How did you first beat FTL?

[Dirty Apple]

Cloaking must be 100% mandatory to beat it I swear.

I wouldn't say it's mandatory. It certainly makes it a lot easier. All you need is level 1 stealth. Just pay attention, a cloak once you hear those missles pop or those damn multi-drones show up. It'll save you a lot of hull points.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

This thread amuses me. Mostly because of all the people admitting to cheating just to beat the game. Not because of anything personally against cheating in (singleplayer) games, but because of certain modern attitudes about finishing and cheating at games. I remember playing 8 and 16 bit games as a kid, knowing I'd never see the end of the majority of them, and knowing that was fine. Actually beating one of them without cheating (and I did cheat on a few titles just to see the end) would have netted me playground bragging rights for life, with good reason. Then somewhere around middle school, game design started to shift, until by the time I was in highschool, the average gamer was bragging about how they beat absolutely every game they bought. FTL, on the other hand, is a very old school game, it's the kind of game that you're really not /supposed/ to beat, or at least not without hours and hours of practice. Which is why I find people cheating on it hilarious -- I'd wager that by and large, these are the same gamers that like to brag about finishing every game they own, and the minute they get one that isn't designed to allow just anyone to see the end, well...

Me, I've got 14.5 hours logged (all on normal) just since buying it last weekend, and I still have yet to get to sector five, let alone beat the boss. But that's okay, because every run that gets me a little bit farther is a victory in its own right, and it's amazingly /fun./

I guess what I'm saying here is, "darn kids with their new fangled easy games, get off my lawn!"

I would say you have a serious case of nostalgia goggles. Sure, I would also love to sink dozens of hours into the game, but I am not in elementary school anymore (hell, I can barely even remember what it was like) and I just don't have the free time. So yes, I have cheated too. In fact, I wrote an entire Cheat Engine script for the game that let me modify most of the game variables, including weapon reload times, and I STILL found it ridiculously luck-dependent.
Actually, my favorite trick was freezing the rebels' progress. It is a really simple cheat, and it let me actually EXPLORE the systems instead of just running through them on full speed. It was a lot more fun than my first few standard playthroughs.

That said, I have yet to legitimately beat the game, but mostly because whenever my ship gets destroyed, I feel I wasted all the time I took to get that far, and so I always shelved the game away for a few days/weeks.

See, you're proving my point. This isn't about nostalgia goggles. It's about people getting so used to winning at games that they see anything short of seeing the credits roll as a waste of time and effort. This is a game where every little step forward is a victory in itself, and I can promise you luck has less to do with it than you're thinking. It's not about what the game throws at you so much as what you do with it -- making the right decisions, and ultimately minimizing the effects of that randomness. Sure, it's possible for the RNG to throw a situation at you where you just up and die on the second jump. But by the time you're a couple sectors in, dying is less the RNG's fault, and more yours. I'm not a good enough player yet to beat the game (at least on normal, haven't even bothered with easy), but just about every time I die, I can pick out what I did wrong that lead to that death, which lets me learn from it, which makes me better at the game.

That's all a digression, though. The real point is that going in to this game expecting[footnote]which is subtly but significantly different from hoping or intending[/footnote] to actually get to the end is going at it all wrong. The real point of FTL (and any other roguelike) is to get as far as you can, aiming a little further each time. Actually beating it is just gravy, kind of the game acknowledging just how much you've kicked its ass. Personally, I could go my entire life without reaching the final boss, and still have had a blast getting however far into the game I did before ultimately moving on. I know I have so far.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Even on easy difficulty I can't do it.

That second phase just rips me apart with those drones.

You A. need to upgrade your engines so it misses more shots (they will miss more than half of everything fired at you at the highest level) and B. get a cloak. As soon as the drones appear, cloak, and the second (and third) phase becomes trivial.

OT: With basic Engine ship. The ion weapon is really powerful, and being able to prevent missile damage throughout the game will save you a lot in repair costs.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Zoltan Cruiser with Ion Bomb, two halberd beam lasers and a level 1 defence drone.

