FTL: Advanced Edition: First thoughts?

[grey_space]

Hey all,

Just went through my first playthrough on the advanced edition. (Normal Difficulty on the Zoltan Cruiser)

Managed to get through to the end to face the Rebel SuperShip

It ended up totally kicking my ass by spamming hacking my weapons, cloaking, firing while cloaked to ionise my sheild's, and then missiling the holy shite out of me.

Just for yucks every now and again it would take over one of my crew and get them to attack whatever system I had them repairing.

Normally when I fight the endgame ship I prioritise its missile launcher, then shields, then work my way through its other weapons systems and (provided I've picked up a decent weapons loadout) it works for me most of the time.

Definitely going to have to rethink my strategy and play around with these new systems.

Loving it though.

Has any Escapist completed the Advanced edition yet?

What was your strategy? Tried any of the new ships/systems yet?

Tell me your spacefaring tales!

 

[nujumkey]

My thoughts? FTL is a good game, and more of a good game is good

 

[Elfgore]

Well since I suck total balls at that game, I still haven't beat the game on easy. Hell, I've had to cheat just to get all the ships. The new ship, is not really that good from my experience. The new aliens could be useful if used effectively, but since I'm anything but effective at the game, they are a hindrance.

But overall I'm enjoying it. I love the shiny new interface.

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

the new aliens and ship look to me based around Cloning Crew and not having all that much Air on board, is what it looks like to me, so less likely to be lit on fire

 

[Lono Shrugged]

It's like walking out of rehab and seeing a stall for "Crack advanced edition: slightly better than old crack"

 

[Udain]

I had a good run with the Zoltan layout B, got to the Flagship phase 2 and unlocked the Zoltan C variant before being utterly destroyed by the obscene amount of drones, god I hate drones.

The new content and mechanics really add a lot of variety to the game from what I've seen so far, the new systems and the ability to man subsystems add some more depth to combat encounters.

I have to say some of the new weapons are greatly appreciated, particularly the charge weapons and flak, as they can really bolster an otherwise weak weapon setup.

 

[syaoran728]

The first time I faced the rebel ship in the new edition, they hacked my oxygen and asphyxiated my entire crew of 8.

 

[Dijarida]

I managed to get my hands on both hacking control and mind control along with a few new weapons, a flak cannon, full smash laser, and chain ion, which really allowed me to bust up the flagship by smashing straight through the sheilds by breaking multiple rooms at a time (I sicked the mega missile controller on his own system) I could then breach the hull in shield controller and then hack th oxygen controller, crippling the crew from effectively repairing any one system. With a T2 weapons expert I could keep both the stealth systems and hacking down until I could smush them (I'll say it again, chain weapons OP as fuck). The flagship didnt stand a chance.

I love FTL.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I haven't even been able to play it yet, but I am looking forward to an all-Lanius boarding party, I can tell you that much.

 

[Wardi Boi]

If you really want to tear the flagship apart, teleport two crew members into each of those separate weapon rooms starting with the missile launcher and use level 3 mind control on the crew member in the shield room. The mind controlled person is likely to be overwhelmed and killed, this can be repeated until 2 or 3 crew members are left in the main section of the ship which your teleporter crew can finish off easily if you can disable their med bay. Also, don't kill the guy in the burst laser room (left of the cockpit) so that the ship doesn't become under control of the ship's AI.

Now that there is no more crew in the main section, the flagship is essentially defenceless as long as you keep teleporting your crew into the rooms that are a priority to destroy. I used this strategy last night with the zoltan cruiser and it was the first time I took no damage during the entirely of the flagship battle.

 

[USIncorp]

Definitely a big highlight for me was the new music, I love how it fits so well into the overall feel and theme of the game. It fits in so well, I have to really pay attention to when it's on to realize it's different.

I deleted my profile so I could have a fresh start, so my second run was as the Engi Cruiser. I had a lot of fun playing around with the new drone types. I ultimately died from lack of drone parts, but it was a ton of fun. I also discovered in that run that the Vulcan laser is completely awesome and so powerful. It has a long charge up, but every time it fires the charge decreases, so when it's fully spooled up it's firing every second. It's so effective at keeping shields down that it was basically carrying me through the first two stages of the flagship.

