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FTL: The RNG is a cruel god

Candesce said:
I don't recall whether "show beacon path on hover" defaults to off or not. If you don't have it on, turn it on; it's very helpful.

Try to shoot out the other guy's weapons consoles. You're really short on ways to deal with missiles in the early game, and drones can be vicious if something else takes down your shields. Killing safe is better than killing fast, usually.

Don't worry too much about saving your ammunition for later. The first step is making sure there is a later.

Don't try to rush to the next sector; take your time. You'd like to get out before getting caught by the rebels, but if you're more than one turn ahead of them, you've lost the opportunity to pick up more scrap. Sometimes one fight with the leading edge is worth it.
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Ok, need to work on that.

Also finding it seems like alot of encounters end in a catastrophe cascade where I go from fine to 'all the systems are on fire'.

Been targeting the weapons>shields>pilot.

Any specific break points to look for? I mean like I need a new weapon system or something to survive.

So far I'm finding Rocks are the toughest group to fight(3 shields? Three shields!).
 
Abuse pause. Volley fire to take down shields, time cloaks for just after the other ship has launched a heavy missile, pull your dudes out of a boarding action at 5 HP, power up your engines only when the enemy ship fires...
Upgrade shields. You want rank 2 by the end of sector 1, generally.

Get a teleporter and basically just beat people to death is the best route, especially once you get ships that are able to support it better than the starting Kestrel. Killing crew (boarding is the easiest but others exist, such as fire or suffocation) yields the most rewards, and much higher chances at things like weapons or more crew members.

Don't waste scrap repairing until you're nearly dead. Putting that scrap into upgrading your shields/engines/weapons will save you a lot more incoming damage in the long run.

Play games with your power. You can get away with not powering systems like the medbay or O2 system pretty frequently, and depending on the kind of opponent you can trade shields back and forth for engines. The upshot is that it's generally better to have more systems than you can actually power at once, since they will at the very least act as a damage soak and they can be powered up if you e.g. have three shields but conventionally only run two and then encounter someone running a Glaive.

By the endgame you always want a minimum of three shields and 50% evade along with some other defensive options (cloak, more shields, etc).

Defense Drone 1s are worth their weight in gold. 2s will waste their shots on lasers and are basically a much crappier shield layer.
 
Dream Logic said:
Also finding it seems like alot of encounters end in a catastrophe cascade where I go from fine to 'all the systems are on fire'.
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Oh, that's usually how it works. Unless you've been really starved for repair or are fighting the last boss, things mostly don't have the DPS to kill you without the cascade failure.

Consider preemptively venting the air from rooms that you aren't using; this helps control fires and enemy boarding operations, and isn't much of a problem until your environmental systems take a hit.

Also, what Foamy just said.
 
Ugh. I'm definately much better then I was a few hours ago but I feel like my weapons aren't holding up to snuff long term. For Kestrel at least. The missiles are a life saver but until I get a second set of lazers I'm not sure I can beat down guys post sector two or so. Figure I'll learn it in time, also where and when would I find the rebel dockyard?

So for teleport what should I be looking for supporting that? Minimum crew numbers, or just get a stoner and or mantis and go deliver justice?

Also thank god for slaver scum(and the other pirates). They are a wonderful loot pinata. Also, Spiders are not a joke...unless I have the anti-bio beam? I mean, random guess that it's the solution(the other being sacrificing the unlucky)
 
Dream Logic said:
Ugh. I'm definately much better then I was a few hours ago but I feel like my weapons aren't holding up to snuff long term. For Kestrel at least. The missiles are a life saver but until I get a second set of lazers I'm not sure I can beat down guys post sector two or so. Figure I'll learn it in time, also where and when would I find the rebel dockyard?

So for teleport what should I be looking for supporting that? Minimum crew numbers, or just get a stoner and or mantis and go deliver justice?

Also thank god for slaver scum(and the other pirates). They are a wonderful loot pinata. Also, Spiders are not a joke...unless I have the anti-bio beam? I mean, random guess that it's the solution(the other being sacrificing the unlucky)
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1. Forget spiders. It's just not worth the risk.
2. Grab teleport when it's convenient. Crew can be acquired earlier or later, what's important is having enough crew to run the ship and the teleporter at the same time.
3. Missiles are an early-game crutch and a late-game shield breaker. Lasers and other multi-hit weapons are far and away your bread and butter. Beams are generally shit that you sell for cash.
 
Dream Logic said:
Ugh. I'm definately much better then I was a few hours ago but I feel like my weapons aren't holding up to snuff long term. For Kestrel at least. The missiles are a life saver but until I get a second set of lazers I'm not sure I can beat down guys post sector two or so. Figure I'll learn it in time, also where and when would I find the rebel dockyard?