I loved carving up enemy ships before they could breach my overshield.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

implying I can even even get to the last sector on easy

I don't know if I'm just approaching the game wrong, or if the stars simply haven't aligned. If nothing else, anyone wanna tell me how to get more than just a Kestrel and Engi ship? I'd like to try a new ship, if nothing else.

You can just download a save game that has all the ships unlocked already. That's what I did. It's kinda cheating but who gives a fuck.

 

[Lumipon]

Kestrel A, on normal. Second run after a humiliating defeat.

Two Burst Laser Mk. II, Breach Missile/Bomb Mk. II and Halberd Beam. Max shields, assault drone, some cloaking.

Waited on cooldowns for all weapons. Stripped shields with a laser barrage and Halberd'd for maximum damage. Used Breach to take out the enemy Missile Launcher.

Repeat.

I got lucky with the kit and had Engi crew to spare, so any damage was easily repaired. Boarding parties were a hassle, though. In the end, nobody died, so a happy end :3

 

[XzarTheMad]

At this point I beat it pretty much every time I play on easy. I don't remember my first win. A key to winning is to prioritize taking out the triple rocket launcher and triple heavy laser. Kill the crewmember through fire, bio beam or teleporting, then destroy the weapon systems. In general, use the stage 1 "weak" form to kill off all buy 1 crewman, who will go from navigation to shields, wherever he's needed. Every new stage should begin with promptly taking out the rockets and heavy laser. Without those, the ship is basically helpless. Stage 2 drones can become annoying, but since you should never go into this fight without level 4 shields (which are easily attainable), it is unlikely that they alone will be able to do much to your hull.

I never rely on missiles for the final boss; lasers and beams are far prefferable, for faster hits, more damage through proper beam application (remember, it only needs to touch a tiny corner of a room to count as hitting it) and no ammo worries. Rather, try to go without rockets and trade the rockets away in favor of drones, fuel or scrap. Often you can get an extra level of shield (two bars) purely from selling off your rockets. Upgrading med bay and oxygen to level 2, as well as doors to 2 are often vital to keep intruders down, curb fires and make sure that an errant blast doesn't rob you of oxygen.

I find that either drones or a teleporter are essential. Not both, since you likely won't have power to fuel your shields, max weapons (always max them or have at least 1-2 extra bars, to prevent loss of firepower!), oxygen, medbay as well as both sub-systems. Drones should focus on defense - level 1 defense drones are helpful for taking out rockets (only emply 1, as their AI will make them target the same rocket, so no bonus, and forget level 2, as they will focus on lasers which your shields can easily deal with) and repair drones are useful for keeping your crew stationed, improving shield recharge and fire rate etc. Teleporting should focus on taking out the aforementioned rocket and laser systems. Beaming into the main hull is dangerous and often a waste of time; too many enemy crewmembers will swarm and kill your guys. Rather, once the key targets are taken care of, focus on thrusters, firepower etc. As for crew, ignore humans whenever you can. Rockmen and mantismen make good attack classes, engis are best kept at shields, where they can repair them quickly. Zoltans should be kept alive and in weapons/shields to ensure a constant energy stream there. Slugs are often worthless too, but may be used in several "blue" events. Keep them in navigation, or in medbay/oxygen for backup repairs in a crunch. Try to get as many crewmembers as you can, four at the minimum.

As a brief last note, always try to map out your trip through a system in advance. It's fairly easy to anticipate when and where you can go somewhere before the fleet tracks you down, and the more nodes you hit, the more scrap you get, and thus, the better weapons and systems you can grab. Always hit shops, try to save scrap as long as possible, sell off anything you don't actively use (don't keep "just in case" weapons or drones in your inventory, it's worthless). If possible, get a loadout that kills crew. You get a lot more resources that way, to the point where you might not actually be able to spend it all. Just remember(!) to keep something around for actually destroying hull. I once found myself with nothing but a fire beam, bio beam and crew teleporter against the boss where the AI had taken over, repairing the systems. It was no fun. I won, but it was no fun.

