FTL Advanced Edition – MIND CONTROL

Overview

FTL Advanced Editions brings in an interesting new system: Mind Control and this guide gives you the run down.

Mind Control

Mind Control is a new system for FTL Advanced Edition that can convert enemy units to your alliance for a temporary period of time. You don’t assume direct control over them, but instead they are now simply “friendly”. When you mind control someone, they will act like a computer-controlled friendly unit. This means they will repair broken systems, man unmanned systems (i.e. if there is no Pilot they may attempt to assume the Pilot position) or attack nearby enemy units or systems. Once again, you do not get to control the unit directly, they just act as an ally for awhile.

Rank 1, costs 75 Scrap to install the system on your cruiser. Lasts 10 seconds.
Rank 2, costs 30 Scrap, controlled unit is 25% stronger. Lasts 15 seconds.
Rank 3, costs 60 Scrap, controlled unit is 50% stronger. Lasts 35 seconds.

• Slugs are completely immune to Mind Control.
• You must have vision of a unit in order to use Mind Control on them.
• Once you begin mind control you cannot turn it off or power it down until the effect ends.
• You can undo the effects of an enemy Mind Control with your own.
• You can use the Crew Teleporter to bring a controlled unit to your ship.
• Hacking a MC system will not only end the effect, but also control an enemy unit.

– “Wait, you mean we actually have a purpose now? Uh I mean… OF COURSSSSE WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN THE BESSST RACE! DEATH TO ALL BETRAYERS.”

Mind Control is the most insanely overpowered system in FTL, especially when combined with a Crew Teleporter, for a wide variety of reasons. It allows you to easily dwindle down the enemy crew numbers over time with very little risk. Even if killing units isn’t possible in some circumstances it can still be used to stifle the enemy crew in a whole variety of ways, from disrupting repairs to unmanning a system.

Remove their evasion.
One of the most powerful uses is to essentially drop the enemy evasion to 0 (unless they have auto-pilot, but it’s still much less than usual) for a glimpse of time. As you prepare your salvo of weapons, you mind control the enemy captain just before you fire everything. If you fire everything at the Pilot room, you’ll probably also break it. The enemy AI will almost always respond by sending 2 more crewmembers to go fight the captain, which means there will be 3 enemy units in one room. If you’re able to fire some shots into the room, you could heavily damage or kill 3 crew members instantly. That is absolutely devastating.

– “Who’s side are we on, anyways?” – “Who cares? I just wanna shoot stuff.”

Kill everyone.
If you’re not worried about their evasion, you can also use it to slowly kill all of the crew on his ship if you have a Crew Teleporter. First, Mind Control a unit somewhere important like the Shields Room. Let him fight his own crew for awhile, then right before your control timer ends, Teleport him onto your ship. The timer will run out and your crew will slay him instantly. Repeat this until all of his crew is dead. Don’t have a Crew Teleporter? Still possible but only if they don’t have med-bay or clone bay; just make their crew fight each other until there’s one guy left then zap him with your weapons.

Stop repairs.
There are times when killing all of the enemy units is not possible, especially if there’s a Med or Clone Bay. Although not the most technical use of Mind Control, stopping repairs is one of the most important reasons to use mind control. There are times when they have 3 shields, lots of evasion, Engis or Drones to repair — and you only have 4 lasers and nothing else. This usually means they can repair it to full HP before you can hit it again, and makes it take forever to kill them. If they are able to do damage to you during this, it can really be a pain. By controlling a crew-member who is attempting to repair a system, you’ll completely halt their process and probably cause his allies to attack him. This should give you plenty of time to attack the room again.

Stifle enemy boarding attempts.
Boarding can be a scary thing to deal with, even with Blast Doors. Mind Control makes it much less painful. The most effective use is to have two enemy boarders attack each other in a room without Oxygen, but it can also be used to just sort of generally slow down the attack. Remember that when you convert enemy boarders, they won’t just fight to the death like on the enemy ship. When they get low HP they’ll often go do something else like man a system, heal up, repair something or just go stand in a room and wait. Since they are on your side, they can freely walk through doors which can be kind of annoying at times. Once the AI has decided on its next-best situation, you can vent out the oxygen in that room and he will almost always wait it out until he dies. It takes some getting used to, but once you figure out how the AI works it’s much easier.

Synergy with Boarding.
Mind Control is specifically useful when boarding the enemy cruiser, too. You can essentially eliminate two enemies you gotta deal with right off the bat, since they’ll sort of deal with each other while you do anything else. However don’t be too quick with your targetting decision. You’ll want to take out their Medbay or Clone-Bay right away to make your boarding as quick and effective as possible. One strategy is to teleport your crew as far away from the Med/Clone Bay as possible to pull them away, then use Mind Control and one crew member to distract his crew while you attack the Med Bay. Alternatively if you can weaken one unit and have him walk into the Med Bay, you can convert him before he has a chance to heal. If the enemy also has a MC System, just save yours to counter theirs – because you don’t want your crew to turn on each other when they teleport in.

Synergy with hacking.
Hacking and Mind Control were a match made in heaven, primarily due to the fact that Hacking locks doors around the system it was used in. The level of control that this gives you over the enemy crew is absolutely ludicrous. For instance, you can Mind Control someone in the Shield Room, then Hack that room. They will attack the room and probably deal a point of damage to it, and nobody can get in to stop him. When the enemy crew finally breaks into the Shield Room to stop the controlled unit: activate Hacking to drain the shields and launch your salvo of attacks into that room.

Mind Control on the Final Boss
Obviously everything you’ve learned about MC will come in handy when fighting the Flagship, but there’s a couple more important things to note. First of all, you can disable all four of his weapons rooms without killing all of his crew by controlling the last guy. Secondly, if send your boarding crew into a weapons room then control the Rebel, he’ll get pushed out of the room permanently, allowing you to quickly take down the weapon. Especially important for knocking out his missiles as soon as possible.

Final Word

Hopefully this quick overview of Mind Control has helped you realize its incredible potential. I must admit that when I first saw the skill I didn’t think it was that great, but after playing around with it for a few hours I was astonished at how much potential the system had.

Good luck on your next FTL run.
-Mittsies