Overview
This guide discusses successful and unsuccessful playstyles, specific ship strengths and weaknesses, route planning, resource management, and battle tactics in FTL: Advanced Edition.It also assumes you are familiar with the basic terms and play of FTL, have beaten FTL on Easy or Normal difficulty, and are attempting to improve the quality of your play. If you haven’t beaten FTL yet, I recommend AyCarrumba’s guide: “From ‘Oh No!’ to Pro”.
PREFACE AND VERSION HISTORY
FASTER THAN LIGHT: ADVANCED EDITION
VICTORY IN HARD MODE
(C) ittarter 2015
This guide discusses successful and unsuccessful playstyles, specific ship strengths and weaknesses, route planning, resource management, and battle tactics in FTL: Advanced Edition.
It also assumes you are familiar with the basic terms and play of FTL, have beaten FTL on Easy or Normal difficulty, and are attempting to improve the quality of your play. If you haven’t beaten FTL yet, I recommend AyCarrumba’s guide: “From ‘Oh No!’ to Pro”, published on reddit/ftl/. Google it.
This guide does not currently cover several advanced topics such as modding, achievements, and community challenges (e.g. No Pause, Shieldless). Nor does it provide exhaustive databases of items or events, which may be found at ftl.wikia.com.
I hope that these observations can be of some assistance to people looking for an organized resource. I make no attempt to be exhaustive but simply to stick to the most important points for each issue.
VERSION HISTORY
v1.1. Added an Addendum to the end of the guide, which lists all kinds of advanced tricks and tips that are well worth exploring for successful Hard play. While most of these could be relocated in the chapters I already wrote, they’re far more particular in contrast to the more general advice comprising the bulk of the guide. Thus, for now at least, they will remain a separate entity.
Also added a section in Strategy briefly addressing early-game problems with specific ships.
v1.0 Published.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, my heartfelt gratitude to Justin Ma, Matthew Davis and the rest of the crew at Subset Games for creating and publishing such an inspired game.
Thanks to Twinge and LethalFrag for starting me on the path.
Thanks to Eirh, Tetragoner, and everyone else inn the reddit/ftl/ community for their insightful comments, probing questions, and smart observations.
THE FOUR DHARMAS OF FTL
The Spacebar is your first level of attainment. Free yourself from rushed action. Listen and learn from your experience.
After this comes the second level of attainment – the Hangar. Every time your ship explodes, you have not failed, but rather you have been reincarnated to apply all your knowledge and goodness to a new journey. Pain is your teacher and friend, not your enemy.
The third level of attainment is Knowledge. What is each thing in itself? Understand the purpose of every system, weapon and augment.
The fourth and final level of attainment is to post your Hard wins with every ship on the Internet and gloat about it like a sonofab!tch. There is no teaching of the Buddha that contradicts it, and it is most logical.
A. THE HANGAR
1. CHOOSING YOUR SHIP
2. SUCCESSFUL SHIP BUILDS
3. GETTING YOUR FIRST HARD WIN
CHOOSING YOUR SHIP
In FTL, not all ships are equal. There are great, mediocre and weak ships. Not every ship can win every Hard run, even with perfect play. Whatever ship you choose, you need to understand its unique strengths and weaknesses. Serious weaknesses need to be addressed early in a run; strengths should be used, not ignored.
The following information allows you to pick your ship knowing its overall ease of play, as well as its unique pros and cons. Mastering the ship means being able to compensate for its weaknesses and leverage its strengths. (Engi A, for example, can be difficult to play before you understand how to use the Ion Blast II in the early game.)
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Class A ships (+3 or more). Kestrel B, Lanius B, Mantis B/C, Crystal B. The first two are the best gunships; the others are boarders.
Class B ships (+1 or +2). Kestrel A/C, Engi A/C, Fed A, Zoltan A/B/C, Lanius A, Stealth A, Rock B/C, Slug C, Mantis A, Crystal A. These ships have enough advantages to outweigh any existing disadvantages. Nearly all runs are winnable with correct play.
Class D ships (+0 or -1). Fed B/C, Stealth B, Rock A, Slug A. These ships’ weaknesses need careful management in the early game and resultant sacrifices may cause long-term setbacks.
Class F ships (-2 or less). Engi B, Stealth C, Slug B. These ships’ weaknesses are glaring; early bad luck or poor play will end a run.
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-3 indicates a serious problem that must be addressed to have a viable early game
-2 indicates a serious problem that must be addressed in order to have a viable mid-game
-1 indicates a drawback in certain situations but fairly easily overcome
+1 indicates an advantage in certain situations OR in most situations but easily obtainable
+2 means a build-enabling advantage, very useful beginning OR end, hard / expensive to get in-game
+3 means a build-enabling advantage, very useful beginning AND end, very hard to get in-game
“scrapables”: 35+ scrap value of equipped but nearly useless items
SUCCESSFUL SHIP BUILDS
It’s commonly said that “to fail to plan is to plan to fail.” From the moment in the hangar when you choose your ship, you should have a basic design in mind.
Gunships attempt to down shields quickly (~10 seconds, before any mid-range weapons are fired) and keep dangerous systems disabled until the ship is destroyed. Hacking is the fastest, most reliable way to bring down 3+ shields, but ion, missile and bomb weaponry also work well. Kestrel, Engi, and Lanius ships lean in this direction. For example, small bomb + flak I + heavy laser II, or ion blast I + burst laser II + pike beam.
Turtlers attempt to mitigate a higher percentage of damage for 15-20 seconds while big weapons are charged/sped up. Cloak or a Defense I drone is typically the best defense against heavy missiles. Federation, Stealth and Zoltan ships lean in this direction. For example, vulcan + chain laser, or flak II + glaive.
Boarding ships attempt to board, disable medbay/clonebay and then kill the crew. Boarding ships usually have more scrap, since they receive higher rewards for capturing ships, and usually wait longer to upgrade offensive capabilities; however, autoscouts, Mantis, Lanius and Slug ships can cause serious problems without careful play. Depending on weapons, systems, room sizes, and the number/race of boarders, they typically teleport to piloting, medbay/clonebay, shields, weapons, O2, doors, or mind control. Mantis, Rock, Lanius and Crystal ships are best suited for boarding. Good to buy Backup DNA bank, Reconstructive Teleport, Hacking and Mind Control. For example, Lanius to O2, Rock with fire weapons, Crystal to medbay, 4-man teleporter to a large room, Mantis to medbay after disabling or hacking it.
