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[GlyphGryph]

What makes you think that they're plasma?

Because they look and act like popular conceptions of plasma weaponry.

They sure as hell ain't lasers!

[Karlito]

The burst laser is acceptable, since it looks like a pew-pew Star Wars "laser". The heavy lasers, on the other hand, are definitely some kind of plasma cannon. But it's better that they call all the mechanically similar weapons by the same name.

[GlyphGryph]

Star Wars does the same thing with the naming, but in star wars canons "lasers" aren't actually lasers, they are weapons that fire particle "bolts" with encapsulated plasma components (hence explosions on impact), and are just /called/ lasers because people are lazy. This is why you'll also hear them referred to as blasters (although blasters also refer to ANOTHER type of Star Wars weaponry, apparently...)

It's needlessly confusing there too, and only gets WORSE when you have actual lasers in-universe as a main kind of weaponry like FTL does.

[Micro102]

4 burst lasers II are just auto win. Get a pre-loader too? Nothing threatens you anymore.

[GlyphGryph]

Not as good as two bursts and a glaive beam, though.

Especially when combined with a pre-igniter and 2 automated reloaders.

Mwahahaha.

(4 bursts versus a 4 shield enemy with 50% evasion means an net average of 2 damage and a max damage of 8 . 2 bursts and a glaive gives you a net average of 3-5 and a max of 9-15, depending on the ship you are fighting.)

Of course, the Burst lasers DO fire faster, but when you can deal that much damage in your first volley that is a pretty significant advantage.

[Lightningfalcon]

Went up against first phase of flaship with 10 hull integrity and two crew members, barely one with 2 hull intergrity.  Went around space for a while looking for a store/repair dock, didn't find any, and finally had to fight against flagship.  Took down two of it's weapons, it's shields, and it's drone control until that stupid power surge took me out.  All I had were two heavy lasers, and two Burst MK II.  And a pre-igniter, level two weapons operator, and two automated re-loaders. 

[Micro102]

Not as good as two bursts and a glaive beam, though.

Especially when combined with a pre-igniter and 2 automated reloaders.

Mwahahaha.

(4 bursts versus a 4 shield enemy with 50% evasion means an net average of 2 damage and a max damage of 8 . 2 bursts and a glaive gives you a net average of 3-5 and a max of 9-15, depending on the ship you are fighting.)

Of course, the Burst lasers DO fire faster, but when you can deal that much damage in your first volley that is a pretty significant advantage.

Ah true, I forgot that beams don't miss.

[GlyphGryph]

Yep, and they hit instantly and the glaive deals enough to disable a max level pilot/medbay/o2/teleporter, and you can even hit the enemy while they are cloaked! Wonderful weapons, really.

The guaranteed 3 damage to the cockpit if you can take their shields down (in addition to damage a bunch of other places) is quite nice for the second volley, where even though you'll only have the burst lasers, they will all hit.

[sluissa]

It wasn't anything special score wise, but I just had, probably, the luckiest run of FTL I've ever played.

Started in the Red Tail. Things went normally for a while, found a burst laser II and a hull laser I. Noticed I had a mantis homeworld up next, and having not unlocked the mantis cruiser yet, upgraded my medbay to prep. I'd already purchased a teleporter early, which I used to rack up some good scrap. Ended up getting lucky enough just as the rebel line pushed towards the end of the sector I found the thief's ship, did what I needed and got the mantis cruiser. Pushed on, found the pod. Thought to myself. "I can't be lucky enough to finish this off this late", but worked towards it anyway. Collected another hull laser I and a small bomb (never to be used although equipped to the end). I'd been racking up a lot of scrap by this point, holding it, somewhat stupidly for stores. Purchased a few decent upgrades... such as a nice pre-igniter and auto reloader. At some point I'd also found the engi med dispersal unit which was very handy. Next to last sector... Rock Homeworld... I'm panicking, I've only reached this far in the crystal quest once before... I pushed on, searching desperately for the beacon, when... yes! Found it!. I ran through the crystal sector, straight to the quest, and straight out. Only hit one fight and one store. Probably missed some stuff, but I don't care, I'd unlocked the cruiser! Left that place, and hit the last stand. Breeze through the first two forms with only one hit of damage taken. Final form hit me a bit harder, but I never dropped below 2/3 hull, and I had a hull repair drone to back me up, which I never needed.

Very happy with that run. Now all I've got left to do is the slug cruiser.

[EnigmaticHat]

Whee, came back to FTL and immediately won with the Vortex.

