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FTL: The RNG is a cruel god

foamy said:
For the boss I like to hit the shield room just before my weapons finish charging, because it leaves the thing wide open, especially if you've got beams.
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Depending on my armament, there's a decent chance I'll go after the cockpit instead. 0% Evasion is useful.

Hitting the shields leads to decent shenanigans in that style anyway, though, because it seals off the cockpit from the rest of the ship - very entertaining if the pilot's left the room for some reason, or you've got a way to kill him in place.
Bki said:
By the way, is there anyway to recall the hacking to target a different room?
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I'm trying to remember if your hacking drone blows up when the system gets wrecked.

Not really something that'll come up much, though I suppose you could Small Bomb your own ship.
 
cB557 said:
I actually always accept surrenders, myself.
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The rewards are usually better if you push through for a completed crew kill, or even destruction. In general I reject surrenders unless they're heavy on a critical resource (generally fuel, but it can be missiles or drones depending on the ship) or are offering something very enticing in the way of augments or weaponry.

E.I.G. said:
... does that pirate have a glave beam? [joking]If so why weren't they using the pre-igniter?[/joking]
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Yes it did, in fact, have a Glaive Beam + Ion + Zoltan shield combo going. It only tagged me once, and I was very fortunate in what it targetted; even so, it hit for six damage, which was kind of an ouch.

All was forgiven, though!
 
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Got a plenty good game going (Kestrel B, normal), in the last system, getting ready for the flagship. I had a lack of drone part for my hacking, but I just bought two of them and it would be sufficient. One jump away from the exit, I encounter a pirate (I think it was a pirate anyway.)

And I let my boarders die totally stupidly because I was occupied with... I don't actually remember exactly what, but well...

And I was pretty sure I had a good chance at beating this one (I was a bit lacking of firepower, but hacking the shield room, mind control and boarding would have helped compensate that.
 
Trying play with the Zoltan B, the one that starts with just a Zoltan Shield and no regular shield, but begins the game with two Ion I weapons and a Pike Beam, which is one of the best starting weapon sets of any ship. I kept putting off shields, first because I forgot its just a 100 scrap upgrade rather than having to buy from a store like the Stealth ships, then because I didn't have the scrap on hand. I was eventually gonna get around to do it, except than I screwed up near the end of Sector 2.

And had to fight at the exit with the ASBs firing. Against a Rebel Ship with 3 Shields. And good Evasion. And a Flak I. And a Vulcan.
 
My Zoltan B runs always seem to end early with everything on fire near a star. I don't think it's a problem with the ship itself, I think it's just bad luck and Zoltan being squishy.
 
Welp, I nearly killed the Flagship. Was working with the Kestrel B, got to the third-last sector and accidentally blew up a ship with them on it (I got distracted, and hammering the ship into submission and destroying their medbay ended up taking them down to one hitpoint. I had an attack of the dumb, sent my two-Mantis boarding crew aboard, but the last enemy crew member was hiding somewhere and my Mantis killed the ship whilst I was busy shuffling people around for damage control. Lost my Manti, and the only other person with any levels in combat who wasn't already needed for critical systems was a single Zoltan. My weaponry load out was… fairly lacklustre; I had a couple of basic lasers, a Heavy Laser I, and a three-shot burst laser. I decided to try pressing on anyway.

I managed to whittle the Flagship down and made it to Stage 3, mainly because the penultimate sector was the Rebel Stronghold, and I knew which of the Flagship's weapons had to be disabled immediately from fighting the unfinished one. That missile launcher is a bitch. Managed to take out the weapons quickly enough in each stage that it couldn't lay down enough volume of fire to reliably damage me. Then Stage 3 rolls around, and I get swarmed with boarders, who beat their way through the blast doors, kill all of my squishy Engi, and wreck the weapon systems and shields.
 
cB557 said:
My Zoltan B runs always seem to end early with everything on fire near a star. I don't think it's a problem with the ship itself, I think it's just bad luck and Zoltan being squishy.
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The Zoltan B is really awkward; the upgrade path is very different than normal. It gets wrecked by boarders and fires, so an upgraded door system is a priority, and you want to juice your evasion (and get a cloak) ASAP. That maximizes the value of the shield. Getting more crew is also good, because it'll let you get that Zoltan out of the pilot compartment and powering a useful system.

One of the other neat things about the Zoltan B is that because you start with so many Zoltan, it is possible to make a system that cannot be ioned all the way away, which is very handy for, e.g., the shield system.
 
(Barely) got through the flagship by using a fully upgraded Kestrel. The four lasers were key to victory, but hacking the engine was the decisive factor. Even so, it got me to like 20% health. There is no way I should be having this much trouble.
 
SeptimusMagisto said:
(Barely) got through the flagship by using a fully upgraded Kestrel. The four lasers were key to victory, but hacking the engine was the decisive factor. Even so, it got me to like 20% health. There is no way I should be having this much trouble.
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If you're running on a lower difficulty setting (Normal or especially Easy), get yourself a cloak and practice the timing on it. On the first stage, run it at full power and cloak when the missiles launch. It will nearly guarantee misses (in fact, it will if you have 40% evade or better to start with, and since you're cloaked you can reallocate power to your engines to ensure that, then back out to medbay/oxygen/whatever to fix yourself up in the interval) and give you a full fifteen seconds to get your weapons charged up for a major volley-fire.

The layout of the boss changes with the difficulty. On Normal and Easy, I believe, it still has separated rooms for all its guns; teleport boarders into them in the order of missile (by far the biggest threat), ion (opens you up for the lasers and the beam), then beam (because you want to keep at least one crew alive, the beam will disappear after stage 2, and the triple laser is no threat by itself as long as you have at least three ranks of shield). Because the subsystems are separated the flagship will be unable to repair them; you can then work on eliminating the crew in the main body of the ship in perfect safety.