Drone-reliant ships are theoretically possibly but rare, since you typically won’t be able to find or buy enough drone parts to sustain two or more drones per battle. This problem is mitigated with the Drone Recovery Arm, but since it is not always found in stores and in space, you can’t go into a game thinking, “I want to destroy the enemy with drones.” Further, without the rare and expensive Defense Scrambler, drones are severely hampered by anti-drone drones. Thus attack drones must be thought of, in almost all games, as support damage only.
Ships that start with four weapon slots and two drone slots are more flexible than ships with three and three. It’s rare that you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’ll really need a third drone spot to guarantee a victory. However, 4-slot gunships will enjoy popular and common 8-power weapon setups 2/2/2/2, 3/2/2/1, and 4/2/1/1. Gunships with only three weapon slots are sometimes forced to exchange a small weapon for a bigger one despite the former’s efficiency.
GETTING YOUR FIRST HARD WIN
Take it slow. Decide that “this is going to be it.” Even if this is the tenth time you’ve tried. Have a zero tolerance policy for mistakes. If you need to take a break, take one. Pause at every Blue event, Alt-Tab to your web browser, look up the options on the FTL’s Wikia. Pause if you don’t know what a weapon is on the enemy ship, and look it up. Your sole goal is to prepare for the final battle. Be ruthless.
If you’re trying a Class D or F ship, stubbornness and desperation are your greatest virtues. Keep trying, and try slightly different setups.
B. STRATEGY
4. PLANNING A SECTOR ROUTE
5. PLANNING A BEACON ROUTE
6. UPGRADING AND SCRAP MANAGEMENT
7. GETTING SCRAP
8. SPENDING SCRAP
9. ABOUT THE SCRAP RECOVERY ARM
10. EARLY-GAME: PREPARING FOR SECTOR 3
10B. SHIP-SPECIFIC EARLY-GAME TIPS
11. MID-GAME: PREPARING FOR SECTOR 5
12. END-GAME: PREPARING FOR SECTOR 8
PLANNING A SECTOR ROUTE
Wisely charting your course through sectors appropriate for your ship build, strength and current needs will vastly affect your success rate.
When planning your overall route on the Sector Map, you can only see the sector’s color. Avoid long strings of purple sectors, as these typically yield less scrap and you run a higher risk of running out of fuel. If possible, stay away from any edges, as you won’t be able to choose the better sector for your ship. There’s nothing worse than having an Engi/Zoltan crew and getting stuck with a Mantis sector, or having a great boarding ship and being forced to fight a dozen Lanius ships. Many ships with good potential have been lost like this.
Green sectors have more stores (2-3) and fewer hostile events than red sectors (1-2). Favor Zoltan sectors if you have ion weaponry, Engi if you board and aren’t reliant on attack drones or missiles, Civilian otherwise.
Red sectors are more difficult and more profitable for standard ships but have fewer stores (1-2). Rock and Abandoned are the harder red sectors. Favor Rock if you have flak or beam weapons. Favor Abandoned if you aren’t boarding and have flak/beam weapons. Rebel, Mantis and Pirate and the easier red sectors. Favor Mantis if you are strong against boarding. Favor Rebel if you are strong against autoscouts and drones of all kinds. Favor Pirate otherwise, or if you need more crew (a multiracial crew yields more Blue options).
Purple/Blue sectors require more fuel. In Slug sectors, enemies often attempt to flee or disable key systems, so they are risky for boarders, and can be fruitless or even deadly for slower or weaker ships. However, there are lots of stores (2-3). Nebula aren’t challenging and a heavily populated with autoscouts, but they are probably the least rewarding sectors in the game, especially if you don’t have Long Range Scanners.
As a last way to choose, go to sectors controlled by races on your ship, as you’ll have a better chance of getting Blue options. Some homeworlds and the Rebel Stronghold can yield special quest rewards; others (e.g. Slug) aren’t worth much.
PLANNING A BEACON ROUTE
As soon as you arrive in a new sector, plan a route that allows you to respond to as many distress events as possible, and takes you through as many nebula as possible, while arriving at the Exit on the same turn as the rebels. Often, this means you plan a more centralized route through the sector, not on the edges, unless you detect a distress signal, store or nebula.
If the Exit is panned to the far right of the map, you have about ten turns (plus or minus event results), with any two nebula beacons buying you an additional turn. Be careful of dead ends and avoid retracing your steps. On my computer screen, the width of my finger is the distance the rebels advance each turn. Find something you can use to “count” how many turns you have to get to the exit.
When planning to visit a store, if possible, visit a couple extra beacons first instead of beelining straight for it. You’ll have more scrap when you go, and just maybe you’ll find that item or crew you were going to buy! 80 scrap (including items you’re willing to sell) is enough to buy the Burst Laser II, the most expensive “always a good idea” item.
If you have Long Range Scanners, you can also detect ships and environmental hazards at adjacent beacons. If you route through ships, you’ll have a better chance of missing the one or two empty beacons in each sector. In most cases, asteroid fields and ion storms greatly increase the likelyhood that your ship will be damaged, while red giant stars and plasma storms (nebula) are not usually as dangerous, as their effects are much easier to manage.
If you do not have Long Range Scanners and meet a mercenary at the first two or three beacons, you can pay him to reveal the sector map. In emergency situations this can help you quickly locate a hard-to-find store or possible locations of a special quest.
Distress events are especially rewarding if you have installed extra systems and crew, but even otherwise, they offer a lot of double rewards. Always take the blue option. If there is no blue option and you have a clonebay (except for the Great Eye and Damaged Space Station events), take it. If you don’t have a medbay and don’t know the risks of the event, Alt-Tab out of FTL and google it. You’ll be glad you did.
Remember, don’t mess with giant alien spiders.
UPGRADING AND SCRAP MANAGEMENT
This is the single most important and complex aspect of FTL:AE. If you don’t upgrade your ship correctly, you will not beat Hard difficulty. Correct upgrades means knowing when to spend, how much to spend, and what to spend it on. The trick is to upgrade wisely and anticipate future risks by upgrading preventively rather than reactively.
