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[Neonivek]

The one thing I love about beams is if you manage to break open shields you can do a lot of damage.

If the final ship didn't have the shield recharge rate of the heavens it would be a great way to kill it.

Still remember the ship I managed to get away with 9 damage with a single beam..

I lost because while my strategy let me drop the shields... it wouldn't stay down long enough for me to hit more then MAYBE two rooms because its recharge rate was unfathomable.

It was probably the most disappointing loss I ever had, because I absolutely ruined every other ship in the game to the point where they were pathetic weaklings and I was taken out because the enemy's ship is magical.

[crazysheep]

FTL has a peaceful feel when everything isn't on fire.

qft

[Darkmere]

So I managed to eke out a normal win (3 HP left at win) with Slug B... by turning it into a gunship. Two Flak I's and a Hull Laser III picked the flagship apart pretty well. I only regret not buying sensors, which cost the lives of two of my three mantis boarders. Godspeed, Whatsisname and Billybob, we hardly knew ye. I managed to get a drone bay but not a single shop had a defense drone, so I think I used the Offense I a single time, on a shield-less autodrone in an ion storm. That makes all 8 C-class ships unlocked, the only ship I'm missing (including the crystal which I unlocked legit pre-patch) is the Lanius B. Then I can start playing with all these new toys sitting in the hangar...

Re: Fed Cruisers/defensive games, I actually don't mind them because I try to keep a single weapon to snipe the crew with once a ship's incapacitated. If I manage to pick them off, bonus loot! Otherwise, they would have died anyway, so no loss.

Honestly I wouldn't mind a FTL with a longer campaign.

I know many people would disagree as the current 8 is long enough... but I wouldn't mind one that is like... 16 or 24 parsecs with minibosses and stuff.

That might be tough to implement without either being grindy, cutting resource gains to make it more grindy, or some pretty impressive power creep. It's pretty easy to fill up a whole ship as-is if you get a good run; I can't imagine twice or thrice the resources dumped into it (or the monstrosity flagship that would show up to pose a challenge to such an Olympian player ship).

[Neonivek]

It would be a restructured game entirely darkmere.

if I DID expand the current places you could go to in the game without changing much... I'd chose between 2-4

[Mr Space Cat]

Honestly I wouldn't mind a FTL with a longer campaign.

I know many people would disagree as the current 8 is long enough... but I wouldn't mind one that is like... 16 or 24 parsecs with minibosses and stuff.

That might be tough to implement without either being grindy, cutting resource gains to make it more grindy, or some pretty impressive power creep. It's pretty easy to fill up a whole ship as-is if you get a good run; I can't imagine twice or thrice the resources dumped into it (or the monstrosity flagship that would show up to pose a challenge to such an Olympian player ship).

They could probably do it if they lowered the amount of ship v ship combat encounters and added more "non-combat text-based" events to go along with the longer campaign. Considering most loot is gotten from fighting ships, it'd stretch the resources, player power increase, and game length out a bit.

[Thexor]

FTL could really do with a fast-forward button, there are some fights where you know you'll win but it will take ages, especially as the Feds.

The Vulcan Cannon is by far the funnest weapon in the game though.

Just wanted to say: YES. Nothing is more boring than disarming an auto-scout with the Mantis B's boarding drone, then slowly waiting for the AI to repair a system, the drone to destroy it, the AI to repair it again, the drone to destroy it...

With no weapons, and no upgraded teleporter to safely send your crew, there is literally no other way to destroy an auto-ship. But you can make a cup of coffee in the time it takes that drone to inflict death-by-system-destruction-damage.

[Neonivek]

Ok I have to ask this

Does how long a battle lasts count for anything EXCEPT events? (actually does it even count for events? Is there a real counter in the background or is there just always a chance you will fail or pass it?)

[Thexor]

AFAIK, time elapsed only counts if the enemy is charging FTL. (And the decision to charge FTL is based on damage dealt, not time elapsed, unless they start charging as soon as the battle starts.)

If you and the enemy can tank each other's shots indefinitely without taking damage, the fight only ends when you get bored and decide to jump. I have no clue what happens if you have no fuel and are trapped in a stalemate... forced New Game?

[EnigmaticHat]

I think the implication is that each FTL jump your ship spends a great deal of time "in transit", so much so that the time spent in each fight is irrelevant to your chase with the fleet.

[Neonivek]

Whelp I won and that was... really easy.

But then again all that really happened is I lucked into a device that made me only use up a missile 50% of the time... and I had a Pegasus launcher... So I was already half-way to victory as it was. So I got a worst missile but honestly at that point I could have done it with just about any additional missile system.

Oddly enough with my build the boss' first form was the most difficult, then the second, and then the last.

While most of the time it is the boss' second form that gives me the most difficulty.

Also lucky for me he hacked my mind control device... then... damaged it... I sure as heck wasn't going to repair it.

I am kind of disappointed since some of my failed runs were a lot more entertaining (Just BARELY squeaking by. Heck one could have succeeded if I didn't have fires everywhere) and this one felt like "Well I got a good weapon now... I guess I won"...

And this wasn't even meant to be a serious run, I was buying up extra crewmen just for the achievement, even kicking a crewman off the ship just to get it...

I guess my "Take down the shields" strategy was just flawed.

[Calech]

AFAIK, time elapsed only counts if the enemy is charging FTL. (And the decision to charge FTL is based on damage dealt, not time elapsed, unless they start charging as soon as the battle starts.)

If you and the enemy can tank each other's shots indefinitely without taking damage, the fight only ends when you get bored and decide to jump. I have no clue what happens if you have no fuel and are trapped in a stalemate... forced New Game?

From what I've seen on Youtube LPs (since I've not ended up in that situation myself, luckily), when you're out of fuel and choose to / are forced to fight an encounter, the enemy seems to always charge its FTL (in the ones I've seen at least). The one time where I did run out of fuel, the battle suddenly stopped after a while to let me know that the enemy had stopped firing because they'd mislaid some fuel pods, which I just happened to grab.

So it looks like the only way running out of fuel could lead to a forced restart is if you get stuck fighting a Rebel fleet ship with insufficient firepower to kill it - unless they too have the 'whoops, dropped my fuel' event.

I usually run out of hull before I run out of fuel though so I haven't experienced all possible outcomes

[Darkmere]

I guess my "Take down the shields" strategy was just flawed.

Eh, the game is just random. You could just as well have fought a ton of defense drones/upgraded engines and struggled to outlast attrition damage/run out of missiles anyway. My last 3 "good run" failures were playthroughs where I was doing fine up until the game decided to throw a hard counter at me. My flak ship ran into a slug pirate ship with engi crew that was so spread out I couldn't actually damage anything with flak, so they tore me apart before I could jump away and I lost on the flagship due to limping away from that fight (near the end of Sector 7).

[Neonivek]

I would have been fine in that situation anyway (hurray for my other two weapons), but I get your point.

I also tend to prefer high engines to a 4th shield, but looking at everyone's runs... I am guessing shield all the way.

[miauw62]

Yeah, in my (limited) experience, a fourth shield helps a lot, not only against the flagship, but just in general.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I really wish there was an event that made you fight a duplicate of your own ship.

EDIT: You know what the best part of running a Lanius-only, O₂-free ship? When the rebel flagship sends its boarding drone right into my level 3 oxygen system (I had extra scrap) and it wastes the whole fight destroying it while I wreck the flagship with three ion blasts and a glaive beam.

EDIT2: Android, iRobot, and two system repair drones confirmed for best crew ever.