So for teleport what should I be looking for supporting that? Minimum crew numbers, or just get a stoner and or mantis and go deliver justice?

Also thank god for slaver scum(and the other pirates). They are a wonderful loot pinata. Also, Spiders are not a joke...unless I have the anti-bio beam? I mean, random guess that it's the solution(the other being sacrificing the unlucky)
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Every ship will require weapon upgrades in order to stay competitive; when you need to do so varies by difficulty and ship, but generally you want to be able to break two shields quickly by S2 (the Kestrel can last on its Burst 2 beyond that) and three by S4/5.

What do you mean by "Rebel dockyard"?

EDIT:

I also disagree with @Salty about beams. They have an awkward curve, but as you go towards the final sectors and start running into stupidly dodgy ships the ability to just go no once their shields are down and knife a beam into their shield and engine rooms is a very, very handy thing to have. They're also handy for screwing over Zoltan shields. They pair best with ion weapons and if you've got that pairing you can smash people.

As for spiders -- and events generally, but the spiders are notorious -- you want blue options. If you don't have one it's frequently best to play it safe, particularly on ones that can cost you crew.
 
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The third ship's unlock description makes mention of some weird rebel flagship under construction. Or a dockyard, it's set as a rumor but that just means I'm probably going to fight the prototype of the final boss or a variant that's only halfway complete.

Also blue options are great, just wish the human crew had more then one. One of the Rockmen ones is just insulting the Mantis so much they broke one of their systems(makes me very happy when it took their weapons out).
 
cB557 said:
The fed cruiser is really good. If you want an easier win it's definitely worth seeking out.
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The guarantee that you will have a weapon capable of killing the final boss is pretty nice, but. If you're having problems getting past the early and mid game, you're not going to be able to unlock it.

... The Kestral's B-version is actually pretty sweet, and shouldn't be too hard to get, IIRC.
 
The Krestel B four lasers will max your Weapon officier experience very quickly. It also inflicts lots of damage easily, and is generally a easy option.

Whats not to love?
 
Candesce said:
The catch, of course, is that the Burst Laser II the Kestral starts with is arguably an endgame-quality weapon.

The Red-Tail's four Basic Lasers? Not so much.
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But they do require a level 4 weapons systems, which is one of the highest for a starting ship. They also makes upgrading a bit easier early game as you are all but guaranteed to always have 4 available guns.
 
Salty said:
Beams are generally shit that you sell for cash.
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HERESY.

Once you have enough firepower to overpower shields (Or some other method to supress them, like hacking or ion weapons) beams are by far the best weapon around, damage and accurancy wise.

A pike beam will hit the flagship with 6 HP per volley, or 3 HP per power point. The hull beam is even better, at 8/v 4/p. Compare with a burst laser 2, that hits for 3 HP per 2 power if all the shots hit.

The higher beams are worse, but even those keep a pretty good damage per power ratio.
 
The two things about the higher beams -- and the only reasons to use the Halberd or Glaive -- is that they can a. shield pierce, which means you don't need to suppress all the shields (which is very relevant against things like the flag) and b. do significantly more concentrated damage to systems, which has a much more dramatic impact on combat.

Also, beam drones can absolutely demolish people if you've got ion weapons keep shields down.
 
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MagicianX26 said:
Been watching some online LPs, sad that nobody really bothers with a Drone/Hacking reliant strategy
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That's because it's a sonofabitch to get the kit together to do it reliably. You burn through drones like crazy unless you have the recovery augment, you need the defense-drone hack augment to get the hacks to work reliably, hacking (while very powerful when it works) is only able to take out one system, offensive drones can't be targeted on specific systems, you tend to lose out on scrap as compared to boarding and you need more scrap because you're gonna be buying drones...
 
foamy said:
I also disagree with @Salty about beams. They have an awkward curve, but as you go towards the final sectors and start running into stupidly dodgy ships the ability to just go no once their shields are down and knife a beam into their shield and engine rooms is a very, very handy thing to have. They're also handy for screwing over Zoltan shields. They pair best with ion weapons and if you've got that pairing you can smash people.
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Stealth cruiser B victory :V

The thing about beams, other than their guaranteed chance to hit, is that they can disable multiple critical systems with a single shot, which you can't do with other weapons. Also, the flagship always has the pilot, shield, and triple missile rooms clustered together.
 
So I got the first ships B set up(all the lasers) along with the first stealth cruiser.

Feels like the game is opening up a bit now that I have more then just kestrel and engi A.
 
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