 

[Jon Choi]

I like most of it. I don't like several new addition though. Such as Ion pulse planet thing, it seems to make game rely more on luck than careful planning.

 

[bunnielovekins]

Can anyone point me to somewhere I can look at to get decent at this game? I'm utterly clueless and could really use a hand

 

[TheSYLOH]

Love it, but i think they made it waay harder and waaay easier at the same time.
For everything they added that makes it easier, they added something that makes it harder.

Easier: TELLS YOU WHERE YOU CAN JUMP FROM A POINT YOU HAVEN'T JUMPED YET!!!
Guessing if that jump was lead to the exit has sent me spiralling into the rebel fleet countless times.
Harder: If you really mess up and wind up waay behind in the rebel fleet, ALL the cruisers start shooting at you, using the defense system environmental hazard.
This has lead directly to at least two death.

Easier: Hacking and Batteries and Mind Control, Oh My!
Hack those shields and pummel them, fill those upgrades or deal serious crew damage from the confort of your own ship.
Harder: Those things are also pointed at you.
This takes the most deadly boss phase from phase 2 to phase 1, its a roullete of death,
Good luck if he hacks weapons, i only survived an oxygen hack because of clone bays.'

Easier: Clone bays
Seriously, once you get 5-6 crew members you are essentially immune to boarding, that oxygen hack loss it's sting once my suffocated crew men started coming back.
Harder: Clone bay :-(
Then you hit a pulsar and lose your entire boarding party because it insta deactivated your clone bay.
Also BS where ALL your shields go down and your opponent still has drones. There's a reason i loathe the stealth ship.

Weapons the new drones and weapons are pretty good.
Like the vulcan and the flak cannons, and the fire drones will turn ships into infernos once the shields go down.
again they are all pointed at you as well.

As for the lanius... well they aren't that much of a game changer.
TBH they don't show up unless you roll the abandoned sector or are playing one of the new ships.
I can't see them being used at home, because they suffocate the zoltan powering the room or the engi trying to repair it.
For boarding they are ok, but again they don't play well with the mantis or rockmen, and you are unlikely to get a full party unless you hit their sector.

Finally, I have to say the layout c cruiser is growing on me, At first i thought WTF? This ship makes no sense. But then i realized the zoltans were there as disposable anti-crew suicide bombers, also the Flak Artillery is fun, combine with a flak gun II and your target will have 14 projectiles headed down range at once.

 

[Augustine]

Excellent game, made a wee bit better.
Then ported to an iPad in an absolutely faultless fashion. C'est fantastique!

One problem though... Now that I got the iPad version, I have to re-earn the Crystalline ship :< It took me awhile first time around, now with all the extra content it will take even longer, I recon.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I have not had the chance to spend too much time with the game, but all in all it feels like a good addition. Other games probably would have charged for an expansion like this, I appreciate that they didn't.

 

[Ham Blitz]

I never beat the base game, but I had gotten to the final boss before (I couldn't kill it fast enough to save the day) but I have tried the new one and the new features I have encountered seem nice. Though, after reading TheSYLOH's post there are apparently things I have yet to run in to.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Easier: TELLS YOU WHERE YOU CAN JUMP FROM A POINT YOU HAVEN'T JUMPED YET!!!

This was actually in the vanilla game, but it was disabled by default in the options.

They really buffed the rebel flagship, I got to it with a ship that would have easily beat it in the original game and I got completely rekt. All of the additions are fantastic though and add in a lot of new variety, although I find the clone bays a bit useless since you rarely lose any crew if you know how to deal with intruders.

 

[Eggsnham]

I liked the part where my crew keeps being set on fire and/or suffocated because the AI takes out life support, door controls and sets fires everywhere.

Seriously though, it's a pretty great game. Requires a lot of thought and strategic maneuvering to get through it and the ship to ship combat is surprisingly deep and Advanced Edition does a lot to add to the experience. My only gripe with the game is that there's no game mode that allows you to just fly around the galaxy and explore without having to worry about rebels pursuing you.

Also, my personal record was beating the first stage of the rebel flagship with the Kestrel before it picked me apart with drones and missiles before I could even get a single missile to any of their major functions.