How you do that depends on the size (and upgrades) of your teleporter room, what kind of boarders you have, and your weapon layout. In general, a good approach is to hammer the shield room; the crew will swarm in to repair it, which will make your shots weaken them for your boarders, and damaging the room will weaken the flag's defences. Then, teleport boarders in and pop the medbay. Keep an eye on the flag's health while you do this, you don't want to kill it and lose your boarding team. I'd usually put the boarders in the pilot room with a two-man team or the shield room with a four-man.

If you have at least one crystal you can completely forgo shooting at the flag and just beam into the pilot room, locking it down when the pilot gets to low health. You can guarantee at least one kill per boarding cycle like that, which means its only a matter of time.

For the second and third stages, keep your cloak at just one power, and turn it on a couple of seconds after you get the "Superweapon Charging" notification. At just one power, it will still last through the drone spam/death blossom, and there'll be enough time for it to come off cooldown before the superweapon comes back online.

In the second stage, again, teleport aboard and smash the missile launcher; then move on to the beam cannon, then the drone control system. The drones are the bigger threat, but if you leave teleporting your guys in there until last, they then have free run of the ship and can crush the shield generator and pilot station to leave the flag completely defenceless against your guns.

The third stage's mind control can be very irritating, especially since with the Zoltan shield it can be difficult to kill it right away. If you've murdered the flag's crew, though, you don't have to deal with being boarded at the same time, which means you can cycle in crew to take the mind-controlled person's hits, then run them back to the medbay. Be careful doing this, because a rank 3 mind control system will let an Engi kill a Rock, but it'll keep it from wrecking its system until you can take down the Zoltan shield. Then it's a matter of teleporting aboard to roast the missile bay and then mind control unit. As with the second stage, once you've blasted the mind control station, your guys have free run of the ship and can smash the shield and pilot stations to leave the flag defenceless.

A defence drone I is very useful in all three stages to reduce incoming missile damage, but it is especially for the second stage for stuffing the huge amount of boarding drone spam the flagship sends at you. Your life is much easier if your guys aren't distracted by enemy boarding drones and hull breaches, which remove the manned-system bonuses.
 

Finishing sector 3. Have a lot of interesting options here. I'm already in a pretty decent position, able to output 1 Ion every 2.13 seconds, enough to quickly lock down shields, then potentially hard lock both the shields AND weapons, while shredding my opponent with a Pike Beam. However, I see the possibility of making my ship have long range crew-kill capacity, even against tough enemy ships. (Scrambler is another 40 scrap if I have to...)

1: I could grab the Mind Control, get the crew to slowly mulch each other, before finishing the last off with the Pike Beam. I could also hit their Oxygen with the Pike, then Mind Control the guy sent to repair it. It'd still in all likelihood be very slow.

2: I could replace the Pike Beam with the Ion Charger, whereupon I have 1 Ion every 1.48 seconds, enough to lock down three systems at once. Lock down Shields, Weapons, and Oxygen, then wait for them to die. I could use Combat Drones to finish auto-ships, though I'm iffy about buying the system here, which comes with a free Defense I drone instead, and the Combat Drone is more pricy in Scrap and power.

3: I could replace an Ion I with the Ion Charger. This still improves the output from 1 per 2.13 seconds to 1 per 1.92 seconds. This would likely make gambit A with the Mind Control without having to give up the Pike. It feels inefficient, but it gives me better flexibility.

4: I could just stick to my current setup, and add the Drone System either for further defense (keeping the Defense I Drone or selling it and buying the Defense II Drone) or offense (getting the Combat II Drone). In the case of the latter, I could pick up the Ion Charger like in 2, either switching it with the Pike now and relying on the Combat drone for kills if I have to.
 
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You're okay for firepower as far as sector 5, but you're going to start taking hits once you hit people with three shields and decent evade. I'd grab either the cloak or the drone + combat II.
 
Cloaking isn't really viable unless I happen to run across Stealth Weapons augment. I'd already went ahead and bought. Took just the Ion Charger.
Why? Because I can that's why. Now I'm probably gonna stow it unless I run across a Drone System with a Combat Drone or Beam Drone. But I proved it totally can be done if your crazy enough.
 
I'm sad, I cocked up an awesome Zoltan B run with a bad cloak timing and got wrecked by the drone superweapon. :(

This is what I had going in:



Cloaked too early, came out while the superweapon was active, and the drones ripped apart my shields. :(
 
foamy said:
Cloaked too early, came out while the superweapon was active, and the drones ripped apart my shields. :(
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Which is why trashing the Drone System asap is key, though I'm sure you already know that. As for my run...

It was closer than I'd have liked, but I pulled it off. Switching to the Burst Laser II over the Pike Beam definitely saved me, as I needed 3 damage in 1 spot (Cloaking, Drones, and Triple-Missile) a lot more than I needed 1 damage in 5 spots, and I picked up the Drones at the same location, which were again fairly critical in allowing me to quickly take the Flagship, seeing as my build was totally incapable of piecing apart the enemy ship. I could've gone Ion+Ion+Pike+Burst II, but I decided getting the Ion lock reliably was more important, again because of the Drones. I also saw a Vulcan, and mourned its uselessness seeing as I already had an Ion-lock going and its a bit unwieldy.
 
Goddamn but I hate early sectors as the Stealth Cruiser B. Not having shields makes your only weapon incredibly vulnerable to any jackass with drones or beams (or beam drones, damnit). This took quite a few attempts, almost all of which restarted in either Sector 1 or Sector 3. :(

On the other hand, when it works, it works great:



Augs were long range scanners, auto reloader, and stealth weapons. :)
 
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