FTL is actually quite easy on easy mode. Especially when you get the slug cruiser. I think I spent about 5 hours before my first win, and I have probably beaten it at least a dozen times since then. Go get 'em, people.

 

[YCRanger]

/

I guess what I'm saying here is, "darn kids with their new fangled easy games, get off my lawn!"

I would say you have a serious case of nostalgia goggles. Sure, I would also love to sink dozens of hours into the game, but I am not in elementary school anymore (hell, I can barely even remember what it was like) and I just don't have the free time. So yes, I have cheated too. In fact, I wrote an entire Cheat Engine script for the game that let me modify most of the game variables, including weapon reload times, and I STILL found it ridiculously luck-dependent.
Actually, my favorite trick was freezing the rebels' progress. It is a really simple cheat, and it let me actually EXPLORE the systems instead of just running through them on full speed. It was a lot more fun than my first few standard playthroughs.

That said, I have yet to legitimately beat the game, but mostly because whenever my ship gets destroyed, I feel I wasted all the time I took to get that far, and so I always shelved the game away for a few days/weeks.

See, you're proving my point. This isn't about nostalgia goggles. It's about people getting so used to winning at games that they see anything short of seeing the credits roll as a waste of time and effort. This is a game where every little step forward is a victory in itself, and I can promise you luck has less to do with it than you're thinking. It's not about what the game throws at you so much as what you do with it -- making the right decisions, and ultimately minimizing the effects of that randomness. Sure, it's possible for the RNG to throw a situation at you where you just up and die on the second jump. But by the time you're a couple sectors in, dying is less the RNG's fault, and more yours. I'm not a good enough player yet to beat the game (at least on normal, haven't even bothered with easy), but just about every time I die, I can pick out what I did wrong that lead to that death, which lets me learn from it, which makes me better at the game.

That's all a digression, though. The real point is that going in to this game expecting[footnote]which is subtly but significantly different from hoping or intending[/footnote] to actually get to the end is going at it all wrong. The real point of FTL (and any other roguelike) is to get as far as you can, aiming a little further each time. Actually beating it is just gravy, kind of the game acknowledging just how much you've kicked its ass. Personally, I could go my entire life without reaching the final boss, and still have had a blast getting however far into the game I did before ultimately moving on. I know I have so far.

I pretty much agree with this. The point of a game like this is not to win, so much as it is to enjoy the impossible odds and learn to laugh at the multitude of ways that you will meet your untimely demise. I bought the game for a friend and the most fun is swapping stories on how we got screwed by any number of ways. Did you run into a ship that took out your door controls letting fire spread and kill your team before you could vent it into space? Did you make the mistake of trying to jump to one more star and end up facing the rebel fleet in sector two? What about losing your top gunner when you tried to help stop the alien spider invasion leaving you alone to pilot the ship? And I hope I'm not the only one that has diverted energy from o2 only to forget to power it back up and killed everyone on board. You could argue the 'waste of time and frustration oh i have a real life and can't be bothered' except an average playthrough is an hour and a half. You don't have to beat the game but if you want to cheat to do it that's no sweat off my back it just seems like this isn't the game for you in the first place. So you beat the game while cheating and you're rewarded to . . . a couple of sentences and the credits. But if you play normally and learn from your mistakes and have a little luck you will eventually take down that bastard flagship and it will be glorious. All hail the crew of The Lebrominator

 

[Zenn3k]

Even on easy difficulty I can't do it.

That second phase just rips me apart with those drones.

Ion Bomb works wonders. Bomb his drone controller and phase 2 is cake-walk.

In my experience taking out the drone controller doesn't stop like a million drones coming at you at once.

You should probably get more experience then.

I beat him all the time with Ion Bomb, he never even launches a single drone...cause his controller doesn't work. Try it.

 

[boradam]

I used a ship.

