars of power, cloak as soon as they appear. If you haven't upgraded it, wait until you see the first one fire. Hopefully you'll come through each of these without taking damage, or only minimal damage (I had a bit of trouble later on with the drones as they would appear before I could raise my cloak. That may be something to do with having a longer cloak and the cooldown starting later, but I'm not sure).

Anyway, after the 2 weapons are offline, it might be an idea to try and take out their Drone power. While this doesn't stop the extra drones showing up, it will stop the ones that are constantly attacking your ship. Make sure not to attack that room if there is a crewmember in there as you want him alive for the next stage as his friend in the Beam Room will die when this stage ends. During this stage their ship should look something like this. Ignore how much damage I've taken, I forgot the weapons came back online at the start of the stage, so I took a few missile hits, as well as a few drone blasts caused by bad timing!

To end this stage, keep cloaking so the drones can't hit you, and let your drones finish them off. Another piece of their ship will fall off and they'll warp away again. If you have easy access to a beacon that will repair and resupply you, you may as well take it, although you probably shouldn't need it. Stage 3 sounds daunting, but I actually found it much easier than Stage 2. Here's what to expect. The ship has a powerful Zoltan Shield (absorbs about 10 damage), so save your bombs as they won't be able to teleport through, and let your drones take it down. Once it's down, go for their weapons again with the breach bomb. If you have full shields, you may want to use the cloak to dodge any missiles they manage to fire as they'll probably do more damage to you than their "super weapon". As for their super weapon, you'll get a warning similar to the previous stage which will let you know it's coming, and then the ship will send out about six heavy laser blasts from various places on it's hull. There's no way to prevent this, but you can use the cloak to evade them after they have been fired. Once their weapons are down, this is pretty much the only thing you have to think about, although I've heard the remaining crew is supposed to beam over to your ship, but cannot confirm since one of my drones took out their teleporter. Here's how their ship should look.

While you're dodging their attacks, your drones should make short work of the ship, and you can launch any other weapons you want to help speed it up if you like (I just kept sending Breach Bombs to their shields so the drones had an easier time getting through).

Job done, you win and have unlocked a new ship!

[Deleted]

-snip-

In addition to this I'll add one tidbit that makes the (arguably) hardest stage, numero dos (#2), much easier.

If you have a defense drone (might need to be mk2), it'll actually shoot down incoming boarding drones before they breach your ship. Other than that, my strategy is nearly exactly the same.

[Mothhive]

In addition to this I'll add one tidbit that makes the (arguably) hardest stage, numero dos (#2), much easier.

If you have a defense drone (might need to be mk2), it'll actually shoot down incoming boarding drones before they breach your ship. Other than that, my strategy is nearly exactly the same.

Oh yeah, forgot about that boarding drone. Bugger almost completely took out my cloak!!! Thinking back, maybe that was why the timing of my cloak got all screwed up. lol

Good tip on the Defense Drone. That would definately make things easier.

[Deleted]

Oh yeah, forgot about that boarding drone. Bugger almost completely took out my cloak!!! Thinking back, maybe that was why the timing of my cloak got all screwed up. lol

Nah, the cooldown for the cloak (no matter what level it's at, I believe) is just a tad bit longer than the time between each drone assault. In my playthroughs I've always used it essentially whenever it's off cooldown (after timing the first cloak, of course), and towards the end I've eaten a salvo of drone fire.

[Howard Moon]

Hmm nice strat guys, thanks! Will try it out. Up to now I was going without cloak, maybe that was my first mistake :P

[Tommy T]

Just bought this for £6.99 on Steam.

Very impressed so far. A simple game in terms of graphics and plot but offers a great challenge. A lot more strategic than you think.

The aim of the game is to get your ship through the many different sectors of the galaxy to ultimately warn the federation with a message of an impending attack. Travelling through galaxies is dangerous. You can be boarded by aliens, attacked by rebel ships, destroyed by solar flares and much more...

Each time you travel you are greeted with a message about the particular zone. Sometimes it might just be a stop to upgrade your ship with new weapons, armour, augmentations and drones or to buy supplies (fuel, missiles etc) and other times you could be boarded by enemies or given a scenario to respond to.

You control a few crew members on the ship which are very easy to move around. You can give each crew member a particular job which he gets better at.
(E.G you can have engineers, pilots, repairers, gun specialists etc).

Once your ship is destroyed, you start from the beginning, make decisions much more risky. I spent about 3 hours on the game, only to die half way through the game by a solar flare / boarding party. Frustrating, but makes you eager to do better. There is a lot more to the game, and the battle system is really unique. Hard to explain, but 10 minutes on the tutorial will sort you out.


Overall, I thoroughly recommended the game especially to any RPG/Space sim fans.

[Deleted]

waiting for steam christmas sale before buying it (too many games im wanting atm to pay full price for :P)

[RoninaThorstone]

I'm STILL trying to get the crystal ship. RNG is a bitch.

[Deleted]

I've already played the game for several hours and i'm enjoying it a lot. got it for 6 euros (40% off) on a steam sale a little whole ago. I've till only unlocked 2 ships but i'm planning to play a bit when i get home.

[Dezerte]

Bought a while ago when it was on sale on their site, I was pleasantly surprised by the game.

[Porcell]

Just bumping this back up because I started playing this.

Day[9] did a four hour play of this last Friday and I thought it looked really cool so I dropped the $10 on it. So far I've put in probably 12 hours, and finally beat it today. I think I failed around 12 times before finally getting to the end boss and killing it on easy (Failed on last boss 3 times, other deaths were early).

So many ships to get and try out, and I still haven't braved Normal mode. Even this last playthrough I was doing AWESOME, had a 4-man Mantis hitsquad for my teleporter, but then I had one bad engagement and everything went to shit and I lost all four of them.

There are so many different playstyles you can use. Just a really sweet game.

[chazus]

Fantastic game. Though being 'random' can make things extremely difficult sometimes.

One game, I facerolled everything. 3x Burst II lasers, a defender drone, and max shields and systems.

Another game, I died on the FIRST MOVE to a cloaked autoassault ship with two missile launchers. WTF.

[Achaman]

its not exactly new but i didnt find any other threads about it

http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=598

basically FTL is getting a free content patch/x-pack