GETTING SCRAP
Getting better at FTL means more scrap out of every sector. Fight as many ships as possible. Avoid retracing your steps, retreating from battle, unnecessary store visits, arriving at the end beacon early, letting ships get away, and running out of fuel. Plan your routes, keep your ship battle-ready, disable piloting of ships charging their FTL, and keep a reasonable amount of fuel, right up until Sector 7.
Capturing a ship by killing its crew yields 10% more scrap than destroying a ship. If you have two or more Mantis, Lanius, Crystal or Rock aboard, consider buying a teleporter.
If your ship is in good condition, consider increasing your Blue options with the following early upgrades: Medbay L2, an ion weapon, piloting L2 (if in a large nebula), and a multiracial crew (esp. Rock/Engi). Blue options often yield scrap rewards higher than regular battles, not to mention more weapons and augments, which at worst you can sell, and at best you can not buy. You can also get more crew, which is nearly always better than scrap.
SPENDING SCRAP
Spend your scrap on what counts. Avoid buying weapons before you need them, buying systems before you need them, buying augments before you need them, and buying crew unless absolutely necessary. Keep track of what attack and defense you’ll need soon, and aim to always stay one step – just one step – ahead of the competition. If you need to be more than one step ahead to survive, you’re relying more on luck than on skill. Ride the edge of the storm.
All ships must have sufficient weapons/crew/systems to either board and kill the crew, disable systems, or down shields and score hull damage, given their current sector. Similarly, all ships must have sufficient shields, engines, drones, and secondary support systems to mitigate damage sufficiently.
Purchase options in FTL:AE can be divided, for convenience, into five categories.
1) almost always a good purchase
2) a good purchase for my current ship
3) a good purchase for my future ship, but not good right now
4) a bad purchase for my current ship
5) almost always a bad purchase
Category 5 makes up about 20% of items you will see in-game. These items are simply not efficient at what they do. If you find them for free, use them, and sell them once you find something better, and hope that you do not have to rely on them all the way to Sector 8.
-Repair Arm (you have even less scrap in Hard)
-most augments, especially FTL-related augments
-most missiles (unlike bombs, they do two jobs poorly instead of one job well)
-Heavy Ion and Chain Ion (not to be confused with Charge Ion, which is very good)
-Healing Burst, Crystal Bomb, and Repair Burst
-Drones: Boarding, Ion Intruder, and Shield Overcharger
Category 4 is probably 50% — items that are irrelevant for your current ship, perhaps because you already have something that fills that role (e.g. any missile if you already have a bomb), or because you just don’t have that kind of ship (e.g. a glaive beam if you have a fire beam and two Rock boarders). If you’ve already beaten the game on Easy or Normal, you probably already look past these items pretty fast.
Category 3 (~10%) is the one that is very important on Hard, because in Easy and Normal you had enough scrap that you could buy something you wouldn’t need for a while, and you would still have enough scrap to get the things you DID need. Now, however, you can no longer afford this error. You have to consider the Total Cost: initial purchase + necessary systems upgrades (esp. weapons systems) + reactor upgrades. You have to know if this item is really worth it for the next, say, two sectors, or if it’s better to be patient and pick it up later when your ship is ready for it. Conversely, sometimes in the early game you have to buy a weapon that will ONLY be good for the next couple sectors, but without it, you don’t know if you’ll make it.
Category 2 (~10%) is why you’re visiting all these stores. These are the puzzle pieces you’re looking for to complete a functional ship that will get you to the Flagship and tear it to bits, or, what will keep you ahead of the curve for the next two sectors while you work on other ship Systems.
Category 1 (~10%). No matter what ship you’re commanding, you’re always happy to see these items, and if you already have a ship that doesn’t need them any more, you’re sad to leave them unbought. But those times are rare indeed. Flak I and Burst Laser II are the cream of the crop. Halberd Beam, Heavy Laser II, and Ion Burst II also pair easily and are highly efficient. Automated Reloaders are always worth it for a non-boarding ship, and they stack! And Hacking is the number one System to add.
ABOUT THE SCRAP RECOVERY ARM
Finding it is wonderful; buying it is complicated. It’s rarely wise to buy before upgrading shields to level 2, or after sector 6. True, if you have a strong ship it will probably make it stronger in the long run. However, I’m going to go against popularly accepted wisdom and advise you not to just buy it unquestionably in Hard mode.
Remember that it might take more than two sectors to fully pay for itself. Yes, you can sell it later to recover half of the initial price, but in any strategy game, the value of a resource inflates, and 25 scrap in sector 6 isn’t equal to 25 scrap in sector 3. You are effectively postponing all your upgrades x beacons for the next couple sectors. What unknown future store item will you no longer be able to afford in the next sector? What upcoming battle will you be short a key upgrade? (All of these comments apply equally to the Distraction Buoys.)
Long Range Sensors are the better augment if you want to get more scrap. It’s cheaper, and gives you other useful information, too. Just fight as many ships as possible and you’ll earn far more scrap than you would with a Scrap Recovery Arm.
EARLY-GAME: PREPARING FOR SEC.3
Except for a couple Stealth ships, your number one priority is to support two shield bubbles before leaving Sector 1.
Once you can reliably damage ships with two shield bubbles (consider that against some ships you will miss about a third of your non-beam shots), consider upgrading secondary Systems to increase survivability and improve your chances of Blue options. First, upgrade Doors and Medbay/Clonebay to L2. If going through lots of nebula, upgrade Piloting to L2.
Attempt to keep a bit of scrap on hand, so you can buy a good weapon at a store, but don’t force it until absolutely necessary. Most ships do not need to upgrade weapons in Sector 2 or 3, and it’s far better to wait for something that will last you until the end-game than to waste your money on a temporary solution. If a weapon drops into your lap, stop hoarding scrap and upgrade your ship! Avoid buying new Systems, except possibly a Drone System that comes with Defense I (85 scrap), or if you have a strong potential boarding team, a Teleporter (90 scrap).
Especially in early sectors, keep an eye out for ships surrendering and offering four or more fuel, especially if you’re not capturing the ship. Getting some extra fuel early on can save you scrap in the mid-game.
SHIP-SPECIFIC EARLY-GAME TIPS
Engi A. Replace combat drone, keep med-bot dispersal until you have solid anti-boarding crew; target weapons, not shields, with ion blast II, early-game, if there’s ANY threat of damage.
Engi B. Before sector 3 you need to replace one or both weapons or you’re finished. Neglect some of your usual defensive upgrades if necessary.
