How did you first beat FTL?

[Candidus]

1st. Zoltan B, normal mode.
Full Evasion, 3 Shield, Full Cloak /w Cloak Fire.
Dual EMP II and dual 2 shot lasers.

2nd. Mantis B, normal mode.
Full Evasion, 4 shield, Cloak, Full transporter and Medbay.
Extensive use of the 4 man transporter room, breach mines and a 2dmg beam.

There have been other completions as well, but those are my favourites.
I played on Easy using the Mantis A and Stealth A because I'd been having trouble unlocking their B types,
but since then I've stuck to normal.

I think the only ship I haven't beat the game with is the Kestral A.
Once something else was unlocked I never looked back to it.

Edit: Ah yes, skimming the posts above me has reminded me, a defense drone is almost mandatory no matter the ship. I actually like having two, provided my ship's own weaponry is good enough.

 

[Grottnikk]

The way I win (and I usually do win on easy) is to make sure that I have a full crew and then I use the teleporter to send my boys and girls in sets of 2 over to the enemy ships weapon compartments. Here's the trick - you can easily kill the guy who's manning the weapon and disable the weapon because the compartment is completely cut off from the rest of the ship - no help is coming. When you fight the ship the 2nd and 3rd times, the weapons are unmanned and more easily destroyed. I take out the rocket launcher first, then the laser, then the beam, then the ion.

While I'm destroying the weapons, I turn off my own weapons and crank up shields, engines, teleporter, stealth (1 point only) and any drones and other defensive systems. Once the flagship's weapons are offline, I power down my teleporter and any other system I don't need and go crazy with the weapons.

From there, it depends on what weapons I have available. If I've got lasers out the ass, I just sit there shooting at his shields. If I have bombs, I nail his shields again and then fire lasers or beams at various areas (especially the stealth module in phase 1) to get the crew running around like madmen.

One VERY important thing - do NOT kill all of the enemy crew. If you do, then the ship's AI takes over and will repair the 4 main weapons. Bad news.

Best equipment - drones, teleporter, stealth, 1 bomb, multi-shot lasers. Upgrade shields early and often to avoid having to spend money on repairs. You're going to need the shields anyway, so better to upgrade them now rather than later.

Oh, and the first time I beat it was with the regular ship and a bunch of lasers. I didn't figure out all the above tricks until I had more runs under my belt.

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

Kinda with the guy above, 16h or more into it

Gotten to 2nd boss didnt have stealth got drilled by the drones

SHOULD have made it one run, but my bording crew sufficated....yeh distracted with one thing - forgot the other, and teleported back low health into low oxygen....

 

[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.

 

[lacktheknack]

I never use any Ion stuff though. It doesn't do proper damage so I automatically consider it to be shit and not worth any of my time.

You're so wrong.

My ion cannon + a laser that shoots a second later = enemy has no weapons.

It's a very cheap (as in, inexpensive) way to guarantee that you'll dominate early on.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I never use any Ion stuff though. It doesn't do proper damage so I automatically consider it to be shit and not worth any of my time.

You're so wrong.

My ion cannon + a laser that shoots a second later = enemy has no weapons.

It's a very cheap (as in, inexpensive) way to guarantee that you'll dominate early on.

But, but it does no proper lasting damage! How am I supposed to get hyped over that?! I know technically it's the super pro MLG way to go but shit, i'd rather wait to install another proper pew pew laser or two and some missles for instagibbing entire ships.

I draw the Dakka line at Hull Lasers though. The ones that do literally nothing if the shields are up even slightly. I know you're supposed to immediately use it once you get their shields down but really, once their shields are down you don't really NEED an anti-hull laser to kill them. 'S not worth the money wasted on it when you can just use your regular lasers to keep shields and weapons down at the same time.

 

[luke10123]

The only time I've beaten the game was using the downloaded 'Obsidian Cruiser' on easy. That was laughably easy though, didn't have to repair the hull the entire game and the last boss took a while but was simple enough if you take out the tri-missile launcher as soon as you can.

Should try it on Normal then.
I've gone back & forth on balance issues with that beast for a while. Current version is 1.2, which I hope feels more balanced for the majority of people who use it, but at this point I'm tired of fussing over the numbers.

As for my first win, I honestly don't remember. Engi A was the first one to get me to Sector 8, but I didn't have an offensive loadout capable of downing the boss.

Yeah I had the same problem with the Engi ship - got to the 3rd boss phase but couldn't get through the shields, took me about 15 minutes of back-and - forth before I died. While the OC is a bit overpowered in terms of weaponry, I don't think it's that much worse than the Osprey - the artillary is awesome!

 

[luke10123]

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.

I was the same, this page is an absolute godsend - some of the requirements are pretty specific!

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Ships

 

[Artemicion]

I used the Stealth Ship mk II, alternating the Glaive beam, Pegasus missile and fire bombs to keep the boss' shields and AI core down, with a repair drone and hull drone keeping me afloat. Had two rockmen and a mantis for boarding action defense.