Long story short, I bought the basic ion blaster in the first sector.  The problem with the Vortex (besides it generally sucking) is that its heavy ion doesn't inflict cumulative damage the way other ion weapons do.  By the time you can fire again, the disable effect is gone.  However, hitting an already drained system with an ion weapon adds to the damage AND resets the recovery cycle.  With my two guns, the enemy effectively didn't recover from ion damage, ever.  This setup is better even than the heavy ion, although it had the nasty side effect of leaving me with only one free weapon slot.

That, combined with a freed slave and a purchase of an attack drone/some system upgrades, left me with something around the effectiveness of the starting Engi Cruiser in terms of effectiveness (it would have been much better, but I only had 6 drone parts so I had to rely on my guns).

That's right; a great run of the starting sector, and the Vortex is almost as good as the other ships start out.  That's how bad this ship is.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah, the Vortex's starting loadout is literally bad in every way (weapons that only work against single shielded enemies and poorly even then, terrible crew, no actual defensive tricks, lame drones, no surveillance as if to add insult to injury).  The only redeeming feature I can think of is that its drone bay is decent once you find some good drones to put in it.  I like the idea but it really needs better weapons.

Incidentally, I ran into a mantis cruiser today that was entirely staffed by engis and zoltans.  An engi and a zoltan decided to beam onto my ship which had 5 rockmen in.

[GreatJustice]

Yeah, the Vortex's starting loadout is literally bad in every way (weapons that only work against single shielded enemies and poorly even then, terrible crew, no actual defensive tricks, lame drones, no surveillance as if to add insult to injury).  The only redeeming feature I can think of is that its drone bay is decent once you find some good drones to put in it.  I like the idea but it really needs better weapons.

Incidentally, I ran into a mantis cruiser today that was entirely staffed by engis and zoltans.  An engi and a zoltan decided to beam onto my ship which had 5 rockmen in.

Well, you get bragging rights if you manage to achieve anything with it. Really, if they wanted the Vortex to work the way they wanted it to, they should have (A) given it even more drone slots and/or (B) started it off with the Drone Recovery Arm.

In other news, I finally unlocked the Slug A, but as much as I want to love it, I'm finding it to be an irritating ship. Even on my best run, when I managed to get it a Burst Laser MKI in addition to a shield and weapons system upgrade in sector 1, it took a big ol' pounding.

It could be incredible if I had exceptional luck and ended up fighting a bunch of non-fleeing, weak weapon'd Rebel cargo ships while simultaneously getting more crewmembers and collecting a decent weapon, but the way I see it right now it combines a lot of problems together. It eats through missiles like crazy. Its raw attack power is laughable, so unmanned or Zoltan ships will hurt you (if not as badly as if you were flying a Mantis ship). The Bio Beam is pretty cool, but it's quite a hassle to get working properly, isn't as effective as it really should be considering how annoying it is to get it to work, and has limited use until you start boarding. However, boarding with the Slug A is annoying because you don't start with a teleporter, will probably spend any scrap you get on more essential things such as a weapons upgrade, improving energy, or shielding, and lack the crew to properly use it early on anyway. Oh, and because of the odd weapons setup, you'll find yourself taking lots of hull damage because you will either eat through your missile supply after a few fights or you'll conserve those missiles and get beaten over the face repeatedly by enemy ships because the dual laser is nearly worthless on it's own and the bio beam is really slow.

[Leafsnail]

The anti-bio beam should pierce, basically.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah. Missed out on my best chance yet to get the Stealth Cruiser because I ran up against an unbeatable AI ship one jump before the second quest marker. It took out my weapons and engines before I could do anything meaningful to it, and pretty much turned my Slug Cruiser to slag with ease.

That run was going ok before that, but...AI ships really hurt the Slug Cruiser a lot unless you find a good weapon early on.

[GreatJustice]

The anti-bio beam should pierce, basically.

That would do the trick. The fire beam really ought to pierce too; I bought it once thinking "Mwa-ha-ha! My enemies will be destroyed as fire is spread through their ship so fast that they can't put it all out!" but quickly discovered that the only situation in which it can actually do anything is a situation in which you would be capable of just blowing up the enemy with nearly any other weapon, and having done so faster and while using less energy to boot. The one time it's worth it is if you're flying a boarding focused ship with Rockman boarders, but in that case you could just get a firebomb that completely bypasses shields, creates a reasonable amount of fire in the target area, and doesn't take forever to charge.