Fed B. This is THE turtling ship; dual lasers are awesome; get early def drone and let artillery do its thing until you find weapons; prioritize defenses and do everything possible to make your ship immune to damage.
Fed C. Get L2 shields, a weapon (at least a bomb), and hopefully def 1 drone; don’t sell respirators (helps you board scouts). The key is to never risk your crew (i.e. your clonebay) so be careful especially versus missiles. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to teleport all four of your crew to overwhelm the enemy faster.
Stealth A. first upgrade cloak L2. timing is everything; once you hit two shield bubbles you need to delay firing the dual laser slightly after it’s charged. When cloaked, max your evasion by depowering O2 (cloak adds 60 to evade, doesn’t make it 100%) after enemy weapons are fired.
Stealth B. First upgrade is cloak L3.
Stealth C. First upgrade is L3 drone control. You don’t want a stray shot to knock out your only defense.
Rock A. save for laser/flak weapon/teleporter after L2 shields. No more defensive upgrades until you solve the missile problem.
Slug A. bomb their weapons if you miss with laser, then switch from bomb to bio beam; after L2 shields support bio beam with another weapon; knock out medbay and kill crew; switch out of bio beam by sector 8 or when you can’t reliably take down shields.
Slug B. patience! before finding a medbay/clonebay, board, save artemis for dangerous weapons and eventually enemy medbay.
MID-GAME: PREPARING FOR SEC.5
With few exceptions, the first four sectors see a slow ramp up in difficulty, with a sharp incline at Sector 5 and the transition to fighting better-equipped enemies. A good idea is to aim for three shield bubbles no later than the beginning of Sector 5. If you have a Defense I drone, Cloaking System or the Zoltan Shield, you can sometimes wait until the end of Sector 5, if you really need to work on your offense. Unless your ship feels squishy, try to gain more missiles and drones than you use.
Continue to avoid buying new Systems, unless you can’t find an appropriate third weapon to add to your arsenal and you won’t be strong against three-shielded ships. If you’ve had bad luck with crew and don’t have four, look for a good deal in an event — ideally, a race you don’t have, and crew already partly trained in a useful skill.
If you’re boarding, keep an eye out for Reconstructive Teleporter. If you have a clonebay, look for Backup DNA Bank. If you have a Cloaking gunship, you might want Stealth Weapons. If you rely heavily on drones, a Drone Recovery Arm or possibly a Defense Scrambler can make a huge difference. If you didn’t start with Sensors and don’t have a Slug, Lifeform Scanner is better than buying the Sensors subsystem. Most of these augments appear rarely.
END-GAME: PREPARING FOR SEC.8
Building from upgrades in the mid-game varies greatly depending on need and strategy, but there are still some nearly axiomatic truths. Before you leave Sector 5, aim for 45% evasion (L5 engines and a fully trained pilot and engine man). From Sectors 5 to 7, it is important to add secondary Systems to give your ship flexibility. Hacking, Mind Control, Drone System (with a Defense I drone), and possibly Boarding or Cloaking. You will run into enemies with four shield bubbles, enemies with six crew, enemies with multiple Systems of their own, and enemies with four weapons.
Once you buy your System, get it to L2 within a couple beacons so you can start using it regularly (except Mind Control, which you can leave a while at L1, and Hacking, which is usually always worth it to upgrade to L3 as soon as you can). If you’ve haven’t yet stockpiled 15+ drone parts, this is your last chance to start.
It’s very important to identify gaps in your weaponry. Can you quickly take down four shield bubbles, even if one of your systems is offline? If you can’t, avoid Lanius, Slug, Rock and Mantis sectors after Sector 5, until you can. Don’t even look at weapons that won’t fit into a strong 8-power setup against the Flagship. (You might not end up with an 8-power setup, but you don’t want to hamstring yourself by investing in items that ultimately won’t help you finish the game.)
If you don’t have a bomb or missile yet, small bomb, ion bomb, or breach bomb II can really enhance your arsenal. Avoid missiles unless you have no other choice. Otherwise your offense may be suddenly and grossly ineffectual against the Phase 2 Defense I drone.
In Sector 7, if you don’t have any Zoltan, consider buying a backup battery – even though you probably won’t need it before the Flagship itself. If you went boarding and you have a Medbay/Clonebay preference, you may now be able to afford to switch (you preserve its level: Medbay L2 becomes Clonebay L2, and so on). And finally, winning the game with five or less crew is hard. If your Systems and weapons are decent, you may be best served by buying another crewmember, particularly Mantis, Engi or Zoltan.
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By Sector 8, you should also be able to confidently address the Flagship’s 10-point Zoltan Shield and a veritable hoard of boarders in phase 3. A powerful boarding ship sometimes forgets the former, and a powerful gunship sometimes forgets the latter.
Unless you’ve had a very hard run, you should have all your System spots filled up. Any of Hacking, Cloaking, Defense I Drone, Boarding, and Mind Control, if used correctly, can be the difference between winning and losing the final battle. All Systems and Subsystems should be upgraded to L2 as a damage buffer. A stray missile should not be the difference between victory and defeat.
On the other hand, if you’ve had a lucrative run, upgrade shields to L8 (more cost-effective than upgrading Engines to L8). Remember that you can count on 10 and probably 20 free hull points repaired in Sector 8. Going into the final battle with less than 100% hull is ok, if it affords you an important upgrade. Few battles are won with only a handful of hull points left.
If you have a crew weak to boarding, upgrade Piloting and Doors to L3 before phase 3. This is often your very last upgrade, and you can even wait for the scrap you earn from defeating Phases 1 and 2.
C. TACTICS
13. CREW POSITIONS
14. GENERAL TACTICS
15. MANAGING YOUR SHIP
16. PRIORITIZING THREATS
17. USING WEAPONS EFFECTIVELY
18. USING SYSTEMS EFFECTIVELY
19. BOARDING THE ENEMY SHIP
20. DEFENDING FROM BOARDERS
21. TACTICS VERSUS THE FLAGSHIP
CREW POSITIONS
Standard order of systems manning: piloting, engines, weapons, shields, doors, sensors. Note that sometimes doors or shields or even sensors can get a higher priority, depending on your ship build and the specific threat at hand. If your sensors or doors are manned, unman them when repairing. Even a Mantis can make a difference in getting those shields back online.