Good times.

 

[YCRanger]

Kestrel A on Normal. It was about 60% luck. Ran into a hull laser at a store in the first sector. Then picked up a couple of crewmates from slavers and retrieved a couple defense drones from battles. Usually my first order of business is to acquire a second laser as soon as possible. With the hull laser I found I was able to afford some 'luxuries' such as a drone system with two defense drones. By the time I reached the flagship I had 6-7 crew members, three laser units and a missile unit, two defense drones, four shields, 50% dodge. It wasn't even close.

 

[DoPo]

Also, how the hell do you cheat in FTL?

Download Cheat Engine and you can try to look for a trainer (I suppose - I'm pretty sure there would be several) or what I did was to just go through CE's tutorial and apply that knowledge to change the amont of scrap I had (I didn't care about the rest of the stuff) - basically, launch FTL -> then launch CE -> in CE choose FTL and scan for the current amount of scrap you have -> go back to FTL -> once that amount changes (up or down, it doesn't matter) go back to CE -> scan for the new amount of scrap -> you'll now get two addresses with the scrap value -> just change both to the same number and when you go in FTL, that would be the scrap you'll have. Sounds more convoluted than it is but it'd be even easier with a trainer.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Glaive Beam on easy.

And I still didn't beat the boss. -_-'

 

[Daverson]

With the standard Kestral. I named my ship "HMS Victory", which I'm pretty sure is the only reason I won. I've had ships since that haven't been named this, and none of them have won.

A slight flaw in this theory, however, is that I later named a ship "Indestructible", it wasn't.

 

[Gold Standard]

4 victories, 1 on normal, all legit. Once you win on easy once the victories keep coming. My first was the kestral B, using 2xburst laser mk 3. Then I won with the Osprey and Mantis B. My normal vitory was with the osprey, with a bit of luck and a fully upgraded artillery beam.

 

[Panorama]

Engi Cruiser type A

I had level one stealth, no teleporter and 2 missle and one teleporting bomb, level 3 shields, and full engines. This was easy mode, and twice with the advanced ship you unlock after the first time you finish it.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Lots of burst lasers (2x bl2 and a hull laser 2 plus my starting missile). could have had it easier but a random fuck you killed my best gunner two sectors from the end and my replacement only had time for one skill up.

Burst Laser 2 is the best weapon in the game, fast cycle rate, 3 shots for 2 energy, and aimed shots so you can pick off systems. Late game damage doesn't matter nearly as much as the ability to overwhelm shields and drones to get at the juicy systems within, and that means lots of shots.

Didn't even need to cloak because I twatted the mothership just as it started its drone swarm due to lots of shots (would love to cheese the game to have 4x BL2 just to see how OP it got, but really can't be arsed to learn to mod it).

 

[GiantRaven]

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

If you have 3 shields and roughly 40/50% dodge chance, the final boss can be taken provided you can destroy the triple missile launcher quickly enough.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Pair of ion blasts, halberd beam and an attack drone mark II with max shields and upgraded engines. And stealth. How the fuck do you win without stealth. Maybe a defence drone II. Still it was an awesome fight.

 

[Luca72]

Kestrel B, baby! I think the main draw of that ship is that you never have to play catch-up at any point - great starting crew and you never need to buy a new weapon unless it's another burst laser. So my final ship was something like 3 burst lasers for a combination of 7 shots, an ion bomb, a teleporter (fantastic for the final boss), stealth and a defense drone (for those anti-personnel bots in the second phase).

It's worth noting that I'd gotten to the final boss probably ten times on Normal and lost before biting the bullet and trying the game on Easy. Also, I was so sick of the final bosses' shit that I looked up a guide on its' phases, so I was very well prepared by the end.

Still haven't beaten it on normal...

 

[Kayevcee]

I've completed FTL plenty of times (on easy- I'm not masochistic enough to try normal) and as far as I can see there are some items that are MANDATORY to take out the final boss:
A teleporting bomb of some description (to take out the shield generator)
A burst laser 2 or something almost as good (to wail on the shield generator once it's been bombed and you have a hope of damaging it)
A cloaking device to survive the second and third stage "taking the piss" attacks and early missile barrages
and EITHER a teleporter and a couple of big handy lads to prevent further missile barrages right quick OR a defense drone and high evasion
Actually high evasion is important for staying alive under any circumstances

At least 3 units of shield are probably necessary as I don't remember ever pulling it off with two. A beam weapon can raise serious havoc once you've got the shield generator fully disabled as the boss ship has lots of narrow rooms and corridors you can rake fire across. I think I knocked it out entirely on one turn* with a well timed and carefully aimed glaive beam while the shield room was blazing away nicely.

As I play through again with the Rock Cruiser I'm starting to think that I don't have nearly enough stopping power to keep the final ship's shields offline. More than one laser weapon (unless it's a Burst Laser III I suppose) is probably necessary unless you have mountains of missiles.

-Nick

*Minus the hull damage from knocking out the shield generator after weakening it with a bomb, naturally.