I was persistent and dedicated to beating the game with the first ship available, and eventually through sheer perseverence (and roughly 150 tries) I won.

 

[Naeras]

My first playthrough on easy was with the Zoltan Cruiser. I managed to get a really solid Glaive Beam-setup on the ship, and ended up wrecking stuff easily.

If you want an easy playthrough though, try the Engi cruiser. If you get a second EMP weapon, a defense drone, an additional offensive drone and the drone recovery arm, you'll be able to take down anything the game throws at you with ease. Fire one EMP at the shields and another at another system you want taken out, then let the drones do the rest.

 

[lacktheknack]

implying I can even even get to the last sector on easy

I don't know if I'm just approaching the game wrong, or if the stars simply haven't aligned. If nothing else, anyone wanna tell me how to get more than just a Kestrel and Engi ship? I'd like to try a new ship, if nothing else.

You can just download a save game that has all the ships unlocked already. That's what I did. It's kinda cheating but who gives a fuck.

I do! I do! Ooh pick me!

Not gonna cheat. That means the game defeated me. The furthest I go is asking for help on how to do things.

 

[arcaneInflection]

If you want an easy playthrough though, try the Engi cruiser. If you get a second EMP weapon, a defense drone, an additional offensive drone and the drone recovery arm, you'll be able to take down anything the game throws at you with ease. Fire one EMP at the shields and another at another system you want taken out, then let the drones do the rest.

My win was basically this, I was on my friends account, playing the for the first time and lucked through to beating the end boss, but only just. No cloaking, no teleporters, only dronespam.

 

[wintercoat]

Rockman boarding parties and bombs got me my first win. Take out the tri-missile launcher first, then the tri-ion weapon. Bomb the Medbay with firebombs until it goes out, then send in the Rockmen. Leave the guy in the hull laser bay alone, and the enemy crew doesn't respawn(if you kill them all, an advanced AI takes over the ship). Take out the shields with the Rockmen, then destroy the ship before the fire spreads to the oxygen bay. During round 2, take out the missile launcher, then the drone bay. Knock out the shields once that's done, and take it out at your leisure. During phase three, head directly for the shields and take out the ship quickly.

Using the transporter to at least take out the guns is part of my strategy, no matter how I plan on playing.

 

[MetroidNut]

I first beat it with an Engy ship loaded with drones, ion cannons and maxed shields (not too much power in the engines). The trick, for me at least, is beam spam - lots of weak shots to punch through the shields. Then I focus on keeping their missile launcher disabled so my shields can't be bypassed. If I have the right weapons to reach that point, I can pretty much just wait them out.

With a little luck and a ship I understand, I can usually beat the flagship on Normal. Unfortunately, the only ships I understand are the Engy, Zoltan and Federation Cruisers. I can rarely get the other ships to sector 5.

My personal favorite was when I tried the Slug Cruiser three times in a row, and never made it out of sector 1.

My second favorite was when I dragged the Stealth Cruiser all the way to the final boss battle, but had to retreat on phase 2 for repairs. In order to get atmosphere back, I had to sacrifice two of my four-man crew to the hull breach in the door control room. It was all very dramatic until the flagship killed me on my next try.

 

[Trillovinum]

Mantis cruiser type A on easy. The teleport allows you to take out enemy ships' crew which gains you much more scrap and rewards than outright destroying them. So by the end I had more missiles than I could ever fire and lots of scrap for my systems. So I maxed out the engines, shields, cloak,and teleport systems.

When I got to the final boss I had two burst lasers II and the S. bomb that I had from way back in the beginning.

Someone mentioned this particular tactic before which is to beam your crew in the seperate weapons compartments where the rest of the rebel crew couldn't get to destroy their weapons systems. I did this while I focussed my s. bomb on their critical systems (cloak in the first wave, drones in the second and shields in the last)while directing my burst lasers to fire on shields or critical systems. Activating my cloak when I recieved warnings that their drones were comming or when they started volley fire.

In the end I wpn with this setup and later again with the federation ship you get for killing the boss.