Slugs make great pilots. Consider replacing your trained pilot, engine or weapon crew with a rescued Slug if it’s early enough to train the Slug.
Zoltan are best placed in engines, or in pairs, in shields. Since Zoltan power cannot be ionized, this protects the last shield bubble(s).
Lanius are great for doors, but be careful putting them in weapons or shields, particularly against the Flagship, as this can hinder fast repairs by multiple crew. They do, however, ignore breaches.
Rock are great anywhere, but preferably in a system located in a more central room, since they’re so slow. Due to health and fire immunity they also make decent pilots.
Humans are great in shields, since this is typically the longest system to train at, and they train faster.
Engi and Crystal are great anywhere, except perhaps piloting, where it is least likely their abilities will come in handy.
Mantis are best in doors or sensors, where they can more readily leave their post to defend the ship.
GENERAL TACTICS
The singular goal of each battle is to destroy OR disable the ship while mitigating incoming damage/disabling of different kinds. A strong ship is able to sustain damage AND defense even if any ONE system is fully disabled or any TWO systems are partly disabled (this happens a lot against the Flagship). So a boarding ship might have a couple weapons and a turtler might have a small boarding team. Have a Plan A (where you take no damage) and a Plan B.
FTL is a thinking game, and the more you slow down your decision-making, the more likely you will improve your game. Pause at the beginning of each battle and look at the enemy’s loadout. Really think about it, and make a plan.
When fighting, look carefully at enemy weapons and systems and develop a clear plan of attack. Early or mid-game, if the ship poses no threat, avoid using consumable resources and consider training your crew. If you need to flee, put as much power into your engines as possible to increase your FTL charge, and keep a second crewmember in the cockpit beforehand to speed possible repairs. While fighting, pause regularly to reassess the situation and perfectly time shots. Flak is slowest to reach the enemy ship, then ion/missile/bomb, then lasers. Beams are almost instanteous – but not quite!
Afterward, think about the battle. Did it go according to plan? Did you get lucky or unlucky? Were there any threats you over- or underestimated? Did you play the very best fight possible, or did you make mistakes?
MANAGING YOUR SHIP
Learn to juggle power between systems – this way you can upgrade systems earlier and tailor your response to a given situation. Medbay and O2 are the most obvious. At 100%, you can turn off Oxygen for about 75 seconds before any consequences. That’s two or three times longer than most battles.
Weapons can sometimes be depowered if you’re just trying to escape. Defense I drones can be depowered after they have shot down enemy drones and missiles (remember to repower them when you hear the next volley). Engines can be depowered during cloak, if you have over 100% evasion. Nearly everything has potential to be temporarily depowered. Improving the quality of your play involves slower play, pausing more, using your reactor effectively.
PRIORITIZING THREATS
Learn to recognize enemy weapons by sight, so you can plan best to attack and defend before the battle is even underway. Some missile launchers use the same graphic (their missiles don’t) but everything else can be identified at the outset. This information is critical when determining your battle plan. You can also identify a weapon based on its cooldown (relative to yours; you don’t have to count the seconds). Refer to [link] to recognize weapons on sight.
Prioritize piloting when evasion or escape is a problem (Autoscouts, Slugs).
Prioritize the medbay/clonebay if you are trying to kill the entire crew. O2 is a great target for Lanius boarders.
Prioritizing the drone system if an AP drone, boarding drone, defense drone is giving you a headache. In early sectors, drones can be more important to disable than weapons, as combat drones sometimes fire twice before your shield recharges.
If the ship has cloaking and you expect a longer battle, prioritize it. However, if you’re fighting a small crew or a Mantis ship, disabling cloaking won’t make much difference, as they won’t be able to finish their repairs before the cloak wears off anyway. If the crew has several engi, disabling it won’t do anything — it will be repaired before the cooldown is done anyway.
If the ship hacks your weapons or shields, disable their hacking asap.
If the ship mind-controls your pilot or a Mantis, try to disrupt it, or better, counter it with your own Mind Control.
Prioritize weapons over shields if they’re an immediate threat. Sometimes partially damaging the weapons system can desynchronize their weapons so they can longer deal damage, even after repaired.
If the enemy has a Zoltan shield, conserve bombs, missiles and long-charge weapons so they’re ready to go when you break it. Depower teleporter, hacking and mind control if you need to fully power shields or drone defenses.
USING YOUR WEAPONS EFFECTIVELY
A standard gunship will typically focus fire on shields first, and then weapons or drones, then piloting.
Autofire is wonderful for the ion blaster 2, but most other weapons are better to be carefully timed in volleys. For example, I have a small bomb, a dual laser, a flak cannon, and a pike beam. The enemy has four shields and high dodge. My dual laser and flak cannon charge at 10 seconds, but I don’t shoot either immediately, because I want to wait for my bomb and beam. I shoot the bomb first, at shields. I see it hits, but before it even explodes, I fire the flak. I give it a 1-second head start, at which point the bomb explodes, reducing enemy shields to max three bubbles. Then I fire the dual laser, and right about now the pike beam is charged. Two of the three flak hit, and 1 of 2 lasers hit, dropping shields to zero. I fire the pike and try to hit shields, weapons and piloting.
Missiles are generally useless if the enemy has an active defense drone. Don’t waste them. If you have a short supply of parts, just fire enough to open up the enemy ship to your other weapons. Target shields and possibly cloak, or if boarding, the medbay.
Bombs don’t do hull damage, but they do system damage, damage crew, and some start fires and breach the hull. Bombs are a wonderful way to support your lasers and flak. Once you’ve got the enemy ship on the back foot, stop firing them!
Beam weapons can often do an extra point of damage if you play with your beam line a bit. Two- and three-damage beams will pierce one and two shield bubbles, in a pinch, but the resulting damage is much reduced. If you start your line at the shield room you can sometimes disable or destroy that system in order to deal full damage to the rest of the rooms in the beam path.
Flak weapons are best used to take down shields by targeting a large or centralized room. Defense drones typically shoot down one of the volley.
Ion weapons are best left on autofire targeting the shields, or during early game, weapons. If you have enough ion firepower to permanently disable shields, start thinking about other targets you’d like to disable. Defense II drones can shoot them down.
Lasers and beams are your best damage dealers. Disable and destroy key systems. Defense 2 drones can shoot down lasers, but not beams.
Attack drones (beam, combat and fire) deal random damage and can act as secondary damage dealers. They work well as primary damage dealers with two or three ion weapons.
USING YOUR SYSTEMS EFFECTIVELY
Mind Control is used to a) neutralize an enemy boarding party, b) help your boarders, c) temporarily reduce enemy evasion to 0, d) regain control over your mind-controlled crewmember, or e) do a bit of damage to an enemy system without boarding. The last is rare. Gunships should typically target the enemy Pilot right before their first volley. If you lack vision because of a nebula or event, Hacking can reestablish vision of a single room. In this case, hack enemy shields and mind-control crew in that room (if any).
Hacking is the single most powerful ship System. If the enemy also has it and you don’t have a Defense drone, it’s wise to wait a couple seconds to see what they’ll hack before you send yours. If they hack Weapons or Shields you might need to hack their Hacking room, but remember, hacking their shield room allows you to disable their Hacking with conventional weapons, and 90% of the time this is the best tactical decision. If the enemy has a Defense or anti-drone drone, you can exploit a game bug by pausing the game right after it fires a shot toward your Hacking drone, depowering your Hacking system, unpausing for about half a second, then repowering the system.
Cloaking is a short-term and powerful defensive system. Use it to avoid big missiles, volleys, powerful weapons, or to give your ship a breather from stacked ion damage. If possible, shoot your weapons right before you enable cloaking, as every non-beam weapon shot while cloaked costs you two seconds of cloaking protection.
Defense drones are extremely powerful against missiles and boarding/hacking drones, but anything that hits shields (even asteroids) is difficult for Defense drones to hit. They often shoot too late. If you have multiple defense drones, prioritize powering the Defense I drone before the others. You don’t need them powered all the time, but it takes them a second to power up, so be sure to do so soon after an enemy missile is fired. Depower them as soon as they destroy it.
If boarding, don’t skimp on powering your Teleporter unless you happen to be fighting a powerful gunship with a skeleton crew. Losing your boarding team because your teleporter was still five seconds on cooldown is a huge setback. If you’ve upgraded it to L2, then power it to L2 before using it.
BOARDING THE ENEMY SHIP
Man sensors L1 so you can see inside the enemy ship and know how many crew there are, their location and race, and if there are any anti-personnel drones. If you don’t have at least seven crew then upgrade sensors to L2.
Before you board, look at the enemy’s doors. If they’re orange, you will be able to go anywhere unimpeded. If the enemy has a Door System, you will have to break down any door before you pass through it.
Board in pairs. Use Mantis, Rock, Lanius or Crystal.
If you think it might be close, make sure your teleporter is powered to L2 or L3, in case you need to teleport them out quickly.
If the enemy has a Medbay or Clonebay, disable it (a bomb is often simplest), then teleport there and defend the room. Consider damaging other systems like Doors or Drones to support your boarders.
Teleporting to piloting is often a strong position, because it is small and often isolated. Teleporting to a large room like weapons or shields can be very risky if there are three or more enemy crew.
Learn to rotate your boarders by pausing, ordering them all to other rooms, ordering them one at a time back to their original room, then unpausing. The boarders will change position without leaving the room.
Use your weapons to weaken crew in other rooms, but be careful not to destroy the ship. Be careful with flak and in asteroid fields not to accidentally kill your boarders.
Hack the target room to control the doors and prevent enemies entering or leaving. Hacking the adjacent room also works well and can allow you to control a large portion of the enemy ship.
Against Autoscouts, L2 teleporter can bring crew back before they suffocate. If they have cloaking and you don’t have Clonebay, it’s a highly risky mission.
Against Mantis, you may need to teleport a second pair of boarders to help spread damage.
Against Lanius, if you don’t have Crystal or Lanius boarders, you made a mistake going to this sector in the first place. As a last option you can use Mind Control or Hack with L3 teleporters to give you a chance at boarding.
Against Slugs, be wary of Mind Control. Combinations of cloak and fleeing can also easily cause you to lose your crew, even if your ship is equipped with a Clonebay.
DEFENDING FROM BOARDERS
If you have a large crew with Mantis, Rock, Lanius or Crystal, you’re fine! Pause a lot.
If you have a small or weak crew (Zoltan and Engi), you will need to strategize a bit more.
Upgrading and manning doors is often critical to anti-boarding strategies. Upgrade doors to level 2 by sector 2, or man it if you can spare the crew. An anti-personnel drone can also make a difference, but only if you start with one or find one.
Depending on where the boarders teleport and the layout of your ship, venting specific rooms is often the best option. After they start taking damage from low oxygen, boarders will immediately stop attacking your crew or the system in the room and try to leave the room. They will suffocate in about 10 seconds if they can’t get out. Even if they do break through, their reduced health will make for a much easier fight.
This technique doesn’t work with boarding drones or ion intruders, and since they breach the room when they board, the situation can be complicated. If you have a Mantis and a second spare crewmember to fight, send them both in and open the doors to that room, to decrease the damage from low oxygen. Depending on your response time, you can destroy a boarding drone before you die. Note that drones have 150 health.
Ion drones don’t fight your crew, but ionize the room and stun any of your crew in the room. When you see the ion drone’s wings extending, order your crew to leave the room, ideally to an adjacent room with a system. There they can wait for the ion drone. If you have an Engi, consider using him to repair the breach once the ion drone has left instead of attacking the drone directly. It will simplify the fight a great deal.
When fighting with multiple crewmembers, you can pause, order your crew out of the room and, one at a time, back in, in a specific order, then unpause. This causes them to rotate positions and allows you to spread damage evenly across your crew. A light green square will show their new position before you unpause.
Be especially careful when using Zoltan, as their low health can catch you offguard, and they can be killed before you expect them to.
TACTICS VERSUS THE FLAGSHIP
Once you’re in Sector 8, it’s time to upgrade all systems to 2. Practice your technique with the Rebel ships on the way to the Base; you should take no hull damage from them. Avoid flashing red beacons if possible as they offer no rewards.
For last-minute changes, there’s always a store in Sector 8, but your chance of finding and getting to the beacon before it’s captured is low (~30%).
At the start of each Flagship phase, if you have a defense drone, power it immediately. They will shoot down hacking and boarding drones.
Phase 1 (hardest to deal damage). This phase is about getting the cloaking system (and sometimes hacking) offline, along with shields, and usually the missile launcher. If it hacks shields or weapons, maybe drone control, hack the hacking system (chance to destroy the probe) or jump away and back. Pilot/engines hack manageable. No risk of boarding. Hack shields, bomb/damage cloak. Cloak during missile bursts or synced laser/ion bursts. Focus damage on missiles, shields, cloak and piloting. Boarding: damage weapons systems first, then hack/disable medbay.
Phase 2 (easiest). This phase is the easiest, as long as you don’t get caught off-guard by the drone surge. Sync a one-bar cloak with drone overcharge: 6 attack drones (random amts of beam I and combat I; combat I shoot first). If you use all two or three bars, it won’t be available for the second overcharge. Turn it on when you actually see your shields start to drop, not when you hear the warning sounds. Anti-drone drone makes this phase a little easier; if you don’t have cloak or four shield bubbles, take a couple enemy weapons systems offline (don’t forget their drone system) before the overcharge. Your crew should easily dispatch the boarding drone — if it lands in Shields or Weapons, take down that enemy drone system as soon as possible. In preparation for phase 3, especially if your crew isn’t prepared for the brawl of their lives, reduce enemy crew volume if possible – man sensors and focus fire on groups, then finish them off when they get to the medbay.
Between phases 2 and 3, consider upgrading piloting and doors to L3, if you haven’t done so already. These final upgrades often make the most difference.
Phase 3 (hardest to mitigate damage). Unless you’ve already killed most of the crew, this phase usually requires strong anti-boarding tactics while, like Phase 2, protecting yourself from surges of damage. Man doors. As in phase 2, 1 bar cloak only, synced with the overcharge, is the best. Damage Mind Control over their Teleporter. The Zoltan shield regenerates if you take too long. You’re going to take damage and you probably won’t be able to repair everything, but essential systems (shields, weapons, piloting, possibly doors, and whatever support Systems you need to deal steady damage) should be repaired entirely before the next overcharge. Keep them manned and keep the Flagship on the back foot.
NOW, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GET OUT THERE AND DELIVER THE INFORMATION TO THE FEDERATION FLEET!
ADDENDUM: MORE TRICKS AND TIPS
CREW MANAGEMENT
+crew positioning. Rotating crew or “the truffle shuffle” to keep their health balanced is well-known.
+medbay. If you need to heal more crew than can stand in the room, on many ships (layout-depending) you can repeatedly order additional crew from one room on one side of the medbay to a room on the other side. As long as they’re physically inside the medbay, they’ll heal.
+teleporting. The medbay trick also works with teleporting. Crew physically inside a room will be teleported, even if they’re walking through it, or haven’t yet arrived at their assigned position.
CREW POSITIONS
If you only have a few crew it often pays to man doors and sensors before jumping to a new beacon and leaving engines/shields unmanned. This can protect you against boarders and give you immediate information about enemy crew/weapons. Upon arriving at the new beacon, remember to return your crew to their standard spots if intel / strong doors are no longer needed.
GENERAL TACTICS
Watch how long enemy doors open and close to gauge how many crew there are, and which races they are. Watch how long it takes a system to be repaired. Pirate ships usually have multiple races; Rebel ships are usually human. Reading event texts can also give you information about enemy crew composition.
If thinking of boarding, notice drone control systems, especially if no attack/defense drones are flying around. If you have a Zoltan shield, they may have a boarding/ion drone, but otherwise they have repair/AP drone(s).
You can hear breaches and fires on both your ship and the enemy ship. If you know the enemy crew is low on health you can sometimes kill them outright with a shot placed to the room they’re in, and get a 10% scrap bonus even without a teleporter or anti-bio beam. Remember that beam damage to crew is tile-specific, not room-specific, but all other damage is applied to any crew in the room hit.
PRIORITIZING THREATS
Heavy and Hull lasers fire faster than regular lasers. Keep a record of the exact timing of all possible weapons. This means, for example, that a heavy laser I (9 seconds) will hit before the ion blast I (8 seconds). What will help you more, the 15% evasion of manning piloting, or moving your pilot to shields so that your recharge rate is fast enough to protect you from both? When you see a burst laser II (12 secs.) with a mini-beam (10 secs.) you have exactly four volleys before the laser fire strips your shields right before the mini-beam fires.
+enemy weapons power. Sometimes it’s better not to maximize your damage against enemy weapons systems. Say the enemy has a burst laser II (two power) and an artemis missile (one power). If you do one damage to the system, the enemy depowers the missile, but if you do two damage, the burst laser II is powered and the artemis is powered up again. If you have three shield bubbles the missile can very well be the greater threat.
In plasma storms, systems are already powered below their maximum, so don’t rely on your first shots to disable another shield bubble or weapon. The enemy may have a much higher damage buffer than you’re used to.
+enemy drones. Drones point at the center of rooms they’re going to fire at a second before actually firing. You can use this to know in advance if you need to cloak, fire a weapon before they take it offline, not let a cloned boarder die, and so on.
+systems priority. It’s far easier to disable a mantis-manned system than an engi-manned system. The enemy will let their mantis take ages fixing shields while their engi sits next door manning engines. Use this as a way to identify unusually vulnerable systems.
MANAGING YOUR SHIP
Many less experienced players upgrade their reactor far earlier than they need to. Correct play often dictates upgrading systems before upgrading your reactor, thus giving yourself more options for dealing with a problem. However, the precise timing needed to effectively shuffle power from one system to another are not always adequately understood.
The most misunderstood aspect of power shuffling is your shields and engines. If your shields are down, hit/miss/evasion isn’t calculated until the shot reaches the center of the room (or in case of flak, a red spot indicates its eventual target). If your shields are up, hit/miss/evasion is calculated as the shot passes through the shield line. This has stunning consequences.
Scenario 1. Before the missile has passed the shield line you are free to reduce evasion to zero to recharge oxygen, speed up the clonebay, or fire additional weapons. Once a missile has passed the shield line you are free to remove power from engines again.
Scenario 2. You have eliminated all danger except missiles. You can actually depower shields to give yourself a bit more time to fire a weapon or allow cloak to recharge before pumping max power into evasion.
When you damage enemy drone or weapons system, recalculate how many shield bubbles you need to stay protected. You may be able to shuffle two reactor power into another system.
USING YOUR WEAPONS EFFECTIVELY
+pre-igniter. With a pre-igniter you can actually use more than eight power of weapons. Before jumping, let some of your weapons charge to full. Pause and depower enough of them to power the uncharged weapons. Unpause and immediately jump. When you arrive at the next beacon, the currently powered weapons are fully charged, and as soon as they fire (careful with Burst Lasers and beams) you can depower them and repower the others, which shouldn’t have lost more than a few seconds of charge time.
+ion. Every ion damage depowers one system bar for five seconds. If you hit the same system again before the timer expires, five seconds is added to the timer, and an additional system bar is depowered. This is what we mean when we say that ion damage stacks. In early sectors, try to hit enemy weapons in order to keep yourself safe. In later sectors, use ion against shields. If you don’t need it (e.g. you have 2 x flak I), sell it and invest your limited weapons power elsewhere.
+flak. This is a shield-breaker. Try to pair it with something that needs shields broken. Lasers and beams are great; ion and missiles are not. Even if the red dots (representing where the flak is heading) miss the ship, the flak will still hit the shields — if the shots aren’t evaded. The red dots missing the ship constitutes missing the hull itself, if the shields are down.
+lasers. Can be used as a shield breaker, to damage systems, and to damage the hull. Jack of all trades, master of none. Hull and heavy lasers are wasted on shields, though.
+beam. The queen of FTL arsenal. Aim to have one, any one, and for most runs, only one. When this rule can be safely broken, you have a great ship. Except for the minibeam, beams don’t typically sync well with other weapons in terms of timing. It’s a small sacrifice for unavoidable damage.
ADDENDUM: MORE TRICKS AND TIPS 2
DEFENDING FROM BOARDERS
+boarding defense. Sometimes you can open a door to let one enemy crew through without the other(s). This will increase the time it takes them to break down doors. Divide and conquer. You can also run a crewmember through the room to distract them from the doors. Even if the room is without O2 it usually hurts them more than you.
When confronted with a boarding drone or ion intruder, unless you have a couple mantis or lanius, it’s often better to disable the drone by damaging the enemy drone control instead of confronting the drone directly. Sometimes you can open a door for an ion intruder to let them move quickly out of the breached room, close the door so they have to break it down to get back, and send an engi or a couple crew to repair the breach. That way you don’t have to deal with low O2 as well as killing the intruder.
In a boarding event without an enemy ship, if you’re seriously outgunned, retreat to doors/medbay as quickly as possible. Depower O2, open key doors, and let them suffocate quickly. Remember that oxygen is drained faster if a) your O2 is depowered, and b) more exterior doors are opened. In ships with poor venting options, if you get a breach in an empty room, it can be wise to not repair it and use it strategically against fires and boarders.
L2 teleporters will allow enemies to retrieve suffocating crew before they die. To prevent this you have exactly four options: attack them in low-O2 rooms, cloak when they reach about 25% health, damage/disable the enemy teleporter/medbay, or target the enemy teleporter/medbay right immediately upon their arrival. The most satisfying is definitely the fourth. Every one hull damage done is equal to 15 crew health.
BOARDING THE ENEMY SHIP
In Hard, rooms are always manned in a specific order: piloting, engines, weapons, shields.
In Hard, shields are the highest priority system, then weapons (and oxygen if their ship is getting low). If a ship is charging its FTL you can usually draw away the pilot by boarding a four-tile room.
If the enemy crew has no door systems you can take advantage of multiracial crew and Rock crew. Run from one end of the ship to the other and take advantage of a little 2-on-1 time when you arrive. Then run back. If you have a two-man teleporter you can use this strategy to gain time until you can teleport more crew. If a boarder is about to die you can use it to keep them alive while the teleporter is recharging.
If you’re boarding 4-on-3 you can sometimes send your fourth (preferably a mantis) to the medbay/clonebay to destroy it without any opposition. A boarder in a partly disabled medbay also has a shot at finishing off low-health crew. Watch the enemy crew health to see if it’s gaining overall, or not.
Boarding (esp. 4-man teams) also pulls enemy crew away from manning systems. This disadvantages them in shield recharge and weapons cooldown, and can completely cripple their evasion.
If the enemy is also boarding, it’s usually wise to let them board first. If you board first, they often won’t board at all, and it’s usually easier to deal with two groups of boarders than one. It’s also a great reason for boarding ships to upgrade their doors.
+Boarding with Hacking. You don’t have to hack the medbay. If enemy weapons are a threat, hack weapons. If enemy shields are too strong, hack shields. Positioning hacking so that other rooms can only be accessed through the hacked room is extremely powerful.
Teleport immediately after the drone arrives and gang up on any crew in the room. You may damage the system before enemy crew break through the hacked room’s doors. If possible, time the hack so it ends before enemy crew hit low health. When the hack ends (not when it starts), all the room doors are resealed. This is the perfect opportunity to kill low-health enemy crew.
You can also preemptively open a hacked door or move through a hacked door to gang up on another enemy crew.
+Hacking with Mind Control. Hack the strongest system and mind control the crew manning it. You can do this even without sensors/detection, as you can always see enemy crew inside the hacked room. The crew will damage the system without any opposition.
+drone micro. turn off combat I/II drones right before firing and let a pesky defense drone rotate in front of it; turn it back on, presto, no defense drone. This can be especially helpful against def II drones.
TACTICS VERSUS THE FLAGSHIP
If you’re weak to boarders, fight phase 2 at the base, fight phase 3 away from the base, take the boarders and jump to the base.
Flagship weapons. All flagship weapons operate like artillery (thanks to vikingeric for testing this). This means if you damage the weapons, they’ll fire more slowly, but they’ll continue to charge/fire unless completely disabled. Phases 1-2 weapons have three power; Phase 3 weapons have four power (and hence they fire faster – 15.5 second lasers drop to 10.5 seconds, and 17.5 second missiles drop to 12.5 seconds).
Phase 2. Dealing exactly one damage to the missile launcher will cause the missiles to fire during the drone surge, allowing you to cloak from both simultaneously.
Phase 3. Before jumping to phase 3, if you don’t have mind control, move all crew to less-essential systems rooms. Especially crew in weapons rooms, and rooms with one-power systems, are vulnerable to mind controlled crew. MCed crew will target the system they’re in before moving to any other. You can distract them by having them fight your own crew, but you have to keep it going for 35 seconds.